The XBox/Windows ecosystem is looking increasingly irrelevant for gaming

Spotted in the wild on Kotaku:

Note the wording of that headline: it's not PS4 and Switch plus Windows and/or XBox. It's PS4, Switch, and Steam.

This marks the first time I've noticed Steam being mentioned as a separate platform in a release announcement, equivalent to the other console platforms; up to now, articles have always just spoken of Windows as the platform. Steam is so ubiquitous for PC gamers that it's more noteworthy when a PC game doesn't come to Steam, than when one does.

Steam has an installed user base of 125 million machines, more than double the PS4, which more than doubles again the XBox One's numbers. Switch is the new hotness, and growing rapidly in spite of its currently small total audience size, but XBox One doesn't seem to be (the fact that Microsoft don't talk about their consoles sales numbers is telling, here). That just leaves Windows 10, which is directly competing with Steam via UWP and the Windows Store... and, apparently, losing.

E3 is coming up quickly enough, and Phil Spencer's team are clearly hoping that their Scorpio reveal event will start turning Microsoft's gaming platform fortunes around, but for now, the takeaway seems clear: nobody cares about XBox, or Windows 10, as gaming platforms. Steam gaming may mostly happen on PCs that run Windows, but Steam is the piece of that PC gamers care about; Windows is just the means to that end of playing games on Steam, and companies like Square Enix are taking notice.

Windows XP not only didn't spread WannaCry - it couldn't

It turns out that most of the WannaCry story that everybody thought they knew is actually wrong, and Microsoft's motives for patching Windows XP to defend against the malware attack may be even murkier than was previously reported.

From Computerworld:

Rather than take aim at Windows XP, WannaCry targeted Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, Kaspersky's data showed. [...]

The reason for XP's absence from the WannaCry count was simple. "WannaCry itself did not support Windows XP," [Costin Raiu, director of Kaspersky Lab's global research and analysis team] said, noting that the exploit neither focused on XP or reliably worked on the 2001 operating system. Individual machines could be infected -- the researchers and testers who put WannaCry on Windows XP systems likely ran it manually -- but the worm-like attack code would not spread from an XP PC, and in some cases, executing the exploit crashed the computer.

That put Microsoft's decision to issue a security patch for Windows XP in a different light. [...] Computerworld, like many other publications, assumed Microsoft released patches for Windows XP and Server 2003 because it believed older -- and unprotected -- systems were instrumental in spreading WannaCry.

Raiu thought different. "I think Microsoft was worried about the possibility of someone leveraging this exploit," Raiu argued. "Their fear was that it could be theoretically possible to repurpose the exploit to attack Windows XP."

It wasn't a surprise that WannaCry's backers had primarily pointed the attack at Windows 7. "They focused on the most-widespread platform," said Raiu.

According to analytics vendor Net Applications, approximately 53% of all Windows personal computer ran Windows 7 last month. That was nearly double the share of the newer Windows 10, which clocked in at 29%, and more than eight times that of Windows XP's 8%. Cyber criminals typically aim attacks at the most popular operating systems and versions within each OS, a logical practice when profit is paramount. That's especially true of extortion rackets like WannaCry's payload, which encrypts files and then demands a ransom payment to decrypt those hijacked files.

It's hard to say whether this makes Microsoft's decision to shake down Windows XP customers for more "custom" support contracts before finally patching the vulnerability for free look slightly less shitty, or even more so. After all, if WannaCry couldn't even affect machines running Windows XP in its extant form, then Microsoft were essentially shaking down customers like the UK hospital system for "protection" against a threat that actually posed more of a threat to their Windows 7/Server 2008 machines than it did to their Windows XP/Server 2003 PCs. The fact that less harm may have resulted from the delay than was previously believed mitigates the shittiness somewhat... but only somewhat.

Microsoft apologists used headlines that blamed Windows XP for the spread of the malware to blame the victims, telling them to just switch to Windows 10, already, and the same apologists are predictably using this latest news to argue that Windows 7 users should do the same. It's an argument that conveniently ignores the simple fact that Windows 10 was no more the target of WannaCry than Windows XP was, for the simple reason that big, rich corporations and other large institutions haven't yet adopted the latest iteration of Microsoft's OS. Whether the WannaCry outbreak will drive people towards Windows 10 or not, remains to be seen; with most of the early headlines blaming XP for the outbreak, many Windows 7 users may already have lost interest, especially since Windows 7 has already been patched to defend against the WannaCry exploit.

Windows 10 Enterprise ignores user privacy settings

From Windowsreport:

According to Mark Burnett, an independent IT security analyst, the OS lets users enable their preferred privacy settings only to ignore them after the fact [...] Despite having telemetry and the tracking-related services disabled, the system still connects to these services. Adding a few extra reg hacks doesn’t help blocking telemetry services. [...] With every possible setting to block connections to Microsoft disabled (except updates), a bunch of advertising-related connections are still visible. [...] Ultimately, Microsoft doesn’t honor it’s own Group Policy settings. For more details about this strange Windows 10 Enterprise behavior, you can check out Mark Burnett Twitter page. You’ll also find screenshots for all the privacy issues listed above as well.

The actual Windowsreport article isn't much longer than the except I've blogged here (and which I've rather savagely cut down, to avoid simply quoting their entire article), although it mentions some more technical issues like the system still connecting out to perform IPV6 Teredo tests, even with both IPV6 and Teredo diabled; the system still connecting to SmartScreen, even with SmartScreen diabled; and so on. The basic point seems pretty clear, though: Microsoft is still ignoring user privacy settings to harvest data to which those users have explicitly denied them, and they're doing it so that they can advertise to these users... and these are Enterprise users, remember, not just people making personal use the PCs in question.

I'll admit it: I'm a little surprised to learn that even Windows 10's Enterprise edition has these issues. To find this sort of Microsoft bullshittery in the Home edition, or even the Pro edition, wouldn't have surprised me at all, but Enterprise is the really expensive purchase plan, the one that Microsoft is pushing to larger corporations. I'm not a larger corporation, but if I were, this is the kind of thing that would turn me off Windows 10. Almost two years later, and Microsoft are still screwing up on basic privacy. GG, Microsoft! Well done.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Windows 10 adoption rates over the month...

UPDATE:
Mark Burnett ran some more thorough tests on a clean install of Win10 Enterprise, and posted about the results here. His summarized assessment of the situation boils down to these points:

• I made mistakes on my original testing and therefore saw more connections than I should have, including some to Google ads.

• You can cut back even more using the Windows Restricted Traffic Limited Functionality Baseline but break many things.

• Settings can be set wrong if you aren’t paying attention. Also, settings are not consistent and can be confusing to beginners.

• You are opted-in to just about everything by default and have to set hundreds of settings to opt out, even on an Enterprise Windows system. Sometimes multiple settings for the same feature. Most Microsoft documentation discourages opting out and warns of a less optimal experience. It’s almost like they don’t want you to opt-out.

• But you can’t completely opt-out. Windows still tracks too much.

• Home and Professional users are much worse off due to limitations of some settings and lack of an IT staff. I’m not going to bother with captures from those systems, this has already been shared by many others. Spoiler: it’s bad.

• I’m not saying ditch Windows. I’m saying let’s fix this. If we can’t fix it, then we ditch Windows.

Can I call "backsies" on that?

A couple of days ago, I was praising Microsoft for patching Windows XP to protect users of that old OS against the WannaCry ransomware that was spreading like wildfire through organizations like the NHS. I even said that it was better that they did it late, than that they not do it at all, and praised them for not exploiting the situation to shake down WinXP users for more money, or to push them to switch to Windows 10, either of which would have been more in keeping with their pattern of behaviour over the last couple of years.

Today, however, I'm taking all of that back. Because it turns out that Microsoft had the XP WannaCry patch ready to go months ago, held it back while they shook down their customers for more money, and only finally released it for free once the unpatched vulnerability started taking down hospitals.

From Tech Times:

Microsoft, which called out the NSA and other government agencies for their role in the creation and launch of WannaCry, may itself have been part of why the ransomware was able to cause so much chaos.
As the world attempts to recover from the damage caused by WannaCry, a new report claims that Microsoft could have helped prevent its spread, but decided not to do so.

According to a report by the Financial Times, Microsoft held back a free update that would have patched up the vulnerability that WannaCry used to compromise computers running on the old Windows XP operating system.

The report claims that Microsoft delayed the rollout of the patch because it initially wanted payments of up to $1,000 per Windows XP computer for "custom" support.

Microsoft has struggled to push users and corporations to upgrade from older versions of the Windows operating system to the latest and secure Windows 10, even if the company had already stopped the support for versions such as Windows XP. The significant number of users who have not yet upgraded to Windows 10 were highly vulnerable to WannaCry when it started its worldwide rampage last week.

Microsoft still continues to provide support for governments and organizations, but in exchange for hefty payments. While the company offers special deals for the first year, the high costs have forced entities such as the National Health Service of the United Kingdom to discontinue receiving support.

The National Health Service turned out to be one of the biggest victims of WannaCry, as it spread across 150 countries and infecting about 200,000 computers.

That is so much bullshit, in one tidy package. The fact that Microsoft had the sheer gall to be complaining about spy agencies' stockpiling of these vulnerabilities, when they themselves were using the same vulnerabilities to shake the UK's hospital system down for an amount of cash that they damn well knew the NHS didn't have to spend, is reprehensible. Microsoft's blatant greed, and their wilful disregard for the consequences to innocent bystanders when their broken shit took down the UK's hospital system, all feels like something that should be actionable. If there isn't already a law against this, there should be.

Good job, Microsoft! You've managed to take the one halfway-decent thing you've done in the last two years, and turn it into bullshit. Of all the egregiously anti-consumer shit you've pulled in the last two years, this is literally the worst. Fuck you all.

And fuck the tech writers, too, who keep trying to blame the victims for having been victims here. And, yes, that includes Tech Times, who end their article with this chestnut:

However, the victims of WannaCry may also blame themselves for remaining unprotected against the ransomware attack. Many users and corporations could have prevented having their systems locked by the ransomware by upgrading their operating systems and installing the necessary updates, instead of subscribing to the theory of "if it's not broke, don't fix it."

According to Microsoft, it prefers for users and enterprise customers to upgrade to Windows 10 instead of having to pay for support for older versions of the operating system. It can be argued that Microsoft should have released the patch to fix the vulnerability that WannaCry exploited in Windows XP, but perhaps it would have been better off if customers were not on Windows XP in the first place.

There are reasons why the publicly-funded NHS hasn't replaced all of its fully-functional Windows XP machines with expensive new PCs, you dicks, and the hospital-specific software they're running may not even be compatible with newer versions of Windows. The fact that you'd even think to blame the victims for this, after it's been revealed that Microsoft actually tried to cash in on WannaCry by extorting money from the UK hospital system, is beyond the pale. 

The NHS's patients (also victims of WannaCry) are not at fault, here, and the NHS certainly doesn't bear any weight of culpability comparable to that of the actors who exploited this vulnerability for financial gain. That burden falls entirely on two sets of shoulders: those of the black hats who shipped this ransomware in the first place, and those of Microsoft, who tried to exploit the occasion to squeeze some extra money out of the UK's fucking hospital system. Fuck anyone who says otherwise, and fuck Microsoft, too.

Fuck.

Android hits 2B active devices

Remember when Microsoft was making as much noise as possible about having hit 500 million active devices, about a week ago, even though that's only halfway to the 1B active devices they need to have by the end of the year for strategic purposes? It turns out that number is even less impressive than previously thought, because Android, which just became a viable desktop OS thanks to Samsung's DeX, just hit 2 billion active users.

From c|net:

There are now more than 2 billion active Android devices, Google said at its I/O developer conference on Wednesday. It's not just popular phones like the Samsung Galaxy S8, but the TVs you watch and the cars you drive. Android has a firm lead in the mobile world, with nearly nine out of 10 phones shipped that run on Google's mobile OS.[...] While phones make up a bulk of its devices, it's starting to see a proliferation of other gadgets running on the software.

Microsoft may be in some serious trouble here, and I don't believe that their continued efforts to make "fetch" happen are going to turn this particular tide. Redmond's heavy-handed tactics have cost them a lot of consumer trust and good will, and their strategy involves actively undermining the single biggest competitive advantage that Windows has, all in an effort to imitate the business models of rivals that are all larger, and growing faster, than Microsoft itself.

Microsoft are a huge company, and Windows 10 has already spread widely enough that it won't be going away anytime soon, but if Satya Nadella and his team aren't already very nervous about this week's Android-related developments, then they should be.

Samsung's DeX may succeed at turning Android into a viable mobile/desktop hybrid OS... and pose a significant threat to Windows.

Ever since Apple debuted the very first iPhone, tech media pundits have been forecasting the end of the desktop PC as a viable thing. Mobile devices, we were told, would soon be able to do everything that our PCs could do, thus eliminating the need for PCs altogether. But while there are lots of things that you can do with a mobile device, a fact that's made Android into the most-used OS on earth, you simply haven't been able to use your smartphone as a viable productivity tool. Touch interfaces are inaccurate, imprecise, ergonomically awful, and require you to have your hands between your eyes and your screen in order to do anything; compared to earlier phones' 12-digit numpads, touchscreens are a huge improvement, but for every other kind of device, they're a huge step down.

So, mobile device makers tried again, with tablets. Remember when the launch of Apple's iPad was supposed to sound the death knell of traditional laptop and desktop PCs? Remember when even Microsoft bought into that hype, and replaced Windows' desktop with an iOS-style app store? Windows 8 was one of Microsoft's most unpopular products ever, rivalled only by Clippy and Windows Vista. Tablets, it turns out, have all the same touch interface problems that smartphones do, except without the portability that makes smartphones so ubiquitous.

And so we lurched onwards, with Windows dominant on laptop and desktop PCs, Android dominant on mobile devices, and no apparent means of bridging the gap between the two, with Microsoft's UWP having failed to do so. Google's ChromeOS, which was recently expanded to allow users to run Android apps, has been growing steadily, stealing desktop/laptop market share from Windows in a mature market where PC sales have been declining steadily for years, but even Google hasn't eaten into Microsoft's lead enough to be truly worrisome yet. For all the hyperbole on all sides, the PC market really seemed to have matured, becoming resistant to change in the way that mature markets tend to be; the mobile market didn't seem to be too far behind.

That, however, was yesterday. Today, it suddenly looks like all of that may be about to change. Because today, we now know that Samsung have cracked the code, with a new Desktop Experience (DeX) dock that bridges the gap between the convenience and ubiquity of mobile devices, and the ergonomics and versatility of a desktop PCs. More importantly still, DeX seems to actually work.

From The Reg:

Well, no one saw this one coming. Samsung has succeeded where Microsoft and HP have struggled (so far) in turning a phone into a PC.

When Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S8 last month, its new multimode capability DeX (for "desktop experience") barely got a mention. With a new dock, the DeX Station, the Galaxy could plug into a keyboard, mouse and a larger display, for a desktop-like experience: with apps that rescale smartly to landscape format, overlapping windows and window management. After putting it through its paces, I'm hugely impressed. Samsung has done a solid and thoughtful job here.

This is significant. Giving a phone multimode isn't a new idea, and was pursued for a while by Motorola with Atrix. Atrix was canned five years ago, and for ages nobody picked up the baton, even though phones got ever more powerful, and the software more mature.

For Continuum, Microsoft created a class of portable Windows 10 mobile apps that were desktop friendly (UWP), but it failed to support the existing WP app catalog, which couldn't convert. Microsoft's already weak position in the mobile market deterred app writers from targeting a niche within a niche. And Microsoft has been slow to develop the functionality: here we are, two years on from the first Continuum demo, and it still lacks the promised multiwindow support.

Android doesn't have these problems, because it's already the world's most popular OS, and because it's Java and the apps are portable. A Remix OS PC will run apps from the Google Play store. So Android has great untapped potential to be the leading multimode OS. And with Android Nougat 7.0, Google has built much better multiwindowing capabilities into Android.

[...]

It wasn't quite perfect. The browser will default to mobile scaling, so text looks gigantic.

And the absence of a mic port is puzzling. The DeX station booms out decent audio for conference calls, but I don't necessarily want all phone calls piping through the speaker. The DeX station wouldn't recognise a Plantronics USB headset, so that leaves Bluetooth as your only option for privacy here.

But these are minor wrinkles. DeX greatly expands what you can do with a phone. Continuum's app gap means it currently has little appeal beyond Microsoft enterprises. But Samsung already has a strong offering here with Knox, and it knows how to make a phone. I found the Galaxy S8 experience significantly marred by a single poor design decision (the sensor) and Bixby, both of which made the device unnecessarily annoying to use. But given the pace of progress, millions, and soon billions, of phones will be able to run a DeX-like experience.

Yes, that's right: DeX is here, it works, and it turns Android into a viable desktop environment in which you can actually get some work done. Against this, Microsoft has one, and only one, defense: the simple fact that Windows has, until now, been the preferred tool for getting stuff done. Everybody runs Windows, and has done for decades; combined with Microsoft's obsession for backwards compatibility, this ensures that every Windows PC comes access with a huge library of software that it can run with few if any problems, and an even larger pool of programs that can be made to work on a current PC with just a little tweaking.

Except, of course, for Microsoft's latest Windows offering, 10 S, which doesn't come with that functionality at all. Oops!

Microsoft are so intent on being Apple, and Google, and Amazon, all at the same time, that they're actively undermining their single biggest competitive advantage. Their desperation to convert Windows into a walled garden ecosystem will also wall Windows off from an enormous trove of the very software that makes it worth running Windows in the first place; the underlying assumption, that they owned the desktop market with Windows, was the only thing that made their strategy seem viable.

Well, now Android is a viable desktop operating system, with millions of compatible phones about to enter circulation, and a respectable library of apps ready to go, right out of the gate... something that Windows' UWP ecosystem still doesn't have. That's right: the "app gap" which killed the Windows Phone, and strangled Windows 10's Mobile version before it could even get started, is still very much a thing, and suddenly relevant to the one market that seemed to be safe ground for Microsoft.

Even better for Google? They didn't have to lift a finger to make this happen, In much the same way as Amazon was able to seamlessly merge dominance in cloud server and storage with their existing product distribution capacity, all to make Echo a viable thing, DeX is all based on systems and structures that are already in place. The ground work was already done, here; Samsung is just showing everybody how to reap the seeds that were already sown. Worse yet, now that Samsung's DeX has showed everybody how to do this, and make it work, the imitators are sure to follow. If HTC doesn't have some version of this in production by the end of the year, I'll be very surprised, and you can that Apple isn't far behind with a similar dock for their iPhone... which also has a robust user base and app assortment on tap.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Microsoft do not have the resources to be Apple, and Google, and Amazon, and still be Microsoft; Apple and Google alone are each larger than Microsoft is. And that doesn't begin to include all of Google's smartphone hardware partners, all of whom are just as capable of innovating as Microsoft are themselves. And by abandoning that which made Microsoft a uniquely dominant force in personal computing for decades, the team at Redmond might just be dooming themselves to irrelevance in the one area where they probably felt completely secure, until about five minutes ago.

Now, for anyone that's concerned about the fate of Windows here, don't be. While high-end smartphones have more computing power than ever, they still don't have enough power for graphics-intensive applications like video editing, CGI effects, and gaming, all of which will still need dedicated workstation PCs for a long time to come; this is why gaming PC sales are booming, even while PC sales overall are in decline. There will still be PCs, and there will still be Windows. But for less-demanding applications, Android could easily become the "PC" of choice for almost everyone else, leaving Windows PCs in a position much more akin to MacOS and Linux, than its current position of desktop dominance.

Doing the right thing, because it's the right thing to do.

Microsoft has pulled a lot of anti-consumer bullshit over the last couple of years... like when they literally broke Windows Update for users of older versions of the OS that were running them on new PCs, and responded to the outcry by recommending that we just all just embrace Windows 10, already. The fact that users had to fix that for themselves, and did, does not in any way excuse that bit of bullshit, and that's really just the tip of the iceberg of bullshit that Microsoft's shovelled at consumers in the last couple of years. Suffice it to say that the bullshit is neither forgotten nor forgiven, and that occasions to actually praise the Redmond team have been pretty few and far between.

So when news broke earlier in the week about the massive "Wana Decrypt0r" ransomware attack, which was taking down hospitals in the UK and spreading like wildfire, I wasn't expecting Microsoft to offer much help to users of Windows XP. WinXP hasn't been supported by Microsoft for years, after all, and the fact that lots of hospitals still use it hadn't been enough to change Microsoft's mind about that before now; most articles that I read on the subject also took for granted that WinXP users were basically screwed, and needed to upgrade their PCs to something that could run Windows 10.

Microsoft, however, either decided that (a) the optics of of patching every other version of Windows against Wana Decrypt0r but leaving hospitals vulnerable were seriously sub-optimal, or (b) that the life-and-death realities of patching every other version of Windows against Wana Decrypt0r but leaving hospitals vulnerable were too awful to think about, or (c) both. Whatever the thinking was, though, they issued patch for Windows XP today that fixes the weakness that this ransomware was exploiting.

From bleepingcomputer:

Following the massive Wana Decrypt0r ransomware outbreak from yesterday afternoon, Microsoft has released an out-of-bound patch for older operating systems to protect them against Wana Decrypt0r's self-spreading mechanism.

The operating systems are Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003. These are old operating systems that Microsoft stopped supporting years before and did not receive a fix for the SMBv1 exploit that the Wana Decrypt0r ransomware used yesterday as a self-spreading mechanism.

[...]

Microsoft had released a fix for that exploit a month before, in March, in security bulletin MS17-010. That security bulletin only included fixes for Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2016.

As the SMBv1 is a protocol that comes built-in with all Windows versions, the computers which did not receive MS17-010 remained vulnerable to exploitation via Wana Decrypt0r's self-spreading package.

"Given the potential impact to customers and their businesses, we made the decision to make the Security Update for platforms in custom support only, Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003, broadly available for download," Microsoft said in a statement. "This decision was made based on an assessment of this situation, with the principle of protecting our customer ecosystem overall, firmly in mind."

Researchers believe that Wana Decrypt0r [...] infected over 141,000 computers [...] While unconfirmed, many believe older Windows XP and Windows Server versions were the bulk of the infections pool, as they had no way to protect themselves.

The customer ecosystem here, remember, disproportionately involves hospitals, and other essential institutions that are still using Windows XP because their publicly-funded budgets can't afford to upgrade all of their PCs. It would have been great if they'd patched those older OS versions last month, of course, or at least before so much damage was done, but better late than never. And I mean that sincerely, considering how many vulnerable PCs and servers are out there, it really is better that they did this now, than not at all.

Good job, Microsoft. You've done a good thing today, and one that nobody expected you to do. Now we just have to convince you to make this a habit...

VR's finances fail to add up

Also, VR has serious bandwidth problems, to go with all of VR's other problems.

First up, from VentureBeat, a timely reminder that there's no money to be made making VR content:

Virtual reality and augmented reality are still in their infancy. But with hundreds of companies, tens of thousands of employees, and over $4 billion in investments to date, the industry is taking a big swing at the future success of VR and AR.

Despite that, there are signs that not all is well in the world of make-believe.

Today, the Brabant Development Agency (BOM) has revealed a wide discrepancy between the revenue ambitions and financing needs of developers in a new 34-page study.

According to the survey, 50 percent of VR and AR developers indicated that they will require more financing in the future, stating they will need additional rounds of more than $1 million. In order to raise this level of investment, companies typically need to have the ambition to achieve at least $10 million in revenue within five years. However, the average developer in the survey expects his firm to generate “only” $1.3 million.

[...]

That wide gap between the needs of each business, and the revenue generating opportunity, is a warning sign.

The warning signs have been all over VR for a while now, but this latest survey of VR companies' financial health is a stark reminder of just how bad things really are, hype notwithstanding. VR is not a thing, in part because of its many still-daunting technological issues. 

Which brings us to this 2nd article, also from VentureBeat:

Imagine playing a lagging Call of Duty run-through. Your stream is buffering and stopping, not to mention you’re probably losing. That’s bad — now imagine if that happened in virtual reality. It’s probably not only borderline unplayable, but it’s actually giving you motion sickness. VR has proven to be a transformational technology. It has the potential to disrupt the media, gaming, and any number of other industries. Yet, it also has the potential to be undone by inadequate supporting technology like your internet speed.

[...]

With streaming the new mandate for all content, VR will have to account for the Internet speeds of everyday consumers and find novel ways to deal with a telecom industry that is growing at its own pace. Here are five issues that must be figured out before VR can take off.

First off, VR hasn't proven itself to be anything, yet, except overhyped, and I've gone into the matter of transformational technologies, and why VR isn't one, in some detail, starting here. But, yes, in a world where internet connectivity is increasingly a requirement for almost everything, VR's high bandwidth demands may just make it a non-starter, especially for "social" applications. 

VB goes on to list of the issues that VR needs to solve, but their list isn't especially comprehensive, and mostly rehashes some pretty obvious items:

Issue #1: Figure out a way to stream high definition video to both eyes

Each VR stream must be duplicated twice to stream individually to both eyes.

[...]

Issue #2: Learn to future proof video for upcoming 4K streams

Netflix’s non-VR 4K streams currently require a connection of at least 25 Mbps. This means most Netflix users in the US will not stream in 4K anytime soon, and 4K VR is essentially inconceivable.

[...]

Issue #3: Solve slow connections to prevent motion sickness

Quality VR requires users to have a speedy Internet connection. US military testsin the 90s showed that low quality video was a primary offender for why people get motion sickness when using VR headsets.

[...]

Issue #4: Devise a way to effectively compress video

And so on. Perhaps most telling, however, is the last issue they list:

Issue #5: Decide to realistically meet consumers’ demands

A major issue facing VR technology is the lack of a killer app. According to a 2016 Vicon study, 28 percent of respondents feel that high quality content will be key for the spread of VR. Unfortunately, developers are currently developing for first-gen hardware and struggling with a world that is still playing catch up in some respect.

[...]

This is a classic Internet chicken and egg scenario, and developers will be required to meet the technology where it’s at in order to create a groundswell for consumer enthusiasm. If they do, technology will follow and VR could be a major force in driving growth of the Internet infrastructure of America.

And that's the rub, isn't it? Without a compelling reason to want to use VR, people won't adopt the technology; but if people don't adopt the technology, VR content makers simply can't make enough money to justify the funding they need to fuel the search for VR's "killer app."

Most secure Windows evah...

Do you remember Microsoft telling everybody that they needed to upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible, because security? Do you remember them saying, over and over again, that Windows 10 was the most secure OS ever made, and that Windows 7 was a leaky sieve by comparison? Well, about that, here's the thing, funny story... it's bullshit. Surprise!

From Express.co.uk:

Windows users are being urged to update their PCs immediately after a serious vulnerability was discovered over the weekend.

The shocking flaw in this popular operating system was found by researchers working for Google's Project Zero cyber-security operation with them calling it is the worst Windows remote code in recent memory.

The bug could allow hackers to take over any PC simply by sending an infected email, instant message or by getting the user to click on a link in their web browser.

Tavis Ormandy, a vulnerability researcher at Google who discovered the bug, said in a tweet "This is crazy bad."

To show how serious the problem is, Microsoft has immediately pushed out a major security update which is available to all users now.

[...]

Anyone using Windows 8, 8.1, 10 and Windows Server operating systems are affected by the bug and should now check for the security update.

Yes, that's right, this "crazy bad" vulnerability has been part of Windows since Windows 8, and is only being found and patched now. In other news, it seems that Windows 8 and Windows 10 really are the same operating system, just with different UIs. Still on Windows 7? No worries, brah, you're still good.

On the plus side, Microsoft did work quite quickly to patch this one, something which Mr. Ormandy praised them for, but that doesn't alter the basic fact that 1) there is no such thing as perfect security, and 2) even if there were such a thing, Windows 10 is not that thing.

PC gaming marches onward

In case you were wondering why Microsoft is suddenly keen on PC gaming, after having basically neglected is for years in favour of their XBox console line, the latest gaming PC sales numbers might hold a clue. Because sales of gaming PCs are booming, even as PC sales overall continue their years-long decline.

From TechSpot:

We often hear about the declining PC market, but it seems that gaming PCs are on the rise in North America. According to the vice president of computer and electronics store Micro Center, overall sales increased 25 – 30 percent on year in 2016, and Micro Center's own sales grew 200 – 300 percent from a year ago.

Digitimes reports that VP Kevin Jones believes the increase in gaming PC sales can be attributed to the growth in eSports popularity. He considered PC gaming a niche market as recently as five years ago, but says the segment has grown rapidly since 2016 thanks to mid-range prices and more publicity around eSports.

[...]

Last year, analyst firm Gartner reported that Q1 2016 was the first quarter to see fewer than 65 million PC sales since 2007. It is, however, a different story when it comes to high-end gaming laptops and desktops, which it expects to grow from 6 million units in 2015 to 8.7 million units in 2020, accounting for 13 percent of all consumer PC shipments.

It would seem that the PC gaming renaissance is far from over, and gaming PC sales are booming in spite of Moore's Law not being a thing anymore, which may be contributing to Windows 10's popularity among Steam users, since new PCs now come with Windows 10 installed by default. It also helps that digital download accounts for 69% of all game sales, which boosts PC gaming in particular, since PC gamers were basically pushed into the arms of Valve and Steam by apathetic brick-and-mortar retailers years ago.

Yes, sir, if you're a PC gamer, it's a great time to be gaming. If you're a console gamer, you may want to consider joining the...



(Truly, we live in dank times.)

One interesting sidebar: with gaming PC sales booming, and boosting Windows 10's market share in the process, and Chromebooks sales also booming, but eating into Windows 10 PC sales, the shape of the future overall PC market could be about to evolve in some pretty interesting ways. Which PC sales trend has greater staying power? Which will reign supreme? Whichever it is, the next year in PC should be very interesting.

Microsoft wants Windows 10 PCs to become Amazon Echo competitors

Continuing Microsoft's quixotic quest to become everyone except Microsoft, while still somehow maintaining Microsoft's user base, it seems that their next target is Amazon Echo. And why not? when they're already trying to duplicate all of Amazon's other cloud-based services.

From The Verge:

Microsoft has been working on a new HomeHub feature for Windows 10 to better compete with devices like Amazon’s Echo. HomeHub is designed to create a family environment for a PC with shared access to calendars, apps, and even a new welcome screen. Microsoft is even planning to support smart home devices like Philips’ Hue lights, to enable Windows 10 to act as a hub to control and manage smart home hardware. While we’ve heard about HomeHub before, The Verge has obtained internal concepts of exactly how Microsoft is imagining HomeHub will work.

Microsoft is aiming to include the new welcome screen, shared desktops, and easy calling in the Windows 10 update due in September. This update should also include improvements to Cortana, and support for third-party smart home devices. [...] Microsoft is tentatively planning to support Hue, Nest, Insteon, Wink, and SmartThings devices with its connected home app. Cortana will be used to send commands to devices, just like Amazon’s Echo.[...] Any devices that come with these new Windows 10 features will rely on PC partners to create. 

And that's the problem, right there, with Microsoft trying to become all of its competitors, overnight: Amazon Echo is a total package, with the consumer electronics front end already built to go with Amazon's cloud-based back end, which itself ties into Amazon's existing distribution infrastructure, and network of retail partners. Microsoft has none of that, really; even the software that's supposed to drive all of this is a work in progress, and the hardware is actually vaporware that third party OEMs have to design, build, and market.

Microsoft is all over the place, right now, trying to leverage their PC OS market share into, simultaneously, Google's business, Apple's business, and Amazon's business, all while trying to sustain Microsoft's own business. Time will tell if that's sustainable, but I have my doubts: after all, Microsoft (Mkt. cap. $532.35B) is actually smaller than both Google ($658.89B) and Apple ($824.28B), and only slightly larger than Amazon ($462.60B), but seem to be pursuing a strategy that requires them to become bigger than all three of these competitors combined. I'm not going to say that it's impossible, but I don't see how it would work, and the attempt has them wildly all over the place.

Even saying that Windows 10 is the common thread doesn't help, since it really feels like they're trying to force their OS to be a one-size-fits-all solution to every technological problem. Microsoft is like the proverbial handyman with only one tool available, treating every problem like a nail. Why is Windows 10 a better fit for Amazon's Echo business than Amazon's existing cloud-based computing, inventory management, and product distribution tools? How is Microsoft planning to build the network of retail partnerships that help make Echo work, when they can't even build the hardware that's needed for that job? Or are they just building it and hoping OEMS, retailers, and consumers all come to their HomeHub of Dreams?

What's the plan, here? Is there a plan, here?

The Tech media, like a lot of mainstream media lately, seems to be obsessively focused on The Latest Thing, and not really looking at The Big Picture, but they really should start looking at the big picture. Microsoft might be able to turn Windows 10 into iOS for PCs, or they might be able to turn it into ChromeOS, or they might be able to turn it into Amazon Echo, but I seriously doubt that they can do all three of those at the same time, while also chasing Steam's and PlayStation's businesses in the gaming space, and maintaining their hold on business workstations and laptop. Surely something's got to give; it's just a question of what, and when.

Chromebook shipments surge, cutting into Windows 10 PC sales

When Microsoft announced Windows 10 S earlier in the week, their obvious "Chromebook killer" that was locked to Edge and Bing as unchangeable defaults, and laden with even stronger software-installation restrictions (Windows Store only!), Google didn't seem to be worried about it. Given the way sales are trending in their favour, that attitude would seem to be entirely justified.

From ARN from IDG:

In a slowing PC market, Chromebooks siphoned market share away from Windows PCs in 2016 as their popularity grew outside the education market.

Chromebook shipments grew by a stunning 38 percent in 2016 compared to 2015. Gartner estimated 9.4 million Chromebooks shipped, compared to 6.8 million units in 2015.

The number is just a fraction of overall PC shipments, but growth came in an otherwise down PC market. Overall PC shipments in 2016 were about 270 million units, a decline of about 6.2 percent, according to Gartner.

Looking forward, 2016 may go down as the best year ever for Chromebook shipment growth. Gartner is estimating shipments to continue growing in the coming years but at a slower pace.

[...] Analyst firm IDC has also predicted Chromebook shipments will grow by double-digit percentages in coming years. Most of the Chromebooks are shipping to classrooms in the U.S., Nordic countries, Australia and New Zealand.

There is also growing interest in Chromebooks from businesses in the finance and retail sectors. Companies are using Chromebooks as no-frills mobile thin clients, considering they are cheap to deploy and easy to manage, said Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner.

Yes, Microsoft would definitely like a piece of this segment of the market; whether the Surface Laptop, with its hobbled OS, is good enough to make that happen for them, is anyone's guess. 

PC sales have been declining for years, a situation which was only exacerbated by Microsoft's high-profile Windows 10 giveaway (a giveaway which isn't actually over yet, although its profile is certainly lower), so the fact that Chromebook sales are up by 38% is more than merely significant. This looks like a huge shift from from Windows PCs and towards any viable alternative; one has to wonder if Apple could be reaping more reward from this same shift if they weren't so busy dropping the ball with their own laptop line.

It remains to be seen whether consumers will be willing to accept Microsoft's anti-consumer Win10 S bullshit in ordet to get cheaper laptops. The fact that Microsoft has already backed off the $49 fee to upgrade from Win10 S to Win10 Pro, at least for the rest of this year, speaks volumes about Microsoft's own confidence about that happening. 

What we are seeing already, though, is that consumers really aren't waiting for Microsoft to get their heads out of their asses; they're looking for alternatives, and anyone who has their shit together can probably make a lot of hay out of Microsoft's disarray. Makers of Linux laptops should take note; if they're wanting to be one of those alternatives, it's probably now or never.

Oculus is closing its VR production unit

From The Reg, naturally:

Proving yet again that goggled nausea is a hard sell, Facebook's virtual reality arm Oculus on Thursday said it would shut down Story Studio, its VR production unit.

"We're now entering the next chapter of VR development, where new creators enter the market in anticipation of adoption and growth, and we've been looking at the best way to allocate our resources to create an impact on the ecosystem," said Jason Rubin, VP of content, in a blog post announcing the closure.

"After careful consideration, we've decided to shift our focus away from internal content creation to support more external production."

The next chapter in this woeful tale doesn't promise adoption and growth. The best it can do is to tease investors with the "anticipation" of a healthy market and to seed product demand with a $50 million commitment to help other companies develop "non-gaming, experiential VR content."

Yep... the whole VR thing looks like it's really taking off. 

This is when I'm supposed to say, "All sarcasm aside," but The Reg was really just getting going:

Not content to let Oculus explore the one proven consumer application for VR – high-end gaming – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg remains convinced that isolating people behind high-tech blindfolds can be an appealing social experience. [...] Never mind that there's nothing natural or social about the solitary confinement of an Oculus eye prison, the fact is that people aren't buying it. VR hardware and software sales have been underwhelming, with the possible exception of Sony's PlayStation VR.

Oculus' decision in March to drop the price of its Rift headset and Touch controller bundle from $798 to $598 is not the sort of thing a company does when its products are flying off the shelves.

In its unhappy ending, Story Studio couldn't even manage to be original. In January, Envelop VR, the Bellevue, Washington-based VR startup, shut down. In November, Vrideo, a would-be VR video hub, closed. And in February, Facebook shut down some 200 of its 500 Oculus VR pop-up kiosks in Best Buy stores.

Ouch.

It gets worse when the VR apologists try to spin the news. Take, for example, this bit of desperation from Android Headlines:

Sure, now that Story Studio is closing and any projects that were being worked on are being stopped immediately, it means that we’ll never get to see or experience those projects, which might be a bit of a letdown to anyone that was looking forward to seeing Wolves in The Wall, the forth film that was in development. As Oculus mentioned though, now they can use the extra funding to support third-party content creators who are also working on using VR as a narrative art form. This means that there is potential for some really great content coming from these other third-party creators and perhaps even more so now that they will have support from Oculus.

Yeah... because business that lack the resources of Oculus a.k.a. Facebook are going to be able and willing to lose money making VR content when Oculus a.k.a. Facebook can't even make a go of it. Riiiight.

They continue:

It’s also opening up Oculus to having more time to devote to figuring out other issues with virtual reality and augmented reality technology. As Oculus stated in their official announcement that went out yesterday, their attention can be focused on solving problems with AR and VR hardware and software. This is a good thing for the VR industry as a whole as there are still some issues with both the hardware and software which could do with some extra attention, and now Oculus is going to be able to provide that extra attention.

"Some" issues? Some issues??? Holy denial of reality, Batman!

This is not complicated: VR is not ready. In its present form, VR is extremely limited in its applications, barely adequate for doing even that limited range of activities, and not useful for anything that people will want or need to do, and that can't be adequately done without VR. And while some of VR's problems might be solvable with enough investment, that requires deep-pocketed companies like Facebook to be willing to lose boatloads of money every single year until those solutions materialize... both on the solutions themselves, and on building a library of VR content so that there's stuff to do with the tech once it's finally fit for prime time. 

The one thing, the only thing, that VR had going for it, was that companies like Facebook had deep enough pockets to be able to do that... if they could sell that business plan to their shareholders. Well, guess what? They can't. 

At least, Facebook clearly can't, because they're already looking to minimize losses while waiting for the tech to develop on its own, tossing only a token amount of money at the concept of content creation in order to be able to say that they're still spending on that. Make no mistake about it: this is a white flag, and it's the third such surrender (following the price cut, and the the closure of its Best Buy kiosks) just from Facebook.

VR is not a thing, and it's looking less and less like this generation of the tech has any chance of becoming a thing, anytime soon. Cheaper PCVR headsets will not fix that. VR arcades, which only serve to showcase the tech's limitations, will not fix that. And people who were looking to Facebook to be able to throw enough money at the problem to fix that, to basically will VR into being a thing... well, folks, I recommend that you stop waiting, because that ain't happening, either.

The soul of Windows is choice, not Edge or Bing

Most of the reaction to Windows 10S and Microsoft's new Surface laptops seems fairly positive, but the fly in the ointment is, once again, Microsoft's monopolistic, anti-consumer bullshit. Not only will Windows 10 S not allow you to install programs that you haven't bought through the Windows store, it won't let you change your default browser or search engine, either, and even people who might be more-or-less okay with the first restriction are balking at the second.

Por ejemplo, Aaron Souppouris at Engadget, who starts by calling Windows 10 S "a walled garden with a $49 exit," and rambles a bit about how that might still work anyway, before finally getting to the core of the issue:

Regardless of its OS, the first thing I do with a new laptop is install Google Chrome, and I'm not alone in that preference. Despite being shipped as the default browser on Windows 10 (and the OS constantly nagging you to give it a shot), data from last year suggests that only one in five Windows 10 users are using Edge. The vast majority are using Google Chrome, which isn't currently available on the Windows Store.

Even if Google brings Chrome to the store tomorrow, it won't make things much better. While it wasn't mentioned at yesterday's event, Microsoft has since said that the default browser cannot be changed in Windows 10 S. That means every time you click a link in an app or message, it'll open Edge.

Microsoft can and probably will point to improved battery life, RAM usage and security as a reason for this decision. By restricting user choice, it can ensure everyone is using a safe, modern browser that won't make cheaper machines run like garbage. But if that were true, why is it also locking in Bing as the default search engine? That's right: Unless you manually navigate to google.com and get searching, all of your search results are going to come from Bing.

Take these two restrictions together and it's clear that this has nothing to do with security or performance. It's Microsoft desperately trying to prop up its browser and search efforts by restricting choice. Yesterday Windows chief Terry Myerson described 10 S as "the soul of Windows," but to me and millions of Windows users around the world, the soul of Windows is choice, not Edge or Bing. It's an inherently hackable, customizable platform.

This is clearly user hostile [...] the fact remains that there are some users, myself included, who aren't happy with this behavior, and locking 10 S down in this way will only empower those warning about UWP to create a walled garden within Windows to complain louder. To me, restricting both the apps that you can install and the default search engine is pushing users a little too hard

Others, like Zach Epstein at BGR, are even more blunt, calling Win10 S "a complete non-starter:"

It has only been one day since Microsoft laid out its strategy to win back the classroom, so it remains to be seen how this new breed of affordable Windows laptops will be received. Overall, Windows 10 seems like a solid operating system, but for me personally, there’s one reason Windows 10 S is a complete non-starter.

[...]

Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser, isn’t even available for download in the Windows app store right now. But let’s assume that Google decides to add it in the near future. Once you do install Chrome on your Windows 10 S laptop, you won’t be able to make it your default browser. Instead, any links you click on in emails or other apps will open in Edge.

Nope.

Now, once you’re in the Edge browser and you type a search into the URL bar, your search will be processed by Bing. Would you rather use Google as your default search engine like most people on the planet? Too bad, you won’t be able to change Edge’s default search settings.

Nope nope nope.

Windows 10 S looks like a reasonably good Chrome OS rival, and Microsoft has support from plenty of hardware vendors who are already planning to release Windows 10 S laptops. You know what? I won’t bother with a single one of those laptops knowing that Microsoft won’t let me take full advantage of apps and services I find to be superior to the company’s own alternatives.

Or you could look to Matthew Hughes at TNW, who points out, I think correctly, that Windows 10 S can't succeed unless Microsoft start learning from their mistakes, and changing their anti-consumer ways:

Yesterday, Microsoft announced its newest operating system: Windows 10 S. The S, we’re told, stands for several things, like speed and security.

Allow me, if I may, to propose an additional S: Slightly reminiscent.

That’s because Windows 10 S feels like a throwback to the short-lived Windows RT, which was a disaster of Michael Bay proportions.

Okay, that’s a bit extreme. There aren’t any gratuitous explosions here. That’s Samsung’s shtick. But there are clear parallels between Microsoft’s latest effort, and its previous misstep, Windows RT.

He then goes on the point out that the Windows Store is still a dumpster fire, in spite of Microsoft's ongoing efforts to improve it, and then goes on to ask who Win10 S is intended for, exactly:

One advantage Windows 10 S has over Windows RT is that it has a more clearly defined target audience: School students. The decision to launch it at the Microsoft Education event was smart, and for what it’s worth, I genuinely think it’ll do well in this space.

[...] By having a laser-focus on the lucrative education space, Microsoft will be able to craft a compelling message for Windows 10 S, and effectively market it.

But it seems like Microsoft has fallen back into its own ways, and is trying to pitch Windows 10 S to average consumers and professionals.

A clear example of that is the company’s gorgeous and appealing new flagship laptop, called the Surface Laptop, which is a triumph of style and design in one potent package. It’s expensive, too, retailing at $999. And yes, it runs Windows 10 S.

Why? I genuinely don’t know. It’s a head-scratching decision that only serves to hamstring some truly exceptional hardware. It’s a bit like asking Usain Bolt – the fastest man alive – to run a 200-meter race wearing flip-flops.

So, you have a platform that appears to have been intended for students and teachers, being marketed to everybody and their dog, installed on thousand-dollar laptops that can't even run the world's most popular browser, and which will still do everything Microsoft can imagine to force users to Edge and Bing, two products that The Market has very clearly declared that it has no interest in. Microsoft are still trying to make fetch happen, here, and muddling their message in the process. So, can this all still; work, in spite of Microsoft's own self-destructive habits?

Let's just say that Prabhakar Raghavan, the Google vice-president responsible Google's range of productivity apps, isn't sounding worried. From Business Insider UK:

"I'm happy to see a validation of the approach we've taken," the exec said mildly. "What educational institutions have demanded is simplicity. It's a real test tube for all of us, whether it's Microsoft or any of us, right."

[...] In short: Google says it's not worried about Microsoft's entry into the market, and they're focusing on looking at the changing ways people use products.

There's been one positive development since the big roll-out: Microsoft, apparently realizing that walled garden with a $49 exit fee may not be an attractive proposition, have announced that "upgrading" your Win10 S laptop to Win10 Pro will be free for the rest of this year. Of course, they also said that the upgrade to Windows 10 would stop being free, generally, at the end of last July, and that hasn't happened yet, so it's anyone's guess how long this latest "free" offer is actually good for, but it's something, at least.

Windows 10's Steam user base still on the plateau.

From NeoWin:

Last month, it was revealed that Windows 10 was being used by 51.2% of Steam users, an all-time high for the operating system. The OS had crossed the 50% milestone at the start of this year, just 17 months after its official launch.

Now, the latest Steam hardware report by Valve indicates that the surveyed Windows 10 user base on the gaming platform has remained more or less constant.

The report notes that 51.07% of the surveyed gamers on Steam are utilizing Windows 10. This consists of 50.08% people who are using the 64-bit version and a measly 0.99% who are currently on the 32-bit iteration of the OS. All in all, this is an insignificant decline of 0.13 percentage points, which is well within the margin of error.

Meanwhile, nearly all other versions of Windows either showed minimal decline or remained stagnant. The 64-bit version of Windows 7 was the only iteration of Microsoft's operating system which sported a considerable 0.89% growth. Overall, Windows usage climbed to 96.13%.

The PC Gaming community's attitude towards Windows 10 continues to baffle me. In months when Windows 7 was gaining users in the PC marketplace overall, Windows 10 gained among Steam users; in a month where Windows 10 finally resumed slowly gaining overall market share, with an update that includes a Game Mode, Steam users aren't any more interested than before. Perhaps the key is found in the last paragraph of the NeoWin piece:

It is worth noting that Steam's report is based on optional user surveys and it may not accurately depict the real situation.

Maybe the Steam Survey just isn't very useful for gauging the overall health or growth of Windows 10 in the PC market overall? Or maybe gamers really were just so used to being shit on by big corporations, in the form of AAA game publishers, that they just shrugged at Microsoft's bullshit and got the switch over with. The Creators Update is only on 10% of Windows 10 PCs right now, and its rollout is being slowed by PC-bricking bugs, and Game Mode has minimal benefits for Steam games anyway, so perhaps Game Mode just isn't going to be a big mover of Steam users from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

On the whole, though, this month's market share numbers have been really, really anticlimactic. Basically, another month passed, with Microsoft rolling out a huge new update, and almost nothing changed. In itself, that's not great news for Microsoft, who clearly need for Windows 10 adoption to start gaining pace, but they're probably just happy to have a month in which Windows 7 doesn't gain market share while Win10 stays flat.

Oh, well... there's always May's numbers...

Windows 10 finally on the move?

Happy 1st of May! Time to see what's happening with Windows 10 adoption.

This was the end of March:

this is the end of April:

and this is the 6 month trend:

All from NetMarketShare.

It remains to be seen how the tech press choose to spin this, but there's no denying it: Windows 10 finally managed a substantial uptick of 0.92%, while Windows 7 (which Microsoft officially stopped selling last August) finally ticked downwards by the same amount. It's only one month, of course, and we've seen similar small swings be followed by substantial reversals before, but it could be that Windows 10 has finally managed to do enough, barely, to mollify customers' privacy concerns, while polishing enough rough edges off the product to finally start luring customers away from Windows 7 again.

Perhaps all those businesses that were telling Gartner about their upgrade plans actually meant it, this time. If nothing else, this means that Microsoft can look forward to at least one month without headlines about Windows 7 gaining market share while Windows 10 remains flatlined... even though the 6 month trend line still looks pretty damn flat. Windows 10 will have to manage at least three months of this kind of near 1% (or more) growth before I'll call this anything like a trend in increasing adoption rates.

Also of note this month: Apple's latest MacOS version remained pretty much exactly where it was (-0.01%), while Linux ticked downward by 0.05%, neither move being large enough to be considered significant; interestingly, though, the "Other" category, which presumably includes Google's ChromeOS, also moved this month, ticking upwards by 0.24%. Not sure what's going on there, but it could be that we're seeing the impact of Google's Chromebook, which has been selling really well lately. With the contest for schools' market share heating up between Google Chromebooks, Microsoft's upcoming Cloudbook, and Apple's iPad, it will be interesting to see if NetMarketShare and others start breaking ChromeOS out separately at some point to keep track of it all.