Windows has had it’s share of vulnerabilities in the past, so now Microsoft is offering more than $250,000 in cash and prizes for contestants who can come up with new ways to mitigate exploits. Anonymous and LulzSec are out there after all, taking companies down.

Microsoft will pay $200,000 for the best “novel runtime mitigation technology designed to prevent the exploitation of memory safety vulnerabilities.” Two runners up will also receive $50,000 and a MSDN Universal subscription valued at $10,000. I’d say that is lots of incentive to come up with some new tricks, wouldn’t you?

Google co-founder Sergey Brin says that as many as 80 percent of Google’s employees are no longer using Windows computers. The comments came from an interview with All Things Digital, and suggests that the majority of Google employees are working with the company’s own Chrome OS rather than other platforms. And why not? If you work for Google, you might as well use Google’s OS.

“I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with Windows,” Brin said. “It has a lot of great security features. But I think the complexity of managing your computer is really torturing users.” He claims that Chrome OS does not “put the burden of managing the computer” on users. By next year he hopes that even more employees are using the company’s OS.

As if you don’t have enough tablets to choose from, here comes another. I know you’re surprised about that, aren’t you? Check out this upcoming Windows-based tablet from Fujitsu, It’s called the Stylistic Q550, even though it doesn’t look so stylish.

It features a 10-inch 1366 x 768 display, an Intel Z670 Oak Trail processor, 2GB of RAM, a 64GB SSD, front- and rear-facing cameras, a removable battery and it comes pre-loaded with Windows 7. Nothing on price or availability yet however.

The Microsoft online store is now taking pre-orders for ASUS’ Windows-based tablet, the Eee Slate EP121. The tablet is selling for $1,099 and if you have the scratch, it will start shipping on January 24th. The Eee Slate EP121 sports a 12.1-inch capacitive multitouch display, a 1.33GHz Intel Core i5-U470 processor, and 4GB of RAM.

Some other features include 32GB or 64GB of storage, a card reader, a 2.0-megapixel webcam, WiFi, Bluetooth, a mini-HDMI port and comes pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium.

Think of this bot as a roomba not for your floor, but for windows. The Windoro bot comes from some scientists working for the Pohang Institute of Intelligent Robotics in South Korea.

The robot is essentially two modules that stick together through the glass using magnets. Yes, it isn’t the best design, but at least it’s a start. Once they perfect the technology, this thing will be cleaning large office building windows easily.

ViewSonic at IFA gave away many of the details surrounding its dual-booting ViewPad tablet. Now dubbed the ViewPad 100, the 10-inch tablet runs on a 1.66GHz Atom and uses either Windows 7 or the now old Android 1.6; either side supports multi-touch. It uses just a 16GB solid-state drive, but an SDHC card slot provides most of the bulk storage.

Many of the other specs are similar to those of a current netbook. It outputs at a native 1024×600 display and holds 1GB of DDR3 memory. There’s Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi, with two USB ports, a 1.3-megapixel webcam and a VGA video output.

So do you get a tablet with windows or with Android? Decisions decisions. Well, the upcoming ViewSonic tablet will make your choice easier as the 10-inch tablet device features an Intel-based chipset that will allow users to dual-boot Windows and Android.

The company is also reportedly working on a 7-inch Android tablet that with 3G, Wi-Fi, an accelerometer, a USB port, Bluetooth, and A-GPS. The market is already being flooded with tablet devices, but these may just stand out.

Toshiba America’s Jeff Barney confirmed awhile ago that there was a tablet coming from the company in early 2011. Now Jeff has given some more information to Reuters. He says that there won’t be just one, but at least two of them and they’ll be out before the year is through. The first will be a premium model running Windows 7, about 10 inches in size and with two screens.

The second runs Android at a lower price. Nothing further on specs. Both are for “media consumption” according to Barney. He sees slates as “expansive like netbooks.” You can take that to mean that they won’t take away from the company’s laptop business.

Don’t get too excited. It’s not official yet, but it is coming and it will be a follow-up to the Aspire One D250, and will dualboot both Android and Windows. How do we know? Acer’s mobile product manager Martino Mombrini let it slip yesterday to Electricpig.

He said that the chassis of the D260 dualbook will be redesigned so it won’t look like the D250. He also took the opportunity to talk about how they want to launch a Chrome OS netbook, with a Q3 release date “likely.” What do you think? Interested?

Aaron Woodman, the director of consumer experiences for Microsoft’s mobile division, showed off a prototype of LG’s Windows Phone 7 Series phone over at Engadget. We don’t have many details, but we do know that it’s a QWERTY slider that’s just a tad thicker than the iPhone, with a 5MP camera, and six hardware buttons.

Woodman wouldn’t confirm or deny if Windows Phone 7 Series would support Mac OS, but he mentioned that they are currently discussing it at least. A windows phone supporting Mac OS? Maybe. Sounds like crazy talk.

Man, my underpants are really unstable. You zip your pants up wrong or tighten your belt too much and bam, everything freezes up and I get the Blue Screen of Death on my belt buckle. Control-Alt-Delete doesn’t seem to work, which really sucks because it takes a while to boot up my junk again.

BSOD humor is apparently alive and well and invading belts. You get a metal buckle with clam style closure, a cotton/acrylic blend of fabric for the belt and an image of the Blue Screen of Death.

In storage news WD has updated several of its external HDD storage devices for the media lover in you. The new My Book Essential comes in 1TB for $149, 2TB for $229.99 and 500GB capacities for $99.99. The My Book for Mac is available with 1TB for $149.99.

While the My Passport Essential comes in capacities of 500GB for $139 or 320GB for $99.99. My Passport for Mac is available in 500GB for $149.99 and 320GB for $119.99.

A Chinese company showed what it’s calling the world’s first mobile phone to run Windows XP at Computex on Friday. The xpPhone wakes Windows from standby mode to receive calls and text messages and has a battery life of seven hours when not in standby. With a larger battery it’s capable of running for 12 hours.

The device is powered by a customized chip from Advanced Micro Devices made by In Technology. It also features a pull-out QWERTY keypad, 120GB hard disk and a 4.8 inch LCD touchscreen with a resolution of 800 by 480 pixels.

According to Acer chairman JT Wang, the first Android netbooks will ship with Windows in dual-boot configurations. If you wanted a clean break from windows with your new Acer netbook, looks like you are out of luck.

It’s actually a smart move by Acer, since Android is unproven as a netbook OS. The last thing they need is computers that surprise the consumer by crashing every ten minutes. However, this is not the android netbook that people want. Loading windows on alongside of Android just makes it a bit of a novelty.

Looks like Microsoft is in the final stages of getting their Windows Mobile 6.5 OS update ready for public release. Window’s Marketplace mobile application is almost ready for launch. And so, Microsoft has given a few lucky Windows Mobile users a sneak peek at the Windows Marketplace.

The “coming soon” notification has been replaced by a functional mobile application store. The Pandora application is also ready for download.