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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 17 Issue 42
Volume 17, Issue 42 Atari Online News, Etc. November 6, 2015
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2015
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1742 11/06/15
~ Unbreakable Encryption ~ People Are Talking! ~ Star Citizen, Where?
~ PS4 Sales Beating PS2! ~ Twitter Gets Slammed! ~ Microsoft Gets Stingy
~ MS and Red Hat Team Up ~ Activision To Buy King ~ New Emoji Keyboard!
~ Portland Retro Gaming ~ New Snapchat Policies! ~ Microsoft Pushes Win10
-* MiNT Cross-tools for Ubuntu! *-
-* Facebook Changes Real-name Policy! *-
-* Supreme Court May Limit Class-action Suits *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Spring is finally here! Well, it certainly feels this way this
past week. One wouldn't imagine that we're well into the Fall
season, in early November. I have no problem dealing with this
kind of warm weather! I liken this weather to what could be
referred to as the "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" syndrome -
not too hot and not too cold - just right! It's forecast to
"cool" off a little this weekend, making it almost perfect
conditions for cleaning up some leaves; the trees have finally
decided to void themselves of most of their leaves!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
MiNT Cross-tools for Ubuntu 15.10 "Wily Werewolf"
Hello.
Ubuntu 15.10 "Wily Werewolf" has been released recently.
So I have rebuilt the GCC cross-tools for it (32 and 64-bit).
They are available at the same place as usual:
http://vincent.riviere.free.fr/soft/m68k-atari-mint/ubuntu.php
Enjoy!
PS: 6 months ago, I missed the release Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid
Vervet". So I have also rebuilt the cross-tools for it.
--
Vincent Rivière
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Star Citizen - Where Is It?
PS4 Sales Still Outpacing PS2!
And much more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void - Nova Covert Ops Announced
Blizzard has announced plans for post-launch content that will a
part of its upcoming StarCraft 2 expansion, Legacy of the Void.
Following launch, the expansion will be supported by series of
single-player mission packs titled Nova Covert Ops.
GameSpot interviewed StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void senior
designer Kristopher Howl about what to expect from Nova Covert
Ops, when it will be released, and why the studio decided to
develop single-player post-launch content for the game.
GameSpot: Tell us more about Nova Covert Ops. What type of game
is it? What audience are you targeting with it?
Howl: So for Nova Covert Ops, this is content for players that
have really enjoyed the campaign experience, which is a vast
amount of players. The vocal majority comes from multiplayer but
we have a huge player base that really enjoys campaign and that's
really all they play. So now we're offering more content for
those players and similar to the prologue where we have the three
missions. Except with Nova Covert Ops we will have that little
story interaction that you're used to with the campaign where you
can upgrade your units. So with Nova's background, being a ghost,
she unlocks some unique abilities for units that have this more
techy approach to them. She'll be able to upgrade her own weapons,
gear slots as well, like helmets that adjust visors so she gets
special abilities to take into missions with her. She'll be
present on the ground for you to run around and control. By
equipping these items you will have new abilities in that mission
to engage with.
It sounds like you're specifically focusing on Nova, and less of
the army management side of things?
No, there will definitely be the army management side of
StarCraft as well. That will be present. But she will have your
Terran units that you're used to playing throughout Wings of
Liberty, but she'll have her own unique upgrades that apply to
those units that change them up a little bit, and how they play.
There will be moments where it's just you and Nova running
through some spaces, but you'll definitely have you
army-building missions as well.
Story-wise, will this all be a part of the StarCraft canon?
It will tie into some of Nova's lore. This is really a chance to
explore her history a bit more, explain what the Terran
dominion's been up to since the events of Legacy of the Void. It
is taking place some time after the events of Legacy of the Void,
the dust has settled, the Terran Dominion is trying to repair
their homeworlds and the lives of their people. This will kick
off on a tangent that explores Nova's world a little more.
Will this purely be a single-player experience?
Nova Covert Ops will be yes, but separate to the Covert Ops
offering we'll also be pushing content for our co-op experience.
Is this going to be released as an expansion or more as an add-on
DLC?
It's not going to be a full-blown campaign like Void etc. It's a
shorter experience. There will be nine missions broken into three
mission packs.
And you'll be rolling them out episodically?
That's what we're aiming for, yes.
Any release timeframe you could give us?
We are aiming to get the first one out by the start of next year.
No exact date yet. We're just really trying hard to get it out
for early next year.
In terms of overarching plans for the Starcraft 2 series, is that
where it all ends, or is that something you're experimenting
with?
So we haven't announced plans beyond Nova Covert Ops. We're
certainly taking lessons that we've learned with Heroes and
Hearthstone, and their approach to content, and we're looking to
see how this goes.
The fact that she's established and that she's a ghost, we get a
lot of awesome avenues to come up with some unique mission
mechanics that we haven't had the opportunity to do before.
StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void will be released for PC on
November 10. Blizzard will also be kicking off its annual
BlizzCon convention over the weekend. GameSpot is in attendance
and covering the show, so be sure to check back on site for more
announcements as they roll out.
The Most Ambitious Space Game in History Has Raised $94 Million.
So Where Is It?
Would you pay $15,000 for a bunch of virtual spaceships?
Thats not a misprint. Go to the website for the upcoming,
as-yet-incomplete space simulation Star Citizen and youll find,
among the many items available for purchase, The
Completionist an embarrassingly expensive suite of 66 digital
spacecraft, from the massive Idris-P Frigate to the sleek F7C-S
Hornet Ghost.
Or, you can buy your spacecraft one at a time. The cheapest cost
about $20; others run several hundred. One the Javelin will
set you back $2,500, but you cant get one, because they were
released last December in a limited run of 200 and sold out
within minutes.
If this all sounds nuts and it should then you dont know
Star Citizen. Frankly, no one really does yet, because despite
raking in a record-setting $94 million in crowdfunded cash
(officially making it the biggest crowdfunded project ever),
its a year behind schedule.
Because of this delay and those conspicuously large price tags,
Star Citizen and its developer, Cloud Imperium Games, have drawn
intense scrutiny and become a lightning rod for a host of issues:
the ethics of crowdfunding, the limits of in-game purchases, and
the trustworthiness of the video game hype machine.
It all began three years ago, when veteran game designer Chris
Roberts launched a crowdfunding campaign for Star Citizen on
both Kickstarter and a proprietary site. During this initial run,
he raised an impressive $6 million.
Roberts rose to fame as the developer of the Wing Commander
series of space simulations that were hugely popular in the
1990s. Following the release of 2003s Freelancer, he switched
gears and focused on a second career as a film producer. That
didnt quite pan out, leading him to dream up a bigtime return to
games with Star Citizen, a complete universe where any number of
adventures can take place. Players would cruise a vast universe,
able not only to fly spaceships but also to walk around inside
them and participate, first-person-shooter style, in boarding
actions and hand-to-hand combat.
In other words, its the ultimate space game by one of the
genres pioneers.
Fans eagerly answered Robertss call. Their enthusiastic
participation propelled the crowdfunding effort to its
now-stratospheric numbers; a rabid microculture has developed
around the game. The games forums are packed with users (the
General Chat subforum alone has over 68,000 separate threads).
There are fan organizations with thousands of members. Theres a
copious library of fan fiction. You can read, right now, a
66-page flight manual for just one of the dozens of flyable
ships.
But the game itself, originally estimated to release in November
2014, remains a long way from completion. This is not, in itself,
so unusual. Games run behind schedule all the time. Some delayed
games were so good that all was immediately forgiven (see:
Half-Life 2). Some werent (see: Duke Nukem Forever). Still, good
or bad, such games were financed in the traditional way, by
investors and publishers. Consumer money wasnt on the line until
after release.
In the case of Star Citizen, consumer money has created what some
consider a disaster in the making.
Star Citizens most persistent critic has been Derek Smart, an
independent developer whos no stranger to controversial
space-simulation projects, having fought many an online flame war
over his troubled Battlecruiser series in the 1990s.
In recent months, Smart has played the role of gadfly, composing
lengthy screeds in which he alleges severe mismanagement and
even fraudulent behavior at Cloud Imperium. The four year, $90m+
Star Citizen video game project, is no longer a going concern,
Smart wrote in an October 6 blog post. The project is FUBAR and
there is no going back.
Meanwhile, an October 5 Escapist article, relying heavily on
quotes from anonymous ex-employees, bolstered the perception of
Cloud Imperium as a dysfunctional company unable to build the
game it had promised, and of Roberts as a starry-eyed dreamer
more interested in shooting expensive cutscenes with Gary Oldman
than in buckling down to release Star Citizen. The article
sparked threats of legal action against the Escapist, while a
parallel legal dispute blossomed between Smart and Roberts over
the latters claim that Smarts activities constituted stalking
and defamation.
In short, trying to sort out fact from fiction and truth from
vendetta is untangling a Gordian knot of Internet rage. But where
theres smoke, theres often at least a little fire, and theres
a lot of smoke here.
Yet in the midst of all this, Cloud Imperium has carried on,
projecting confidence that Star Citizen will eventually release
and be every bit as good as Roberts claims. A few weeks ago, the
developers showcased new gameplay footage and cutscenes before
cheering fans at CitizenCon 2015 (yes, the unreleased game
already has its own convention) in Manchester, England.
Far from being embarrassed about Star Citizens overreaching
ambition, Roberts insists its the projects strength. I dont
want to build a game. I want to build a universe, he says,
perhaps deliberately echoing the famous tag line of Origin
Systems, where he began his career: We create worlds.
For now, the only part of the game thats playable is Arena
Commander, a dogfighting simulation that allows backers to pilot
some of the games many spacecraft in small-scale multiplayer
battles and races. Other segments including a story-based
campaign called Squadron 42 and the vaunted Persistent
Universe, which is supposed to tie everything together have
not been given release dates. Meanwhile, other space sims like
David Brabens Elite Dangerous and Hello Games equally
ambitious No Mans Sky have either launched already or are
cleared for takeoff.
None of this would matter at all had Roberts not opted to largely
fund his vision through crowdfunding, which has in large part
been a boon to gaming.
Just ask the makers of smaller, niche games like Pillars of
Eternity or Wasteland, which have traded on the nostalgia older
gamers have for the hits of their youth. Its a way for
once-defunct genres to get a second chance without jumping
through corporate hoops. Crowdfunding is a form of communication,
a way for potential customers to tell developers, ahead of time,
that they would not only pine on message boards for their
product, but would put up hard-earned cash to make it a reality.
But when the crowdfunded tally gets as high as $94 million, the
game is no longer the plucky underdog its the 800-pound
gorilla. And a company with a 200-strong development team, as
Cloud Imperium now is, burns through a lot of cash each month.
Though the Star Citizen websites Terms of Service page claims
refunds will be forthcoming to any who request them if the game
hasnt launched within 18 months of its estimated release date,
its reasonable to wonder whether there would be enough money to
reimburse everyone should the majority ask for their money back.
And its hard not to be put off by those outrageous price tags
for virtual goods. The price for a traditional video game usually
falls somewhere between $20 and $60, depending on the genre, the
platform, the publisher, and how long ago it was released. To
charge hundreds, even thousands, for a tiny slice of a game,
savors of exploitation.
Yet this is an increasingly common practice. Many contemporary
games offer $100-plus packages of virtual coins and depend on
whales, who, like serious gamblers, are willing to pay money
far out of proportion to any conventional estimation of the
value theyre getting.
To play devils advocate, is Star Citizens Javelin spacecraft
any more useless than a $2,000 decorative rug? Is this just a
matter of antivirtual chauvinism? At least in Star Citizens
case, the whales are getting complex, handcrafted digital objects
for their money or will be when (if?) the game actually
launches.
Questions of mismanagement aside, Roberts and his team sincerely
want to make this game. Star Citizen was clearly not designed as
a long con, and the project was not launched with malice
aforethought. Nobody started out trying to bilk anyone out of
their money.
But its nonetheless troubling that Cloud Imperium seems, for
the moment, more efficient at generating revenue than it is at
producing the game it was founded to produce. With questionable
free-to-play models and in-app purchases generating considerable
controversy in recent years, Star Citizen putting the money cart
before the horse obviously strikes a nerve. Is a game company
about making money or making games? Ostensibly both, but the
order in which those occur is pretty important.
So is the plight of Star Citizen. If the game turns out to be the
fiasco its detractors already claim it is, it will send serious
ripples across the game industry and crowdfunding in general. The
pressures on, for sure, and only time will tell if Cloud
Imperium can keep it together and deliver on its heady promises
and hefty bank account.
Activision Blizzard To Purchase Candy Crush Studio King
With the deal expected to be completed by spring 2016, Activision
Blizzard announced that theyve signed a definitive agreement to
purchase King Digital Entertainment (Candy Crush) for $5.9
billion.
According to the accompanying press release, Activision Blizzard
believes that the addition of Kings highly-complementary
business will position Activision Blizzard as a global leader in
interactive entertainment across mobile, console and PC
platforms, and positions the company for future growth.
With the King acquisition, Activision Blizzard gains two of the
top five highest-grossing mobile games in the US with Candy Crush
Saga and Candy Crush Soda Saga. They add that Candy Crush joins
the worlds most successful console game franchise (Call of Duty),
and the worlds most successful PC franchise (World of Warcraft).
Activision Blizzard expects that this leading content, together
with expertise across subscription, upfront purchase,
free-to-play and micro-transaction business models will enhance
Activision Blizzards position as one of the worlds most
successful interactive entertainment companies, they said.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said:
The combined revenues and profits solidify our position as the
largest, most profitable standalone company in interactive
entertainment. With a combined global network of more than half a
billion monthly active users, our potential to reach audiences
around the world on the device of their choosing enables us to
deliver great games to even bigger audiences than ever before.
Minecraft Creator Notch weighed in on the deal:
King sold to Activision? What a bunch of sellouts! How dare they
oh wait hm nevermind uhhh damn
(Congratulations, my old bosses!)
10:51 PM - 2 Nov 2015
PS4 Sales Still Outpacing PS2, Closing in on 30 Million
Sony has released its financial report for the three months ending
September 30, 2015, revealing PS4 sales continue to soar.
4 million consoles were sold in the three months before Sony's
recently-announced price cuts came into effect, up from 3.3
million units in the same period last year. This brings the
lifetime total to 29.3 million - by comparison, star-performer
the PS2 had only managed 24.99 million in the same timeframe,
though the original Wii managed 34.55 million.
As a result of this overperformance, the company has now raised
the number of PS4 consoles it expects to sell this year from
16.5 million to 17.5 million. Last year it sold 14.8 million.
Notably, the company also flagged an increase in PlayStation 4
software sales, though PS3 game sales are naturally starting to
dwindle.
Overall, the Games and Network Services division brought in over
$3 billion in revenue, up 16 percent year-on-year, while
operating income was $199 million, up 9.8 percent. The division
is now bringin in more money than TVs, mobiles, movies and music.
The whole company reported $15.8 billion in revenue in the second
quarter, with a net profit of $280 million.
Activision Blizzards Strategy for World Conquest
Activision Blizzard has become the No. 2 publicly traded game
company in the world, second only to Chinas Tencent. It has done
so by being singularly committed to making the worlds biggest
video game franchises and putting everything behind them. Thats
the companys continuing strategy to dominate gaming and the
larger entertainment industry, and it communicated the full depth
of that strategy at its investor day today ahead of the Blizzcon
event in Anaheim, California.
Activision has occasionally diverged from that strategy over
35 years, but it has always come back to it. When current CEO
Bobby Kotick took over an ailing Activision in 1991, the company
had become known as lack of vision, Kotick recalled in a video.
They had so little money that they had to make every game a hit.
They still had passion. One of their earliest efforts, Return to
Zork, a visual retelling of the Zork text adventure, was a wild
success and it gave the company the capital to start making new
games. That started the companys focus on a franchise strategy.
Fast forward to today, and Activision Blizzard has franchises
that include Call of Duty, Destiny, Skylanders, Guitar Hero,
Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, and Candy Crush Saga,
which comes via its $5.9 billion pending acquisition of King.
With the addition of King, the company will serve more than 500
million players in 196 countries (compared to 70 million before
the deal). Kotick noted that the company would serve as many
countries as the Coca-Cola company, where Kotick serves on the
board.
Inspiration and creativity focused on the right priorities,
Kotick said on stage at the companys investor day at the
Blizzcon event in Anaheim, California. This is why our games are
so important to the lives of hundreds of millions of people. We
are expanding our capabilities across platforms, genres, audience
demographics, and geographies but always in the service of our
players.
Kotick said the focus will continue to be on providing the best
games. He said the company is delving deeper into esports with
the creation of a new division focused on it, and it is also
creating a movie studio to develop films and TV shows, created
internally to take advantage of the companys franchises.
As we launch our franchises in these broad, big, mass appeal
ways, youll see opportunities for other forms of engagement like
consumer products, Kotick said.
Traditional video games are a mature industry, of course. Thomas
Tippl, chief operating officer at Activision Blizzard, said on
stage that in the last decade, eight of the top ten titles come
from well-known franchises every year in the core console and PC
game business. From 2012 to 2015, only three new franchises
broke into the top 10, including Activision Blizzards Destiny.
The average life of a top-ten franchise is more than 10 years.
Were now also seeing the mobile space mature in this regard,
which is why we think now is the right time to invest in King,
Tippl said.
In 2012, when Candy Crush Saga debuted, the average age of the
top ten games on the mobile charts was a year. Five new
franchise broke into the top 10 in 2012. In 2015, the average
age is three years, and King is expected to have three of the
top ten titles.
Activision Blizzards digital business grew 22 percent this year.
Its priorities include deepening engagement with franchises, and
build enduring and beloved franchises with large, engaged social
communities with whom the company has a direct connection, Tippl
said.
On stage, Zacconi said King has 1,600 employees with 12 studios.
That started from nothing in 2003, and it was just 665 two years
ago.
This is the best team we could have joined in 2015, Zacconi
said. Our vision is to serve everyones gaming kingdom across
all platforms. King delivers bite-sized experiences anytime,
anywhere, Zacconi said.
Kings franchises include Candy Crush, as well as lesser-known
titles Bubble Witch, Farm Heroes, and Pet Rescue. The company
has three top 15 hits for the past seven quarters in mobile.
Next, under the combined business, King will take advantage of
Activision Blizzards franchises in the mobile market. And it
is creating its own mid-core titles, or those that are hardcore
in nature but played for short times, thanks to its own
acquisition of Z2Live, for launch in 2016.
The reason I feel confident we can deliver on this plan is that
we have built the team for it over the last 18 months, he said.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Portland Retro Gaming Expo: Hacked Carts,
Tetris Battles, and Atari Legends
Everything old was new again at October's annual Portland Retro
Gaming Expo, which overtook the city's major convention center
for two full days of arcade play, retro tournaments, and
presentations from some of gaming's biggest legends.
As opposed to more modern gaming expos such as PAX, it's a
little harder to leave a retro expos with something to describe
at length. That's not for lack of content. Retro gaming shows
feel both enormous and small because they distill down to a
seemingly endless number of micro-niches. Love the Atari Jaguar
console? You and maybe 50 other people will find a few booths
full of merch and rarities to make your heart swell. How about
old light gun games? You'll find a range of gun-mounted arcade
games that you can play without a single quarter, from later-gen
gems like Area 51 to early delights like Cheyenne.
Maybe you want to purchase every issue of Nintendo Power magazine
that you fell behind on as an early '90s fanboy, or compete
against children of the '70s in Atari Combat, or see original
Atari and Activision console game developers talk about squeezing
every last pixel out of the 2600's hardware, or pick up a ton of
colorful artwork based on classic characters. Events like the
Portland Retro Gaming Expo will happily indulge you.
The above video report also includes footage of the final
combatants in one of the weekend's two Tetris competitions. One
of them revolved around the NES version of the game, but we at
Ars didn't qualify for that one. Instead, we played in a Tetris
Ultimate tournament, revolving around that game's 2014
PlayStation 4 version (and we placed eight out of 16 to boot.)
Looking for old games, guitar controllers, or magazines? The
Portland Retro Gaming Expo had you covered.
In addition to all those elements in play at the PGRX, we found
flasks shaped like Nintendo cartridges, custom ROMs slapped into
old, working cartridges so you can play "new" games on old
systems, brand-new indie games, and much more. With an vast
array of nostalgia that was seemingly impossible to completely
capture, we gathered as many video clips and photos as possible.
Wait, what? Who is Zippy the Porcupine? And why's this for the
Atari 2600?
Despite its impressive range, the show did have one unifying
keynote panela talk hosted by Pong inventor Al Alcorn.
Alcorn knows that he's not necessarily the founder of home video
gaming, but he's pretty close. He was the third-ever employee of
Atari, then known as the oddly named Syzygy Engineering. And the
man who built Pong pretty much from scratch spoke at a panel
that, like most of the content at the PGRX, was a recap of
already known history and minutiae.
Mostly, Alcorn rehashed a few classic bygone Pong stories,
including the intriguing fact that the home version was
essentially a middle-finger reaction to Nolan Bushnell's
insistence that it be made. "Making a home Pong would require a
custom chip, and I couldn't make a custom chip, but Nolan wouldn't
stop," Alcorn told the Portland crowd before saying that Bushnell
"had the attention span of a golden retriever."
Alcorn also presented some funny rarities, particularly a letter
exchange between himself and Bushnell about the creation of the
Pong home version in which a single Alcorn question was answered
by the all-caps word "NO" in Bushnell's handwriting. He also
displayed a photo of the original home Pong prototype that was
demonstrated to Sears, Roebuck and Co. executives in the '70s.
There was even the utterly surreal experience of watching Al
Alcorn watch his own appearance on 2006's Space Ghost: Coast to
Coast. If you're a gaming fan who couldn't leave PGRX happy, we
don't know what to tell you.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Supreme Court May Limit Class-action Lawsuits Against Tech Industry
The U.S. Supreme Court justices, hearing arguments in a closely
watched tech industry case, sounded poised Monday to limit mass
lawsuits from people who sued after seeing false information about
themselves online.
Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court's conservatives said
lawsuits should be limited to people who can show they were hurt
in some way by inaccurate online data.
If the court ultimately rules that way, it would block or greatly
shrink class-action claims, filed on behalf of millions of
people, that have sent a scare through the tech industry.
The case of Spokeo vs. Robins asks a basic question about who can
sue in an era of Web commerce when countless transactions take
place online.
Can millions of consumers join a class-action suit if a company
allegedly violates provisions of a federal law, such as the
measures that regulate credit information or prohibit unwanted
phone calls and text messages? Or are these suits limited to
people who can show they were actually harmed?
Spokeo, a "people search engine" based in Pasadena, was sued in
a class claim brought on behalf of Thomas Robins, a Virginia man
who said his profile was entirely inaccurate.
He was described as married with children, in his 50s and with a
graduate degree and a professional job. None of that was true.
Robins said he was unemployed and unmarried.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco cleared his
suit to go forward because the Fair Credit Reporting Act sought
to protect consumers from inaccurate credit reports and
authorized damages of $100 to $1,000 for violations.
Justice Elena Kagan said Robins appeared to have a strong claim.
"Most people would feel they had been harmed," she said, if a
company posted "false information about you." And Congress
clearly thought that was a problem. "Don't we owe them a little
respect?" she asked, referring to members of Congress.
The court's liberal justices appeared to agree with her.
But Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy joined with the
chief justice in suggesting lawsuits must be limited to people
who can show they suffered an actual injury.
Roberts cited the example of someone who is upset to find his
unlisted telephone number posted online, but realizes the number
is wrong. How can such a person claim an injury under the
telephone privacy act? he asked.
The justices will meet behind closed doors to vote on the case,
and they are likely to issue a decision early next year.
Internet Firms To Be Banned From Offering
Unbreakable Encryption Under New Laws
Internet and social media companies will be banned from putting
customer communications beyond their own reach under new laws to
be unveiled on Wednesday.
Companies such as Apple, Google and others will no longer be
able to offer encryption so advanced that even they cannot
decipher it when asked to, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Measures in the Investigatory Powers Bill will place in law a
requirement on tech firms and service providers to be able to
provide unencrypted communications to the police or spy agencies
if requested through a warrant.
Councils and taxman to be given power to view your internet
history
The move follows concerns that a growing number of encryption
services are now completely inaccessible apart from to the users
themselves.
It came as David Cameron, the Prime Minister, pleaded with the
public and MPs to back his raft of new surveillance measures.
He said terrorists, paedophiles and criminals must not be allowed
a safe space online.
Ministers have no plans to ban encryption services because they
have an important role in the protection of legitimate online
activity such as banking and personal data.
But there is concern over some aspects of so-called end-to-end
encryption where only the sender and recipient of messages can
decipher them.
Terrorists and criminals are increasingly using such technology
to communicate beyond the reach of MI5 or the police.
Thames House, British Intelligence Mi5 Headquarters, in Millbank,
LondonThames House, the headquarters of MI5 Photo: EPA
On its website, Apple promotes the fact that it has, for example,
no way to decrypt iMessage and FaceTime data when its in
transit between devices.
It adds: So unlike other companies messaging services, Apple
doesnt scan your communications, and we wouldnt be able to
comply with a wiretap order even if we wanted to.
Last month, Metropolitan assistant commissioner Mark Rowley, the
countrys most senior counter-terrorism officer, warned that for
some firms it was a part of their strategy - they design their
products in full recognition that they will be unable to help us
because of the way they have designed them.
However, proposals to be published on Wednesday will, for the
first time, place a duty on companies to be able to access their
customer data in law.
A Home Office spokesman said: The Government is clear we need
to find a way to work with industry as technology develops to
ensure that, with clear oversight and a robust legal framework,
the police and intelligence agencies can access the content of
communications of terrorists and criminals in order to resolve
police investigations and prevent criminal acts.
That means ensuring that companies themselves can access the
content of communications on their networks when presented with
a warrant, as many of them already do for their own business
purposes, for example to target advertising. These companies
reputations rest on their ability to protect their users data.
The Investigatory Powers Bill is also expected to maintain the
current responsibility for signing off requests to snoop with
the Home Secretary but with extra judicial oversight a move
that is likely to anger civil liberty campaigners and some Tory
backbenchers.
It will also require internet companies to retain the web
browsing history of their customers for up to a year.
The bill is expected to face a tough route through parliament but
Mr Cameron urged critics to back the measures.
He told ITVs This Morning: As Prime Minister I would just say
to people 'please, let's not have a situation where we give
terrorists, criminals, child abductors, safe spaces to
communicate'.
"It's not a safe space for them to communicate on a fixed line
telephone or a mobile phone, we shouldn't allow the internet to
be a safe space for them to communicate and do bad things."
Lord Carlile, the former terrorism laws watchdog, said there had
been a lot of demonization of the police and security services
over their intentions for such information.
I think it is absurd to suggest the police and the security
services have a kind of casual desire to intrude on the privacy
of the innocent, he said.
They have enough difficulty finding the guilty. No-one has
produced any evidence of casual curiosity on part of the security
services."
Facebook Finally Changes Real-name Policy
Facebook on Friday finally changed the real-name policy that has
made using the service difficult for drag queens, the LGBTQ
community, Native Americans, those who use pseudonyms, and
persecuted groups.
The Nameless Coalition, consisting of 75 human rights, digital
rights, LGBTQ, and womens rights advocates - including the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) - had penned an open letter (PDF) to
Facebook, on October 5, 2015, explaining why the policy is broken
and how Facebook could mitigate the damages it causes.
The coalition included an appendix to the letter that contained
multiple stories of how people have been harmed by the real-name
policy.
A few of many stories, excerpted from the appendix:
Journalists and human rights activists in Vietnam have been
flagged en masse and forced to stop using pen names on Facebook.
One user, a mother with two imprisoned sons, had largely used
her account to campaign for their release from prison. In every
case, Facebook asked the activists to verify their identities.
To make matters worse, in several cases, when the activists
submitted their identity documents, Facebook unilaterally
altered their accounts to list their legal names, without consent
or notice.
Facebook enforced the policy against a user known as Lily in
December 2014, forcing her to use her legal name. Only two weeks
later a man who had, two decades earlier, beat and sexually
abused Lily sent her a private message. My blood ran cold, I was
sweating, and [having] heart palpitations opening the message."
In the United States, Native American Dana Lone Hill was
locked out of her account and repeatedly refused reactivation
even after submitting multiple IDs, a library card, and a piece
of mail showing her Lakota name. As one Native user points out,
"I think that Facebook has to have no general knowledge of Native
Americans or their surnames."
On Friday, Facebook responded with its own letter.
Alex Schultz, Facebook's VP for growth and internationalization,
published a letter answering the coalition's criticism and
suggestions.
Schultz said that a Facebook team is now working on these changes
and expects to test them in December:
A reduction in the number of people asked to verify their
name on Facebook, when they're already using the name people know
them by.
Making it easier for people to confirm their name if necessary.
One thing at issue has been Facebook's failure to provide
technical details and documentation on the process of submitting
identity information, including where and how it's stored, for
how long, and who can access it.
The Nameless Coalition had asked Facebook to provide users with
the ability to submit the information using PGP or another common
form of encrypted communication, so that their identity
information would be protected during the submission process.
Done, Schultz said: going forward, IDs submitted to Facebook as
part of the identity verification process will be encrypted when
they're temporarily stored on Facebook's servers.
What's more, Facebook's ability to decrypt the IDs will expire
after 30 days, and the IDs will be deleted shortly thereafter.
More changes in the works include requiring people to provide
additional information about why they're reporting a profile.
As it now stands, it's trivial for any Facebook user to file
reports claiming that a fellow user is violating the real-name
policy. Abuse reporters haven't had to submit any evidence
whatsoever to support their claims.
As the Nameless Coalition had pointed out, those reporting
supposed abuse can "file as many reports as they wish, as quickly
as they wish, allowing targeted reporting sprees" - including
those targeting Vietnamese journalists and activists and many
others in South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
In fact, it turned out that one, lone Facebook user was behind
the mass-reporting of the accounts of drag queens, drag kings,
transgenders and others in the LGBT community that in September
2014 had resulted in the account lock-outs of multiple
performers.
Schultz said that changes to the real-name policy include a new
process that will let people provide more information about
their circumstances - information that Schultz said should help
Facebook's Community Operations team better understand
individuals' situations, including the reasons why people cant
confirm their names, and thus help the company to potentially
make future changes.
These are substantive changes, but make no mistake, Facebook's
real-name policy isn't going away.
Facebook will still require people to use the name that their
friends and family know them by. It has no plans to change that,
given that the company continues to stand by its belief that the
policy helps make Facebook safer.
Schultz:
When people use the name others know them by, they are more
accountable for what they say, making it more difficult to hide
behind an anonymous name to harass, bully, spam or scam someone
else.
In fact, when Facebook reviewed its reports from earlier this
year, it found that bullying, harassment or other abuse is eight
times more likely to be committed by people using names other
than their own than by the rest of the Facebook community,
Schultz said:
When profiles were reported to us and our reviewers asked the
person to verify the name on the profile, our analysis showed
that the people behind these inauthentic profiles were much more
likely to be involved in some form of bad behavior.
Still, Schultz said, Facebook is well aware that the current
process doesn't work for everyone.
It's a tough balancing act, he said, but the company is "deeply
invested in making this better."
Ive seen first hand how people including LGBT people
can be bullied online by people using fake or impersonating
accounts. At the same time, Ive walked with our head of
Community Operations at Pride in San Francisco, and heard the
feed-back from the LGBT and other communities that our policy
and tools arent enabling people to be their authentic selves on
Facebook.
We also understand the challenges for many transgender people
when it comes to formally changing ones name. Thats why were
making changes now and in the future, and will continue to engage
with you and all who are committed to looking after the most
vulnerable people using our product.
Its a balance to get this right we want to find a line
that minimizes bullying but maximises the potential for people
to be their authentic selves on Facebook.
One of the performers targeted in the reporting spree on the
LGBT community in September 2014, Sister Roma, said in a
Facebook post that she's scheduled to meet with Facebook and
reps from key LGBT organizations on Tuesday (Nov. 3).
Stay tuned, she said. But at this point, it's looking like
Facebook's truly listening:
It looks like our hard work and protests are finally going
to result in some tangible changes to the fake name reporting
option.
Twitter Inc Gets Slammed By Users For The Heart Like Button
[Earlier this week], Twitter Inc made a change to its social
network with the possible hope of attracting new users, but instead
ended up hurting its existing ones. Under the recently appointed
chief executives command, the company unveiled a new feature that
replaced the traditional favorite button with a new like one.
Watching the star icon changed to a heart, Twitter users
unanimously expressed their outrage within hours of the update,
ridiculing the company for trying to be more like Facebook Inc.
Ever since the co-founder, Jack Dorsey, was made interim CEO, the
company started making big moves and saw changes in its strategy.
After Mr. Dorsey was granted the job permanently, he announced
that bringing in more users to the social network was his top
priority, amid substantial shifts taking place in the company.
One of the efforts made by Twitter to achieve Mr. Dorseys
prioritized goal was to change the historic favorite button with
the like one.
The fact that it is called like is probably the first thing
that got the users to face-palm, but there are a lot of angles as
to why Twitter is getting so much hate from its stagnant
user-base. Firstly, Twitter users had a lot of love for the
favorite star button and found it more expressive, than how star
or favorite buttons are commonly used in other networks and
applications. Twitter users gradually and subtly built and agreed
on different meanings to when a tweet gets a star, depending on
the situation.
Initially, the star button means that a user considers a tweet his
favorite. However, the star button is also often used as a
hate-fave button, when users are so enraged by a specific tweet
that they sarcastically add a star to it rather than retweet or
share it. Then, theres a flirt-fave that users subtly use to let
their crush know when the tweet is smart or funny. Then, theres
the favorite that is used to acknowledge someones response to the
tweet, without having to elongate the conversation.
Now, the new heart brings love into the situation, which makes it
an awkward circumstance that previously wouldnt have been with
the star. No one wants to like or heart a tweet that they want
to sarcastically mark as their favorite. Similarly, pressing the
heart button on your crushs tweet may not be so comfortable,
since no one wants to feel like a creep.
Last but not the least, the like sounds like a rip-off of
Facebook. The Like was originally on the biggest social network
and has been almost always attached to it. Liking content on
Facebook is the most done activity carried out on a daily basis,
more than shares or comments. Now, Facebook is also shifting
towards the belief that the Like button is not the most suitable
way to express a users exact opinion. In case of tragic events
or natural disasters, Liking a certain news piece can give off
the very wrong impression to other users. Thus, Facebook is
coming up with more buttons and ways in which users can express
their emotions.
With the introduction of the heart like, Twitter is not only
late to the party, which Facebook is the chief guest of, but it
is dressed completely inappropriate. People look to Twitter as
something more than a social network. They see it as a platform
where people can converse over important issues. Twitter offers
services for spreading information and news and was recently
ranked as the most important social platform for sales people.
Thus, the new Like button contradicts the market's and companys
perception of Twitter, as it adds an air of informality, while
taking away the expressive feature that evolved over years and
was adopted unanimously.
Thus, Twitters new heart button in place of the star is a
complete flop. While the company works on making its network
easier to use and more attractive, in order to induce
user-growth, a goal it has been long struggling with, it has
instead ended up repelling its current loyal userbase. However,
dont be sad just yet, for we have ways to undo what Mr. Dorsey
did to your Twitter.
Those who use the Chrome web browser can download extensions
from the App Store to get their Favorite Stars back. The quick
and easy way is downloading Twitter Star that automatically
changes the heart icon to the star one. Alternatively, one may
download Twitter Favorite and change the icon manually. However,
using these extensions will only change the icon for you and the
rest of the Twitter world, who arent using them, will see
hearts instead of the star. We sincerely advice Twitter to stop
looking at Facebook for ideas and instead devise their own ways.
Microsoft Gets Stingy with Free Online Storage
Microsoft is getting stingy with online storage.
The company just cut the free space it offers through its
OneDrive service by two-thirds, making it the second major
company to retreat from a consumer cloud-storage boom that
tempted users with price cuts and ever-larger free offers.
Starting next year, Microsoft will cut its free option to
5 gigabytes, down from 15 gigabytes now. Microsoft says the new
allotment is enough for about 6,600 Office documents or 1,600
photos.
Earlier this year, Amazon eliminated a free 5 gigabyte storage
plan, although it still offers that amount to those who pay for
its Prime loyalty program.
Microsoft is also effectively doubling prices for some storage
plans. It will charge $2 a month for 50 gigabytes of storage,
including the free allotment, rather than the 100 gigabytes it
currently offers at that price. The company is eliminating a
$4-a-month, 200 gigabyte plan.
Subscribers to Microsoft's Office 365, which offers word
processing, spreadsheet and other apps starting at $7 a month,
will now be limited to 1 terabyte, or 1,000 gigabytes, of
storage. The company is killing off an "unlimited" option that
it said a "small number of users" had abused by backing up
numerous personal computers and storing entire movie collections.
As with similar services from Google, Dropbox and others,
OneDrive can store just about any type of files. Apps can
automatically sync what you store on a device.
Under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has emphasized mobile and
online services such as OneDrive over traditional sales of
Windows and Office software for personal computers. The company
has offered services for free as a way to hook people into using
other services, such as Microsoft's ad-supported Bing search
engine and the Office 365 subscription.
Microsoft didn't explain why it was cutting back its storage
offer, or why it advertised an "unlimited" option if actually
using large amounts of storage posed a problem. The company
declined to comment beyond a blog post it published Monday night.
Microsoft says it will give people time up to a year in some
cases to remove files that exceed its new limits.
Here's a look at some of the alternatives:
DROPBOX: People get only 2 gigabytes for free, but can earn
bonuses by getting friends to sign up or by uploading photos
automatically from phones. After that, it's $10 a month for a
terabyte of space. Business plans with unlimited storage cost $15
a month per person, with a minimum of five people.
GOOGLE DRIVE: It's 15 gigabytes of free storage to start, but
that includes Gmail messages on the account. Photos of up to
16 megapixels, which covers most phones, won't count toward the
limit. For more storage, prices range from $2 a month for 100
gigabytes to $300 for 30 terabytes.
APPLE'S ICLOUD: Free storage starts at 5 gigabytes, which
includes what's needed for iPhone backups. Those needing more can
pay $1 a month for 50 gigabytes, $3 for 200 gigabytes or $10 for
1 terabyte. iCloud storage works best with Apple devices.
AMAZON CLOUD DRIVE: Amazon offers unlimited photo storage and
5 gigabytes for video and other files for $12 a year, or $1 a
month. For unlimited storage of all files, it's $60 a year, or
$5 a month. Members of Amazon's $99-a-year Prime loyalty program
get the lower option for free. Amazon eliminated its 5-gigabyte
free plan in March.
YAHOO: Although Yahoo doesn't have a general file-storage
service, it offers a generous 1 terabyte for e-mail and an
additional 1 terabyte for photos and video through Flickr.
Snapchat Tries To Soothe Users Who Find New Policies #Scary!
You know that cute little ghost logo, implying that Snapchat's
snaps are some kind of ethereal, transitory, "now-you-see-it,
now-you-don't", disappearing phantasm?
Given the amount of angst over recent policy language tweaks, is
it time for a new logo - something more along the lines of a
ghost cast in concrete?
When Snapchat released a new app update last week, it came with
a new privacy policy and new terms of service that left some
users irked.
By agreeing with the company's new terms of service, users have
been dismayed to find that they're now granting Snapchat "a
worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and
transferable license" to:
...host, store, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit,
publish, create derivative works from, publicly perform,
broadcast, distribute, syndicate, promote, exhibit, and publicly
display that content in any form and in any and all media or
distribution methods (now known or later developed).
"Perpetual": it's not exactly a term you'd associate with
disappearing-image social media app Snapchat, which has, since
its launch in 2011 (originally launched under the name Picaboo),
become wildly popular, particularly with young people.
Snapchat on Sunday tried to soothe freaked-out users, saying that
there's nothing new or scary here.
It said in a post that this has all been a misunderstanding: as
long as content is set to be private, it's still going to be
deleted off its servers:
First off, we want to be crystal clear: The Snaps and Chats
you send your friends remain as private today as they were before
the update. Our Privacy Policy continues to say as it did
before that those messages "are automatically deleted from our
servers once we detect that they have been viewed or have
expired." Of course, a recipient can always screenshot or save
your Snaps or Chats. But the important point is that Snapchat is
not and never has been stockpiling your private Snaps or
Chats. And because we continue to delete them from our servers as
soon as they're read, we could notand do notshare them with
advertisers or business partners.
True, Snapchat said, the new Terms of Service grant the company a
broad license to use the content users create, but that's common
to services like Snapchat and gives it a license necessary for
doing things like sharing snaps submitted to Live Stories,
replaying them or syndicating them, none of which is new.
The updated terms of service inform users that Snapchat and its
business partners reserve the right to use:
...your name, likeness, and voice in any and all media and
distribution channels (now known or later developed) in connection
with any Live Story or other crowd-sourced content you create,
upload, post, send, or appear in.
It tried to be clear about how the Privacy Policy and users' own
privacy settings could restrict the scope of that license so that
users' "personal communications continue to remain truly
personal," Snapchat said, but nonetheless, freak-out ensued.
More from the new privacy policy:
We can't guarantee that messages and corresponding metadata
will be deleted within a specific timeframe. Keep in mind that we
may also retain certain information in backup for a limited
period of time or as required by law. This is true even after
we've deleted messages and corresponding metadata from our
servers.
Snapchat's popularity has much to do with its so-called
"disappearing" photo messages that last up to 10 seconds and
which can't be viewed again once opened.
At least, that's what the company was once in the habit of
claiming. Naked Security poked holes in that claim back in 2013.
Snapchat has some common-sense language in its policies that
state what critics, including Naked Security, have pointed out
for a while: snaps can be captured by various software or by
screenshot, or simply photographed.
At any rate, Snapchat's popular for more than sending nude
images. (Though that sure was a problem with The Snappening of
2014, when at least 100,000 snaps got pried out of a third-party
site that allowed Snapchat users to save snaps.)
Researchers recently found that Snapchat's mundane, non-archived
messages make users feel like they're having face-to-face
conversations - the kind of non-recorded exchange that takes
place within close relationships and actually appears to leave
users feeling happier than they do on Facebook.
But in light of the new privacy policy and terms of service, some
Snapchat users weren't exactly what you'd describe as happy.
Actor and former White House Associate Director of Public
Engagement Kal Penn is being credited with first stirring the
user base on Thursday when he pointed out what looked like major
changes to Snapchat's policy:
Kal Penn ? @kalpenn
Read the new @Snapchat privacy/legal policies before deciding
whether to click yes. Scary stuff in there, kids.
Besides the new "perpetual" right to user content, the new
privacy policy also allows users' (non-private!) content to "be
shared with other Snapchatters and potentially the public at
large."
Users are being asked to accept the new terms after downloading
the latest version of the app. But the details aren't presented
upfront: rather, you have to dig around to get at them.
The new terms were viewed by many as a rather stark contrast
with the former version of Snapchat's privacy policy, which as
of November 2014 stated that "delete is our default", adding
that:
In most cases, once we detect that all recipients have viewed
a message, we automatically delete it from our servers.
Messages in Snapchat's newly expanded Replay feature, or those
added to the My Story feature and its Snapcash payment feature,
have always been saved to Snapchat servers.
The new policies creeped out users who feared that Snapchat was
grabbing the right to use their content however it sees fit.
One such:
Prascilla Upadhaya @pmoneyyy13
I can't sleep so I just read Snapchat's terms and conditions,
and privacy policy.... Oh dear
And more of the same:
PALOMA MICHELLE @Palomaofficial
@Stefano pretty awful. We lost our privacy years ago... Only
getting worse.
It sounds like the new policies aren't all that different from
Snapchat's old policies, at any rate: the company says the main
reasons it rewrote the policies aren't to give it a perpetual
license to grab user content (unless it hasn't been marked as
private, so it might be a good time to check your privacy
settings).
Rather, it was to make the policy easy to understand, in plain
language that reads like the way that people actually talk.
Crafting a policy that mimics the way that people talk doesn't
keep miscommunication from creeping in, obviously!
Microsoft and Red Hat Announce New Open Source Partnership
In what Microsoft is describing as perhaps its deepest
partnership with another major enterprise infrastructure player
to date, the company is joining forces with leading Linux and
open source provider Red Hat to ensure that their respective
operating systems and cloud platforms technologies interoperate.
The partnership, announced today, will involve a Red Hat
engineering team moving to Redmond to provide joint technical
support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux workloads running in the
Microsoft Azure public cloud and on its hybrid cloud offerings.
The pact also calls for applications developed in the Microsoft
.NET Framework language to run on RHEL, OpenShift and the new
Red Hat Atomic Host container platform.
If describing this pact as the deepest partnership ever sounds
like hype, neither Microsoft or Red Hat has made such a claim
with other jointly announced partnerships.
"We don't do this depth and level of support with any other
partner at this point," said Paul Cormier, Red Hat's president
of products and technologies, during a Web conference announcing
the pact. "It's a much more comprehensive partnership than we
have with any of our other public cloud providers. The
colocation of our support teams is really a significant
differentiator for our enterprise customers."
The other differentiator is that Windows and RHEL are the most
widely deployed enterprise server platforms, he said. Scott
Guthrie, Microsoft's EVP of Cloud and Enterprise, who was on the
webcast with Cormier, agreed. "I am not aware of us doing
anything like this with any other partner before," Guthrie said.
Making the agreement even more noteworthy is it's coming from
companies that once had nothing but disdain for each other.
"There wasn't much trust there," Cormier said flatly.
The devil will be in the details and execution of what the two
onetime rivals announced today and whether it lives up to its
promise. Specifically there are five components to what the two
companies hope to deliver:
Combined support services for hybrid cloud including Red Hat
products and on-premises customer environments running on
Microsoft Azure. "What this means is as we bring our solutions
together to solve customers' real problems," Cormier said. "We
need to do that in such a way that we can really give enterprise
class support that our customers want, need and expect." To
accomplish this, he said Red Hat will collocate its engineers with
Microsoft's so when issues or questions arise regarding
integration points, their respective engineers will work together
to address them.
Red Hat will use the newly open sourced .NET technologies in
its platforms including RHEL, its OpenShift cloud PaaS offering
and Red Hat Atomic Host, the company's container offering. This
integration will let developers build applications that include
.NET services, which could be more appealing now that Microsoft
has open sourced the framework. "I think this will give us
greater interoperability across the technologies and really start
to give our customers the heterogeneous world that they really
want," Cormier said.
Subscriptions to Red Hat products supported on Azure and
Windows will be supported by Red Hat the same way that they are
supported when running in traditional enterprise environments.
Red Hat will also expand cooperation and work on Windows being
supported on Red Hat products including RHEL, OpenStack and
OpenShift.
Red Hat's systems management offering Cloud Forms will
include management of workloads on Azure. This should provide a
common management pane for physical workloads and private
cloud
environments including its OpenStack distribution and OpenShift.
Microsoft is joining the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service
Provider Program (CCSP) to provide certified support for all of
its products in Azure. With Microsoft joining the CCSP, Guthrie
said that "Red Hat subscriptions will become portable to
Microsoft Azure, with full Red Hat cloud access, enabling a
consistent application platform on and off premises."
The two teams will start their collocation in Redmond over the
next few weeks, Guthrie said. Over time, they may send teams to
other locations as well. In the coming months, Guthrie said the
two companies will let customers sign up and pay for licenses of
Red Hat products on Azure on a usage basis.
"You'll see the integration of the Red Hat CloudForms offering
with both Azure and our System Center VMM product that will
enable consistent workload management in a hybrid way," Guthrie
said. "We'll also enable Red Hat enterprise Linux Atomic Host on
Azure and basically deliver a supported and certified small
footprint container host that customers can use for enterprise
Linux containers."
The deal is the latest evidence that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
meant business when he said last year that "Microsoft loves
Linux" and gave further evidence in our September cover story
that Microsoft's DNA is changing. Now the onus is on both
companies to make their respective wares interoperate as they
promised today.
Share Your Feelings With This Emoji Keyboard
Stop searching your tablet or Web app for the perfect emoticon;
just type it with the new Emoji Keyboard.
Developed by Austin-based EmojiWorks, the accessory looks like a
generic wireless keyboard that an overzealous teenager adorned
with colorful stickers. But this is 2015, so those "stickers"
are actually emoji.
Available in three versions, the Emoji Keyboard syncs with Apple
devices (and Windows 10 in beta), ensuring that poop, unicorn,
and taco characters are only a tap away.
The base model comes with 47 "common emoji"thumbs up, smiley
faces, robot head, heart, music notesfor $89.95. Priced at
$99.95, the Plus edition doubles the number of icons and unlocks
the five skin-tone modifiers.
For the most emoji-literate users, a $109.95 configuration
promises more than 120 characters, for all your food, weather,
sports, and animal needs.
Pre-order now for a $10 discount on all three devices, which ship
internationally via USPS. Plus, hand out your unique referral
link to friends, and earn a $5 credit and a higher place in the
queue for each person who buys a keyboard.
"We didn't build a keyboard that has emoji, we built your life
looking back at you from little square keys," the EmojiWorks'
website said. "The keys on the Emoji Keyboard reflect the vast
range of emotional experiences you have.
"Wherever life takes you, you go there with more than thoughts.
You go with people and the emotions you share, the company
continued. "Emoji may be the medium, but the message is all
you."
Following Unicode's summer announcement of 41 new characters
including nerd face, hot dog, popcorn, crab, and prayer beads
Apple last month pushed out zodiac signs, the burrito, and a
table-tennis paddle and ball, among other symbols, to iOS 9.1
devices.
Microsoft To Discontinue Windows 7 and 8.1 Next November
Still want to buy a PC that comes with Windows 7 or 8.1 from the
get-go? You've got less than a year.
Updated late October, Microsoft's "Windows lifecycle fact sheet"
shows October 31, 2016, as the "end of sales for PCs with Windows
preinstalled" for both Windows 7 Professional and Windows 8.1, a
change spotted by CNET sister site ZDNet. After that date, the
only choice for consumers will be to purchase new computers with
Windows 10 installed. The lone exception will be businesses with
license agreements that entitle them to choose which version of
Windows they want preinstalled.
The deadline puts pressure on consumers who have grown comfortable
with Windows 7 and are reluctant to upgrade their operating system
if they buy a new PC. For Microsoft, it's a necessary step toward
its goal of having Windows 10 power 1 billion devices, which
underscores the company's message that the new software can tie
together PCs, tablets and mobile phones with apps that can run on
any of them.
Windows 7 users may not realize it, but they actually caught a
break. Microsoft typically sets the end-of-sales date for each
version of Windows two years after the release of a new version.
That means Windows 7's cutoff date should have been in October
2014, two years after the launch of Windows 8. The lack of
consumer demand for Windows 8 prompted Microsoft to keep
Windows 7 alive longer than expected.
Users who want to continue running Windows 7 on their existing
PCs need not worry. Extended technical support will be available
until January 14, 2020, when you'll still be able to get security
patches, bug fixes and other updates. The same type of support
for Windows 8 will run until January 10, 2023.
Despite the extended deadline for Windows 7 and 8.1, Microsoft
is heavily pushing Windows 10.
The new operating system, which launched at the end of July, is
available as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and 8.1 users for the
first year. Microsoft has been using frequent pop-up notices to
remind those who reserved a copy to install the new operating
system. The company has also classified Windows 10 as an
"optional update" and early next year expects to change that to
a "recommended update," Windows and Devices Group executive vice
president Terry Myerson said last week.
Microsoft Making Changes To Accelerate Windows 10 Upgrades
Microsoft announced some Windows 10 upgrade changes this week,
mostly affecting consumer users.
One change of note for IT pros is that Windows Update will soon
be showing Windows 10 as an "optional update" for Windows 7 and
Windows 8.1 users. However, Microsoft plans to bump it up to a
"recommended update" sometime "early next year." The operating
system could automatically install as a recommended update,
depending on an organization's Windows Update settings, Microsoft
warned. However, it will be possible to roll back these
Windows 10 upgrades within 31 days if wanted, according to
Microsoft's announcement.
Such automatic updates could be costly on metered networks as
Windows 10 is a 3GB download. Microsoft's announcement promised,
though, that "Windows 10 will not automatically download updates
on a metered connection unless there is a security issue
addressed within the update."
Another change possibly affecting IT pros is that Microsoft plans
to enhance its free Media Creation Tool to facilitate upgrades to
Windows 10 Home and Pro editions. It's not clear exactly what
will be enhanced, though, based on Microsoft's announcement. The
tool can be downloaded and used to create 32-bit or 64-bit
Windows 10 ISOs, either for upgrades or clean installs across
multiple machines. The ISOs get created using DVDs or USB drives.
Microsoft's Media Creation Tool currently can't be used to
install the Enterprise and Education editions of Windows 10.
Instead, those volume licensees can access Windows 10 ISOs
directly from Microsoft's Volume Licensing Service Center.
Windows 10 is being offered as a free upgrade, but it's mostly
aimed at consumer users of Windows 7 and Window 8.1. The free
upgrade offer is not for domain-joined computers. Still, there
could be scenarios where organizations will get offered the free
upgrade across machines, and they possibly might use the Media
Creation Tool to perform multiple upgrades. However, those
upgrades right now are tied to Microsoft's upgrade reservation
system, which means that reservations need to be set for each
eligible Windows device, according to an early explanation by
Microsoft MVP Andre da Costa, in a Windows 10 FAQ.
It seems, though, that such a scenario is changing. Microsoft
explained today that it is now dispensing with the reservation
system for Windows 10 upgrades. That system let people sign up to
get Windows 10, but they'd still have to wait months for the
installation to actually happen. Now, if the upgrade invite is
accepted, Microsoft's Windows Update service will install
Windows 10 right away.
Upgraders will get a notice when the bits are available to
install Windows 10. If installed, they'll have 31 days to roll
back to the old Windows, if wanted. The rollback is possible
because Microsoft now keeps "a full copy of your previous
operating system on your device -- including apps and settings,"
over that time period.
Those Windows users who are eligible for the free upgrade but
who just don't want Windows 10 have a new option. They can use
the Settings control in Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 to decline
getting future Windows 10 upgrade notices, Microsoft's
announcement indicated.
Users who never wanted Windows 10 still may have received some
of the bits. Windows 10 upgrade files get stored in a hidden
folder called "$Windows-BT" and they reportedly arrived on
machines that did not request an upgrade.
Microsoft's corporate goal is to get Windows 10 on 1 billion
devices by its fiscal-year 2018. Its free upgrade offer bumped
Windows 10 use to 75 million devices back in August. This month,
Microsoft is claiming there are "more than 110 million devices"
running Windows 10. To prod more upgrades, Microsoft is
planning an experiment in the U.S. market for so-called
"non-Genuine" Windows users.
Non-Genuine Windows users will get a "one-click" Windows 10
upgrade opportunity. It will allow them to change the device's
product key on the fly via a link to the Windows Store. If the
experiment proves successful in the U.S. market, Microsoft could
expand it to other markets.
=~=~=~=
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