Microsoft Corporation recently announced their second quarter earnings. They posted a $6.63 billion profit on revenues of $19.95 billion. This is very comparable to their earnings from last year. The company sold about 300 million licenses of Windows 7 and they saw a strong increase in their entertainment division.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has executed over 40 search warrants for those involved with Operation Payback. Operation Payback was a group of hackers that took down the Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal websites using DDoS attacks out of Wikileaks retaliation. Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal had dropped financial support for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange shortly after he released confidential government cables. The group behind Operation Payback is known as “Anonymous.”

There is finally an official date for the News Corp. digital publication The Daily. Apple and News Corp. are holding a press conference next week to reveal the iPad publication. Rupert Murdoch will most likely be on stage to join Apple VP Eddie Cue to announce the availability of the app. The Daily is expected to cost $0.99 per week and will be run by Greg Clayman.

If you use Google Chrome as your browser and Gmail for your e-mail, Google has launched a new service that you might like. Now you can receive desktop notifications for your Gmail inbox and Google chat messages. Google designed the alerts using HTML5. To activate it: Go to the Settings linke at the top of Gmail and scroll down to “Desktop Notifications.” Select your options and make sure to activate the changes. [Google Blog]

A terrorist by the name of Zeinat Suyunova (aka Black Widow) was intending to plan a terrorist attack in central Moscow, Russia on New Years Eve, but her mobile phone telecommunications provider possibly stopped her by sending her a “Happy New Year” spam text message. It is believed that the bomb that a Russian woman was wearing would be triggered by incoming text messages. She forgot to turn her phone off at the time. The Russian Muslim woman is believed to be part of the same group that struck the Domodedovo airport on Monday. The bomb strapped to the Russian woman who received the text is believed to kill her and nobody else. [Telegraph UK]

According to a slide that was released a little bit before the Microsoft earnings announcement, there was some impressive growth in the Entertainment and Devices division. This division generated about $3.7 billion this quarter, compared to $2.4 billion last year. About 8 million Kinect controllers were sold in the first two months of launch. Xbox Live memberships increased 30% and Xbox 360 console sales increased 21%. “We are enthusiastic about the consumer response to our holiday lineup of products, including the launch of Kinect. The 8 million units of Kinect sensors sold in just 60 days far exceeded our expectations. The pace of business spending, combined with strong consumer demand, led to another quarter of operating margin expansion and solid earnings per share growth,” stated Microsoft CFO Peter Klein.

Yonap, a Korean news agency is claiming that the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet device has surpassed 2 million devices. The Galaxy Tab is powered by the Android operating system. Not bad considering that the tablet passed 1 million units early December. The Galaxy Tab was Samsung’s first Android tablet and it was launched with all 4 major U.S. carriers. The Galaxy Tab is available in 94 countries across 200 different carriers. Here are the sales break-down numbers: 500,000 sold in Europe, 350,000 sold in North America, and 330,000 sold in Asia.

Video and messaging company Tinychat was initially known for creating chat-rooms on the fly. The company has raised $1.5 million in funding in the form of a convertible note from some high-profile investors. Some of the investors include Naval Ravikant, Guy Oseary, Ashton Kutcher, Ron Burkle, P. Diddy,