After 25 years, Microsoft's finally changed its logo. The new, more Helvetica-ish logo reaffirms the company's goals to unify the user experience across its core products. It also indicates the old dog that's been accused of being left behind in Apple and Google's dust still has enough fight left in it.

You have to applaud Microsoft for daring to be different with its upcoming Windows 8-powered Surface tablet. A fresh rumor suggests the Surface could gain Microsoft a foothold in a decidedly tough market dominated by the iPad.

Between all the tweeting, liking and text messaging we do, who really wants to look at all the junk in email? Microsoft new Outlook.com email (not the same as its Outlook email app) is a completely rethought take on webmail that cuts the ad bloat of Hotmail and focuses on functionality.

Though it looks easy on TV, fighting with a broadsword is an activity knights and other medieval types probably practiced a lot. So how do modern knights get some practice in without cutting their hands off? Microsoft Research is tackling this problem with a new game called SwordFight that enables multi-player dueling with smartphones using hardware localization technology.