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Windows 10 - Deeper Impressions


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What do they offer that you can't get by going and sitting quietly in the woods and listening to the wind blow through the leaves?

 

 

Spotify keeps one's head filled, otherwise silence takes over and you start to hear your own thoughts.

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Well, this is interesting...

 

Microsoft will list Windows 10 update details just for 'significant' improvements

 

 

Windows 10 users have download a number of small updates for the operating system since it launched on July 29, but so far Microsoft has not offered any specific details of what these update fix or improvement. Now a new statement from a Microsoft spokesperson claims that will apparently be the norm for most Windows 10 updates.

 

It seems our worst fears are becoming reality.

Edited by rn10950
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What's "Spotify"?

 

What do they offer that you can't get by going and sitting quietly in the woods and listening to the wind blow through the leaves?

 

-Noel

How silly, you cannot have mixtapes or custom made playlists without having friends and if you go in the woods it's unlikely you will make friends there, while spotify allows you to have mixtapes without having friends:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2488058,00.asp

https://press.spotify.com/us/2015/07/20/introducing-discover-weekly-your-ultimate-personalised-playlist/

Of course, if you happen to be tagged for loving (say) Country music, you may get each monday some two hours of more Country music, depending on what other Country music was listened to in the previous week by similarly tagged users and the more Country music people tagged as loving Country music will listen to, the more you (and they) will receive.

 

All in all, Spotify is good for those wandering in the woods that love Country music :w00t:, and should someone become lost there, they would know where to send search squads. :)

 

jaclaz

 

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Well, this is interesting...

 

Microsoft will list Windows 10 update details just for 'significant' improvements

 

 

Windows 10 users have download a number of small updates for the operating system since it launched on July 29, but so far Microsoft has not offered any specific details of what these update fix or improvement. Now a new statement from a Microsoft spokesperson claims that will apparently be the norm for most Windows 10 updates.

 

It seems our worst fears are becoming reality.

Isn't no news better than bad news? :unsure:

Ignorance is bliss.

 

jaclaz

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One thing I don't understand about this drive to monitor everything we do in the name of "improving" our experience and "personalizing" the service. Maybe someone can explain it to me.

 

What I don't understand is why all our information needs to leave our computer and go to somebody's outside server. Yes, I know that what they really want is to pepper us with "relevant" ads and make our personal information available to hackers and three-letter agencies. But in terms of the ostensible, official reason for sending our data to their servers -- how many of the services they offer could really not be provided without doing that? Why couldn't the data and the processing they do with it, reside on our device instead of their server? Or why couldn't it be sent anonymized to their server for processing and then deleted?

 

Consider a Web search with Cortana. "Hey Cortana, where's the nearest Starbucks?" At which moment the phone would take your current coordinates and match them with a map of Starbucks shops and display for you the ones that are located within, say, a 10-mile radius. The information thus generated (your interest in Starbucks, your location) would stay on your phone and anything that went to Microsoft's server would be erased immediately after use. That way, you would get the benefit of the service without surrendering your privacy.

 

A music service could keep track of what you like to listen to on your computer; this information would be sent anonymized to their server for the purpose of creating your playlist, then deleted and re-created the next time you launch the music service. What's so hard about this that requires you to surrender your privacy?

 

Is there a technical reason why this type of model could not work?

 

--JorgeA

 

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Well, this is interesting...

 

Microsoft will list Windows 10 update details just for 'significant' improvements

 

 

It seems our worst fears are becoming reality.

 

What, that geeks can get away with changing software without doing any documentation?

 

I'm sure that management not requiring any made it possible for the geeks to be paid less.

 

-Noel

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Microsoft Store has military discounts on Windows 10 PCs and more

 

For those that did not know, the Microsoft Store offers special discounts to those of you who are active duty members, reserve military personnel, and/or a military veteran. Individuals eligible to purchase from the Microsoft Store for Military includes current, former, and retired members and family members of the US Military, National Guard and Reserve in the United States. This offer is only valid in the United States and items can only be shipped in the United States.

 

Bet there's more than one foreign operative inside Microsoft that's eagerly hoping every soldier from Western armies will be carrying a Windows 10 device with them everywhere...

 

--JorgeA

 

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Is there a technical reason why this type of model could not work?

More than one. :yes:

Just as an example, the NSA may righteously want to check that you actually want a coffee (not that good but rather expensive[1]) and that you are not a terrorist looking for where to put a bomb, the Surgeon General needs the same data to check that you do not drink too many coffees , while the EPA through the RFID in the paper cup will be able to trace your litter.

 

jaclaz

 

[1] But with a good Wi-Fi complimentary service, which may become useful to connect your MAC/searches/web navigation/whatever with your choice of coffee, imagine when, just upon entering a Starbucks, you will be greeted by your favourite blend of coffe expressly made for you because the GPS position from your phone has been real-time cross checked with your habits so that the algorithm predicts when you are 100 m away that you are probably going to get a coffee at a 99.75% rate, thus optimizing the usage of the coffee making equipment, of course your credit card will be charged in advance (but you will get a refund in the 0.25% of cases you will just walk along without entering the shop)

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... Spotify is constantly innovating and evolving its service to deliver the best possible experience for our users. This means delivering the perfect recommendations for every moment, and helping you to enjoy, discover and share more music than ever before. The data accessed simply helps us to tailor improved experiences to our users, and build new and personalised products for the future ...

 

^ (The spanish inquisition certifies that the above video contains no gore) <_<

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Yep, that's where we seem to be heading.

 

BTW, at the end of the video when new suggested choices come up, one of them is the "vision video" that some Win10 supporters promote as showing where Microsoft would like to go with this IoT idea. No interface at all, computing embedded in the thing itself. Maybe that's why they're making the Windows UI so drab and boring: eventually (in their plans) it will disappear altogether.

 

 

^ (The spanish inquisition certifies that the above video contains no gore) <_<

 

:lol:

 

--JorgeA

 

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Well, some Americans, anyway.  But an adoption rate of tens of installs per second it's testament to how little people either know (or care?) whether their personal data is being sent elsewhere.  And to be fair, it's difficult to see that Win 10 is FAR more chatty online than any system that has come before.

 

Some would even say this is the wave of the future, and who knows, maybe with hundreds of millions of people having their entire personal lives potentially visible electronically there's safety in numbers.  After all, your being targeted would be less likely than being struck by lightning, right?

 

Or would it?  Mother nature doesn't have a computer to do her lightning stroke targeting.

 

But to further the "safety in numbers" concept a bit, imagine that if a few hundred million Americans just use Win 10 out of the box, while YOU have a firewall and a number of other informed measures to keep private, maybe you're better protected than ever before.

 

Reminds me of the old joke where two people are hiking and encounter a bear.  In the first second one says "Glad I've got my running shoes on."  The other gasps, "But you can't outrun a bear!"  The first retorts, "Don't have to - I just have to outrun you."

 

-Noel

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Yep :), seemingly the current trend is not anywhere looking like a steep rate in adoption:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-daily-20150729-20150821

as expected more or less noone in his/her right mind (i.e. using XP or 7) is racing to get it :no:, while a number of morons less experienced users are trading in their 8/8.1 for the new thing.

 

jaclaz

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Yep :), seemingly the current trend is not anywhere looking like a steep rate in adoption:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-daily-20150729-20150821

as expected more or less noone in his/her right mind (i.e. using XP or 7) is racing to get it :no:, while a number of morons less experienced users are trading in their 8/8.1 for the new thing.

 

jaclaz

 

That's an interesting graph. If we follow the fluctuations, we see that Windows 7 dips and then mostly recovers at around the same time as Windows 10 spikes up and then drops back down. This suggests a significant number of people reverting to Win7 after either trying Win10 or having it show up unexpectedly (and possibly unwanted) on their PCs.

 

Curiously, Windows 8.1 is also moving up and down concurrently with Windows 10. Note that XP usage also goes up and down on the same days, but in the same directions as Windows 7. Maybe that's people purchasing new PCs with Windows 8.1 to replace their old XP machines. But then XP also largely recovers after the temporary dip. After getting a Win8.1 machine and maybe the automatic upgrade to Win10, are most of these purchasers then reinstalling XP on their new machines? :unsure:

 

Note that the up-down cycles appear to take place on weekend dates -- August 1-3, 8-10, 15-17. This gives me another idea, which is that maybe people are using XP and Win7 computers at the office, then using Windows 8.1 and 10 machines at home on Saturday and Sunday. This theory sounds more likely to me.

 

Any other hypotheses to explain the synchronicity between the XP, 7, 8.1, and 10 fluctuations?

 

--JorgeA

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