OSnews

Intel and Microsoft are teaming with three leading PC makers on a new ad campaign designed to make potential computer buyers more aware of all the things a modern PC can do.The campaign, with the slogan "PC Does What?" is set to be announced Thursday at a Webcast featuring the companies' top marketing executives, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans. It will feature TV, print and online advertisements, sources said.I expect this to be really cringe-inducing. In other words, we'll get some entertainment out of it.

Apple's Swift has been available for over a year now, and Apple has promised it will be made available under an Open-Source license by the end of 2015.That's great, but could I run Swift code on an Android device today?

On October 12th, Microsoft began rolling out Windows 10 build 10565 to the Fast ring. The newly released build includes new changes and improvements on the Start menu, desktop environment, Cortana, brand new apps, including the Messaging, Phone, and Skype video apps. Also, there are new enhancements for the Microsoft Edge web browser and a lot more.Microsoft really seems to finally be putting some weight behind its own applications, updating them more often, and releasing impactful Windows updates more regularly.I'm far, far from complaining. Nice.

It's been over three years since the very first Mac went Retina, and we're still waiting for every model to get the upgrade. But this year, the scales started to tip in Retina's favor. We got an all-new Retina MacBook in the spring, and today Apple is killing the 27-inch non-Retina iMac and introducing a new 4K model at the top of the 21.5-inch lineup.The 4K iMac starts at $1,499 and does for the 21-inch iMac what the 5K version did for the 27-inch iMac a year ago: it gives it a Retina screen and leaves pretty much everything else alone. You do get a handful of nice internal upgrades, including Intel's Broadwell CPUs and GPUs, Thunderbolt 2 support, and faster storage and RAM (all also available on the refreshed non-Retina 21.5-inch iMacs). But for most intents and purposes, this thing is just a 2012-era iMac chassis with a nice sharp screen installed in place of the old 1080p display.Believe it or not, but that $1500 base model? It comes with a 5400RPM hard drive. Unacceptable.In any event, Apple also replaced its keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad. As a fan of Apple's current keyboard (I know I'm the only person who actually seems to really love it - it's the only keyboard I use, on my PC even), I'm excited about the new model because you can also use it wired. That said, it's a whopping â¬129 here, which is kind of insane.

So here's where we're at with the Gear S2: it's a well designed, easy to use smartwatch that makes a good complement to your Android smartphone. If checking notifications, tracking the basics of your physical activity, controlling music, and getting small bits of info are all you want from a smartwatch, the S2 fills all of those needs.But if you look at smartwatches as an entirely new medium for which developers have yet to fully exploit, the S2 should give you pause. It's entirely possible, likely even, that Samsung âwon't get the developer support it needs to strengthen the S2's platform. Pebble has been able to do that to a limited extent, but history tells us the odds of that happening again are arguably low.Harsh, but true. The Gear S2 looks like a decent smartwatch with an interesting and useful interaction model, but we all know the likelihood of any serious developer support for Tizen is small, at best.

Now that the phone is out and in the wild, I've had a chance to experiment a bit with making a basic MIDI controller. In the process, I've learned some interesting things about Apple's 3D Touch APIs that I'm sharing here in hopes that it will be helpful for other folks interested in developing on the platform.

Few people even remember that such a medium as vinyl movies existed, but for a brief, doomed period in the early 1980s, home video was available on CEDs. While CED players were not released to consumers until 1981, the development of the system dates back to the 1960s. The idea was that they could encode sound and video information to a vinyl disc if they could only get the grooves small enough.Fascinating. I had no idea they ever tried to do this. Better yet, that they succeeded.

The Linux Standard Base (LSB) is a specification that purports to define the services and application-level ABIs that a Linux distribution will provide for use by third-party programs. But some in the Debian project are questioning the value of maintaining LSB compliance - it has become, they say, a considerable amount of work for little measurable benefit.It's too much work for little benefit, and nobody wants to do it, so what's the point - just drop it. At least, that seems to be the reasoning.But Debian's not throwing all of the LSB overboard: we're still firmly standing behind the FHS (version 2.3 through Debian Policy; although 3.0 was released in August this year) and our SysV init scripts mostly conform to LSB VIII.22.{2-8}. But don't get me wrong, this src:lsb upload is an explicit move away from the LSB.That's too bad - the FHS is an abomination, a useless, needlesly complex relic from a time we were still using punch cards, and it has no place in any modern computing platform. All operating systems have absolutely horrible and disastrous directory layouts, but the FHS is one of the absolute worst in history.

NetBSD 7.0 has been released. It's got kernel scripting with Lua now, and introduces support for a whole bunch of new ARM boards, as well as support for multiprocessor support for ARM. There's a whole lot more, so go check it out.

Elon Musk, in an interview over at Handelsblatt:Apple just hired some of Tesla's most important engineers. Do you have to worry about a new competitor?Important engineers? They have hired people we've fired. We always jokingly call Apple the "Tesla Graveyard." If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding.Do you take Apple's ambitions seriously?Did you ever take a look at the Apple Watch? (laughs) No, seriously: It's good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches. You can't just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: Build me a car. But for Apple, the car is the next logical thing to finally offer a significant innovation. A new pencil or a bigger iPad alone were not relevant enough.He's not wrong. Should be interesting: Tesla and Apple are companies with some of the most.... Enthusiastic fans, and I'm sure there's quite some overlap.

Yesterday's Windows 10 hardware launch event was without question the best Microsoft in ages - and arguably the tech launch event of the year. Microsoft unveiled its first-ever laptop, showed off an updated Surface Pro 4, and announced a new lineup of phones, all while articulating a confident, aggressive strategy of turning Windows 10 into the underlying software service and platform for virtually everything in your life.That huge bet might not pay off - Apple and Google are still formidable competitors, and the road back to mobile relevance will be a long one - but it's more vision and purpose than we've seen from Redmond in years. So I sat down with new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the soon-to-open Microsoft flagship store in Manhattan to ask him how he'd changed the entire vibe at Microsoft in the past 18 months, and what he hopes to accomplish in the next 18 months. We also talked about how he plans to keep his Windows OEM partners happy even as Microsoft's Surface Book laptop competes directly with their high-end products, and just how he plans to get back in the phone game.I like Nadella, and I like what Microsoft is doing right now. Even though I can't really put my finger on it, I have a fondness for the Surface line-up, and if it wasn't for Metro being useless, I would not have opted for a MacBook Pro. I've also always liked Windows Phone, and even though I don't believe it's going anywhere, and despite the many, many stumbles Microsoft has made along the way, I still think it's definitely the most unique of the three major mobile platforms.By letting go of 'Windows everywhere' and instead focussing on making great products for everyone - no matter your platform of choice - I think Microsoft has a real shot at getting back in the consumer game.

Facebook's got Instant Articles and Apple's got Apple News, and now Google has something called Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, together with a whole bunch of partners.AMP HTML is a new way to make web pages that are optimized to load instantly on users' mobile devices. It is designed to support smart caching, predictable performance, and modern, beautiful mobile content. Since AMP HTML is built on existing web technologies, and not a template based system, publishers continue to host their own content, innovate on their user experiences, and flexibly integrate their advertising and business models - all within a technical architecture optimized for speed and performance.The big difference between AMP and other initiatives: AMP is open source and available on Github, and anybody can use the code as they see fit.

League of Legends players collectively send millions of messages every day. They're asking friends to duo-queue, suggesting a team comp on the champ select screen, and thanking opponents for a good game. On July 21st of this year (I picked a day at random), players forged 1.7 million new friendships in the game - that's a lot of love! And each time players send a message they trigger a number of operations on the back-end technology that powers Riot chat.In the previous episode of this series on chat, I discussed the protocol we chose to communicate between client and server: XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol). Today I'll dive into the mechanisms in place on the server-side and the architecture of the infrastructure, and Iâll discuss the work weâve done to ensure that our servers are scalable and robust. Like the last article, I hope itâll be interesting to anyone building out chat features to a distributed client base.

Microsoft announced a whole bunch of new products today - all from the devices team. We've got two new high-end Lumia phones, the 950 and 950XL. These phones have all the latest specifications, and peculiarly enough, they are water-cooled (I'm not joking). They obviously run Windows Phone 10, and support the Continuum feature, so you can hook them up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and you'll be greeted by something that looks a lot like a regular windows 10 desktop. Universal application swill automatically scale between the two different screen sizes. Pretty nifty.Microsoft also unveiled two new Surface devices: the Surface Pro 4 - a thinner, faster, and all-around better version of the Surface Pro 3 - but also the long-awaited Surface laptop, dubbed the Surface Book. The Surface Book is crazy powerful, has a beautiful display and full, regular keyboard, a crazy hinge that really sets it apart, and just like any other Surface, the screen can some off - but this time, using something Microsoft calls "Muscle Wire", electrified attachment points that keep the two parts firmly together - you can grab it by the screen and dangle it without any fear of the two parts disconnecting.The keyboard half contains a discrete graphics chip and some batteries, while the rest of the computery parts are housed within the display. Microsoft makes some crazy claims about performance, but we'll have to see some proper benchmarks first. In any case, it looks like the kind of laptop Microsoft wanted its partner to build - but we all know something like this is simply beyond the capabilities of the likes of Dell or HP.That being said, the Surface Book ain't cheap, and starts at $1500.

Last night, Google posted the Android 6.0 Marshmallow factory images online, for the Nexus 5, 6, 7 (2013), 9 (Wi-Fi), and Player. since these are factory images, you'll have to perform a wipe and install. If you don't want to go through the hassle of doing so, you'll have to wait for the OTA updates rolling out in the coming weeks.If you want to take the plunge, AndroidCentral has a great guide on how to do so.

Last night, Google posted the Android 6.0 Marshmallow factory images online, for the Nexus 5, 6, 7 (2013), 9 (Wi-Fi), and Player. since these are factory images, you'll have to perform a wipe and install. If you don't want to go through the hassle of doing so, you'll have to wait for the OTA updates rolling out in the coming weeks.If you want to take the plunge, AndroidCentral has a great guide on how to do so.

The European Court of Justice has just ruled that the transatlantic Safe Harbour agreement, which lets American companies use a single standard for consumer privacy and data storage in both the US and Europe, is invalid. The ruling came after Edward Snowden's NSA leaks showed that European data stored by US companies was not safe from surveillance that would be illegal in Europe.This could have far-reaching consequences for Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other US tech giants operating in Europe.

If we were to ask for any new feature from a new Android version, it would be some kind of scalable update solution. Right now a custom update still needs to be built for every single individual device model, and that's really not a workable solution when you have more than 24,000 models out there. The Stagefright vulnerability seemed to be a wakeup call for the Android ecosystem, but it came too late to affect anything in Marshmallow. Google instituted monthly updates for Nexus devices, and OEMs are pledging to bring the monthly update program to flagship devices. The majority of Android devices, though - the low-end devices - are being ignored. Monthly updates for Google, Samsung, and LG flagships only works out to a very small percentage of the Android install base.Android 6.0 could dispense gold nuggets and clean my bathroom for free, but as long as this update hell exists, it's all for naught.

HP today announced the launch of the OpenSwitch community and a new open source network operating system (NOS). HP and key supporters, Accton Technology Corporation, Arista, Broadcom, Intel, and VMware, are delivering a community-based platform that provides developers and users the ability to accelerate innovation, avoid vendor lock-in, and realize investment protection as they rapidly build data center networks customized for unique business applications.Here's the official OpenSwitch site - and I'll admit, this goes way over my head.

The Lumia 950 and its bigger sibling are intended not as a revolution, but as a solid foundation to a brighter and better future for Microsoft's mobile efforts. They should be judged on that basis, not on whether they're able to make a dent in the Apple and Google duopoly. To achieve that lofty goal, Microsoft will need multiple generations of devices as well as the collaboration of other service providers willing to bring their apps to its platform. Tomorrow's event will be indicative of how progress is going along that path, while also giving us a pair of interesting new devices to talk about.I have little to no hope for Windows Phone. It's done.One interesting note for tomorrow's Microsoft event: there's rumblings and rumours about Google unveiling official Google applications for Windows 10 tomorrow. It's nothing solid, and take it with some salt, but it wouldn't be that surprising - just as Microsoft needed Apple almost 20 years ago, Google may need Microsoft today.

September means the beginning of sweater weather, the return of Pumpkin Spice Lattes and the launch of a new iPhone. Now that the highly anticipated iPhone 6s line has finally hit stores and is smashing sales records, the Pornhub statisticians have decided to dig through the data and found out what it is that separates iPhone-wielding Pornhub users from our Android-loyal visitors, in terms of how they interact with the site and what kinds of content they prefer. Currently, just over 60% of our traffic comes from mobile devices, so without any further ado, let's take a look at what makes each of these major subsets of Pornhub's viewership tick.I didn't put the link in the copied blurb itself. The following link is to the company blog, and not the Pornhub site itself, so it's completely safe for work, and contains no nudity or otherwise inappropriate content, so you can read it for the interesting mobile stats without any worries. It's still a link to the Pornhub domain, so you might want to skip this one if you're on a work computer or someone else's machine.Here's the link. And yes I find it totally hilarious the OSNews database now contains a link to the Pornhub domain.

I've spent the past couple of days desperately trying to puzzle out the purpose behind Google's newly announced Nexus 5X and 6P smartphones. Unlike predecessors such as the Nexus One and Nexus 5, these phones don't have a clear reason for being, and are not in themselves terribly unique. That's led me (and others) to question Google's overall aim with the Nexus line of pure Android smartphones, and I think I've finally arrived at an answer. The Nexus program is not so much about carrier independence or purity of Android design as it is about presenting Google in an overwhelmingly positive light. In other words, Google, the ultimate ad seller, sells Nexus phones as ads for itself.This article feels a bit like a trainwreck to me. It just doesn't make any sense. Of course Nexus devices are built specifically to put Android and Google's services on a pedestal - has anyone ever claimed otherwise? Has anyone ever seen them as anything but? The tone of the article also tries to somehow posit this as a negative thing, which I don't understand either. Some of the very best Android phones of all time have been Nexus phones, so aren't they a great thing for us consumers? What's the problem here?Making Android profitable for Android phone makers is one of the great challenges of our time. We're all better off when we buy things from sustainable companies that we know will still be around when we have an issue months or years down the line. I wish Google would recognize that and try to do more to support Android as a whole rather than just its own good name. Nexus devices have in the past and can still serve nobler purposes than just making Google look good.No, it's not. The goal of Android is to reach as many people as possible, and do so in a way that benefits us as consumers as much as possible. Expensive Android devices with 50% profit margins don't benefit us at all - they just allow major corporations to suck money out the economy and shadily funnel it to foreign tax havens. We benefit from access to high-quality phones at reasonable prices running Android-proper - and anything that pushes the Samsungs and HTCs of this world to do so is a huge win for consumers.

With El Capitan released, there's one 'feature' that really needs to be highlighted - for better or worse.System Integrity Protection (SIP, sometimes referred to as rootless) is a security feature of OS X El Capitan, the operating system by Apple Inc. It protects certain system processes, files and folders from being modified or tampered with by other processes even when executed by the root user or by a user with root privileges (sudo). Apple says that the root user can be a significant risk factor to the system's security, especially on systems with a single user account on which that user is also the administrator. System Integrity Protection is enabled by default, but can be disabled.Here's Apple's WWDC presentation about SIP, and here's the Ars review's section about it.

Google and Microsoft have agreed to end their long-running patent feud over smartphones and video game systems, dropping about 20 lawsuits in the U.S. and Germany.The two companies, which didn't disclose financial terms, have been litigating over technology innovations for five years. Google's former Motorola Mobility unit had been demanding royalties on the Xbox video-gaming system, and Microsoft had sought to block Motorola mobile phones from using certain features.If you've been paying attention, you know why this is taking place now.

An interesting website that lets you go back in time, to see what the island of Manhattan looked like before it was appropriated by the Dutch and turned into New Amsterdam (now New York, of course). The native forest, streams, pond - they're all gone, obviously, and quite a bit of land was 'added' to the island to accommodate the city's needs (quite fitting, considering its founders).Have you ever wondered what New York was like before it was a city? Find out here, by navigating through the map of the city in 1609. You can find your block, explore the native landscape of today's famous landmarks, research the flora and fauna block by block, and help our team continue to rediscover 1609.A few weeks ago, in honour of the 200 year anniversary of the Kingdom of The Netherlands, the Dutch Kadaster and Topografisch Bureau (do I really need to translate that?) launched a fantastic website showing how much The Netherlands has changed over just the past 200 years. The site shows a Google Maps-like interface containing all topographical maps of the country made over the past 200 years, so you can navigate around the country and use the timeline slider to see when changes took place. Compare the Zuiderzee area in 1815 to the same area (now IJsselmeer) today, and it's completely different (we're basically just removing all the water and reclaiming all the land to bring us back to how it was 2000 years ago).Even at the very local level, you can find really interesting things. If you ever wanted a clear image of the absolutely devastating effect the government policy of "ruilverkaveling" (land swap) and the '70s ideals of the "malleable society" in its most literal form had on the landscape of The Netherlands (and who doesn't, right?), look no further than this 1973 map of my hometown/area. You can clearly see what it used to look like (the messy part), and the straight, ordered, boring, and artificial nothingness they turned it into. A few years later, the last remaining "old" landscape was destroyed, and now it all looks straight and orderly.This was all done to maximise agricultural production and make it easier for local, provincial and the national government to initiate new construction projects. It also allowed water management engineers to completely redesign our water management, which is kind of important in the western half of the country, since it consists almost entirely out of polders.I love how computers and the web can bring the old and the new together like this, and visualise so well something you otherwise would never be able to get this clear an image of.

Microsoft said a highly suspicious Windows update that was delivered to customers around the world was the result of a test that wasn't correctly implemented."We incorrectly published a test update and are in the process of removing it," a Microsoft spokesperson wrote in an e-mail to Ars. The message included no other information.The explanation came more than 12 hours after people around the world began receiving the software bulletin through the official Windows Update, raising widespread speculation that Microsoft's automatic patching mechanism was broken or, worse, had been compromised to attack end users. Fortunately, now that Microsoft has finally weighed in, that worst-case scenario can be ruled out.I'd be terrified if I had seen this.

All the reviews are already published, but today, Apple also actually, you know, released OS X El Capitan.OS X El Capitan, the latest version of the Mac operating system, builds on the groundbreaking features and beautiful design introduced in OS X Yosemite, refining the experience and improving performance in lots of ways that youâll enjoy everyday.Y'all know where to get it!

Sadly no longer written by John Siracusa, but still a good read: Ars' Max OS X El Capitan review.Really, this is the first time in several years that iOS and OS X have felt like they've gotten (and needed) the same amount of attention from Apple - both get to spend a release in the slow lane as Apple puts its marketing muscle behind newer platforms like the Apple Watch and the new Apple TV. Like iOS 9 (and Mountain Lion, and Snow Leopard), El Capitan is about refinement. Yosemite's big statement was "This is what OS X looks like now." El Capitan's is a relatively meek "Hey, I have a couple neat tricks to show you."

They all got leaked, so you probably knew everything going in, but today, Google unveiled its new Nexus phones, two new Chromecasts, and the Pixel C. The Nexus 5X is built by LG and really looks and feels like a Nexus 5 successor (sadly not available in the colour of my Nexus 5: orange-red-I-still-don't-know-oh-my-god-my-eyes-are-burning). Its bigger sister, the Nexus 6P, features an all-metal construction, a larger display with far more pixels, and a better camera - in fact, this could very well be the first Nexus with a camera that doesn't suck.They both sport fingerprint sensors, big batteries, and, of course, run Android 6.0 Marshmallow (Android 6.0 will be released for other Nexus devices over the coming weeks). The 16GB Nexus 5X is available for $379, while the 32GB Nexus 6P starts at $499. You can opt for more storage, too, if you wish. They'll be available in October.The Pixel C was a bit of a surprise to me, but apparently, it was also leaked, so the rest of the world wasn't as surprised as I was. It's a really premium 10.2" Android tablet, with a magnetically detachable keyboard - yes, my friends, after Apple, this is Google's stab at a Surface clone. Thanks to the clever keyboard, this is, actually, the Android 'PC' I've always wanted - I know there are tons of Android laptops and convertibles out there, but I refuse to buy non-Nexus for obvious reasons.Sadly, though, it doesn't seem like there's any special software work being done on Android to facilitate the more laptop-like design of the Pixel C. While Apple made sure to copy Metro's multiwindow implementation verbatim for its own Surface clone, Google doesn't seem to have done so for the Pixel C. There's no side-by-side stuff, no multiple windows, nothing. Some groundwork for multiwindow was laid in Marshmallow, but it was nowhere near final state and probably won't make it to Android until a future release.Speaking of future releases: the Pixel C will be getting updates every six weeks. Yes. An Android device with updates every six weeks. It'll set you back $499 for just the tablet, and the Bluetooth, magnetic keyboard, which is charged inductively via the tablet itself and can run on a single charge for two months, will set you back another $149. It'll be available later this year.

Customer Match is a new product designed to help you reach your highest-value customers on Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail - when it matters most. Customer Match allows you to upload a list of email addresses, which can be matched to signed-in users on Google in a secure and privacy-safe way. From there, you can build campaigns and ads specifically designed to reach your audience.So I have this crazy, revolutionary idea that could change everything. You ready? You sitting tight?I'd pay for Google services to not have ads and tracking.Here's some water for the shock.

When was the last time that you used a floppy disk? While still used as the save icon in modern software packages like Microsoft's Office suite, it's unusual to see one out in the wild. Given that a typical floppy disk offers up a minuscule 1.44MB of space - not even enough to house a three-minute pop song in MP3 format - there's seemingly no reason for these disks to stay in circulation.But while the average user might not have any cause to use a floppy disk, there are those out there who can't settle for anything else. They're in dire need of the disks, which most manufacturers have stopped producing. The floppy disk might seem like something better left in the 1990s. Instead it's a product that's alive and well in the 21st century.When my friends and I were in the US late last year, we got into an accident with our rental car - an old and kind Canadian lady rear-ended us while doing 110kph on the I-89 near the town of Lebanon, New Hampshire. The accident was entirely her fault, so she accepted all responsibility, the state trooper made an incident report, and sent us on our way to the nearest Avis office so we could get a new car, because the car's rear end was all mangled up. We were a bit shaken up, but luckily, nobody got hurt, and the Canadian lady bought us a bottle of maple syrup, and I bought a cheesy Vermont baseball cap to commemorate our grand adventure of meeting a state trooper.In any event, it turned out the nearest Avis office was at the Lebanon Municipal Airport, an absolutely amazing place that seemed frozen in time - a tiny airport with an adorable terminal and sliding doors leading straight to the runway. Mildly condescending adjectives like 'adorable', 'quaint', 'cute', and 'darling' don't do this place justice. In the terminal, while we waited for one of two airport employees present to fill out some paperwork, I noticed something remarkable: there, in the middle of the terminal, next to an old soda machine, sat an old TTY, a Minicom IV.Much like the TTY, the answer to the question of old technology lingering around is always the same: because it works.

Microsoft posted a blog post today about Windows 10's data collection and privacy, and Ars Technica's Peter Bright dissected it.The second category is personalization data, the things Windows - and especially Cortana - knows regarding what your handwriting looks like, what your voice sounds like, which sports teams you follow, and so on. Nothing is changing here. Microsoft says that users are in control, but our own testing suggests that the situation is murkier. Even when set to use the most private settings, there is unexpected communication between Windows 10 and Microsoft. We continue to advocate settings that are both clearer and stricter in their effect.Microsoft's got a trust problem.

AnandTech's conclusion:It's probably not surprising to hear that iOS 9 is better than iOS 8. On the iPhone I think iOS 9 brings along many smaller improvements throughout the OS, along with new APIs that developers can implement to improve the user experience. There are definitely some big changes such as the addition of Apple News and Transit in Apple Maps, but these are again just strengthening the core services of iOS rather than adding incredible new abilities and features. iOS 9 is definitely a huge release for the iPad though, and because I've been limited to Apple's own applications I've only been able to scratch the surface of what capabilities the new multitasking features can enable. I think the iPad definitely deserved a major release that focused on it though, and it's clear that Apple has had many of these changes in the pipeline for quite some time now.In the end, iOS 9 offers something new and great for all iOS users, and particularly those who use an iPad. With Apple expanding their portfolio of iOS devices and implementing new features like 3D Touch there are a number of directions they could go in with future releases of iOS, and only time will tell which direction they choose.Seems like a great release all around, but I don't think there's anything in there that will make people jump ship - in that sense, it's a lot like Android M.

When Windows 10 was first announced, one of the first questions was would this upgrade be available for Windows RT devices running on ARM based platforms. The answer was no, but Microsoft said that it would bring some of the functionality of Windows 10 to Windows RT users though an update sometime after Windows 10 shipped. Apparently that day was yesterday, as Microsoft pushed out patch KB3033055 which enables the Windows 10 style Start Menu in Windows RT.I'm sure my Surface RT is brimming with excitement. In storage. Somewhere. I don't even know.

Yesterday at the Maker Faire in New York, we had a chance to check out the Rephone, a clever little project that comprises a bunch of modules that let you cobble together your own tiny little cell phone. Actually, making a cute little cardboard-encased phone is the least interesting thing aboutt the Rephone kit. The group behind it, Seeed Studio, has made dozens of modules and an SDK that enables you to build out nearly any sort of cellular-based gadget you can imagine. They've strapped it on a dog collar so you can locate your dog (or just call him to come home). They've strapped it to a kite to provide you with real-time telemetry. They've strapped it to a door, a lamp, and (uh), a table.Really cool stuff.

Together, we will make it easy for Baidu customers to upgrade to Windows 10 and we will deliver a custom experience for customers in China, providing local browsing and search experiences. Baidu.com will become the default homepage and search for the Microsoft Edge browser in Windows 10. Baidu's new Windows 10 distribution channel, Baidu "Windows 10 Express" will make it easy for Chinese Internet users to download an official Windows 10 experience. Additionally, Baidu will deliver Universal Windows Applications for Search, Video, Cloud and Maps for Windows 10.

Google Inc. is back under U.S. antitrust scrutiny as officials ask whether the tech giant stifled competitors' access to its Android mobile-operating system, said two people familiar with the matter.The Federal Trade Commission reached an agreement with the Justice Department to spearhead an investigation of Googleâs Android business, the people said. FTC officials have met with technology company representatives who say Google gives priority to its own services on the Android platform, while restricting others, added the people, who asked for anonymity because the matter is confidential.We all know who these "technology company representatives" are. Remember "Fair"search?That being said, the more investigations into technology giants, the better.

Before long, billions of digital records about ordinary people's online activities were being stored every day. Among them were details cataloging visits to porn, social media and news websites, search engines, chat forums, and blogs.The mass surveillance operation - code-named KARMA POLICE - was launched by British spies about seven years ago without any public debate or scrutiny. It was just one part of a giant global Internet spying apparatus built by the United Kingdom's electronic eavesdropping agency, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.Severed pig's head.

Google doesn't hold a monopoly over the entire smartphone market, and it doesn't have the same level of influence globally. But in the two areas where its Android operations have aroused regulatory scrutiny, the United States and Europe, Google enjoys a practical stranglehold over the mobile operating system market - thanks to Apple's non-participation and Microsoft's chronic failure to compete. It's arguable that other tech giants, such as Apple and Amazon, are better subjects for antitrust investigations, but US and European authorities are right to at least consider the circumstances of Google's relationship with its hardware partners.I don't know if Google has a monopoly over the phone market - and neither do you, because the laws regarding monopolies are ambiguous, incredibly complex, and differ per jurisdiction and sometimes even per sector - but I do know that as far as I can tell, Google isn't blocking anyone from shipping Windows Phone devices, nor is it stopping developers from publishing applications for other platforms or even in other Android application stores, nor does it stop anyone from taking Android's code and building something that competes with it (see China and Amazon, for instance).In fact, we should thank Google for building and releasing Android, because without it, iOS would've evolved a lot slower, we'd have less choice, and we could've even been stuck with just iOS and something from Microsoft - much like on the desktop.That being said - I'm always in favour of keeping very close tabs on powerful companies like this, and in my view, the Microsofts, Googles, and Apples of this world should always be kept an eye on. Better yet, in an ideal world, all code in our computers and mobile phones should be open - from operating system to firmware - because of how crucial they've become to our society, but alas, that will never happen because reasons.

Eyeo is now reaching out to developers of other ad-blocking tools to cut deals that allow certain ads to pass ads through their filters, too, in exchange for payment.Mr. Murphy said he has taken Eyeo up on its offer, and plans to implement an option within his app whereby âacceptableâ ads will be displayed to users. The feature will be switched on by default, Mr. Murphy said, and he will receive a flat monthly fee from Eyeo in return. Mr. Murphy declined to disclose the fee, but said he expects to make less money from Eyeoâs payments than from sales of the app itself.So, they sell their ad-blocker in the App Store, and then double-dip by also effectively allowing ad brokers to sell ads to him. Kind of scummy.

Microsoft Windows is the dominant operating system in China, but the government is trying to encourage homegrown replacements. The most popular one is called NeoKylin. We gave it a whirl to see how the hottest China-made OS looks and feels.Exactly what you'd expect.

That's justified bias. That's relevant context derived from history and experience. Without it, we'd be reciting facts and figures, but no meaning. Megabytes and millimeters matter only after they've been passed through the prism of human judgment, and we shouldn't pretend that it can, or should, ever be unbiased.While I agree with the article, there is one thing that tends to stand out in reviews of smartphones: while non-iPhone reviews always highlight the things the reviewed device lacks compared to the iPhone, the reverse is rarely - if ever - true.Which has nothing to do with bias, and everything with a lack of empathy. Tech journalism is almost exclusively an American affair, and all of these reviewers carry iPhones themselves. This is perfectly fine, were it not that they seem to be incapable to put themselves in someone else's shoes and look at all the things, say, an Android user in Germany would have to give up were she or he to buy an iPhone.I'm buying the iPhone 6S in a few months, and you can expect me to not make that mistake.

Relatively shortly after the Pebble Time and Time Steel, Pebble has announced the Pebble Time Round - and, you guessed it, it's a round Pebble. It looks absolutely fantastic, so much so that it makes you wonder why they bothered with the Time and Steel to begin with. Much like other round Android Wear watches, this thing further drives the point home that round is the way to go for those of us who want to wear a watch, and not a mini smartphone.Pebble Time Round is faithful to timeless watch design while being a true Pebble at heart. The beautiful, always-on, e-paper display discreetly camouflages the smarts within.[...]At 7.5mm thin and weighing just 28 grams, Pebble Time Round is the thinnest and lightest smartwatch in the world.It's $249, and there's a trade-in program in place for Pebble Time and Steel backers who may want to switch to the Round.

The following companies just betrayed billions of people.Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, and a handful of other tech companies just began publicly lobbying Congress to pass the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), a bill that would give corporations total legal immunity when they share private user data with the government and with each other. Many of these companies have previously claimed to fight for their users' privacy rights, but by supporting this bill they've made it clear that they've abandoned that position, and are willing to endanger their users' security and civil rights in exchange for government handouts and protection.Wait, you mean to tell me all that talk about caring about users' privacy was just shallow PR speak gullible people fell for?I'm so surprised.

Following the successful attack on the iOS App Store this week, in which hundreds (and maybe even thousands) of applications were infected with malware and distributed by the App Store, Apple has published a support document urging developers to validate their installation of Xcode.We recently removed apps from the App Store that were built with a counterfeit version of Xcode which had the potential to cause harm to customers. You should always download Xcode directly from the Mac App Store, or from the Apple Developer website, and leave Gatekeeper enabled on all your systems to protect against tampered software.This successful attack on the App Store is fascinating in that it raises a whole number of interesting questions. First, how many applications have been infected with this attack? The number seems to keep on growing - from a few dozen to hundreds and even thousands - and includes several high-profile, popular applications like the Chinese WeChat (installed on virtually every Chinese iPhone), but also popular games such as Angry Birds 2. In fact, according to SourceDNA, several of the infected applications are still live in the App Store.Second, how many more applications have been infected with other types of malware? If so many popular applications with this malware could be uploaded to and distributed by the App Store, you have to wonder how many more types of malware are currently lurking in the App Store that we don't know about yet or that haven't been detected by Apple.Third - and this isn't really a question but more of a tongue-in-cheek pondering - does this attack make iOS the least secure mobile operating system? This single attack alone has definitely successfully infected more iPhones than the total number of Android phones that have ever been infected - which I find strangely hilarious. WeChat alone has about 500 million users, and is installed on pretty much every Chinese iPhone, and several other of the infected applications are also hugely popular. Depending on how many people installed the infected updates, and how many of the applications 'overlap', we're definitely looking at millions of infected iPhones, possible even more.To quote Apple's own Phil Schiller - "be safe out there".

Please tell me I'm dreaming. While working on the new version of CTLInfo (screenshot below), I ran across an unexpected and rather scary finding: A key security component of Windows, the so-called 'Disallowed' CTL, has a validity of 15 months and is going to expire in 25 hours.Running certutil -verifyCTL disallowed indeed confirms it on my Windows 10 machine, but like the author, I have no idea what this means. If it really is what it looks like... Wow.

Apple today released watchOS 2 to the public, making the first major update to the watchOS software available to all Apple Watch owners. The update requires iOS 9 and can be downloaded over-the-air through the Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General --> Software Update. The support for native applications is a big deal.

Late last week, hell had apparently frozen over with the news that Microsoft had developed a Linux distribution of its own. The work was done as part of the company's Azure cloud platform, which uses Linux-based network switches as part of its software-defined networking infrastructure.While the software is real, Microsoft isn't characterizing it as a Linux distribution, telling us that it's an internal project. That's an important distinction, and we suspect that we're not going to see a Microsoft Linux any time soon.Microsoft BeOS, and the world will be just.

Over the last few weeks a discussion has flourished over the FCC's Notification of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) on modular transmitters and electronic labels for wireless devices. Some folks have felt that the phrasing has been too Chicken-Little-like and that the FCC's proposal doesnât affect the ability to install free, libre or open source operating system. The FCC in fact says their proposal has no effect on open source operating systems or open source in general. The FCC is undoubtedly wrong.Be sure to actually read the article.

Sources with knowledge of the matter have told The Wall Street Journal that Apple is moving ahead with efforts to build an Apple-branded electric vehicle, which it intends to deliver to the market by 2019.After a year of feasibility studies, the group within Apple in charge of the electric vehicle project has been given permission to triple its staff, which currently employs 600 people, the Journal reported.Either carmakers should be shaking in their boots, or Apple is flying too close to the sun.