Is Microsoft Windows losing overall market share?

As we approach the end of September, and the NetMarketShare numbers that follow (two more sleeps!), it's looking like Microsoft will finally manage to go an entire month without stepping on another of the rakes they've left in their own lawn. Mazel tov, Microsoft!

But that's not to say that all is well on Planet Redmond. According to no less an authority than Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella himself, there are now fewer devices running Windows (any version of) than there were just a few years ago.

From MSPowerUser.com:

Speaking to Bloomberg in a somewhat wide-ranging interview, Satya Nadella made an interesting statement on the size of the Windows ecosystem.

Besides restating his common refrain regarding Microsoft and phones, Nadella also stated that there was now 1 billion Windows users. The number is interesting from the mouth of the CEO of Microsoft, who would of course have a pulse on this important stat. It is down from the commonly assumed number of 1.5 billion PC users (stated by Microsoft themselves in 2014), and from a number previously quoted by Microsoft in 2011 of 1.25 billion users.

It suggests rather than simply being static the number of PC users are actually rapidly shrinking, which may explain why the growth of Windows 10 users has stalled at around 400-500 billion despite around 260 million PCs being sold in 2016.

That would make the Windows ecosystem a possible tie with Apple’s iOS ecosystem, which is assumed to be around 1 billion devices big, and given the trajectory likely on the way to being a distant 3rd, always a dangerous position for a Microsoft product. Nadella emphasised that Windows was important but now only one part of a diversified portfolio of products with linkages between them.

Microsoft have had a lot of irons in the fire for a while now, trying to be Apple, and Amazon, and Google, all while still staying Microsoft, and all at the same time. But when the CEO of Microsoft is spinning about his own company's flagship product, its long-time #1 source of revenue, by telling you that it's not the most important thing they make anymore... well, I'm not sure exactly what that portends for Microsoft's market position or future prospects, but it can't be good. Can it?

It might be particularly bad news for Windows 10, the latest version of Microsoft's flagship. Android's dominant position in the mobile OS market has made it the #1 OS on Earth for some time now, with most analysts assuming that Android's users represented an influx of new devices, but it now seems like a loss of Windows devices may also be contributing to Android's rise. Not only is Windows 10 struggling to gain desktop market share, and slow to win Enterprise converts among larger companies, but it's usage share numbers represent a stagnant share of a Windows market that's actually contracting, rather than growing or even remaining stable.

We're two days away from new numbers from NetMarketShare, StatCounter, and the Steam Survey, so we'll find out whether Windows has started winning any more converts in the last 30 days, but these comments from Satya Nadella will certainly cast those numbers in a much different light. Whether Windows 10 resumes gaining market share or not, it seems that Microsoft's troubled flagship may be taking on more water than we knew.

Microsoft walks back Office-As-A-Service slightly... for those who can wait until next year.

Microsoft has spent the last few years doubling and tripling down on the Software-As-A-Service business model, transforming everything from Office to Windows itself into services to which users must subscribe.

The problem is that consumers aren't all on board with SaaS; Windows 10 has been languishing below 30% market share for over a years since the Get Windows 10 Free campaign officially ended, and I guess Office 365 isn't exactly luring users away from free and easy options like Google's Drive suite of apps, because Microsoft have just announced that they're going to put out a stand-alone, non-SaaS SKU for those Luddites to buy and own in perpetuity, no monthly fees required.

As reported by Mark Hachman at PC World:

Microsoft would really like you to sign up for one of its productivity subscriptions: Office 365, or better yet, the new Microsoft 365. But for those old fogies who prefer standalone software, Microsoft announced Office 2019 on Tuesday.

Office 2019 will ship in the second half of 2018, Microsoft said, with a preview version scheduled for mid-2018. [...] Microsoft calls Office 2019 a suite of “perpetual” apps, because customers will pay for them with a one-time fee, rather than a recurring subscription.

This is how software used to be sold; a one-time transaction that companies like Microsoft have been trying to replace with perpetual bills for ages now. But Microsoft's desire to extract money from users every month in perpetuity clashed sharply with the simple reality that Office users really were not looking to learn to use a new "feature" of the software every other month.

Most businesses are looking for something that works, is easy to use, requires little or no maintenance, and doesn't bleed their bank accounts dry while delivering essentially nothing by way of additional value for that extra cost. And personal-use customers have even fewer reasons to buy into a subscription-based model for Office, especially with good-enough free options available.

The market has spoken, clearly and unambiguously, and it seems that Microsoft has finally been forced to listen to their customers. By promising a standalone version of Office, Microsoft is simply acknowledging reality, however grudgingly; by not having it ready until next year, though, Microsoft still stands to lose a lot of customers to competing products in the meantime.

On the plus side, this does give Microsoft a second chance to release a native UWP version of Office to their own store. It will be interesting to see whether Office 2019 runs natively in UWP, or is just another PCDAB port of a Win32 executable.

Having missed Back To School with Windows 10 S, Microsoft tries to regroup and rebrand.

From Mark Hachman at PC World:

On Monday at its Ignite conference for corporate partners, Microsoft unveiled four new Windows 10 S laptops from Acer, HP, and Lenovo, together with a new shorthand for the services they'll provide: Microsoft 365.

The new Windows 10 S machines will be sold to such customers later this year, and all cost less than $350. They're part of the cadre of low-cost Windows 10 S devices that Microsoft showed off at the introduction of Windows 10 S last year. Contrary to that event's educational bent, however, these machines are being positioned as business PCs for what Microsoft terms "firstline workers" but might better be known as "front-line" workers—the staff you meet on support lines or at service counters, who interface with the public.

Yeah... good luck with that.

The whole point of Windows 10 S was that it worked for slightly less powerful, but also less expensive, student laptops, so the fact that Microsoft's hardware partners couldn't get product to market in time the Back To School season was a huge miss. It's not surprising that both Microsoft, and their partners, would want to try to salvage something out of that debacle.

But 10 S has received terrible reviews, pretty much across the board, for being basically impossible to work with in a normal office environment due to its lack of apps, and enterprises have been slow to switch to Windows 10 generally, in part because they don't want to buy new hardware and might need to. Whether Microsoft will be able to sell them on Windows 10 migration by way of new (and underpowered) laptops is still an open question, but it seems unlikely.

And I get the feeling that Microsoft also thinks that it's unlikely, which is why they've just published this new "roadmap" which shows the better Windows 10 SKUs that your 10 S installation can be transformed into:

If Windows 10 S is only interesting because it can be turned into the Pro or Enterprise versions, which haven't proved all that interesting to enterprise customers, either, then I have to wonder who Microsoft think they're pitching this to, especially since the first crop of Windows 10 S laptops aren't all that interesting as laptops. Who is this for?

With the Fall Creators Update less than three weeks away, over a quarter of Windows 10 customers don't have Spring's CU yet.

I'd already blogged about Microsoft's claims about the Creators Update's reliability, but Wayne Williams at betanews has a pretty good take, too.

The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is set to begin its rollout in a matter of weeks, yet over a quarter (27.5 percent) of Windows 10 users still haven’t received the Creators Update.

According to the latest figures from AdDuplex, while the Creators Update found its way on to another 7.5 percent of computers this month to give it a 72.5 percent share, it’s still well short of the 91.2 percent that the Anniversary Update reached before the Creators Update was released. AdDuplex warns that as a result of slow rollouts like this, fragmentation will only increase in the future.

[...]

A week ago, Microsoft proudly announced that the Creators Update is much more reliable than the Anniversary Update, with a "39 percent total reduction in operating system and driver stability issues" and the number of support calls diminishing "significantly." But as I pointed out at the time, a large portion of that improvement can be attributed to the fact that many Windows 10 users simply don't have it.

And this is the point where I remind you that the Fall Creators Update, a.k.a. version 1709, is launching a full month late. With over a full month of extra time in which they were rolling out the Creators Update, they're still nowhere near where they should be, or need to be. 

Can someone remind me again why Windows-As-A-Service was supposed to be such a great way to receive Microsoft Windows from the Gods of OS? Because I don't see it.

Uber apologizes to London while giving Quebec the finger

Only Uber can go from this:

In a letter of apology to Londoners on Monday, Uber’s new chief executive moved to repair his company’s reputation after the city’s transport authority said it would scrap the ride-hailing service’s operating license.

Dara Khosrowshahi issued a letter to London's Evening Standard newspaper acknowledging that the San Francisco company “got things wrong along the way” as it expanded. He said the company will appeal the London decision but will do so “with the knowledge that we must also change.”

“We won't be perfect, but we will listen to you; we will look to be long-term partners with the cities we serve; and we will run our business with humility, integrity and passion,” he wrote.

to this:

On Tuesday, Uber Quebec's director general Jean-Nicolas Guillemette announced that the company is leaving the provinceon October 14, citing too-tough regulations there. The planned move was first reported by the CBC and confirmed by Uber on Tuesday. Several days before the company's announcement, it had warned that new rules proposed by the provincial Ministry of Transportation would force Uber to exit Quebec. Uber has a history of threatening Quebec lawmakers with leaving if the company's policy demands aren't met, but has only now followed through.

By all accounts, Quebec has been reasonable with Uber, especially considering that the city of London in the UK just banned the company entirely for not being a "fit and proper" taxi service. (Uber plans to contest the London ban.) Although Quebec has faced consistent pressure from taxi companies to regulate Uber like a traditional taxi firm, the province has declined to do so. Instead, last year the province granted Uber a temporary license to operate as part of a pilot project.

in only 24 hours. [Excerpts from the LA Times and Motherboard, respectively.]

Uber's new CEO is going to try to convince you that they've changed; that they've reformed, or learned the errors of their prior ways, or discovered the value of the communities that they're attempting to invade, but it's 99% horse shit. Seriously, it's almost pure manure; or pure PR, which is the same thing. Don't be fooled.

Sony won't vie with Nintendo with a handheld gaming device

Considering how the PS Vita has failed to thrive, and how dominant the PS4 is in the console space, this probably isn't that much of a surprise, but it's still noteworthy that Sony is going to just let Nintendo enjoy a monopoly on the handheld gaming device market. Even more noteworthy is their rationale for doing so.

As reported by US Gamer:

According to a Bloomberg interview with Sony's Andrew House, the head of Sony's gaming division feels that the mobile phone market has essentially put a hold on mobile gaming. Talking about the last mobile gaming device Sony released, the PS Vita, House said, "The Vita experience was that outside of Japan and Asia, there was not a huge demand. The lifestyle shift toward the dominance of smartphones as the single key device that is always with you, was the determining factor."

Likewise, Sony is quick to point out that the Nintendo Switch, which has seen plenty of success since launching in March, is not a true mobile console. "The Nintendo device is a hybrid device and that's a different approach and strategy."

So will Sony abandon mobile for hybrids? Nope. According to the interview Sony's current strategy involves delivering more products for home consoles along with VR and non-gaming entertainment like original TV content and music.

[...]

However, analysts and developers still express hesitation for the Switch, questioning whether it has lasting potential like Pokemon Co. head Tsunekazu Ishiharu suggested earlier this year.

It's pretty much all the same points that I was making when the Switch was first launched. Outside of the diehard Nintendo faithful, smartphones have pretty much destroyed the demand for dedicated handheld gaming devices, and (again, outside of Nintendo's diehard fans) there's no proven demand for a hybrid console/handheld gaming device, either. The Switch is off to a decent start, and is certainly doing much better than the WiiU did at launch, but Nintendo haven't been able to put enough Switches on shelves yet to really test how much demand there is beyond Nintendo's most ardent supporters.

Nintendo's ardent supporters have spent years lining up to fail to buy Amiibos, NES Classics, SNES Classics, and Switches, thus proving to Nintendo that they'll suffer any indignity in pursuit of the latest Nintendo thing, but it needs to be emphasized that this is not normal consumer behaviour. The Switch may be the next Wii, with appeal that extends well beyond Nintendo's fan base into the broader consumer market, but then again, it might not be, and we don't have enough data yet to be able to say for sure, one way or the other.

For Sony to decide that they'll wait and see whether console/hybrid consoles are enough of a thing for it to be worth their while to make one, makes total sense to me. Nintendo's handheld and console sales have been declining since 2009; trying to recapture that lost ground with a single hybrid device is a huge gamble for them, a cure-or-kill approach which will either create an entirely new category of consumer device, or kill Nintendo's hardware business completely. I don't blame Sony at all for refusing to cover that action.

LG just solved VR's screen door "problem," but will anyone care?

As reported on eTeknix:

LG is not sitting back and letting the competition get ahead in VR technology. In a US patent application granted last week, it appears the the South Korean company has technology that combats the “screen-door effect” of VR screens.

The screen-door effect refers to the annoying experience in VR where users can see the gaps between the pixels. Technically speaking, it is when a light-blocking area between the sub-pixels of a display panel is clearly visible. Think of it like a lattice resembling a mosquito net. Obviously, this does a lot in taking away immersivity.

While a higher resolution display can alleviate the screen-door effect, it will also drive the price of the headset higher. LG’s solution is much more elegant and instead uses a “light diffusion member”. This goes in between the display panel and the lenses.

For those whose introductory Optics courses were a while ago, diffusion is the process by which light is scattered as it passes through a medium. LG's newly-patented “light diffusion member” won't do this as aggressively as, say, the frosted glass on a light bulb, but it is basically attempting to counter the screen door effect with a soft focus filter.

This might work, of course, and it is a cheaper alternative to higher-resolution displays, but I have a more fundamental question, here: is the screen door effect really such a problem that it's worth degrading the image resolution of VR displays to solve it? Because here's the thing: while the screen door effect is an actual thing, it's actually not all that noticeable in practice.

This is because of a quirk in the way your brain processes visual information. Your brain, it turns out, isn't all that interested in stuff that isn't moving or changing. In the same way that streaming videos don't push thirty complete images to your device every second, instead just telling your computer which pixels in the image are changing from frame to frame, your brain is only watching for changes in your visual input stream. Any element that's not moving or changing quickly ceases to be of loses interest, and your brain starts to ignore it.

If you're reading this on a screen using your eyeballs, then you're seeing this effect in action right now... and I can prove it to you. 

Q: When was the last time you really noticed your own eyelashes?

Your eyelashes are always there, between your eyes and the world, and they're always visible, but you probably didn't actually notice them until I drew your attention to that fact. While your eyelashes are always there, and always visible, they don't actually change much from moment to moment, which makes them boring, and so your brain ignores them. It's like a Hollywood studio painting something out of a frame in post-production, except done in real time, all the time, from the moment you open your eyes in the morning.

And I can tell you from experience that the same thing happens with VR's screen door. When I first tried on a VR headset, I knew about, and was watching for, the screen door effect; I wanted to see how pronounced it was, and whether it would prove irritating enough over time to ruin the VR experience. But while the screen door was visible, it wasn't interesting, and my brain had started ignoring it as soon as I started concentrating on something else.

In some ways, this is the polar opposite of the VR sickness issue. With VR sickness, the display technology sends signals that conflict with the information coming from your inner ear's vestibular system, with effects which can range from disorientation to projectile vomiting, and which can persist for twenty or thirty minutes after you take the VR headset off. There is no technological fix for VR sickness, either, because the problem isn't the technology, per se; instead, the issue is human biology, which VR hardware developers can't alter.

But with the screen door effect, human biology actually comes to VR's rescue, compensating for this limitation of the technology automatically, and for free (#YourBrainIsAmazing).

Which brings us back to LG newly-patented “light diffusion members.” Yes, they might compensate for the screen door effect, and do so more cheaply and simply than increasing the resolution of the displays in the headsets themselves, but "LDMs" are still more expensive, more complicated, and heavier than the highly effective alternative which VR customers already have built-in. LG's new doohickey is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, and will add cost, weight, and complication to any device which includes them... at a time when VR hardware developers are trying desperately to reduce all three of those things.

The screen door effect doesn't need a technological solution. Maybe LG should be more focused on VR other failings, like the fact that VR still doesn't enable any quantitatively different activities at all.

Has corporate greed reached an all-new low?

Much like AAA videogame companies, who have taken to stuffing full-price games with the microtransaction monetization systems formerly only found in free-to-play titles, it looks like the greed is contagious and spreading, with Showtime's paid-subscription service sites sporting bitcoin-mining scripts... until someone started asking questions, at which time the script (but not its evidence) very quietly vanished. You know, because that's not suspicious at all.

From Gizmodo:

Over the weekend, a user on Twitter pointed out that two of Showtime’s websites had a script running in the background that’s used to hijack visitors’ CPUs to mine cryptocurrency. Other users and outlets later confirmed that the code was present. Now it’s gone, and Showtime refuses to answer questions.

Cryptocurrency miners have been in the news recently because The Pirate Bay caught some flak about a week ago for testing out a new service called Coinhive without informing users. The Coinhive miner uses the website visitors’ extra CPU power to generate a cryptocurrency called Monero (it’s like bitcoin but more private).

This isn’t necessarily a nefarious thing to do. Coinhive is trying to present itself as a novel and legitimate way for websites to make some money from visitors. The company takes 30 percent of the Monero that’s mined by users’ CPUs and the website keeps the rest. It could be a nice way to avoid advertising—but it’s not cool to do this without getting users’ permission.

[...]

We reached out to Showtime earlier this afternoon to ask if this script was included intentionally or if an outside actor had perhaps hacked its website. After multiple attempts to get an answer, a spokesperson for Showtime bluntly replied, “We decline comment.”

If Showtime intentionally included the script, it would be a less worrisome situation. As we said, this code isn’t necessarily bad, it just takes up some of your processing power. But even though Coinhive is just a couple of weeks old, researchers have found that malware developers have quickly begun to add it to their toolbox of scams. Coinhive doesn’t endorse that kind of usage and has explicitly voiced its disapproval for using its service without notifying users.

Now, it could be that Showtime are being overly cautious about commenting on this situation for fear that it would create additional legal liability for them; after the Equifax hack (and the obvious negligence that first made it possible, and then made it worse), companies might just be walking on eggshells, so to speak.

Coinhive isn't necessarily harmful, in and of itself, and if Showtime were willing to let people stream content from their site for free, while monetizing with bitcoin mining, I'd be totally down with that. A deal where I "pay" for content with "work" (in the form of excess CPU cycles making money for the content provider) is an eminently fair alternative to advertising support... if they've let me know that it's happening.

But the lack here, not only of informed consent, but of any kind of information at all, is a real problem. If Showtime want to make a deal in which we pay for content by mining bitcoin, then that's fine, but they have to tell us they're doing that... and it looks very much like someone at Showtime decided to use their customers as a bitcoin-mining resource without asking their permission, or even telling them that it was happening. 

And this is when I remind you that Showtime is a premium cable channel (i.e. subscriber-only), while Showtime Anytime is a paid subscription service... both of them owned by CBS, who have another paid-subscription streaming service  that they're prominently bundling together with the latest Star Trek series. These were paying customers from whom extra value was being secretly extracted in the form of bitcoin, a situation about which Showtime is now refusing comment. That's several different levels of next-level bullshit.

The good news is that you're not defenceless: Gizmodo also posted a helpful how-to guide (How to Stop Pirate Bay and Other Sites From Hijacking Your CPU to Mine Cryptocoins) after the Pirate Bay's use of Coinhive drew attention and criticism over the weekend, and blocking this new bit of bullshit is actually really, really easy. 

Intel just cancelled their all-in-one VR headset due to a lack of interest.

It rather nicely illustrates the current state of the VR industry, doesn't it?

As reported by VR Focus:

Last year, Intel announced it was working on a standalone virtual reality (VR) headset called Project Alloy. Originally slated for release in 2017, now it seems the device will not be making an appearance, as Intel has cancelled the project.

Project alloy was designed to be a self-contained head-mounted display (HMD) with a separate controller, inside-out tracking and 6DoF control. It was meant to act as a ‘reference system’ with shared technology and open APIs.

It seems that Intel has decided to abandon the project, according to Road to VR, this is due to a lack of interest from Intel’s partners. There’s been no further information on why there was a lack of interest, or if there was anything specific that Intel’s partners objected to. There has been some speculation that might be due to Intel’s preferred manufacturing partners, such as Acer, Dell and Asus choosing to get involved with building Windows 10 mixed reality (MR) headsets.

The fact that Intel can't see any future for themselves in VR is not a good sign.

With HTC's Vive and the Oculus Rift struggling to generate consumer interest, I guess this means that the Windows 10 VR headsets are now the great hope of the VR industry. We'll see if their lower price point is enough to make VR into a thing, without having resolved any of VR's other technical (or physiological) problems, or without enabling any new activity that consumers would find valuable... but I have my doubts.

Confirmed: Piracy isn't harmful, and DRM isn't necessary

In a week where the EFF quit the World Wide Web Consortium in protest over W3C's latest DRM-friendly, consumer-hostile set of web standards, it's probably causing some angst to have this story getting attention.

As reported on TNW:

Back in 2014, the European Commission paid the Dutch consulting firm Ecorys 360,000 euros (about $428,000) to research the effect piracy had on sales of copyrighted content. The final report was finished in May 2015, but for some reason it was never published– according to Julia Reda’s blog, the only Pirate in the EU Parliament.

[...]

The 300-page report seems to suggest that there’s no evidence that supports the idea that piracy has a negative effect on sales of copyrighted content (with some exceptions for recently released blockbusters). The report states:

In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect. An exception is the displacement of recent top films. The results show a displacement rate of 40 per cent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.

[...]

On her blog, Julia Reda says that a report like this is fundamental to discussions about copyright policies — where the general assumption is usually that piracy has a negative effect on rightsholders’ revenues. She also criticizes the Commissions reluctance to publish the report and says it probably wouldn’t have released it for several more years if it wasn’t for the access to documents request she filed in July.

So, W3C is deep in the pockets of corporations that want to DRM the whole internet, and the EU is hiding evidence that DRM isn't necessary, presumably at the behest of these same corporations? Quelle surprise!

The hell of it is, there's not a lot that we can do about the situation. In a post-DMCA world, DRM-friendly laws, policies, and trade agreements have become the norm world wide, facts be damned. DRM hurts paying customers, while failing to stop piracy, and stopping piracy won't make these corporations any more profitable, but the EU doesn't care, and the W3C don't care, and there's just no obvious way for individual consumers to mobilize against either of them. Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who exist for exactly that reason, seem to have thrown in the towel, admitting that their attempts to reform this corrupt system from the inside just weren't working.

So, big corporations are going to DRM the entire internet in a bid to secure their own profits, even as it makes their customers less safe, does nothing to stop (or even slow) the actual pirates, and in spite of the fact that DRM isn't going to make them any more profitable. That is going to happen; the ground work has all been done. But when those same corporations try to tell you that they're trying to make the internet "better" in the process? That is a bald-faced lie. Don't believe a word of it.

New blogs!

When I started this blog, I really wasn't intending for it to be as tech-focused as it's become. I was actually planning to start a blog about game design - or, more precisely, ARPG design, not from the perspective of a game designer, but from the perspective of an avid player of the genre. You know, my personal take on what works and what doesn't in the games that I've liked and disliked over the years, sprinkled with insights that I've gleaned from various sources around the 'net. I was planning to use Diablo III as a kind of case study, comparing and contrasting some of its elements with those of other ARPGs to figure out exactly why some of them work so well, while others.... don't, really.

But then GWX happened, and VR, and the Nintendo Switch, and the end of Moore's Law, and the slow-motion Singularity, and... Well, the short version of this long story is that my ARPG gaming blog has become something really, really different from that.

And that's fine; really, it's fine. Windows 10, the Nintendo Switch, the nascent VR industry, and other developments in the technology that drives so much of our lives is really fertile ground, and stuff about which I ended up having quite a few opinions. But I still do want to write about the gaming-focused stuff, which is a problem, because it no longer fits in here. I ran into a similar problem not too long ago, when I found myself needing an outlet for some of my thoughts on the politics of the day... which also don't fit here.

And so, I've decided to carve out some spaces where they do fit. Two new blogs: one which can be politics all day long, and another all about how (not) to design an ARPG. Yes, that's right, I'll now be spending my copious spare time posting to three different blogs that nobody will read, because nobody reads blogs anymore, Excelsior!

I may start by moving a couple of my older posts over to those two blogs, just so that there's something there other than:

My other blogs may go nowhere at all. Or, they may be just the outlet I needed for a lot of ideas that I've been keeping bottled up for a few years now. If nothing else, they'll give me more excuses to do some writing, without needing to worry if my writings "fit" with the theme of this (tech) blog. And, hey, if only one person finds and reads either of them, and finds any value at all in what I've written, then it'll be more than worth it.

So, if you've stumbled across this blog, and are wondering why I'm maybe not posting as often here as I used to... this is why. Maybe check our my other digital spaces, to see if I've posted anything there, instead.

Lying with statistics, the Microsoft way

Here's a classic trick from the statistical liars' arsenal: the misleading graph. I spotted this particularly egregious example on Thurrott.com, and it really has it all: improper scaling, truncation, omitted data, missing labels, you name it.

The source? Microsoft, naturally.

I'll let Paul Thurrott himself describe the context from whence this springs:

On the eve of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update release, Microsoft is touting the quality and reliability of the previous version, the Creators Update.

“The Windows 10 Creators Update is the best version of Windows 10 ever,” Microsoft director John Cable writes. “What makes Windows 10 Creators Update the best version of Windows 10 ever? Quality. Our dedicated focus on customer obsession – listening and responding to user and partner feedback – are key to the quality improvements in Windows 10.”

[...]

Frankly, this whole thing is rather curious, both for its timing and because it leaves out any data from before the Anniversary Update. Rather than belabour the point, I’ll just note that this is what Microsoft provided. You can come to your own conclusions, but I don’t quite understand why they are revealing this now.

Thurrott is being a lot more generous here than I will be; this graph does not reveal, and is not intended to reveal, anything at all. It is, in fact, almost entirely information-free, and utterly meaningless; we're expected to take it on faith that it means what Microsoft says it means, but have no means of verifying that, and no reason to trust them.

Notice how the y-axis is unlabelled; there's a "+500 million" number slapped down on top of those vertical bars, but we have no way of knowing which of those bars is meant to be 500 million users high (if any). There are thirteen vertical bars, but only four months on the x-axis, and no way of knowing which bar belongs to which month (again, if any). There's an orange line zig-zagging its way down the graph (presumably over time?) but no way of knowing how many Customer Support Contacts it represents at any point of that slope, let along whether its vertical scale is the same as the bars'. And so on.

This is bullshit. Thurrott is bends over backwards to be diplomatic, but I don't mind belabouring the point; bullshit like this is why people don't trust Microsoft anymore.

UPDATE:

MakeUseOf also covered this, and had this take on Microsoft's "statistics."

The timing of this release is a little confusing. But we suspect it’s an attempt, ahead of the release of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, to convince Windows 10 users (especially corporate customers) that things are getting better.

Possible... but I'm still betting on this being aimed at Windows 7/Server 2008 customers, who they're still trying to start on the path to Windows 10 migration.

Windows 10 migration makes security harder for Enterprises

Remember Adaptiva? The firm that does Windows 10 migrations, and which was talking about how everybody was migrating to Windows 10? It turned out to be not so much the case, of course, for a variety of reasons, but Adaptiva themselves seemed to still be pretty bullish on the Windows 10 migrations that they're in the business of facilitating.

Or they were, until about five minutes ago, according to Business Wire:

Adaptiva, the market leader in smart scaling systems management, today announced the results of its 2017 Enterprise Endpoint Security Survey, which indicates that companies are experiencing significant challenges in their attempts to keep their endpoints secure. Maintaining Windows 10 security topped the list of challenges with over half of respondents indicating it can take a month or more for IT teams to execute Windows OS updates, which ultimately leaves systems vulnerable.

The survey revealed that most companies are unable to maintain endpoint security with consistency for a number of reasons, such as:

• The pace and volume of new Windows OS security fixes.
• The complexity associated with tracking what updates need to be applied to which endpoints from thousands of third-party software vendors.
• The difficulties caused by rapidly changing security policies.
• The limitations of resources in terms of available staff and their respective skill sets.

“Breaches are occurring unnecessarily, teams are overwhelmed, and it’s been nearly impossible for enterprises to keep up with changes in security policies,” said Jim Souders, chief executive officer at Adaptiva. “With the Windows 10 migration, the situation becomes even more serious. If companies can’t find ways to successfully automate security for Windows 10 and other third-party applications, they’re putting their systems at risk.”

Wow. It sounds like Adaptiva's having trouble actually migrating businesses to Windows 10. Which sucks for them, since they're in the business of migrating businesses to Windows 10. 

It does go a long way to explaining why Windows 10 migration has stalled, though. I mean, if you had a business, and Windows 10 migration was this much of a mess, would you switch? Or, as Wayne Williams puts it, at betanews:

When Windows 10 was still (officially) free, and Microsoft was forcing it onto systems against user wishes, the operating system’s market share growth was impressive. In no time at all it shot past Windows XP and Windows 8.x.

But since then, the new OS has plateaued. NetMarketShare’s usage share figures show that Windows 10 grew by a mere 5 percent from July 2016 to July 2017, and in August it posted an increase of just 0.36 percentage points. Microsoft, for its part, claimed back in December that Windows 10 was more popular than Windows 7, but of course it isn’t. Not even close.

Microsoft’s own Windows and Store Trends page was a good place to see how Windows 10 was doing in terms of market share, even if the figures were more than a little iffy. However, after February’s update showed Windows 10 to be losing market share, Microsoft stopped updating the page.

Once again, we're sitting at the mid-month mark, and I'm going to go out on the limb again with my OS Market Share prediction for month end: I hereby predict that Windows 10 will still be flat at 27%, Windows 7 will still own over 48% of the market, and Windows 10's share of the Steam customer base will have contracted again as gamers flee the bug-ridden mess of the Creators Update.

Q: Is the Nintendo Switch going to China?

A: No. Probably not. But we're sure going to hear a lot about this vague possibility for the next little while.

As reported by Blake Hester at Rolling Stone:

Nintendo recently announced a partnership with the Chinese company Tencent to publish one of its games on the Nintendo Switch, the Wall Street Journal reports. This news leads some to believe Nintendo – which has had trouble finding similar success in China as it has in other parts of the globe – may soon have a bigger footprint in the country, largely dominated by Tencent.

Thanks to the new partnership, Nintendo will be bringing one China's most popular games, Honor of Kings, to the Switch as Arena of Battle. The mobile MOBA Honor of Kings is, as Bloomberg reports, Tencent's most profitable game, making up for more than 50 percent of the company's smartphone revenue and bringing in more than 3 billion yuan ($400 million USD) this April. Current reports put the game's player count at 200 million.

There's a caveat to all this news: the Nintendo Switch isn't sold in China. This partnership will, yes, bring the game to the console, but only in other countries. However, if successful, Wall Street Journal adds, citing people familiar with the partnership, this could lead to the Switch hitting Chinese markets, as well as Nintendo's mobile games making an appearance there.

Tencent are huge in the Chinese gaming industry, mostly specializing in mobile and online multiplayer games, but they've been making moves recently to expand beyond the borders of China, and beyond the smartphone. That's why they recently bought majority stakes in RIOT Games (makers of League of Legends), Rovio (makers of Angry Birds), Supercell (Clash of Clans). They're actually the largest gaming company on Earth, and almost completely anonymous outside of China, something that Tencent are working hard to change.

So, if you're Tencent, with a huge library of successful Chinese mobile games that you can localize for other markets, what's the best strategic move you can make? It's not heading to the iOS App Store, or the Android Marketplace, both of which are already supersaturated with games; getting your games noticed in those markets is well-nigh impossible, and making money from your titles is even harder. Steam has similar discoverability problems, with hundreds of games launching every month, and thousands every year. PS4 and XBox/Windows 10 are options, but PS4 is already full of good games, XBox is struggling with low market share, and the Windows Store is a wasteland where nobody buys games.

That leaves the Nintendo Switch, a hybrid home & mobile gaming platform; the mobile part is already playing to Tencent's strengths. The Switch only has a few games, and not many good ones, so Tencent's newly localized mobile game ports can really stand out from the pack. And audiences outside of China know basically nothing about Tencent's library of mobile games; sure, they'll be ports, but they'll also be new to the markets where they'll roll out on the Switch, which is almost as good as a new game for those audiences.

Nintendo, of course, potentially get a flood of new games, backed by a company that is simultaneously the largest game company on the planet, and totally unknown, which is almost as good as indie cred. It's win-win, and a very smart move for both companies, bolstering Nintendo's Switch while launching a bunch of Tencent's games on the global stage. 

It does not, however, guarantee that Nintendo will be able to move into the Chinese market in any big way. For one thing, the Chinese government will have something to say about that; while Beijing loves for foreign investors to help them build Chinese businesses, they've mostly blocked foreign companies from simply setting up ship in China. When Blizzard Entertainment wanted to launch Diablo III in China, they had to get Tencent to handle the Chinese business for them, including running the servers and collecting the lion's share of the revenue, and Nintendo are unlikely to have any better luck. 

(This isn't just a video game industry thing, BTW. Basically every big Western firm has been trying to find a way to extract wealth from China, only to be stymied by Chinese rules which are mostly geared to keeping most of that wealth inside their own borders, helping to grow their own corporations into global competitors.)

And then there's Nintendo's supply problem, the factor which is really limiting the Switch's growth right now. Sure, being able to sell Switches to China would be a huge deal, if Nintendo could make enough Switches to satisfy Chinese market demand, but right now, they can't even make enough Switches to satisfy the market demand for them outside of China.

So, yes, today's deal with Tencent is a big deal for both companies; but it's unlikely to lead directly to Nintendo opening up the wholly-owned Chinese subsidiary that's eluded not only them, but everybody else, too.

Of course, you wouldn't know that from looking at Nintendo's share price:

Thanks to the partnership, Nintendo's shares shot up over seven-percent to a nine year high last Tuesday.

Don't let this fool you; stock markets and stock prices have been mostly divorced from reality for a long time, now.

I think they're unclear on the concept...

It's that time again, to peruse Kotaku's 12 Best Games for the Nintendo Switch list, and see if the game's lineup has improved.

For reference, this is where we were mid-August:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
2. Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together! (Switch)
3. Thumper (PC)
4. Puyo Puyo Tetris (*)
5. The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ (PC)
6. Minecraft (PC)
7. Cave Story+ (PC)
8. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch)
9. Jackbox Party Pack 3 (PC)
10. Splatoon 2 (Switch)
11. Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (PC)
12. Arms (Switch)

And this is the updated version, from today:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
2. Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together! (Switch)
3. Thumper (PC)
4. Puyo Puyo Tetris (*)
5. The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ (PC)
6. Minecraft (PC)
7. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle (Switch)
8. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch)
9. Jackbox Party Pack 3 (PC)
10. Splatoon 2 (Switch)
11. Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (PC)
12. Arms (Switch)

Once again, a top-12 game from August's list has dropped off the list completely, replaced with a new release; I guess Cave Story+ wasn't that good, after all? 

Seriously, this is not how best-of lists work. It's fine to decide that Mario + Rabbids is now the Switch's 6th-best game, but that new entry on the list is supposed to push the others downwards, not simply replace the previous #7 title. I get that they're all yooge Nintendo fans at Kotaku, but manipulating the list this way in order to load it with Switch-exclusive releases, or to minimize the number of PC ports, is simply dishonest.

Why was Kotaku promoting Cave Story+ as the 6th-best game on Switch last month, only to decide that it isn't even the 12th-best game this month? Why isn't it considered to be at least as good as Splatoon 2, a game that is beat by four places a month ago. What was their logic? Apart from Cave Story being a PC port in the month when there was another Switch-native release that could take its place on the list, that is. What else changed?

This dishonesty is especially baffling because isn't even effective. The list is still five PC ports, one mashup (*), and only six original Switch titles; three iterations into their best-of list, and Kotaku have yet to do anything except throw a bright, bright light onto one the Switch's glaring issues: a lack of quality games. I guess Nintendo have really dodged a bullet, by having ongoing supply issues that are far more likely to kill the console's chances than any lack of games.

Were you planning to buy a Nintendo Switch for X-Mas?

Or an NES Classic, or an SNES Classic? If so, either plan on paying "scalper" prices, or make other plans, because it doesn't sound like Nintendo are any closer to solving their supply chain problems.

From the Financial Times:

Nintendo’s US chief has warned Switch customers to prepare for potential disappointment this Christmas, as demand for its hit games console continues to exceed supply.

Since the Switch launched in March, the hybrid console — it can be used as a handheld device on its own or plugged into a television at home — has been selling out almost as soon as new stock arrives in stores around the world.

In Nintendo’s domestic market of Japan, the shortages have been especially acute, with new machines being sold by lottery or changing hands on auction sites at double the retail price of around ¥30,000 ($280).

In an interview on the sidelines of Variety’s Entertainment and Technology Summit 2017 in Los Angeles, Reggie Fils-Aimé, president of Nintendo of America, told the FT that supply shortages of multiple components, coupled with higher-than-expected demand from customers, were behind the protracted shipping delays. 

The problem? Multiple choke points in the supply chain, apparently, as Nintendo compete for the same memory chips and other parts that other competitors (like Apple, Sony, and Microsoft, to name a few) also need for their new devices. Everyone's paying more for everything, right now, as anyone who's tried to buy a Ryzen processor can attest, but the Switch's low price point leaves them less room to absorb extra costs in the manufacturing process, and their smaller size (compared to Apple, Sony, and Microsoft, anyway), along with the WiiU's failure, leaves them less able to simply absorb the costs and sell Switches at a loss in order to build market share.

The good news? Nintendo has apparently decided that it makes sense to manufacture whatever consumers are willing to buy, which means that they're bringing back the NES Classic, as well as promising to make enough SNES Classics that everyone who wants one can buy one, and without having to spent four times MSRP to get it off eBay. The only catch is that the NES Classic and SNES Classic are being hit by the same component shortage as the Switch, so stock levels likely won't recover properly until 2018.

For Nintendo, of course, this means that they'll miss the busiest sales season of the year in EU and NA, losing market share to Sony and Microsoft who will undoubtedly have PS4s, PS4 Pros, XBO-Ses, and XBO-Xes available for sale to any who want them. Considering how badly Nintendo need for the Switch, in particular, to reach 10M sold in order to make up for time lost to the WiiU fiasco, this is obviously bad news; it's especially unfortunate since Nintendo's supply problems seem to be due to circumstances beyond their control, this time. Whether these supply chain problems end up being disastrous, in terms the Switch's success or failure as a platform, remains to be seen.

In the meantime, however, consumers should plan to buy their Switches and Classic consoles as next year's birthday presents, rather than this year's X-Mas presents. If you must have a console this year, buy a PS4 or an XBox rather than pay scalpers' rates for Nintendo's products (even Reggie Fils-Aimé is advising consumers not to pay more than MSRP).

Game mode sucks, and Microsoft have finally admitted it.

Back when Game Mode was first announced for Windows 10, I predicted that it would have very little impact, if any, on Steam gamers, who were not playing native-UWP versions of their games via the Windows Store. I was wrong about that; rather than having little-to-no impact, it turned out that Game Mode actually hurt game performance. Microsoft, naturally, reacted by denying that anything was wrong, and then doing the PR equivalent of covering their ears and saying, "LA LA LA LA LA," as loudly as possible.

That was back in January. It is now September, and Microsoft are finally admitting the problems with the Creators Update, which included Game Mode.

As reported by Usama Jawad at NeoWin:

For the past few months, hundreds of users have lamented the stuttering issues and FPS drops in various games after installing the Windows 10 Creators Update. Users also reported that clean installing drivers, and enabling or disabling Game DVR and Game Mode does not fix the issue.

Now, Microsoft has finally acknowledged the problem, stating that it is looking into the factors that can potentially be causing games to stutter.

[...]

A Microsoft engineer has acknowledged the issue on Feedback Hub, saying that:

Thank you everyone for providing feedback and submitting traces. We have been analyzing the traces from your feedback and have identified several different problem sources surfacing as stutter in games. We have a fix for one of them in the Windows Insider build that flighted to the “Fast” ring (build 16273 and above). You can find instructions on joining the Windows 10 Insider Program here: https://insider.windows.com/en-us/how-to-pc/. We are actively investigating the remaining stutter causes and appreciate your patience on this issue.

So, +1 to Microsoft for finally admitting that the problem exists, but -1 for denying it originally, -1 for spending months stonewalling while customers complained, and -1 more for not having actually fixed the problem yet (the end-of-August patch fixed one potential issue which might be contributing to the problem, but it hasn't addressed the entirety of the issue, which they're still "investigating"). Again, this is seven months after the problem was reported to them by their customers.

The Steam software survey has showed Windows 10's usage share faltering among Steam users over the last couple of months, a perplexing trend that ran counter to the movement in the OS market at large. At the time, those monthly shifts among Steam users didn't make much sense, but that's because I'm a Windows 7 gamer, who isn't affected by Microsoft's Game Mode and who had (blissfully) forgotten all about its existence. Now that I've been reminded of these game-specific issues, though, everything makes so much more sense.

I keep waiting for Microsoft to show some sign that they're learning from their mistakes. I don't know whether to be entertained or depressed by their continued failure to do so.

Want to switch from Windows 10 to Linux?

It's not very often that I see Betanews mentioning Windows and Linux in the same article, but today appears to be just such a day.

From Brian Fagioli, at Betanews:

Window 10 isn't a bad operating system, but understandably, not everyone loves it. You know what? That is OK. People have different likes and needs, and sometimes an alternative to Microsoft's operating system, such as Ubuntu, macOS, or Chrome OS can be a better fit.

If you want to switch to Linux, there is no shortage of operating systems based on the kernel. With that said, many of them aren't very user friendly. If you have lived your life using Windows, it is wise to choose a Linux distro that caters to your habits and expectations. One such operating system with a very inviting user interface is Zorin OS, and today, version 12.2 sees release. If you have been on the fence regarding Linux, now might be your time.

"Zorin OS 12.2 introduces the updated Linux kernel 4.10 with new hardware drivers and strengthened security out of the box. These updated core technologies make the operating system even more resistant to viruses and ransomware attacks, while also adding compatibility for newer hardware including PCs with the new AMD Ryzen processor series. These enhancements make Zorin OS work even better on the computers of today, and ready for the machines of tomorrow," says The Zorin Group.

I'd been toying with the idea of adding a 2nd hard drive to the PC (I've gone so far as to buy the 2nd hard drive), and experimenting with a dual-boot set-up, but couldn't decide on which Linux distro I'd want to install on that 2nd partition. I was looking at Mint, but Zorin looks pretty user-friendly, too, which could make it a nice option... and it's always nice to have options.

That's not the main reason why this article caught my eye, though. No, I was more struck by the fact that Betanews (who can be very Microsoft-friendly, sometimes) actually published an article letting people know which Linux distro would make a nice, user-friendly alternative to Windows 10... the first such article I've ever seen, on any site.

Microsoft will start Windows 10 VR headset demos in October

Do you remember when Facebook closed hundreds of Oculus Rift demo stations in Best Buy locations across NA, because they were going days on end without doing a single demo, let alone selling any headets? Well, Microsoft apprently doesn't, according to Manny Reyes at Android Headlines:

Microsoft is set to demonstrate a wide array of its new Windows 10 VR headsets starting next month, according to a job listing posted online by Wave, a UK-based experiential marketing and sales services provider. The job listing is seeking a brand ambassador for Microsoft and a host of other staff members who would run the company’s London operations with the goal of demonstrating the Redmond, Washington-based company’s virtual reality offerings in a campaign that is slated to begin on October 20 and last until December 30.

Riiiiight. Because that worked so well last time, when Facebook did it. [/sarcasm]

Time will tell, of course, but consumer interest in VR doesn't seem to have increased significantly since last year, when Facebook were pursuing this same strategy. VR evangelists seem to be working on the assumption that all they need do is give people access to VR headsets, and the tech will sell itself. Well, I've tried VR, and I can tell you from personal experience that demoing the tech isn't enough.

Until VR enables some activity that consumers value, rather than merely enhancing or adding immersion to activities that can be done outside of VR, I doubt that very many people will be biting. Add to that, the simple fact that putting on a VR headset makes you look like an idiot and feel extremely vulnerable , then add the fact that Windows 10 VR will need a Windows 10 PC to work, limiting participation (you need one PC and one headset per person; forget attending virtual concerts with your S.O.), and then factor in the amount of "buzz" that VR has lost over the last year, and... Well, let's just say that I don't expect Microsoft's VR demo stations to fare any better than Facebook's did.

VR is still not ready for mass consumption. Lowering the price point might coax a few fence-sitting pseudo-early-adopters to buy in, but VR is still very much in an early adopter stage of development. There are just too many problems that still need fixing, and no clear reason why consumers should want or need VR, apart from it being pretty. Pretty but useless can sell, of course, but generally not at small appliance prices; not in large numbers, anyway. Shiny new demo stations don't change that reality at all.

I guess the "S" is for Still Not Ready...

Microsoft have managed to self-inflict another rake-related injury.

From Rafia Shaikh at WCCFTech:

Microsoft Kind of Admits Windows 10 S Isn’t Good Enough (Yet) – Extends Free Windows 10 Pro Offer

Microsoft has announced to extend the offer for Surface Laptop buyers to avail the free Windows 10 Pro upgrade offer by 3 months. The offer was supposed to end this year, but is now being extended until March 31st, 2018.

“Don’t forget that Surface Laptop comes with the streamlined security and performance of Windows 10 S, and verified apps in the Windows Store,” Microsoft wrote in today’s announcement (emphasis is ours).

For those that find they need an application that isn’t yet available in the Store and must be installed from another source, we’re extending the ability to switch from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro for free until March 31, 2018. We hope this provides increased flexibility for those people searching for the perfect back-to-school or holiday gift.

The latest statement proves that Windows 10 S while initially touted as a direct Chrome OS competitor isn’t yet ready for primetime. The Redmond Windows maker introduced the new operating system with its premium Surface Laptop, but many believed that Microsoft was aware that it won’t work with the lightweight Windows 10 S that is highly dependent on the horror story that is Windows Store.

For anyone that's paying attention, the "horror story" of the Windows Store has become something of an unfortunate theme for Microsoft's efforts to build a walled-garden Windows 10 ecosystem. It goes beyond the "app gap," and even beyond the evident failure of UWP. Much like the early Android Marketplace, Microsoft's storefront is, bluntly, filled to bursting with shit -- something of an embarrassment considering that Microsoft is touting their careful curation of the Store as one of its selling points.

Microsoft's failure to sell the Windows Store to developers of quality apps has left them in an awkward position, trying to sell a new Windows 10 SKU which is utterly dependent on the Store for its software, and utterly unworkable as a result. Reactions have been predictably scathing.

Por ejemplo, this headline from Laptop Mag:

You Have Three Extra Months To Save Yourself From Windows 10 S

Or this, from Betanews:

Microsoft shows weakness by extending the free Windows 10 S to Pro upgrade deadline

 Not exactly a good look for the Redmond crew.

So, about that SteamVR support...

Remember just over a week ago, when Microsoft were hyping the "fact" that their shiny new Mixed Reality headsets would be compatible with Steam VR? Apparently that's actually not so much the truth. Surprise!

From Sean Chan at MSPowerUser:

Unfortunately, as it turns out, Windows Mixed Reality won’t support content from SteamVR on its initial launch. According to German site ComputerBase, Windows Mixed Reality’s communication director Greg Sullivan stated that support for SteamVR won’t be available on the launch day. In fact, Sullivan mentioned that the companies have just started working on the integration — and it’ll probably take a while before Windows Mixed Reality users can actually run content from SteamVR on their new headsets.

When it comes to gaming  (or any other software) development, an old adage is that you should always buy a product for what it has now rather than based on promises of future features. Despite the number of software launch partners Microsoft announced, the lack of support for SteamVR’s large catalogue from the outset has just made the product a lot less interesting, and will probably mean I will hang on a few months to see if it will really materialize before spending hundreds of dollars.

Microsoft had already walked back the SteamVR announcement a bit by announcing that the new MR headsets would require Windows 10's Fall Creators Update to work (creating an obvious incompatibility with SteamVR, which has no such restriction), this isn't too surprising, but it is a little disappointing. It's difficult to imagine what sort of MR/SteamVR integration will even be possible, as long as Microsoft are determined to use MR as a tool to drive adoption of their walled-garden Windows 10 ecosystem... something which isn't in Valve's interests at all.

For VR, it's really the worst of all worlds. The first generation of hardware will be rendered obsolete by the new MR headsets, but the new MR headsets won't be able to build their user base, either, thanks to Microsoft's pathological monopolistic tendencies. The Fall Creators Update is already launching a month late (in October, and not on-schedule in September), and if the Anniversary and Creators Updates are any indication, the FCU will take months to be "fully" rolled out. Making MR inoperable without the FCU puts any potential MR customer in a position of having to wait months for their OS to be updated enough to even work with the hardware... and then more months of waiting for the hardware to be compatible with the biggest available library of VR content. It's idiotic. Microsoft literally couldn't have planned it any worse.

But, then, we are talking about Microsoft, here. We really shouldn't be at all surprised, at this point.

Fall Update to make your PC as powerful as an Xbox?

I just came across this priceless tidbit from Paul Younger at PC Invasion:

The next Windows 10 update will be the Fall Creators Update and it’s coming on 17 October. Along with a lot dribble about how they want to make Windows 10 a “platform that inspires your creativity”, there is a section on gaming.

The update for gamers reads:

The fuel that often inspires creativity is play. With the Fall Creators Update, we’ve updated Game Mode, which allows your games to use the full processing power of your device as if it was an Xbox game console, right from a new button on the Game bar. And to take advantage of this power, we have a fantastic lineup of Xbox Play Anywhere games coming including, Cuphead, Forza Motorsport 7, Super Lucky’s Tale and Middle-earth: Shadow of War. And, if you love these Xbox play anywhere games, coming on November 7 you can play them on the most powerful console on the planet, Xbox One X.

That’s right, they want to make my PC perform just like an Xbox console. I hope to god my PC doesn’t perform like an Xbox when this update lands, PC gamers have PCs so the gaming experience is specifically not like a Xbox. Microsoft sometimes really don’t get it when it comes to the PC, we don’t give two hoots about the Xbox One.

Well said, sir. Well said.

Please take a second and click through to the original article. There's not much more to it, but it was so succinctly put that I think Mr. Younger has earned a few extra clicks.

New PCVR headsets to work with Fall Creators Update Win10 only?

Was it just last week that I was praising Microsoft's new openness towards SteamVR?

From Gears of Biz:

Microsoft announced that a major update to its Windows operating system will be released globally on October 17. Release of Windows 10 “Fall Creators Update” will come the same day that Windows Mixed Reality headsets powered by the software hits the market, Microsoft executive vice president of operating systems Terry Myerson said in a blog post.

Unlike virtual reality gear already available, Windows headsets made by partners such as Acer, Asus, HP and Lenovo will not require cameras to track user movements, according to Myerson.

Windows headsets will be priced as low as $299, and will need to be plugged into computers powered by the Fall Creators Update, Microsoft said. [...] At [the company’s annual developers’ conference early this year ], Myerson said the update will offer, among other upgrades, “enhancements in gaming, security, accessibility, and immersive new experiences made possible by Windows Mixed Reality.”

Sigh... Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Microsoft appears to be banking on VR/AR/MR/whatever-R being a major driver of Windows 10 adoption, in the same way that everybody connected to VR seems to think that consumers will rush to the technology and drive all kinds of things in the process, but there's a major problem with that logic. Consumers haven't been interested in VR at all, up until now, and 48.43% of them are also still using Windows 7... and are, therefore, not interested in Windows 10, either. So, why would these same consumers suddenly decide that VR is so exciting that they'll switch to Windows 10 in order to pay hundreds of dollars to be early adopters the tech?

The existence of low-cost VR headsets, which are both easier to set up and more portable than existing gear, will almost certainly be enough to doom HTC's Vive and Oculus' Rift, but chaining the new headsets to Windows 10 guarantees that only 26.77% of the market will even consider buying one... having given zero fucks about VR headsets, up until now. If the new headsets were Windows 7 compatible, then at least you could sell them to most of the PC market, but nailing them to Windows 10 means that, for all the talk of SteamVR compatibility, they really aren't fully compatible with SteamVR, either, closing off a huge chunk of the one VR distribution platform that might actually be big enough to matter to VR's future.

Although, in one sense, I guess it's a match made in heaven. Nobody wants VR, and Microsoft can't give Windows 10 away, so bundling the two together at least makes for a package whose components are uniformly unpopular. GG, Microsoft! Well played.

Sarcasm aside, though, Microsoft really need to stop trying to force people to adopt Windows 10. I can't stress this enough; this kind of heavy-handed, borderline-coercive approach is the thing which is preventing Microsoft from rebuilding their relationship with their customers, something which they absolutely must do if they want to avoid having Windows 7 turn into the next XP.

Windows 7 gains on Steam

Windows 10 managed to regain a bit of its lost ground on Steam, but didn't gain as much as Windows 7, which gained 2.10% among survey respondents, as reported by NeoWin:

Last month, it was reported that the Windows 10 user base faced a slight decline in user base, causing it to fall from an all-time high of 51.23% to 50.49%. This month, Microsoft's latest operating has slightly regained some lost ground, but it appears that its user base has stagnated.

According to Steam's hardware report - which is based on optional user surveys - for the month of August 2017, Windows 10 has grown to 50.66%. This is likely an insignificant increase which is well within the margin of error. 50.03% users utilize the 64-bit version of the OS while 0.63% run the 32-bit iteration on their respective machines.

On the other hand, Windows 7 continued to increase in market share, climbing to 38.13%, up from the 36.99% reported last month.

[...]

It is important to remember that the statistics presented in Steam's monthly report are dependent upon optional surveys, so any changes in the user base of a particular software or hardware wouldn't necessarily represent a shift in broader usage beyond the Steam gaming community.

It's tough to say if this represents any real change within the Steam community, let alone outside of it, or what might be driving such a change. Windows 10 would normally be expected to gain ground as PC gamers buy new PCs, something which they are doing at a much faster pace than the market at large, but why would 2% of them have decided to switch to 64-bit Windows 7? I have difficulty imagining a scenario which would explain it.

Whatever is or isn't happening, though, one thing seems certain: while PC gamers initially took to Windows 10 much faster than the market at large, Windows10 adoption has now slowed to a crawl among gamers, too, and Windows 7 isn't going anywhere in a hurry. Steam's level of Windows 10 penetration is still higher on Steam than in the market at large, but the rate of change is now more-or-less in line with what we're seeing elsewhere.

Should robots pay income tax?

I have good news, and bad news. The bad news is that existing automation technologies are already good enough to steal 5% of all jobs in the U.S. by 2021; a Canadian study puts the figure at 42% within two decades. The good news is that people are actually thinking about this inevitable issue, and how to tackle it.

From CBC News:

Jane Kim, a municipal politician in San Francisco, launched a campaign this week called the Jobs of the Future Fund to study how a statewide income tax on job-stealing machines might work.

Assuming automation is inevitable, Kim proposes that proceeds from the tax bankroll new opportunities (for those of us who aren't made up of chips and data) through job retraining and investments in education.

Since robots can't actually pay taxes on their own (for now), a company that employs robots might pay the government a tax in accordance with how much money each robot has generated, or based on the profits that come from the labour savings of an automated workforce.

The idea of a robot tax was first introduced earlier this year by Bill Gates, who said in an interview with Quartz: "Right now if a human worker does $50,000 worth of work in a factory that income is taxed. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you'd think we'd tax the robot at a similar level."

[...]

But the concept has its detractors. Critics argue that taxing robots would disincentivize companies from adopting them and could impede innovation.

Taxing robots is a particularly a bad idea in an era of low productivity growth, according to Robert Seamans, an associate professor of management at New York University.
"The existing empirical evidence suggests that robots boost productivity growth, so a tax on robots would limit that productivity," he says.

Gates, who is a philanthropist these days, argues that slowing down the adoption of automation might not be such a bad idea. It would give us more time to be thoughtful in how we approach the shifting economy, and to avoid the social crisis that could arise if we're not prepared for widespread job displacement.

I think I'm with Gates on this one. Universal Basic Income is already being tested in Canada and Finland, but U.B.I. needs to be funded; if we can implement a funding model which simultaneously slows the pace at which workers get replaced, then we might have a model which can show how to manage the transition from our present, in which workers struggle to find jobs, to our future, in which the very term "worker" is obsolete. Make no mistake, though - that future is coming.

We now return you to the Singularity, already in progress.

NetMarketShare numbers revisited.

NetMarketShare has revised their earlier posted numbers for OS market share, and these ones look a little bit more like what I expected.

First, the market share by version:

(Click to enlarge)

This version of the August stats shows Windows 7 losing, and Windows 10 gaining, both by less than ±0.5% - not enough to be very significant, which is what I expected for August. Windows 8.1 and XP also drop slightly, but again by less than ±0.5%.

The overall picture is, as one would expect, equally boring:

(Click to enlarge)

Windows still loses overall market share to Linux, but it's a smaller swing, still putting Windows just above the 90% mark (90.70% overall), and Linux at only 3.37%, which is more reasonable. MacOS actually drops slightly in this version, but by less than ±0.5% - not enough to be significant. Interestingly, while Linux's number in the overall matched Other's version column in the early morning version of these numbers, they're different here, which makes me wonder what the rest of Other's 7.84% market share consists of. Google Chrome, perhaps?

So, what does this all mean? As I said with the early morning's, more-extreme version of these numbers, it's hard to say. The tech media machine is doing all they can to help Microsoft out by hyping the upcoming Fall Creators Update, so maybe this is just a temporary blip; it's certainly not the seismic shift that the early morning version of the stats looked like it might be. But it's still another month of glacial adoption rates for Microsoft's flagship product, combined with signs that their customers may be abandoning Windows entirely - Windows' overall market share is still down, and Linux is still up. If next month's numbers repeat that trend, then Microsoft could be in serious trouble.

For now, though, it appears to be business as usual, with a complicit tech media machine mostly ignoring this month's market share statistics altogether, instead focusing on the upcoming Fall Creators Update. Wayne Williams at BetaNews appears to be the only other person I could find who's covered this at all, so far:

According to NetMarketShare, in July Windows 10 grew its usage share by 0.83 percentage points -- its largest increase in three months. [...] With a new major update to the operating system right around the corner, you might expect Windows 10 to have grown its share by a similar figure in August, but no. It's back to the glacial growth we usually see for the new OS.

That glacial pace is, I think, the problem here. Honestly, it's hard to blame the tech media for their apathy, when Windows 10's adoption rate keeps on being a story in which almost nothing has happened from one month to the next, for a year now. The Fall Creators Update is a non-story, too, but at least it's a new non-story.

And that's a shame, because spending a little extra time on this story, looking at the state of play over the last year, is actually rather fascinating.

Windows 7 loses market share at last... to Linux!

OK, I'll admit it: my predictions regarding the end-of-August market share numbers were dead wrong.

I'd been confidently predicting that not much of anything would change for the end of August, in much the same way that nothing changed at the end of July, or June, or May, and so on, but it looks like Microsoft may have finally convinced Windows 7 users to switch operating systems. NetMarketShare have put up their end-of-August numbers OS usage statistics, and Windows 7's share of the market has contracted by 1.90%, which is considerably more than the ±0.5% "noise threshold" (my guess at NetMarketShare's error bars).

I doubt that Microsoft will be celebrating, though, because Windows 7's loss did not turn into a gain for Windows 10 -- Microsoft's current flagship product declined, too, by 3.83%, giving back months of gains. Windows 8.1 dropped, too, by 0.65% (again, over the ±0.5% threshold). In fact, the only version of Windows that gained in usage share appears to be Windows XP, which only ticked up by a negligible 0.67%, basically offsetting Windows 8.1's losses.

What does it all add up to? Well, it adds up to an overall 5.15% loss of market share for Windows. Yes, you're reading that correctly: after sitting comfortably at about a 91.5% share of the market for months, Windows overall share of the market has just dropped to 86.3%.

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 Broken out by version, the trend looks like this:

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Just to be perfectly clear: I did not see this coming.