REVIEW: Windows 10

Introducing Windows 10

Via Engadget:

With Windows 10's launch little more than a week away, Microsoft kicked off its marketing storm last night with the first commercial for the new OS. It's a bit more direct and human than the company's infamous Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates ads, with a focus on children and how they're growing up with touchscreens and a wealth of new tech. As with any major product launch, Microsoft is planning a huge multi-million dollar media blitz for Windows 10. The big theme this time around is "people who make a difference," reports ZDNet. The software giant will likely have a much easier time pushing Windows 10 on consumers since it steps back from some of Windows 8 more dramatic (and controversial) interface changes.

Computer "Glitches" Shut Down New York Stock Exchange, United Airlines, WSJ

CNN reports:

The New York Stock Exchange suspended trading 11:32 a.m ET Wednesday. In a brief announcement, the exchange said it was experiencing a "internal technical issue" and said on Twitter that it's "not the result of a cyber breach." "We will be providing further updates as soon as we can, and are doing our utmost to produce a swift resolution, communicate thoroughly and transparently, and ensure a timely and orderly market re-open," the NYSE said. The Department of Homeland Security told CNN that there is "no sign of malicious activity" at the NYSE or with an earlier outage experienced by United Airlines. The Wall Street Journal's homepage stopped functioning around the same time that the NYSE went down. The Journal was able to restore a limited homepage by 12:18 pm ET with the message "WSJ.com is having technical difficulties. The full site will return shortly."

More about United:

United Airlines said on Wednesday it was restoring operations after all its flights were grounded for about two hours due to computer problems. Earlier, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all of United's flights following a systemwide computer glitch, which was resolved, the agency said. The grounding order began at 8 a.m. EDT and ended at 9:47 a.m. About 260 flights were delayed, or 12 percent of all United flights, according to website FlightAware, while seven flights canceled. United in a statement said "We are recovering from a network connectivity issue this morning and restoring regular flight operations." United said it would rebook flights for affected passengers without charge.

JMG reader Tom points us to a tweet sent last night by an account associated with Anonymous.

RUMOR: Apple To Launch Mega iPad

Get out the camping gear.

Apple is on track to bring out a giant iPad later this year that would rival, in size at least, Microsoft’s 12-inch Surface Pro 3, according to an analyst. “We expect it to be part of the iPad refresh in October,” Rhoda Alexander, director of Tablet and Monitor Research at marketing research firm IHS Technology, told FoxNews.com.  “Our sources are still indicating this is a 2015 product, slated to go into production mid-to-late third quarter,” she wrote in an email. Alexander is citing Asia-based sources who garner data from companies that supply components to Apple. “Sources indicate the panel will be 12.9-inches, with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,920,” she added.  That would be slightly less than the resolution (using pixels-per-inch as a yardstick) of the 9.7-inch iPad Air 2. A 12.9 inch display would approach the screen size of Apple’s 13.3-inch MacBooks. It may come with other features too. A recent report said that the tablet may come with a stylus. Alexander wrote that IHS has not been able to confirm this, however.

But will it stream to your watch?

The Apple Watch Launches Today

Microsoft Unveils Windows 10

Via USA Today:

Microsoft unveiled the first details of its Windows 10 operating system Wednesday, which they say will span devices from PCs and game consoles to smartphones and tablets. Terry Myerson, Microsoft's executive vice president of the company's operating systems group, says the latest rendition of Windows focused on "more personal computing." Myerson says Windows 10 targets three pillars: "mobility of the experience," trust and "the right interaction at the right time," hinting the platform can be controlled by mouse, touch or even gaze.

Among the new features is the introduction of a successor to the Internet Explorer Web browser, dubbed Project Spartan. The browser, which will work across multiple devices, includes a note-taking feature for annotating webpages, a reading mode and built-in support for PDF files. The Start menu appears to be a hybrid of the classic Windows PC interface and the tile-based presentation of applications, allowing users to go full screen with the Start menu for more information. Microsoft will also add Cortana, the personal digital assistant users communicate with through voice, to PCs running Windows 10

Microsoft Previews Windows 10

There is no Windows 9. Via USA Today:

Microsoft on Tuesday lifted the veil on the next version of Windows: Windows 10. At an event in San Francisco focused on corporate users, Microsoft previewed early elements of the next generation of its iconic computer operating system. It represents the first step in a whole new generation of Windows, said Microsoft executive Terry Myerson. The company said it will focus on one Windows product family across devices. Its corporate users will find Windows 10 "familiar, compatible and productive," Myerson said. Microsoft's Joe Belfiore gave a demo, focused on the core experience in how the PC "is evolving." There are live tiles, familiar to Windows 8 users, but also elements familiar to Windows 7 users, which is far more widely deployed. The Start menu and task bar are front and center.

Pet Shop Boys Perform World Premier Of Alan Turing Opera With BBC Orchestra

Accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Singers, last night Pet Shop Boys performed the world premier of their Alan Turing opera, A Man From The Future, at Britain's Proms event at Royal Albert Hall. The Independent has posted a review:

Tennant stands by the choir for A Man From the Future, with fellow Boy Chris Lowe behind him in familiar baseball cap and shades, tweaking a laptop. Juliet Stevenson’s disembodied narration, drawn from Andrew Hodges’ Turing biographies, is almost overpoweringly dominant. But getting the tale of Turing’s singular genius and representative tragedy across seems to outweigh the balance between words and music. “Conform, rebel or withdraw” are the choices the public schoolboy Turing is presented with, as ominous strings close in to cage him.  The remorseless glide of laptop-generated synth washes signal the machine-dreams which led him towards the computer’s invention. The BBC Singers then give the sensation of a dying fall, as the backroom heroism which turned the U-boat tide at Bletchley Park is passed over in a sentence. Tennant and Lowe aren’t interested in what Turing is belatedly honoured for now, but his shadow-life then. Bursts of hot, frantic swing follow him mentioning his homosexuality, and the furious swell of the choir’s baritones greet his downward spiral towards chemical castration by the state. His hot blood and mechanistic visions’ merging is expressed in the orchestral-laptop score. It is always, though, subservient to the verbal tracing of Turing’s fate.

Listen to the full performance below.

TOMORROW: World Premiere Of Pet Shop Boys' Alan Turing Opera In London

Tomorrow night at London's Royal Albert Hall, Pet Shop Boys will perform with the BBC Concert Orchestra in the world premiere of their Alan Turing opera, A Man From The Future. Via the Guardian:

"For one night only, I'm one of the BBC singers!" marvels Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant – he is adding his voice to the 18-strong chamber choir. "I can't imagine he'll blend in," deadpans his colleague Chris Lowe, who is usually found hiding behind a bank of synthesisers at their shows. He is worried about the lack of dry ice and lasers at the Royal Albert Hall. "The lights are always on [at classical concerts], aren't they? I personally am going to feel very exposed." It is not the first time a pop group has featured at the Proms. From Soft Machine's 1970 set (later turned into a live album)to last year's 6 Music and 1Xtra specials, pop and rock acts have often played a part in the two-month series. But Tennant and Lowe are doing something different this year: performing the world premiere of an ambitious new work, A Man From The Future. Based on the life of the extraordinary mathematician and Enigma code-cracker Alan Turing, it's an orchestral pop "biography" in eight parts for electronics, orchestra, choir and narrator.

Late last year Turing was granted a posthumous royal pardon for the 1952 homosexuality conviction that ultimately led to his suicide. The pardon prompted Tennant to change the closing of the opera.

"We had to [rewrite the ending to] point out that the convictions of tens of thousands of other men remain, and that hasn't really been discussed," says Tennant. However, the finale has a celebratory feel, and recognises the changes in attitudes towards homosexuality, globally. Tennant lists these happily: a 2013 US poll in which 52% of Americans were shown to approve of same-sex marriage, the moment in 1994 when John Major lowered the age of consent to 18 ("everyone forgets it was him that started things off").

Tomorrow's event will begin with Chrissie Hynde providing vocals on orchestral versions of several Pet Shop Boys classics, including Rent and Love Is A Catastrophe. The Turing opera will follow. The concert begins at 5:15PM New York City time and I'll post a live stream if one is available.

TRAILER: The Imitation Game

Opening on November 21st:

In THE IMITATION GAME, Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, the genius British mathematician, logician, cryptologist and computer scientist who led the charge to crack the German Enigma Code that helped the Allies win WWII. Turing went on to assist with the development of computers at the University of Manchester after the war, but was prosecuted by the UK government in 1952 for homosexual acts which the country deemed illegal.

Computer Passes The Turing Test

Via the Independent:

A programme that convinced humans that it was a 13-year-old boy has become the first computer ever to pass the Turing Test. The test — which requires that computers are indistinguishable from humans — is considered a landmark in the development of artificial intelligence, but academics have warned that the technology could be used for cybercrime. Computing pioneer Alan Turing said that a computer could be understood to be thinking if it passed the test, which requires that a computer dupes 30 per cent of human interrogators in five-minute text conversations. Eugene Goostman, a computer programme made by a team based in Russia, succeeded in a test conducted at the Royal Society in London. It convinced 33 per cent of the judges that it was human, said academics at the University of Reading, which organised the test.

The test was performed on Saturday, the 60th anniversary of Alan Turing's suicide after having been chemically castrated following his conviction for homosexuality. Turing received a posthumous pardon from the British government last year. You can chat with the program and see for yourself if it feels human. I think the responses come far too quickly. (Tipped by JMG reader Paul)

The End Of Windows XP

Microsoft has announced that as of today it will no longer support its Windows XP operating system.

"It's an old operating system," said Tom Murphy, director of communications for Windows. "Think of the cellphone you were using in the late '90s compared to what you see today. XP doesn't do the things we expect from our PCs or devices today." Maybe so, but getting consumers and small businesses to dump XP has been a bigger chore than anyone could have predicted. As recently as February, nearly 30% of all PCs in the U.S. were still running on Windows XP, according to Web analytics firm Net Applications. PCs running on Windows XP will still function as they did before. But Microsoft says it's unlikely that your PC will be secure, even if you're running anti-virus software. It's not only consumers who are vulnerable. Businesses have also been slow to upgrade. According to Softchoice, a supplier of information technology to businesses, about 40% of enterprises of all sizes still use Windows XP to some degree. In 7% of those firms, XP runs on more than 80% of devices.

Businesses and consumers are advised to visit Am I Running Windows XP to check which operating system is currently in use. Microsoft is offering a $100 gift card to those wishing to upgrade.

BRITAIN: Computer Genius Alan Turing Granted Posthumous Pardon

The British government today granted a royal pardon to Alan Turing, the computer genius who committed suicide after being chemically castrated following a conviction for homosexuality.

The brilliant mathematician, who played a major role in breaking the Enigma code – which arguably shortened the war by at least two years – has been granted a pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy by the Queen, following a request from the justice secretary, Chris Grayling. Turing was considered to be the father of modern computer science and was most famous for his work in helping to create the "bombe" that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. He was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment". His criminal record resulted in the loss of his security clearance and meant he was no longer able to work for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), where he had been employed following service at Bletchley Park during the war. He died of cyanide poisoning in 1954, aged 41.

More from the Guardian:

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Sharkey, who introduced the private member's bill in the House of Lords, said: "This has demonstrated wisdom and compassion. It has recognised a very great British hero and made some amends for the cruelty and injustice with which Turing was treated. "It's a wonderful thing, but we are not quite finished yet. I will continue to campaign for all those convicted as Turing was, simply for being gay, to have their convictions disregarded. That will be a proper and fitting and final end to the Turing story." Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said the royal pardon was long overdue, but also due to "another 50,000-plus men who were also convicted of consenting, victimless homosexual relationships during the 20th century".

RELATED: Filming began in September for the Turing biopic, The Imitation Game.

New Site: Have I Been Pwned?

Computer security specialist Graham Cluley tips us to a website that has compiled the jillions of email addresses recently exposed when hackers obtained the membership accounts of popular websites.

Enter sites like “Have i been pwned?”, created by computer scientist Troy Hunt. Have I Been Pwned makes it easy for you to search for your email address amongst the hundreds of millions of accounts exposed, following breaches at Adobe, Gawker, Yahoo and others. It’s important to realise that Have I Been Pwned *doesn’t* have a database of your passwords. Troy isn’t interested in your passwords (or the hassle of securing them). He just wants to make it easier for folks to tell if they were one of those who were affected, and where they might have accounts which are at risk. Right now, Troy’s project is limited to scanning the exposed databases of Adobe, Stratfor, Gawker, Yahoo and Sony to see if a particular email address is contained within. Clearly, the more that list grows the more useful his service will be. But as more stolen user databases are publicly disclosed and made known to him, Troy says he plans to add to the list. I can certainly imagine this becoming a useful free service for people who may have fallen victim through no fault of their own.

Check your accounts here.

Aging Simulation

Via Huffington Post:

Watching it never grows old. Anthony Cerniello's aging simulation video (above) is blowing minds across the Web not only for its haunting effect -- but for his painstaking process to achieve it. Cerniello used his friend Danielle as a model and turned her into a composite by combining photos of her relatives, young and old, who have the greatest facial resemblance, thisiscolossal.com reported. Then animators and a 3D specialist helped bring the subtle transitions to life.

PC Sales Down After Windows 8 Release

According to reports released yesterday by two firms that analyze the computer market, PC sales have dropped steeply since the release of Windows 8.

The ailing personal computer market is getting weaker, and it's starting to look like it will never fully recover as a new generation of mobile devices reshapes the way people use technology. As if that news wasn't troubling enough, it appears that a pivotal makeover of Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows operating system seems to have done more harm than good since the software was released last October.

"This is horrific news for PCs," said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. "It's all about mobile computing now. We have definitely reached the tipping point." First-quarter shipments of PCs fell 14 percent from the same time last year, according to International Data Corp. That's the deepest quarterly drop since the firm started tracking the industry in 1994. Another research firm, Gartner Inc., pegged the first-quarter decline at 11 percent.

The above-linked story notes that one of the firms did not include PC tablets or any device with a detachable keyboard in its sales analysis.

Google's Holiday Special For Teachers

Google has a special holiday offer for America's teachers. Via Engadget:

Teachers will be able to purchase the already-cheap Samsung Series 5 Chromebook for $99 this holiday season, Google just announced on its blog. Mountain View will offer the Chromebook for that discounted price thanks to a partnership with the online charity DonorsChoose.org and that $99 covers management and support in addition to the hardware. Public-school teachers who qualify will need to head to the Donors Choose website and to put in a request for up to 30 units. Everyone else can simply admire that act of benevolence -- or head to the aforementioned URL to make a donation of their own.

I considered getting a Chromebook, but they were always sold out when I looked.

Take The Blue Pill, Neo

Some physicists are trying to determine if we are actually living in the Matrix.

In 2003, University of Oxford philosophy professor Nick Bostrom published a paper, "The Simulation Argument," which argued that, "we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation." Now, a team at Cornell University says it has come up with a viable method for testing whether we're all just a series of numbers in some ancient civilization's computer game. Researchers at the University of Washington agree with the testing method, saying it can be done. A similar proposal was put forth by German physicists in November.

So how, precisely, can we test whether we exist? Put simply, researchers are building their own simulated models, using a technique called lattice quantum chromodynamics. And while those models are currently able to produce models only slightly larger than the nucleus of an atom, University of Washington physics professor Martin Savage says the same principles used in creating those simulations can be applied on a larger scale. "This is the first testable signature of such an idea," Savage said. "If you make the simulations big enough, something like our universe should emerge."

I always thought the fake world in The Matrix was more appealing that the real one.

Alan Turing Film To Play NYC And DC

Codebreaker aired last November on British television.  Single screenings are scheduled for next Thursday in NYC and DC.  The filmmakers have a launched an online request system for screenings in other cities.


(Via Boy Culture)

New Edition Of Monopoly Honors Gay Computer Genius Alan Turing

Thanks in part to Google, Alan Turing, widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, has been honored with a special version of Monopoly. Turing, who committed suicide in 1954 after being sentenced to chemical castration for being gay, would have been 100 years old this year.

The board's London landmarks, and its Community and Chance cards, have been swapped for places and events important in Turing's life. Players can move their pieces from his birthplace in Maida Vale to Hut 8 at Bletchley Park. Search giant Google has bought 1,000 of the sets and donated them to Bletchley Park to help raise funds. The board of the special edition is based on a hand-drawn variant of Monopoly created by William Newman in 1950. William was the son of scientist Max Newman who was a key figure in Turing's life. The hand-drawn version was thought to have been lost but was rediscovered in 2011 and donated to the Bletchley Park museum soon after.

Bletchley Park Museum writes in a press release:

“Bringing this board to life has been one of the most exciting and unique projects we’ve been involved with here, and we’re thrilled to see it finally available for others to enjoy,” said Iain Standen, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust. “This edition really completes the fantastic story of the board, from it being played on by Turing (and his losing on it!), to it going missing and then being rediscovered and donated to the museum here. Of course, we’re also very proud that Bletchley Park adorns the ‘Mayfair’ square!” Peter Griffin, Development Director EMEA, Winning Moves, added, “We hope fans of Turing across the globe will enjoy playing on this very special edition of Monopoly. Through play, they will find out more about Turing’s remarkable life and his crucial role shaping the society we enjoy today. As an ex-student of Kings College, where Turing himself studied, this was an honour to help develop.”

Pre-order Alan Turing Monopoly. (Tipped by JMG reader Alan.)