Now that the smartphone location data controversy has become a household debate, it is no surprise that Microsoft is an active participant in the discussion. Today the company responded to an inquiry from the US government looking for “clarity on the issue,” in regards to its practices. Microsoft is not playing defense. In both itspublic blog entryon the matter, and in itsnine page official noteto the government, Microsoft is unapologetic about its practices and claims that they are both reasonable and user positive....

There have been hacks aplenty for Windows Phone 7 owners to get by the official, and glacial, update process for their handsets and upgrade before their carriers were prepared to push the new software out. Microsoft has been adamantly against such action, but not for the reason that you might expect. Instead of griping at users for making an end run around official procedures, Microsoft is merely worried about the future upgradability of the phones that are updated using third-party methods....

Microsoft just started airing its new “great time to be a family” advertisements on TV in the United States, according toa report by WinRumors. The two ads are produced by Crispin Porter & Bogusky and are all about how the different Microsoft products can be brought together in various ways. In the one titled “Epic Fail”, we have a dad dancing for the Dance Central 2 game on the Kinect and the kids snapping up a video of the action using their Windows Phone 7 phone and posting it to YouTube using—you guessed it—a Windows-based PC....

TNW Quick Hit: Today Microsoft explained the cause of Marketplace downtime that lasted for hours, plaguing owners of Windows Phone 7 handsets around the world. According to the company’sblog post on the matter,the outage stemmed from “scheduled maintenance.” Microsoft promised that work was underway to avoid a repeat occurrence of the downtime. This is the company’s statement on the matter: “Earlier today some Windows Phone users were unable to download applications from Windows Phone Marketplace for several hours and instead received an error message saying, ‘Can’t get this info right now....

It’s been a massive day in the world of Microsoft, with the companyunleashing a crop of detailson the Mango update for Windows Phone 7 to the world. Love or hate what Microsoft has done so far with Windows Phone, Mango might give you reason to pause and rethink your current opinions. If you want a granular look at what Microsoft unveiled today, check back through the TNWmicrosoftarchives; what we are bringing right you now is different....