Microsoft's 1.2 billion sensors
> takes information from Microsoft's 1.2 billion sensors
Those are our computers, not your 'sensors'.
(well, not mine though)
Posts by Richard Plinston
2608 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2009
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Microsoft gets into the advanced intrusion sniffer game – but only for Windows 10
Microsoft releases Windows 10 preview for Raspberry Pi 3
Tuesday 1st March 2016 20:56 GMT
Re: Dear Microsoft,
> ...but not the freedom to experiment with Windows? To miss the educational experience and learning, good or bad?
Win10IoT on a Pi does not give 'freedom to experiment'. It _requires_ a full Windows 10 PC to do anything with that Pi.
> the educational experience and learning
The "educational experience and learning" of W10IoT on a Pi (with no other computer around) is looking at the Win10IoT screen telling you what its IP address is - and only that if it connected to a network that has a DHCP server.
A Pi with one of the many actual operating systems can give an actual "educational experience and learning" all by itself.
Tuesday 1st March 2016 20:45 GMT
Re: @Orwell
> and a change to teaching how to use Microsoft Word and Excel.
The change was from learning about and using 'computers' to being a Microsoft consumer. A similar change would have a 'domestic science class' learning how to order MacDonalds.
When BBC computers were being used in schools, and homes, they were used to support science experiments, to connect up equipment and sensors on their user ports, to learn electronics.
See, for example, the 1980s Usborne books:
http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/feature-page/computer-and-coding-books.aspx
Tuesday 1st March 2016 20:29 GMT
Re: PCs fading away...
> The PC ought to disappear into the monitor.
NO! I don't want to have to buy a new monitor because the PC fails, or vv.
> Perhaps some enterprising monitor or TV manufacturer could make up and popularize a free-to-copy "thin PC" connector.
They already do. It is called HDMI (and USB for power). All it requires is the PC in the form of an 'HDMI stick'.
Tuesday 1st March 2016 20:22 GMT
Re: Embedded Proprietary Capability
> I recall that Microsoft receive a payment for every Android device sold due to patents.
No, that is not true. Some of the major manufacturers do pay a royalty to MS, mainly those that want to continue selling Windows PCs and laptops and want to protect their 'loyalty discounts' on all products. Some refused to pay and offered to sort out the patents in court. Barnes&Noble did this and the result was that MS 'invested' $350million in B&N (and then wrote it off).
Others don't pay because they don't infringe any patents. The main one being the VFAT 'short name' patent. No SD card, no problem.
Tuesday 1st March 2016 20:12 GMT
Re: @Orwell
> And it looks like Win10 will be on Noobs too. with a no registration required install http://ms-iot.github.io/content/en-US/win10/Noobs.htm
And once it is installed it tells you what IP address it has and does _nothing_ else.
Click 'Next' on that page and it tells you that you need a complete full Windows 10 PC (with registration) and guides you through getting the correct version of Win10 and Visual Studio installed and registered. Then you can use that full PC to talk to the Pi and write and download programs to it (UWPs only).
Tuesday 1st March 2016 04:04 GMT
teaching computing to kiddies.
> Microsoft's keen to be associated with the Pi mission of teaching computing to kiddies.
A RapberryPi + Raspbian (plus kb, mouse, monitor) is all that is needed to teach computing, robotics, electronics, music and much else.
A RaspberryPi + Windows10 requires a full Windows 10 PC to do anything.
Apart from the budget implications, what does that teach the children?
The computer industry has gone through several phases. First there were mainframes. Then along came mini-computers. When the PDP7 arrived it started others moving to minis. Then there were the micro-computers in the mid-70s. These were mainly hobbiest and games machines until the Apple II became popular in businesses and the IBM PC was introduced to compete against this. IBM made their PC to be a terminal add-on to its mainframes but it soon broke free of that .
The RaspberryPi is the most known of the new small SBC computers. These are powerful enough to replace the PC as a desktop for simple usage and also cheap enough (especially the Zero) to be IoT or robotics or maker for hobbiests or manufacturers.
Microsoft is trying to tie the RPi into their Desktop and Azure systems just as IBM (briefly) tried to keep their PC as a mainframe terminal.
Microsoft sneaks onto Android while Android sneaks onto Windows
Tuesday 1st March 2016 19:49 GMT
Re: Kind of obvious
> Nope. This is a standard area of contract law
A licence is not a contract (though a contract may include licences) and thus is not subject to contract law. The underlying property that is the subject of the licence is covered by property law. If the terms and conditions of the licence are not followed then the licence may become nullified and and the licensor will be in breach of copyright, or trademark, or patent rights.
> implicit contract of the licence
There is no "implicit contract in a licence". There may be an explicit contract that grants a licence for a consideration: eg: "pay me $x and I will grant you a licence". That forms the offer and acceptance that is required for it to be a contract. But the licence itself is not an "offer and acceptance", it is a one sided grant of rights under certain conditions.
https://www.law.washington.edu/lta/swp/law/contractvlicense.html
> it's fairly clear that Android is not Linux.
Android sits on top of Linux (though it theoretically could sit on top of other kernels, such as QNX). It is true that the licences for Android and for Linux are separate but an implementation of an Android device currently _requires_ Linux and thus requires a Linux licence. Your argument is spurious.
> it's unlikely for them to start becoming an Android distributor.
They already have been. When Microsoft purchased Nokia phone division they were distributing 'Nokia X' phones, which contained Android code and Linux kernel. Approximately a million were made and sold. They can be found on Microsoft's web site.
Monday 29th February 2016 22:26 GMT
Re: Kind of obvious
> And being called out as a "pirate"[1] or "software thief"[1] wouldn't do their public relations any good.
They have been called that before: with MS-DOS 1.0 (by DRI over CP/M code); with Doublespace (stolen from Stacker); with Windows NT (MS paid a settlement of $100million to DEC); Burst.com; ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation
Monday 29th February 2016 20:18 GMT
Re: Android tablets apps can't be compared to Windows tablets.
TheVogon wrote:
> People keep overlooking that Windows tablets are fully capable PCs that can run millions of popular Windows apps. Android and iPad run mobile/limited apps only.
Windows touch tablets run "millions of popular Windows [programs]" very poorly. This is because most of those program never considered use of touch and fingers don't have single pixel resolution. Also, in most cases, the program's UI does not fit well with the on-screen keyboard.
Android and iPad apps have been designed to work well with phones and tablets. So for touch tablet usage you can have millions of unusable 'apps', or Android/iPad.
Raspberry Pi 3 to sport Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE – first photos emerge
Monday 29th February 2016 18:40 GMT
Re: Can it run Windows 10 IOT? @TheVogon
> Lots of people like me would
But then 'people like you' are Microsoft shills.
> Surface RT tablets, which ran a version of Windows 8.
Windows RT is hardly "a full version of Windows", it is the Windows that doesn't run Windows programs.
> (Windows IOT and associated tools are free to use).
Not really, a requirement is a full Windows 10 PC. Where would I get one of those for free.
> Above all it gives you more choice versus other development options.
It may be another choice, but it doesn't give "more choice". It is 'Universal' (Windows 10 only) UWP, and Azure. ie it is restricted compared to "other development options". It also doesn't access all the Pi features.
Also Win10IoT is only on Pi2 and Pi3. There is no deployment option of the cheaper Pi1 or PiZero, or the Compute module, or many Pi-clones or Pi-alikes. So again that is many less options.
Microsoft scraps Android Windows 10 bridge, but says yes to Objective-C compiler
Sunday 28th February 2016 19:10 GMT
Re: Contemporary Microsoft Thinking
> Google would be always looking for ways to break the binaries
Just because that is what Microsoft did several times, eg: with AARD code to kill DR-DOS; with Win32s to kill OS/2; does not mean that Google would repay the favour.
In fact, it seems, MS were implementing Dalvic when Google had already moved on to ART.
Building a fanless PC is now realistic. But it still ain't cheap
Microsoft finally ties the knot with Xamarin, snaps up mobile app biz
Reminder: How to get a grip on your files, data that Windows 10 phones home to Microsoft
Wednesday 24th February 2016 20:02 GMT
under remote control
> they can request extra data from your machine, which Windows 10 will hand over under remote control
I would be interested to know how they do that. I have several computers here (none are Windows) behind my router which has a fixed IP. The only way to access a specific machine from outside is via the 'virtual servers' that I have set up: port 80 and 443 go to my web server; port [redacted] goes to sshd on another machine, and that is it. So no one could connect to this machine at all. And that is with a fixed IP, many computers wind up with varying IP addresses that change when they reconnect to their ISP.
It must be that the Windows 10 machines connect to MS at regular intervals to receive instructions, such as 'send me your documents'. How hard would it be for a blackhat to intercept that connection and send their own request for private data?
Intel shows budget Android phone powering big-screen Linux
Wednesday 24th February 2016 19:25 GMT
Re: Nope...
> Well one of the challenges with Linux has always been fragmentation,
The same 'problem' can be aimed at, say, the car industry. Dozens of manufacturers (there used to be hundreds) making many different models that are changed each year, and then there are all the options and different colours. It is an absolute nightmare having to choose one, and even worse if you want replacement parts if something breaks.
Just think how much better it would be if there was just one engine/chassis and just a handful of different bodies built on that. Everything would just fit regardless of which model you bought.
And yet people seem happy with the current situation.
Wednesday 24th February 2016 06:31 GMT
> Will Microsoft allow this, or will they just charge everyone who produces the Android/Linux continuum phone to pay a license fee?
You appear to have the strange idea that Microsoft invented the phone/desktop mix. They, as always, have just copied what other have done (eg Ubuntu) and stuck a different name on it.
Tuesday 23rd February 2016 20:51 GMT
Re: "Low-end == 2 Gb"
> Windows has (so far) been the world's leading computer desktop software.
It may be the most numerous, but Microsoft has always been a follower and not a leader.
I doubt that there has been anything useful in Windows* that wasn't done previously in some other system. Of course they _claimed_ they were innovative, but was usually something they copied.
* the qualification 'useful' is to eliminate the dog and the paperclip.
Top new IoT foundation (yeah, another one) to develop open standards
Sunday 21st February 2016 20:54 GMT
The Actual Problem
The problem is not the 'Things' nor the 'Internet' but is the way that the big corporations want to control how the things are accessed, and ultimately how you will pay them for this.
There are many things that are useful to do remotely (over the internet) back into your home, or other sites. For example: remote monitoring of cctv and alarms, setting the house to look occupied (turning lights, music on/off, closing/opening curtains). These may prevent burglaries while you are away. As already mentioned: setting heating.
It may also be useful to receive notification when your doorbell is rung and you are away, and be able to communicate with them using your phone*.
The real problem is that the corporations want to route all this traffic through their own cloud networks so that can can monetise this, either by subscriptions, by direct charging for traffic, by adding ads, or by selling data, or all of the above.
What I would do is to have my own gateway computer that provides a firewall to only allow certain remote devices to access the internal network of things, eliminating the need for anyone else to be involved. This would require having your own fixed IP address - probably requiring IP6. Having the 'things' directly accessing the internet, or being directly accessed from externally is foolish and unnecessary.
* I should patent the idea of having a speaker phone built into the doorbell that will auto-answer a call from the owner's phone. The doorbell could ring you or send an SMS message.
Google to snatch control of Android updates from mobe makers – analyst
Thursday 18th February 2016 18:26 GMT
Re: Commodity?
> Richard, by your logic, the "phone" function of a phone is a commodity but ...
Your claim was about "phones".
> the ability to run arbitrary software (like, er, updates) is not
I would hope that updates are not 'arbitrary'.
> and so the "smart" part of the "smartphone" is not a commodity.
They have cameras, the results of which are interchangeable: I can take a photo, send it to you and you will see the same result. I can create a document, text or spreadsheet on one and it will work on another. Messaging is the same. Media is the same. While there may be some differences, the functionality of most smartphones is the same and they are interchangeable*.
Whether they have the same operating system, accessory list, or screen size is irrelevant to whether they can have basic functional interchangeability.
* possibly with the exception of 'bragging rights'.
Wednesday 17th February 2016 20:09 GMT
Re: Commodity?
> If phones today *were* commodities, Google would be able to push out a single set of updates that ran on every device.
Phones *are* commodities. They are interchangeable. I can take any phone and ring you and get the same result.
Updates are not interchangeable, they are not commodities. That doesn't affect the status of 'phones'.
Is this the last ever Lumia?
Tuesday 16th February 2016 21:10 GMT
Re: Changing name into "Surface" won't make it any better.
> the decision was that it was much more cost effective than Apple
Of course it was. Nokia phone division never made a profit in any quarter with WP in spite of getting a $billion a year from Microsoft. That was because they sold at a loss in order to make any sales at all. Microsoft seem to still be selling them as a loss leader to try to keep their business intact. Letting Apple or Linux (Android) into 'their' sites would be the thin edge of the wedge (BB was neutral because it was only phones).
Tuesday 16th February 2016 19:39 GMT
Re: Would be no different if Samsung had been Windows Phone, Strategic Partner.
> No, I'm making the assumption and assertion that Nokia was such a badly managed, dysfunctional company
And yet they were number 1 in their field.
> with invalid technical direct and no sense of marketing direction
The proof of that is they chose Windows Phone.
> Nokia killed itself, with competing divisions selling into the same market with competing products and competing operating systems, with no interusability.
Nokia addressed several market sectors and many different countries. These had different needs that were met by different products. It also had several different development teams to ensure that it could change direction when required. The N9 showed that it got it right - but this, and others, were squashed by Microsoft before they became more popular than WP. Even the final throw of 'Nokia X' (Android) seemed to outsell WP where available.
> ANY external management structure, even Microsoft's would be an improvement.
And yet it was Microsoft's Elop that led directly to destruction.
> Microsoft have got it down to one range
By killing off everything that wasn't Microsoft's regardless of whether customers wanted it. In the end Microsoft will go one better.
Tuesday 16th February 2016 08:32 GMT
> The Lumias seem popular around these parts because they're exceedingly good value
The reason they are 'good value' is because Nokia and Microsoft had to sell them at a loss in order to have any sold at all. This is why Nokia phone division never made a profit in any quarter that they were selling WP even though they were given a $bilion a year by Microsoft.
Tuesday 16th February 2016 08:32 GMT
> What did they actually buy Nokia for?
To stop them making Android phones. The agreement to only use WP was about to run out and Nokia had already started making 'X' phones* which were Android based. As Nokia made about 90% of all WP devices them switching all manufacturing to Android would kill WP entirely. MS thought it could save it.
* http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_x-6067.php
SCO's last arguments in 'Who owns Linux?' case vs. IBM knocked out
Monday 15th February 2016 23:05 GMT
Re: "SCO code" in Linux?
> (Now, of course, we at Micro Focus own Novell. So as far as I can tell, we own the copyrights to the former-USL source code.
Micro Focus may well own whatever copyrights that exist and are protectable that were owned by USL and/or Novell, but that may be not very much.
Some early code was left unregistered when registration was required, at least one codebase (v32) was made public domain, some code may belong to BSD or other contributors or licensors.
Saturday 13th February 2016 01:38 GMT
Re: @misc. folks talking about Xenix ...
>> "Wasn't Xenix a Microsoft OS?"
> No. Xenix was actually ...
Originally it was sold as "Microsoft Xenix"*. SCO may have done the work but Microsoft paid them to do it. So it was "a Microsoft OS". Later, Microsoft sold it to SCO at which point it became SCO Xenix, was updated to System III as SCO UNIX and then was renamed SCO Open Server.
*Byte October 1983 (the UNIX isuuse) p151 has a Microsoft advert for MS-DOS and Xenix. (p475 has a Microsoft advert for their mouse).
Wednesday 10th February 2016 21:03 GMT
Re: "SCO code" in Linux?
> Novell never sold it to them
What was never investigated was whether Novell actually held any protected copyrights to the source code at all.
Due to various actions or inactions some copyrights on some versions of Unix source code may have been lost and/or put into the public domain. In addition there have been many contributions to Unix and to various implementations where the contributor retained copyright and gave a licence to AT&T, USL and its successors. Novell did not sell any copyrights to source code (as specified in the sales documents) because it could not demonstrate that it owned any.
Microsoft quits giving us the silent treatment on Windows 10 updates
Thursday 11th February 2016 19:14 GMT
Re: Total Desperation...
> LibreOffice, but that may not work for you (if you go the Linux route you will not have much in the way of options).
I am not sure why you think that "not have much in the way of options)."
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/best-office-suites-for-linux-5-reviewed-and-rated-1146417
https://alternativeto.net/software/ibm-lotus-smart-suite/?platform=linux
Canonical reckons Android phone-makers will switch to Ubuntu
Wednesday 10th February 2016 18:48 GMT
Re: You would not be any better off with Ubuntu
> It'd be MUCH, MUCH worse - simply because of how much phone users can do (thanks to Android) with their phones, all of which would be denied to them by a Linux OS.
Android _is_ "a Linux OS", just not a GNU/Gnome/KDE/Unity/LXDE/... one.
Some phone users may well prefer to run Unity scopes and full programs. Just as some Windows users would prefer to run Windows programs rather than UWPs.
Microsoft buys SwiftKey, Britain's 'stealthiest software startup'
Two-thirds of Android users vulnerable to web history sniff ransomware
Saturday 30th January 2016 03:25 GMT
Re: Gingerbread) was continued to be developed well after 3 and 4 were delivered.
> No it didn't, it got to 2.3.7
Several phones and tablets are advertised as running 2.3.8, such as Samsung Galaxy Mini 7, or 2.3.9 such as:
http://www.1949deal.com/hot-sell-3-5-inch-s5830i-android-2-3-9-wifi-dual-sim-mobile-phone.html
2.3.9 was released in late 2012 or early 2013.
Friday 29th January 2016 20:27 GMT
Re: Building their own coffin
> still means you're cutting loose anything more than two and a half years old (on average).
Actually they don't. Android 2.3 series (Gingerbread) was continued to be developed well after 3 and 4 were delivered. It went at least to 2.3.9. It was up to manufacturers to update existing phones.
Can't upgrade, won't upgrade: Windows Mobile's user problem
Friday 29th January 2016 10:44 GMT
Re: Needs 1GB RAM?
> Oh, and that "Program Files (x86)" folder would come in very handy if they ever dusted off their x86 emulator, written for RISC processors back when a top-end CPU had, er, some modest fraction of the CPU power of a modern low-end phone. ;)
The x86 emulator only had to do x86-16 or x86-32 on a 64bit RISC CPU - Alpha, POWER or MIPS. Running x86-64 on an ARM 32 bit CPU, as is currently used in most phones, is quite a different issue.
It is more likely that they will try to squeeze in a small x86 core somewhere.
Thursday 28th January 2016 20:01 GMT
Low cost ?
> an impressive range of low cost models.
It was not so much 'low cost' as low price. In spite of MS giving a $billion a year to Nokia the phone division did not make a profit in any quarter that they made WP phones. This indicates that (overall) the phone's selling prices were below the total costs.
Nokia made that not continue and MS wrote off another $7billion.
Thursday 28th January 2016 19:59 GMT
> 2013. Did they say anything back then about future upgrade-ability?
By 2013 they had completely dumped all Windows Mobile 6.x users with no upgrade path, not even for apps or even the development tools. They had also dumped all Windows Phone 7 as none would go to WP8. Fanboys (as the one above) claimed that 7.8 would (or did) give all WP8 features but all it gave was a few extra colours and a couple of new sizes for the UI tiles.
I would be surprised if anyone expected upgrade-ability for a WP8 phone, but it seems that some will upgrade to 10 - probably whether the user wants to or not.
None will get continuum, that requires dual GPUs or something and is only on 950s.
'Unikernels will send us back to the DOS era' – DTrace guru Bryan Cantrill speaks out
Wednesday 27th January 2016 20:33 GMT
Re: 80386 vs 80286
> A true 286 OS - even without a GUI - would have allowed multiprocessing, but application would have need to be rewritten for protected mode (and most DOS applications were written to directly access the hardware also).
There were several 286 protected mode OSs. MS even wrote one itself. MS-DOS 4.0 and 4.1 (not to be confused with the much later 4.01), also known as European DOS because Siemens and ICL (where I worked) used it briefly was a 286 protected mode version of MS-DOS derived from 3.1 and 3.2 respectively. This also had limited multitasking in background. It could run 'well behaved' DOS programs in protected mode and a single 'badly behaved' DOS program in real mode.
The 'behaviour was mainly that of memory access. In an 8086 or real mode the program could do segment calculations. Usually this was required to access memory arrays larger than 64Kb. The program would calculate a suitable segment/offset pair to give 'tileing' over the memory. This would break the 8026. In principle the OS could create selectors every 16 bytes to cater for the program doing these calculations but there was a limit of 8000 selectors so it simply wasn't viable. I have a manual on DOS 4.0 here somewhere that describes how a compatible program can be written and also the additional features that can be used.
It simply wasn't good enough and was dumped when MS moved to MS-DOS 5 (not the be confused with the much later MS-DOS 5) that was renamed OS/2 during development.
Wednesday 27th January 2016 19:46 GMT
Re: Windows/NT must be 20 years old at least.
> I think someone may have thought it would be a good idea to have similar version numbers so as to not confuse the market.
Or to confuse the market. Nobody was going to buy a 1.0 version. Even then the market was conditioned to 'wait for version 3'.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
