Thurrott Daily: December 13

Thurrott Daily: December 13

It’s been a while, sorry. Here are some tech tidbits from around the web.

12/13/2016 3:45:12 PM

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Bioshock series comes to Xbox One backwards compatibility

Yes, the Bioshock games have already been remastered and are available in Bioshock: The Collection. But if you’re an Xbox One user who already owns one or more of the original Xbox 360 versions of those games, here’s some good news: They can be played now on the Xbox One too, as Microsoft notes.

We’re pleased to announce that the original Bioshock games for the Xbox 360 are now playable on Xbox One via Backward Compatibility. To relive the experience with the game you already own, would you kindly check the “Ready to Install” section of your Xbox One if you own it digitally or pop the physical disc into your Xbox One?

There are now over 300 Xbox 360 games playable on Xbox One! We’ve come a long way from the original 104 available titles, and we will continue to work with our publishing partners to grow our library and update you each week when new releases are available.

Please ignore the idiot

I don’t usually go after individuals, but this one requires an exception: This buffoon has made a career out of crapping on Microsoft, and after writing an amazing inaccurate article about how Microsoft was allegedly saying goodbye to the MS-DOS command prompt, he’s had to issue a correction because it was all wrong. So naturally, this guy blames Microsoft.

Now Microsoft is saying that the MS-DOS command prompt cmd will continue to live on.

According to a Microsoft spokesperson, “Microsoft is not removing Cmd from Windows, but rather changing the default shell, launched via File Explorer and the [Win] + [X] power-user menu, from Cmd to PowerShell. Users can opt to change the default shell back to Cmd via Settings and can continue to launch whichever shell they prefer, be it Cmd, PowerShell, or Bash (if enabled) via the Start menu. The Windows Cmd shell has a long heritage and is an essential tool used by millions of businesses, users, and developers every day. It remains an integral part of Windows.”

This isn’t new. You just got it wrong. Way to own up to it.

Bing’s top searches of 2016

Microsoft has issued its list of the top Bing searches for 2016. I will of course ignore the celebrity searches.

From stories that tugged our heart strings to memes that made us LOL, we spent 2016 searching for what we loved. Discover the moments from the past year you may have missed and meet the trends that will shape our future.

Chrome Beta now marks HTTP websites with password and credit card fields as ‘Not secure’

Neowin reports on a nice trend towards the death of non-secure web sites:

Chrome 56 Beta comes with plenty of new features for web developers, but the security feature targeted towards users is an important one, as many of them aren’t aware of the risks of entering sensitive information over non-HTTPS connections. Mozilla is also taking a similar approach and has released a developer version of its browser that flags such webpages.

HTTP sites which contain password and credit-card fields will be shown as “Not secure” in the address bar. In the future, Google will be marking all websites as such but is currently taking small steps towards the goal.

This is why Thurrott.com has been HTTPS since the beginning, by the way.

Apple Begins Selling AirPod Wireless Headphones After Two-Month Delay

The Wall Street Journal reports that our national nightmare is over.

Apple on Tuesday began selling its AirPod wireless headphones after a nearly two-month delay that ate into holiday sales.

The company said AirPods, which it initially said would go on sale in October, would be shipped in “limited quantities” at launch. They are expected to be available in 100 countries, including the U.S., Canada, China, Germany and Japan.

Apple declined to say how many units would be available or why the AirPods were delayed.

Dropbox now has an Xbox One app

Not sure why this is a huge need, but The Verge will explain it for me:

Since the Xbox One runs a universal version of Windows 10, it’s easier then ever for developers to make apps for the video game console. Thus, we now have a Dropbox app for Xbox One.

I suppose it could be useful for getting slideshows of family pictures or ripped DVDs to play on your Xbox, assuming you use Dropbox to store things like that.

Sounds impressive.

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  • 5230

    Premium Member
    13 December, 2016 - 2:55 pm

    <p>seriously, great photo to start the article</p>

  • 1493

    Premium Member
    13 December, 2016 - 2:59 pm

    <p>Thurrott &amp; Petri.com both secure https sites&nbsp;</p>

    • 5234

      14 December, 2016 - 3:08 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#30229">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/Georgecoll">Georgecoll</a><a href="#30229">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>No, they’re not.</p>

  • 1816

    13 December, 2016 - 3:00 pm

    <p>"Chrome Beta now marks HTTP websites with password and credit card fields as &lsquo;Not secure&rsquo;":</p>
    <p>This is a great addition to the browser. The first extension that I add to a new machine is HTTPS Everywhere.</p>

  • 4800

    Premium Member
    13 December, 2016 - 3:02 pm

    <p>So no wonder companies would rather ship buggy and incomplete products then get coverage like Apple is getting here with the AirPods.</p>

  • 5767

    13 December, 2016 - 3:06 pm

    <p>Paul is not nice to Apple executives.</p>

  • 412

    Premium Member
    13 December, 2016 - 3:08 pm

    <p>"Dropbox now has an Xbox One app."<br /><br />A lot of these Windows UWP apps just don’t work on the XBOX One yet oddly, I am glad they are there and it is an option.&nbsp;</p>

  • 5394

    13 December, 2016 - 3:45 pm

    <p>Seen you tweet about not removing Control Panel just because it doesn’t have modern UI and it is hard to find. Sure, then its like why does Settings bring you to Control Panel? Settings and Search both&nbsp;bring you to Control Panel when a feature is only available there. The question should remain… why are they taking so long with populating Settings and the Start Screen so Control Panel and Windows Explorer can be retired or ignored forever? Or in short…&nbsp;Win32 will never go away although PCs are dying (from another podcast). A sinking ship. It is so marvelous to see Microsoft apply that skill of saving their platform&nbsp;on ARM and Android. No clue as to how it ends in a good way.</p>

  • 5539

    13 December, 2016 - 8:29 pm

    <p>Airpods</p>
    <p>Ships: <br />4 weeks </p>
    <p>Better than a Kickstarter I guess.</p>

  • 5485

    14 December, 2016 - 5:28 am

    <p>Hehehe. If MS delays something there comes a throughout analysis …</p>
    <p>https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/65123/windows-10-redstone-2-delayed-until-new-microsoft-hardware-hits-in-early-2017</p&gt;
    <p>I understand biased but this kind o behavior affects credibility. Trump is not just a phenomena that spurred out of thin air you know. Comedy goes a long in establishing mind frame of legions.</p>

    • 5592

      14 December, 2016 - 6:33 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#30324">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/nbplopes">nbplopes</a><a href="#30324">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Apple announced a date for AirPod.<br />Apple missed their date.</p>
      <p>Microsoft didn’t announce a date for "Redstone 2".<br />All&nbsp;Microsoft "missed" was some pundits’&nbsp;rumors of&nbsp;a date.</p>
      <p>Not noting the difference between an announcement and a rumor is actually very much a phenomenon we see lately.</p>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>

      • 5234

        14 December, 2016 - 3:08 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#30334">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/MikeGalos">MikeGalos</a><a href="#30334">:</a></em></blockquote>
        <p>They did say something about 2 releases next year though. &nbsp;One would think they would mean approximately start of Q2 and Q4 to spread them out….you know, about the same time as Canonical releases Ubuntu *hint hint*.</p>

        • 5485

          15 December, 2016 - 2:09 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#30457">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/Waethorn">Waethorn</a><a href="#30457">:</a></em></blockquote>
          <p>MS is very good at playing the rumor game. Rumor is a marketing tool. Its a way for a company to communicate something, a prospect, white lies, little lies and truths, steer expectations, capture mind space,&nbsp;without actually committing. Its not good information, its entertainment.</p>
          <p>Launch dates aren’t marketing tools because Lying about&nbsp;it is bad for business. Anyone knows that.</p>
          <p>Take for instance Windows 10 for ARM scenario. What MS did is establish a scenario over which the company knows the tech heads will spend at least a year talking about it. But what do we actually know about it? Nothing we only know that will happen and a highly speculative potential. Potential. MS is selling the potential more than one year before the actually release while committing very little. This will flood the news, without an actual product. The&nbsp;another company I remember doing this was Sony with the PlayStation.</p>
          <p>This is very sophisticated marketing. Like the Windows Insiders Program.</p>
          <p>Compare this with Apple Marketing, usually regarded by Windows aficionados as an all around Marketing company, better at it than MS, the only conclusion one can arrive is that is actually a very traditional company in that regard.</p>
          <p>It does not make&nbsp;official statements,&nbsp;suggestive partnership announcements and so on&nbsp;without actually having the&nbsp;product. Products&nbsp;communicated to the public (launched) at specific time frames that the tech world has become used to. Not before. All this accompanied with Videos, Leaflets and the all usual&nbsp;Marketing panoply.&nbsp;That’s just it. There are of course Rumors but I cannot say that that the company entices purposely them. Still is regarded has a company that communicates well with the public.</p>
          <p>What approach is best, don’t know. But the second looks to me more honest, less noisy&nbsp;and less prone to delusion and consumer frustration. Nevertheless from a tech entusiast tech POV, less fun.</p>
          <p>The best product launches from a Marketing&nbsp;I’ve seen from MS were the Surface Pro 3, Surface Book and the Surface Studio. The results are at view even with all its flaws in the ground (Mostly &nbsp;Windows flaws as most problems have been fixed with software). Precisely because they did the opposite than what MS usually does with Windows OS. They can’t hold their mouth shut when it comes to Windows … but that’s another story.</p>

      • 5485

        14 December, 2016 - 4:56 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#30334">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/MikeGalos">MikeGalos</a><a href="#30334">:</a></em></blockquote>
        <p>Give me a break. Are you that na&iuml;ve? How many times MS missed launch dates? Have you ever heard anyone saying that MS was lying? Did ever Paul made that kind of statement towards MS in this context? No, Paul always come&nbsp;with&nbsp;quite&nbsp;pedagogical articles regarding such changes.</p>
        <p>But even if it would make sense someone lying regarding launch dates, would some piece of earbuds entice such a possibility?</p>
        <p>Of course not. So where is the play really?</p>

  • 5496

    14 December, 2016 - 8:25 am

    <p>Chrome needs to fix 360 videos on YouTube. I hasn’t work for the last couple months. On Edge, 360 videos are choppy and laggy.</p>

    • 5234

      14 December, 2016 - 3:10 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#30351">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/lordbaal1">lordbaal1</a><a href="#30351">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Your profile pic comes from an insecure site.</p>

  • 5234

    14 December, 2016 - 9:13 am

    <p>"This is why Thurrott.com has been HTTPS since the beginning, by the way."</p>
    <p>And yet your cookies still seem to randomly expire.</p>

  • 5234

    14 December, 2016 - 10:57 am

    <p>According to Chrome 55, your site is not actually fully secure.</p>

  • 5501

    Premium Member
    14 December, 2016 - 11:43 am

    <p>/start of joke</p>
    <p>But there are remnants of DOS all over Windows still. &nbsp;For crying out loud, you can still type "dir"!</p>
    <p>/end of joke</p>

  • 7150

    14 December, 2016 - 3:25 pm

    <p>"This is why Thurrott.com has been HTTPS since the beginning, by the way."</p>
    <p>Yet Mozilla Firefox tags http://www.thurrot.com as "not secure" (because of the images).</p>

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