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Microsoft has rolled out alpha and beta versions of Silverlight, its recently announced RIA platform, at a keynote address at the MIX07 conference underway in Las Vegas. As part of its strategy to flatten Adobe with is own iteration of flash technology, Microsoft has configured Silverlight, essentially a a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in, to deliver the next generation of .Net-based media applications and content. Only a few weeks in the public eye, it is clear that Silverlight has already become a core component of Microsoft's integration plans.

Oman: Amine Moukarzel, Senior VP MENA, Golden Tulip Hotels looks at tourism prospects in the region, and whether certain tourism markets are becoming oversaturated. [AMEInfo.com]

The latestet iteration of Microsoft's next-generation gaming console, the Xbox 360 Elite, hit store shelves Sunday. The new model boasts a 120 GB hard drive, a high-definition multimedia interface port for connecting to HDTV, a wireless controller and a premium black finish on the console's exterior. "Today's games and entertainment enthusiast has an insatiable appetite for digital high-definition content," said Peter Moore, corporate vice president for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft said as the Elite edition was unveiled last month.

The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with Microsoft in a closely watched patent dispute that could limit the reach of domestic patents in overseas uses. Monday's 7-1 decision overturned a lower court ruling, essentially concluding that Microsoft is not liable for overseas patent infringements in machines that run the Windows operating system and use a voice translation technology patented by AT&T. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who penned the majority decision, said the lower courts extended an exception in patent law too far.

Nothing--nothing--excites the political blogosphere like a Washington sex scandal. This Friday, ABC's 20/20 plans to air an interview with the so-called "D.C. Madam," Jeane Palfrey, who allegedly made more than $2 million over 13 years running a high-end prostitution service that attracted many powerful clients. And she kept the phone records.

Updated: 4/30/07

SplendidCRM Software has released a new version of its open source CRM solution that is based on SugarCRM and uses a Microsoft technology stack. The new Version 1.4 incorporates .Net 2.0 technologies, with features including .Net 2.0's Master Pages, Themes, Web Parts and the Ajax programming language. Master Pages and Themes work together to simplify application development and allow for an unlimited number of page layouts to be predefined.

One modern historian not long ago tallied 210 explanations for the fall of Rome. Some would say that a good number of those theories would apply to the United States today. U. S. News talked with Cullen Murphy about his new book Are We Rome: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Pointing out a few of the parallels between America and the ancient Mediterranean state, Murphy, the editor at large of Vanity Fair, and the longtime managing editor of The Atlantic Monthly, says there are lessons that we can learn in order to avoid Rome's seemingly ineluctable decline.

U.S. News Senior Writer Linda Robinson sends us this news from Baghdad from her interview today with Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. The career foreign service officer, who is fluent in Arabic, drew a connection to his stints as a diplomat in Beirut in the 1980s and 1990s, during and after the Lebanese civil war:

More than four years and $400 billion later, the superhawks on Iraq are calling for more of the same. Forget a political solution, a move even generals on the scene see as the real solution.