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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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More bad news for MSFT and Surface:

Microsoft Surface revenue so far: $853 million

For more context, Microsoft also notes in the filing that Windows sales and marketing expenses rose $1 billion in the fiscal year, an increase of 34 percent, “reflecting an $898 million increase in advertising costs associated primarily with Windows 8 and Surface.”

In other words, Microsoft spent more to advertise Windows 8 and Surface than it made in Surface revenue. :o

[emphasis and emoticon added]

AllThingsD picked up the story. check out the graphic that goes with the story. It wouldn't do justice to it to attach it here. ;)

Also via AllThingsD, this blog post.

The Surface isn’t a failure because it was late. I submit if the iPad never existed the Surface would have failed anyway.

It’s just a poor product.

--JorgeA

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Security related ...

Intel drops facial recognition capability from upcoming set-top box ( TechSpot 2013-07-30 )

According to Intel Medias Eric Huggers, the decision to drop the capability was driven by the cameras poor performance in low light conditions, as well as numerous privacy concerns posed by prospective customers. The feature aimed to revolutionize the way targeted advertising was being conducted, and promised to bring more personalized program recommendations to its users.

The spy scandal has long legs, and Intel seems to be listening. How 'bout you Microsoft?

News from the Competition ...

Asus Announces New 10-inch MeMo Pad FHD Tablet ( Maximum PC 2013-07-30 )

The new MeMo Pad rocks a 1920x1200 IPS display that Asus says is supposed give the tablet a 178-degree viewing angle and accurate, vibrant colors. The tablet comes in either 16GB or 32GB configurations and comes with a rear 5-megapixel camera, 1.2 megapixel front facing camera, 2GB of RAM, and a microSD card slot that allows up to 32GB of additional storage.

Asus will be launching the MeMo Pad with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and the tablet will be available in three colors including Royal Blue, Silk White, and Vivid Pink. Currently there is no word on price, or release date.

Seriously, only Windows 8 and Metro could have made this happen.

Fiddling around with Xbox again ...

Microsoft is 'looking into' adding headset to Xbox One bundle ( NeoWin 2013-07-30 )

See how a little competition will do wonders!

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Windows RT having another bad week ...

Asus scaling back Windows RT plans ( NeoWin 2013-07-30 )

ASUS Drops Windows RT. Another PC maker has had enough with Microsofts ARM experiment ( Thurrott 2013-07-30 )

Check out the radically different coverage between NeoWin and Thurrott! Ouch!

More on what Jorge already mentioned ...

Microsoft: $853 million sales of Surface tablets from launch until June 30 ( NeoWin 2013-07-30 )

Microsoft Surface officially a flop, brings in just $853m in revenue ( TechSpot 2013-07-31 )

Microsoft's Bumbled Surface Strategy Generated Just $853 Million in Revenue ( Maximum PC 2013-07-31 )

In a financial disclosure sent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft showed that Surface tablet sales totaled $853 million during that time period. There's no word on how many of those sales were for the cheaper Surface RT or for the more expensive Surface Pro. However, it is likely the only numbers Microsoft will ever reveal so we should be happy that they offered any revenue breakdowns at all.

So there are NO numbers released at all. None. That's means it is really bad. :yes:

And finally ...

Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview now available ( NeoWin 2013-07-30 )

Microsoft: Businesses should plan their Windows 8.1 deployments now ( NeoWin 2013-07-30 )

... Today's joke of the day? :lol:

EDIT: added articles

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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Windows 8.1 is a problem when it comes to "planning" deployments. Already got a look at the "new" policies and they are pretty much the same as Windows 8. So I am really hoping that I don't have to do much planning other than just doing it the same as Windows 8. So the problem comes in where I can't do any actual testing because how the Preview works. In the two installation paths (through the store or the ISO) they both require (or prefer) connecting to the internet. So its just a waiting game but I doubt there would be some mass scramble to get it rolling. I've heard that most of the Windows 8 licenses being sold are through the Downgrade Rights program anyways. :rolleyes:

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Intel can really hit back by releasing very fast chips again, so fast that emulation and virtualization becomes completely painless, rendering Microsoft's OS planned obsolescence completely moot because then anyone can run any version they choose. They could really hurt them by getting into their own OS business, even if it is merely a super virtualizing hypervisor that sits between the hardware and any Windows version. This would be Microsoft's worst nightmare.

This is interesting -- can you elaborate on the part about a virtualizing hypervisor being (potentially) Microsoft's worst nightmare? I can see how Intel releasing its own OS could be a problem for MSFT, but am not so clear on how the hypervisor thing would affect MSFT. Why would they care -- couldn't they argue that unless you're running the latest version of Windows, you're exposed to Internet nasties and also missing out on great new features?

Intel very well could write a complete x86 operating system, in fact I would say it is likely they already have for internal use because I simply cannot imagine them needing Microsoft to supply one for their development systems holding schematics, roadmaps and other top secret stuff. The danger for them writing an OS for consumers has at least two big problems ...

(1) The final user interface design may drift too far away from classic Windows ( like Metro! ) and turn off the market and it would be dead in the water after a substantial development and testing expense. What would be the point of a nice OS that is GUI crippled to end-users? They have shown they won't touch it.

(2) The legal war with Microsoft over the API. Even though Intel owns the intellectual property of the processor instruction sets, Microsoft no doubt holds patents on the API implemntations. This is mega-complicated by some of them like Win16 and Win32 being way old but probably adjusted along the way so that they somehow are kept out of the public domain. My gut feeling is that Intel would win on the merits but lose financially from the expense of the legal bloodbath. It is a fight that needs to be fought though.

So if the goal is for the end-users to be able to continue using their own Windows versions on existing and forthcoming hardware ( and flip the bird at Microsoft because they are using NuWindows as a trap ) then it might be a better idea to forgo a cleanroom clone of Windows ( because they just might get the thing working great but screw up the GUI ) and just develop the low level software that facilitates the already existing Windows operating systems.

VM's started out functioning at much lower levels than we see today with most running essentially as just another piece of client software ( although I see that Wikipedia says that Hyper-V is considered low-level ). It will make more sense if I just copy that section here ...

In their 1974 article "Formal Requirements for Virtualizable Third Generation Architectures" Gerald J. Popek and Robert P. Goldberg classified two types of hypervisor:[1]

Type 1 (or native, bare metal) hypervisors run directly on the host's hardware to control the hardware and to manage guest operating systems. A guest operating-system thus runs on another level above the hypervisor.

This model represents the classic implementation of virtual-machine architectures; IBM developed the original hypervisors as bare-metal tools in the 1960s: the test tool, SIMMON, and CP/CMS. CP/CMS was the ancestor of IBM's z/VM. Modern equivalents include Oracle VM Server for SPARC, Oracle VM Server for x86, the Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX/ESXi.

Type 2 (or hosted) hypervisors run within a conventional operating-system environment. With the hypervisor layer as a distinct second software level, guest operating-systems run at the third level above the hardware. VMware Workstation and VirtualBox exemplify Type 2 hypervisors.

The classification of specific hypervisor implementations as Type 1 or Type 2 is not always clear cut. For example:

- Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is implemented as a kernel module for Linux 2.6.20 which, when loaded, allows the Linux kernel to operate as a bare-metal (i.e., Type 1) hypervisor.[2] However, as Linux is an operating system in its own right, one can argue that KVM is a Type 2 hypervisor.[3]

- Microsoft Hyper-V (released in June 2008)[4] has also been misidentified as a Type 2 hypervisor.[5] Both the free stand-alone version and the version that is part of the commercial Windows Server 2008 product use a virtualized Windows Server 2008 parent partition to manage the Type 1 Hyper-V hypervisor. In both cases the Hyper-V hypervisor loads prior to the management operating-system, and any virtual environments created run directly on the hypervisor, not via the management operating-system.

Attempts have been made to introduce the term Type 0 (Zero) Hypervisor to differentiate specific hypervisor implementations.[6][7] However, no consensus as to the validity of this term has been reached.[8]

Now, Intel is closer to the CPU instruction set and the microcode than anyone on Earth, and in fact has even added VT-x ( see this for details ) to some of their CPU's, unfortunate key word here being some. Physically all the pieces are in place for a perfect bare metal solution if Intel would stop playing games by only adding features to certain chips to segment their products.

That perfect solution ( for consumers tired of chasing Microsoft but want Windows ) is a low-level, lean and mean hypervisor that on one side talks right to the chip microcode and on the other side presents the normal instruction set to the operating system. This could be a 2nd, higher layer of microcode and therefore might be just added to the CPU itself or a secondary on-package chip. The existing operating systems would still see the CPU and retrieve the normal CPUID to determine which HAL to install and you have business as usual after that.

Naturally this depends upon Intel's benevolence and sympathy for the plight of the x86 universe which Microsoft is presently targeting for destruction ( they are not trying to kill the physical architecture, but are planning on preventing user mode software from ever talking to it again ). This is why I say it would be Microsoft's worst nightmare because it removes them from the new operating system business altogether. Users could install whatever version of Windows they have lying around and hardware makers would only need to write device drivers for new hardware using any existing DDK targeting any version of Windows they want.

Of course there is much wishful thinking here, and the point is that these thoughts never crossed our minds until now. Microsoft is getting out of the neutral operating business and moving to a curated gatekeeping system. The very best solution would be for Microsoft to liberate all the x86 source code and related IP and continue with their walled-garden Metro madness. The 2nd best would be for the government to send in SWAT teams and just take it ( which would be an ironic taste of what some people have actually had happen to them thanks to IP and patent laws pushed by Microsoft and others ).

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Windows 8.1 is a problem when it comes to "planning" deployments. Already got a look at the "new" policies and they are pretty much the same as Windows 8. So I am really hoping that I don't have to do much planning other than just doing it the same as Windows 8. So the problem comes in where I can't do any actual testing because how the Preview works. In the two installation paths (through the store or the ISO) they both require (or prefer) connecting to the internet. So its just a waiting game but I doubt there would be some mass scramble to get it rolling. I've heard that most of the Windows 8 licenses being sold are through the Downgrade Rights program anyways. :rolleyes:

You also have to consider that installing the preview means a reinstall later of apps and programs after the full release is RTM'd.

Actually, neither of those articles mentioned any difference in the Enterprise version so I am assuming the rules applies here as well.

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Intel very well could write a complete x86 operating system, in fact I would say it is likely they already have for internal use because I simply cannot imagine them needing Microsoft to supply one for their development systems holding schematics, roadmaps and other top secret stuff. The danger for them writing an OS for consumers has at least two big problems ...

[...]

Thanks a bunch Charlotte for the extensive explanation.

I guess what I'm trying to wrap my head around is why there would be a need for a VM over which to run an older version of Windows, vs. simply running that version of Windows directly on the machine. (Note that this is a different issue from -- for example -- running XP in a VM inside Windows 7 because you have some old program that won't run on the newer Win7. In the case we're discussing, we are trying to dispense with the newer OS altogether.)

Let me give a simple hypothetical example and see if I'm getting it. Suppose that, four years from now, they come out with "USB 4". None of today's Windows versions is equipped to handle that: the Intel VM would provide the way to make use of USB 4 on (say) Windows 7.

Is that the sort of thing we're talking about? In that case, I could see how one could keep running 7 indefinitely.

--JorgeA

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Windows 8.1 is a problem when it comes to "planning" deployments. Already got a look at the "new" policies and they are pretty much the same as Windows 8. So I am really hoping that I don't have to do much planning other than just doing it the same as Windows 8. So the problem comes in where I can't do any actual testing because how the Preview works. In the two installation paths (through the store or the ISO) they both require (or prefer) connecting to the internet. So its just a waiting game but I doubt there would be some mass scramble to get it rolling. I've heard that most of the Windows 8 licenses being sold are through the Downgrade Rights program anyways. :rolleyes:

Now, there's a statistic I'd love to get a hold of -- the percentage of "Windows 8" licenses that get sold but then downgraded to 7.

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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I wouldn't have any idea what the real number is. I could guess maybe its at least 80% (or I could wager it might be something like 95%!) Even with my own projects, I had written the deployment system to count a Downgrade as a Windows 8 system.

But we are in a time period where people can still buy Windows 7 without using the Downgrade program. They aren't forced into doing a downgrade to get Windows 7 yet, but I haven't heard when that time is. You can expect that once Windows 7 technically enters "downgrade only" phase, there will be a news update saying Windows 8 sales went up. :P

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I wouldn't have any idea what the real number is. I could guess maybe its at least 80% (or I could wager it might be something like 95%!)

Whoa! :o

Tripredacus, on 01 Aug 2013 - 09:56 AM, said:

But we are in a time period where people can still buy Windows 7 without using the Downgrade program. They aren't forced into doing a downgrade to get Windows 7 yet, but I haven't heard when that time is. You can expect that once Windows 7 technically enters "downgrade only" phase, there will be a news update saying Windows 8 sales went up. :P

LOL -- and it will even be literally true!

--JorgeA

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The SkyDrive is falling! (Well, the name, anyway...)

“SkyDrive” follows Metro into oblivion as Microsoft abandons trademark case

One month after a British court ruled that Microsoft's SkyDrive infringed on a British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) Group trademark, Microsoft has decided not to appeal and will find a new name for its cloud storage service.

--JorgeA

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Anyone have some comments on this NSA program ... XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data

Wednesday 31 July 2013

* XKeyscore gives 'widest-reaching' collection of online data

* NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches

* Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history

* NSA's XKeyscore program – read one of the presentations

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

... more at the link.

some of the members here may remember herbalist from a few years ago ... hasn't been around for awhile ... he was ahead of his time on all this, sure would like hear his take on all these developments.

Edited by duffy98
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Every time we read about government surveillance, it gets worse:

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.

Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-time" interception of an individual's internet activity.

Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets. But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.

Analysts can search for internet browsing activities using a wide range of information, including search terms entered by the user or the websites viewed.

As one slide indicates, the ability to search HTTP activity by keyword permits the analyst access to what the NSA calls "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet".

Maybe a good reason to start using HTTPS Everywhere, even though of course it doesn't cover every conceivable website. Might drive even me to Firefox.

One silver lining in the NSA cloud:

The XKeyscore system is continuously collecting so much internet data that it can be stored only for short periods of time. Content remains on the system for only three to five days, while metadata is stored for 30 days. One document explains: "At some sites, the amount of data we receive per day (20+ terabytes) can only be stored for as little as 24 hours."

To solve this problem, the NSA has created a multi-tiered system that allows analysts to store "interesting" content in other databases, such as one named Pinwale which can store material for up to five years.

It's hardly necessary to point out the enormous potential for abuse or exploitation of these capabilities for political purposes by sufficiently unscrupulous officials. Trusting human beings not to make use of the vast troves of information thus collected is a rather thin reed on which to build our house. As Lord Acton insightfully wrote, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

--JorgeA

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Anyone have some comments on this NSA program ... XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data

Wednesday 31 July 2013

* XKeyscore gives 'widest-reaching' collection of online data

* NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches

* Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history

* NSA's XKeyscore program – read one of the presentations

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

... more at the link.

some of the members here may remember herbalist from a few years ago ... hasn't been around for awhile ... he was ahead of his time on all this, sure would like hear his take on all these developments.

You beat me to it! :)

--JorgeA

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