Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[JorgeA]

seems windows 8 won't get any upgrades after 8.2

which is good (haha) this OS deserves to die in dust

 

and other MS plans are leaked

 

http://bgr.com/2014/05/22/windows-9-windows-365-office-2015/

 

Wow, if this is real then Mary Jo Foley is getting bad information from her sources as "Windows 365" would in fact be in the works:

 

The most interesting part of the screenshot is of course “Windows 365″ with status “Alpha based on Windows Core”. It looks like Microsoft is indeed working on a Windows as a Service subscription model, much like Office 365, like WZOR rumored before. Nobody knows what exactly Microsoft has planned for Windows 365, but it looks like it could be a monthly/annual subscription that makes sure you always get the latest version of Windows, possibly on multiple devices.

 

Thanks vinifera, for the link and screenshot.

 

--JorgeA

Edited June 3, 2014 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Excerpt from a discussion of difficulties with the Windows 8.1 Update in Windows Weekly 357:

 

Mary Jo: Yeah. So — hasn't been quite smooth sailing. I had a couple people tell me they couldn't get I.E. to work anymore once they updated to Update. I had people that say all their Metro apps stopped working.

Paul: Wow. That sounds awesome. (Laughs)

[emphasis added!]

 

Good reason to install that Update...

 

--JorgeA

 

[Formfiller]

Coming from the guy who said the desktops needs to die.

 

I know I say nothing new, but Paul is such a weasel. He's the cardboard character of a snitch and turncoat.

 

Good thing he's some comp journalist in the USA of the 21st century. In other times or circumstances he would be most likely hanging from the gallows already.

[JorgeA]

No Microsoft Start Menu for Windows 8 until 2015: Sources

 

Microsoft won't be delivering a new Start Menu for Windows 8 with its coming Windows 8.1 Update 2, after all.

 

That recent change in plans comes courtesy of a couple of my sources who've had good track records on Windows information.

 

Up until recently, Microsoft was hoping to make a new "Mini" Start Menu part of a second update to Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 Update 2 was -- and still is, last I heard -- slated to arrive in August of this year.

 

Microsoft's operating systems group has decided to hold off on delivering a Microsoft-developed Start Menu until Threshold, the next "major" release of Windows. Threshold, which may or may not ultimately be called Windows 9, is expected to be released in April 2015. I'm not clear whether the postponement is because the feature won't be fully baked in time, or if there's another reason for the change in plans.

 

Microsoft still is moving full steam ahead with plans to try to make Windows 8.x more palatable and usable by those using mice and keyboards, as well as those used to previous Windows iterations. That strategy hasn't changed.

 

Critics and Metro fanboys are duking it out again in the comments sections there as well as on Paul Thurrott's site. Amazing that anybody still claims it's more efficient to use the Start Screen that obscures everything else and requires scrolling through screenfuls of low-density colored blocks to find the program whose name you can't quite remember.

 

--JorgeA

 

 

 

[JorgeA]

Coming from the guy who said the desktops needs to die.

 

I know I say nothing new, but Paul is such a weasel. He's the cardboard character of a snitch and turncoat.

 

Good thing he's some comp journalist in the USA of the 21st century. In other times or circumstances he would be most likely hanging from the gallows already.

 

Yeah, I'm not sure what to think of the guy. Right now I'm in a phase where I attribute Paul's current views to his having found the right prescription.

 

Would be interesting to catch Paul in front of a camera with somebody asking him to square what he said before about the Desktop needing to die, with what's he's been saying lately about Micorosft doing the right thing by bringing back the Start Menu.

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

And the beat goes on:

 

Secret Service Requests Software To Track Social Media Trends, Detect Sarcasm

The U.S. Secret Service is seeking software that can identify top influencers and trending sets of social media data, allowing the agency to monitor these streams in real-time – and sift through the sarcasm.

 

A work order posted online Monday shows that the agency desires analytics software that can watch users in real time, collecting a range of data including “emotions of Internet users to old Twitter messages” across multiple languages.

 

The Secret Service is also seeking software that can complete very succinct tasks within massive sets of continuously flowing social media data, such as locating users and detecting sarcasm.

 

How long before they start acting preemptively against individuals based on their speech? "Uh-oh, he has quite an attitude about the King President -- better start monitoring him!!

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images

 

 

The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.

 

The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency’s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed.

 

The agency intercepts “millions of images per day” — including about 55,000 “facial recognition quality images” — which translate into “tremendous untapped potential,” according to 2011 documents obtained from the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. While once focused on written and oral communications, the N.S.A. now considers facial images, fingerprints and other identifiers just as important to its mission of tracking suspected terrorists and other intelligence targets, the documents show.

 

“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information” that can help “implement precision targeting,” noted a 2010 document.

 

 

Say "cheese!"

 

--JorgeA

Edited June 5, 2014 by JorgeA

[jaclaz]

Say "cheese!"

 

--JorgeA

Without all due respect , be my guest, scan this :

 

jaclaz

[Flasche]

And the beat goes on:

 

Secret Service Requests Software To Track Social Media Trends, Detect Sarcasm

The U.S. Secret Service is seeking software that can identify top influencers and trending sets of social media data, allowing the agency to monitor these streams in real-time – and sift through the sarcasm.

 

A work order posted online Monday shows that the agency desires analytics software that can watch users in real time, collecting a range of data including “emotions of Internet users to old Twitter messages” across multiple languages.

 

The Secret Service is also seeking software that can complete very succinct tasks within massive sets of continuously flowing social media data, such as locating users and detecting sarcasm.

 

How long before they start acting preemptively against individuals based on their speech? "Uh-oh, he has quite an attitude about the King President -- better start monitoring him!!

 

--JorgeA

 

Sarcasm huh. Well I wish them luck with that for they are going to have a mighty good time trying to crack that one

[bphlpt]

 

Secret Service Requests Software To Track Social Media Trends, Detect Sarcasm

How long before they start acting preemptively against individuals based on their speech? "Uh-oh, he has quite an attitude about the King President -- better start monitoring him!!

 

Sarcasm huh. Well I wish them luck with that for they are going to have a mighty good time trying to crack that one

 

Yeah. We have enough of a hard time here when people can't tell when jaclaz is using sarcasm.

Cheers and Regards

[JorgeA]

 

Say "cheese!"

 

--JorgeA

Without all due respect , be my guest, scan this :

 

jaclaz

 

 

 

That's very good!!

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

The lengths to which the guvvies will go to hide their activities from the people who pay their salaries:

 

U.S. Marshals Seize Cops’ Spying Records to Keep Them From the ACLU

 

A routine request in Florida for public records regarding the use of a surveillance tool known as stingray took an extraordinary turn recently when federal authorities seized the documents before police could release them.

 

The surprise move by the U.S. Marshals Service stunned the American Civil Liberties Union, which earlier this year filed the public records request with the Sarasota, Florida, police department for information detailing its use of the controversial surveillance tool.

 

The ACLU had an appointment last Tuesday to review documents pertaining to a case investigated by a Sarasota police detective. But marshals swooped in at the last minute to grab the records, claiming they belong to the U.S. Marshals Service and barring the police from releasing them.

 

These records "belong" to the U.S Marshals??? (Note to sarcasm detector: ON.) Yeah, right -- show me your receipt. (OFF) The excuse offered later on in the article doesn't pass the laugh test.

 

This goes to show that the only "transparency" too many of our public servants are truly interested in is that of private citizens' lives. Who's serving whom, exactly?

 

--JorgeA

Edited June 6, 2014 by JorgeA

[Flasche]

The lengths to which the guvvies will go to hide their activities from the people who pay their salaries:

 

U.S. Marshals Seize Cops’ Spying Records to Keep Them From the ACLU

 

A routine request in Florida for public records regarding the use of a surveillance tool known as stingray took an extraordinary turn recently when federal authorities seized the documents before police could release them.

 

The surprise move by the U.S. Marshals Service stunned the American Civil Liberties Union, which earlier this year filed the public records request with the Sarasota, Florida, police department for information detailing its use of the controversial surveillance tool.

 

The ACLU had an appointment last Tuesday to review documents pertaining to a case investigated by a Sarasota police detective. But marshals swooped in at the last minute to grab the records, claiming they belong to the U.S. Marshals Service and barring the police from releasing them.

 

These records "belong" to the U.S Marshals??? (Note to sarcasm detector: ON.) Yeah, right -- show me your receipt. (OFF) The excuse offered later on in the article doesn't pass the laugh test.

 

This goes to show that the only "transparency" too many of our public servants are truly interested in is that of private citizens' lives. Who's serving whom, exactly?

 

--JorgeA

 

I dont know what to say to this. Kind of reminds of the NSA attacks on Tea party members.

[JorgeA]

More on a story we'd covered a few days ago:

 

China Declares a New Foe: Windows 8

 

The article sits behind a paywall, but the WSJ's Digits website provides a transcript of the Chinese news report.

 

Expert: It’s very easy for providers of operating systems to obtain various types of sensitive user information. They can find out your identity, your account information,your contact list, your mobile phone number. With all that data together, using big data analysis, a party can understand the conditions and activities of our national economy and society. The statistics collected will be more precise and up-to-date than that collected by our National Bureau of Statistics.

 

There's a boatload of irony here, considering that the Chinese government monitors and blocks Web news and discussions about subjects it disapproves of, but the very fact that they can say this about Microsoft with any plausibility is a sad commentary on the state of affairs.

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

 

The lengths to which the guvvies will go to hide their activities from the people who pay their salaries:

 

U.S. Marshals Seize Cops’ Spying Records to Keep Them From the ACLU

 

A routine request in Florida for public records regarding the use of a surveillance tool known as stingray took an extraordinary turn recently when federal authorities seized the documents before police could release them.

 

The surprise move by the U.S. Marshals Service stunned the American Civil Liberties Union, which earlier this year filed the public records request with the Sarasota, Florida, police department for information detailing its use of the controversial surveillance tool.

 

The ACLU had an appointment last Tuesday to review documents pertaining to a case investigated by a Sarasota police detective. But marshals swooped in at the last minute to grab the records, claiming they belong to the U.S. Marshals Service and barring the police from releasing them.

 

These records "belong" to the U.S Marshals??? (Note to sarcasm detector: ON.) Yeah, right -- show me your receipt. (OFF) The excuse offered later on in the article doesn't pass the laugh test.

 

This goes to show that the only "transparency" too many of our public servants are truly interested in is that of private citizens' lives. Who's serving whom, exactly?

 

--JorgeA

 

I dont know what to say to this. Kind of reminds of the NSA attacks on Tea party members.

 

 

+1

 

Here's somewhat more hopeful news:

 

Can This Little Orange Box Beat the NSA?

 

Germans are so weary and irate over allegations of US surveillance of their Chancellor, that they’re ready to back anything that protects them from the all-seeing NSA.

 

So perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that it took only three hours and 33 minutes for Protonet, a Hamburg-based startup which has built a “fixed, personal server,” to break a € 1 million funding limit on Seedmatch, a German crowdfunding site. It raised the money so fast that many potential Seedmatch investors didn’t have a chance to throw money at it.

 

[...]

 

Protonet deploys 2048 Bit SSL encryption, an extremely hard-to-break, new cyber security industry standard encryption certificate that can be used both in a closed local network and on the Internet. “We don’t offer 100% security—nobody can. What we offer is data sovereignty. I can decide who has access to my data and who has not,” company spokesman Philipp Baumgaertel said.

 

Once up and running, users can access data on a Protonet server using a computer or mobile device network just as they would a standard cloud service, but since the data never passes through a third party, Protonet claims data will be better protected. The servers run Protonet’s own custom version of Ubuntu Linux and comes with services similar to Skype, Dropbox, and other file-sharing programs. In essence, it works as a closed-circuit server, housed by customers on their own premises, and accessed through an invite-only social cloud.

 

Curious what you all think of this.

 

--JorgeA