London, October 29: Microsoft researchers have developed a system called SideSight that can allow a mobile phone user to control a handset placed on a table by wiggling his/her fingers in the space around it.

The technology was unveiled last week at the User Interface in Software and Technology symposium in Monterey, California.

Alex Butler, a researcher from the Sensors and Devices Group at Microsoft Research Cambridge in the UK, has revealed that the system derives its exceptional ability from infrared sensors that can pick up the movement of fingers up to 10 centimetres away.

"The big advantage of our prototype is the finger does not block any of the screen space," New Scientist magazine quoted Butler as saying.

Los Angeles - Microsoft released key details Tuesday of the next generation of software that it hopes will run the world's computers.

The software giant, whose dominance is under threat, said Windows 7 will replace the disappointing Windows Vista in January 2010.

Microsoft said the new operating system was designed to function like a tighter version of Vista, which launched in 2006 but was widely derided as a "system hog" that slowed down computers with features that most users never accessed.

Keeping in mind the “cultural sensitivities” in India, the release of Fallout 3 has been cancelled by Microsoft India in the nation. 

It was earlier planned that on 28th October, the Bethesda RPG will be published on Xbox 360 by the platform holder. However now MS informs that game was cancelled from being launched since it could hurt Indian sensibilities. 

San Francisco - Microsoft issued a rare emergency patch on Thursday to fix a critical bug in its Windows operating system, which could be exploited by online criminals to take over individual and corporate computers.

It was the first time since April 2007 that the software giant has issued a patch outside its schedule of monthly updates.

Microsoft said the critical flaw affected computers running Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003, with less danger posed to computers running Windows Vista and Server 2008.

On Tuesday, a System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 was launched by Microsoft. Through the launch of this Virtual Machine Manager, Microsoft added another key component to its virtualization arsenal. 

All important virtualization management pieces of Microsoft's strategy can be handled by Virtual Machine Manager 2008, and it has been learnt that Microsoft has spent much of 2008 deciding as to how the software could manage both Hyper-V and VMware's ESX hypervisor, as well as physical servers, through a single interface.