Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[JorgeA]

Russia's largest carrier backs Windows Phone after ditching iPhone ( NeoWin 2013-07-10 )

Finally some cheerful news? Well I guess it cannot get much worse for Nokia or Microsoft WP right? Let's see what the 'Tards think ...

Apple's running scared, starting to wonder, can they survive Nokia Rolling Thunder.

It's Samsung that needs to worry

Both need to be worried for two reasons:

Nokia=strong brand, great phones

Microsoft=Innovating on WP (OK OK this is only visible with WP8 )

Yeah, I'm sure that Apple and Samsung are quaking in their boots over this...

Microsoft: Xbox One for small businesses is a great investment ( NeoWin 2013-07-11 )

While Microsoft views the Xbox One as “an excellent entertainment device” the company claims that the new console can be so much more. It argues that the Xbox platform is so robust and reliable that it can be a great option in terms of video conferencing and as a networking platform.

For real? Not an April Fools joke? Okay sure.

Now, now, don't be so cynical -- just imagine the enormous potential for industrial espionage that's offered by the Xbone's always-on camera and microphone.

--JorgeA

Edited July 11, 2013 by JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Juggling multiple platforms and the bumpy road ahead ( Sinofsky 2013-07-08 )

Former Windows head Steven Sinofsky on making apps for multiple platforms ( NeoWin 2013-07-10 )

Oh dear lord. I'm really not sure who won and who lost when he left Microsoft, honestly, there is no way to tell. This guy is pure Sominex. It is painful. If this is what the poor developer engineers had to suffer through rather than getting to work, well their current craziness is understandable.

Here is his big graphic which is chock full of empty words and still says nothing important ...

( not that the symmetry is strikingly out of kilter and the padding is inconsistent, at least to me it is )

blah blah blah, right? What's the point? ~sigh~ I feel like I'm picking on him and get a little ashamed, but then I remember the destruction he perpetrated on Windows, not to mention deleting comments at the blog, and helping to usher in a new era of MetroTardism. Anyway, he's managed to just get around 12 comments to his all important lecture blog.

All the proof you need that NuMicrosoft is actually becoming an IQ test ...

Petition wants Microsoft to bring back Xbox One's DRM ( NeoWin 2013-07-10 )

A petition on Change.org wants Microsoft to bring back the original DRM policies for the Xbox One, saying to "give us back the Xbox One we were promised at E3". The petition cites how the original policies would have made the Xbox One's game store and library like "Steam for Xbox", but "consumers were uninformed" which eventually lead to the DRM policies being reversed.

Here's a better idea ... Release two Xboxes ( Microsoft sure has no problem flooding the shelves with countless SKUs ) ...

• Xbox Standalone Edition
  
• Xbox DRM Edition
  

The Xbox DRM Edition stands for Dumbass Retarded MicroZealot Edition and would be priced twice as high with half the CPU power. They don't need all the cores because the cloud can do the processing remotely.

Of course we know that the DRM Edition would never sell, just the same as a standalone Windows Tiles Edition.

~sigh~ This petition has to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen.

P.S. wouldn't it be hysterical to find out that the petition is actually a clever psyop by Sony. They get Microsoft to believe the MetroTards are clamoring for DRM and reinstate it! Tail wags the dog, but a tail that belongs to a different dog

EDIT: typo(s)

Edited July 11, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

The big Wall Street story about the Microsoft reorganization ...

Microsoft officially announces reorganization: 'One Microsoft' ( NeoWin 2013-07-11 )

Most Microsoft senior leaders are now executive vice presidents ( NeoWin 2013-07-11 )

Ballmer has consolidated power some more, and removed any trace of a likely successor, a true megalomaniac.

STEVE BALLMER KILLS WINDOWS. CEO tears up products playbook in mega Microsoft reorg ( UK Register 2013-07-11 )

Microsoft officially announces company-wide reorganization ( TechSpot 2013-07-11 )

Microsoft CEO Finally Reveals Company Reorganization ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-11 )

Coverage from the Register and other non-Tard sites, if you get sick of all the tireless worshiping at NeoWin then go here for decidedly less gushing comments ( note: the story is still new, so check back later to see more ).

El Reg also has an article up about that earlier Xbox petition story ...

Oh please, PLEASE bring back Xbox One's hated DRM - say Xbox loyalists. How do you spell 'masochist'? ( UK Register 2013-07-11 )

But now Xbox One fan David Fontenot has organised a pro-DRM petition calling on Microsoft to reverse that U-turn. On petition site Change.org, he wrote:

This was to be the future of entertainment. A new wave of gaming where you could buy games digitally, then trade, share or sell those digital licenses. Essentially, it was Steam for Xbox. But consumers were uninformed, and railed against it, and it was taken away because Sony took advantage of consumers uncertainty.

We want this back. It can't be all or nothing; there must be a compromise.At the time of writing the petition had just over 8,000 signatures although some were clearly not genuine. There was trolling and flaming aplenty with claims and counter claims of fanboidom and accusations of others being Sony stooges and dupes.

You just can't make this stuff up!

EDIT: added articles

Edited July 13, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[JorgeA]

Here is his big graphic which is chock full of empty words and still says nothing important ...

Huh, I actually understand that cycle. (Uh-oh, what does that say about me...? ) What I see is that --- for example -- In the Beginning there were "multiple platforms" vying against each other for market share in the personal computing segment (CP/M, MS-DOS, DR-DOS, Apple OS -- what did they call it? -- plus some smaller ones like the UCSD p-System and of course the Commodore and Radio Shack machines and their software). Following Sinofsky's progression, they diverged in order to stand out from one another, and ultimately DOS/Windows came out on top. But now (today) we stand at the top of that cycle, a time for that single dominant Windows platform to be challenged by multiple new platforms (as it's turning out, mostly Android and iOS in the mobile space but also other well-known ones). Can some other OS emerge to challenge Windows's dominance of the desktop segment? The controversy caused by the Windows 8 FrankenOS may have created the best opportunity in decades to eat away at Microsoft's quasi-monopoly.

The Xbox DRM Edition stands for Dumbass Retarded MicroZealot Edition and would be priced twice as high with half the CPU power. They don't need all the cores because the cloud can do the processing remotely.

Of course we know that the DRM Edition would never sell, just the same as a standalone Windows Tiles Edition.

~sigh~ This petition has to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen.

Please, o Lords of Redmond, tell us what we may and may not do with our machines! Please limit our choices and provide order and meaning to our rudderless lives! We prostrate ourselves before you, we beseech you to enrich us with your superior wisdom, and we pledge -- nay, demand! -- to follow you cheerfully and without question into the new world you are creating...

--JorgeA

[Tripredacus]

Here was my post that was gobbled up the other day.

Apple found guilty of eBook price fixing!

http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/10/4510338/apple-found-guilty-of-ebook-price-fixing

[Formfiller]

Oh man, Snowden's leaks about Microsoft and the NSA is sweet karma in action.

Not that I think that Google or Apple are so much better with privacy, but Microsoft surely deserved the bashing more than any other.

After all their FORCED clouderization (killing SBS, price hike of traditional Office, XBONE, shoving Skydrive everywhere, whether you want it or not), and their mega-hypocritical Scroogled campaign, they more than deserved this bash. No other company right now is so obnoxious with forcefully herding their users into the cloud-prison.

Karma is a b***h.

[Formfiller]

Epic thread on Techbroil:

http://www.techbroil.com/2013/07/microsoft-exec-mixup-more-madness.html?showComment=1373401039563#c8035153466201975685

A discussion about a stupid MS ad turned into a mega flame war. Pretty amusing. If you have trouble with the lingo ("TMR" and so on), read this.

[JorgeA]

Oh man, Snowden's leaks about Microsoft and the NSA is sweet karma in action.

Not that I think that Google or Apple are so much better with privacy, but Microsoft surely deserved the bashing more than any other.

After all their FORCED clouderization (killing SBS, price hike of traditional Office, XBONE, shoving Skydrive everywhere, whether you want it or not), and their mega-hypocritical Scroogled campaign, they more than deserved this bash. No other company right now is so obnoxious with forcefully herding their users into the cloud-prison.

Karma is a b***h.

Here's a link to that news:

Guardian Says Documents Show Microsoft Help for NSA

Relying on NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden, the Guardian reported that Microsoft recently worked with the FBI to help the NSA get around encryption on Microsoft services, such as online chats on Outlook.com, and to monitor conversations on the company’s Skype service.

The newspaper also said that Microsoft worked recently with the FBI to streamline the way NSA can access users’ files on SkyDrive, Microsoft’s online document storage service, when Microsoft is required to provide that information for foreign-intelligence purposes.

[emphasis added]

Google or Apple (not that they're entirely innocent, as you point out) could start an ad campaign on the theme of, "You've Been Microsofted." Or if that's too awkward to pronounce, then maybe "You've Been Ballmered"...

--JorgeA

Edited July 12, 2013 by JorgeA

[G8YMW]

I see 34 pages of this thread have gone walkabout!

[JorgeA]

I see 34 pages of this thread have gone walkabout!

It's weird, I'm not sure what exactly is going on. The page count has gone down by 34 pages, but the post count seems to be about the same, no?

We'd have to go manually through the pages to see if anything has been deleted or fused together. That would be pretty bad and annoying.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

From the July 8 issue of The Wall Street Journal, a less-than-glowing analysis and a good backgrounder. We've said much or most of what's in here, but it's gratifying to see the major business daily saying so, and saying it to its enormous and influential readership.

Here goes. Sorry, but the link and formatting options are not showing up at the time of this writing, and I don't necessarily remember what the keystrokes are. (I also had to hand-type the excerpts as the article is not available online.) I'll use standard quotation style. Internet fanatics keep your pitchforks to yourselves, as Internet forum software is Failing at this moment. (Shades of Office 364.)

"MICROSOFT'S PRODUCTS NEED MORE HORSEPOWER

"Microsoft keeps hitching its fortunes to lame horses. It shows how rickety parts of the software giant's business are.

"Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Nokia, Yahoo and Dell all face very difficult circumstances of their own. While Microsoft's deals with most of them make sense, its relatively unpopular products and a changing competitive environment mean that they may not prove particularly fruitful.

"Start with Microsoft's troubled mobile business. One big strategic challenge has been getting smartphones powered by its operating system, Windows Phone, into the market. Its first big deal to address this saw it agreeing to pay Nokia $250 million a quarter to make Windows Phone its primary smartphone platform. That isn't much money for Microsoft, and it is mostly offset by royalties Nokia pays back.

"But Microsoft's traditional business model revolves around the company being paid by gadget makers for using its software, not the reverse. Microsoft needs to make concessions to help Windows Phone build momentum, sure. Yet it is hard to see payments ever flipping into Microsoft's favor in a big way.

"That is because rival Google offers its dominant Android mobile operating system without charge. It can afford to do so since this promotes its cash-cow search business. Meanwhile, Microsoft's own search engine, Bing, remains oned of the company's weaker products -- underlined by Yahoo's reported desire to get out of a 10-year deal to host its search results.

"With Android free, why would handset makers ever make a big commitment to Microsoft's mobile operating system? They might if customers were demanding Windows Phone handsets in huge numbers. But that is unlikely as well, given mobile-software developers are focused on bulding apps for platforms that already have significant market share -- namely Android and Apple's iPhone...."

* * *

Bottom line -- Microsoft is like a dog trying to become king of the river: wasn't built for it, ain't gonna happen. Shedding their fur (abandoning Desktop users) and flapping their paws like mad (with Metro) isn't going to do it, it's more likely simply to leave them both exahusted and exposed.

--JorgeA

EDIT: Not even an ampersand (as in the second paragraph of the article above) is working right now. And a further iteration of the mistake is added each time I edit the post.

Edited July 13, 2013 by JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

I see 34 pages of this thread have gone walkabout!

What I think happened is that since yesterday the default # of displayed comments changed from 20 to 25 which should account for missing pages.

For me, I had the # of comments per page set to maximum ( I think 150 ) so instead of missing pages, the total for me went from 24 to 141.

I don't think any posts have gone missing since the upgrade.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

How Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages ( UK Guardian 2013-07-11 )

Report: Microsoft helped NSA to access SkyDrive, Skype and Outlook.com ( NeoWin 2013-07-12 )

Leaked documents reveal Microsoft's collaboration with NSA ( TechSpot 2013-07-12 )

Report: NSA Has Access to Skype, SkyDrive; MSFT Responds ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-12 )

The documents show that:

• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;
• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;
• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;
• Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to "understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;
• In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;
• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport".

( already mentioned by Formfiller and Jorge ) ... That first link is the meaty one referenced by everyone else. It is chock full of details about the core problem ... Microsoft was the first partner in the Prism spying ring and if you recall they were voluntary. This begs the question, why would the federal spooks go after Microsoft before anyone else? It's not like they are an ISP providing physical Internet access. No, it is because they are central to all things Internet. They are the operating systems maker for 90% of the traditional computer space, therefore the feds needed to gain a thorough understanding of the code behind it all. Yes, I don't think there is any real doubt that they have the Windows source code, not to mention everything else.

Needless to say their response, a quasi-denial, is wide enough to let a fleet of container ships sail through. It also puts this into perspective ...

"Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request."

Guess how I read that? Well I believe this is why there has been such a mad push to kill Windows XP, an obsession of theirs ever since Vista appeared in 2007. Why does that date 2007 ring a bell, refer to the previous Guardian article ...

Some of the world's largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan "Your privacy is our priority" was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.

It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.

Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks."

So in 2007, we got both Vista and PRISM, which was also the year they lost their collective minds, hunkering down into a bunker mentality, the obnoxious Mojave Experiment ( the customer is doing it wrong ), and really the year they declared war on us.

The hypocrisy of the Scroogle campaign against Google is bad enough ( and Google is at least paying lip service to challenging the government ), but there really is more here than meets the eye. I would guess that each previous version of Windows is more secure with respect to customer privacy than the previous. Naturally Windows XP must die. And that is precisely why people who care about such things should never get rid of it. It also probably suggests that Win9x coupled with secure P2P communication might be the best solution of all.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Microsoft Helps Retailers Dump Surface RT Inventory with $150 Price Cut ( Maximum PC 2013-07-12 )

Microsoft Surface RT getting $150 price cut starting this weekend ( TechSpot 2013-07-12 )

Report: Microsoft cutting price of Surface RT models by $150 (Update) ( NeoWin 2013-07-12 )

By my count this is the fourth price cut. Good thing they're not cumulative eh? Actually this is just milking the press, the cheapest one is still $349 with NO keyboard. Original price $499 with NO keyboard. So nothing has changed, this price has been in effect for a while now. It should have been $299 WITH keyboard all along so it is safe to say that nothing has really changed at Microsoft with regards to reading the marketplace. Compounding the problem is that this is rumored to be a stock clearing sale anyway, to make room for the next model no doubt at the original high price. Good luck guys.

NPD: Chromebooks now claim 20-25 percent of sub-$300 US laptop sales ( NeoWin 2013-07-12 )

After badmouthing these things for a good year the NeoWhiners will now have to swallow more bad news - people are buying these things after all. That's gonna leave a mark.

Ballmer: No plans for layoffs at Microsoft in reorganization ( NeoWin 2013-07-12 )

You're off the hook for now. Will you still feel safe 12 months from now?

Microsoft sues US Customs for letting in banned Motorola phones ( NeoWin 2013-07-12 )

Ban Android in India, says country's Communications and IT Minister (Update) ( NeoWin 2013-07-12 )

The act of a true monopolist is shown in that first story. It is all they really know, which in fact describes Apple as well. For the past three decades it is what they each have done best - clear the playing field of any competition and then move in for the kill, pick the fields clean like locusts and then move on. Naturally it is a perfect reflection of the patent system itself which is inexplicably designed to create a monopoly for the filer of an idea ( note I didn't say inventor, but the filer ).

That second article has now been corrected to reverse the original intent by the giddy NeoWin author, India will NOT try to ban Android. Sorry Microsoft and Apple.

[jaclaz]

I see 34 pages of this thread have gone walkabout!

What I think happened is that since yesterday the default # of displayed comments changed from 20 to 25 which should account for missing pages.

For me, I had the # of comments per page set to maximum ( I think 150 ) so instead of missing pages, the total for me went from 24 to 141.

I don't think any posts have gone missing since the upgrade.

You really have to overdo it, don't you?

Just imagine how many kilometers your swiping finger would need to cover on a touch tablet to scroll those 150 posts!

:rofl:

jaclaz