Welcome to Technology News August 2015
Hello everyone! Let’s recap what has happened in the Technology World in August.
During August, we had a Technology News Update on some various articles, you can view it here.
Microsoft
Windows 10
July 29th saw the launch of Windows 10. It was a crazy time indeed with Brands not fully prepared for their older devices that caused countless issues when customers started installing Windows 10 under the assumption that when their computer said yes, it means yes, to find out 1 or more components would not work, or the more serious…ly ANNOYING! crippling of the entire system. Not only that, but other bugs showed their ugly face that were caused by many issues, including broken Windows files.
Despite the negative aspect, we were surprised how much better the success rate was, and the positive adoption to Windows 10 aswell. Many business around were ready to take on Windows 10 instead of in the past where it would take several years before moving plans were executed. One such American Business, a big business, shocked us and many when they announced their plans for migration to Windows 10, and that was Bank of America!
Some other controversies came out of the darkness, which included auto-updates and privacy settings defaulted to “flash your body parts for everyone to see”, or set to off, tell us all.
For the auto-updates via Windows Update, Microsoft have adopted a new policy to help prevent errors and security issues by forcing users to have updates via Windows Updates to download and install without control. The issue people had was the fact that they believe preventing errors is redundant if those updates caused errors.
The biggest issues for the average consumer is not worrying about updating things. By not updating, underlying factors could cause errors and flaws to appear regardless, that end up making them complain to various 3rd parties and Microsoft themselves about minor or major issues occurring that could of been prevented if they just updated. Microsoft drew a line in the sand and said “That’s it! we might as well help you with that”.
It seems that it includes 3rd party updates like drivers aswell. Frankly, we feel it will force engineers at Microsoft and Developers/Engineers for drivers and such from 3rd parties to put MORE effort into their workmanship to deliver stable updates.
For Privacy, Microsoft have made sure all privacy settings are set to send/receive/manipulate etc to Microsoft by default.
There is a lot to go through so instead, we would like to summarize our opinion on the matter.
By logging onto the internet, you have exposed yourself and its permanent. At the end of the day, anybody, like Government Agencies and Advertising/Consumer Wants & Needs Businesses will always have or find a way to invade your privacy to get what they need.
The data they collect is general or not even going to need the contents of the data. An example is the writing data. When Microsoft collect writing data, they don’t get sent your private email or whatever you are doing, it gets converted to these “Data strips” of code that helps understand HOW you write, not WHAT you write, which allows things like auto-correct to work better (and we all know the funny things that come out of auto-correct, all you need to do is Google it) but also helps the assistance programs understand, like Cortana or – You: “find a Bakery”, Siri: “Finding a Band Series”.
Microsoft own Outlook and other such programs you use for sensitive sessions, if they really wanted to, they would monitor those programs, but they don’t and you don’t hear the current criticism on those programs. Also, Google & Facebook just to name a few also have the same data collection yet it hasn’t been as big of a deal as Microsoft have had.
The point is, its not true Privacy Invasion, but you still can turn it off in the settings.
Nevertheless, 2 weeks into launch, 14 million devices were running Windows 10, then a little shy off 1 month, it jumped to 75 million.
Here is the current standings for OS Market Usage:
Data from NetMarketShare.comWindows Mobile 10
Microsoft have been pushing Windows Mobile 10 to get it ready for launch, pegged to be later this year.
Microsoft released a new preview build, version 10512. This build works on minor improvements and bug fixes, but indeed bringing new ones. We will continue our preview segment on Windows Mobile 10 when more big improvements are released, but its looking to be a polishing session until launch.
Speaking of the potential date for Windows Mobile 10 launch, the internet has been lighting up with rumors of the new Lumia range, particularly the Lumia 940/940XL, or is it 950? Yes, the number confusion is real, rumors says 940, others 950, for all we know it could be the Lumia 1,000,000.
The 9#0 has a codename of Talkman, where the 9#0XL being dubbed the Cityman. We don’t know the exact specs, but for the sizes, we should see the 950 at 5.2 inches and 950XL at 5.7 inches which is 0.2 more than iPhone 6 Plus.
Images did however leak:
.@bdsams I see your Cityman, and raise you a Talkman (top to bottom) pic.twitter.com/u9rACR4CeX
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) August 27, 2015
However, it is unclear if its real. The next image however is being dubbed more so as real:
It has been said that a planned event by Microsoft will unveil the new Lumia’s aswell as the Surface Pro 4, Surface Mini & Band 2. This has been set to October but details are unknown.
So we shall wait and see.
Apple
iPhone market shares dropped in the US while it grew in Europe, Japan and even Australia. Apple have struggled due to the vast number of fans using Google Android devices.
Apple Mac had a bug found. The Guardian wrote an article about the bug which an OS X environment variable “DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE” is considered a serious hole as it could allow hackers to remotely run a program on a Mac using administrator rights, which potentially opens up wide access to the entire operating system. The vulnerability has already been exploited “in the wild,” according to The Guardian, leading to at least one adware installer taking advantage of it to further its capabilities.
Everyone is talking about iOS 9 and how “awesome” Apple is compared to the competition. Some young lads decided to exploit the Fanboy’s of Apple by “Installing” Google Android on a iPhone and saying its “iOS 9”. Here is what happened:
The big talk is the reveal of the anticipated iPhone 6S, which is set to be shown at the press event Apple created for September 9th in San Francisco. iPhone 6S should not see huge changes but should include the Force Touch technology and other tweaks. Apple gets is majority sales from iPhone so its important that the S Series brings a lot to the table to encourage consumers in paying for a new phone again. Included in this event is the new Apple TV and most likely much more.
Who is excited for the new iPhone?
Comment below.
The huge moving image above is indeed the new logos/styles for Google just recently announced. Click the image to view their blog post regarding it.
Also watch their YouTube video showing how Google has evolved since its beginning.
Google has been taking fire like Microsoft about Privacy concerns and what they collect, only this time for Google, it seems that personal stuff could be affected more so than Microsoft.
Nevertheless, tracking your stuff helps companies give you a personal experience that would suck without it.
During August, we made a Technology News Update. In it, we posted the announcement of “Alphabet”, which is the new Umbrella Company over Googles businesses, including Google itself.
They have a new URL which is “https://abc.xyz/”.
Funny reactions have already come out of the change, just simply type -> abc.wtf <- in your URL and see what happens.
Google unveiled what the M in the new Android M Preview Build is, calling it Marshmallow. Marshmallow has prompted many mobile manufacturers to begin building new devices, with many getting announced.
Google have made their wearables compatible with iOS, so those who use an iPhone but like Google Watches more than the Apple Watch can have best of both world’s. It is an attempt to match Microsoft’s Universal Watch or really, Band, despite the Band not competing with the watches properly.
Take a look at our Technology News Update August 2015 for the rest of our articles.
Comment & Share Below.
Thanks for reading.
See you on Technology News September 2015.
