CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — With all the problems facing Microsoft, why is Craig Mundie, the software maker's chief research and strategy officer, talking about robots? Tools for programming robots were the primary subject of Mundie's keynote this morning at MIT's EmTech conference. He went on to dismiss Second Life, Linden Lab's frivolous virtual world — but thought a simulacrum of the real world might prove useful: "We think that a cyberspace representation of the physical world will be an important change in how we interact with computers." The common thread in these thoughts?Escapism. Microsoft Research is supposed to look far ahead to the forefront of computing — but I can't help thinking this push is influenced by Microsoft's current straits. Microsoft has foundered in trying to cajole humans to follow its will; despite its best efforts, they prefer other websites to MSN. Cajoling them to switch search engines is a fruitless, expensive task. Consumers utterly confound Microsoft, which has geared itself to sell software in bulk to PC makers, retailers and larger corporations, and let them worry about making it appealing. Change is hard. So why struggle with human beings, and the messy real world, when you can just play with robots instead? Mundie envisions robot receptionists — the voice-recognition hell of customer service, but inflicted on us in real life, in other words. "This will change the everyday way humans interact with computers," says Mundie. Yes: Computers are making humans easier to use.

Just in time for the announcement by T-Mobile of the first publicly available mobile phone running Google's new Android operating system comes word that Microsoft will be delaying the release of Windows Mobile 7 for at least another six months. The new version of the software was supposed to be released shortly after the new year won't be available until at least the second half of 2009. [News.com]

A company tipster tells us Microsoft is cutting costs in its Online Services group, which sells businesses productivity and CRM software as well as exchange-hosted services. "We just learned today that the company is transitioning a decent chunk of the group (100+ ppl) to hourly compensation, from our current salaried gigs," writes our tipster.

The next version of Windows after Vista won't include Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery, and Windows Movie Maker. Instead, Microsoft will offer the Windows Live versions of these apps as optional downloads. Brian Hall, the general manager for Windows Vista, told CNET late Monday that "Microsoft made the decision to remove the tools from Windows for several reasons, including a desire to issue new operating system releases more quickly. The move also removes the confusion of offering and supporting two different programs." It also puts Microsoft in more direct competition with popular cloud-based apps like Google Docs, Adobe Photoshop Express and Yahoo's Jumpcut movie editor. Don't get the idea that all Windows apps will be Web-based, though. You'll still have to pay for desktop versions of MS Office and Outlook, Redmond's real moneymakers.

The 2.0 crowd's favorite social media academic, Danah Boyd — she types it as "danah boyd" because it looks prettier — is going over to Microsoft's newest research team in Boston (read: Harvard and MIT.) She's already done research at both Yahoo and Google, so the move makes sense. Even though Boyd once likened Microsoft to Germany:

Some of Microsoft's new $300 million ad campaign was produced on Macs. Ooo, burn. [PC World via Adscam]

Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo for around $40 billion. That didn't work. Microsoft now plans to spend that much buying back stock, while it also increases its shareholder dividend by 18 percent. The company will take on as much as $6 billion in debt to pay for the buyback, which seems to rule out any major acquisition in the near term. Conveniently, the buyback also helps Microsoft founder Bill Gates with one of his biggest problems: selling his $20.3 billion stake in Microsoft in order to fund his nonprofit without killing the company's stock price.Gates sold $350 million worth of shares in August and $2.54 billion worth in 2007, but even at that rate the 52-year old will sell his last Microsoft share right shortly after he's eligible for Social Security, the New York Post reports. Microsoft began a $30 billion stock buyback program in 2004, eventually increasing that round of repurchases to $40 billion.

Ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky made Microsoft's "I'm a PC" ads using Macs, according to a Flickr user who downloaded an image version of the ad from Microsoft's web site and perused its meta data. After Digital Daily posted the news, a Microsoft flack confirmed the news and said: "Agencies and production houses use a wide variety of software and hardware to create, edit and distribute content, including both Macs and PCs." Along with its ad agency, Microsoft's spokespeople in the "I'm a PC" campaign are also proud Apple product owners.Comedian Jerry Seinfeld used to include a Mac on the set of his sitcom and even appeared in an Apple ad once. Deepak Chopra wrote on the Huffington Post about how he prefers the iPod to nuclear weapons. A geek at an airport made a deep connection with Eva Longoria when he spotted her MacBook. Pharrell Williams encases his iPhone in gold. And finally, I heard Trig Palin tried to sell his iPod Shuffle on eBay, but failed and had to sell it off-line for a loss.

Earlier this year, MSN exec Jeff Dossett climbed to the summit of Mount Everest in order to bring attention to the problem of AIDS and HIV in Africa. But now he's doing something really crazy. Dossett quit Microsoft last week and likely plans to join Yahoo, BoomTown reports. BoomTown's Kara Swisher notes that Dossett might be going because he's an old friend of fellow ex-Microsoft exec and new Yahoo exec Joanne Bradford. It's unclear what Dossett will do at Yahoo. At MSN, Dossett's job description labeled him as "the lead for audience, content and programming strategy and execution in the U.S," but apparently that was just his latest gig in a long line of online sales and strategy positions.Update: Dossett is not actually leaving Microsoft at all, Valleywag has now learned. That'd be crazy.

Microsoft's never going to win in search, right? Its only hope against Google is that marketers will decide that search ads aren't worth the money. Microsoft has new research out which purportedly shows that Internet users exposed to both search and display ads are more likely to purchase an advertiser's product than Internet users who only clicked on a search ad. The research comes from the Atlas Institute. Guess who that is?It sounds like an objective source because it has "institute" in its name. In fact, the Atlas Institute is part of AtlasDMT, which is Microsoft's ad-serving subsidiary. Conflicts of interest aside, the research won't make marketers value Google search advertising any less. Search advertising isn't supposed to convince anybody to buy anything; it's just a tool to make sure potential clients can find your products easily. WPP exec Jennifer Zola told the Wall Street Journal, "Search is still just as powerful. But things like display that looked really bad before aren't as bad. Now we can prove it."

First Microsoft hired proven Mac lover Jerry Seinfeld to crappily kick off its new $300 million ad campaign. Then the company dropped Seinfeld and brought in a slew of new celebrities to declare their love for PCs. Including hip hop star Pharrell—Another. Proven. Apple. Lover. Research! Payoffs! Do something, Microsoft! Pictured, Pharrell and his beloved golden iPhone. Here's a video where he describes his Mac tendencies. Fiasco! Ridiculous! And here's a brand new Microsoft ad with Pharrell declaring he is, in fact, a PC:

Microsoft and agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky's post-Seinfeld ads are out and we've embedded them below. They start with a guy who looks just like the actor who plays PC in Apple's Mac vs. PC ads saying "I'm a PC and I've been made into a stereotype." Then the commercials cut to shark-hunting adventurers, African teachers, graffiti artists, minor celebrtities and astronauts all also saying "I'm a PC." Then a voice-over begins: "Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently." Well, not actually. But Microsoft made billions copying Apple's operating system and its clearly decided to make more copying Apple's "Think Different" ad campaign — so why not just be out with it?Microsoft's new "I'm a PC" ad.

If you can't hire a star, why not one of her best girlfriends? We hear Microsoft has poached BusinessWeek reporter Catherine Holahan for a new online-video project — MSN's answer to Yahoo Finance's Tech Ticker stocks show, which features Sarah Lacy, Holahan's former colleague at BusinessWeek and a close friend. (The two were rarely apart when they attended the SXSW conference where Lacy infamously interviewed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.) Lacy's known for her va-va-voom Diane Von Furstenberg wardrobe on Tech Ticker. But from the looks of some of her BusinessWeek videos, Holahan prefers a more informal look. Honestly, Catherine: Was a tank top the best look to go for, even when talking about as light a subject as Web widgets?

"It pretty much is a perfect analogy. It's functional, rational and logical. But it looks like shit and I don't get it." So says photographer eyeliam of the carved-ice vodka tap at Microsoft's Web 2.0 Expo party last night. Care to improve the headline? Write a new one in the comments and we'll replace it with our arbitrarily-determined winner. TimsBoot won yesterday with "Who do I have to 'tweet' to get a free drink around here?" (Photo by eyeliam)

The doublespeak coming from Microsoft and its ad agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, in the wake of its "icebreaker" ad campaign featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, is amazing. Yesterday, Valleywag learned that Microsoft PR was revving up a spin campaign to go along with the ad campaign. Its aim: To make sure no one interpreted its shift to a series of anti-Mac ads as an abandonment of the Seinfeld spots. But Crispin Porter tells Gizmodo that it did, indeed, have another Seinfeld and Gates spot already produced. It's just not scheduled to air. Anytime. As of yet. It could air. Some day. If Microsoft wants it too. So does this mean Seinfeld will return? As a Microsoft flack told us yesterday, "possibly" and "potentially."

Sometimes I hear people ask: "Who uses Yahoo Mail anymore?" The answer, of course, is just about everybody. ComScore puts the number at around 260 million people — far more than Google's 90 million. But statistics can feel abstract. Now that a 4chan reprobate has hacked into Alaska governor and "average hockey mom" Sarah Palin's private Yahoo email account and discovered, among other things, her contact list, we have a more concrete demonstration of Yahoo's dominance of Palin's decidedly down-home demographic. Here is a list contains six Yahoo addresses, an AOL address, a Hotmail address and exactly zero Gmail addresses.Sarah Palin's contact list: Beth Leschper (Beth Leschper SOA) [Edit] [redacted]@alaska.gov Blanche Kallstrom (Blanche) [Edit] [redacted]@starband.net Bristol Palin (Bristol) [Edit] [redacted]@hotmail.com Chuck Heath (Chuck) [Edit] [redacted]@yahoo.com [redacted]@yahoo.com (Todd) [Edit] [redacted]@yahoo.com (Frank) [Edit] Heather Bruce (Heather) [Edit] [redacted]@gci.net [redacted]@alaska.gov (Ivy SOA) [Edit] [redacted]@yahoo.com (Ivy Personal) [Edit] Judy Patrick (Judy Patrick) [Edit] [redacted]@mtaonline.net [redacted]@alaska.gov (Kris Perry SOA) [Edit] [redacted]@yahoo.com (Kris Personal) [Edit] [redacted]@yahoo.com (Molly) [Edit] Roseanne Hughes (Roseanne Hughes SOA) [Edit] [redacted]@alaska.gov Sally Heath (Mom) [Edit] [redacted]@mtaonline.net Sean Parnell (Sean Personal) [Edit] [redacted]@alaska.com Sharon Leighow (Sharon SOA) [Edit] [redacted]@alaska.gov [redacted]@aol.com (Sharon Leighow Personal) [Edit] Track Palin (Track) [Edit] [redacted]@hotmail.com

Microsoft is dropping Jerry Seinfeld's nonsensical ass from its massive ad campaign, which they say was, you know, always the plan! The company is actually dubbing the new ads in its $300 million campaign, debuting tonight, "phase two." (Couldn't think of anything slightly less evocative of the Death Star?) The company line is that the "Seinfeld and Bill Gates do the robot" ads were just teasers, and now the real informative spots start. But fuck that; the new ads sound easily just as weird: The "theme" of the new spots is the standard, vapid "Windows. Life without walls." Whatev. And Microsoft has decided to fight back against all those vicious Mac ads by co-opting the phrase "I'm a PC." In the new ads, you will see: a John Hodgman doppelganger, and "everyday PC users, from scientists and fashion designers to shark hunters and teachers." And, of course, more random celebrities!!

With Jerry Seinfeld gone, Microsoft's new ad campaign will become an aggressive response to Apple's Mac vs. PC ads, with actress Eva Longoria, singer Pharrell Williams, author Deepak Chopra and a slew of what the New York Times calls "everyday PC users, from scientists and fashion designers to shark hunters and teachers," proudly proclaiming "I'm a PC." In one ad, a Microsoft engineer who looks like John Hodgman, the actor who plays PC in Apple's commercials, will the commercial: "Hello, I’m a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype.”Experts told the New York Times the campaign reminds them of how rental car company Hertz finally responded to Avis's slogan "We’re No. 2. We try harder," with a campaign that declared: “For years, Avis has been telling you Hertz is No. 1. Now we’re going to tell you why.” But for me, it just brings to mind that old clip of an angry Larry Ellison responding to a reporter asks him "what's new about what Microsoft's doing." "What's new is nothing's new," Ellison says.

And that's that. Microsoft says it will begin a "new phase" of its marketing campaign for Vista today—and it doesn't include Jerry Seinfeld who signed on less than a month ago. Eva Longoria and Pharrell Williams will pitch the evil empire instead. [Bloomberg]

Qi Lu, Yahoo's top search scientist, has been rumored to be leaving the company since June. But he's only just recently disappeared from Yahoo's list of top executives. We hear he's taking a job at Microsoft. Microsoft, the land where Web talent goes to die?Yes, Microsoft. The software house is desperate to catch up with Google, and Lu was one of Yahoo's few standout talents. Nevertheless, Lu's rumored choice of employer is surprising. Kara Swisher spotted Lu dining with David Sze, a partner at Facebook investor Greylock Capital. At the time, she speculated that Lu might take a cushy entrepreneur-in-residence gig at Greylock — or fill the empty CTO spot at Facebook. The fact that Facebook has yet to name a new CTO suggests they were holding out hope of landing Lu. For Lu to pass on the job would be telling. A year ago, Facebook could hire anyone it wanted, and they wouldn't have spent months dithering. if Lu takes Microsoft's job offer, it will show that Mark Zuckerberg's engineers-first culture at Facebook is fading fast.