The next Microsoft Windows operating system should put everything—and I mean everything—in a sandbox. There was a time when I disagreed with the idea that the core of Microsoft's next major operating system, Windows 8, would be a hypervisor, or virtualized machine monitor. Now, however, I see the beauty of this approach, especially for consumers.

You already know the basics of internet security, right? You know to keep your antivirus program and patches up to date, to be careful where you go on the Internet, and to exercise online street-smarts to resist being tricked into visiting a phishing site or downloading a Trojan horse.

There's no kind way to say it: Windows Phone 7 will be a failure. Announced to much bravado in February as the platform that would breathe life into Microsoft's mobile ambitions, Windows Phone 7 looked based on very early previews as if it might bring something new and exciting to the table. Back then, I noted that I was impressed by what I saw -- with the caveat "so far."

Seven weeks after Mozilla first announced Firefox Home for the iPhone, the open source browser maker has made good on its pledge to deliver a Firefox-synchronization app for the iTunes App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users.

Microsoft said it is investigating reports of targeted attacks exploiting a vulnerability in Windows Shell, a component of Microsoft Windows. The critical, unpatched vulnerability is being exploited through infected USB flash drives.

Following HTC's earlier information, that the company planed to release an Android 2.2/Froyo upgrade for the HTC Legend, HTC Desire and HTC Wildfire anytime early Q3-2010, Eric Lin, global PR and online community manager at HTC, gave Pocket-lint some more insights about HTC's Android 2.2 and even Android 3.0/Gingerbread upgrade plans.

Last week, a passel of leaked PowerPoint slides appeared to give a sneak peek of Microsoft's plans for Windows 8. (I should call them "alleged Microsoft PowerPoint slides" or something, but Mary Jo Foley and Ina Fried are accepting them as the real deal-and that's good enough for me.)

Microsoft faces a rash of zero-day vulnerabilities in some of its most important software, according to recent disclosures of unpatched bugs, including flaws in Windows XP, Internet Explorer and its flagship Web server.

In case you missed it, muchachos, it's officially official: Froyo is here. Google has now confirmed it's rolling out the Android 2.2 upgrade to Nexus One users near and far. Regardless of your carrier, if you have a Nexus in your pocket, you should be seeing Froyo within a few days. Google says most users will get the automated update over-the-air by the week's end.

Microsoft has released a patch for Visual Studio 2010 intended to address insufficient memory messages developers are getting when doing small cut or copy operations. The patch was released late last week, and is available for download.

Users of a popular Cisco Systems wireless access point may be setting themselves up for trouble if they leave a WPA wireless migration feature enabled, according to researchers at Core Security Technologies.

Details are starting to leak about features and functionality Microsoft is planning for the next version of the operating system, which may or may not be called Windows 8. Over the weekend, Francisco Martin Garcia, a Microsoft Active Professional partner based in Madrid, Spain, posted purported internal Microsoft slides that suggest Windows 8 will include faster startup times, 3-D graphics support, USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity, and the ability for users to log in via facial recognition technology.

"Google me" sounds like a lame pickup line delivered near closing time, but it might also be Google's latest attempt at becoming relevant in social media. Kevin Rose, of Digg fame, got the speculation rolling Sunday with a tweet that Google was working on a social service called Google Me that would compete with Facebook, perhaps Google's biggest rival for attention on the Internet.

Adobe on Tuesday released updates for Reader and Acrobat that plug 17 critical holes, including one being exploited in the wild to take control of computers and one that could be used to launch an attack using social engineering and PDF files. Adobe warned about the vulnerability being used in attacks, which also affected Flash Player, in early June and plugged the hole in Flash on June 10.

Microsoft has updated its Ultimate Steal page and swapped the former Office 2007 Ultimate and Vista Ultimate package for Office Professional Academic 2010 and Windows 7 Professional. The home page, which can be found here, offers the application suite for as little as £49.99 while the operating system goes on sale for £30. In both cases, P&P is excluded.

Microsoft's first attempt to improve Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with a service pack was shown off to some chums recently, one of whom appears to have made it available to all and sundry on the wibblesome web.

Microsoft is progressing to the next phase of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) development today with the launch of Platform Preview 3 (PP3) of the next generation Web browser. Developers can download the latest preview to get a sneak peek at what's in store with IE9 and what new functionality Microsoft is incorporating.

A new Windows Live Essentials public beta will have deep hooks to multiple social networking, media-sharing, and Web mail services, as well as the new Office Web Apps, Microsoft announced Wednesday. The public beta will be available starting Thursday at the Windows Live site, although Microsoft has yet to say at what time.

Taking just two months to go from 100 to 150 million licenses, Windows 7 has become fastest-selling operating system of all time. The new installed base means that Windows 7 took only six months from launch to achieving an installed base of roughly one in every 10 PCs in the world. 

After sending out invites to test Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 last week, Microsoft has given its beta testers their first build of SP1. The build number is 7601.16562.100603-1800, meaning it was compiled on June 3, 2010 at 6pm, according to the German enthusiast website WinFuture. The last build that we got wind of leaked in May, and was compiled on April 21, 2010. Broader testing of SP1 should begin later next month.