Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft mulling 128-bit versions of Windows 8, Windows 9  —  Believe it or not, Windows 7’s successor(s) have been in the planning and early development stages for a while now.  We haven’t posted anything about any of them yet, but we’ve been watching closely to see if anything really interesting […]

Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
A Windows to Help You Forget  —  In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft’s long operating-system nightmare will be over.  The company will release Windows 7, a faster and much better operating system than the little-loved Windows Vista, which did a lot to harm both the company’s reputation […]

Wall Street Journal:
EU to Settle Microsoft Case by Year End  —  BRUSSELS—The European Union signaled it would accept a settlement proposal outlined this summer by Microsoft Corp. that would end the bloc’s pursuit of antitrust charges over the Internet Explorer Web browser, drawing the software giant closer …

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Schmidt: “We Have Not Yet Found The Evil Room.”  —  Earlier today, Google’s Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt held an informal press conference of sorts (see my live notes), touching upon pretty much everything under the Google sun.  One issue that kept on coming up was Google’s growing power in general.

Federal Bureau of Investigation:
One Hundred Linked to International Computer Hacking Ring Charged by United States and Egypt in Operation Phish Phry  —  LOS ANGELES—The largest number of defendants ever charged in a cyber crime case have been indicted in a multinational investigation conducted in the United States and Egypt …

Kevin Poulsen / Epicenter:
Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles (UPDATED)  —  (Update: Google has begun fixing the Usenet archive in response to this article)  —  Imagine a world where Google sucks.  —  It might seem a stretch.  The Google logo is practically an icon of functionality.

Kevin Poulsen / Epicenter:
Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles  —  Imagine a world where Google sucks.  —  It might seem a stretch.  The Google logo is practically an icon of functionality.  Google’s search engine and other tools are the company’s strongest, if unstated, argument in favor …

The Official Google Blog:
Quickly view formatted PDFs in your search results  —  Google search results sometimes include documents that were not originally formatted to be viewed in a web browser, such as PDFs.  In the past, the only way to view these documents was to download them and open them in a separate viewer […]

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Reviewing Some Bad Google Search Results With Sergey Brin  —  After today’s Google search press briefing, where I raised the issue of some poor quality search results in Google at one point, Sergey Brin asked me to demonstrate a few.  My pleasure!  Below, what we reviewed and comments from […]

Wall Street Journal:
Dell to Build Android Phone for AT&T  —  Dell Inc. expects to launch a smart phone on AT&T Inc.’s cellular network as soon as early 2010, said people briefed on the plans.  —  The Dell phone uses Google Inc.’s Android mobile-operating system, said the people briefed on the matter.