Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) confirmed this week that its forthcoming Windows 7 operating system and the widely maligned Vista OS share the same basic architecture — and that’s a good thing, the company says.
“Because Windows 7 is built on the same kernel as Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, there are no changes that are going to require a reworking of that ecosystem,” said Microsoft senior VP Steven Sinofsky, who spoke Tuesday at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
Vista was plagued by application incompatibilities when it debuted in January of …

The fictional King Solomon’s Mines held a treasure of gold and diamonds, but archaeologists say the real mines may have supplied the ancient king with copper.
Researchers led by Thomas Levy of the University of California, San Diego, and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan’s Friends of Archaeology, discovered a copper-production center in southern Jordan that dates to the 10th century B.C., the time of Solomon’s reign.
The discovery occurred at Khirbat en-Nahas, which means “ruins of copper” in Arabic. Located south of the Dead Sea, the region was known in the Old Testament …

Mike Hammond was bombarded with offers after advertising in his village post office for someone to accompany his 88-year-old father Jack on visits to a southern England pub from a nursing home.
He offered the lucky winner 7 pounds ($14) an hour plus expenses and, after sifting through the applicants, decided on a job-share. Drinking duties are to be divided between a retired doctor and a former military man.
“Dad’s now going to be going down to the pub several times a week — three with his new friends and twice with …

Ted Stevens, a pillar of the Senate for 40 years and the face of Alaska politics almost since statehood, was convicted of a seven-felony string of corruption charges Monday — found guilty of accepting a bonanza of home renovations and fancy trimmings from an oil executive and then lying about it.
Unbowed, even defiant, Stevens accused prosecutors of blatant misconduct and said, “I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have.”
The senator, 84 and already facing a challenging re-election contest next Tuesday, said he would stay in …

Fading in the polls, John McCain fought Barack Obama for support in economically hard-hit Ohio on Monday, each man pledging to right the economy and turn the page on the Bush era in a state with an impressive record for picking presidents.
Eight days from the election, however, Republicans looked and sounded increasingly like a party anticipating defeat, and possibly a substantial one.
McCain betrayed no such pessimism, assailing Obama as “the most liberal person ever to run for the presidency” and warning that Democrats would tax and spend the nation deeper …