Earlier this month Microsoft sent out an email to the media promising a major announcement. They didn’t disappoint when, on June 18, they announced their new foray into the computer hardware business. The Surface will be the company’s new tablet that will use Windows 8 – the new operating system that has been promised to be released by this coming fall. The software giant has not been very successful in the past with hardware products. The X-box is more an exception to the rule as they have taken both their…

What’s the best way to land a programmer’s job at Microsoft? Well, there’s the standard method of going to school for computer science, succeeding admirably, creating programs of your own and then applying and hoping you get the nod. Then there’s the slightly less orthodox method employed occasionally by young and ambitious hackers. In this case, a 14-year-old Irish hacker managed to break into the online servers for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 last month and start a phishing scam that tried to get other players to divulge personal…