11 year old Brendan spent over ?1000, unnoticed my his mother, who blames not having online banking and being busy dealing with letters about bouncing direct debits for not realising what what happening with her account. It wasn?t until she contacted the bank due to her card being declined that it came to light Brendan had cleared her out.

Neither Microsoft or Barclays accept liability over the amount paid out on costumes, weapons and games by the youngster, and his mother plans to seek legal advice.

reports are out that the Omnia was demoed again at ?reMIX? in France. Running a recent build of Windows Phone 7, the device/OS seemed fast and responsive with all the features functional. Video clips of the phone show it performing day to day tasks and playing a ported Xbox Live Arcade/iPhone game. Which was apparently programmed in one week using 90% shared code.

The Omnia used to demo does not have the original OMAP3 processor inside, instead a more powerful SnapDragon processor has been installed.

Windows phone 7 is a much anticipated update to Microsoft?s older Windows Mobile platform, it?s due to drop late this year. There has been allot buzz surrounding the release of WP7. Mozilla and Skype dropped the development of their products due to restrictions on the OS and there have been regular leaks regarding new phone models. But it?s all par for the course with a release of this nature, the hype machine is in full motion.

You can get a peek at the vids here and here.

Ballmer said on the subject: ?J has brought a game-changing creative magic to Microsoft for years, from Windows to Xbox, from Zune to KIN. He was one of the key drivers in our early work on the Web, and we?re absolutely delighted that J?s role with the company will evolve in a way that lets all of Microsoft benefit from his business insight, technical depth and keen eye for consumer experience.?

President of the Entertainment & Devices Division, Robbie Bach, will not be replaced. All heads of the Xbox and Windows Mobile divisions will report directly to Ballmer as of the 1st of July. This restructure will give Ballmer more control of MS?s consumer products. ?For the past 22 years, Robbie has personified creativity, innovation and drive. With this spirit, he has led a division passionately devoted to making Microsoft successful in interactive entertainment and mobility. Robbie?s an amazing business person and close personal friend, which makes his departure a point of sadness for me. However, given the strong leadership team he has built, the business performance of E&D this year and the launches of Windows Phone 7 and ?Project Natal? this fall, we are set up well for success as we continue to drive our mobile and entertainment businesses forward.? said Ballmer.

So what does this mean fro Microsoft’s consumers? Microsoft?s mobile devices have been struggling to compete with the iPhone and Android devices as consumer focus has shifted to them. HTC has moved it?s high end products to the Android platform until the release of Windows 7. If this restructuring is a success we can expect to see some great advances with Phone7, Xbox and Zune. Zune and Windows phone have been struggling to gain market share, but the Xbox is running strong. Top games are continuing to be released on the platform and the project Natal controllerless game system for the Xbox 360 is to be released later this year.

When a USB memory device is connected, the memory configuration screen will let you configure the drive. All you do there is check it?s working properly and then set the amount of memory you want to use. There is a cap on the amount of memory you can allocate however. 16GB is the max on a single device, but you can have two devices connected at any one time, which will give you 32GB.

As well as providing a more affordable alternative when the proprietary HD runs out of space, it means that flash memory can be used. Which will improve performance massively. And it?s going to make the whole experience more portable. Allowing files to be transported easily and content sharing opened up. Microsoft are working with SanDisk to release a branded drive. the Xbox 360 Flash drive will be out in May after the update.

Modification to?an Xbox 360 in order to play copied or illegal games is officially a violation of the end user agreement. Many suspected Microsoft were simply peddling empty threats and wouldn’t actually block paid subscriptions to the live service. Surely not! I mean, after all these people are paying for a service. It seems Microsoft have held true to their word and today about 600,000 users have been booted off the network.

There will of course be some sort of legal issue surrounding this and I’m sure some bright spark will find a way around the problem. The easiest way of course… don’t mess about with your Xbox and pay for your games!