Microsoft News Tracker

Greg Sandoval at CNET:

The pesky Sober worm is to blame for disrupting e-mail traffic between Comcast account holders and users of Microsoft-based e-mail, Redmond said on Friday.

A variant of Sober known as Win32/Sober.Z@mm is pummeling servers at Hotmail and MSN with “unusually high mail load,” causing delays in e-mail delivery to Hotmail and MSN customers, said Brooke Richardson, MSN’s lead product manager. Richardson also indicated that Internet service providers besides Comcast may be having problems directing e-mail to Hotmail and MSN servers.

“We are working with Comcast and other ISPs to address (the) issues,” Richardson said. “We’re actively working to take the appropriate steps to remedy the situation as rapidly as possible. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.”

Sober variants have reached epidemic proportions this week - Latest Sober worm becomes most widespread virus yet:

A recent outbreak of the latest Sober worm has become the largest e-mail virus yet, according to several e-mail security vendors. The success of the latest Sober was due, in part, to it posing as a message from the FBI or CIA.

Quotes from the vendors are in the article.

The worm arrives as a .zip file attachment in either German or English. The message appears to be from the FBI, CIA or German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) and accuses recipients of visiting illegal web sites. The message asks recipients to answer questions in an attachment.

Some infected messages reference the German version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and US star Paris Hilton.

That ought to add to the believeability of a missive from the police.

The worm disables antivirus programs and hijacks Windows-based computers, forcing them to send continuous spam e-mails that overwhelm servers and slow down networks.
…
Helsinki, Finland-based security outfit F-Secure Corp said it believes all 25 variants of the Sober virus have been written by the same individual, operating from somewhere in Germany.

Xbox 360 launches in Japan on Dec. 10, a week from today, and some of the details have been revealed:

Microsoft has begun rolling out its promotional material for the December 10 Japanese launch of the Xbox 360, its next-generation console, which will be released for 39,800 yen ($335 USD) on December 10th. Unlike the American release, the Japanese version will come in only one format, which includes the system, a wireless controller, the 20GB hard drive, an Xbox Live headset, HD AV cables, the media remote controller, broadband cable, and a 1-month trial membership for Xbox Live Gold.

The official launch event will take place at the Tsutaya electronics store in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, where the original Xbox also debuted in 2002. Unlike the midnight countdown celebrations seen throughout the U.S., the Shibuya launch will officially happen at 7 A.M. Those who attend will receive free bonus goods from a specially constructed gashapon machine at the site.

Gashapon machines are Japanese vending machines that sell high quality collectible toys in plastic eggs. Things really are different over there. Something else that’s different about the rollout is the giant Xbox advertising kiosks:

Shaped like a giant Xbox 360 and standing 12 feet tall, they house a 65″ screen playing game trailers. The monuments will loom over the public for a three-week period and be removed about a week after the December 10th launch.

As far as the Japanese market goes:

The current generation Xbox has yet to top the 500,000 units sold mark in Japan. But Microsoft isn’t letting that dismal figure force it to think small for the Japanese market. Japanese Xbox business manager Yoshihiro Maruyama, commenting to Dengeki Xbox 360, a special one time publication released to commemorate the 12/10 launch of the Xbox 360, stated that he hopes the X360 will reach a figure double that by Summer!

“It’s only a target,” Maruyama says in an editorial to the magazine, “but the one million mark is a figure we’d like to reach by next summer. And then, we’d like to go to 1.5 million, then 2 million in next year’s end of year sales rush. We believe the one million mark to be an important figure. If we cross one million, it will be easier for developers to do business, so we’d of course like to reach it quickly.”

There are some problems though. There will be only 6 games available at launch:

Consumer site GameSpot translates an interview that Japanese Xbox general manager Yoshihiro Maruyama granted to Weekly Famitsu. In it, Maruyama says that despite the system’s launching with only 6 games (Perfect Dark Zero, Ridge Racer 6, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Every Party, FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup, and Tetris: The Grandmaster Ace), he expects there to be over 100 titles available by the end of 2006.

and only 12 backward compatible games.