http://betanews.com/2015/10/30/microsoft-will-push-windows-10-even-harder-in-...

Microsoft will push Windows 10 even harder in 2016 -- is the company being a bully?




"Windows 10 is a wonderful operating system -- the best operating system that Microsoft has ever created -- when it works well. With that said, there are still many bugs in it. Plus, the privacy concerns are legit, despite what some fan-sites may have you believe. My biggest annoyance? Advertisement prompts telling me to try Office 365, and regular survey prompts asking me to rate Windows -- I am on the retail build, not pre-release, and that is totally inappropriate.

With all of that said, it is totally understandable that some Windows 7 and 8 users want to hold off on installing version 10. Sadly, Microsoft seems intent on pushing the new operating system on the world. First, the company was caught intentionally downloading Windows 10 setup files onto unsuspecting PCs. Of course, let us not forget that "accident" where Microsoft forcibly upgraded some computers to Windows 10. Now, according to Terry Myerson, Microsoft's Executive Vice President of the Windows and Devices Group, the company will start pushing Windows 10 even harder in 2016.

"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 don't love it", says Terry Myerson,

What about those on metered connection? Surely this could cause some to use up precious data limits. Myerson explains, "if you are on a metered connection on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, then you have the option of turning off automatic updates. We strongly discourage this in today's connected world because of the constant risk of internet threats. If you choose to do so, we recommend manually checking Windows Update frequently, perhaps when you are on a non-metered network and consider the installation of all 'Recommended' and 'Important' updates. Windows 10 will not automatically download updates on a metered connection unless there is a security issue addressed within the update".

The problem, you see, is that full-fledged operating system upgrades should not be lackadaisically pushed in Windows Update as a "recommended update" for Windows 7 and 8. Come on, Microsoft, you know the difference between an OS update and an OS upgrade and so do we -- pushing Windows 10 as a recommended update is inappropriate and a bit misleading.

The fact that you are giving 31 days to roll back is too-little-too-late for non-power users."

Plus, your drivers are changed to Win 10 drivers and then DON'T GO BACK TO YOUR EARLIER SOFTWARE'S CORRECT WIN & or 8.x DRIVERS when you try to roll back  ....  especially if the card's company is out of business now then the old drivers possibly aren't available from anywhere any more.

http://liliputing.com/2015/12/blu-life-one-x-is-an-octa-core-fhd-phone-for-99...


BLU Life One X is an octa-core, FHD phone for $99





The phone has a 5.2 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display, an octa-core processor, support for 4G LTE networks, and 2GB of RAM.  

The BLU Life One X has a MediaTek 6753 processor with ARM Mali-T720 graphics, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, a 2,900 mAh battery, a 13MP rear camera, and a 5MP front camera.


Amazon says:     http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0189RMNTG/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&cr...

Unlocked Dual SIM smartphone, Android 5.1 Lollipop

5.2" full HD display with Corning Gorilla glass 3

16GB Internal memory 2GB RAM, 1.3 GHz Octa-Core Mediatek 6753 with MALI T720 GPU

13MP Main Camera with Phase Detection Autofocus and 5MP Front Camera with LED flash

4G LTE, (2/4/7/12/17), 4G HSPA+ (850/1700/1900/2100). GSM Quad band: US compatibility Nationwide on all GSM Networks including AT&T, T-Mobile, Cricket, MetroPCS, Straight Talk, Pure Talk USA, and others


I had predicted BYOP from places like Amazon would destroy the carriers and their ravisher two year $600 phone allotments and that before long a $100 phone would be all you would need or want in a good day-to-day beater phone.

And here it is ..... $99         Prediction achieved, a for real octacore phone for less than a hundred bucks.   Able to move freely from low cost plan to low cost plan.

Certainly cheap enough to throw away in a few years as what you will be able to get two years from now for $99 will outshine it considerably.

Next prediction, $100 will be able to buy a dockable phone / PC inside that same two year future period.

https://medium.com/@zg/skype-for-windows-is-fundamentally-broken-and-nobody-i...


"I’ve never had a particular issue with having advertisements running in Skype. In fact, I would prefer they stay there, so that I can enjoy using Skype for free. Unfortunately, the advertisements are broken, and the application becomes unusable, even sometimes crashing.

Skype for Windows takes advantage of Internet Explorer and Flash to display advertisements in the client. This means that in order for advertisements to work correctly, Internet Explorer and Flash need to be working correctly. Unfortunately, things are not working as desired.

And I’m not the only one struggling with this issue. All one has to do to reproduce this issue is to trigger an ad accidentally and have it fail to load -- Skype as a whole locks up."

This is fairly self-explanatory it's a long term user complaining that Skype doesn't work anymore.   Skype doesn't work because it is choked with Flash-based ads and the ads get run-time preference over the skyping and the ads aren't working.  

Yes the ads --- when they quit working it stops the Skype app from working because the advertisements have preference.

Go Microsoft, go ......

While Google suffers through their latest identity crisis, Microsoft is busy reacting to the budding class action suits from their own customer base.

This class action group contends that MS had broken a binding sales agreement by chopping off the 15 gig of ONE DRIVE allotment after the fact which was a no-end time mentioned incentive offered to get you to purchase the machine, and another 15 gig of ONE DRIVE allotment for the customer choosing to use the MS Photo storage app.   These actions appear to have found themselves to be a winner -- MS is indeed liable for these actions.

Rather than waiting for a court to tell them this (and take the resulting black eye) Microsoft is doing a "microsoft-clever" semi-admit, semi-restitution move intended to forestall the class action from ever going to court.

Read it and see what you think.   Note that Microsoft is now saying the camera roll drive space is a "bonus" that they can give or withhold as they wish at any time, but in the same breath they admit the new machine sale based 15 gig of drive space was a "quota".





"About a month after Microsoft announced plans to drop the amount of free cloud storage it offered users of its OneDrive service, the company is throwing a lifeline to existing users.

Starting early next year anyone that signs up for OneDrive will only get 5GB of free storage instead of the 15GB Microsoft currently offers. But if you already have 15GB, you can visit preview.onedrive.com/bonus/ and click the “keep your free storage” button to hang onto what you’ve already got.

If you use a OneDrive app with the camera roll feature enabled, you’ll also get to keep the extra 15GB bonus… which means that existing users can continue to use up to 30GB of free cloud storage.

You’ll need to click that button (and agree to the terms) by January 31st, 2016 in order to keep your storage. Otherwise existing users will get the same amount of free storage as new users: 5GB with no camera roll bonus.

If you need more cloud storage space than that, Microsoft will sell you 50GB for $1.99 per month… or you could opt for a different cloud storage service.

Microsoft will also stop providing unlimited OneDrive storage to Office 365 subscribers in early 2016. Instead, customers will be able to store up to 1TB. There’s currently no option for existing subscribers to keep their unlimited storage space when the changes take effect."

Now a recap of computing from this past year, and general predictions for next year.



Microsoft will suddenly quit being Genghis Khan in the PC realm as they have been in the last 4 monthts and they will wig out into full Wrath of Khan mode for next year.   Their own fan base is already suing them with multiple class actions for Christ's sakes -- and this is going to make them kinder and gentler?    

MS must unify their user base under Win 10 or begin irrelevance starting next year.

See MS get more abrupt and uncaring as the company gets more desperate for ever slower market share "growth".    See user resistance increase as the software flaws abound as the huge rush to get it out becomes overwhelming.

Remember, next year Big Business has to decide to buy into Win 10 or not ......

Google is going to stumble around a bit, then come out with some of the features of a refined version of the co-developed Jide OS system that will be incorporated into Android N.  

How much effort Google puts into it may be a function of how much risk of pissing off Samsung and Qualcomm and the other larger players Google is willing to take.

So, if they go balls to the walls, the next upcoming set of Nexus N phones may be phone/PCs .....   with a re-sizable movable windows built right into the phone OS such that screen size becomes transparent and unimportant to the OS's basic functions.

Since there are "functionality barriers" to this inside today's 5.1 and 6.0 Android, then Android itself has got to change.  

This is where Samsung and Qualcomm and the rest come in --- Google is not alone in the world of Android (nor is Google the largest piece of the android pie anymore).

Android N has to sense the device's changing parameters and modify which modules it loads and runs accordingly, something it can already do to some degree today.

6.0 already loads a form of Android BIOS that can sense the hardware, so work has already begun leading into a unified Android between phones, tablets and big screens.


========================================


Apple MUST put out a lower cost laptop, or give up and be a niche player from this point forward.    

Any form of MS/Google war will incidentally damage Apple unless Apple has cost competitive laptop products out there for sale at the same time MS and Google duke it out.

Google's Chrome and Pixel level products have shown the ability to take 20% of the Mac laptop users away from Apple ..... mainly by Apple losing sales due to upper end Chromebooks being HALF as expensive but just as nice as the lower end Apple Mac laptop product.

Apple has GOT to get its cost down.    It can do this by dumping Intel processors and using their own A-10x processors.