There have been 500,000 downloads of Windows 8 Developer Preview in just under 24 hours, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today at the BUILD developer conference. This is pretty impressive demand for what amounts to an early alpha build of Microsoft’s next OS. Ballmer’s keynote was also punctuated with Ballmer discussing the reaction of the community to the release of Windows 8 DP, displaying a selection of positive comments in front of the assemblage....

Xbox the gaming console, the Netflix streaming machine, the social platform, and the music hub might soon have a new moniker: your Verizon or Comcast set-top box, at least if Microsoft gets its way. We have long known that Microsoft is determined to expand the tv offerings on the Xbox 360, but a new report has shed fresh light on exactly what it is doing. According to sources whospoke with Digiday, Microsoft is in late-stage talks with both Comcast and Verizon to bring their live content to its hardware....

Today at its Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft unveiled a plan to open a large number of new stores in the coming years. The company said: “We’re going to open up to 75 more stores over the next 2 to 3 years, and continue to bring our stores outside the U.S. as well, so we’ve got a huge opportunity to get the Microsoft story out there, and we’re going to keep driving that....

If the rumor mill is to be believed, Zune may bet set to suffer an untimiley demise tomorrow at Microsoft’s hotly anticipated Windows Phone event. Over the last 24 hours, reports have sprung up that Zune is to be axed as a brand, and will soon have its components shuffled into various sections of the Microsoft empire. This potential end of its self-contained brand will be a sad day for Microsoft’s lengthy and varied musical offerings through time....

TNW Quick Hit: Today at the MIX11 event Microsoft set the launch date for Angry Birds, a very popular game, on the Windows Phone 7 platform: May 25th. Angry Birds has become a cultural phenomenon, with millions of users across every major computing platform, mobile and not. Angry Birds and WP7 have something of a history, including an episode in which Microsoft mistakenly made it seem that the game was coming to the platform at a time in whichno such plans existed....