In this edition of The Midweek Download, we’ve got stories from Building Windows 8, the re-designed Windows logo, Windows Phone evangelists, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and more. Check ‘em out!

Three from Building Windows 8. If you can’t get enough news on Windows 8, check out these three new posts from Building Windows 8 – reliably measuring browser performance, SkyDrive and Windows 8 and using the language you want on Windows 8. Don’t miss ‘em!

The Windows logo redesigned. We have said that Windows 8 is a complete reimagination of the Windows operating system. Nothing has been left unexplored, including the Windows logo, to evaluate how it held up to modern PC sensibilities. The Windows logo is a strong and widely recognized mark, but when we stepped back and analyzed it, we realized an evolution of our logo would better reflect our Metro style design principles and we also felt there was an opportunity to reconnect with some of the powerful characteristics of previous incarnations. To get the rest of this story, read this Feb. 17 post on Blogging Windows. Below is a screenshot of the new logo:

Last week, Microsoft launched msnNOW, a new service from MSN at now.msn.com, created to help you stay in the know. msnNOW is the first service to surface the latest buzz from Facebook, Twitter, Bing and BreakingNews.com, all in one place.

Obviously, we here at Microsoft think it’s pretty cool, but we’d like to know which features of msnNOW readers like the most.

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got the scoop on the launch of msnNOW, a new and improved Facebook app for Windows Phone and a new Microsoft Research project called Layerscape.

MSN launches msnNOW to keep you in the know. Ever feel like you have to jump from site to site in order to piece together what’s happening in the world? Good news for those who like to stay up-to-date on the latest trends — msnNOW, a new service from MSN at now.msn.com, will help you stay in the know. msnNOW is the first service to surface the latest buzz from Facebook, Twitter, Bing and BreakingNews.com, all in one place. It cuts through the clutter of the Web, providing an up-to-the-minute view of breaking trends and the hottest social conversations, what people are saying about them, and why they matter. For more on this story, read this feature story and this press release on the Microsoft News Center and this Wednesday post on The MSN Blog. Watch the video below to get a look at the technology, people and passion behind msnNOW:

In this edition of The Midweek Download, we’ve stories on Windows on ARM, a distinguished Microsoft engineer named to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, a profile on members of the Windows Server team and much more.

Building Windows for the ARM processor architecture. This Feb. 9 post on Building Windows 8 (penned by Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division) is about the technical foundation of what we call, for the purposes of this post, Windows on ARM, or WOA. WOA is a new member of the Windows family, much like Windows Server, Windows Embedded, or Windows Phone. As with those products, WOA builds on the foundation of Windows, has a very high degree of commonality and very significant shared code with Windows 8, and will be developed for, sold, and supported as part of the largest computing ecosystem in the world. Don’t miss it! Also, check out this Tuesday post on enabling accessibility in Windows 8.

Microsoft engineer named to U.S. NAE. One of the singular advantages of working for Microsoft—and for Microsoft Research, in particular—is the opportunity to work on products and technologies that have a positive influence on multitudes worldwide. Henrique Malvar, Microsoft distinguished engineer and chief scientist at Microsoft Research, knows that all too well—as do his peers. On Feb. 9, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced that Malvar (pictured below) had been elected as a member of that prestigious group. Read this Feb. 10 post on Inside Microsoft Research for the whole story.

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got stories on Xbox 360 ending 2011 as the number-one selling console in the world, a record breaking year for Microsoft’s Employee Giving Campaign, Safer Internet Day and a super-duper cool slideshow on a slew of new thin Windows 7 laptops.

Xbox 360 maintains lead in U.S. console market in January. Kicking off 2012, Xbox 360 continues to lead the console market, turning in another month as the best-selling console in the U.S. Just last week, Xbox 360 was revealed as the number-one selling console worldwide in 2011, according to publicly disclosed financial data from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Read this Thursday post on The Official Microsoft Blog for the rest of the story. And don’t forget that on April 3, the Kinect Star Wars bundle and game will be released – Xbox LIVE’s Major Nelson has more on that on his blog. Below is a screenshot of the R2D2-inspired limited edition console:

Kicking off 2012, Xbox 360 continues to lead the console market, turning in another month as the best-selling console in the U.S.

NPD highlights from January include:

· Xbox 360 sold more than 270,000 units in January, maintaining the number-one console spot in the U.S. This marks the thirteenth straight month Xbox 360 was the top-selling console in the U.S.

· Holding a 49 percent share of current-generation console sales, total retail spend on the Xbox 360 platform in January (hardware, software and accessories) reached $301 million, the most for any console in the U.S. This marks the eleventh consecutive month Xbox 360 has held more than 40 percent of the current-generation console market share.

This edition of The Midweek Download has stories on power consumption in Windows 8, a new version of Visual Studio Achievements for Windows Phone devs, the expansion of the Windows Phone Marketplace to five new markets and much more.

Here’s the latest from Building Windows 8. “Minimizing the power consumption of your PC while maximizing the responsiveness and utility (making it “fast and fluid”), is a significant engineering challenge. While it starts with the work we do in Windows to provide support for the right level resource usage, this work requires developers to take resource utilization into account as they develop their apps. Power efficiency applies to all form factors and all usage scenarios—using less power is the right thing to do for everyone,” writes Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division. Read this Tuesday post on Building Windows 8 for the rest of the story.

Developers, lace up your cleats. A few weeks back, this blog reported on Visual Studio Achievements, which gives developers who use Microsoft Visual Studio a new way to highlight their skills, get recognition for the amazing work they do every day, and add some competitive fun to the development day. Looks like the Windows Phone team has followed suit with Visual Studio Achievements for Windows Phone.

Editor’s Note: This post, co-authored by Kathleen Hogan, co-chair of the 2011 Microsoft Giving Campaign and Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Services, and S. Somasegar, co-chair of the 2011 Microsoft Giving Campaign and Corporate Vice President, Developer Division, was originally posted on the Microsoft Citizenship Blog.

We share one the best part-time jobs in the world. As co-chairs of the annual Microsoft Giving Campaign, we get the opportunity to see firsthand how our colleagues bring passion, creativity and generosity to raise much needed funds for community organizations around the globe. In 2010, we raised an outstanding $96 million. We wondered if we could go higher in 2011 and we did, knowing our employees would rise to the challenge.

In 2011 Microsoft employees across the United States raised $100.5 million, which includes corporate matching. This marks our biggest year yet, and brings the total amount of money raised by employees to $946 million since our giving program started in 1983.

Today, Microsoft announced an agreement with 24/7 Inc. which I believe will redefine what customer service looks like. We’ve come a long way towards improving everyday life using technology, but there is always more we can do. The modern consumer, and I count myself in these ranks, is evolving with the technology we use. Customer service hasn’t kept pace with our evolution. I think this announcement goes a long way toward correcting this.

By way of a personal example, I live in the Seattle area and a couple of weeks ago we were hit with a fairly heavy snow storm. I was traveling in the Silicon Valley area at the time and my flight home, like many others that day, was canceled. Around 6 a.m., the airline notified me of the cancelled flight with an e-mail, a robo-call to my cell phone and, for good measure, a text message. Each notification had the same message, “Your flight has been canceled. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. Please call our 1-800 number to reschedule.”

I called the customer service number and, after a 35-minute wait, got through to a representative.

There have been some recent confusing reports regarding whether the Kelihos botnet, which Microsoft partnered with Kyrus Tech Inc. and Kaspersky Lab to take down in September 2011, has been resurrected.

Contrary to some reports, Kaspersky and Microsoft have no evidence that the botnet that was taken down in September has returned to the control of cybercriminals or is spamming again at this time. However, we have seen evidence of distribution of new malware that appears to be a slightly updated variant of the malware that built the original Kelihos botnet. This does not mean that the Kelihos botnet we took down is back in operation, but that a new version of Kelihos malware known as “Backdoor:Win32/Kelihos.B” is being used to create a new botnet. Microsoft has already made protection from this new malware variant available in the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). This kind of effort by botherders to try to rebuild a botnet from the ashes of the old is not new.

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got stories on the Kinect Super Sunday Challenge, a new version of Skype for Windows, a collection of Windows Phone news bits and some alternative products for those concerned with some of the changes Google has made to its privacy policies.

Check out the Kinect for Xbox 360 Super Sunday challenge. In an effort to inspire the masses to get off the couch this Sunday, Kinect for Xbox 360, the official console sponsor of the NFL, and NFL PLAY 60 recently announced a challenge to fans and gamers across the country to help make Feb. 5, 2012, “The Most Active Super Bowl Sunday Ever.” Earlier this week, NFL PLAY 60 ambassador and Super Bowl XLIV MVP Drew Brees were joined by kids from an Indianapolis-area middle school in a press conference from the NFL’s Super Bowl media center to outline the details of the “Kinect for Xbox 360 Super Sunday Challenge.” Read this press release on the Microsoft News Center for the rest of the story.

New version of Skype for Windows now available. We released an updated version of Skype for Windows (version 5.8) Thursday with a few improvements we want to tell you about.

For the last couple of days we’ve been running a series of Microsoft advertisements in some major newspapers, focused on some key differences between some Google products and practices and some Microsoft products and services. This conversation was really spurred by some pretty unpopular changes Google has made, all designed to make you more valuable to them. We have a different view.

So to wrap up the week, we’re highlighting Internet Explorer and Bing. Great products on their own, each clearly different than what Google offers, each designed with people first.

Download Internet Explorer 9, and install an appropriate Tracking Protection List from the Internet Explorer Gallery. You can also find Tracking Protection Lists created by well-known privacy experts at http://privacyonline.org.uk/about.html. That way, you can browse the Web without simultaneously being “browsed” by others.

As I mentioned on this blog yesterday, we’ve placed a series of ads in some major newspapers this week to reach out to people who are concerned or frustrated by some of Google’s recently announced changes to their products and policies. Specifically, we’re doing this to remind those folks that they have a choice when it comes to internet software and services, and we’ve got some great alternatives for them. There was some chatter about this yesterday.

As a follow up, today’s ad (and this post) focus on email. And picking an email service is an important decision, particularly if you care about your online privacy.

In this edition of The Midweek Download, we’ve got developer stories on Windows 8, Windows Phone, Internet Explorer and Windows Azure, plus two cool Microsoft Research profiles.

New on Building Windows 8: Acting on file management feedback. Building Windows 8 previously published three blog posts that discussed the new file management experience in Windows 8: one about the new copy experience, one that detailed the design process we went through for the new conflict experience and one about the changes to Windows Explorer, including the introduction of the ribbon. Those posts prompted great discussion and the Windows team read the approximately 2,200 comments you left. This was wonderful feedback, and, along with information from other feedback channels, the team incorporated it into its design process. Read this Monday post on Building Windows 8 for the rest of the story.

And in Windows Phone developer news this week… Back in November, we announced a developer promotion for U.S. students called “Big App on Campus.” Time is running out to enter. Though we think it’s a no brainer, some of you have asked “Why should I enter?” Read this Jan. 27 post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog to find out why you should enter. Also devs, don’t miss this Tuesday post on memory profiling for application performance.

During the last week or so, there has been a fair amount of discussion about how Google is making some unpopular changes to some of its most popular products. You can see some of the concerns and worries about lack of choice and so on in these links.

When we read the coverage last week, it was clear people were honestly wrestling with the choices that had been made for them and were looking for options or alternatives.

The changes Google announced make it harder, not easier, for people to stay in control of their own information. We take a different approach – we work to keep you safe and secure online, to give you control over your data, and to offer you the choice of saving your information on your hard drive, in the cloud, or on both.

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got a blog post from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on opportunity for youth and other news from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland as well as stories on Data Privacy Day, the Kelihos botnet, Windows Phone and Office 365. Don’t miss any of them!

Bill Gates says young people will change the world. At the World Economic Forum today, Bill Gates participated in a roundtable focused on opportunity for youth, a subject about which he is deeply passionate. To get the rest of this story, read today’s post from Bill on The Official Microsoft Blog. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith also participated in the roundtable, and you can read his thoughts on youth and the Opportunity Divide in this post on Microsoft on the Issues.

Microsoft names new defendant in Kelihos case. In an amended complaint filed earlier this week with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Microsoft alleged that Andrey N. Sabelnikov, a citizen of Russia, is responsible for the operations of the Kelihos botnet. For more detail, read this Monday post on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Editor’s Note: At the 2012 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bill Gates participated in a roundtable discussion on Opportunity for Youth. It’s a subject Bill is passionate about, because solving the world’s big problems will require energy and creativity of people of all ages, and from future generations. This post also appears on Bill’s personal blog, The Gates Notes.

In my annual letter for 2012, I invited students globally to write their own annual letters about what we need to do to extend the progress the world has made in improving the lives of its poorest people over the past 50 years. I’ve received some innovative and inspiring letters, which I’ve featured on my website. All the insight and ideas these young people brought forward are amazing.

I saw this same level of insight and creativity today at the World Economic Forum, when I sat down with young innovators and leaders, including students who’ve received Imagine Cup grants, to discuss how we can help their peers around the world achieve their dreams. Whether young people want to start a business or a nonprofit, or they want to be the first in their family to go to college, it’s critical to make sure they have what they need to succeed.

In this edition of The Midweek Download, we’ve got two new stories on Windows 8, some developer event news and People Week v3 on Next at Microsoft. Don’t miss ‘em!

Two more from Building Windows 8. In this Jan. 20 post on Building Windows 8, the Windows team focuses on how it re-engineered the wireless networking stack in the next version of Windows to optimize it for both mobile broadband and Wi-Fi networks. “We’ve done a ton of work to enable mobile broadband providers to make it easy for you to use 3G and 4G connectivity along with Wi-Fi in Windows 8,” writes Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division. Also, check out this Tuesday post that looks at the details of supporting sensors in Windows 8.

Thinking about developer events. At the beginning of each year, many of us assess how we (and our developer community) might want to invest our respective time and resources for the year ahead, and we’ve devoted some of that energy in the past few months toward thinking about the various developer conferences we host. As part of that reflection, we have decided to merge MIX, our spring web conference for developers and designers, into our next major developer conference, which we will host sometime in the coming year. For the rest of this story, read this Tuesday post on The Official Microsoft Blog.

At the beginning of each year, many of us assess how we (and our developer community) might want to invest our respective time and resources for the year ahead, and we’ve devoted some of that energy in the past few months toward thinking about the various developer conferences we host.

As part of that reflection, we have decided to merge MIX, our spring web conference for developers and designers, into our next major developer conference, which we will host sometime in the coming year. I know a number of folks were wondering about MIX, given the time of year, so we wanted to make sure there’s no ambiguity, and be very clear… there will be no MIX 2012.

For context, the idea to create MIX was conceived in the fall of 2005, literally as the PDC05 main stage was being disassembled after the final keynote. While we reflected on that PDC, there was a lot of discussion around our engagement with the web community, and how we needed a more focused effort around our upcoming plans for Internet Explorer, the roadmap for our web platform, the work we were starting on web standards (we were shipping IE6 at the time), and so on.

Jan. 28 is Data Privacy Day. Microsoft observes it by providing guidance to help consumers more safely manage their information online. While 2012 is still new, we recommend that people make a resolution to actively monitor and safeguard their online reputation.

As technology becomes more integrated into people’s lives and the number of connected devices grows, it is important to evaluate whether your online life mirrors the reputation you want others to see.

A person’s interactions online – spanning content that you create and share online and content that others post about you – are considered part of an online profile. Different people and organizations are able to see different parts of the overall picture. As you go through your day e-mailing, texting, sharing information and photos online, making purchases and more, all these activities can contribute to the opinions others form about you.

Since taking down the Kelihos botnet with our partners Kyrus Inc. and Kaspersky Labs in September, the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit has continued to actively investigate the case and pursue new leads with the goal of holding the perpetrators behind the botnet accountable for their actions.

In an amended complaint filed today with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Microsoft alleges that Andrey N. Sabelnikov, a citizen of Russia, is responsible for the operations of the Kelihos botnet.

Mr. Sabelnikov is not the first to be named as a defendant in this case, which has already served as the legal foundation for the successful disruption of a global botnet harming thousands of victims worldwide. In the original complaint filed in September, Microsoft alleged that Dominique Alexander Piatti, dotFREE Group SRO and John Does 1-22 owned a domain cz.cc and used cz.cc to register other subdomains such as lewgdooi.cz.cc used to operate and control the Kelihos botnet.

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got stories on Microsoft’s second-quarter financial report, a new mobile experience on MSN and a host of others. Don’t miss ‘em!

Microsoft reports record revenue of $20.9 billion in second quarter. On Thursday, Microsoft announced quarterly revenue of $20.89 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2011, a 5 percent increase from the prior year period. Operating income, net income, and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $7.99 billion, $6.62 billion, and $0.78 per share, compared with $8.17 billion, $6.63 billion and $0.77 per share, respectively, in the prior year period. For more detail, read this press release on the Microsoft News Center.

MSN introduces streamlined mobile experience. MSN Mobile has been redesigned to keep you informed, engaged and entertained regardless of where you are. You can now check top news and entertainment stories more quickly when you’re on the go with our latest release of MSN Mobile. Scan MSN videos, photo galleries and lifestyle content, right from the MSN Mobile home page. Need an umbrella? Want a stock quote? Curious about the score of tonight’s game? Simply swipe down to see the updated modules. You can even find new apps. MSN Mobile keeps you in the know, when you’re on the go. For more detail, read this Thursday post on the MSN Blog. Check out the screenshot below of the streamlined mobile experience on MSN:

Today, Microsoft is joining other Northwest employers Concur, Group Health, Nike, RealNetworks and Vulcan Inc. in support of Washington State legislation recognizing marriage equality for same-sex couples. We believe that passing this bill would be good for our business and good for the state’s economy. I wanted to take a few moments to explain why.

At Microsoft, we pride ourselves on our products and services, our brand, and our global reach. But unquestionably, our employees are our greatest asset.

To be successful, it’s critical that we have a workforce that is as diverse as our customers. Every day, the national and global economies are becoming more diverse. The lifeblood of a business is its ability to understand and connect with its customers. We’re no exception. Now more than ever, the most effective workforce is a diverse workforce.

In this edition of The Midweek Download, we’ve got stories on a next-gen file system in Windows 8, the new Visual Studio Achievements program, cloud computing and highlights from the National Retail Federation’s annual conference, among others. Check ‘em out.

Building the next generation file system for Windows: ReFS. In this Monday post on Building Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, writes, “We wanted to continue our dialog about data storage by talking about the next generation file system being introduced in Windows 8. Today, NTFS is the most widely used, advanced, and feature rich file system in broad use. But when you’re reimagining Windows, as we are for Windows 8, we don’t rest on past successes, and so with Windows 8 we are also introducing a newly engineered file system. ReFS, (which stands for Resilient File System), is built on the foundations of NTFS, so it maintains crucial compatibility while at the same time it has been architected and engineered for a new generation of storage technologies and scenarios. In Windows 8, ReFS will be introduced only as part of Windows Server 8, which is the same approach we have used for each and every file system introduction.” Jump on over to Building Windows 8 to get the rest of the story.

Visual Studio Achievements program brings gamification to development. Starting today, developers who use Microsoft Visual Studio have a new way to highlight their skills, get recognition for the amazing work they do every day, and add some competitive fun to the development day. Visual Studio Achievements, a Visual Studio plug-in, enables developers to unlock badges and compete against one another for a place on a leader board based on the code they write, its level of sophistication, and the Visual Studio capabilities they use to do so. For the rest of this story, read today’s post on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Starting today, developers who use Microsoft Visual Studio have a new way to highlight their skills, get recognition for the amazing work they do every day, and add some competitive fun to the development day.

Visual Studio Achievements, a Visual Studio plug-in, enables developers to unlock badges and compete against one another for a place on a leader board based on the code they write, its level of sophistication, and the Visual Studio capabilities they use to do so. Developers finally have the ability to actually show their friends, colleagues, project managers, spouses and customers how good they are at what they do all day and sometimes into the night.

Visual Studio Achievements is both playful and pragmatic. Built on ideas from the developers themselves, it is intended to be a humorous community-building game as well as a path to the many, and, to some, unknown features offered in Visual Studio. This is one of several initiatives Microsoft is undertaking to recognize developers for their tireless and indispensable work.