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- Microsoft cuts Windows 8.1 costs
- Microsoft turns bosses into the NSA
- Venezuela turns off the internet
- Netflix caves into Comcast on throttling
- Duke Nukem outfit in trouble again
| Microsoft cuts Windows 8.1 costs Posted: 24 Feb 2014 01:56 AM PST Software giant Microsoft has cut the price of Windows 8.1 by 70 percent for makers of low-cost computers and tablets. It would appear that the move is to check the ever marching cheap and cheerful Google Chromebooks. OEMs will be charged $15 to license Windows 8.1 and preinstall it on devices that retail for less than $250. This is instead of the usual fee of $50, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details are not public. According to Bloomberg the discount will apply to any products that meet the price limit, with no restrictions on the size or type of device. Competition from Google cut revenue last quarter at Microsoft's devices and consumer licensing division, which includes Windows software. By offering incentives for PC makers to sell cheaper models, Microsoft may be able to increase its share of the growing $80 billion tablet market. Microsoft will not require products that use the cheaper licensing to complete logo certification, a process that verifies hardware compatibility. It is also making sure that devices are not required to be touch-screen compatible, it said. |
| Microsoft turns bosses into the NSA Posted: 24 Feb 2014 01:54 AM PST Software giant Microsoft has invented tools which can turn control-freak bosses into the NSA. For a while now there has been a hole in the market for autocratic bosses who love to spy on their employees. After all they have looked at the US government looked at how they can check everything that their citizens do and said "I want some of that". Now the friendly software maker Microsoft is allowing such bosses to set up a NSA spy network in their own companies. Microsoft's Lync communications platform gathers enough readily analysable data to let corporations spy on their employees just as well as the NSA. At Microsoft's Lync 2014 conference, software developer Event Zero CEO David Tucker said that it is a doddle to figure out who is dating whom within the company and pinpoint people looking for another job. Microsoft says these call detail records have been stored by traditional PBXs for legitimate reasons such as accounting for cross-charging, to help with trouble-shooting or even to track contact-centre agent productivity. Barry Castle, senior product marketing manager Lync and Skype told Network World that from a reporting perspective, Lync does this no differently than any other enterprise communications system. However using Windows PowerShell, SQL Database information gathered by Lync for monitoring purposes and custom PowerShell queries to sort the information is really a doddle. PowerShell queries can also be easily written that parse the same information to figure out personal details about employees. It is possible to work out which employees spend a lot of time on the phone with each other for example. You can also flag an event where they call a headhunter, perhaps trying to find another company that has a boss that does not spy on his or her staff. |
| Venezuela turns off the internet Posted: 24 Feb 2014 01:21 AM PST The beleaguered Venezuela president, Nicolas Maduro, has shown he has absolutely nothing to hide as protestors take to the streets against his government. He's turned off the internet and TV. It would appear that Maduro is worried that protestors might be using the internet to organise their dissent, but shutting down the telly stations indicates that he is more worried about the world seeing what he is doing. The Electronic Frontier Foundation made note that Venezuelans working with several different ISPs lost all connectivity late last week. The country's media regulation network CONATEL said that the cuts were not due to the protests directly. He blames hackers working for the opposition. Although it is a little hard for hackers to bring down news network NTN24. Even if they had, why did they leave the Telesur, which is run by the Venezuelan government? Maduro has admitted he ordered NTN24 shut down because it was attempting to "torment anxiety about a coup d'etat". He insisted, "no one was going to come from abroad and try to perturb the psychological climate of Venezuela". |
| Netflix caves into Comcast on throttling Posted: 24 Feb 2014 12:57 AM PST The US no longer has net neutrality after the telco Comcast managed to force Netflix to pay up or be throttled. Although both sides in the case are spinning what has happened, Netflix has actually written a cheque to get a service for its subscribers that had already been paid for, which means there is a two tiered internet over the pond. Netflix said that it is paying to ensure Netflix movies and television shows stream smoothly to Comcast customers. It will mean that the telcos have a precedent for dealing with other high-bandwidth sites. Comcast did not get everything its own way. As part of the deal, Netflix will get direct access to Comcast's broadband network. What might have forced Netflix to the table was the news that Comcast agreed to buy Time Warner Cable. This would make Comcast as by far the dominant provider of broadband in the US and a much stronger position to tell Netflix what to do. Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings did not want streaming speeds to deteriorate further and become a bigger problem for customers. In a statement confirming the broad outlines of the deal, the companies on Sunday said the agreement would provide "Comcast's U.S. broadband customers with a high-quality Netflix video experience for years to come". This means then that Comcast has won its battle to get a two tiered internet where companies have to pay to get the sort of service which their customers have already paid for. The telcos claim this is paying for the cost of upgrading the Internet's pipes to carry the nation's growing volume of online video. While several big Web companies in recent years have started paying major US broadband providers for direct connections to get faster and smoother access to their networks, Netflix has held out—until now. Netflix is likely to agree to pay off the other big providers following the deal. |
| Duke Nukem outfit in trouble again Posted: 24 Feb 2014 12:55 AM PST The company that could not finish a Duke Nukem game in 12 years is being sued by the company that finally did, for threatening to finish another one. Gearbox, which in 2010 bought Duke Nukem and the rights to it from its creator, 3D Realms, is suing 3D Realms over something called Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction. Normally Gearbox would not be worried, after all 3D Realms created the world record for trying and failing to get Duke Nukem into the shops. But it seems that Gearbox actually thinks that 3D might be serious. Earlier this month in a teaser site that quickly disappeared but has since returned. Gearbox's suit says the game was being made, without its knowledge or permission, by 3D Realms and was to be published by Interceptor Entertainment, a Danish firm also named in the filing. According to Gearbox. after selling its Duke Nukem IP rights to Gearbox in 2010, 3D Realms sought to privately convince others that the sale never happened. 3D Realms and Interceptor "colluded to misappropriate and make infringing use of the Duke Nukem trademarks and copyrights owned by Gearbox. Gearbox said that its acquisition of Duke Nukem in 2010 entitled it to all future development of anything using its name or characters, bailed 3D Realms out of a sticky situation in which publisher Take-Two Interactive was suing. EA had spent a fortune on Duke Nukem Forever's development. When it took the 3D Code it found it was "sorely deficient," also describing it as "a technological jigsaw puzzle of a video game. Kotaku which has seen the paperwork said that Gearbox wants damages, including punitive and a judge's order to stop Mass Destruction from ever releasing. Gearbox's lawsuit says the game was due to launch on February 25 however, that was only the date a countdown timer at AllOutofGum.com was set to expire. Gearbox's filing includes a declaration, signed by both Miller and co-founder George Broussard, in which they acknowledge Gearbox's exclusive ownership of Duke Nukem and that Mass Destruction violates the rights they sold to Gearbox in 2010. "I apologize to Gearbox for the infringement and breach represented by my efforts," reads the declaration, dated February 16. |
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