paul-thurrott

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Hi all, Just a quick heads-up that I'm flying to Mexico City today with my wife and son today (Tuesday). We'll be there through the following Thursday, August 18, but other than the two travel days I don't expect this to impact my work schedule that much: I'll record Windows Weekly from Mexico tomorrow, and will write Ask Paul and Monday's Premium newsletter as normal, for example, and will be writing every day. If you are interested in what we're doing in Mexico, my wife and I have a YouTube channel and a basic blog you can follow. If you are still waiting on the Windows 11 Field Guide, apologies: I wasn't able to work on that during the cruise and I lost the following week to illness. So much for my July deadline, but I'm hoping to get the first unfinished version out soon. I'd love to do so from Mexico, but we'll see. Thanks! Paul

There is an incredible John Carmack interview on YouTube that weighs in at an impressive five hours and fifteen minutes. But it's totally worth it. And because it's been nicely sliced into chapters, you can dive into the topics you care about most. I listened to the whole thing. 0:00 - Introduction 1:57 - Programming languages 33:01 - Modern programming 43:03 - Day in the life 50:53 - Hard work 54:06 - Pizza and Diet Coke 56:50 - Setup 1:22:08 - id Software 1:54:58 - Commander Keen 2:01:44 - Hacker ethic 2:09:24 - Wolfenstein 3D 2:29:21 - Doom 2:43:42 - Quake 3:08:02 - John Romero 3:15:49 - Metaverse 3:44:11 - Elon Musk 3:50:06 - Mars 3:59:09 - Nuclear energy 4:02:47 - AGI 4:49:59 - Andrej Karpathy 4:52:57 - Martial arts 5:01:57 - Advice for young people 5:10:57 - Meaning of life

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After a too-long hiatus, Short Takes is finally back:

Because Microsoft announced its quarterly and annual earnings this week, I’m back with a new edition of Short Takes that looks exclusively at the results across all of the software giant’s major business units.

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******* CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED ******* Will roll these Qs into next week's post. --Paul     Hi all, This may not be the greatest idea given the low quality of my connectivity this week on the cruise, but I'm going to give it a shot. If you have any questions this week, please leave them here. It's possible I won't be able to publish Friday but will try. Otherwise, will be later. Thanks! Paul

Hi all, The TWiT Alaska cruise is coming up and it's going to disrupt my normal work schedule, sorry. Here's what I expect:

• My wife and I are flying to Seattle tomorrow (Thursday), so I'll be out of the loop for much of the day.
• We're going to see Seattle with Leo Laporte and his wife on Friday, so I'll likely be out of the loop for much of that day too. I won't have time for Ask Paul this week, sorry.
• The cruise leaves Saturday. Sunday is an "at sea" day with no connectivity, so that will be interesting.
• I'll be working as possible throughout the next week, but connectivity will be limited. Brad and I are going to try to do First Ring Daily 1-2 times if possible. And I'll be working on the Windows 11 Field Guide, and hope/expect to publish the first public version during the trip. If not, right after.
• We arrive back in Seattle the following Saturday, July 23. And then my wife and I fly home the next day, on Sunday.

Thanks! Paul

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I guess there's a bit of schadenfreude to this---most Apple fans are strangely forgiving of the company's missteps---but I point this out because it so clearly echoes Microsoft's use of advertising in Windows and Office. From Jason Snell---who is a good guy---at Macworld:

I accept that other people like listening to the prattling DJs, but I hate it and I will keep changing the channel until there’s a song I want to listen to again. I don’t want to hear about who is touring where, or who said something interesting at a show, or even the behind-the-scenes detail about how a song came to be written. Not when I’m just trying to listen to music. That’s the great thing about streaming music services like Apple Music: whether you’re listening to a curated playlist or even a “radio station,” you can skip songs you don’t like and there’s no intrusion from voices. It’s all about the music. Or at least, it was. But recently, Apple Music has made some changes, and they’re disastrous. A new tastemaker has apparently rolled into Apple Music HQ and decided that aggressive marketing to paying customers is the solution to a problem that literally nobody had. The result is a degraded Apple Music experience. Apple has taken to inserting ads into its “ad-free” on-demand radio stations. Yes, they’re ads for other Apple Music radio shows, but does it matter? The fact remains that if you listen to an Apple Music streaming radio station like Classic Rock or Alternative, you will eventually hear a 40-second ad for Zane Lowe or Strombo or other pre-recorded Apple Music radio episodes. What was once an ad-free music experience is now punctuated by… promo copy. There are plenty of ad-supported music services out there. What’s different about Apple Music’s curated playlists and radio stations is that we pay for them, and we expect them to be about the music, and nothing but the music.

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I used to try to summarize these, but there's just too much every month. So here's Microsoft's post about what's new in Microsoft 365 for May 2022. It's a lot.

One of the challenges of hybrid work is enabling teams to remain connected, engaged, and in sync. Ensuring everyone is on the same page may have felt easier when we were all in the office together, but we’re continuing to deliver updates to Microsoft 365 that bridge the digital and physical divide to bring employees closer to each other and to their organization’s mission and goals.

We’ve got lots of exciting news this month, including the private preview of Microsoft Viva Goals—a new module that helps organizations set measurable goals and enables employees to record and track progress along the way. We’re also adding new features that improve your ability to deliver compelling presentations and visuals, enhance security protections for small businesses, and help keep you organized—whether you’re working at home, the office, or somewhere in between. Let’s dive in.

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Google has a lot of antitrust problems. This is a nice overview.

There’s a new Big Tech antitrust bill in town, and this one is especially painful for Google. A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act on Thursday. This bipartisan and bicameral legislation would forbid any company with more than $20 billion in digital advertising revenue — that’s Google and Meta, basically — from owning multiple parts of the digital advertising chain. Google would have to choose between being a buyer or a seller or running the ad exchange between the two. It currently owns all three parts, and has been dogged by allegations, which it denies, that it uses that power to unfairly manipulate that market to its own advantage. “This lack of competition in digital advertising means that monopoly rents are being imposed upon every website that is ad-supported and every company — small, medium, or large — that relies on internet advertising to grow its business,” Sen. Lee said in a statement. “It is essentially a tax on thousands of American businesses, and thus a tax on millions of American consumers.” Google said in a statement that this is “the wrong bill, at the wrong time, aimed at the wrong target,” and that its ad tools produce better quality ads and protect user privacy. You can add the new legislation to the growing pile of Google’s antitrust woes. While the media has given more attention to the antitrust issues of rivals Apple and Meta, Google is potentially in more trouble than any other Big Tech company.

******* CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED ******* Hi all, After last week's miss, I'm back again for Ask Paul this week. If you have any questions, please leave them here. Thanks! Paul

UPDATE: Our flight was canceled late last night. Long story short, we're here through Saturday now and will try to use this extra time to get some bigger deliverable items that we didn't have time for before (fridge, washer, etc.). From a schedule perspective, nothing in the bulleted list below will change. But I guess I'll do Ask Paul on Friday as usual. Thanks, Paul -- Original post:   Hi all, Just a quick heads-up about this week. We're flying home from Mexico City tomorrow (Tuesday) and I will likely be offline for the day. The rest of the week should be semi-normal:

• First Ring Daily each day
• Windows Weekly on Wednesday, normal time
• AMA with Nick Tirrell on Thursday at noon ET - You won't want to miss this one

The one hiccup is Ask Paul. I have to drive to Boston on Friday for a surprise wedding party now, so I won't be able to do that Friday. But I'll post to the forums Friday and do it Saturday instead. Thanks! Paul

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Hey everyone, My wife and I are in Mexico City this week and have concluded our purchase of the apartment. Which is great, but we have an incredible number of things to do, and items to buy, in the few days we have left. I'd like to get an Ask Paul done this week, but the time is a bit tight, so I'm going to skip this week, sorry. Will be back next Friday. Thanks for understanding, Paul  

Hi all, Just a quick heads-up about this week.

• I'm flying to Mexico City today (Monday) so I'll be out for much of the afternoon and evening.
• Tomorrow (Tuesday), my wife and I are hoping to close on an apartment in Mexico City, so I'll be out for much of the day.
• Brad is heading to Michigan for work today, so we won't be recording First Ring Daily from Tuesday to Friday this week. (We recorded an episode this morning.)
• Windows Weekly on Wednesday will likely start late because of Google I/O, but I will be recording the show from Mexico City regardless.

Beyond all that, I hope to get my usual amount of writing done, but we'll see how it goes. Thanks! --Paul

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The New York Times opines on Europe's sweeping new antitrust laws. And on how the U.S. is doing absolutely nothing, at least so far, to rein in Big Tech.

In just the last few years, Europe has seen a landmark law for online privacy take effect, approved sweeping regulations to curb the dominance of the tech giants and on Friday was nearing a deal on new legislation to protect its citizens from harmful online content.

For those keeping score, that’s Europe: three. United States: zero.

The United States may be the birthplace of the iPhone and the most widely used search engine and social network, and it could also bring the world into the so-called metaverse. But global leadership on tech regulations is taking place more than 3,000 miles from Washington, by European leaders representing 27 nations with 24 languages, who have nonetheless been able to agree on basic online protections for their 450 million or so citizens.

In the United States, Congress has not passed a single piece of comprehensive regulation to protect internet consumers and to rein in the power of its technology giants.

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Microsoft recently hosted a 30-day blog post series called 30 Days of PWA. And this post offers a nice overview so you can follow along after the fact.

If you recently started your journey learning web development and if you are interested in building apps without having to also learn about iOS, Android, or desktop app development, then you’re about to fall in love with Progressive Web Apps.  Starting on February 14th 2022, we ran a series of blog posts which lasted for 30 days, and covered all aspects of Progressive Web Apps development: what they are, how they’re built, what special powers they have, how to create, debug, test and optimize them, and how to publish them to app stores!  Whether you just started with web development or have experience already, there should be a little bit for everyone in this blog series.  Learn more about the series or jump right in and start learning.

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Google touts Chrome version 100:

When we introduced Google Chrome back in 2008, our goal was to build a browser that was fast, secure, and easy to use. For over a decade, we’ve worked with the larger ecosystem to drive innovation on the web forward and build a user and developer experience that helps people and developers get things done. We continue this work today.

It’s humbling to know that billions of people around the world turn to Chrome, and we’re constantly challenging ourselves to make it faster, safer, more helpful and more accessible for everyone. Personally, I've been inspired by how we've driven HTTPS adoption, made payments and password management better and helped developers create incredible Chrome extensions. In short, it has been amazing to see the thousands of tiny updates from the team that came together to make Chrome better and better. We recently rolled out the 100th major update for your Chrome browser — and to mark this milestone, I asked some members of the team to share a few of their favorite features and improvements.

Opera is going to offer a device-wide VPN in its Opera Browser for Android:

Standalone VPN applications require users to take additional steps to install the app, register an account, and so on. But Opera’s goal has always been to keep online security simple & easy. With Opera VPN Pro, existing Opera users can easily subscribe using their Opera sync accounts, without the need to download another app or create another account. Everything is integrated, as it should be. VPN Pro provides improved security to the entire device and can protect up to 6 different Android devices within one subscription. User data stays safer thanks to a wall of next-generation encryption, no matter what application is used. Just like Opera’s free VPN, VPN Pro is a no-log service. It also offers access to 3000+ private network servers in over 30 virtual locations around the world, allowing users to stream videos, download files and browse the web securely and safely with a speedy VPN connection and unlimited bandwidth for their Android devices. There is no need to sacrifice speed for better security, since VPN Pro gives access to high-speed servers, so users can browse faster than ever. Additionally, users can run in data-saving mode alongside VPN Pro, to ensure they never go overboard on their data. The early bird beta pricing options vary from $1.99 to $2.99 per month (depending on the duration of the subscription) of VPN protection, making Opera VPN Pro one of the safest and competitively priced solutions on the market. VPN Pro can be used on Android 6.0 and higher, by installing Opera for Android Beta, version 68.2. To enhance device security and safety, users can subscribe to Opera VPN Pro directly inside Opera Browser on Android (beta), following 5 simple steps: download the latest version of Opera for Android beta; upgrade to VPN Pro in the menu; choose the type of subscription; follow the payment steps through Google Play Store; enjoy a seamless and protected connection to the web!

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The Wall Street Journal explains something we've all wondered about: how has Microsoft escaped antitrust scrutiny in this new age of antitrust scrutiny?

When a congressional committee was preparing to publicly interrogate the CEOs of four tech giants in 2020, Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith, whose employer wasn’t on the hot seat, gave the lawmakers a private briefing. When Australia proposed a law to force Facebook and Google to pay for news articles, Mr. Smith endorsed it and offered Microsoft’s Bing as an alternative. When the U.S. considered similar legislation, he went to Washington to testify in front of Congress to show his support. Mr. Smith, a Microsoft veteran of almost 30 years and president for seven, has maneuvered his company to an enviable position in a regulatory environment that is increasingly hostile toward tech titans. Once an antitrust pariah itself, Microsoft is now widely seen by regulators as the friendly party among today’s top tech companies, a status government officials and Microsoft insiders say flows largely from Mr. Smith’s cultivation of friends in Washington. Rivals say he is also skilled at directing negative attention toward competitors—to Microsoft’s benefit. The 63-year-old’s influence is being tested as the company tries to smooth the way for its largest-ever acquisition, a $75 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard Inc. While regulators have yet to approve the deal, lawmakers and industry representatives say it is hard to imagine any of the other four biggest U.S. tech companies—Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc., or Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc.—being in a position to even attempt to win approval for an acquisition of that size in the current environment. “If this was any of the other four regular suspects, the blowback would be much greater,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.). Mr. Smith’s strategy has been to cooperate with regulators who often have Microsoft’s rivals in the crosshairs. He has criticized Apple’s operation of its App Store—as Microsoft tries to bring its “Netflix for gaming” service to the iPhone. He has supported measures to cut into Facebook and Google’s dominance of digital advertising—which could benefit Microsoft’s search and digital-ad businesses. His support of tech-sector regulations has cut against efforts by Amazon, Microsoft’s fierce rival in cloud computing, to fight constraints on its business practices.

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From The New York Times:

John Roach, a marketing visionary who helped make the home computer ubiquitous in the late 1970s by introducing the fully assembled Tandy TRS-80 for $599.95 or less through RadioShack chain stores, died on Sunday in Fort Worth. He was 83. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his wife, Jean Roach. No cause was given. Mr. Roach already had college experience fiddling with refrigerator-size mainframes by 1967, when he joined the Tandy Corporation, a Texas conglomerate that was founded as a leather goods company and included RadioShack and its thousands of franchised dealers in electronics farrago. He was instrumental in prodding Tandy to venture into the computer market. At the time, most small computers were sold as kits to be assembled by hobbyists, but Mr. Roach believed that consumers would welcome a model that they just needed to plug in. His team presented the original TRS-80 prototype — cobbled together from a black-and-white RCA monitor, a keyboard and a videocassette recorder — to Tandy’s chief executive, Charles Tandy, and to Lewis Kornfeld, the president of RadioShack, in January 1977. The Apple 1 had been introduced the year before, and Commodore and other companies were marketing their own home computers, but the TRS-80 (the initials stood for Tandy RadioShack) quickly became, for a time, the most popular computer on the market. “Charles blew a little smoke and said, ‘Build a thousand and if we can’t sell them, we will use them in the store for something,’” Mr. Roach recalled in remarks to the Fort Worth Executive Round Table last month. “We were finally able to ship some machines in September and shipped 5,000 that year, all we could assemble,” Mr. Roach said. “Our competitors shipped none.”

Microsoft and its Xbox hardware partners are going pastel to celebrate the spring. From Xbox Wire:

The Designed for Xbox team has been collaborating closely with our partners at PowerA, OtterBox, and 8BitDo to create a unique selection of pastel products that embody the playfulness and whimsy that Springtime brings. Sit back, relax, and jump into your favorite game with these soft, soothing pastel accessories with next-gen gaming features perfect for gaming on Xbox or PC. PowerA Enhanced Wired Controllers for Xbox Series X|S Reach new heights with the PowerA Enhanced Wired Controllers for Xbox Series X|S. These beautifully designed controllers bring a soft pastel touch to up your gaming setup. OtterBox Easy Grip Controller Shell for Xbox Series X|S Controllers When you can play your favorite games anywhere and anytime, stay confident by keeping your Xbox Series X|S controller protected against drops and scrapes with the OtterBox Easy Grip Controller Shell. In a brand-new Lilac Dream color, featuring two sets of purple and pink swappable grips and a clear glitter shell, this is sure to add some sparkle to your favorite Xbox Series X|S controller. 8BitDo Ultimate Wired Controller for Xbox The 8BitDo Ultimate Wired Controller for Xbox was designed in a playful pastel pink to add a bit of color to your gaming setup.

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This is from the Zorin Blog. I'm currently testing this release on hardware (not in a VM).

Zorin OS 16.1 is our most advanced operating system ever. It’s packed with improvements to help you work better, updates to apps and system-level software, and support for new hardware.

What’s new in Zorin OS 16.1

LibreOffice updated to help you work better

LibreOffice is one of the most important apps included in Zorin OS, and with this new release, it’s getting even better. We’ve included LibreOffice 7.3, the latest version of the award-winning office suite. This version will allow you to work quicker and more effectively with new enhancements.

Newer apps

In addition to LibreOffice, you’ll notice that many of the pre-installed apps have been updated when using Zorin OS 16.1. Not only does this provide a more feature-rich experience out of the box, but fewer software updates will need to be downloaded after installing Zorin OS onto your computer.

Stronger security and better hardware compatibility

Many built-in system technologies have seen improvements for better security, compatibility, and performance. Zorin OS 16.1 introduces new security patches out of the box, so you can have peace of mind knowing that you’re using the most secure version of Zorin OS ever. The Zorin OS 16 release series will continue to be supported with software updates and security patches until April 2025.

From the Linux Mint Blog:

LMDE is a Linux Mint project which stands for “Linux Mint Debian Edition”. Its goal is to ensure Linux Mint would be able to continue to deliver the same user experience, and how much work would be involved, if Ubuntu was ever to disappear. LMDE is also one of our development targets, to guarantee the software we develop is compatible outside of Ubuntu. LMDE aims to be as similar as possible to Linux Mint, but without using Ubuntu. The package base is provided by Debian instead.

The Verge interviews the most effective antitrust regulator in the world.

Let’s start by laying out the field of antitrust enforcement right now for the EU. Could you go through the big cases that are on the table?

On Friday we just opened a new case with Google and Facebook, now Meta. It’s called Jedi Blue, named after the codename for an agreement that they seem to have entered back in 2018, with the aim, seemingly, to kill off Google competitors in the advertising ecosystem. We also have another Google case exclusively focusing on Google and the ad-tech stack, looking at some of the behaviors that seem to be anti-competitive.

Then we have three Apple cases: one concerning music streaming services and the 30 percent fee, then we have a more general Apple App Store case, and then we have an Apple Pay case about access to the payment infrastructure or technology on your phone. We have two Amazon cases: one concerns access to data — it seems as if Amazon Retail have had access to all the data from the smaller retailers on the Amazon marketplace, enabling Amazon Retail to have a head start on numerous products and prices in the marketplace — and the second is about their fulfillment system. We also have a case concerning advertising in the Facebook environment. So our to-do list is quite full.

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Amazon announces a new "live radio app," starting with a limited-access U.S. beta for iOS:

Amazon just released the limited-access beta version of Amp, a new app that will give you a way to DJ your own live radio shows. Creators can use a catalog of tens of millions of licensed songs from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and a long list of independent music companies, such as Beggars Group, Believe, CD Baby, and PIAS, with more being added every day. Creators can also engage with their community in real time—no subscription, additional hardware, or editing needed. “Radio has always been about music and culture,” said John Ciancutti, vice president of Amp. “But imagine if you were inventing the medium for the first time today. You’d combine what people love about radio—spontaneous talk, new music discovery, diverse personalities, and broad programming—with all that's made possible by today’s technology. You’d make it so anybody with a phone, a voice, and a love for music could make their own show. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. Amp makes it possible for you to grab the mic and run the airwaves. We are creating a new version of radio that will have an infinite dial of shows.” Amp is building a home where anyone can create live shows alongside some of the biggest names in the industry. Amp is completely free to use—it gives creators access to a library of tens of millions of songs they can use when creating their shows, and the ability to invite live callers to join their programs. Amp is creating built-in discovery and notifications, so listeners can find and follow creators and upcoming shows. Hosts can take callers, with control over who speaks and when. They can pre-plan and schedule their shows, and listen to songs in real time with their audiences. In the future, Amp plans to add even more—everything from Alexa integrations to social sharing to innovative new search and discovery features that will connect listeners with the creators delivering the content they are looking for on the dial.

You can access the beta here.

 

From Substack:

Today, we’re launching an iOS app for reading. It’s like your email inbox, but better. For readers, the app brings all your Substack subscriptions together in one venue, giving you a beautiful, focused place to read your favorite writers. Discovery features make it easier to find and fall in love with new writers, and the app brings text, audio, video, and community seamlessly together for the best reading experience on the internet. For writers, your connection to your readers gets upgraded when they choose to install the app. As ever, you retain total ownership of your content and mailing list, but now you also get instant, reliable delivery (no more Promotions folder!), multiple media formats in a single package, and another way for readers to connect with you and your work. Download the app for iPhone and iPad here.  For Android users, sign up for the waiting list here.

From Xbox Wire:

Our team has curated our new releases into the Spring Games Spotlight. We’re excited to bring you a ton of new digital games every week for five weeks. Our team will be releasing 40+ titles between March 8 and April 11. The Microsoft Rewards promotion we bring each year for Summer Spotlight is so popular we are bringing it back for the Spring Games Spotlight. Spend $50 on eligible titles and you will receive 5,000 Microsoft Rewards points. Here are a couple Spring Games Spotlight titles either currently available or coming soon to get you pumped for a fantastic season of gaming.

• Tunic – Tunic was an E3 standout announcement way back in 2018 and has since released a couple demos that have the game landing on most indie fans list of most anticipated games of 2022. Tunic is an action adventure about a tiny fox in a big world. Explore the wilderness, discover spooky ruins, and fight terrible creatures from long ago. Tunic is a console launch exclusive and releases on March 16.

• Shredders – Another E3 standout, Shredders is the ultimate snowboarding game created for riders, by riders. Break into the snowboarding event of the year to pull off one of the most insane tricks imaginable, all in the hope of scoring a wildcard entry to an exclusive invitational. To prove you’re up to the challenge, master the art of park riding, buttering, rails, and massive kickers and earn your place in the world of snowboarding. Shredders is a console launch exclusive and available day one with Xbox Game Pass, releasing on March 17.

• MLB The Show 2022 – MLB The Show landed on Xbox last year and was an immediate hit with Xbox fans. MLB The Show 2022 takes last year’s title even further. Create and use multiple ballplayers, beyond your Road to the Show personalized baseball RPG experience and customize your ballplayers how you want to aid in your progression. Face your friends with cross-platform and cross progression play. Stepping up to the plate for the first time? Tailor your experience with gameplay styles and two new difficulty settings to help you get the hang of the basics. MLB The Show 2022 is available day one with Xbox Game Pass, releasing on April 5.

• RPG Time: The Legend of Wright – Sticking with our theme of E3 announced titles releasing this month, RPG Time is making its way to Xbox from a wonderful team based out of Japan. The game puts you in the shoes of a boy who dreams of becoming a game creator. While the game’s title contains the term “RPG,” players will soon find themselves playing games other than the hand-drawn RPG on a notebook: a world made from cardboard and stationary strewn across a desk will also have players play action, adventure, side-scrolling shooters, and even command battle games! RPG Time is a passion project that took nine years to develop and is a console launch exclusive releasing on March 10.

• Young Souls – Young Souls is a gorgeous 2D brawler that meets story-rich action RPG. Fight hordes of belligerent goblins, level up with hundreds of weapons and accessories, explore, and journey between worlds, as rebellious twins battle their way to save their foster father. Young Souls is available day one with Xbox Game Pass, releasing on March 10.

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From Neowin:

The latest 3.18 pre-release (beta) version of Rufus, the popular bootable USB media creation software, adds the ability to bypass Windows 11 system requirements for in-place upgrades too. Earlier, with version 3.16 Beta 2, Rufus had already received the option for bypassing the stringent system requirements for Windows 11 with the "Extended" installation feature. Though, the option was only available for clean installations. However, now with Rufus 3.18, the feature can be availed for in-place upgrades too. Rufus 3.18 beta also fixes another Windows 11 related bug that broke the "ISO → ESP creation" feature. The bug (#1855) would prevent the creation of EFI system partition (ESP) on Windows 11 devices and throw an error code "0xC00305B4".

This was inevitable, though Disney+ is among the most affordable streaming services, at least for now. I wonder if this is anticipating a price hike. From Disney:

In a first for Disney’s premier direct-to-consumer streaming service, Disney+ will expand its offerings for consumers by introducing an ad-supported subscription in addition to its option without ads, beginning in the U.S. in late 2022, with plans to expand internationally in 2023. “Expanding access to Disney+ to a broader audience at a lower price point is a win for everyone - consumers, advertisers, and our storytellers,” said Kareem Daniel, Chairman, Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution. “More consumers will be able to access our amazing content. Advertisers will be able to reach a wider audience, and our storytellers will be able to share their incredible work with more fans and families.” The ad-supported offering is viewed as a building block in the Company’s path to achieving its long-term target of 230-260 million Disney+ subscribers by FY24. More details, including launch date and pricing, will be announced at a later date.

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From The Verge:

Sonos has long accused other tech giants of stealing its patents and technology, but in 2020, it actually sued Google for patent infringement. Sonos said that it had disclosed details about how its technology worked during negotiations to integrate Google’s voice assistant and that Google had copied the tech and then released cheaper products it subsidized with revenue from search advertising. Sonos recently won that lawsuit at the US International Trade Commission, which ruled that Google infringed all five patents Sonos brought to court. In response, Google had to change how some of its speakers worked, including reducing some functionality. Google is, of course, appealing, but you just don’t see this very often. To talk about when a company like Sonos makes the decision to head to the courts and, increasingly, Congress, I sat down with Patrick Spence, the CEO of Sonos, and Eddie Lazarus, his chief legal officer. Software patents are pretty controversial to begin with, so I wanted to understand how Patrick and Eddie decided to take the risk of a lawsuit here. Sonos claims Google actually infringes over 150 patents, so how did they pick five to sue over? Patrick and Eddie have also both testified before Congress in the past few years, specifically about competition and antitrust issues. Sonos is a small public company compared to the tech giants, and they both say their tech gets ripped off all the time. It’s a big claim, and I wanted to push on it a little — and push on when that kind of lobbying effort becomes important enough to spend time on. This is a fun one. Patrick and Eddie are pretty direct, even though interviewing a CEO with his lawyer in the room sometimes got a little dicey.

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The Raspberry Pi Foundation celebrates its 10th anniversary:

Almost exactly ten years ago today, thousands of you set your alarms, and woke on leap-day morning to discover that we’d started selling Raspberry Pi computers. By the time our all-volunteer team gathered in the pub that evening for celebratory drinks, our licensees Farnell and RS Components had taken over 100,000 orders (despite struggling to keep their websites online under the load); we had (briefly) out-trended Lady Gaga; and Raspberry Pi was on the road to becoming a little larger than we’d planned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiwm5TMHIy8 A group of us had founded the Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2008, aiming to reverse the decline in applications to study Computer Science at Cambridge by providing young people with a fun, robust, low-cost computer with which they could learn to program. In May of 2011, we demoed a prototype to Rory Cellan-Jones at the BBC; the surprise popularity of his ensuing blog post was the shot in the arm we needed to get the project over the finish line.

Rock Paper Shotgun interviews Gabe Newell, whose Steam just launched the Steam Deck PC-based portable gaming system:

Is the Steam Deck the handheld that Valve always wanted to build? How happy are you with how it turned out? I'm super happy. I mean, if I think back the first time, certainly when I started doing PC games, wanting to have some sort of way of translating that kind of experience into mobile has always been feasible. And we're finally at the point now where we have, you know, MIPS per watt, where it's feasible. It's sort of like the transition between the BlackBerry and iOS: the BlackBerry can basically do one application reasonably well, but then after iOS, you had a much better general purpose mobile computing device. And the sense of pieces where you’d have no-apologies input methods, great screens, sufficient battery life, and GPU/CPU performance to finally come together where we can do it at a $399 price point. So, I think it's kind of this permanent transition now for PC gaming, where mobile is part of the choices that we can make in terms of the applications we build and the usage scenarios. So yeah, super happy with how it’s turned out, and super happy with where it's going to go. If subsequently in the future, we just get to ride the price, performance, and power curves that the PC industry is already on, each subsequent generation is going to continue to improve from here. ... So what our customers are saying is “you're not giving us enough”, in terms of memory, storage, and performance, or they'd happily pay more. So that's sort of interesting. That may shift because right now we're very much at the early adopters, tidal wave of ordering. And so maybe over time, we'll see a change-up in the SKUs. It’s designed to be able to take the horsepower you have in a PC and deliver it in a super cost-effective way, and we spent a lot of time figuring out how to do that. Was there ever a plan to make Steam Deck more locked down? Or did it have to be open from the start? I think the openness of the PC is something we love, right? We wouldn't want to lock anything. I don't really see the value of locking people into anything. And strategy, you know, there's a core part of your strategy: start from openness and then build from there. You don't convince yourself after the fact whether openness is good or bad, you just start from that perspective and roll. And then you'll be surprised - you don't know what's going to end up becoming the really powerful user feature that's being created by either users or third parties. You just know that sooner or later that that’s going to occur.

Definitely worth a read. From Stratechery:

Intel has been one of the companies I have focused on from the very beginning of Stratechery. Back then Intel was the unquestioned leader in advanced chip manufacturing, and I urged the company to build a foundry business; then the company lost its leadership position to TSMC, even as TSMC’s dominance raised significant geopolitical concerns. A little over a year ago I argued the company should be split up, but then Pat Gelsinger returned to Intel with a plan he called IDM 2.0. The vision was compelling: Intel would gain all of the benefits of a split while retaining the advantages of being a single company. The skepticism is about whether or not Intel can actually pull it off. I got a chance to talk to Gelsinger earlier this week about IDM 2.0, the acquisition of Tower Semiconductor, and the choices Intel did not make.

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From The New York Times:

Who wins when governments go head-to-head with technology giants — and whom should we root for? We’re getting a small test of that question in the Netherlands. Last year, the Dutch equivalent of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission became one of the first regulators in the world to require Apple to give people multiple payment options for using dating apps on their phones. It was a tiny crack in the absolute control Apple has asserted over iPhone apps since 2008. This has now become a standoff between the world’s most valuable company and Dutch bureaucrats. Apple has proposed a workaround, but the regulator calls Apple’s attitude “regrettable” and has issued weekly fines totaling 25 million euros (about $28 million). Apple says that iPhone owners’ security and convenience would be compromised if it allowed this, but also says that the company is complying with its legal obligations. It might not look like much, but the Netherlands could be one of the first dominoes in loosening Apple’s grip on the app economy. In response, Apple last month proposed a set of conditions that some app developers said was a hostile defiance of the Dutch regulator. Apple essentially said that dating apps in the country could use any payment system they wanted, but that Apple would collect a fee of 27 cents on each dollar of purchases that people made in the app, and require the dating companies to hand over information and audit it. Try to imagine if Walmart said that shoppers could pay any way they wanted, but that it might cost more if you used a non-Walmart credit card and you had to give Walmart your card’s monthly statement.

Exactly. This is exactly the flaw in Apple's strategy.

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This is a fairly obvious---but important---question. From Wired...

AT THE END of 2008, Firefox was flying high. Twenty percent of the 1.5 billion people online were using Mozilla’s browser to navigate the web. In Indonesia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, more than half of everyone going online was using Firefox. “Our market share in the regions above has been growing like crazy,” Ken Kovash, Mozilla’s president at the time, wrote in a blog post. Almost 15 years later, things aren’t so rosy. Across all devices, the browser has slid to less than 4 percent of the market—on mobile it’s a measly half a percent. “Looking back five years and looking at our market share and our own numbers that we publish, there's no denying the decline,” says Selena Deckelmann, senior vice president of Firefox. Mozilla’s own statistics show a drop of around 30 million monthly active users from the start of 2019 to the start of 2022. “In the last couple years, what we've seen is actually a pretty substantial flattening,” Deckelmann adds. In the two decades since Firefox launched from the shadows of Netscape, it has been key to shaping the web’s privacy and security, with staff pushing for more openness online and better standards. But its market share decline was accompanied by two rounds of layoffs at Mozilla during 2020. Next year, its lucrative search deal with Google—responsible for the vast majority of its revenue—is set to expire. A spate of privacy-focused browsers now compete on its turf, while new-feature misfires have threatened to alienate its base. All that has left industry analysts and former employees concerned about Firefox’s future.

From the Microsoft Developer blogs:

Today, Visual Studio 2022 17.1 graduates from preview and reaches general availability. Feedback from developers like you have helped us shape and refine Visual Studio 17.1 through its preview cycle and we’d like to thank you for your part in Visual Studio’s journey.

In my last blog post for Visual Studio 2022 17.1 Preview 2, I shared details around exciting additions to Visual Studio that included enhancements in Git, Search and Navigation, productivity improvements in C# and C++, and added capabilities for personalizing colored tabs. Throughout the rest of the 17.1 Previews, we continued to address feedback you submitted via Developer Community. To see the full list of community feedback we’ve addressed, visit the fixes page on Developer Community.

In addition to fixes for customer-reported issues, we’ve also added made some changes to make you more productive in Visual Studio. You’ll also find improvements to solution close performance as a result of optimization of cleanup operations when closing a solution, which builds on the performance work we’ve been doing throughout the preview cycle. Continue reading to find out more, and as always, visit the Visual Studio 17.1 GA release notes for more information on everything in this release.

Download Visual Studio 2022

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It's been a while since we've seen a Dev channel build---they're having issues with all that experimentation, I guess---but the Windows Insider Program did update its Beta and Release Preview channels today. Don't worry, there are no new features. Just a LOT of fixes.

This update includes the following improvements:

• We fixed an issue that occurs when Windows Server 2016 runs as a terminal server using certain cloud computing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). As result, the servers randomly stop responding after running for a period of time. This also addresses a regression that proactively checks to ensure that the CSharedLock in rpcss.exe is set correctly to avoid a deadlock.
• We fixed an issue that might cause the time zone list in Settings to appear blank for users who are not administrators.
• We fixed an issue that affects the Windows search service and occurs when you query using the proximity operator.
• We fixed an issue that fails to show the Startup impact values in Task Manager.
• We fixed an issue that prevents ShellWindows() from returning the InternetExplorer object when iexplore.exe runs in the Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode context.
• We provided the ability to share cookies between Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode and Microsoft Edge.
• We fixed an issue that affects dialog boxes in Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode.
• We fixed an issue that causes Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode to stop working when you press the F1 key.
• We fixed an issue that causes the improper cleanup of Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) objects. This prevents session teardown and causes a session to stop responding.
• We fixed an issue that prevents printing from operating properly for some low integrity process apps.
• We introduced support for Windows Hello for Business Cloud Trust. This is a new deployment model for hybrid deployments of Windows Hello for Business. It uses the same technology and deployment steps that support on-premises single sign-on (SSO) for Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) security keys. Cloud Trust removes the public-key infrastructure (PKI) requirements for deploying Windows and simplifies the Windows Hello for Business deployment experience.
• We fixed an issue that prevents you from unloading and reloading drivers when the drivers are protected Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity (HVCI).
• We fixed an issue that affects the Silent BitLocker enablement policy and might unintentionally add a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) protector.
• We fixed a reliability issue that affects the use of the Remote Desktop app to mount a client’s local drive to a terminal server session.
• We fixed an issue that displays right-to-left (RTL) language text as left justified on File Explorer command menus and context menus.
• We fixed an issue that prevents you from reaching the LanguagePackManagement configuration service provider (CSP) using the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Bridge.
• We opened Microsoft Office files that are in the Start menu’s recommended section in the browser. This occurs if the device does not have an appropriate Microsoft Office license and the file is stored in Microsoft OneDrive or Microsoft SharePoint. If there is a license, the file will open in the desktop app instead.
• We fixed an issue that causes a mismatch between a Remote Desktop session’s keyboard and the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client when signing in.
• We added the clock and date to the taskbars of other monitors when you connect other monitors to your device.
• We added weather content to the left side of the taskbar if the taskbar is aligned in the center. When you hover over the weather, the Widgets panel will appear on the left side of the screen and will disappear when you stop hovering over the area.
• We added the ability to quickly share open application windows directly from your taskbar to a Microsoft Teams call.
• We fixed an issue that causes incorrect tooltips to appear in an empty area on the taskbar after you hover over other icons like battery, volume, or Wi-Fi.
• We fixed an issue that occurs when you try to write a service principal name (SPN) alias (such as www/FOO) and HOST/FOO already exists on another object. If the RIGHT_DS_WRITE_PROPERTY is on the SPN attribute of the colliding object, you receive an “Access Denied” error.
• We fixed an issue that disconnects Offline Files on the network drive after you restart the OS and sign in. This issue occurs if the Distributed File System (DFS) path is mapped to the network drive.
• We fixed an issue that displays the authentication dialog twice when you mount a network drive.
• We added support for hot adding and the removal of non-volatile memory (NVMe) namespaces.
• We added the ability to instantly mute and unmute a Microsoft Teams call from your taskbar. During a call, an active microphone icon will appear on the taskbar so that you can easily mute the audio without having to return to the Microsoft Teams call window.

 

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Hi all, This Thursday, Russell Smith and I will take part in a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) event for Thurrott Premium members. Because we know that not everyone will be able to attend this event live, we’re opening up this thread so you can get a question in. And we’ll make the recording available to everyone once the event is over. What: Live AMA with Paul Thurrott and Russell Smith When: Thursday, February 10, 2022, at 12 pm EST Where: YouTube - here is the link Thanks! Paul

Google today released Jetpack Compose 1.1.

Today, we’re releasing version 1.1 of Jetpack Compose, Android's modern, native UI toolkit, continuing to build out our roadmap. This release contains new features like improved focus handling, touch target sizing, ImageVector caching, and support for Android 12 stretch overscroll. Compose 1.1 also graduates a number of previously experimental APIs to stable and supports newer versions of Kotlin. We've already updated our samples, codelabs, and Accompanist library to work with Compose 1.1. Wondering what’s next? Check out our updated roadmap to see the features we’re currently thinking about and working on, such as lazy item animations, downloadable fonts, moveable content, and more! Jetpack Compose is stable, ready for production, and continues to add the features you’ve been asking us for. We’ve been thrilled to see tens of thousands of apps start using Jetpack Compose in production already and we can’t wait to see what you’ll build!

Google had previously released Jetpack Compose 1.0 in July 2021.

Here's a fun post from Microsoft's Raymond Chen, of The Old New Thing fame:

The Windows 8 tablet experience organized its components as a collection of layers, with each layer stacked on top of the next one. For the purpose of today’s discussion, the important layers are the Start layer and the Apps layer: If you’re using an app, then the Apps layer is full screen. If you have opened Start, then the Start layer covers the Apps layer. If the last app exits, then Start automatically opens. There should be a fullscreen layer at all times.

During development, of course, something inevitably goes wrong, and you get into states where neither the Start nor the Apps layer is being shown, resulting in a black screen. Now, a black screen could have multiple causes. The video driver may have crashed. Or the video driver could be working fine, but the compositor has crashed, so that nothing is being given to the video driver. Or the compositor could be working fine, but the shell has crashed, so the compositor has nothing to render. Or the shell could be running, but it simply forgot to put something on the screen. For that last case, the Windows 8 shell created a backstop window that sat at a layer below all of the other layers. If none of the other layers were present, then at least you got a backstop window. And in early debug builds, that backstop window contained an ASCII drawing of cats. That way, if you saw cats, you knew that you were in that last failure case: The shell is running but forgot to put something on the screen. Why cats? I guess the developer who wrote the backstop window liked cats. In fact, the developer who wrote the backstop window liked cats so much, they had a series of cat pictures. At system startup, they drew the first cat picture onto the backstop window, and each time the backstop window was asked to repaint, they cycled to the next picture. It was like a story that was told one sentence at a time, with each sentence revealed the next time there was a catastrophic failure. In practice, the full story was never told, since we almost never got past even the first picture.

Until now.

Check out the original post for the full story.

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Interesting read:

Not long after being promoted to the role of chief executive at Microsoft, in 2014, Satya Nadella had faced calls to ditch the tech group’s Xbox games division and concentrate its resources on cloud computing — to compete with rivals, such as Amazon. But instead, Nadella saw an opportunity to build new customer bases through online gaming communities. His first deal as chief executive was buying Minecraft, the three-dimensional world-building game. At the same time, he further developed Microsoft’s dominant position in personal and business software and expanded its cloud and server offerings. Shares in the group have risen eightfold under Nadella’s tenure, and it remains the world’s largest software group. However, last month’s $75bn deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard will also make Microsoft the world’s third-biggest gaming company by revenue, behind only China’s Tencent and Japan’s Sony. Not only does it extend Microsoft’s vertical integration in gaming, giving it yet more content for its Xbox console and PC games distribution systems, it also shows how Nadella sees the future of online interactions — at work, in education, and in the home. He indicated that the Activision purchase would also power the company’s move into the metaverse — the immersive, virtual, interactive worlds the big tech companies are racing to build. Here, in his first interview since the deal was announced, Nadella tells the FT’s west coast editor, Richard Waters, how gaming will shape the next computing platform.

This doesn't surprise me, but I wonder if it's a huge problem for those services that have lots of high-quality content. Even temporary (paid) subscriptions have to be a reasonable business model. From the Wall Street Journal:

Streaming-video services get a surge of subscribers when they launch a hotly anticipated show or movie. But many of these new customers unsubscribe within a few months, according to new data, a challenge even for the industry’s deep-pocketed giants. The data, which subscriber-measurement company Antenna provided to The Wall Street Journal, illustrate the extent to which the streaming wars require all players to consistently churn out popular and often expensive programming to keep fickle subscribers satisfied. “You constantly need new content,” said Michael Nathanson, an analyst for MoffettNathanson. Streaming services not only have to build vast libraries of old shows and movies, he said, they also “need a couple big, nice theatrical movies every quarter to make it feel like it’s really valuable.” Major releases have been a reliable driver of streaming subscriptions, particularly for newer services. Walt Disney Co. ’s Disney+, for instance, won far more new U.S. subscribers when the musical “Hamilton” came out than any other day since early 2020, when the service was still getting off the ground. AT&T Inc.’s HBO Max saw a jump in U.S. sign-ups when “Wonder Woman 1984” was released on Christmas Day 2020, according to Antenna data. So did Apple Inc.’s Apple TV+ on the day “Greyhound,” a World War II movie starring Tom Hanks, came out in July 2020. Many of them don’t stick around very long. Roughly half of U.S. viewers who signed up within three days of the release of “Hamilton,” “Wonder Woman 1984” and “Greyhound” were gone within six months, Antenna data show.

(I suspect “Wonder Woman 1984” did more to drive away subscribers than keep them, but whatever. Terrible movie.)

Hi all, Just a quick couple of notes about the coming week. Travel. Stephanie and I are flying home from Mexico tomorrow (Monday), so I suspect I won't be posting much that day. You never know, though: given the recent snowstorm on the U.S. east coast, our trip could be impacted and maybe I'll have time. I hope not. :) First Ring Daily. Brad and I forgot to mention that Brad is traveling for work next week---again, barring any issues---and so we won't record the next episode until Friday unless something changes. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks! Paul

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Not worth a full post, but...

Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22543 to the Dev Channel.

• We’re introducing more natural voices for Narrator.
• This build has a good set of improvements such as a few updated visuals for some UI areas.
• We have a good set of fixes too!
• As always, please be sure to check the known issues below.

This is a fascinating and correct perspective:

Not quite three years ago, I bought a Pixel 3, Google’s flagship phone at the time. It has been a good phone. I like that it’s not too big. I dropped it a bunch, but it didn’t break. And the battery life has not noticeably changed since the day I got it. I think of phones in much the same way I think of refrigerators or stoves. It’s an appliance, something I need but feel no attachment to, and as long as it keeps fulfilling that need, I don’t want to spend money replacing it for no real reason. The Pixel 3 fulfills my needs, so I don’t want to spend $600 on the Pixel 6, which seems to be just another phone that does all the phone things. But I have to get rid of it because Google has stopped supporting all Pixel 3s. Despite being just three years old, no Pixel 3 will ever receive another official security update. Installing security updates is the one basic thing everyone needs to do for their own digital security. If you don’t even get them, then you’re vulnerable to every security flaw discovered since your last patch. In response to an email asking Google why it stopped supporting the Pixel 3, a Googles spokesperson said, “We find that three years of security and OS updates still provides users with a great experience for their device.” This has been a problem with Android for as long as Android has existed.

 

Google today announced the release of the latest stable version of its Android Studio development environment, codenamed Bumble Bee. “The Android Studio team has been abuzz with the stable release of Android Studio Bumblebee (2021.1.1) and Android Gradle plugin (AGP) 7.1.0; the latest versions of Android official IDE and build system,” Google product manager Adarsh Fernando writes in the announcement post. “We’ve improved functionality across a broad area of the typical developer workflow: Build and Deploy, Profiling and Inspection, and Design.” You can download Android Studio 2021.1.1 from the Android Developer website.

Since this is more rumor/leak than news, I'm not sure it warrants a full post, but this Bloomberg piece may be interesting to Apple fans:

Apple typically follows a pattern of spacing out its new product releases each year. In the spring, it launches updates to its more minor or complementary products. In the summer, it reveals new software and holds its developer conference. Apple then saves major new hardware for the fall. It’s a shoo-in that you’ll see a new iPhone SE [at the spring event], which will probably have a similar design to the current model but a faster processor and 5G support. Given that the iPad Air hasn’t been updated since the end of 2020, I’d say a new version of that product also is possible. Look for that device to get the A15 chip from the iPhone 13, matching the iPad mini from last year. What else could be on the menu? I’d imagine Apple wants to bring the M1 Pro chip to another Mac in the first half of this year. That could mean a higher-end Mac mini or iMac. But given Apple’s typical strategy, I’d guess that the revamped MacBook Air and Mac Pro aren’t coming until later this year. To that end, I’m told that Apple is readying the widest array of new hardware products in its history this fall. That makes sense: My back-of-the-envelope list includes four new iPhones, a low-end MacBook Pro, an updated iMac, the new Mac Pro, a revamped MacBook Air, an AirPods Pro upgrade, three Apple Watches, a low-end iPad and iPad Pros.

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Welcome back from the holidays. To start, I’d like to thank everyone for all of the hard work and dedication that have built this business and this community. Obviously, today’s agreement to acquire Activision Blizzard is incredibly exciting. In fact[,] it’s a milestone for our company, our business[,] and our industry. I and the entire Gaming Leadership Team are deeply enthusiastic about this opportunity. We also announced this morning that we have surpassed 25 million Game Pass subscribers across console, cloud[,] and PC, a great achievement for all of Team Xbox. As players and partners, we all know how talented and dedicated the teams and studios are across Activision Blizzard. The legendary games and franchises across that company have delighted millions of people for decades. Coming together, we can accelerate our mission to extend the joy and community of gaming to everyone. We have the capability and opportunity to build simply the best, most engaging, most fun entertainment ecosystem anywhere. Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players. We deeply value individual studio cultures. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand-in-hand with treating every person with dignity and respect. We hold all teams, and all leaders, to this commitment. We’re looking forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to the great teams across Activision Blizzard. We expect this acquisition to close in FY23, pending regulatory approvals. Once the acquisition is completed, the Activision Blizzard business will report to me. In the meantime, we know you will have a lot of questions. The Gaming Leadership Team and I look forward to answering as many as we can at our next Monthly Gaming Update on Jan. 26. You can submit your questions now anonymously, or post them on our Team Xbox Yammer. Please also refresh on our corporate social media guidelines. As Satya mentioned, I am now CEO, Microsoft Gaming. This change is a reflection of the incredible work each of you [is] doing to create the best entertainment ecosystem anywhere. As a leadership team, we know how much exciting but difficult work we have ahead of us, so it’s crucial that we operate as a single, unified team. To that end, I’m excited to announce effective today that Jerret West, CMO of Gaming, and his marketing team will move from Chris Capossela’s organization to report directly to me. Jerret will continue to be a member of Chris’ leadership team and leverage critical parts of Microsoft’s marketing muscle including Communications, Media, and Consumer Sales. We will have a webcast for investors and media at 6 a.m. PT to discuss the Activision Blizzard transaction and our plans as Microsoft Gaming. Please join if you can. Phil

Team, I’m thrilled to share that this morning we announced an agreement to acquire Activision Blizzard in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard is one of the largest game publishers worldwide across console, PC[,] and mobile, and it’s home to nearly 400 million monthly active players, along with iconic games including Call of Duty, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft[,] and Diablo. Gaming has been key to Microsoft since our earliest days as a company. Today, it’s the largest and fastest-growing form of entertainment, and as the digital and physical worlds come together, it will play a critical role in the development of metaverse platforms. Together with Activision Blizzard, we believe we have an incredible opportunity to bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet, and we will invest and innovate to create the best content, community[,] and cloud for gamers. We want to make it easier for people to connect and play great games wherever, whenever[,] and however they want. This agreement is a testament to the impact our gaming team has delivered, and I am deeply grateful for their hard work and commitment. Over the past few years, we’ve expanded our content pipeline and have become leaders in game subscriptions, as well as cloud gaming. And this holiday it was especially gratifying to see the response from fans and read the great reviews of our new first-party titles. Effective today, Phil Spencer will become CEO, Microsoft Gaming. When the acquisition closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil. We look forward to extending our journey to create a more diverse and inclusive culture to our new colleagues at Activision Blizzard, and ensuring all our employees can do what they love, while thriving in a safe and welcoming environment — one where everyone feels empowered to do their best work. I will be hosting a webcast with investors at 6 a.m. PT with Phil and Amy, as well as Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, to share more details on our big ambitions for gaming. Please join if you can. Satya

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This is sadly not surprising, and based on how things have gone recently, very easy to believe:

Former MSFTy, don’t bother wasting your time giving feedback. Nobody cares, those that cared left. Microsoft has a weird culture, very top down, very passive aggressive between departments. For a brief while I would diligently prepare bugs for the dog food software. I would even walk over to visit people responsible for it and chat about it. Even for software where ‘zero bugs’ was important they’d just delete a whole bunch of bugs and see if any bounce (come back). Eventually people get sick of refilling so they get to zero but bounce by exhausting the very people eying time help them. Enough social media pressure may end up risking a line item in a PMs yearly goals. So that might get looked at. Even the some of the most backward laggards (e.g. government departments) are sick to death of Microsoft and have long been introducing policies that all new software has to be web only. Those pointing to Azure as the future should know that they have very aggressive sales who often vastly oversell to customers. Customers aren’t renewing at the same level. Plus I don’t see them being able to compete with Amazon long term. You can only buy Skype for the bundled government customer so many times.

This is one of those "nothing to see here" moments since it's just fixes:

• We improved the reliability of application installations on ARM64 devices.
• We updated daylight saving time to start in February 2022 instead of March 2022 in Jordan.
• We fixed an issue that causes ARM64 devices to stop responding when they hibernate or resume from hibernation.
• We fixed an issue that might prevent some image editing programs from rendering colors correctly on certain high dynamic range (HDR) displays. This frequently affects white colors that might display in bright yellow or other colors.
• We fixed an issue that affects predictive pre-rendering in Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode.
• We fixed an issue that sometime prevents you from entering strings in the Input Method Editor (IME).
• We fixed an issue that causes the audio service to stop responding on some devices that support hardware-accelerated Bluetooth audio.
• We fixed an issue in which the text that informs a customer about the Windows update progress is incorrect for Japanese.
• We fixed an issue that affects icons for apps when the apps are not running. On the taskbar, these icons might display as active as if the apps are running.
• We fixed an issue that might cause VPN profiles to disappear. This issue occurs when you use Microsoft Intune or a third-party mobile device management (MDM) tool to deploy VPN profiles on Windows 11 (original release).
• We fixed an issue that affects applications that are written to only integrate with Azure Active Directory (AAD). These applications will not work on machines that are joined to Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS).
• We fixed an issue that might cause the Get-TPM PowerShell command to fail when it attempts to report Trusted Platform Module (TPM) information. The command fails with the error, “0x80090011 Microsoft.Tpm.Commands.TpmWmiException,Microsoft.Tpm.Commands.GetTpmCommand.
• We fixed an issue that causes a remote desktop protocol (RDP) session to disconnect or the screen to be blank for Server Core. This issue occurs when you install the AppCompat feature.
• We fixed an issue that affects windows.system.profile.retailinfo.dll.
• We fixed some issues that affect File Explorer’s performance when you browse for files and select files.
• We added a new Your Microsoft Account page to the Accounts category in Windows Settings for Home and Professional editions.
• We fixed an issue that incorrectly shows the volume icon in the taskbar as muted.
• We fixed a reliability issue that causes File Explorer and desktop context menus to stop working.
• We fixed an issue that fails to pass the Shift KeyUp event to an application when you use the Korean IME.
• We added the HelpWith feature, which uses Microsoft Bing technologies to suggest Help topics that are relevant for each Settings page.
• We fixed an issue that prevents the touch keyboard from appearing on the lock screen when a device has a Microsoft account (MSA).
• We fixed an issue that affects the loading of badging information on the taskbar, which sometimes causes a device to stop working.
• We fixed an issue that prevents some options from appearing on the Win + X menu.
• We fixed an issue that causes a device to stop working when it’s connected to multiple displays.
• We fixed an issue that affects the auto-hide feature of the taskbar. The taskbar might not reliably appear when you hover over the primary or secondary display.
• We fixed an issue that sometimes prevents you from using the Chinese Simplified IME.
• We fixed an issue that might prevent icons from appearing on the taskbar of a secondary display.
• We fixed an issue that fails to install certain printer companion applications when the printer device driver is installing.
• We fixed an issue that displays outdated battery percentages for connected Bluetooth devices on the Bluetooth and other devices page in Settings.
• We fixed an issue that prevents IP cameras from connecting and streaming to certain DirectShow (DShow) applications.
• We improved the auto brightness algorithm to provide a better response under low light conditions on all the supported systems.
• We fixed an issue that causes lsass.exe to stop working and the device restarts. This issue occurs when you query Windows NT Directory Services (NTDS) counters after the NTDS service has stopped.
• We fixed an issue that causes a deadlock in the WebDav redirector. This issue occurs when you attempt to read a file from the local TfsStore, which causes the system to stop responding.
• We fixed a performance regression issue that occurs when you enable the update sequence number (USN) journal.
• We fixed an issue that fails to apply the Group Policy Object (GPO) “Do not allow compression on all NTFS Volume” in some cases.
• We fixed an issue that prevents Robocopy from retrying the file copy process.
• We fixed an issue that causes Windows to stop working and generates the error, “IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL”.
• We fixed a memory leak that occurs when you call WinVerifyTrust(). This issue occurs if verification fails for the first signature of a file that has multiple signatures.

Hi all, We arrived at the Airbnb in Mexico City safe and sound, but I'm exhausted and see I have plenty to write, so I'm going to skip Ask Paul this week, sorry. I should have a Premium post in the Programming Windows series tomorrow (Friday), however, as I wrote most of it on the plane. It's a long one and is, I think, pretty cool. Thanks! Paul

Hi all, Just a quick note that---COVID willing---my wife and I will be flying to Mexico City tomorrow, so I probably won't be posting much again until Friday. We will be there through January 31 and I'll be working normally for the most part. I'm not sure yet about this week's Ask Paul, but if it makes sense, I may just delay it a day. Let me see how the travel goes. Thanks! Paul

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Acer: Acer today unveiled three new Chromebooks designed for consumers needing a secure, easy-to-use, and affordable device for productivity, entertainment and communication. These new Chromebooks come in three sizes and form factors, and are furnished with everything consumers need, plus exceptional audio and video technology for entertainment and video conferencing. “This new trio of Acer Chromebooks offers the best of several worlds; they deliver solid performance capabilities, have great extra features, and give users the latest technology while staying within budget,” said James Lin, General Manager, Notebooks, IT Products Business, Acer Inc. “Today’s users need a reliable, easy-to-use means to stay productive, connected and entertained when they’re at home—these three new Acer Chromebooks fit that bill.” They are:

• The Acer Chromebook Spin 513 (CP513-2H) boosts productivity on-the-go with a sleek, convertible design, 13.5-inch VertiView^® display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, long battery life, and exceptional performance—powered by the octa-core MediaTek Kompanio 1380 processor
• The Acer Chromebook 315 (CB315-4H/T) expands the company’s extensive collection of large-screen offerings; includes a 15.6-inch anti-glare FHD display and numeric keypad
• The Acer Chromebook 314 (CB314-3H/T) is a portable device with a 14-inch FHD display, featuring the latest Intel processors and an OceanGlass^™ Touchpad

All three Chromebooks deliver the latest audio and video technologies so multi-tasking families, students, and hybrid workers can stay productive, entertained, and connected.

Hi all, Here's a place for any questions or comments you have about this week's Premium newsletter. Thanks! Paul

Liliputing:

BlackBerry stopped shipping phones and tablets with its own software years ago, switching to Android in 2015 before shifting from a hardware company to a software company and outsourcing design of BlackBerry-branded phones to other companies. But if you’ve been hanging onto an older BlackBerry phone running BlackBerry OS, you’ve been able to continue using it for some basic tasks like web browsing and phone calls. That changes next week, because BlackBerry has announce it’s ending support for legacy services for BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry PlayBook OS.

Here's the original support post from Blackberry.

From The New York Times:

On a Sunday night in September, Ashley Estrada was at a friend’s home in Los Angeles when she received a strange notification on her iPhone: “AirTag Detected Near You.” An AirTag is a 1.26-inch disc with location-tracking capabilities that Apple started selling earlier this year as a way “to keep track of your stuff.” Ms. Estrada, 24, didn’t own one, nor did the friends she was with. The notification on her phone said the AirTag had first been spotted with her four hours earlier. A map of the AirTag’s history showed the zigzag path Ms. Estrada had driven across the city while running errands. “I felt so violated,” she said. “I just felt like, who’s tracking me? What was their intent with me? It was scary.” Ms. Estrada is not alone in her experience. In recent months, people have posted on TikTok, Reddit and Twitter about finding AirTags on their cars and in their belongings. There is growing concern that the devices may be abetting a new form of stalking, which privacy groups predicted could happen when Apple introduced the devices in April.

Fantastic. Just fantastic.

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The other day, I posted that YouTube TV might lose all Disney channels. Well, it's happened. I received this email from YouTube TV overnight:

Hi Paul, We have held good faith negotiations with Disney for several months. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before our existing one expired. As of December 17, 2021, end of day Eastern Time, all Disney-owned channels, including ESPN and your local ABC station, are unavailable on YouTube TV. Members will not be able to watch live or local content from Disney and will also lose access to any previous Library recordings from these channels, including 4K content that is available as part of the 4K Plus add-on. We will be decreasing our monthly price by $15, from $64.99 to $49.99, for the Base Plan while this content remains off of our platform. No action is needed on your part. A credit of $15 per month will automatically be issued. Once content is unavailable, this credit will be applied to your next bill after December 17 and will only be visible to family managers in Settings > Billing after the charge has taken place. Please note that if you have a promotional price with YouTube TV, you can still expect a $15 credit. Members who are in a paused state will receive this credit one month after their first charge. Should we come to an agreement with Disney, we will adjust the price accordingly and will notify members via email beforehand. For the full list of Disney-owned channels that are no longer available on YouTube TV and for additional information or updates, please visit this webpage. We know this is frustrating news, and it is not the outcome we wanted. We will continue conversations with Disney to advocate on your behalf in hopes of restoring their content on YouTube TV. Thank you for being a YouTube TV member and for your patience and understanding. Sincerely, The YouTube TV team

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And it's not pretty.

Since announcing Manifest V3 in 2018, Google has launched Manifest V3 in Chrome, started accepting Manifest V3 extensions in the Chrome Web Store, co-announced joining the W3C WebExtensions Community Group (formed in collaboration with Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla), and, most recently, laid out a timeline for Manifest V2 deprecation. New Manifest V2 extensions will no longer be accepted as of January 2022, and Manifest V2 will no longer function as of January 2023. According to Google, Manifest V3 will improve privacy, security, and performance. We fundamentally disagree. The changes in Manifest V3 won’t stop malicious extensions, but will hurt innovation, reduce extension capabilities, and harm real world performance. Google is right to ban remotely hosted code (with some exceptions for things like user scripts), but this is a policy change that didn’t need to be bundled with the rest of Manifest V3. Instead of working in true collaboration on the next iteration of browser extensions, Google expects Manifest V3 to be treated as a foregone conclusion. Participation in the WebExtensions group gives Google the veneer of collaboration even as it continues to do what it was going to do anyway. In short, Google enters the room as an 800-pound gorilla unwilling to listen or meaningfully work with the community.

Adobe emailed me about a new release of Photoshop for iPad that adds these two features:

• Smudge Tool. Add more fun to your day with the Smudge tool! Mix and blend your work with a smudge effect that simulates painting in real life.
• Sponge Tool. Make your images pop and shine with control and precision. The Sponge tool soaks up or squeezes out color with a simple brush stroke.

You can learn more here.

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I just received this email:

The YouTube TV app is available in the Roku Channel Store Hi Paul, We have good news: The YouTube TV app is back in the Roku Channel Store. A few months ago, we let you know that our agreement with Roku had expired and that the app would not be available for new downloads in the store. Today, we are happy to share that we have since reached a deal with Roku to continue distributing the YouTube and YouTube TV apps on Roku devices. This means the YouTube TV app is once again available in the Roku Channel Store for both new and existing members. You will still have the option to access YouTube TV via the YouTube app if you would like. Thanks for being a YouTube TV member. Sincerely, The YouTube TV team

I was going to write this up after Windows Weekly, but we're running late, so... The New York Times reports:

A federal appeals court delivered a last-minute reprieve to Apple on Wednesday, agreeing to the company’s request to delay a legal order requiring it to make policy changes to its App Store that could help app developers circumvent what they say are unfair fees. If the appeals court had not ruled, Apple on Thursday would have had to start allowing companies to include links within their apps directing customers to outside websites where they can pay for those companies’ services or subscriptions. That would have prevented Apple from taking a cut of up to 30 percent on those transactions. The order was initially made in September as part of the verdict in a yearlong court case between Apple and Epic Games, the creator of the popular video game Fortnite. Epic sued Apple, accusing it of engaging in anticompetitive behavior that harmed developers and consumers through its fees and strict App Store rules. In a brief document, three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit wrote that Apple could wait to make any changes until the appeals process for the Epic lawsuit concluded, which could take more than a year. The ruling adds another wrinkle in a lengthy legal battle over whether app developers have the right to inform their customers about ways to pay for their services outside the App Store.

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Neowin writes:

Back in June, Microsoft announced that it is revamping the Office desktop apps for Windows. The idea was to bring the apps in line with Windows 11's design language, even on Windows 10. In the following weeks, the company began rolling out the refresh to those on the Beta Channel, and in September, this extended to Current Channel users, but only as a preview. Today, Microsoft has announced that it is speeding up the pace of rollout.

This story links to a "new" Microsoft forum post that is just a reposting of the original post, and it's really hard to see what's changed in that post. But Neowin offers this clarification:

If you're on Windows 10 and running Office version 2110 and build 14527.20226 or later, there's a possibility that the visual update will be available to you. This is because Microsoft has made the update automatically available to 50% of all users on the Current Channel. Meanwhile, if you're on Windows 11, the revamp will necessarily [?] be available to you.

So I don't know. Maybe it's available, I guess.

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Hi all, Here's a place for any questions or comments you have about today's Premium newsletter, which will go out this afternoon. Thanks! Paul

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We're a day late thanks to jet lag, but here's a place you can leave any questions or comments about this week's Premium newsletter. Thanks! Paul

From Game Developer: The PlayStation 5 has sold 13.4 million units to date, with 3.3 million of those sales coming during the last fiscal quarter. According to Sony's financial report for the quarter ended September 30, 2021, demand for the console contributed to a sales upswing in its Game and Network Services (G&NS) segment. Sales in the division rose by 27 percent year-on-year to 645.4 billion yen ($5.68 billion) thanks to an increase in hardware sales and rising sales of third-party titles. Operating income within the G&NS segment, however, fell to 82.7 billion yen ($728.4 million) from 105.4 billion yen ($928.4 million) due to a decline in sales of first-party software and the loss resulting from the "strategic price point" of PlayStation 5 hardware, which sees Sony sell the console at a loss. Looking ahead, Sony said its fiscal forecast remains unchanged.

From PlayStation Blog:

From Spotify: Total MAUs grew 19 percent Y/Y to 381 million in the quarter, up from 365 million last quarter and near the top end of our guidance range. We experienced double-digit Y/Y growth in all regions. Premium Subscribers grew 19 percent Y/Y to 172 million in the quarter, up from 165 million last quarter and towards the midpoint of the guidance range. We tested a Premium promotion in the third quarter, which aided the typical seasonality of our business and also helped offset the tough comp from the successful launch of Russia and surrounding territories in Q3 last year. Revenue of €2.5 billion grew 27% Y/Y in Q3. Gross profit was €699 million.

Hi all, Here's a place for any questions or comments about this week's Premium newsletter. Thanks! Paul

Just a quick update on my schedule: I'm flying to Paris tonight (Saturday/Oct. 23) with my wife, and we'll be flying home next Friday, October 29. This is our make-up 30th-anniversary trip, so I won't be working normally. But I'll still write a bit each day, and may even do Windows Weekly on Wednesday if it makes sense. For Premium members, I've already submitted my article for Monday's newsletter, but there won't be any Ask Paul next week because I'm traveling all day that Friday. I will have a "What I Use" article about the trip at some point, however. Thanks! Paul

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Hi all, I'm driving to Boston today and have a lot of family-related things to attend to on Friday, so I won't have time for Ask Paul this week, sorry. It will be back next week. Thanks! Paul

Sorry for the confusion: I had posted about the Surface event being today, but it's tomorrow. LOL. Brad and I even recorded a podcast, which we're now re-recording. Ah, brain cells. See you tomorrow. :)

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Ah boy. This is a big one. Here's a place for any questions or comments you have about this week's Premium newsletter. Thanks! Paul

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Hi all, I spent all day yesterday traveling, and looking at the news this morning, I see I have a lot of catching up to do. So I'll focus on that today and come back with Ask Paul in a week. Thanks for understanding, Paul

The book Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System is now available for purchase in Kindle form on Amazon; not sure if there are other formats, etc. But I bought a copy and will try to read it this week. Here's the description: -- In 2004, Android was two people who wanted to build camera software. But they couldn't get investors interested. Today, Android is a large team at Google, shipping an operating system (including camera software) to over three billion devices worldwide. This is the inside story, told by the people who made it happen. “What are the essential ingredients that lead a small team to build software at the sheer scale and impact of Android? We may never fully know, but this first person account is probably the closest set of clues we have.” –Dave Burke, VP of Android Engineering “Androids captures a strong picture of what the early development of Android, as well as the Android team, was like.” –Dianne Hackborn, Android Framework Engineer “Androids is the engaging tale of a motley group of coders with a passion to make insanely great products who banged out the operating system when that idea seemed nuts. True to his geek genes, Chet Haase tells this remarkable tale of technical and business success from the trenches, an inspiring, massive collective effort of dozens of programmers who flipped their seemingly late timing to their advantage, and presaged a generation of platform builders. Read Androids to discover what it takes to create a hot tech team that shipped a product running today on more than 3 billion devices.” –Jonathan Littman, co-author of The Entrepreneurs Faces: How Makers, Visionaries and Outsiders Succeed, and author of The Fugitive Game All profits from the book will be donated to charity.

After over two years of development, the Debian community has released Debian 11 “bullseye.” The new release of this Linux distribution will be supported for five years. “’bullseye’ [is] our first release to provide a Linux kernel with support for the exFAT filesystem and defaults to using it for mounting exFAT filesystems,” the release notes explain. “Most modern printers are able to use driverless printing and scanning without the need for vendor-specific (often non-free) drivers. [And] ‘bullseye’ … allows a USB [printer] to be treated as a network device.” Debian’s goal is to be what it calls “The Universal Operating System,” and the community-based organization claims that its broad support for software packages and hardware architectures in version 11 support that goal. “It is suitable for many different use cases: from desktop systems to netbooks; from development servers to cluster systems; and for database, web, and storage servers,” the release notes continue. “At the same time, additional quality assurance efforts like automatic installation and upgrade tests for all packages in Debian's archive ensure that ‘bullseye’ fulfills the high expectations that users have of a stable Debian release.” As with most other mainstream Linux distributions, interested parties can try Debian 11 without first installing it using a live image that runs in a read-only state using your PC’s RAM. But you can, of course, install it via USB, Blu-ray, DVD, CD, or a network connection. Users on Debian 10 can upgrade with the bundled APT package management tool. You can learn more about Debian 11 from the Debian website, which is a bit more old-school than some of the newer and trendier Linux distributions.

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Hello from Mexico, Here's a place for any questions or comments you have about this week's Premium newsletter. Thanks, Paul

We're flying to Mexico tomorrow (Thursday), and then driving for 3-4 hours to get to San Miguel de Allende, which will be our base for the first week of this two-week trip. (After that, we're returning to Mexico City, where our kids will join us for the second week.) So I think I'm going to be too exhausted to work much on Friday, though I will try to get other writing done if possible. Regarding work and this trip, my plan is to write as much as possible, though there may be odd days off here and there depending on the schedule. I'll be recording First Ring Daily most days (including this Friday), however, and will record the next two Windows Weekly episodes (after today's) from Mexico as well. Thanks! Paul

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Just a quick note that I'm traveling today and will be away through Tuesday. I won't be working all day as usual, but I will definitely check in from time to time and will probably be posting sometimes too. But no Ask Paul this week and no Premium newsletter on Monday, sorry. Thanks! Paul

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Hey all, As some of you know, we've been under a spam barrage for about 10 or 11 days now. We were also all-out attacked mid-week last week, but before and since then, we see spammers creating accounts in real-time and posting bogus forum posts with malicious links. This is taking up hours of my time each day. Brad has helped out as well, and I can't even count now how many we've deleted. Hundreds of accounts and posts, easily. To combat this in a more permanent way, we've temporarily turned off the ability to post to the forums. So these spammers will continue to create accounts and post to the forums, but those posts will never display. The obvious side-effect to this, of course, is that no one else can create a new forum post right now either. Sorry about that, but we should be back on Monday. And sometime Monday, we'll implement a system whereby first-time posters are moderated so their posts don't appear before being approved (by me, I guess). All other forum posts will appear normally, so if you already have an account and have been posting, you'll be good to go. Sorry for the inconvenience. And, please. If you're having some other technical problem or see a bug you want to be fixed or whatever, please do not leave that feedback here or in any other forum post. Please email [email protected] so a support ticket is created and the right people can take care of it. Thanks,   Paul

Just a reminder that Microsoft is hosting the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase today. You can find the details here:

https://www.thurrott.com/games/xbox/251340/get-ready-for-the-xbox-bethesda-games-showcase-on-sunday

UPDATE: This is closed now so I can answer the questions. Thanks! ---Paul   Hi all, Here's a place for any questions you have this week. Thanks! Paul