The Highs And Lows Of VR Gaming, according to a VR evangelist

As anyone who's been paying even the slightest bit of attention well knows, VR is the current darling of the tech media world, and of the gaming media world in particular. The hype has been off the chain, with VR's most ardent supporters bemoaning that VR's critics simply aren't interested in VR, leaving us criticizing something we haven't actually tried.

The reasons for this are very simple, of course:
a) VR is hella expensive, and
b) VR appears to be completely pointless.

Nonetheless, while sites like Kotaku have noticed, and noted, that stories about VR get fewer clicks and more negative comments than stores about actual, playable games, that apathy on the part of VR Luddites like myself hasn't stopped the VR faithful from clinging ferociously to the bandwagon, beating the drum of VR with all the energy they can muster.

Why is a third of Valve working on VR, instead of working on Steam's other, and much more serious, issues? Like the cheating loophole that it took them forever to get around to closing? Or the Counter-Strike skins gambling that they let run rampant on their service for way too long? Or their horrible, horrible customer service? Or the open sewer that is Steam: Greenlight? Or Half Life 3?

Well, quite simply, it's because VR is where the sex is. VR is the new hotness. At least, according to those with a vested interest in VR, or who've drunk the VR Kool-Aid.

So, after five months of this shameless boosterism, exactly how does one such booster feel about the current state of VR?

From Kotaku:

I’ve had an Oculus Rift and the rival Valve-backed HTC Vive headsets for several neglectful months. As amazing as it is to play games that surround you and as crazy as I am about playing video games in general, I don’t use either of my VR headsets very often. Two reasons: difficulty of use and lack of compelling games. The former may improve with future hardware iterations but will be overcome sooner the more we get VR games that can be called amazing without needing the caveat “for a VR game.”

Yep... pretty much as I expected.

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again: you don't need a VR headset. There's nothing you need to do, or even really want to do, which requires VR; almost everything can be done just as effectively, if not more effectively, without these expensive, currently pointless gizmos.

VR is not ready. It will be years before VR is anywhere near ready for mass-market adoption, and none of this current generation of VR hardware will be part of what VR evolves into, when that time comes, if it ever comes. Sony's VR headset will sell better than Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, but only because it will be cheaper; it won't provide any better or more compelling experiences, and by next June all of those Xmas Sony VR purchases will be gathering dust like the useless tat they are.

Now, if you've got $2K to waste, and nothing better to do with it, and want to waste it on VR gear that you'll barely use, then by all means, knock yourself out. It's your money, after all; you do you. But don't expect us to do the same, and for fuck sake, stop preaching about it. After all, as Kotaku themselves put it, our apathy towards VR is entirely rational. It's the VR evangelists who are being ridiculous about this.

Reminder: Windows 10's "free" version is not, and never has been, truly free

"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."

This oft-repeated chestnut is normally levelled at free cloud-based services like Google's Gmail, Docs, Drive, and the like, but Microsoft seems to be bound and determined to ensure that it gets applied to Windows 10, too.

From Computerworld:

Microsoft today updated the Windows 10 beta, switching on a controversial technology that commandeers users' upload bandwidth to shift some responsibility for updating from the company's own servers.

Build 14915 was released earlier Wednesday to participants in the Windows Insider "Fast" track.

The notable change highlighted by Dona Sarkar, the software engineer who acts as the public face of Insider, was the enabling of Windows 10's "Delivery Optimization" technology.
Delivery Optimization, formally dubbed "Windows Update Delivery Optimization" (WUDO) by Microsoft, was part of Windows 10 from the get-go. But it was only switched on as of the November 2015 upgrade, which was pegged as 1511. Insider builds of Windows 10, however, were exempt until now.

[...]

WUDO resembles BitTorrent in its basics, and like that file-sharing technology, uses a peer-to-peer delivery system to spread the load to PCs worldwide rather than relying on a centralized-servers model. WUDO is not a substitute for Microsoft's standard delivery service, Windows Update, but is in addition to it.

If WUDO is enabled, Microsoft can point others to locally-cached copies of updates and apps on users' Windows 10 devices that are connected to the Internet. When that happens, a user's Windows 10 PC acts as a substitute server for others, and any customer whose device is tapped for WUDO delivery has given Microsoft access to their upload bandwidth.

That appropriation of bandwidth has led to criticism, most of it focused on the fact that WUDO was enabled by default. To opt out, users must modify Windows 10's preferences.

Yes, Microsoft will simply appropriate your bandwidth, by default, at your expense, and to nobody's benefit except theirs. In fact, they're probably already doing it. I wonder whether gamers, whose hobby revolves around having adequate bandwidth and computational cycles available, feel about Microsoft commandeering their system resources in a bit to keep costs down?

Because that's what WUDO does: it allows Microsoft to save money on the servers which would normally be serving updates to users. Which is essential, since updates are pushed to most users from Microsoft by fiat, affected large numbers of users simultaneously. WUDO costs you money, so Redmond can save money, which means that they may as well be taking money right out of your pockets and putting in their own. It would qualify theft, except that there's almost certainly some impenetrably-worded clause in Windows 10's EULA or TOS which Redmond will interpret as you having given them permission to do this, whether or not WUDO is actually referenced specifically.

Also, since Windows 10 can (and will) reset your preferences to Microsoft's defaults during the updates that they can force on you at will, changing your preferences to turn off WUDO doesn't necessarily safeguard your bandwidth. Even if you opt out, Microsoft can opt you back in, and resume siphoning off your bandwidth and CPU cycles for their own benefit, not only without your knowledge or informed consent, but in defiance of your clearly expressed decision not to participate in their pseudo-Torrent network.

Seriously, Microsoft, fuck you.

#fuckyoumicrosoft

Reminder: Windows 10's update scheme is a broken mess

This one is actually from last week, but I missed it when it happened, so...

From Woody Leonhard at InfoWorld:

On Aug. 9, Microsoft released Security Bulletin MS16-098, the latest in a long line of fixes for Windows kernel-mode drivers.

[...]

The latest version of the kernel-mode driver fix came in four KB-identified security patches: KB 3177725, which fixed kernel-mode drivers in Vista, Win7, Win8.1, and WinRT; and a set of three security patches for Win10, which were rolled into the respective Aug. 9 cumulative updates, to wit, KB 3176492 (for the original Win10, "version 1507"), KB 3176493 (for version 1511, the Fall Update), and KB 3176495 (for 1607, the Anniversary Update).

It took a few days, but we ultimately discovered a problematic bug in all the patches. Microsoft changed its security bulletin to state:

After you apply this security update and you print multiple documents in succession, the first two documents may print successfully. However, the third and subsequent documents may not print.

[...] 

It took three days for Microsoft to confirm the bug. Yesterday, Aug. 24 -- 15 days after releasing the buggy security patch -- Microsoft rolled out a fix to the bug and assigned a different KB number, KB 3187022: Print functionality is broken after any of the MS16-098 security updates are installed.

If you're running Windows 7, Win8.1, or WinRT, that patch should've appeared last night in your Windows Update queue.

But here's the rub. Microsoft didn't release the fix for Windows 10 in any version. Instead, Win10 users are stuck with the bug, and it isn't clear how long we'll have to wait for a new cumulative update. 

[...]

It's a classic example of the Achilles' heel in Windows 10 cumulative updates, which I first discussed in February 2015. Microsoft has had a couple of years to figure out how it's going to handle bad patches. So far, the results haven't been reassuring.

Even less reassuring: Microsoft is moving Windows 7 and 8 to this same broken updating scheme starting in October. Yay?

Seriously, Microsoft, fuck you.

Reminder: EU regulators have some teeth

From Reuters, via The Huffington Post:

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators ordered Apple on Tuesday to pay up to 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in taxes plus interest to the Irish government after ruling that a special scheme to route profits through Ireland was illegal state aid.

The massive sum, 40 times bigger than the previous known demand by the European Commission to a company in such a case, could be reduced, the EU executive said in a statement, if other countries sought more tax themselves from the U.S. tech giant.

[...]

“Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years,” said Competition Commission Margrethe Vestager, whose crackdown on mainly U.S. multinationals has angered Washington which accuses Brussels of protectionism.

Apple intends to appeal, of course, and may well succeed in bringing down the size of their back tax bill, but $14.5B is a non-zero percentage of their market cap, in addition to being an enormous sum of money in its own right, and Apple's stock dropped 0.77% on the news. The previous record was €300M from Swedish engineer Atlas Copco AB, for back taxes in Belgium. It would seem that the EU is all done fucking around with companies that flout the rules.

Microsoft is already facing regulatory action in France; if the scope of that official response were to expand to include the EU as a whole, a very real possibility, then the potential costs were already high. The size of this penalty against Apple, though, shows that the EU has an appetite for imposing large enough fines that even these huge multinationals will feel them; if Microsoft don't resolve their European regulatory issues quickly, then the potential costs now appear to be much, much higher than they were just yesterday.

I wonder if they're worried yet?

From the Dark Side, turn you must: Alternatives to Windows 10

Remember when I told you about the first genuinely negative review of Windows 10 that I'd ever seen? The one that just straight up said that Windows 10 was horrible, because of all the broken pieces in the OS itself, and also because of all of Microsoft's bullshit? You know... this morning?

Well, if you were thinking that Patrick Pilcher was going to be a lone voice in the wilderness on this one, you can think again, because he's already got company.

From Owen McCarthy at BizEdge NZ:

There are always alternatives. This morning I was greeted with another dreaded, “Please wait while we set things up for you…” messages when I rushed to my Windows 10 laptop. Er, in reality it’s my wife’s but she allows me to use it, bless her. I thought it was time we looked at some alternatives to Windows 10.

Alternative 1: Windows 7: Forget about Windows 8 or it’s much vaunted offspring, 8.1. They are so bloated and memory-grabby that most corporates ignored them. Windows 7 was a different story. For me it was the best thing to come along since XP. At the time I was a teacher, part of the TELA scheme, and it didn’t go un-noticed that Windows 7 was the logical progression from XP. Most schools hung on to XP til the last moment before upgrading. Why? Well for one thing it was an easy OS to distribute using Windows Server and for another, you didn’t need a dedicated 4GB of RAM to run it.

Alternative 2: Mac OS: I’ve heard all the stories of why you shouldn’t consider Apple Computers. The nay-sayers keep on inventing new ones. For years I’d hear from former bosses that Apple was about to fold. They were strangely silent when they overtook Microsoft in terms of value. Apple is here to stay. You can even run Office on your Apple, but many Mac users prefer Pages to Word and Numbers to Excel. Personally I hop from one to the other without any problems. When it comes to Microsoft Office, the only drawback is that Publisher and Access are not part of the Apple version. Many Apple users run Windows, and software like Parallels enables you to switch backwards and forwards without a problem.

[...]

Alternative 3: Linux Distros: Having cut my teeth on using Terminal in Mac OS, Linux doesn’t really scare me, but today you can avoid going into the Terminal if it really scares you. Like Mac OS, Linux exists in a unix-based world. Modern GUI (graphical user interfaces) mean that you rarely need to venture into the shell of things, and unlike Windows and Mac OS, everything is Open Source. Libre Office is just one Open Source alternative to Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

[...]

Other Alternatives: I haven’t mentioned the Chrome-OS alternative, but if you can live happily in the Cloud, Chrome machines are another solution. As a former teacher I’m familiar with Chrome Apps, and they have cloud-based alternatives to those indispensable Office programmes we can’t live without.

Interestingly, both Pilcher and McCarthy are from New Zealand; maybe there's something about the Kiwi culture or mindset that's caused them to come to their senses sooner? Maybe they have worse connections to Microsoft's Update servers? I'm not sure if there actually is a common element here, and it could just be coincidence, but it'll be interesting to see which part of the globe #3 comes from. Because I'm quite certain that there will be a third example of this break with Microsoft's PR line on Windows 10.

PlayStation Now streaming service available today on Windows PCs

From TechCrunch:

You don’t need a PlayStation to play PlayStation games anymore: Sony’s Playstation Now subscription-based game streaming service is now out for PC, and you an grab the app and start playing some of PlayStation’s best legacy titles immediately if you’ve got a Windows machine.

It’ll cost you, of course – but not as much as you would’ve paid for the games available individually. A 12-month subscription to PlayStation Now will run you $99.99 as part of a limited-time promotion to celebrate the PC launch. Normally, a PS Now subscription will run you more than double that.

The $100 doesn't include a Dual Shock controller, naturally, which you'll need to buy separately, so you're actually looking at closer to $150 to try this for a year ($200 CAD), but the list of games is impressive. It includes Journey, for one thing, which I've always wanted to try, but not enough to buy a PS3; now I can try it, for about the cost of a PS3*.

Yeah... Hype, people. Never believe the hype.

For those keeping track, this is Sony, who are winning the current-gen console contest with Microsoft and Nintendo, now wanting to see PlayStation Now on Windows PCs because that's the money is. Just like Microsoft did with XBox Live, after admitting that we probably weren't ever going to see another console generation from Microsoft's direction, just PC-like updates of the XBox One. That just leaves Nintendo to pretend that console gaming economics still make sense, after announcing that they'd stopped production on Wii U entirely, and with NX not actually announced yet.

Yes, folks, this really is the last console generation. Sony will keep making boxes with the PlayStation logo on them, just like Microsoft will keep shipping XBoxes, and Nintendo will ship whatever their next thing is actually going to be called when that time comes, but the writing really is on the wall, and it's really not that hard to read.

* It is possible to pay $19.99 a month, instead, and there's also a free 7-day trial for people that are willing to give Sony their CC numbers, because apparently people still fall for that one. Personally, I will be giving this a miss.

"Windows 10 is horrible"

For the better part of a year, now, Microsoft has been been pushing Windows 10... hard. Really, really hard. Way too hard. So hard have Microsoft been pushing Windows 10, that it's actually difficult to find words to truly express just how hard Microsoft has been pushing their new flagship product on consumers who really weren't sure they wanted it... and on consumers who were quite sure they really didn't want it (although some, like the EFF, have tried).

Throughout Microsoft's year of shoving Windows 10 down our throats, the tech press has largely behaved as enablers of this bad behaviour. Even those that criticized their GWX campaign were lauding the OS itself. Windows 10, we were told, really was a great product... we just needed to see past Microsoft's bullshit and try it for ourselves. The only shame was the Microsoft were turning people away that might be willing to try Windows 10 for themselves.

I've long suspected that this was, in fact, bullshit, and as the Anniversary Update's problems have continued to grow, I've been waiting for the cracks to start forming in this base of support. Those cracks have been pretty slow to start, though, with a largely complicit tech press still apparently enabling Microsoft's bad behaviour, reporting on show-stopping problems as if they were relatively minor issues, the sort of thing that any reasonable person would expect to see with an update to their PC's operating system... an update that they can't decline, or even postpone for very long, because of Microsoft's bullshit, but whatever.

Well, today, that finally changed. Today, one of those very same tech writers finally said what millions of consumers have been thinking for some time now.

Today, one of them finally admitted that Microsoft's broken mess of an operating system really isn't a good product. At all.

From Patrick Pilcher at NetGuide NZ:

In the past, I’ve been called a Microsoft fan boy, hell I was even one of the MCs when Microsoft launched Vista in NZ. My home has long been a dominated by Microsoft gear, and I’ve been using Windows 10 since it first became available.

There were many reasons for my early move to Windows 10. It was free; Microsoft had installed a near impossible to remove “upgrade to Windows 10” nagware app on my PC too.

In the end I got curious and installed it.

While Windows 10 was great to use in its early days, long term, I’ve found myself becoming increasingly frustrated.

More recently I've experienced endless problems with Windows 10. Tasks that were a doddle under Windows 7 are a complicated and unintuitive mess with Windows 10.

Windows 10 looks pretty. It has lots of fancy stuff and with regular maintenance runs pretty quick. Eye candy aside, Windows 10 has sadly proven to be horrible to use.

I thought that after the disaster that was Windows 8 and the kiss and make up exercise of Windows 8.1, Microsoft would've applied some serious spit and polish onto Windows 10.

It doesn’t feel that way. Windows 10 ran smoothly for a few months, but problems soon crept in and Windows 10 OS now feels like a bug riddled mess designed by committee, held together with duct tape.

Pilcher goes on to list problems that should never have been problems with a finished product, let alone with the flagship product of a company as big as Microsoft, with so much riding on its success. Even the simplest things simply don't work reliably, like plugging in a USB drive. In Windows 7 plug in a thum drive, and it's accessible automatically, in seconds. In Windows 10, plugging in a USB drive requiring the use of a Storage Management utility. Printers mostly don't work, either, an issue which affects a wide range of brands and models, including recent models -- it's not just a lack of Win10-compatible drivers for older machines.

Even simple things like turning on the PC and logging on are more complicated than they need to be for home users... in an OS labelled as Windows 10 Home. Why?

And, yes, it keeps getting worse:

Win10's latest update breaks something new

From Woody Leonhard at InfoWorld:

Yesterday afternoon, Microsoft released KB 3176934 for those PCs running Windows 10 Anniversary Update. It's the fifth cumulative update for version 1607 (three were released before the product rolled out on Aug. 2) and brings the build number up to 14393.82. 

[...]

There was some hope that the cumulative update would fix one of the two widespread problems with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update that I talked about last week, but no such luck. Based on reports as of very early Wednesday morning, it looks like the freeze problem is still there.

[...]

The second widely reported problem -- that Anniversary Update broke Skype for those who use many popular webcams, including the Logitech C920 -- doesn't seem to have been addressed by the patch either. The MSDN thread on the topic contains no news, only repeated remonstrations about Microsoft's ability to test Windows updates with the Skype team.

There's also a new problem, specific to patch KB 3176934. As theWindows PowerShell Blog reported last night:

Due to a missing .MOF file in the build package, the update breaks DSC. All DSC operations will result in an "Invalid Property" error. If you are using DSC from or on any Windows client, take the following steps:

Uninstall the update if already installed…

If using WSUS, do not approve the update. Otherwise, Use Group Policy to set the ‘Configure Automatic Updates' to ‘2 -- Notify for download and notify for install'… A fix for this issue will be included in the next Windows update which is due out 8/30/2016.

[...]

We now have two examples of significant internal patching screwups with build 1607. First, Microsoft's Skype people didn't raise the red flag when they were testing 14393.0 with C920 cameras. Now, Microsoft's PowerShell people didn't raise the red flag when they were testing 14393.82 with DSC. The problem with yesterday's update, it seems, is a simple missing file.
The Skype team had weeks -- months -- to halt the rollout of 1607 or at least warn users in advance that 1607 would break Skype with the C920. The PowerShell team had at least a week to test 14393.82 with DSC. In both cases, Microsoft released patches that broke its own products.

Yes, Microsoft's streak of terrible update releases continues, with the Redmond team releasing a "fix" which break a new part of their "best ever" version of Windows, while failing to fix issues which have incensed users (or, at least, tech writers) for weeks. And yet, Microsoft has the sheer unmitigated gall to tell us that switching Win7 and Win8 to this same broken update scheme is some kind of favour to users, rather than being a steep downgrade in the level of service that users were promised when they bought those OSes.

Seriously, Microsoft... fuck you.

EFF report on Windows 10's privacy & security flaws finally getting the attention it deserves

After several days of freaking out over the Anniversary Update's webcam bug, Windows 10's more serious issues are finally getting some more attention.

Offered without comment, a sampling of today's coverage of the topic:

The EFF Calls Out Microsoft's Ongoing Bullshit On Windows 10 ...

Techdirt-2 hours ago

While Windows 10 is generally well-liked by reviewers and users, it's relatively clear that it's not the OS to choose if you actually want to control how much ...

Windows 10 lack of user choice, poor privacy slammed

iTWire-3 hours ago

EFF staffer Amul Kalia wrote in a blog post that the tactics employed to get users to upgrade to Windows 10 had ranged from annoying to malicious.

Windows 10 privacy concerns accused by EFF

News4C-8 hours ago

EFF, which stands for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has recently made some accusations that Microsoft is not careful with user privacy and user choice in ...

Microsoft (MSFT) Slammed by the EFF for Privacy Issues

Wall Street Pit-9 hours ago

The EFF released a strong worded editorial, putting Windows 10 on blast for compromising ... The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) slammed Redmond tech ...

Windows 'blatantly' disregard privacy

Bitterwallet-12 hours ago

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says: "The tactics Microsoft employed to get users of earlier versions of Windows to upgrade to Windows 10 went from ...

Microsoft blasted over Windows 10's 'blatant disregard' for user privacy

Computing-14 hours ago

As a result the EFF has called on Microsoft to listen to its customers, of which more than 6,000 signed the online petition, and amend how Windows 10 operates ...

Windows 10: Microsoft slammed by EFF for gathering ...

International Business Times UK-14 hours ago

In a damning editorial published on 17 August, EFF staff member Amul Kalia blasts Microsoft for misguiding users as part of its attempt to push Windows 10 to ...

Microsoft has been 'downright malicious' with Windows 10, blasts ...

Express.co.uk-15 hours ago

WINDOWS 10 has been criticised for its overly aggressive upgrade tactics, ... dubbed EFF – has criticised Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 10.

Microsoft slammed over 'blatant disregard' for user privacy with ...

V3.co.uk-15 hours ago

The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) has attacked Microsoft for its "blatant disregard" for user privacy in the Windows 10 operating system. The rights group ...

Microsoft is in trouble again over Windows 10 upgrade and privacy ...

SiliconANGLE (blog)-16 hours ago

Relating to User Choice EFF made Microsoft's aggressive Windows 10 upgrade push a big issue, something that took various forms, each not without attendant

Microsoft a utilisé des pratiques malveillantes pour imposer ...

TelerouteNewsAgency-18 hours ago

C'est sur son site que l'EFF a publié un article intitulé "With Windows 10, Microsoft Blatantly Disregards User Choice and Privacy: A Deep Dive " ("Avec Windows ...

Microsoft blasted over Windows 10 privacy concerns

ThaiVisa News-19 hours ago

Microsoft is once again being criticised for the way in which Windows 10 ... of usage data back to Microsoft,” writes Amul Kalia from EFF, who notes that by ...

The EFF calls for Microsoft to address Windows 10 privacy concerns

KitGuru-Aug 22, 2016

In a lengthy editorial, the EFF claims that Windows 10 is sending an “unprecedented amount of usage data back to Microsoft”, and Cortana integration increases ...

EFF condemns Windows 10 data collection

Computerworld-Aug 22, 2016

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is lambasting Microsoft over Windows 10'stelemetry technology, urging it to "come clean" with customers. In a piece ...

Microsoft Slammed for Trampling User Choice and Privacy with ...

WCCFtech-Aug 22, 2016

If we thought all the debate around Windows 10 privacy concerns was over since the ... The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has accused Microsoft of ...

EFF slams Microsoft's 'blatant disregard' for user privacy with ...

Inquirer-Aug 22, 2016

First on EFF's radar is Microsoft's backhanded tactics to get people to upgrade to Windows 10, which we here at the INQUIRER know about all too well.

EFF takes a deep dive into Windows 10's brutal privacy breaches

Boing Boing-Aug 22, 2016

Microsoft's deceptive hard-sell to gets users to "upgrade" to Windows 10 (the most control-freaky OS to ever come out of Redmond) is made all the more awful by ...

EFF blasts Microsoft over Windows 10 privacy concerns

The Verge-Aug 22, 2016

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has accused Microsoft of disregarding user choice and privacy with Windows 10. In a scathing editorial, EFF employee Amul ...

It looks like quite a few of them are just reblogging from BetaNews, but still... it's progress. Faith in humanity: restored.

Anniversary Update Webcam Bug continues to be the big story

I still think that the webcam bug is the very least of Windows 10's issues, but tech writers continue to be laser focused on it, with speculation now being that this issue could kill Windows 10 for Enterprise before it's even properly launched.

From Forbes:

Windows 10 is in a dangerous moment. It has missed sales expectations, is no longer free and now the troubled ‘Anniversary Update’ – the biggest upgrade Windows 10 has received to date – is causing new problems…

Discovered by Microsoft MSFT +0.00%-centric blog Thurrott, the Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been found to break “millions” of web cameras for upgraders. The bug affects web cameras of all brands and is even breaking Skype – Microsoft’s own audio and video chat service.

As Thurrott writer Brad Sams notes, of particular concern is a Microsoft support thread where it is clear that customers of substantial enterprise clients are being hit hard.

One user writes: “We have a working product running for years and millions of unhappy users that are unable to use it at all after this update” with another explaining: “We have millions of users and we are in situation now where we have to tell them not to update the Windows anymore or switch to Mac OS.”

[...]

Ultimately the whole situation is highly regrettable for Microsoft given the Anniversary Update does also contain some significant upgrades and great secret features.

But as it stands the Anniversary Update is doing more harm than good to the reputation of Windows 10 and it is hard to see how it will convince Windows 7 and Windows 8 users, who declined to upgrade to Windows 10 when it was free, to upgrade now they have to pay.

Then again, this is why Microsoft has a mischievous plan to transform Windows 7 and Windows 8 into Windows 10…

I covered the Monthly Rollup thing yesterday (Microsoft's "mischievous plan to transform Windows 7 and Windows 8 into Windows 10"), but the fact that Windows 10's Anniversary Update has "great secret features" is another ridiculous thing: why are they secret? Considering how much resistance has been developing to Windows 10, why wouldn't Microsoft be advertising all of its great features, in an effort to convince people to switch?

Windows 10 is undeniably failing to catch on with businesses, but is this newly-discovered webcam bug to blame? Somehow, I don't think so. The webcam issue only came to light this week, but the failure of Windows 10 to make business converts has been happening all month. Something more fundamental has to be at the root of Windows 10's popularity problems.

Windows 10's broken update regime is now being brought to Windows 7 & 8, too

Windows 10's Anniversary Update is a mess. Microsoft spent months working on the thing, testing a refining it, and still managed to roll it out with a whole slew of debilitating issues, including the webcam issues that tech writers are so exorcised about this week. Worse yet, Windows 10 Home users don't get much a choice in the matter, since they have no control over their update cycle: Microsoft decides what updates will be installed, more or less unilaterally.

This is a problem. It's a big enough problem, in fact, that a huge swathe of Windows 7 users (and even some Windows 8 users) turned down the free upgrade in order to retain more control over their PCs.

Well, if you're one of those users, Microsoft has a simple message for you, and that message is that you can go fuck yourself. You want control over your PCs updates? Too fucking bad. You'll get the updates that Microsoft says you'll get, or you'll get nothing. Those are your options now.

From Microsoft.com, via Slashdot:

From October 2016 onwards, Windows will release a single Monthly Rollup that addresses both security issues and reliability issues in a single update. The Monthly Rollup will be published to Windows Update (WU), WSUS, SCCM, and the Microsoft Update Catalog. Each month’s rollup will supersede the previous month’s rollup, so there will always be only one update required for your Windows PCs to get current. i.e. a Monthly Rollup in October 2016 will include all updates for October, while November 2016 will include October and November updates, and so on. Devices that have this rollup installed from Windows Update or WSUS will utilize express packages, keeping the monthly download size small.

[...]

Also from October 2016 onwards, Windows will release a single Security-only update. This update collects all of the security patches for that month into a single update. Unlike the Monthly Rollup, the Security-only update will only include new security patches that are released for that month. Individual patches will no longer be available. The Security-only update will be available to download and deploy from WSUS, SCCM, and the Microsoft Update Catalog. Windows Update will publish only the Monthly Rollup – the Security-only update will not be published to Windows Update. 

Windows 7 users have been able to avoid Microsoft's "telemetry" (i.e. spyware), and disabled the GWX application primarily because those things came as separate updates -- they could be individually identified, and removed by users that didn't want them. Well, Microsoft has had enough of that, apparently -- now, the spyware will be buried in the Monthly Rollup, and unavoidable if you want to stay current.

Do you want only the security updates, and not a bunch of spyware and other dubious "features?" Turn off Windows Update, then, and start downloading the monthly security patch separately... and, I guess, just hope that Microsoft haven't bundled anything in there that you don't want, either.

The other downside is that updates will only come on a monthly schedule... so if a critical security problem isn't patched in time to make the Monthly Rollup, you'll now be left vulnerable for a whole month until the next one. It's a sharp reduction in the level of service being provided to customers, in addition to being a reduction in the choice and control which they'd clearly opted to retain, and makes a mockery of Microsoft's promise to support Windows 7 until 2020.

This is a huge "fuck you" to everyone who refused to adopt Windows 10, and the anti-consumer philosophy that underpins it. Years of customer loyalty mean nothing to Redmond; if you haven't done anything for them lately, then they don't give a shit about you. We already knew that, of course, but they seem to keep finding ways to prove it to us.

Well, fuck you, too, Microsoft. Fuck you, too.

Win10's Anniversary Update has broken millions of tech writers' webcams, and wow, are they ever pissed about it

Windows 10's Anniversary Update is a shit show. As already documented by Woody Leonhard at InfoWorld, Mauro Huculak at Windows Central, and others, the A.U. has reliably been reported to make entire volumes/drives invisible, make the entire Group Policy setting for Configure Automatic Updates useless, make Win10 lock up completely after installing the update, all while also turning off System Restore at the same time, and so on. Several of these reported problems can be "fixed" by rolling back to Win10's pre-update build, but the A.U. also changed the way rollbacks work, reducing the rollback window from 30 days to ten -- unilaterally, of course, and without prior notice to anyone.

All of that, apparently, was deemed to be acceptable growing pains for a new OS by the tech press. They noticed, and they noted how odd it was for an update that followed such a massive testing and refinement process to still roll out with so many debilitating issues, but there wasn't really an outcry about it all.

That is, until now. Because now that Anniversary Update is being installed on their machines by default, rather than being run on a virtual machine (because the tech reporters are all on the Insider fast track, and can all do things like that); and that has forced them to realize that the A.U. also breaks their webcams.

From Thurrot.com:

On August 2nd, Microsoft released the Anniversary Update for Windows 10 and when the bits arrived on computers around the globe, it brought with it new features and also broke webcams for millions of consumers. If your webcam has stopped functioning since the release of the Anniversary update, you are not alone but the good news is a fix is coming, hopefully in September.

Microsoft made a significant change with the release of Windows 10 and support for webcams that is causing serious problems for not only consumers but also the enterprise. The problem is that after installing the update, Windows no longer allows USB webcams to use MJPEG or H264 encoded streams and is only allowing YUY2 encoding.

Why did the company remove these options? The short answer is that with the Anniversary update there are new scenarios for applications to be able to access the webcam and the MJPEG or H264 encoding processes could have resulted in duplication of encoding the stream (poor performance) so the company limited the input methods to stop this from happening.

Because of this change, which Microsoft tried to defend but then realized the scale of the impact this change has caused, means that when a webcam tries to use MJPEG or H264, the device will freeze. If you use Skype and your webcam freezes after about a minute, this is the reason.

People have been complaining about Skype being crap forever, and prominent streamers and YouTubers like Totalbiscuit have already rolled back to Windows 7 because Win10 broke video streaming and conferencing on their machines, but the Tech press didn't take much notice... until it affected them, personally. And make no mistake, that is why this one bug is getting so much attention. 

And, boy, oh boy, it is ever getting a ton of attention.

Microsoft is now bribing users to use Edge & Bing

Apparently the anti-Chrome propaganda recently added to Windows 10 users' notifications isn't winning converts for Microsoft's new browser, since they're now resorting to bribery.

From The Guardian:

The newly rebranded Microsoft Rewards – formerly Bing Rewards, which paid people for using Bing as their search engine (another product Microsoft says is better than a Google product but that very few people actually use) – will now pay you for using Edge, shopping at the Microsoft store, or using Bing.

Users of Edge who sign up to Microsoft Rewards, which is currently US-only, are then awarded points simply for using the browser. Microsoft actively monitors whether you’re using Edge for up to 30 hours a month. It tracks mouse movements and other signs that you’re not trying to game the system, and you must also have Bing set as your default search engine.

[...]

Whether paying people really works, or whether people really want to be tracked in their computer usage down to the nth degree – or to be made aware that they already are at least – remains to be seen.

Pathetic? Desperate? You betcha!

It bears repeating that this "new" rewards program is just an expansion and relabeling of an existing Bing promotion... one that wasn't working. There's a reason why people just say "Googling," rather than "internet searching," or "Bing-ing" (definitely not the same as "binging"). Microsoft has been trying to bribe users to use Bing for years, now, with the predictable result that they're all still using Google. 

Repeating the same actions, while anticipating a different outcome... I feel like there's a word for that...

Worse, Microsoft's new Edge/Bing bribery program throws a bright, hot spotlight on one of Windows 10's other features: the total lack of privacy enjoyed by Windows 10 Home users. Yes, Microsoft must monitor your every every mouse movement to ensure that you're not gaming the Rewards system for "vouchers or credit for places such as Starbucks, Skype, Amazon and ad-free Outlook.com," thus reminding everyone that Windows 10 is already doing this.

But wait: it gets still worse! Because it's not going to work this time, either. And not because Edge is a bad browser, but simply because Edge was lacking basic features of a modern browser (like extensions) when it launched -- people tried Edge, realized it had less functionality than the browsers they were already using, and switched back. After that, it's extremely unlikely that they'll be willing to switch yet again, to give another chance to a product that's already disappointed them once.

You only get one chance to make a first impression; Edge failed to do this when it mattered, and this latest attempt at bribery (with a heaping helping of creepiness) is unlikely to convince people to give Edge a second try. The 58% of internet users who use Chrome seem to be pretty satisfied with their browser, and they're probably sick of hearing about it by now.

Microsoft says this might be the last console generation

It's more of a confirmation than anything else, but this really is looking more and more like it'll be the last console generation.

From Engadget:

"The future of Xbox looks a lot like PC gaming." That's what Engadget editor Nathan Ingraham wrote after speaking with Phil Spencer earlier this year. Spencer spoke about wanting to see a steady stream of hardware innovation rather than seven-year gaps between consoles, citing the smartphone market as inspiration. Greenberg went one step further. In his opinion, this is the last console generation. "We think the future is without console generations," he said, explaining that Project Scorpio was a "big bet" that gamers will embrace that notion.

Q: The Xbox platform has moved forward to have such regular updates and new features coming all the time. It kind of seems like hardware is going the same way. There was a very short gap between the Xbox One and the Xbox One S, and we're probably talking an even shorter gap before Project Scorpio. Do you see a future of console upgrades continually happening? Is this the last console generation?

Greenberg: I think it is. ... For us, we think the future is without console generations; we think that the ability to build a library, a community, to be able to iterate with the hardware -- we're making a pretty big bet on that with Project Scorpio. We're basically saying, "This isn't a new generation; everything you have continues forward and it works." We think of this as a family of devices.

But we'll see. We're going to learn from this, we're going to see how that goes. So far I'd say, based on the reaction, there appears to be a lot of demand and interest around Project Scorpio, and we think it's going to be a pretty big success. If the games and the content deliver, which I think they will do, I think it will change the way we think about the future of console gaming.

Emphasis added, natch.

"Greenberg" is Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft's head of Xbox games marketing, who also tried hard to put a brave face on the way Sony handed Microsoft's ass to them, this console generation ("It's been a good industry for both of us, and we're innovating in different ways"), and some clarification on whether Scorpio will get console-exclusive releases ("It's one ecosystem -- whether you have an Xbox One S or Project Scorpio, we don't want anyone to be left behind"), but the headline of this piece just leaped out at me.

In other news: Told you so.

Sony is still selling PS4's (although Nintendo's given up on the Wii U completely), and it still remains to be seen how Sony's "Neo," Nintendo's "NX," and/or Microsoft's "Scorpio" are received by consumers, many of whom just either bought a gaming system or didn't want one, but the future of gaming really is looking more and more like PCs.

Businesses aren't upgrading to Windows 10

From Techno Buffalo:

Windows 10 might be a nice upgrade for most PC users — especially when it was free — but many just aren’t interested in it. Businesses especially are avoiding Microsoft’s latest operating system, according to new data.

Softchoice, which has obtained data from the TechCheck IT asset management service that is supplied to 169 firms in the U.S. running over 400,000 Windows machines, has found that only 0.75 percent of businesses are currently running Windows 10.

That’s right — not even a full percentage of businesses are running Windows 10 more than a year after its release.

Windows 7 is still used by 91 percent of enterprise customers, according to Softchoice, and that percentage continues to grow. It’s actually up 18 percent since the same time last year. Windows 8 is currently being used by 4 percent of businesses.

And TechRadar Pro:

Windows 10 certainly hasn't been without its controversies, and we've heard somewhat conflicting reports about how well it's gone down in terms of business adoption – although a new piece of research is claiming that Microsoft's newest operating system is not proving popular with American companies.

This news comes from Softchoice, which took data from its TechCheck IT asset management service pertaining to 169 firms in the US running over 400,000 Windows machines – finding that only 0.75% of these were using Windows 10. Yep, not even a full percentage point…

So what version of Windows are businesses running? You won't be surprised to learn that the overwhelming majority of organisations are still using Windows 7 – in fact 91% of the business PCs involved in this study.

And perhaps most interestingly, that's actually a big increase compared to the same period which was evaluated last year – the figure is up 18% on 2015.

[...]

Even Windows 8 is outdoing Microsoft's latest OS according to this data, as it has captured 4% of the market. Mind you, worryingly, that's still less than Windows XP which is on 5% of machines despite being woefully out of date in terms of security and support.

Windows XP's perplexing persistence is a long-standing issue that the free Windows 10 giveaway probably wasn't going to solve, since those would all be older machines that couldn't run the new OS without issues anyway, but the fact that Windows 10 is lagging 3 percentage points behind the massively unpopular Windows 8 should be giving Satya Nadella nightmares. The fact that Windows 10 Pro lost features like Policies, in a clear bid to push businesses to the more expensive Enterprise versions, is probably not helping, and migrating an entire business to a new OS is a huge and time-consuming endeavor at the best of times, but that can't be the entire story. So, what is going on here?

The EFF investigated Microsoft's GWX tactics after all... and were not not amused

I'd stopped thinking that the Change.org petition of a couple of months back would ever come to anything, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation was apparently just taking their time:

Microsoft had an ambitious goal with the launch of Windows 10: a billion devices running the software by the end of 2018. In its quest to reach that goal, the company aggressively pushed Windows 10 on its users and went so far as to offer free upgrades for a whole year. However, the company’s strategy for user adoption has trampled on essential aspects of modern computing: user choice and privacy. We think that’s wrong.

You don’t need to search long to come across stories of people who are horrified and amazed at just how far Microsoft has gone in order to increase Windows 10’s install base. Sure, there is some misinformation and hyperbole, but there are also some real concerns that current and future users of Windows 10 should be aware of. As the company is currently rolling out its “Anniversary Update” to Windows 10, we think it’s an appropriate time to focus on and examine the company’s strategy behind deploying Windows 10.

The EFF goes on to take Microsoft to task for disregarding user choice:

Time after time, with each update, Microsoft chose to employ questionable tactics to cause users to download a piece of software that many didn’t want. What users actually wanted didn’t seem to matter. In an extreme case, members of a wildlife conservation group in the African jungle felt that the automatic download of Windows 10 on a limited bandwidth connection could have endangered their lives if a forced upgrade had begun during a mission.

And also for disregarding users' privacy:

The trouble with Windows 10 doesn’t end with forcing users to download the operating system. By default, Windows 10 sends an unprecedented amount of usage data back to Microsoft, and the company claims most of it is to “personalize” the software by feeding it to the OS assistant called Cortana. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of data sent back: location data, text input, voice input, touch input, webpages you visit, and telemetry data regarding your general usage of your computer, including which programs you run and for how long.

While we understand that many users find features like Cortana useful, and that such features would be difficult (though not necessarily impossible) to implement in a way that doesn’t send data back to the cloud, the fact remains that many users would much prefer to opt out of these features in exchange for maintaining their privacy.

And while users can opt-out of some of these settings, it is not a guarantee that your computer will stop talking to Microsoft’s servers. A significant issue is the telemetry data the company receives. While Microsoft insists that it aggregates and anonymizes this data, it hasn’t explained just how it does so. Microsoft also won’t say how long this data is retained, instead providing only general timeframes. Worse yet, unless you’re an enterprise user, no matter what, you have to share at least some of this telemetry data with Microsoft and there’s no way to opt-out of it.

So far, so good, and pretty much in line with every criticism I've seen of Microsoft's behaviour, both during the GWX campaign and continuing with the Anniversary Update -- and, presumably, beyond.

The EFF doesn't stop with criticism, though -- they also have to recommendations for Microsoft, as to how they can repair some of the damage:

Microsoft should come clean with its user community. The company needs to acknowledge its missteps and offer real, meaningful opt-outs to the users who want them, preferably in a single unified screen. It also needs to be straightforward in separating security updates from operating system upgrades going forward, and not try to bypass user choice and privacy expectations.

Otherwise it will face backlash in the form of individual lawsuits, state attorney general investigations, and government investigations.

We at EFF have heard from many users who have asked us to take action, and we urge Microsoft to listen to these concerns and incorporate this feedback into the next release of its operating system. Otherwise, Microsoft may find that it has inadvertently discovered just how far it can push its users before they abandon a once-trusted company for a better, more privacy-protective solution.

Did I mention that Linux's market share has been rising slowly but steadily since April? I think some of those users have already decided to abandon Redmond's ship. It just remains to be seen how much their arrogance costs them -- both in terms of regulatory action and lawsuits, and also in negative publicity. So far, only WinBeta have picked up this story, at least that I've seen; it'll be interesting to see if anyone else still thinks that this is worth reporting.

UPDATE:
It appears that this story definitely does have some legs, with coverage on Trusted Reviews, Telepresence Options, ZDNet, Redmond Magazine, Windows IT Pro, MS Power User, techradar, and Digital Trends. Yes. the GWX PR damage continues. Good job Microsoft. Well done, you.

Intel may have solved 1 of VR's many problems

There are many reasons why I don't think current-gen VR is going to be anywhere near as influential as the hype would have you believe, but Intel may have solved one of them: they've cut the cord.

From Gizmodo:

Intel just announced its own virtual reality headset called Project Alloy, a VR competitor to the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and the forthcoming PlayStation VR headsets. But what separates the Alloy from the pack is that it’s completely wireless [...] and it should give you complete spatial awareness without all the dongles the Rift and Vive currently require.

It does this using two of Intel’s RealSense cameras to continuously map your environment. It can even map your hands. 

[...]

Intel calls the idea “Merged Reality,” essentially combining inputs from cameras around your environment into a virtual world. And Intel was able to pack everything—the processor, sensors, and controllers—into one cord-free headset.

The headset is still too large, but and apparently isn't as smooth an experience as, say, Oculus or HTC Vive, both of which tether you to your PC, and it won't be available anytime soon (Intel plans to open-source the hardware in the 2nd half of 2017), but even so... finally going wireless is a step in the direction that VR technology needs to move, if it's to make itself more attractive to anyone other than well-heeled and highly forgiving early adopters.

Mind, while this is a step, it's only the first step, of what will likely be many, many steps. The actual weight, performance, and battery life of Intel's headsets will all be critically important, for one thing; RealSense will have to improve significantly if it's to be used as the primary input method; I'm still not seeing anything that suggest Intel have solved the navigation problem (moving through virtual spaces), or the simulation sickness problem; the final cost of the headsets will need to be closer to Sony VR than Oculus Rift; and (of course) they still need a killer VR app, which they don't have yet...

So, yeah, problems still abound, folks. Don't get too carried away by the hype on this one. The biggest change that this will likely bring to the VR space is wireless versions of the competitions' headsets.