Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates is being subpoenaed by Erik Estavillo, whose nickname is “professional plaintiff.” This isn’t the first time that Estavillo filed a crazy video-game lawsuit. About a month ago Estavillo sued Microsoft for $75,000″ for “pain and suffering damages.” His Xbox 360 failed and displayed the notorious Red Ring of Death (RRoD) on the power button. Estavillo claims that the Xbox was only one of two ways that he socialized and the other was online gaming. This is because of his agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) and other stress disabilities.

The $75,000 damages fine “is in relation to the stress put on the plaintiff having to find a way to acquire a new Xbox 360 system and the sadness he will have in the meantime of finding one he can afford. Not to mention all of the lost data that is unrecoverable such as game saves and downloadable content,” according to a complaint pulled by The Seattle Pi.

Estavillo subpoenaed Bill Gates to find out how many Xbox 360 consoles in total have seen the Red Ring of Death. He also wants to know how many of those consoles have been fixed over the past 3 years. And of course he also wanted to know how many Xbox Live users have been banned for piracy.

“YOU ARE COMMANDED to appear in the UnitedStates (sic) district court at the time, date, and place set forth below to testify at a hearing of trial in this civil action,” stated the subpoena. Estavillo previously sued Nintendo for $5,000 over the disabling of cheats in a Wii update because it interfered with his “pursuit of happiness.”

In another lawsuit, Estavillo filed a lawsuit against Sony because his PlayStation Network user name was banned for trolling. He believes that this was in violation of his First Amendment rights.

Another one of Estavillo’s notable lawsuits is against Activision Blizzard, the creator of the video game series World of Warcraft. The lawsuit was for $1 million and he alleges that this game caused his agoraphobia, panic disorder, depression, Crohn’s disease, and obsessive compulsive disorder. In that lawsuit, he subpoenaed actress Winona Ryder and Depeche Mode founder Martin Gore. Winona was subpoenaed because of her interest in the book The Catcher in the Rye, a novel about alienation. Gore was subpoenaed because he is supposedly an expert on alienation.

Estavillo told the Seattle Pi that now he is done with all subpoenas and lawsuits.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) founder Paul Allen has been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma which is a cancer of the white blood cells. This is 26 years after Allen fought Hodgkin’s disease which is another type of white blood cell cancer.

Jody Allen, Paul’s sister, sent an e-mail to employees at private asset management company Vulcan Inc. She is the CEO of the company and it was founded by Paul Allen. Below is the e-mail that was sent out by Jody:

To employees of Vulcan and affiliates:

I want to let you know that Paul was recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

He received the diagnosis early this month and has begun chemotherapy. Doctors say he has diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a relatively common form of lymphoma.

This is tough news for Paul and the family. But for those who know Paul’s story, you know he beat Hodgkin’s a little more than 25 years ago and he is optimistic he can beat this, too.

Paul is feeling OK and remains upbeat. He continues to work and he has no plans to change his role at Vulcan. His health comes first, though, and we’ll be sure that nothing intrudes on that.

We would ask you to respect Paul’s privacy and not discuss this outside of the office.

If you have any questions, please ask your EC member.

Thank you in advance for what I know will be all your good thoughts for Paul.

Jody

Bill Gates also issued a statement regarding Allen’s diagnosis:
“Melinda and I have Paul and his family in our thoughts and prayers. Paul is among my closest friends, and I know to him be a strong and resilient individual.”

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the two richest men in the United States with a combined net worth of $77 billion did a presentation at the Columbia University Business School in New York City. CNBC host Becky Quick moderated the discussion and set up the question and answer session between the students. The title of the discussion was called Keeping America Great. Above is the video. Leave your thoughts about the discussion in the comments.

According to a U.S. SEC filing, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates sold off about 1 million shares of Microsoft stock.  This brings his August stock sell-off to 8 million. Despite selling off the stock, Bill Gates still owns over 725 million shares which is 8% of Microsoft’s total outstanding stock.  Altogether this is still worth about $17 billion.

These are the following shares he sold and the prices in August alone:
- August 3: Sold 2 million shares @ $24.17 each – Total $48,340,000
- August 4: Sold 1 million shares @ $23.78 each – Total $23,780,000
- August 5: Sold 2 million shares @ $23.74 each – Total $47,480,000
- August 6: Sold 1 million shares @ $23.64 each – Total $23,640,000
- August 7: Sold 1 million shares @ $24.01 each – Total $24,010,000
- August 10: Sold 1 million shares @ $23.70 each Total $23,700,000
Grand Total: $190,950,000

What is Bill Gates planning to do with $190 million?  My guess is make some personal investments and spending some of it on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Microsoft stock was trading at $14.87 this past March, but things started picking up after the deal with Yahoo! was announced, the XBox team announced Project Natal, and the prices of the Windows 7 operating system were released.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and former CTO Nathan Myhrvold are credited for the invention of a “temperature-stabilized storage container” used for storing and transporting “water or flavored water, dairy product or fruit juice, carbonated soda, wine, beer, or distilled spirits.”  This type of container “may store a beverage such as beer, for example, at a temperature appropriate for serving depending upon the type of beer.”

Looks like Bill and Nate are putting their geekiness to good use here.  The high-tech keg would also have an electronic display that shows the temperature using transmitters and sensors.  If the patent is granted, then it would become intellectual property of Searete LLC.  Searete is tied to Intellectual Ventures, a Bellevue-based company run by Myhrvold.  Gates and Myhrvold meet fairly often to come up with different ideas.

Whoever thought that Bill Gates wasn’t hip may have a different opinion of him now.  Personally I’d like to see an advanced keg like this start becoming available at higher learning institutes.  That way in about 20 years from now, I can look at my kids and college and tell them how our kegs were made only out of metal and a tube and that is all we needed.

[via TechFlash]

Bill Gates is rumored to have picked up a new mansion in Wyoming.  The old ranch used to belong to Buffalo Bill Cody.  Above are a couple of pictures I grabbed from Gawker.  The ranch is called the Ima Lake Lodge.  Gates bought the mansion through his manager Jerry St. Dennis.  The cost is about $9 million for the 492 acre property.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has announced that his foundation will be donating $33 million in charity to help fight tuberculosis in China. Through the joint partnership between the Chinese government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, there will be new tests and treatments for tuberculosis offered in China.

The new program will be tested in six provinces before expanding the program to over 100 million people within 5 years. Tuberculosis kills over 200,000 people per year in China. China accounts for 15% of everyone that is infected with the disease.

[via PCW]

In the pilot program, there will be several tests that shrink the diagnosis time from weeks to hours. This will be especially noticeable in cases where forms of TB are able to resist the traditional treatments.

Scientists in Seattle are making a laser gun that can lock on to moving targets.  The laser gun is intended to go after mosquitoes, especially those that are carrying malaria.  About 1 million people die per year from malaria carried by mosquitoes.  It is big problem caused by a small creature.

At this year’s TED conference, Bill Gates let loose mosquitoes that he carried in a jar.  Gates did this to make a point that many of us are fortunate that we do not live in areas that are of risk.

The laser is called weapon of mosquito destruction (WMD).  The design was assisted by Lowell Wood, an astrophysicist that worked on the original Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) proposed by Ronal Reagan in 1983.  The SDI was also code named “Star Wars.”

“We like to think back then we made some contribution to the ending of the cold war,” stated Dr. Jordin Kare.  “Now we’re just trying to make a dent in a war that’s claimed a lot more lives.”

The laser detects the audio frequency created by the beating of mosquito wings.  A computer detects the audio and triggers the laser to shoot the mosquito’s wings off.  The mosquito then plops to the ground and doesn’t make it to their prey.  Bill Gates is one of the investors in this project.

This laser could kill billions of mosquitoes every night.

Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe has been recruited to join the Microsoft Corporation Board of Directors.  This brings the board size to about 10 members including Bill Gates.

“Maria has made significant research contributions to computer science and mathematics, and we are very fortunate to have her join Microsoft’s board of directors,” stated Bill Gates. “In particular, I think her close connection to university students and the way they shape computing trends will bring an important perspective to the board.”

Klawe has been president of the college since 2006 and previously was the dean of engineering and comp. sci. at Princeton.  Klawe also worked for IBM Research for 8 years.

[via AP]

(Photo Credit: James Duncan Davidson for TED)

“Not only poor people should experience this,” stated Microsoft founder Bill Gates at the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference in Long Beach, California.  Gates said this as he was opening a jar full of mosquitoes during his speech.  Gates was doing this as a statement that malaria is a major problem in countries such as Africa and South East Asia.  Malaria is often times transmitted by mosquito bites.  Gates’ way of presenting this issue got the whole room tweeting.

Founder of Seesmic Loic Le Meur wrote a Twitter message saying “Bill Gates released mosquitoes at #TED we’re all leaving the room and getting sick.”  eBay founder Pierre Omidyar tweeted “That’s it, I’m not sitting up front anymore.”  Twitter and Blogger founder Evan Williams tweeted “Bill Gates just let live misquitos out on stage. (@sara would be pissed if she were here.)”

Fortunately for audience members, the mosquitoes had no viruses.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hope to significantly reduce malaria-related deaths by 2015.