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All that said, right now, it seems that choosing SteamOS over a Windows box means sacrificing a significant amount of performance on many (if not most) graphically intensive 3D games. That's a pretty big cost to bear, considering that Alienware sells its Windows-powered, console-style Alpha boxes at prices that are only $50 more expensive than identically outfitted SteamOS machines. That's not to mention the fact that Steam on Windows currently has thousands of games that aren't on SteamOS - including most AAA recent releases -while SteamOS has no similar exclusives to recommend it over Windows.Hopefully, Valve and other Linux developers can continue improving SteamOS performance to the point where high-end games can be expected to at least run comparably between Linux and Windows. Until then, though, it's hard to recommend a SteamOS box to anyone who wants to get the best graphical performance out of their PC hardware.This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Windows and DirectX clearly reign supreme, with graphics card vendors focusing most - if not all - of their driver development on that platform.

An absolute must-read from Don Norman and Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini, two absolute heavyweights in the field of usability. On top of that, Tognazzini was heavily involved in the development of the early interface guidelines at Apple, which gives him a unique perspective on the matter.The products, especially those built on iOS, Apple's operating system for mobile devices, no longer follow the well-known, well-established principles of design that Apple developed several decades ago. These principles, based on experimental science as well as common sense, opened up the power of computing to several generations, establishing Apple's well-deserved reputation for understandability and ease of use. Alas, Apple has abandoned many of these principles. True, Apple's design guidelines for developers for both iOS and the Mac OS X still pay token homage to the principles, but, inside Apple, many of the principles are no longer practiced at all. Apple has lost its way, driven by concern for style and appearance at the expense of understandability and usage.Apple is destroying design. Worse, it is revitalizing the old belief that design is only about making things look pretty. No, not so! Design is a way of thinking, of determining peopleâs true, underlying needs, and then delivering products and services that help them. Design combines an understanding of people, technology, society, and business. The production of beautiful objects is only one small component of modern design: Designers today work on such problems as the design of cities, of transportation systems, of health care. Apple is reinforcing the old, discredited idea that the designer's sole job is to make things beautiful, even at the expense of providing the right functions, aiding understandability, and ensuring ease of use.The problem Apple is facing - as has been explained to me by people who are in the know about these matters - is that the people originally responsible for usability at Apple, including those responsible for the first multitouch interface of the first iPhone, are no longer at Apple. The company currently doesn't have an overarching philosophy when it comes to user interface design, leading to the problems described in detail in this article. The software side of Apple lacks its own Ive, if you will.And boy, does it show. I bought an iPhone 6S (the pink one, 64GB) a couple of weeks ago, and while I don't want to reveal too much from my review, I'm appalled at just how unfocused, chaotic, messy, inconsistent, and hard to use iOS has become. This article articulates really well where the main problems lie.It's easy to look at Apple's massive profits and the quality of its hardware and miss the abysmal state of Apple's software. They've got a lot of work to do - and they really need the right people to get there.

Windows Central is now hearing from multiple sources that Project Astoria is on hold indefinitely, and maybe even shelved completely. Although Microsoft is not publicly - even privately - stating Astoria is cancelled, they are not openly talking about it anymore, or even privately discussing it with developers.One source has told us that "the Android app porting is not going as planned."The interpretation by others familiar with the matter is that Astoria is not happening anytime soon and Microsoft has yet to find a way to announce the news publicly. Indeed, while the news will be welcomed by Windows developers, it could come across as a failure by the company to execute on a publicly announced strategy.All evidence is pointing towards the Android application support promised for Windows 10 being axed.

Today, the US Department of Energy announced that it had established a partnership with NVIDIA that would be enhancing the LLVM compiler collection. The goal will be to port an existing FORTRAN compiler that targets massively parallel GPUs. The results are expected to be released as open source in late 2016.Cutting-edge research still universally involves Fortran; a trio of challengers wants in.While FORTRAN isn't a mainstream language, it's still heavily used in scientific computing, and there's lots of legacy code that relies on it. A lot of that code is maintained by people at the US National Labs, and the new project is being organized by staff at Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Los Alamos.

Today we have made Firefox OS 2.5 available worldwide. We are also making an early, experimental build of the OS - Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview - available for developers to download on Android devices.So you can flash Firefox OS 2.5 as a standalone operating system, or run parts of it atop your existing Android device.On a related note:Firefox for iOS lets you take your favorite browser with you wherever you go with the Firefox features you already love including smart and flexible search, intuitive tab management, syncing with Firefox Accounts and Private Browsing.iOS, of course, doesn't provide real browser choice to its users, so even this Firefox iOS browser uses iOS' own rendering engine.

Mac users faced trouble with their apps overnight after the security certificate Apple uses to prevent piracy expired late on Wednesday.Applications downloaded from the Mac App Store were temporarily unavailable from 10pm UK time, when a security certificate expired, five years after its creation, with no replacement immediately available.Even once Apple fixed the error, issuing a new certificate for the apps (with an expiry date of April 2035, this time), users were still faced with problems. Those who could not connect to the internet couldnât verify the new certificate, while those who had forgotten their password or couldnât log in to iCloud for some other reason are also unable to use the downloaded apps until they can log in to the service.My tweet from yesterday seems apt here. Unbelievably incompetent.

The Windows 10 November update is available now to everyone running Windows 10. This first major update has a handful of visible features, a variety of bug fixes, and even some enterprise features. Microsoft's message to businesses is that if they were following the traditional policy of waiting for the first Service Pack or major update to Windows before deploying it, this is it: time to take the plunge.It's also the time for gamers to make the switch too - in parallel with this release, Microsoft is rolling out the new Xbox Experience, which is based on Windows 10, and gives the dashboard a big shake-up.Only a Windows update could extoll the virtues of reducing the number of differently design context menus.

The reviews for the Apple Surface are coming in. There's two reviews at The Verge, one at the Wall Street Journal, and John Gruber's got early access from Apple as well.The general gist? If you've ever read a Surface Pro review, you've read all the iPad Pro reviews. Well, mostly - the complaints leveled at the Surface Pro are being tip-toed around a bit now that they apply to an Apple product, of course, and suddenly, the magic argument "but it will get better in the future" is now completely valid, while the same argument is never considered valid for the Surface Pro (or something like the Priv and its early bugs).That being said, all reviews dive into just how uncomfortable the iPad Pro is to use as a laptop - and the problem, of course, is iOS itself. iOS is a mobile, touch-first operating system that Apple is now trying to shoehorn into a laptop role. iOS provides no support for mice or trackpads, and the keyboard and iOS lack most basic shortcut keys, so in order to do anything other than typing, you'll need to lift your arm and reach for the screen to use touch. This is something Apple has mocked for years as the reason not to include touch on laptops, and now they release a device which requires it 100%.This is what happens when you run out of ideas and try to shoehorn your cashcow - iOS - into a role it was never intended to fulfill, without being gutsy enough to make the changes it requires. The iPad Pro is clearly screaming for a touchpad (and proper keyboard shortcuts), but it doesn't have any, and according to John Gruber, it never will (a comment I filed away for later when Apple inevitably adds mouse support to iOS).Microsoft's Surface may not be perfect, but its problems stem almost exclusively not from a lack in hardware capability or a faulty concept, but from Microsoft's Metro environment being utterly shit. The concept of having a tablet and a laptop in the same device, seamlessly switching between a tablet UI and a desktop UI, is sound - the only problem is that Microsoft doesn't have a working tablet UI and applications. Meanwhile, trying to shoehorn a mobile, touch-first UI into a laptop form factor is just as silly and idiotic as trying to shoehorn a desktop UI into a mobile, touch-first form factor - and Apple should know better.Or should they? Paul Thurrott, earlier this week:While the iPad Pro was in many ways inevitable, it also points to a crisis of original thought at Apple, which has been coasting on the iPhoneâs coattails for perhaps too long. At Apple, the solution to every problem is another iPhone. And the iPad Pro, like the new Apple TV and the Apple Watch, is really just another attempt to duplicate that singular success in other markets.Thurrott really hits the nail on the head. The iPhone became a success because Apple sought - and succeeded in - designing an interface and interaction model that was specifically designed for the iPhone's input methods - the multitouch display, the home button. Ever since that major big hit, they've been trying to shoehorn that exact same interface and interaction model into every major new product - the Apple Watch, the new Apple TV, and now the iPad Pro. However, if there's one thing we've learned from Palm OS (pen-first, mobile-first) and iOS (multitouch-first, mobile-first), it's that every form factor needs a tailored interaction model - not a shoehorned one.When you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail - which sums up Apple's new major product lines ever since the release of the iPhone, and the iPad Pro seems no different. It will do great as an iPad+, but beyond that? It's not going to make a single, meaningful dent, without considerable restructuring of iOS' UI and interaction models - and lots and lots of crow. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...

Today, we're announcing the end of Chrome's support for Windows XP, as well as Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8, since these platforms are no longer actively supported by Microsoft and Apple. Starting April 2016, Chrome will continue to function on these platforms but will no longer receive updates and security fixes.Yet another reason for those few stragglers to finally dump that silly excuse for an operating system called Windows XP, and move towards something newer. Windows XP was dreadful the day it got released, and has only become more so over the years. Really - there's no excuse.

Tag Heuer has teamed up with Google and Intel to launch the Connected Watch, its first Android Wear timepiece. The Connected isn't just any average Android Wear watch, however. It's a $1,500 luxury timepiece clad in titanium and bearing more than a passing resemblance to Tag Heuer's analog watches.Tag Heuer has so much faith in this pig of a watch that it includes a special trade-in program where you can replace the Connected Watch with a real watch down the line.Confusing messaging there.

"Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones," Cook argues in his distinctly Southern accent (he was born in Alabama). He highlights two other markets for his 12.9 inch devices, which go on sale online on Wednesday. The first are creatives: "if you sketch then itâs unbelievable..you don't want to use a pad anymore," Cook says.Aside from the fact that the death of the PC has been predicted just as often as the death of Apple, I'm obviously not going to claim the man successfully running the largest company in the world is wrong, but I am going to state I'm rather skeptical of the iPad Pro. I predicted the original iPad would do well, but this Microsoft Surface clone?The doubt is very real.

According to a draft communication on copyright reform leaked yesterday (via IPKat), the Commission is considering putting the simple act of linking to content under copyright protection. This idea flies in the face of both existing interpretation and spirit of the law as well as common sense. Each weblink would become a legal landmine and would allow press publishers to hold every single actor on the Internet liable.The stupidity of the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels/Strasbourg never ceases to amaze me. Fresh from royally doing terrible things to the poohc regarding net neutrality, out comes this insane plan.And then people wonder why the EU has such a bad reputation.

The BlackBerry Priv has been released, and the first reviews have been coming in over the weekend. It's a bit of a mixed bag - people like the hardware and the keyboard, but the software seems to have bugs and issues. Some reviews, like the one from AndroidCentral, are radiant:This is absolutely one of the best phones to be released this year, and while BlackBerry still has to demonstrate it can keep its promises when it comes to software updates this is already an exceptional experience. It's only going to get better from here.The review from Dieter Bohn at The Verge - certified keyboard enthusiast and Palm fan and thus an awesome person you can trust because anyone who sings the praises of Palm is a great person, as well all undoubtedly know - is, overall, positive, but the software issues he experienced did mar the experience considerably.In truth, I wanted to tell him to do it. But I couldn't. There are enough software bugs and slowdowns that I had to tell him to hold off and see if BlackBerry could finish the job it started here. Take those good ideas and buff off their rough edges, make the software just a little more stable. Because as a first effort at an Android phone, the Priv is remarkable, and I couldn't wait to see what a second push would do for it (assuming, of course, that BlackBerry gets the chance).I agree with Bohn that such software issues on a flagship device that's supposed to save a company's handset business are dealbreaker - this machine costs a hefty â¬699, and for that, you deserve a phone without such issues.That being said, I'm still excited for the phone, if only because it will surely be picked up by the Android ROM community soon enough. This one is definitely on my list to eventually replace my Nexus 5.

Android registered a slight year-on-year increase in marketshare, while Apple gained traction, driven by strong demand for new iPhone models. Microsoft, BlackBerry and Firefox drifted down, while Tizen posted tangible growth and overtook BlackBerry being the fourth largest OS platform for the first time ever.Good news to see Tizen gain at least some traction - although admittedly taking over BlackBerry OS is like winning the 100 m sprint while your competitors are all asleep. In case you're not familiar with Tizen, this helpful video will explain... Wait what did I just watch?In any event, I'm genuinely interested in getting a Tizen device once they hit Europe at a justifiable price point. Great addition to the collection.

Google is reportedly taking a page out of Apple's playbook and expressing interest in co-developing Android chips based on its own designs, according to a report today from The Information. Similar to how the iPhone carries a Ax chip designed by Apple but manufactured by companies like Samsung, Google wants to bring its own expertise and consistency to the Android ecosystem. To do that, it would need to convince a company like Qualcomm, which produces some of the top Android smartphone chips today using its own technology, to sacrifice some of its competitive edge. Google did not respond to a request for comment.Within a few years, Google will be competing head-to-head with Apple, with its own line of smartphones, tablets, laptops, and maybe even desktops, all running Android.

The partnership we are announcing today with Red Hat extends our commitment to offer unmatched choice and flexibility in an enterprise-grade cloud experience across the hybrid cloud. With more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 using Microsoftâs cloud, for us to team with the leader in enterprise Linux allows even more businesses to move to the cloud on their terms. By working with Red Hat, we will address common enterprise, ISV and developer needs for building, deploying and managing applications on Red Hat software across private and public clouds, including the following.Only fourteen short years ago:Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.What a time to be alive.

OOSMOS, the Object Oriented State Machine Operating System, is an open source implementation of threadless concurrency for C/C++. The portable, single-source file implementation makes it easy to integrate into any environment - from bare boards to mainframes.Out of the box, it compiles and runs on many small processors and boards (including Arduino) as well as on Windows and Linux. It is our goal for developers of any skill level to be able to use OOSMOS effectively, whether building a science project on an Arduino or building an advanced medical device.We've already talked about OOSMOS before, but the project's just gone open source.

The bad news:For months, privacy advocates have asked Congress to kill or reform the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, a bill that they say hides new government surveillance mechanisms in the guise of security protections. Now the Senate has shot down a series of attempts to change the legislationâs most controversial measures, and then passed it with those privacy-invasive features fully intact.The good news:The new rules for exemptions to copyright's DRM-circumvention laws were issued today, and the Librarian of Congress has granted much of what EFF asked for over the course of months of extensive briefs and hearings. The exemptions we requested - ripping DVDs and Blurays for making fair use remixes and analysis; preserving video games and running multiplayer servers after publishers have abandoned them; jailbreaking cell phones, tablets, and other portable computing devices to run third party software; and security research and modification and repairs on cars - have each been accepted, subject to some important caveats.

Google's Project Zero, which investigates the security of popular software, recently turned its attention to the Galaxy S6 Edge.A week of investigation showed that there are a number of weak points in the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Over the course of a week, we found a total of 11 issues with a serious security impact. Several issues were found in device drivers and image processing, and there were also some logic issues in the device that were high impact and easy-to-exploit.The majority of these issues were fixed on the device we tested via an OTA update within 90 days, though three lower-severity issues remain unfixed. It is promising that the highest severity issues were fixed and updated on-device in a reasonable time frame.I love that Google has Project Zero, and that the Zero team is not afraid of exposing the weaknesses in the company's own products (in this case, Android). Few companies out there would allow this.

Great article at Polygon, looking into the position of women in esports and the abuse they're receiving.Every coaching position she's held has come with abuse. There's the European rival who thinks it's funny to goad her with extravagant compliments about her appearance. There's the South American player who promises to kiss her when they meet at a live event. There's the Israeli player who said he didn't want her advice because she's a woman. And there's the countless spectators who spew insults at her through social media and streaming feeds.But there are also those who recognize her abilities, including her players, other top coaches, senior people at Smite publisher Hi-Rez Studios and commentators who recognize the stamp of her tactics and her influence on improving teams.Aside from the Baghdad Bobs in gaming, we all know the gaming world - and by extension, esports - isn't exactly the most welcoming environment for women. Luckily, it's starting to dawn on the companies in esports, such as Hi-Rez discussed in the linked article, that things need to change, and that steps need to be made to significantly curb the misogyny and abuse.The League of Legends world championships, the most popular esports event in the world, just concluded this weekend. One weekend earlier, the semifinals were held in Brussels. One quite prominent figure in the League of Legends esports community, presenter and interviewer Eefje "Sjokz" Depoortere, is from Belgium, and parent company Riot took the opportunity to play a fantastic spotlight of her at the start of the event, in front of 17000 people and the millions of viewers around the world. The video details the work that she does, and the prominent way in which the spotlight was played - just before the semifinals started - really drove the point home just how important she's become.In an article posted today, Depoortere recalled the moment the video was played.Sjokz had her own fair share of cherished moments throughout the weekend, particularly when a video feature about her life in Belgium and her work at Riot aired in the 17,000-seat arena. "It was very emotional!" she says. "I hadn't thought through that I would be on stage listening to myself! I felt kind of embarrassed, because I thought, 'Oh, these people have to sit through it,' but all the people were quiet. They were actually listening and watching and it was an extremely heartwarming moment for me."The feature touched on some less savoury aspects of being a successful, high-profile woman in a male-dominated industry, particularly sexism and a lack of respect for Sjokz's work, but since it aired she has received a huge influx of support. Even from people who have been less than pleasant in the past. "Some of them wrote to me and they said, 'Hey, I'm actually very sorry. I didn't realise what I was doing. I really respect your work.'"We're a long way off from women being treated matter-of-factly universally throughout esports in particular and gaming in general, but it's at least encouraging to see that steps are being taken. Maybe, just maybe, we'll eventually see women players feel secure and safe enough to compete at the highest levels.

In 2003 I used PfaEdit, now FontForge, to convert screen to a TrueType font so it'd work on OS X, and I have used it as my standard bitmapped font since. I would have made the conversions public earlier, but I was concerned about whether this would be a licensing violation. It turns out the SGI fonts were released under a MIT license a few months after I initially converted them back in 2003, but I didnât notice until today. So, here are the fonts for you to download.The SGI font is classic. So memorable.

British re-elected prime-minister Cameron is continuing his life's mission of invading the British people's privacy and severely restricting their freedoms.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.How on earth did you Brits manage to not only elect this dangerous man, but also re-elect him?

Lewis Rosenthal announced at Warpstock that Arca Noae is now licensed by IBM to create a new OS/2 distribution; it is currently codenamed "Blue Lion" and has a tentative release of Q3 2016. It will be based on OS/2 Warp 4.52 (MCP2) and the SMP kernel, with a new installer which does not require floppies or optical media (USB and possibly network installs), the Arca Noae driver updates including ACPI, USB, and MultiMac, and an updated version of SNAP Graphics. Lewis made it clear that there is no agreement between Arca Noae and XEU (formerly Mensys), and they intend to be a better OS/2 distribution than eComstation. Note that eComstation has been effectively dead since December 2013, despite some vague promises earlier this year that 2.2 would finally be released this month.Not sure if the harsh words for eComStation are entirely warranted, but the long, long release cycle for eCS 2.2 and IBM engaging in this new agreement is, honestly, quite telling.

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that Tabor, a new powerful, low cost, entry level PowerPC motherboard, which forms part of our A1200 series, is about to undergo beta testing.As part of our drive to create more powerful lower cost, entry level hardware and expand the Next-Generation user base we commissioned Ultra Varisys to create a new PowerPC motherboard. The result is Tabor, a 170 mm x 170 mm mother-board based on a Freescale QorIQ P1022 32-bit e500v2 dual-core PowerPC processor running at 1.2 GHz. Prototypes have already been shipped to key developers and members of A-EON Technologyâs Core Linux support team and, as a result, several Linux distributions are already up and running on the Tabor board. Working in cooperation with ACube srl, a beta test programme is about to commence, which is already over-subscribed.Sounds like nice hardware, and it's great the Amiga community, even after all these years, can still buy new machines for AmigaOS 4.

GNU Hurd 0.7 and GNU Mach 1.6 have been released.The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux).Since day one of the GNU project, Hurd was supposed to be its kernel - as we all know, of course, it turned out Linux provided a far better kernel with a much faster pace of development, and it's been used as the de-facto GNU kernel ever since. Those with an appreciation for history will love the lingering, mildly dismissive tone of "...such as Linux".

You can read the German source version of the article, or the English translation.A CCC made Apple TV App for displaying CCC-talks may not be released on the platform. According to Apple the app is in breach of developer terms and conditions because it enables access to content of which the company disapproves: Apple criticizes that the CCC's app allows watching publicly given talks, which among others deal with security holes in the widely used Bluetooth technology, or help "jailbreaking" Apple devices - enabling the use of applications that have not been approved by Apple. The talks criticized by Apple are all available under the website media.ccc.de and can also be watched through the Apple TV YouTube app, which is not criticized by Apple.Still feel comfortable with letting Apple police the news you read?

So after yesterday's news about Chrome OS and Android supposedly merging, we got a bit more insight into what is actually happening. As it turns out, Google claims Chrome OS isn't disappearing - it's just going to promote Android as an additional choice for OEMs to put on laptops and desktop machines, as Recode reports.Starting next year, the company will work with partners to build personal computers that run on Android, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. The Chrome browser and operating systems aren't disappearing - PC makers that produce Chromebooks will still be able to use Chrome. But they will now have the choice of Android. And its arrival suggests the supremacy of mobile inside Google, which has prioritized how to best handle the shift away from desktop across all its divisions.Ever since Google unveiled Material Design, which works well on just about any size application, from full-screen tablets applications to small smartphone applications, and everything in between, it was clear to me Google was looking into expanding Android beyond smartphones and tablets. They've apparently been working on this for several years, with the first developer releases hitting next year, and the first devices in 2017.This probably also explains the Pixel C. Pixel devices have always been kind of odd in that they clearly aren't meant for the general public to buy, but more as showcases for people inside Google itself. The Pixel C - the Surface clone - would serve as a perfect developer and testing device for an Android that is more oriented towards dekstops and laptops.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google plans to fold its Chrome operating system for personal computers into its Android mobile-operating system, according to people familiar with the matter, a sign of the growing dominance of mobile computing.Google engineers have been working for roughly two years to combine the operating systems and have made progress recently, two of the people said. The company plans to unveil its new, single operating system in 2017, but expects to show off an early version next year, one of the people said.The writing's been on the wall for a while now, and to be honest, this makes perfect sense. Android is the more popular and more capable of the two, and already runs Chrome as it is.

Early next year, we expect to be re-categorizing Windows 10 as a "Recommended Update". Depending upon your Windows Update settings, this may cause the upgrade process to automatically initiate on your device. Before the upgrade changes the OS of your device, you will be clearly prompted to choose whether or not to continue. And of course, if you choose to upgrade (our recommendation!), then you will have 31 days to roll back to your previous Windows version if you donât love it.We don't think twice about updating to new operating systems releases on smartphones of tablets, but on PCs, we always get really uppity about it. I think it's pretty irresponsible to continue using outdated software that isn't receiving security updates anymore (is Windows 7 in that category yet?), but at the same time, it is your machine, and if you want to run insecure software - well, be my guest.Still, I hope every single Windows installation moves to Windows 10 soon, especially those still using dreadful Windows XP.

Paul Thurrott, on Microsoft's new Android launcher Arrow:Consider the following.You can now unlock your Android device with Microsoftâs Next Lock Screen or Picturesque Lock Screen. Interact with your apps, contacts, reminders, and recent items with the Arrow home app replacement. Access first-class Microsoft experiences via Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, and Groove. Use mobile-specific solutions such as Microsoft Wi-Fi, Health, Office Lens, Office Remote, and MSN News, Sports, Money and Weather. And even test-drive Android-/mobile-only Microsoft apps like Microsoft Translator, Send, Tossup, and Xim. You could configure a fully-functioning Android handset that used almost nothing but Microsoft apps (plus a few stragglers like the phone, messaging and camera apps, plus Google Maps).It's really happening. And Arrow is a big piece of the puzzle.The Microsoft Android phone is incoming.

Andrew âbunnieâ Huang & Sean Cross tell, in great detail, how they created the Novena laptop, using solely open source software and hardware. For anyone familiar with or even interested in how computers really work, it's quite a gripping tale. I believe their work could have lasting beneficial effects on the hobbyist computing and open source communities. Even though it's published in a trade journal for professional electrical engineers, the article is accessible, even rudimentary at times. They faced some considerable obstacles, such as a lack of driver support for their GPU. Fortunately, "the user community behind Novena is trying to create, through reverse engineering, open-source drivers that would allow the built-in GPU on the i.MX6 chip to render graphics directly." Most interesting feature: "a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a type of processor chip that can be reconfigured by its user to change the chipâs specs and capabilities. Basically, this reconfigurability allows the chip to do things in hardware that would otherwise have to be done in software." Also, two ethernet ports.

Last month, I wrote:The second method by which publishers and ad brokers will combat ad-blocking is by making ads harder to detect. We've already seen a huge increase in "advertorials", ads written to look like regular editorial content. Right now, there will be tags or other markers to separate advertorial content from regular editorial content, but in the near future you can expect these borders to become ever more vague, until eventually, they'll vanish altogether.Today, Condé Nast, parent company of, among other things, Ars Technica, announced a new type of ad campaign, as reported by Observer."Creating the most compelling content and obsessively pushing boundaries is what drives Condé Nast," chief marketing officer and president of Condé Nast Media Group Edward Menicheschi said in the announcement. "Partnering with Cadillac, a brand with similar DNA, will result in premium storytelling that engages and inspires our shared consumers."The marketing boundaries will be pushed by "the talented storytellers from Condé Nast's editorial staff" who, in a variety of formats and across the company's distribution platforms (aka editorial properties), will "dare greatly" to reimagine the relationship between editorial and advertising. Condés Cadillac campaign will consist of more than 50 pieces of custom content, including articles and video.Give it a few years, and the boundaries between advertising and content will be gone completely. It's the only way to combat ad blockers and deliver advertising to consumers on the web.Oh, how we'll long for today's ads.

A bit of a fluff piece, as these articles tend to be, but still a fun and great read."No. 1, the importance and value of great hardware has not diminished in any way," he said. "Across the board, our goal is to make the best in the categories we choose to compete in. It's what we're doing and it's reflected in customers choosing our products over anyone else's. So I do think people are showing with their choice that they do value quality and beauty of the hardware and that is not diminishing.""I have never heard anyone say, 'Because I like to keep my stuff in the cloud, I will take a cheap piece of hardware and I want it to be ugly.' All things being equal, of course, nobody wants that," Schiller said.While I personally believe Apple's software leaves a lot to be desired, and even though Apple sometimes makes absolutely ridiculous hardware choices (5400RPM? Seriously?), there's no denying that when it comes to the sheer feel of Apple's hardware - such as my iPhone 6S, or retina MacBook Pro - they really are in a league of their own. They say the latest Galaxy phones and the new Nexus 6P come close, but I haven't used them yet.In any event, especially compared to other PC OEMs, Apple is so far ahead it's not even a contest anymore, really. Let's hope Microsoft's hardware efforts finally - finally - lights a few fires.

The European Parliament has passed the flawed compromise text on net neutrality without including any of the amendments that would have closed serious loopholes. The vote, with 500 in favour, and 163 against, took place in a plenary session a few hours after a rather lacklustre debate this morning, which was attended by only 50 MEPs out of the European Parliament's total of 751, indicating little interest in this key topic among most European politicians.And thus, with one fell swoop, the progress several countries had made - including my own - is undone, by a bunch of incompetent, spineless toads in Brussels. We had full net neutrality in The Netherlands, but such rules are now effectively illegal.And then people wonder why the EU is so incredibly unpopular.

There are various Commodore 80286 PCs. The ones I know: the PC30-III, PC35-III, PC40-III and PC45-III. All these systems use the PC40-III motherboard. [...]What they have in common is the fact that all these PCs only support HDDs up to 512 MB. This was a quite normal limit for those days and only servers were equipped with HDDs larger than 100 MB. The problem however is that HDDs smaller than 512 MB hardly can be found and HDDs larger than 512 MB won't be recognised.The solution is a piece of software to enable the PC to handle these larger HDDs: XTIDE Universal BIOS. It was originally meant to enable XTs to handle 16-bits IDE HDDs on their 8-bits ISA bus. But is has been expanded in such a way that ATs and larger PCs could benefit from its features as well.Obscure solution for an obscure problem. I love it.

Asteroid is a free and open-source community-centered smartwatch platform based on Qt5, OpenEmbedded and libhybris. Qt5 is used to create a rock-solid user experience, OpenEmbedded provides the build system and core components of the distribution and libhybris allows Asteroid to be run on top of Android Wear devices. It shares a lot of technological and philosophical choices with smartphones projects such as SailfishOS, NemoMobile, WebOS-Ports, SHR or Ubuntu Touch but adapted to the needs of smartwatches. For now the project is still in early stages and is in need of contributors.libhybris is the gift that just keeps on giving.

This project started as a simple experiment to see if I could create a "modern" looking graphical user interface for the commodore 64.Once I got the basic user interface working, I decided to add an optional touch screen. It pretty much works! Of course cOS can still be operated by a standard joystick or the cursor keys.These people are gods.

For all of the strengths of OS X, two of the complaints recycled year after year are the aged filesystem, HFS+, with its lack of file integrity, and the file manager, the Finder. While replacing HFS+ remains out of our reach, an alternative to the Finder for day-to-day tasks has been achievable for some time. Enter "Commander One," a dual-pane file manager that seeks to fill in the holes that the Finder has famously left. Let's dig in and see what Commander One has to offer. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...

Apple is currently embroiled in a legal tussle with the US Department of Justice over a defendant's iPhone. The DoJ wants to force Apple to unlock the phone, but Apple argues that first, it technically cannot do so, and second, that it doesn't have to. It's that second point the DoJ is trying to address in a very interesting way.Effectively, the DoJ is arguing that because Apple only licenses iOS to its users, and because Apple specifically states it retains ownership of iOS, Apple can be forced to unlock the phone. It is, namely, the DoJ argues, iOS which is thwarting law enforcement's ability to do its job, and the copy of iOS on the phone in question is, as Apple itself clearly states, Apple's property. Or, in the DoJ's legalese:Apple designed, manufactured, and sold the Target Phone that is the subject of the search warrant. But that is only the beginning of Apple's relationship to the phone and to this matter. Apple wrote and owns the software that runs the phone, and this software is thwarting the execution of the warrant. Apple's software licensing agreement specifies that iOS 7 software is "licensed, not sold" and that users are merely granted "a limited non-exclusive license to use the iOS Software." [...] Apple cannot reap the legal benefits of licensing its software in this manner and then later disclaim any ownership or obligation to assist law enforcement when that same software plays a critical role in thwarting execution of a search warrant.This is a remarkable argument, and it fascinates me to no end - if the DoJ actually manages to pull this one off, it will not only be a glorious case of the insane anti-consumer implications of commercial software licensing coming to bite a large corporation in the ass, but it will also have far-reaching consequences for the power the US government has - in a very, very bad way, as Cory Doctorow explains:To my knowledge, this is an entirely novel argument, but as I say, it has far-reaching consequences. Virtually every commercial software vendor licenses its products, rather than selling them. If the DoJ establishes the precedent that a product's continued ownership interest in a product after it is sold obliges the company to act as agents of the state, this could ripple out to cars and pacemakers, voting machines and tea-kettles, thermostats and CCTVs and door locks and every other device with embedded software.Commercial software licensing is a shady practice that should've come under intense scrutiny decades ago, but this is not the manner in which I want it to be done.

Apple is currently embroiled in a legal tussle with the US Department of Justice over a defendant's iPhone. The DoJ wants to force Apple to unlock the phone, but Apple argues that first, it technically cannot do so, and second, that it doesn't have to. It's that second point the DoJ is trying to address in a very interesting way.Effectively, the DoJ is arguing that because Apple only licenses iOS to its users, and because Apple specifically states it retains ownership of iOS, Apple can be forced to unlock the phone. It is, namely, the DoJ argues, iOS which is thwarting law enforcement's ability to do its job, and the copy of iOS on the phone in question is, as Apple itself clearly states, Apple's property. Or, in the DoJ's legalese:Apple designed, manufactured, and sold the Target Phone that is the subject of the search warrant. But that is only the beginning of Apple's relationship to the phone and to this matter. Apple wrote and owns the software that runs the phone, and this software is thwarting the execution of the warrant. Apple's software licensing agreement specifies that iOS 7 software is "licensed, not sold" and that users are merely granted "a limited non-exclusive license to use the iOS Software." [...] Apple cannot reap the legal benefits of licensing its software in this manner and then later disclaim any ownership or obligation to assist law enforcement when that same software plays a critical role in thwarting execution of a search warrant.This is a remarkable argument, and it fascinates me to no end - if the DoJ actually manages to pull this one off, it will not only be a glorious case of the insane anti-consumer implications of software licensing coming to bite a a large corporation in the ass, but it will also have far-reaching consequences for the power the US government has - in a very,very bad way, as Cory Doctorow explains:To my knowledge, this is an entirely novel argument, but as I say, it has far-reaching consequences. Virtually every commercial software vendor licenses its products, rather than selling them. If the DoJ establishes the precedent that a product's continued ownership interest in a product after it is sold obliges the company to act as agents of the state, this could ripple out to cars and pacemakers, voting machines and tea-kettles, thermostats and CCTVs and door locks and every other device with embedded software.Commercial software licensing is a shady practice that should've come under intense scrutiny decades ago, but this is not the manner in which I want it to be done.

OZ V4.6, a continuation of the actual operating system of the Z88, has been released.This web space has been created by and for the 'die-hard' users of the Cambridge Z88, the iPad of the 80's, launched in September 1987 at the PCW computer show in London. The company behind it was Cambridge Computer, a spring-off company of Sinclair Research, founded by Clive Sinclair. The object of this project is to streamline the operating system, OZ and to build new applications by replacing the built-in ROM with a larger device. All the software and documents here, is provided for free, ready to be downloaded in source code, or as ready-made binaries - all GPL V2 licensed.Incredibly impressive project.

There's a worrying new trend in the Windows Phone world - applications are disappearing.American Airlines, Chase Bank, Bank of America, NBC, Pinterest, and Kabam have all discontinued their Windows Phone apps in the past year. These huge apps have simply disappeared or will no longer be updated. Some companies have cited a lack of Windows Phone users, and others have remained silent, but each removal has put Microsoft another step behind in the mobile race.It's not just third-party apps disappearing, either. Microsoft has removed several MSN apps and its popular Photosynth app, and the software maker has also killed off a number of special Lumia camera apps. Windows Phone users still don't have great Skype or Office apps like Microsoft produces for the iPhone. It's stunning that, after five years, the best experience of using Skype or Office on a phone isn't on one powered by Windows. This will change in Windows 10 Mobile, but it's not available yet.Considering Microsoft's broken promises, abysmal messaging, glacial development pace, endless resets, and confusing strategies, it's entirely and 100% understandable that developers are giving Windows Phone the boot. I'm sure we'll get comments about "just you wait until Windows Phone 10!", but nobody is falling for those empty promises anymore.Windows Phone could've been great, if only it hadn't been managed by utter incompetency.

A very in-depth presentation concerning Virtualization Based Security (VBS) in Windows 10/Server 2016, something Microsoft seems to be investing heavily in. It's from Alex Ionescu, of ReactOS fame, delivered at Blackhat 2015.

So, Medium tried a new thing on their website in which they render the site in system fonts - San Francisco, Roboto, Segoe - but soon they started getting bug reports from people about Medium showing blocky, pixellated fonts.I looked again at all the system fonts and none seemed to match any of the descriptions. What was going on? I started asking for screenshots, and eventually a few trickled in.And, suddenly, I realized I know this font. It was a font I saw on my first PC.I love this story.

If the ads pointing to a Friday pre-order date for the Priv didn't have you salivating already, things are starting to heat up. BlackBerry is now listing the Priv on ShopBlackBerry, and although you can't pre-order just yet, we now have a good look at pricing. For those of us in the U.S., it looks like the BlackBerry Priv is running a cool $750 unlocked. In Canada, on the other hand, it'll set you back $949 - definitely a pricey little beast. In addition, we're looking at a ship date of November 16 after pre-orders begin.I like the Priv - finally a modern phone with a proper keyboard - but that is one hefty price tag. I think this kills a lot of the possible, albeit modest, success.

Earlier this year, Fairphone announced the Fairphone 2, which has been designed by the company from scratch and has a unique feature: the users can (and are encouraged to) easily disassemble the phone themselves, swap or upgrade parts, and keep using the device longer than any other similar smartphone. In a word, it is modular.Interesting, and a very different approach than Google's Ara.

Apple's released both OS X 10.11.1...Apple today released OS X 10.11.1, which is the first update to the new El Capitan operating system that was launched to the public on September 30. In testing since mid-September, OS X 10.11.1 is a minor performance update that focuses on fixing bugs found in the first version of El Capitan....and iOS 9.1.iOS 9.1 has a limited number of outward facing changes. It includes support for Unicode 7 and 8, introducing a range of new emoji like taco, burrito, cheese wedge, middle finger, champagne bottle, unicorn head, and more.iOS 9.1 includes an update for Live Photos, which now sense when the iPhone is raised or lowered to refrain from recording unnecessary movements. The update also introduces a new Messages option in the Settings app that is designed to allow users to disable photos for contacts, and it brings Apple News to the UK for the first time.Apple also released an update for the iPhone Mini, but nobody cares.

The new option is called YouTube Red. It costs $9.99 per month and will be available for purchase on October 28th, starting in the US, then rolling out worldwide. Along with removing ads, subscribers will be able to save videos for offline viewing, and keep videos running in the background on mobile. That means you can listen to a music video or a TED Talk while checking email or surfing Instagram. That monthly fee also gives you access to Google Play Music, meaning you get two streaming services for the same price Spotify or Apple Music charge for one without video. As a final enticement, YouTube will also begin putting new, exclusive content behind a paywall.I use YouTube a lot - several hours of let's plays a day - but the number of YouTube ads I get is so small - maybe once every ten videos, and always skippable - that I don't really see the need to pay â¬10 a month to get rid of them.

The first reviews of Microsoft's new Surface Book are in - and it's kind of a mixed bag.Is the Surface really the ultimate laptop that Microsoft claims it is? Nearly. I say that because sometimes Iâm using the Surface Book and I just wish Microsoft had made a pure laptop. The display wobble can be irritating, and the weird gap when itâs closed means I have to clean the Surface Book every day. If Microsoft can fix the hinge in future versions and make it a lot less bulky then this could be great. It has a beautiful display, amazing battery life, and the keyboard and trackpad feel great. But even though thatâs everything I want in a laptop, the accommodations Microsoft made to enable the tablet end up making the laptop experience less than ideal.I had hoped for a pure laptop too - while I appreciate what Microsoft is trying to do, the compromises seem rather serious here, for something not a whole lot of people are going to use anyway. Joanna Stern agrees:The design has some real flaws, though. The 3.3-pound, 0.9-inch-thick computer is chunkier than Iâd like. And getting into it is like trying to crack a safe. The magnets that keep the system closed require you to throw too much back into it. Once youâre in, thereâs a slight but unfortunate wobble in the display. This is related to that high-tech hinge that releases the screen when you press an eject key.As for the Surface Pro 4? Well, it's exactly the same as the Pro 3, but with some minor enhancements. If you didn't like the idea of the Surface before, the Pro 4 won't change your mind.

The Verge on the Nexus 6P:The Nexus 6P effectively levels the playing field with other great phones by offering really beautiful hardware and a camera that can finally compete. And it does that while undercutting all of them on cost. The Nexus 6P starts at $499, and for that price there is not a single phone on the market that's better. Not one.If you compare it to the other "premium" phones like the iPhone 6S, Galaxy S6, or Note 5, you're going to end up finding yourself putting a different set of things on your decision scales than before. With the Note 5: is a slightly better camera and a stylus worth $240 more, or would you rather have a clean Android experience? And the iPhone 6S: is iOS's superior app ecosystem and 3D Touch worth $150 more, or do you live in Google's ecosystem and want Google Now on Tap?I find it remarkable that the Nexus 6P has managed to cram so much excellent, high-end phone - a great camera, even! - in such a small price tag. Except if you're European of course, where we're being hit with serious price hikes that really destroy the 6P's value proposition.Just as remarkable: the Nexus 5X.Still, if youâve been holding onto a Nexus 5 for two years just waiting for Google to do right by you, those points might not matter. Barring few exceptions, such as the lack of wireless charging, thereâs very little that a Nexus 5 lover will find to complain about with the 5X. Itâs compact, cheap, and performs well, even if itâs not the best-looking or best-feeling phone you can get. If youâve been eyeing Motorolaâs new Moto X or the plethora of other phones in the sub-$500 price range, the 5X is a really compelling option. In fact, among phones under $450, I donât think thereâs a better option, and itâs easily the one Iâd pick.As one of those fervent Nexus 5 lovers - I may have bought an iPhone 6S, but my bright orange-red Nexus 5 will remain in my heart for a long time to come - the 5X really does appeal to me. I'm not a fan of the camera bulge, and it definitely needs an orange-red option, but other than that, it looks exactly like I imagined a 2015-2016 Nexus 5 would look.These two phones are definitely the best Android phones you can buy right now bar none.