Where are John and Todd?

– Microsoft has been sued in Sacramento County Superior Court for allegedly covering up defects in the Xbox 360, reports VentureBeat. More from Dean Takahashi’s investigation.
– TrackSimple of Seattle has raised $2.5 million from Ignition Partners, with PeHub reporting that the startup offers a “platform that captures customer events.”
–The New York Times profiles SpinSpotter, [...]

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The tech and financial blogs are abuzz today over Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s reported comment that a Microsoft-Yahoo deal would still “make sense economically” for the companies’ shareholders. Ballmer made the remark at a Gartner conference, stirring speculation about the possibility of a new bid.
Silicon Alley Insider: Wake Up People: Ballmer Just Said He’d Still [...]

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Lawyers representing consumers in a suit over Microsoft’s “Windows Vista Capable” marketing program recently proposed distributing the class-action notice via Windows Update — the same mechanism that the company ordinarily uses to automatically send out its security patches. In a new filing in U.S. District Court in Seattle (PDF, 15 pages) the company reacts strongly [...]

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Video games have so far been a rare bright spot in this period of economic gloom, with the industry experiencing 30 percent year-over-year growth through August, according to data from the NPD Group market-research firm. But the real test for the industry will be the upcoming holiday shopping season. It’s not clear how belt-tightening could [...]

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Microsoft seems to be going out of its way to try to counter Apple’s momentum recently, and the Redmond company’s “I’m a PC” advertising counteroffensive isn’t the only evidence. With Apple expected to show new Macs at an event this morning, Microsoft is trying to preempt the news by making the case for Windows PCs, [...]

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Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, is on a tour of U.S. universities this week, meeting with faculty and students at Princeton University, New York University, the University of Michigan, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. One of the technologies he’s showing is a prototype Tablet PC application that mixes online services and [...]

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Small businesses deal with capital crunch: The New York Times reports on how the financial crisis is impacting the ability of small business owners to access capital, noting that “financing options for all stages of the small-business cycle are limited.” The story goes on to mention how small businesses are finding it tougher to receive [...]

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Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of posts previewing features we’re contemplating for our upcoming Seattle tech news site. Standing features such as this will supplement the steady flow of breaking news and other reports that will appear on the site. Feedback welcome.
The idea behind Tech BuzzMeter is to create an index [...]

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It has become something of a tradition for Microsoft executives to reiterate the company’s commitment to its Redmond headquarters when they speak to audiences in the Seattle region. A speech by Steve Ballmer last week to the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce was no exception. But the Microsoft CEO went into quite a bit more detail [...]

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