While Microsoft is seemingly on a crusade to stamp out talk about the future (even going so far as to hire an acting legend to detect "MS-BS" with a $2 horn), that hasn't waned our enthusiasm for digging up evidence of the future anyways.

Microsoft has pulled some pretty dumb moves lately in the name of secrecy; the lid on SP1 and the press release about "Windows Seven" being the most obvious to come to mind. But mere days after someone spotted a running build of SP1 at WinHEC 07, Long Zheng has discovered the first written by none other than Microsoft itself.

AFAIK, SP1 is still on track to be delivered simultaneously with Windows Server 2008. It's far enough away from Vista's RTM and close enough away to shipping that Microsoft should confirm its existence. In fact, beta testers should be given builds in the next month or so to start testing. And since it's shipping in the next 5 months or so, Microsoft should start giving guidance for all those companies (Intel, I'm looking at you) who are holding off until SP1 to deploy Vista.

Hey Microsoft, we all know it exists. It's time to quit playing dumb before you start looking stupid. You're gonna have to let the cat out of the bag sometime. And June sounds like a good month to do it.

Yahoo co-founder Yang back in charge

Yahoo Inc. Chairman Terry Semel ended his six-year tenure as chief executive officer today and will hand over the reins to co-founder Jerry Yang in the Internet icon's latest attempt to regain investor confidence.

Semel, 64, will remain chairman in a non-executive role.

Besides naming Yang as its new CEO, Yahoo appointed Susan Decker as its president. Decker, who had been recently promoted to oversee Yahoo's advertising operations, had widely been seen as Semel's heir apparent.

Microsoft fixes 15 flaws with six patches; four considered critical

Microsoft has released its June 2007 security bulletin, which includes six updates: four are designated Critical by the software giant. Two of the patches affect Windows Vista, with one Critical patch specific to Internet Explorer. One of the Important patches affects Microsoft Office. To keep your Windows XP SP1 system secure, update to Windows XP SP2 today. All Microsoft security patches for Windows and Office software are available via Microsoft Update or via the individual bulletins detailed below.

Microsoft nears Home Server release

Microsoft's Home Server software is one step closer to reality.

The software maker on Tuesday released a near-final "release candidate" version of Windows Home Server, a custom version of its Windows Server 2003 operating system. A final version is expected to come out later this year. Microsoft is pitching the software as an option for multi-PC households to manage burgeoning collections of media files.

Apple Safari On Windows Broken On First Day

An anonymous reader writes "David Maynor, infamous for the Apple Wi-Fi hack, has discovered bugs in the Windows version of Safari mere hours after it was released. He notes in the blog that his company does not report vulnerabilities to Apple. His claimed catch for 'an afternoon of idle futzing': 4 DoS bugs and 2 remote execution vulnerabilities." Separately, within 2 hours Thor Larholm found a URL protocol handler command injection vulnerability that allows remote command execution.

Safari for Windows Public Beta Downloads Top 1 Million in First 48 Hours

Apple® today announced that more than 1 million copies of Safari™ for Windows were downloaded in the first 48 hours since the free public beta was made available on Monday. Safari 3 is the world’s fastest and easiest-to-use browser, and is available as a free download at www.apple.com/safari.

Safari 3 is the fastest browser running on Windows, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2, based on the industry standard iBench tests.* Safari 3 supports all modern Internet standards including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and Java. Safari updates are delivered seamlessly through Apple’s Software Update, and the first update for Safari for Windows Public Beta which fixes some early reported bugs was released last night.

iPhone Delivers Up to Eight Hours of Talk TimeApple® today announced that iPhone™ will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June

Apple® today announced that iPhone™ will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June 29 than was originally estimated when iPhone was unveiled in January. iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback.* In addition, iPhone will feature up to 250 hours—more than 10 days—of standby time. Apple also announced that the entire top surface of iPhone, including its stunning 3.5-inch display, has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity.

“With 8 hours of talk time, and 24 hours of audio playback, iPhone’s battery life is longer than any other ‘Smartphone’ and even longer than most MP3 players,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also upgraded iPhone’s entire top surface from plastic to optical-quality glass for superior scratch resistance and clarity. There has never been a phone like iPhone, and we can't wait to get this truly magical product into the hands of customers starting just 11 days from today.”