In his keynote speech at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, company COO Kevin Turner said that Apple's new iPhone, beset by antenna issues, "might be their Vista." Self-deprecation suits you well, Microsoft!

Seagate's senior product manager Barbara Craig confirmed rumors that the company will be releasing a monster 3TB drive later this year. That's a lot of disk space! But sorry XP users, the drive will require a 64-bit OS.

You may have forgotten about it, but Microsoft got in to a bit of trouble with the European Commission for anti-competitive practices (including force-feeding customers IE). Microsoft's plea bargain was to add other browser options alongside its own.

March, 2007: Windows Vista's initial sales are great, "more than doubling" those of its predecessor, Windows XP. Flash forward to November, 2009: Windows 7 initial sales are 234% higher than Vista's. Those numbers sound awfully similar...

We didn't see much of a difference between DirectX 10.1 and 11, but if you're a Windows Vista user who did and has been waiting impatiently: be happy because DirectX 11 is now finally available through Windows Update. [DailyTech]

The funny thing about Windows Vista is that the vast majority of launch reviews were really positive, just like the current ones for Windows 7, before it turned into an object of deep fear and intense loathing.

Things I didn't expect to read today, part II: Steve Ballmer saying that the Windows 7 launch could in fact resemble Vista's very grisly debut:

The other week, we explained how Apple influences a ton of what goes on in tech by shaping industry-wide standards. This week, we're gonna look at Microsoft, and what's it's done with standards.

Could Windows 7 accomplish everything that's expected of it? Probably not, but it makes a damn good attempt. We've tested the gold master, the final version going out on October 22. Upgrade without trepidation, people. With excitement, even.

You've read our final verdict, but since there's a ton of new stuff in Windows 7, we've rounded it all up here, in one easy list, with a little bonus opinionating.

We already heard about this on the Best Buy front, but it looks like several computer makers will let you upgrade to Windows 7 for free—or at least cheaply—if you buy a Vista computer after June 26. [InfoWorld]

It's easier than ever to pit Windows 7 and OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard head-to-head: They're launching soon, both within a month of each other—and both are basically glorified service packs of the current OS.

Oops! A leaked Best Buy memo manages to both trash-talk Vista as well as give out the details of Best Buy's Windows 7 upgrade plans.

A lot of the hype around Windows 7 is predicated on how well it'll run on modest hardware, especially SSD-equipped netbooks. It certainly feels faster than Vista, but HotHardware's battery of disk benchmarks confirms: it really, really is.

For Windows Vista users, more than 12,000 movie titles and television episodes are now available to be streamed onto your PC, and watched instantly via Netflix through Windows Media Center.

Oh ho ho. Microsoft just got a patent for crippling your computer until you pay them dammit.