Thurrott Daily: June 22

Thurrott Daily: June 22

Tech tidbits from around the web.

6/22/2016 5:35:57 PM

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Opera attacks Microsoft’s Edge battery claims

As you may have seen, Microsoft claims that using its Edge browser over competing browsers from Google, Mozilla or Opera will net huge battery life gains. But Opera, which recently introduced a battery saving mode, will have none of that. And it says that Microsoft’s data must be somehow flawed.

Opera Developer (39.0.2248.0) with native ad blocker and power saver enabled is able to run 22% longer than Microsoft Edge (25.10586.0.0) on a laptop running Windows 10, 64-bit, and 35% longer than the latest version of Google Chrome (51.0.2704.103).

Tests will never perfectly reflect the way real people browse, but there are ways to make some tests more reliable than others. For example, you can use a variety of different websites (video, news etc,) to imitate the way users browse. You can also use a special algorithm that scrolls these websites similar way real users do. This is what we did in previous tests, and this is what we did when comparing Opera to Edge.

So I’m not sure what to say here beyond the fact that Opera’s battery saving mode does degrade the browsing experience somewhat, as Microsoft said. And that Opera is comparing a pre-release Developer version of its browser to Edge.

What kind of TV do you need for Xbox One S and HDR gaming?

Polygon might have the answer.

HDR-capable sets can display color that non-HDR televisions cannot, and HDR also improves image fidelity by reducing macroblocking and gradient artifacts, thanks to less compressed color data.

However, there are two “formats” or standards of HDR: Dolby Vision and HDR10. After some confusion last week, Polygon has been able to confirm with Microsoft that the Xbox One S will support HDR10 when it launches in August. The company was silent on support for Dolby’s standard.

Oh good, a format war.

Sorry, but the user base for Microsoft Wallet with Tap to Pay is tiny

So, despite the promising headline—Microsoft Wallet’s Base Is Larger than You Think—this article is ultimately just delusional.

Here’s the thing. You can only get Tap to Pay on three phones, in the U.S. only, and on AT&T only. That’s what we call a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage, or, more aptly, a negligible number of people.

But … surely this guy has a point. Let’s try to find it.

Microsoft Wallet is certain to creep off the phone into other channels. And Microsoft Wallet can strike paydirt in the company’s substantial home video gaming audience.

Ah. So. Wallet’s “base” is in fact no bigger than what I just described. But somehow making it available on Xbox, because we all bring our consoles into stores to make purchases, will expand the user base.

Wow.

But don’t worry. There’s more.

As Windows Phone sales are dropping, Xbox sales are rising, as are the people spending money on the company’s Xbox Live service for online gaming … All of these users need some way to get money onto their gaming consoles to purchase from the growing catalog of Xbox games.

Yep. That way is already there. It’s been there for years.

“Microsoft Updates App With Tap and Pay to Compete With Apple”

Yes, competing with Apple in mobile is top of mind for Microsoft these days. Insightful.

Instagram has 500 million users

Instagram just joined the 500M club.

Today, we’re excited to announce our community has grown to more than 500 million Instagrammers — more than 300 million of whom use Instagram every single day. Our community also continues to become even more global, with more than 80 percent living outside of the United States.

Dueling headlines

Two takes on the same story.

WSJ: “Apple Unlikely to Make Big Changes for Next iPhone”

Newsweek: IPHONE SET FOR RADICAL REDESIGN IN 2017

Sigh.

“A Microsoft Band 3 with NFC would be a tap-to-pay dream”

LOL.

Apple’s guilty verdict in e-book case just netted me $188

Looks like Apple’s illegal entry into the e-book market in 2010 has finally netted me some cold, hard dollars: Amazon just added a $188 credit to my account. You can find out how much you’re getting here:

In November 2014, a federal court approved a Settlement of antitrust lawsuits brought against Apple, Inc. (“Apple”) by State Attorneys General and Class Plaintiffs about the price of electronic books (“eBooks”). Those settlements resulted in credits for qualifying Kindle books purchased between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012. These credits are funded by Apple.

Nice.

Google documents how long you can expect to get Android OS updates on its Nexus devices

The Nexus support site explains how long you can expect to get Android updates.

After a certain period, Google can no longer guarantee that a device will get version updates or security patches.

Nexus devices receive:

Android version updates for at least two years from when the device became available on the Google Store.

Security patches for the longer of 3 years from availability or 18 months from when the Google Store last sold the device.

devices

This seems reasonable. My Nexus 6P will get Android updates through September 2017, so it will receive Android N and possibly Android O. But my older Nexus 5 won’t get Android N: Its support for updates ended last October.

Thanks to Neowin for the tip.

 

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