"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."

For anyone who's been defending Facebook against the NY Times' Definers Media story by claiming that it was an isolated incident... it wasn't. Of course it wasn't. After everything we've learned about the depths of Facebook's rampant amorality over the course of this past year, why would you ever think it was?

As reported by TechCrunch:

Facebook is still reeling from the revelation that it hired an opposition research firm with close ties to the Republican party, but its relationship with Definers Public Affairs isn’t the company’s only recent contract work with deeply GOP-linked strategy firms.

[...]

According to sources familiar with the project, Facebook also contracted with Targeted Victory, described as “the GOP’s go-to technology consultant firm.” Targeted Victory worked with Facebook on the company’s Community Boost roadshow, a tour of U.S. cities meant to stimulate small business interest in Facebook as a business and ad platform. The ongoing Community Boost initiative, announced in late 2017, kicked off earlier this year with stops in cities like and Topeka, Kansas and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Facebook also worked with Targeted Victory on the company’s ad transparency efforts. Over the last year, Facebook has attempted to ward off regulation from Congress over ad disclosure, even putting forth some self-regulatory efforts to appease legislators. Specifically, it has dedicated considerable lobbying resources to slow any progress from the Honest Ads Act, a piece of legislature that would force the company to make retain copies of election ads, disclose spending and more. Targeted Victory, a digital strategy and marketing firm, is not a registered lobbyist for Facebook on any work relating to ad transparency.

Just as Cambridge Analytica were only the ones that got caught, rather than being the only ones mining Facebook's user data for fun, profit, and geopolitical sabotage, Facebook's ethically-challenged use of the anti-semitic Soros-bashing Definers Media was only one of several such efforts by the firm. And this time, Sheryl Sandberg can't plead ignorance; after all, she did that with Definers Media, only to later admit that the decision really had crossed her desk, after all. Fool you once, shame on you; fool me twice.. can't get fooled again, is what I'm saying.

There is no such thing as a cockroach, folks. If you see one, the simple truth, on which you can absolutely rely, is that there are more of them hiding just out of sight. When you see a cockroach, you don't tell yourself that it's okay because you've only seen one of the pests; you call an exterminator, pronto. And it's clearly long past time to call in the social media equivalent of the Orkin Man, to deal with Facebook's sketchy, dodgy, and downright evil ways.

#FacebookIsTheProblem
#deleteFacebook

A new week in Facebook begins

Did you have a good Thanksgiving weekend? Because Facebook didn't.

Shall we start with their Black Friday news dump? Normally, dumping bad news on Friday helps to bury those ledes, as days can pass before major news outlets are able to properly cover them. Unfortunately for Facebook, though, news media organizations have adapted to this technique, a special favourite of the Trump administration, so they were primed and ready to cover whatever happened on Black Friday, including this story, as reported here by Slate:

On the day before Thanksgiving, Facebook published a blog post in which COO Sheryl Sandberg and outgoing head of communications Elliot Schrage admitted to lapses in their work with a Republican opposition research firm called Definers. The New York Times had reported in a bombshell investigation the week before that the company hired Definers to create media narratives linking anti-Facebook protestors to liberal billionaire George Soros and criticizing competitors for unsavory business practices. Facebook severed its ties with Definers after the story, but the company pushed back on the investigation by arguing that it contained “a number of inaccuracies.”

The company is now confirming that much of what the Times reported is true, at least when it comes to Definers. In the post, Schrage disclosed that he had decided to hire Definers and was partially directing its efforts on behalf of the company. “Some of this work is being characterized as opposition research, but I believe it would be irresponsible and unprofessional for us not to understand the backgrounds and potential conflicts of interest of our critics,” Schrage wrote. “This work can be used internally to inform our messaging and where appropriate it can be shared with reporters.” In the immediate aftermath of the Times article, Sandberg and CEO Mark Zuckerberg both claimed that they didn’t know that Facebook had hired Definers. Zuckerberg further sought to distance Facebook from Definers by labeling it as a typical “D.C.-type firm” and implying that he did not approve of its tactics. However, Schrage asserted in his post, “Mark has asked us to reevaluate how we work with communications consultants. It’s not about Definers. It is about us, not them.”

Get hyped for this

With both artificial general intelligence and quantum computing looking like they're further away than ever, it's probably a good time to remember that technology isn't all AI and qubits. Other future technologies are almost here, including one that I associate with sci-fi almost as much as the flying car: vat-grown meat.

As reported by Newsweek:

Laboratory-grown meat could soon be available, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration announcing that they would oversee its production so it could be safely sold to consumers across the country. 

A joint statement released by the two agencies said they would be working together to “foster these innovative food products and maintain the highest standards of public health.” The FDA would be in charge of regulating the collection, banking and growing of the cells used to make artificial meat, while the USDA would work on the production and labeling of food products.

[...]

There are many benefits to lab-grown meat. It would eliminate the need for animals to be bred and slaughtered—in the U.S. alone, around 9 billion chickens and 32 million cattle are killed every year. It would also help limit climate change—agriculture, and meat production in particular, is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. There would also be major financial incentives if the technology could be successfully scaled.

It will be a while before lab-grown meat becomes generally available, or cheap enough to be generally affordable, but this technology has the potential to be truly game-changing if this catches on. The environmental benefits alone could have an enormous beneficial impact on our rapidly warming climate. Stand aside, VR; this is what a transformative technology looks like.

Is it time to cool our quantum jets?

I've previously described quantum computing as being in its "ENIAC" phase, an analogy that would put effective quantum computing several decades away, at best. After all, it took seven decades for binary computers to get from ENIAC to Android, and there was no reason to suspect that quantum computers would any easier to develop than their binary predecessors.

According to a long article on IEEE.org, penned by Mikhail Dyakonov, who does
research in theoretical physics professionally, that decades-away estimate might actually be too optimistic. Quantum computers, he argues, might be more than merely difficult to develop, but impossible.

While I believe that such experimental research is beneficial and may lead to a better understanding of complicated quantum systems, I’m skeptical that these efforts will ever result in a practical quantum computer. Such a computer would have to be able to manipulate—on a microscopic level and with enormous precision—a physical system characterized by an unimaginably huge set of parameters, each of which can take on a continuous range of values. Could we ever learn to control the more than 10³⁰⁰ continuously variable parameters defining the quantum state of such a system?

My answer is simple. No, never.

Get 'em while they last...

As one of the relatively few people who actually owns a Steam Link, it's with a certain sadness that I learned that the pseudo-console device has been discontinued by Valve. As reported by arstechnica:

Valve is quietly discontinuing Steam Link, the in-home streaming box it first launched in late 2015. A low-key announcement on Valve's Steam Link news page suggests that production of new units has ceased and that Valve is currently selling off the rest of its "almost sold out" inventory in the US, after selling out completely in Europe. Valve says it will continue to offer support for existing Steam Link hardware.

[...]

The discontinuation of Steam Link hardware wasn't a complete surprise, given that Valve was briefly selling the playing-card-deck-sized devices for a closeout price of $2.50 earlier this year. And though Valve insists it's "still working hard" on Linux gaming and bringing Windows game compatibility to SteamOS, Valve's much ballyhooed circa-2015 hardware initiative has not made a huge impact on the marketplace.

It remains to be seen whether Valve will continue to sell the Steam Controller, after both Steam Machines and Steam Link failed to make an impact on the market; the Controller is currently 30% off, which might just be a Black Friday special, or might be the start of a sell-off of that inventory, as well.

The fact that Valve is, in fact, still working hard on Linux gaming serves to ease some of the sting from this news, but even so... I can't help but wish that things had gone differently. Farewell, Steam Link. We hardly knew ye, and you're gone too soon.

Microsoft's ongoing struggles with QA and Edge

After a terrible month of QA issues with Windows 10's 1809 update, and following revelations that those issues aren't actually over yet, even after 1809's re-release, comes news that Microsoft's other flagship product has similar issues. As reported by betanews:

Microsoft's update procedure for Windows 10 has been a little, er, wobbly of late. The Windows 10 October 2018 Update proved so problematic that it had to pulled, and even the re-released version is far from perfect.

Now it seems the cancer is spreading to Office. Having released a series of updates for Office 2010, 2013 and 2016 as part of this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has now pulled two of them and advised sysadmins to uninstall the updates if they have already been installed.

In both instances -- KB4461522 and KB2863821 -- Microsoft says that the problematic updates can lead to application crashes. While this is not as serious a problem as, say, data loss, it does little to quieten the fears that have been voiced about the quality control Microsoft has over its updates.

So, the bad news is that Microsoft's attempts to reassure consumers and Enterprise customers that their quality assurance procedures really are up to the challenge of delivering software-as-a-service seem to be failing. What's the good news?

Apparently, the good news is that Edge has failed so hard that Microsoft is now collaborating with Google and Qualcomm to bring the Chrome browser to Windows 10's ARM version. Yes, really.

Are we done with the blockchain hype yet?

This week in blockchain...

First, from the BBC, comes the news that the price of BitCoin is still crashing:

The value of Bitcoin has fallen below $5,000 (£3,889) for the first time since October 2017.

The fall brought the total value of all Bitcoin in existence to below $87bn.

On Thursday, 15 November, Bitcoin Cash - an offshoot of Bitcoin - split into two different crypto-currencies, which are now in competition with each other.

And some observers have blamed this for creating turmoil in the crypto-currency markets, with many of the digital assets experiencing falls.

Hmmm.... sounds to me like folks got greedy and over-reached. Maybe that's why mentions of the word "blockchain" was down by eighty percent in corporate corporations' messaging to investors this year.

Roller-skates are not VR's missing element

I've seen a few articles making note of this latest patent filing from Google, reported here by AndroidPit:

While the audiovisual side of virtual reality is on track, the more innovative proposals in the technology are now tackling how to immerse our other senses, such as touch and motion. This includes complicated sensor arrangements set up around the room, motion trackers in your pockets and even strapping our VRnauts into special treadmills. 

A new patent from Google, however, points to a solution that seems elegant in its logic: walking naturally starts with the feet, so what about motorized VR footwear?

Google's patent outlines schemes for a kind of motorized VR roller skates that will let the user walk normally, while the motors and wheels work to stop you from actually going anywhere in the real world. This should keep you inside the VR safe zone and stop you from banging your knees against your living room furniture.

Sorry, but this still isn't the solution to VR's locomotion problems.

Windows 10's telemetry violates GDPR, according to Dutch regulators

OMG, has this news item ever been a long time coming. From The Reg:
Microsoft broke Euro privacy rules by carrying out the "large scale and covert" gathering of private data through its Office apps.

That's according to a report out this month that was commissioned by the Dutch government into how information handled by 300,000 of its workers was processed by Microsoft's Office ProPlus suite. This software is installed on PCs and connects to Office 365 servers.

The dossier's authors found that the Windows goliath was collecting telemetry and other content from its Office applications, including email titles and sentences where translation or spellchecker was used, and secretly storing the data on systems in the United States. That's a no-no.

Those actions break Europe's new GDPR privacy safeguards, it is claimed, and may put Microsoft on the hook for potentially tens of millions of dollars in fines. The Dutch authorities are working with the corporation to fix the situation, and are using the threat of a fine as a stick to make it happen.

The investigation was jumpstarted by the fact that Microsoft doesn't publicly reveal what information it gathers on users and doesn't provide an option for turning off diagnostic and telemetry data sent by its Office software to the company as a way of monitoring how well it is functioning and identifying any software issues.

I always thought that there ought to be a law against Microsoft's data collection practices, and had hoped that GDPR might be that law, but I'll admit that it feels really satisfying to see it actually happen. I only wish that it had been the data collection in Windows 10 itself that had triggered this.

Microsoft aren't the only company facing an uphill battle when it comes to transforming their anti-consumer practices into GDPR-compliant ones (The Reg dubbed this "GDPRmageddon," which is just fabulous). Considering just how stubborn Microsoft have been when it comes to addressing the inadequacies of their business practices, though, I have a feeling that they'll struggle with GDPR compliance more than most companies... except, of course, for Facebook.

Besos on scrutiny

Originally posted on my political blog.

I'd written before about how Facebook's lack of ethics, morals, truthfulness, and accountability simply had no parallel in other FAANG companies. Here's a quote from Amazon's Jeff Besos that throws that difference into sharp relief, from CNBC:

This isn't the first time that Bezos has addresssed the issue of his company's scale with employees. In an earlier all-hands meeting in March, Bezos was asked whether tech companies like Amazon need to be more closely regulated because of their sizable market power and influence.

"It's a fact that we're a large company," Bezos said, according to a recording. "It's reasonable for large institutions of any kind, whether it be companies or governments, to be scrutinized."

[...]

Bezos said at the March employee meeting that the best way to respond to increased scrutiny is to "conduct ourselves in such a way that when we are scrutinized we will pass with flying colors."

It's an old-fashioned notion, isn't it?

Windows 10's 1809 update is still broken

I feel a facepalm coming on. As reported by ZDNet:

Microsoft this week rereleased the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, version 1809, after fixing its data-deletion mess. But the new build still has an old mapped-drives bug that's causing headaches for admins.

Within days of Microsoft's first release of Windows 10 1809 at the beginning of October, IT pros noticed that Windows File Explorer indicated that mapped network drives appeared to be broken. [...] Microsoft says it is working on a resolution but warns admins not to expect a fix until "the 2019 timeframe".

It's important to note that this is not a new bug; apparently it was a known issue before 1809's original release, and just not patched by MS in the five weeks between pulling and rereleasing the update. There are also compatibility issues between the 1809 update and Trend Micro's business security software, and a third issue that affects machines with Radeon HD 2000 or HD 4000 video cards.

Microsoft has temporarily blocked the update for users with affected soft- and/or hardware (at Trend Micro's request, in the former case), but the careless damage has already been done. IT pro Susan Bradley summed up the situation pretty well, in this quote from the ZDNet piece:

"I cannot believe -- well, I guess in this era of Microsoft I can believe -- that Microsoft would release an update that would impact their customer base like this. Yes, it's documented, yes there are 'workarounds', but there are possibilities that line-of-business applications will not be happy with these solutions given," wrote Bradley.

Affected non-business consumers probably won't be happy, either, and headlines like, "FAIL!!! Windows 10 October Update (1809) Still Has Multiple Flaws," are probably not what Microsoft was hoping to see within days of claiming that their testing regimen and quality control were still top-notch. That claim, incidentally, is looking more ridiculous with each passing day. Apparently MS have decided that they'd like to take a few more lumps, please, before actually addressing their QA issues.

Fortunately for Microsoft, the rereleased 1809 update wasn't being rolled out as aggressively as 1803; most users won't be offered the update until 2019 anyway, and it will be months after that before the update is pronounce ready for business, so the PR damage from this latest snafu might not be too severe.

It will be interesting to see if this latest example of Microsoft's inability to reliably deliver a product that works to consumers will cause any further slowdown in Windows 10's adoption rate. Personally, I can't wait to see the OS usage share numbers at the end of November.

Hey, Microsoft... you do know that can stop hitting yourself any old time, now. Right?

Stop me if you've heard this one...

Under pressure over the NY Times' bombshell story detailing Facebook's own campaign of anti-Semitic disinformation which they pursued in order to deflect criticism over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg offered a truly defense in response. In essence, he claimed:

1. the everybody knew that Facebook had employed Definers Media (i.e. nothing to see here);
2. that he himself didn't know that Facebook was employing Definers (i.e. it wasn't me);
3. that an un-named comms staffer had actually decided key details of Facebook's damage-control/PR strategy, apparently without anyone signing off on it (this, after testifying before Congress about how he "took full responsibility for" exactly this sort of decision-making at Facebook); and
4. that Facebook had now cut ties with Definers, literally yesterday (i.e. now that we all know about their shady business, they'd like to be seen doing a right thing).

As reported by Gizmodo:

Today, Facebook set up a press conference addressing a bombshell report from The New York Times that alleged, among other things, that the company contracted a Republican opposition research firm called Definers to run interference on the company’s image, a job which reportedly included leaning on George Soros conspiracy theories.

On the call, Mark Zuckerberg claimed he only found out the group was working for Facebook yesterday—which would mean the CEO learned about his company’s dealings well after most reporters.

Facebook ended its relationship with Definers yesterday, following backlash from the public as well as from the president of the Open Societies Foundation: one of the groups run by Soros, who has been a frequent target of anti-semitic conspiracy theories. In the wake of that abrupt dismissal, Facebook published a rebuttal which included the following statement:

Our relationship with Definers was well known by the media – not least because they have on several occasions sent out invitations to hundreds of journalists about important press calls on our behalf.

“Me personally, I didn’t know we were working with them,” Zuckerberg said during today’s Q&A. [...] Who would have known or approved of such a relationship? Zuckerberg, who previously stated that personnel matters are outside the purview of public disclosure, pinned the blame on “someone on our comms team.”

At this point, I can't help but wonder if anyone in Facebook's senior leadership had any idea what ethics even are. They've certainly behaved with reckless disregard for the truth, and utter contempt for the consequences of their decisions, with such consistency and for so long that I can no longer believe anything that they say without supporting documentation. Zuckerberg, personally, has done almost nothing but hide the truth and deflect criticism, all while espousing his own commitment to transparency, love of facts, and personal qualities of responsible leadership. The extent of the cynical hypocrisy on display here is simply breathtaking.

And I'm far from being the only person who's not buying it anymore.

Irony, thy name is Zuckerberg

Clearly, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg did not know that the NY Times' blockbuster report detailing his own company's anti-Semitic fake news campaign was in the works when he made this decision. As reported by c|net:

Mark Zuckerberg is "not able" to attend a joint disinformation hearing in London, Facebook says, despite calls from politicians from five countries.

The Facebook CEO isn't giving in to pressure to provide testimony on Nov. 27, even after Argentina, Australia and Ireland added their voices to those of the UK and Canada last week.

In a letter to the UK's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the company declined to say why Zuckerberg couldn't attend, but said it remains "happy to cooperate" with the inquiry. The letter also laid out some of the efforts Facebook has made over the last year in areas like fighting fake news and striving for transparency in political ads.

Damian Collins, chair of the committee, is leading the charge and noted that the social network's response is "hugely disappointing."

"The fact that he has continually declined to give evidence, not just to my committee, but now to an unprecedented international grand committee, makes him look like he's got something to hide," he said in an emailed statement."

It turns out Facebook actually did have something to hide: the fact that they're paying for exactly the brand of fake news that Zuckerberg claims to be fighting. How much longer he'll be able to keep dodging questions about his company's activities, while proclaiming his happiness to cooperate, remains to be seen, but I have a feeling it won't be too much longer.

#FacebookIsTheProblem
#FuckFacebook
#deleteFacebook

This week in Facebook

It's shaping up to be another bad week for Mark Zuckerberg.

The NY Times have published a blockbuster piece, reporting that Facebook were not only fighting the spread of fake news on their service, but actually spreading some fake news of their own: in particular, to paint their wave of post-Cambridge Analytica negative PR as some sort of George Soros-funded anti-Facebook conspiracy.

[As] evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.

When Facebook users learned last spring that the company had compromised their privacy in its rush to expand, allowing access to the personal information of tens of millions of people to a political data firm linked to President Trump, Facebook sought to deflect blame and mask the extent of the problem.

And when that failed — as the company’s stock price plummeted and it faced a consumer backlash — Facebook went on the attack.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.

This means that Facebook funded anti-Semitic propaganda for no other reason that petty material self-interest. Which means that Facebook now have real blood on their hands, after a wave of anti-Semitic social media content on their own site helped inspire one of the worst incidents of anti-Semitic mass murder in U.S. history. And Jews weren't the only targets of Facebook's fake news campaign.

1809 update finally released by Microsoft, along with empty promises of future change

We always knew it would come eventually; the only remaining question was the timing of the thing. Let's start with the details, as reported by ZDNet:

Microsoft has resumed the rollout of Windows 10 version 1809. The re-release of the so-called October 2018 Update comes more than five weeks after the company pulled the original installation files from its download servers and stopped its scheduled delivery through Windows Update just days after its initial debut on Oct. 2.

In a blog post, Microsoft's John Cable, the director of Program Management for Windows Servicing and Delivery, says the data-destroying bug that triggered that unprecedented decision, as well as other quality issues that emerged during the unscheduled hiatus, have been "thoroughly investigated and resolved."

Not exactly Half Life 3

Lest we forget, Valve Software isn't only working on separating their primary business, the Steam storefront, from Microsoft's Windows OS. They're also devoting significant resources to VR technology, an R&D spent which apparently includes Valve-branded VR hardware, likely iterating on HTC's Vive designs, and supporting software, including a sequel prequel to Half-Life 2.

As reported by UploadVR:

Images of a prototype VR headset with a Valve logo visible on the circuit board leaked on the image sharing website imgur. Our independent sources tell us these are in fact prototypes for an upcoming Valve HMD.

We’ve also heard the field of view will be 135° with “Vive Pro resolution.” It may also come bundled with ‘Knuckles’ controllers as well as a Half-Life based VR game that could be a prequel rather than the much-anticipated Half-Life 3.

Cue the Half-Life 3 jokes in 3... 2... 1...

And now, with that out of our collective systems, let's talk about the potential impact of this.

Microsoft tap Phil Spencer to fix the Windows Microsoft Store

The Windows Store has been a wasteland of shit ever since Microsoft first launched it alongside Windows 8. Married to a Universal Windows Platform that never did take off, it has long been a developer- and customer-forsaken place; intended as the channel through which all applications would flow, to both desktop and mobile devices, it's instead become something of an albatross: an awkward, burdensome reminder of Microsoft's monopolistic sins.

This is at least partly why Microsoft rebranded the Store last year; Windows Store had negative connotations for consumers from which they wanted to distance themselves, in much the same way that the Windows 10 name was intended to put more distance between the current Windows version and the wildly unpopular Windows 8. Microsoft only changed the name, though, apparently hoping that a re-brand would be change enough.

Consumers, however, weren't fooled; when they remember to use the new name, it's normally as an afterthought. And, critically, nothing else about the Store was changed; it's still a developer- and customer-forsaken place, where it's both easier and more desirable to search for TV shows than software. This is especially true of games; even when they're running Windows 10, PC gamers use Steam, not Microsoft's terrible storefront, unless they're given no other choice. And Valve is working hard to ensure that they have other choices in most, if not all, cases.

The situation was clearly untenable for Microsoft, and it seems they've finally decided to do something about it: they're tapping the one person in their senior leadership team who seems to understand what consumers want, and to understand that it's important for a business to provide what consumers are asking for, to finally fix the thing. As reported by WCCFTech:

Phil Spencer, previously Head of Xbox at Microsoft, was promoted last year into the Senior Leadership Team where he now reports directly to CEO Satya Nadella as the Executive Vice President of Gaming. Spencer has since suggested that gaming isn’t the proverbial red-headed stepchild at Microsoft anymore, thanks to the importance placed by Nadella himself in this growing market.

We haven’t heard much from him after E3 2018. However, he briefly appeared on yesterday’s Inside Xbox: X018 Special live from Mexico City to make a few statements, the most interesting of which directly addressed the state of Windows 10 gaming on PC.
When asked about what will come next, he expressed the intent to focus on improving the Windows Store (now formally now as Microsoft Store) so that it can be properly tailored towards gamers.

Has Microsoft finally stopped trying to make "fetch" happen with Cortana?

I've been posting about Cortana, and why it should be optional in Windows 10, for a while now. By turning Cortana on by default, frustrating attempts to turn it off, and forcing all searches through Cortana, including local file searches, Microsoft basically forced users to sacrifice privacy in exchange for the use of a feature that most of them didn't care about at all.

But with Javier Soltero, Microsoft's head of Cortana, departing the company, and Alexa, the rival digital assistant from Amazon, now available on the Microsoft store, it was looking more and more inevitable that Microsoft would start backing Windows 10 away from this sort of forced Cortana integration. With the market having spoken, and saying clearly that Cortana was not a selling point of Windows 10, how long would Microsoft keep forcing its use as WX's default for all search?

The answer to that question, apparently, is "until the 19H1 update," as reported by WindowsLatest:

Microsoft is making some changes to how Windows Search works in Windows 10. With Windows 10 19H1 update, Microsoft is reportedly planning to remove Windows Search from Cortana. It’s a smart move as this could eventually allow you to use the search feature flawlessly even if you don’t like Cortana.

Windows 10 19H1 will separate Cortana and Windows Search, and two different icons will be displayed on the taskbar. It’s a pretty neat change as this would allow Cortana to act more like a personal digital assistant and you can use Windows Search if you’re looking for files, pictures, music and other stuff stored in your local drive.

Screenshots show menus which seem to allow users to hide the new Cortana button -- not quite as good as allowing users to simply disable Cortana, but when combined with the separation of Cortana from search, it amounts to functionally the same thing.

This is a good move. Microsoft's insistence that users must use features and products that they had repeatedly indicated they had no interest in using was one of the most annoying things about Windows 10. Nobody cares about Cortana, or Edge, or Bing, and yet Microsoft was dead set on making them unavoidable, in a display of either monopolistic arrogance, desperation, or simple tone-deafness, which had long since convinced a large number of Windows 7 users to put off the switch indefinitely, if possible.

If nothing else, this latest move explains by Javier Soltero is leaving the company. As someone who'd internally championed Cortana, the prospect of having Cortana de-emphasized in Windows 10, and his own role and career prospects with them, probably made leaving look like a really attractive option. But if Microsoft really are finally learning to let go, to stop trying to force with issue, then maybe that's about to change.

It's not enough to convince someone like me to switch to Windows 10, #Never10, #LinuxShift, but it is, finally, a start. Whether this first baby step has happened in time, is of course, a whole 'nother discussion.

Coming along nicely

As a PC gamer, with Windows 10 looking like more of a dumpster fire with each passing month, and Linux looking more and more like the OS that I'll end up using in 2020, I've obviously been keeping an eye on the progress of Valve Software's Steam Play/Proton initiative. I'd even tried switching to Linux a few months ago, literally formatting my hard drive and installing Ubuntu... only to discover that Ubuntu came with some frustrating limitations, and that Proton itself wasn't quite ready for prime time.

Proton was very promising, but it was clearly not a polished enough consumer experience yet that the average consumer should be thinking of making the switch. That was back in August, though, and this is November. With three more months to work on their tech, how much progress have Valve made?

There was only one way to know. Armed with my list of shame (i.e. every game on my Steam account that I have yet to play), I looked them up on ProtonDB to find out how they were rated for Steam Play performance. To say that the results surprised me, would be something of an understatement.

Here's how my Steam library breaks down, using the rating definitions from ProtonDB:

Native	Platinum	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Borked	No Rating
42.5%	13.7%	11.8%	13.7%	5.2%	7.2%	5.9%

OK, this is just embarrassing

Offered without any ado... this report, from Softpedia:

Microsoft has just released a free AV1 video codec for Windows 10 devices, and users can download it right now from the Microsoft Store.

Available as part of an early beta program, the codec is available for PCs, Surface Hub, and HoloLens, as Microsoft itself explained in the Store.

Oddly enough, the codec can only be installed on devices running Windows 10 October 2018 Update, which is no longer up for grabs after Microsoft pulled it last month. The October update came with several major bugs, including an issue that could have caused the removal of user files stored in libraries.

So.... any idea when your October 2018 update will actually be available, there, Microsoft? You know, just in case people want to actually use this new AV1 codec that you've just released for that same update, knowing that it's not actually available to Windows 10 users?

GG, Microsoft. GG.

Meanwhile, back in Windows 10

With Windows 10's 1809 update still M.I.A., and having had a very bad month in October, Microsoft were likely hoping to put the worst of their WaaS woes behind them. They've been busy hyping the latest 19H1 update's build and its features, and saying nothing at all about the ill-fated 1809 update, which is looking more and more like it also won't release until the first half of 2019.

But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and Microsoft's plans for Windows-as-a-Service are increasingly looking like they were poorly laid from the very start, so it should surprise nobody that Windows 10 has another issue. And, wow, is is a doozy, as reported by Gordon Kelly at Forbes:

Spotted by The Register, Microsoft’s activation servers have started accidentally downgrading expensive Windows 10 Pro systems into cheaper Windows 10 Home PCs, then invalidating their licences. Needless to say, that's a nasty financial hit (Home is $119, Pro is $199) and affected users are furious.

[...]

And it’s not just upgraders being affected. Problems with automated Windows 10 Home downgrades are being reported with fresh installs on different Windows Pro versions as well.

“Same issue on Dell computers running Windows 10 Pro 1803 that we just bought. Need to deploy to clients but they won't activate,” explained another user on Reddit.
Microsoft’s response? It’s not great.

On its official Answers page, Microsoft warns there is a “temporary issue” with the company’s activation server but has not disclosed any further details. As for users calling Microsoft’s call centres, the response is to simply wait for a fix.

Cue the expensive class-action lawsuits in 3... 2... 1...

Diablo's Immortal fiasco

In case you were wondering why I haven't posted here about Activision Blizzard's Diablo Immortal woes, it's because I've been posting about them on my blog all about Diablo III, and why it was such a disappointment to me.

You can find those posts here:

• Diablo Immortal... Kripparrian called it perfectly
• Diablo Immortal fallout keeps on falling...
• Diablo II's producer piles on
• Finally getting it
• Not so Immortal, after all?
• Diablo Immortal just became a lot less interesting
• Not good enough

As far as this blog is concerned, I believe that Blizzard's Diablo Immortal mis-steps are more a matter of incompetence than malice.

"Free is still not cheap enough"

I've been saying for some time now that the problem with VR wasn't its price point per se, but rather its lack of perceived value for money. There simply isn't enough that VR can do, which potential users want to do, and which they can't already do with devices that they already own. There is, in short, no reason for anyone to keep using VR after the initial wow factor wears off, a quality of current VR technology which led at least one analyst to label it as "drawerware."

That analyst and I are getting some backup, and the person backing us up might surprise you: it's Palmer Luckey himself, the founder of Oculus. As reported by RoadToVR:

Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus who left the company in 2017, recently published an article with his thoughts on what it will take for VR to reach the mainstream. Price, he argues, matters little if the experience is not keeping people coming back to the technology on a regular basis.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the piece published on Luckey’s personal blog this week comes just after reported priority shuffling at his former company, Oculus. Last week saw the departure of co-founder Brendan Iribe amidst reports that a significant upgrade to the Rift headset was cancelled in favor of a lesser iteration focused on keeping costs down.

Luckey’s piece, titled ‘Free isn’t Cheap Enough‘, argues that the number of headsets sold doesn’t matter if customers aren’t staying engaged with the product and using it on a consistent basis. “Engagement is Everything,” he writes.

“You could give a Rift+PC to every single person in the developed world for free, and the vast majority would cease to use it in a matter of weeks or months,” Luckey writes to illustrate his point. “I know this from seeing the results of large scale real-world market testing, not just my own imagination [his emphasis] – hardcore gamers and technology enthusiasts are entranced by the VR of today, as am I, but stickiness drops off steeply outside of that core demographic. Free is still not cheap enough for most people, because cost is not what holds them back actively or passively.”

If VR were not just cool, but useful, people would be willing to spend what it cost to buy in. It isn't, though, so they aren't, and there's no price low enough to change that value-for-dollar calculation in VR's favour. So says Palmer Luckey himself, one of the current reigning patron saints of VR. “No existing or imminent VR hardware is good enough to go truly mainstream, even at a price of $0.00. [his emphasis],"  says Palmer Luckey, in what I can only describe as a "holy shit" moment for the entire VR industry. Of all the people to voice this criticism, Palmer Luckey is just about the last person who I expected might do so.

And yet, is anyone really surprised?