WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
There’s a somewhat larger than I originally intended analysis piece on Windows 10 in this issue, so the rest is fairly brief, covering the BBC’s missing search results, Shannon airport moving, some very cool drone pictures, and Welsh Klingon (yes, really). There is also the odd URL or so pointing you to WIPO corruption, solving a math problem, the Internet Villain of the Year, new graphene whiz stuff, Pirate Bay trial, blue LEDs, and Foxconn goes to India.
Analysis: The coming of Windows 10
Windows 10... In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s due out at the end of this month. So, the question a number of people have asked me is whether they should upgrade. As Hamlet once put it,
“To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles”*
Definitely not immediately, I would suggest.
I’m ambivalent about some of its ‘features’, and its usability for real work (take a look at the first URL for an ‘in depth’ assessment of problems). It seems to me a bit like it’s been thrown together by a number of programming teams, each given the task of dealing with a specific Windows 8 horror story. No one appears to be in overall charge of seeing that everything fits together as a whole, rather than being an unrelated collection of bolt-on bits.
Part of the problem is, I suspect, that Microsoft has been listening to the people on the inside track, the ones who have been getting early versions of Windows 10 and commenting on what they find. It’s a nice idea, but it’s likely that people who get onto such a program are Microsoft enthusiasts in the first place. They use their computers in a very different way from the vast majority of people. The insiders are interested in features – big features and small features. Ordinary users are interested in what I call ‘invisibility’.
What do I mean by this? I mean that for most people computers are workhorses, not trendy gadgets or souped up toys. They are there to get work done. Business work, domestic work, leisure work, it’s all the same. Their users want to enter something, or click on something, and have it respond in a predictable way. The operating system or even the application is invisible to them, it’s the results that matter. So when someone makes massive changes they get unpredictable results, and we have the totally predictable result that they back off from the changes and stick with older versions. That’s why Windows 7 (and before it Windows XP) are so popular. Despite the massive changes under the hood they are, as far as most people are concerned, in a direct lineage from Windows 95, and it was on ‘95 and its successors that people learned how to get the results they wanted from the machine.
Somewhere around the middle of the last decade, something important happened to computers. They became powerful enough to do virtually everything that people routinely used them for, and also for most business purposes. At the same time computer hardware was becoming a lot more reliable. This combination, taken together with saturation of most first world markets, caused a serious reduction in sales over the rest of the decade. That slowdown is still continuing, and it of course meant a reduction in the number of Windows licenses sold.
One of Microsoft’s solutions was to try to use its existing strength in the now stagnant PC market to lever itself into other markets, like games consoles, smart phones and tablets, which it saw as growth markets. In order to do so it needed to ensure that it could somehow get smart phones and tablets to run Windows. And, as we all know, in trying to do that it bent Windows badly out of shape, destroying the invisibility of the Windows operating system.
Now they are in the position of Pandora, trying to put all the ills they’ve released back into the box. Pandora discovered the only thing left in the box (actually it was a jar – the translator must have been using Google’s translation software) was hope. Whether Microsoft had the same experience is a moot point...
But I digress. Like most Windows users, my computer is a tool. I like it, look after it and use it for a great many things. It would be fair to say that I depend on it a lot, and having something go wrong with it would be a serious problem. And that brings me to the absolute killer reason for not switching to Windows 10. You have no control over whether or not Microsoft installs updates, new features and security patches on your computer.
A whole slew of Microsoft patches this last year have caused problems with people’s computers. Frankly, I don’t trust Microsoft to get it right first time. Microsoft argues that people accept other programs on their computer being automatically updated, and this is no different. That’s not so. If Google bricks my Chrome browser, then I can use different one – Firefox or Internet Explorer, for instance. If Microsoft bricks Windows with an update, that’s it, the whole computer is useless.
There’s also the fact that on my existing system they abused update to install an icon with marketing material (advertising Windows 10) in the system tray. If you hide the icon, it reappears after a reset, there’s no way to get rid of it. How long before they figure out that using this for paid third party advertising is a great way to make money?
So no – I won’t be moving to Windows 10 anytime soon, and certainly not on the launch day. I’ll review the situation around Christmas time, by which time it should be clear what the actual situation is. But until then? Nice try, but no cigar.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/07/windows_10_for_windows_8_and_7_users/
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2946153/microsoft-windows/on-the-road-to-windows-10-how-long-do-windows-10-upgrades-last.html
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2015/07/10/emea_pc_sales_q2_2015/
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2949622/microsoft-windows/windows-10-forced-updates-dont-panic.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/16/windows_10_the_stealth_browser_infiltration_plan/
Shorts:
Most people will have heard about the ‘Right to be forgotten’ imposed on Google by the EU. No, I’m not going to rant about this, even though I would like to. I really just want to draw your attention an interesting post on the BBC’s site – it gives a list of all the BBC web pages that have been removed from Google’s search results! Fascinating...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/1d765aa8-600b-4f32-b110-d02fbf7fd379
Ireland has just introduced a new post code system (Eircode) and it appears to have a few problems. Those reported for the 27 million Euro system include incorrect addresses and data protection problems. Best of all, though, is the fact that Shannon Airport, a fairly large establishment, as airports tend to be, appears to have been moved from County Clare to County Limerick...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/14/ireland_loses_airport_amid_postcode_chaos/
Homework:
Taking pictures from drones is all the rage these days, but I’d suggest taking a look at these winning pictures from a drone photography competition. My favourite? The picture of Maringa, in Brazil.
http://www.gizmag.com/dronestagram-drone-photography-contest-winners/38357/pictures#1
Geek Stuff:
Nice to see that at least some government departments have a sense of humour. In response to a question about UFOs in the skies above Wales the Welsh local government sent the reply “jang vIDa je due luq. ach ghotvam’e’ QI’yaH devolve qaS,”. I’m sure the Trekkies among you will know what that says, because it’s in Klingon!
For those of you who are not suitably bi-lingual, what it says is, “The minister will reply in due course. However this is a non-devolved matter.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/14/world/feat-klingon-wales-ufo-response
Scanner:
UN corruption cops commence probe into domain-name and patent body WIPO
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/25/un_corruption_probe_wipo/
Answer to a 150-Year-Old math conundrum brings more mystery
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/answer-150-year-old-math-conundrum-brings-mystery/
UK Home Secretary (Minister of Justice) named Internet Villain at the 2015 Internet Services Providers’ Association awards
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9736200/uk-home-secretary-named-internet-villain-at-the-2015-ispa-awards/
Super-hot electronics? Graphene is here to cool them down!
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9736861/super-hot-electronics-graphene-cool/
Pirate Bay founders ‘cleared of copyright crimes’ in Belgium
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/11/pirate_bay_founders_cleared_of_criminal_copyright_crimes/
Blue LEDs pegged as chemical-free food preservatives
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9737158/blue-leds-pegged-as-chemical-free-food-preservatives/
Foxconn to hire a million Indian staff in major base shift
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/13/foxconn_to_hire_1_million_indian_staff_in_expansion_plan/
* William Shakespeare – Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
19 July 2015
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
