Microsoft will be holding Windows 10 launch events for “people who played a role in developing Windows 10, at special events in 13 cities around the world. The celebrations will feature experiential demos, hands-on training and even entertainment. Microsoft has also partnered with retailers, including Best Buy, Staples, and Walmart, to roll out easy upgrade programs. And Tech Bench services will offer support and data Relevant Products/Services migration services to consumers who are upgrading. Some Microsoft Stores, meanwhile, will offer prizes on July 29, along with free in-store workshops.”
I find this genuinely puzzling.
What is it about MS and Windows that fans like?
It’s not the fanatical design philosophy.
It’s not the openness of the system and friendliness to hackers.
Is it Gates’ philanthropy?
Bill and Melinda Gates’ foundation is a investment fund, it only relies on the profit generated. Whatever they do that looks philanthropic, there’s the other side of the coin that is indeed profitable. Why siding with Monsanto and such otherwise ? Don’t eat the PR bullshit.
Why not side with Monsanto, which is one of several companies developing crops that have a positive ecological impact due to the reduced use of pesticides compared to non-GMO and especially organic produce (Which goes a long way to reducing food prices and increasing the amount of profit farmers receive for their work)?
Oh, I get it. Monsanto is evil, GMO technology is evil, blah blah blah naturalistic fallacy
Any association is tainted.
Well, GMO stuffs and so are quite new on the market, not even a generation old, let’s see what happens in the future. Will the health reports be unbiased and spot cancers related to the ingestion of GMO ?
What about Monsanto crusading against non-GMO farmers, pretended they ‘robbed’ their GMO without paying the patents and taxes because the neighbor’s GMO field cross pollinated his culture? Isn’t Monsanto’s task to prevent their plants from spreading their pollen everywhere? The organic producer should ask for financial compensation.
I’m not against GMO per se, life evolved for thousand years producing mutations until we get current vegetables and animals. The problem is that the changes are too specifics, aiming for profit under the fallacy of bringing greater goods, but are still mainly untested. Even the tests on rats were proven biased. So what’s on next ? And for agricultural impact on environment, I bet you can see what happened in Brazil or Argentina.
Really, look beyond your borders, see how the world had become a life sized experimentation plant for companies such like Monsanto or else. I’m wondering what all of this hides. Nothing comes for free. I stopped believing in Santa long ago.
GMO varieties have been on the market since the 30’s – early techniques used mutation-causing chemicals on seeds, then seeing what grew. These techniques weren’t well controlled, nor well tested.
The difference now is we can make the specific changes that we want, and limit the changes to only those that we want. This wasn’t the case 80 years ago.
And the products are actually extensively tested now. This wasn’t the case 80 years ago.
My personal favorite from slightly later (’50s and ’60s): Gamma gardens. Fundamentally, you use a gamma source to irradiate plants and/or seeds, then screen the offspring for interesting mutations. It was (and still is, apparently) fairly productive; it’s given us things like red grapefruits.
Of course, given the time, this was something private people did as a hobby.
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/03/atomic-gardening-breeding-plan…
http://pruned.blogspot.no/2011/04/atomic-gardens.html
Edited 2015-07-15 00:37 UTC
Nobody complains about the same tech used by Monsanto being used for, say, modifying bacteria to produce insulin or other similar type drug (as in, something our body normally makes, but for whatever reason has trouble)
Insulin, produced by genetically engineered bacteria, has been around since 1970.
Remember this whenever you meet a diabetic that is anti-GMO.
Edited 2015-07-15 00:58 UTC
Depends, natural mutations have happened on a very long time frame, nature has found a balance. However GMO are rather ‘new’ and specific, hence I’m wondering if it haven’t changed the balance.
And while I can understand it improves productivity and somewhat less chemicals, it doesn’t decrease the price as you have to pay for the patents and specific chemicals instead of generic.
It also need less workers, so it also cut jobs. Have Monsanto planned retraining the workers now jobless ? Who will pay for that ? Government through job reconversion programs paid by the citizens ? Where is the overall benefit if not just empowering a private company ?
OK, whenever you start thinking this remember that this policy leads us to create full employment by going low tech.
That means we’d have people building automobiles by hand. Which means that quality would be atrocious, cars would break down every 10,000 miles or less and would pollute a lot more.
We’d be farming by making holes in the ground with a stick and sowing by hand.
We could employ a lot more accountants by doing away with computer accounting systems!
Or you know the ten thousand miles of road construction the US does every year could be done by men with shovels instead of specialized road laying machinery.
And since everyone knows there are better ways to do it, it’d be completely obvious that it’s all useless make-work.
zlynx,
Except that I don’t think anyone here would suggest this should be the goal. Kochise has a valid point about harmful consequences. Sometimes technology improves society, other times it detriments society (but improves the corporate bottom line).
I think there is a balance to be had – we should approach technology more holistically. It’s just that capitalism often evokes the wrong motivations and disregards the well-being of others. We see it all the time, companies often have a complete disregard for people if there’s profit to be had.
There is never a situation where the world benefits by using worse technology.
Maybe a case could be made that the investor, capitalist, boss should not take all of the monetary benefit. A case can never be made for using more human labor for the same result.
Perhaps inefficient methods can be “hand made”, “artisan” or “has character”, for people with excess disposable cash.
But doing more with less has no downside.
zlynx,
Your still not taking into account unintended consequences. There are consequences to everything we do (or don’t do). It’s likely that at least some are detrimental to our health and quality of life. Take for example chemotherapy treatments that may make cancer worse and may have links to brain damage.
http://www.naturalnews.com/029042_cancer_cells_chemotherapy.html
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/120805/chemotherapy-…
Western countries experienced a 50% increase in food allergies in the span of a decade. It is the unintended consequences of something changing with our bodies. Maybe we are eating more unnatural processed foods or maybe the barrage of vaccines more people are being forced to have injected is changing us. Peanut allergies were unheard of 100 years ago.
http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/allergies/vaccines-and-the-peanut-al…
https://www.foodallergy.org/facts-and-stats
Asthma is also up by 28% in the span of a decade, probably due to environmental pollution.
http://www.cdc.gov/asthma/pdfs/asthma_facts_program_grantees.pdf
In a more direct sense, technology is responsible for replacing manual labor with much more sedentary office jobs, which has had significant unintended consequences. One is increasing occurance of diabetes.
http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20091028/diabetes-on-the-rise-in…
Chemicals we add to our water supplies kill bacteria, but have resulted in the unintended consequence of us drinking carcinogens. (The distinct taste and smell of chlorine in the public water supply prompted us to install a filter).
http://www.waterbenefitshealth.com/chlorine-in-drinking-water.html
http://www.pure-earth.com/chlorine.html
It goes without saying that many technologies/advancements have been good for humanity also. Sometimes the consequences may still be worth the tradeoff. But the point is we need a way to balance technology holistically with our needs and health. Making blanket statements such as “There is never a situation where the world benefits by using worse technology.” does not strike this balance.
Edited 2015-07-16 04:52 UTC
Ignore the Natural News site – it is utter garbage. With regards to chemo possibly making cancer worse, what the referenced study actually says is that for certain types of cancer (only one form of prostate cancer was studied), chemo may eventually cause disease progression, but appears to discuss it as a function of a growing immunity to certain cancer drugs.
With regards to the increase in food allergies, it appears that the old advice of avoiding certain foods during pregnancy to reduce the risk of causing allergies in children seems to be backwards, and ingesting foods during pregnancy that are prone to cause allergic reactions reduces the risk of food allergies developing. Nobody doing actual science is linking it to vaccines, or GMOs.
The rise in asthma is definitely due to environmental pollution – sure, cars are cleaner, but there are far more of them, and they are being driven far more.
Sure. Tap water may be slightly more carcinogenic than before, but even with the possibility of a slightly increased cancer risk, it is far, far, far safer than before. At the same time, we’ve been greatly reducing the prevalence of many dangerous materials from our environment – lead, mercury, and others – were once common, but that isn’t the case anymore. It is all about risk management, and infections diseases have proven to be a far larger risk than the possibility of slight increase in incidences of cancer.
The sites you linked to are obvious in their tactics of spreading fear, rather than knowledge. That’s why they stick to percentages (80% increase! OH NOES!) rather than numbers (Risk of bladder cancer goes from 1 in every 10,000 to almost 2 for every 10,000). Doubling the rate of something incredibly rare still leaves it incredibly rare.
Still, it’s better than cholera.
Drumhellar,
I’m a bit surprised at your response. For the record 1 in 7 men get prostate cancer, 1 in 7 children are afflicted with asthma, 1 in 13 have food allergies. These aren’t the “rare” conditions you make them out to be with your tone. 30-50% increase means millions of people are being affected.
Anyways, you can offhandedly dismiss all these things if you want to but the fact is there have been dramatic changes regarding food and medicine in the past few decades that we’re only beginning to see the long term effects of.
I’m not against progress, but at the same time we should never just assume it’s safe. We need to regularly evaluate the side effects, assumptions, and safety of our practices. It is even more important when we find that people are developing medical conditions. For what it’s worth, I’m actually for GMO myself, I just think it is good for people to be skeptical sometimes.
It only relies on the profit generated…but billions have been put into it and used for the good of mankind.
And your montecito things is valued at 23 million on a total of 26 billion, also known as 0.1%, aka rounding error
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Fou…
Don’t believe everything the anti-PR spews out. The amount of good that has been done and will be done by this Foundation is enormous.
(This foundation is basically operating the way the Nobel price is funded. A giant pile of cash where the profits pay for yearly payments without decreasing the pile of cash giving a perpetual stream of money to the common good. The source of that money might be debatable as well and so is the way the money increases)
Never said that what their foundation did was useless. But remember how they got all this pile of money in the first place, skewing computer markets and such. It’s easy to take a stance with someone else’s money. Still, I’m wondering what’ll happens in the future.
he uses some of those funds to meddle in local area politics. I don’t appreciate it much and wish he would go away. thankfully his money dumping didn’t turn the tide in our local case.
PR?
The NY Times’ Eric Lipton was [awarded](http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2015-Investigative-Reporting-Group1) a 2015 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting that shed light on how foreign powers buy influence at think tanks. So, it probably bears mentioning that Microsoft’s ‘two-pronged’ [National Talent Strategy](http://news.microsoft.com/download/presskits/citizenship/MSNTS.pdf) to increase K-12 CS education and, at the same time, the number of H-1B visas ^aEUR” which is on the verge of being [codified into laws](http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2015/04/definition_of_…) ^aEUR” was hatched at an influential Microsoft and Gates Foundation-backed think tank mentioned in Lipton’s reporting, the Brookings Institution.
That Bill Gates “foundation” wins money after the “gift” of many Windows licenses, Office licenses, etc., and also getting “good” PR for doing so. How does it win money? One of the keys is vendor lock-in, poor people will need newer software versions in the future, for example.
A similar case, this time in the words of Bill Gates:
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
— Bill Gates. July 1998. On software piracy in China, July ( http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-212942.html )
http://news.cnet.com/Say-what-A-look-back-at-Gates-pearls-of-wisdom…
The Gates Foundation’s Education Philanthropy: Are Profit Seeking and Market Domination a Public Service?
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/07/the_gat…
Bill Gates: Philanthropist or Profiteering Polluter?
http://www.aliveandwell.org/html/the_bigger_picture/Bill_Gates_Phil…
I am not a fan, although I do almost all of my work AND techno-pleasure on Windows.
I think I can summarize why I like using Windows quite a lot by saying “it does everything, on every machine, in a way that I am used to”
* It runs all my software, all my hardware and I know it will keep running that “forever”
* I can completely choose the way I want to do things. Run a setup.exe from a bootable DVD on my parents aging laptop? Do a Customized WIM-deployment via USB3 to a SurfacePro3? Create a new Virtual Development Machine on Azure with a PowerShell script? And all of those will work they way I am used to and run the software that I want to run on it
* Browse the corporate website with IE? Post on OSAlert with Chrome? Test Edge in Windows 10? All on Windows
* Run the latest 3D Game with a high-end controller, play a simple game on the touchscreen or enjoy Mario in an emulator?
* Program in whatever language and IDE I want?
* Watch youtube on an app on my phone (lumia 1020), on my laptop (yoga3 14) in Chrome, or on my TV (chromecast)
When you have used something for as many years as I have, learned how to deal with the few remaining problems, constantly get new and improved software to play with and use it for your relaxing time and to make your boss pay the bills…Okay, I guess I AM a fan
avgalen,
I can see why some people prefer windows, and I’m not one who pushes linux for everybody (it has problems, and there’s alot of mismanagement to the detriment of users IMHO). However when MS began restricting our own kernel drivers from working on our own computers, it had a negative effect on open source collaboration for kernel developers. I don’t really expect anyone else to care about this niche stuff, but it affected me both in principal and in practice. I will not endorse an OS where the owner is not free to do as he pleases.
Using Windows (2K, XP and 7) on my main rigs as well. The 2K programs still runs flawlessly on 7. Pretty decent performance and usability. Sometimes some quirks, but far less than on Linux. At least Windows have a leader boating the ship the right way. At least in one way without too much fragmentation.
not if MS makes users adopt a subscription model it won’t. Pay up or all your data is ours.
As I approach retirement things like this are on my ‘do not go there’ list. I used to buy Full blown Photoshop every other version. since they moved to a $$$/month costing, I make do with Photoshop Elements. But how much longer will that be available for purchase and not subscription only.
It will never happen. At worst MS can stop providing updates. They cannot legally ransom your data.
unclefester,
That’s not exactly how it would work. They don’t control your data (well at least not to the extent that you keep the files locally rather than “in the cloud”). What they control is the applications that open/manipulate your data.
This is why it’s so important that our data resides in open formats. Otherwise we’ll have our own data sitting right there on a flash disk and yet have no way to use it without paying the demanded subscription fees.
I recently plugged a brand new dell p2715q into a 2010 iMac running OS X result=> blank screen, reboot that same iMac into bootcamped windows and it works, Why? because even on a Mac the hardware is better supported when your running windows.
I’m not a Windows-fan, but I do prefer it over the alternatives. For one, I still seem to run into various random issues with hardware here and there, like e.g. Optimus not working right under Linux. Secondly, if the software you want to run isn’t in the repos or is terribly outdated getting a package from the Internet and installing it can be quite a hassle compared to Windows, sometimes requiring configuring extra repos or compiling from source or trying to install a package designed for another distro and randomly failing and so on. Thirdly, I, for some reason, seem to still run into issues here and there where Grub breaks after installing updates, or X won’t start, or the 3D-acceleration is suddenly gone and stuff like that — rough edges and inconsistency in a lot of places. Finally, I’m a gamer and most games and related tools are for Windows, and I have no wish to gimp my PC’s performance or stuff’s stability by running stuff in Wine.
One word: Steam.
..is just the client. Most games and tools are still Windows-only. Your comment changes nothing.
Practicality. It works most of the time for most people for most of what they want or need to do. It makes as much sense to love as a $2 Ace hardware screwdriver.
Because in many ways, Windows is doing a better job of development than any of it’s rivals. Sure, Windows 8.0 was a mistake from a UI perspective, but 8.1 corrected the most egregious of those mistakes, and 10.x looks like it will make further headway on fixing the problems in 8.x.
Not sure I’m sold on Cortana/Bing integration, but we’ll see how it goes.
OSX keeps plugging away at the interface it debuted 14 years ago, making minor tweaks from release to release, and trying to force people into the App store (a mistake Microsoft is also making).
iOS similarly adds a feature, tweaks a feature, makes a few changes here and there, and calls it a day (and a new release, usually timed to match a new phone).
Android has made major changes under the hood with ART and profiles– but the OS is largely incremental improvements since the 2.x days.
Meanwhile, Linux is trying it’s damnedest to be more like Windows, but in all the wrong ways– pulseaudio is still unreliable, systemd is an unnecessary complication, Gnome3 is intent on removing user options, and KDE wants to look more like Metro.
Of the most recent enhancements to linux, only btrfs stands out as a worthwhile endeavor… systemd makes my life as an admin *more* complicated, not less.
So Linux is making changes too, but they’re alienating users– whereas Windows is demonstrating that the user’s voice matters.
A better job? Could you please elaborate it? Since I find nothing intriguing on Windows 10 or any earlier versions, I do not quite get that.
I thought I had elaborated, but, when was the last time Apple made a change that offended people? Apple has been “evolving” for 14 years, without drastic changes. Sure, 10.1 to 10.10 is a huge leap, but 10.1 to 10.2 or 10.9 to 10.10, is largely incremental.
From the GUI, try to determine which process is hogging the CPU, or which process is hogging disk IO under Linux, OSX and Windows. The new task manager (to be fair, it’s from Windows 8) is a godsend for troubleshooting problems.
I don’t agree with all the changes Microsoft is making– but at least they’re making them.
Windows 8.0 was “all tablet all the time”, with very little consideration to desktop users. 8.1 fixed most of that, 10.0 goes further. Compare that to KDE or Gnome for listening to user feedback.
I’ve commented before about how powershell is a ridiculously powerful tool (although most dismissed it because the feeling is that windows is overly complicated, so you need a powerful tool, but they miss the point).
Don’t misunderstand– there’s room for improvement in Windows. There’s HUGE room for improvement. But Microsoft seems to realize this, and is making progress.
believe it or not, microsoft has a history of software quality. the biggest one is named XP
You mean Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed, right?
Let’s not mention:
* Windows 95 (before OSR2)
* Windows 98 (before SE)
* Windows Me
* Windows NT 4 (six service packs to get it somewhat right)
* Windows XP with no service packs (aka point-ass-to-the-Internet edition)
* Windows Vista (fans blame it on the “drivers”)
* Windows 8 (regardless of what one might think of Metro, the integration wasn’t even remotely finished)
* maybe Windows 10 (if the rumors of a premature launch is to be believed).
There probably isn’t much enthusiasm for Windows 10 among anyone, but MS is hoping to recreate some of the hype and excitement that surrounded the release of Windows 95.
They have to do something since the only thing people want Windows 10 for is to try to alleviate the effects of all the stupid decisions made in Windows 8.
Microsoft has shown as far as the OS goes, they have nothing new to offer, so they are trying to invent reasons for people to upgrade. It’s a shame that they can’t use “fewer bugs” or “better performance” or “more security” or “support for current hardware” as selling features, because that’s all we’ve ever wanted or needed since Windows XP.
ConceptJunkie,
I agree, it’s not customers who are demanding OS changes. The real motivation for change is that the MS business model collapses otherwise – MS needs to continually be making changes so that it has “new” products to sell. Even if MS were to charge for performance/security/bug fixes, it would still reach the point where it has nothing else to sell.
I think MS has already reached this point where it’s customers don’t want/need new OS products, apart from the fixes. This problem is so pervasive that MS has run campaigns attacking the security of it’s former operating systems to give consumers a reason to pay and switch even if they don’t want anything new. I don’t know if there’s long term viability with this strategy – consumers are tired of “upgrading” just for fixes.
I don’t know about that.
Windows, OS X and Desktop Linux all suffer from the security problem that you cannot just try new applications without taking a huge risk. Antivirus and centralized repositories (apt get and app stores) are problematic workarounds. I am yet to experience a web application I prefer over the native deal, but I still use lots of them because I can’t afford the risk of searching for new desktop apps.
I think the solution is a sane sandbox model. Which is something very hard to do right and really is an ongoing research. People may not realize they want this, but once someone gets it right nobody would want to go back to the model offered by Windows XP. The question is whether Microsoft can resist the temptation to take a bite of the forbidden store apple (no pun intended!). If they do bite, I think eventually HTML will morph into the sandbox model that runs the apps of the future and Windows’ fate will be sealed.
Anyway the point I’m trying to make is that I think there are some considerable improvements that can be done over Windows XP that people really do want.
dpJudas,
Certainly some people will want new features, I’m not denying that. But on the whole, don’t you think that windows consumers, when given a choice and not pressured by security fixes, would generally opt to stick with what already works and is already paid for?
Often times what happens is that users buy new hardware and are coerced into upgrading the OS at that time due to non-optional OS license bundling. Also, consumer OEM licenses don’t typically offer downgrade rights.
Edited 2015-07-15 02:38 UTC
Old hardware should be supported, as usual. Though, there is a new driver model, but the benefits of the new WDDM are pretty hefty – GPU virtual memory, for example (Each process gets it’s own GPU virtual address space). Otherwise, old hardware should still be supported, as it usually is.
I find this to be an odd question on a site called OSAlert. I know there aren’t too many people like me, but I try not to be a fan boy for any of it. I run a Linux desktop, Linux and OpenIndiana servers, a Windows Surface Pro, and a MacBook Pro with OSX. I also have an iPad and a couple of Android devices. I like different operating systems. I’ve been a member here since it used to cover things like Syllable, AROS, and Haiku, and I’ve run all of them in one form or another at various times.
It doesn’t seem odd to me at all that someone might be excited to see what Microsoft is offering in the new version, and I personally would be excited to attend one of the launch parties. I guess that makes me a “fan.” But, that also doesn’t mean I think Microsoft is the one true way, or that Windows is superior to all other operating systems.
I guess I just don’t understand the mentality that says that you have to pick a horse in this race and continually bash the others in forums like this.
Research in operating systems architecture and programming languages instead of just copying UNIX.
http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/07/09/announcing-wind…
A temporary bye-bye to the Insider Preview programme then! A bit annoying because I’ve been struggling to update build 10030 (yes, I’m on the Fast build channel) to either 10162 or 10166. I even managed to get a “light blue screen of death” at one point during an attempted update. Now, I’m apparently “up to date” with build 10030 thanks to MS pulling all Insider builds until the Win 10 launch it seems
I’ll have to snaffle the build 10166 ISO somehow and re-install from scratch I suspect…
Maybe they want to repeat the campain and success of Windows 95?
Just got one thing to say to THAT: BULLSHIT!