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I ran across this article which reports one Verizon customer used 77 TB in one month. He has a rack of servers in his home. If you allow someone to take advantage of you, there will always be someone to take you up on the offer.

It turns out the superduper Tesla Model 3 is going to cost its owners more money they what it appears on the surface.

I've said it here numerous times, as the Tesla becomes more accessible to the slobs on the street the free and fancy is going to die out.

Go beat that drum, fanboys.

A clean install may not work. There is a hook in Windows 8 and later that allows OEM firmware to supply a list of software to install after a clean install.

The feature was originally designed so Windows could automatically install necessary OEM-specific drivers without requiring a custom installer be used. Sadly, OEMs have used it to install vulnerable crapware.

You just can't win against crapware.

What about 15TB in 2.5" form factor?
http://arstechnica.com/informa...

I was going to say something something full disk encryption. If you have a SSD there are more requirements in that front. You might have the right hardware and configuration to jump through all the hoops correctly in the Windows world. http://arstechnica.com/informa... http://arstechnica.com/informa... If you have a gaming machine, why not update if just for DirectX? It's a toy. Is Windows 7 getting you anything for gaming? If you're doing serious work on Windows, I feel bad for you. I guess the question is, how many more years of use do you want out of your current setup?

I was going to say something something full disk encryption. If you have a SSD there are more requirements in that front. You might have the right hardware and configuration to jump through all the hoops correctly in the Windows world. http://arstechnica.com/informa... http://arstechnica.com/informa... If you have a gaming machine, why not update if just for DirectX? It's a toy. Is Windows 7 getting you anything for gaming? If you're doing serious work on Windows, I feel bad for you. I guess the question is, how many more years of use do you want out of your current setup?

First of all, this is all way off topic from TFA.

Second, most of the time the DMCA is used to bully people who have legitimate claims over content through fair use or in some cases direct contracts with content providers.

Probably the best one can be read about in Ars -- http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

The video was mentioned by name in the official recommendations by the US Copyright Office on exemptions to the DMCA as an example of a transformative noncommercial video work. In other words, the US government said this was clearly a good example of fair use.

Fast forward a few months (I think) and Lionsgate issued a DMCA anyway, taking down the video, closing down the youtube channel of the poster and generally making themselves a nuisance-- despite the fact that the incredibly popular video was already named as a clear example of Fair Use.

For some reason the crappy movie Pixels created all sorts of DCMA takedown requests on content predating the movie, and even trailers for the movie itself

http://www.slashgear.com/dcma-...
http://www.cinemablend.com/new...

Why does a TV need internet anyway as long as you're not dumb enough to jump on the smart tv bandwagon.

In 5 years you may not be able to buy a dumb TV anymore, as manufacturers are shifting away from them. It's rather onerous to buy a dumb TV now, unless you want to order one online and deal with returning the first couple that show up broken. Go to any big box store and look at the big screen display televisions they have hooked up. Almost every one of them is internet enabled and some of them are internet required. As in, if you turn on your TV and it can't phone home to the mother ship, you aren't watching anything today. Not even from your DVD player.

A TV is no longer an appliance that you buy, own, and use as you see fit. Having a TV in your home is quickly becoming a "service" that you must license and rent from a company like Samsung. Of course Samsung won't send you a monthly bill like the cable company does; they'll get their cut through the device itself, with always-on microphones, viewer analysis that would make the Neilsen ratings people cream their pants, unskippable advertising, and constant spying on your household to monetize you. This isn't tinfoil hat stuff, it's been evolving for a few years already.

The masses will accept these Telescreen devices because the price goes down a couple hundred dollars. And the manufacturers will stop making televisions that don't do this shit. Give it a few years and trying to buy a dumb TV that doesn't require internet access will get you blank stares or laughed out of the store like you'd get if you tried to buy a CRT television today. You and I, who want to buy a TV without any of these "features," will be relegated to poking around at garage sales hoping to find one that still works.

it's the most powerful CPU Intel has ever released.

Actually, no. Other chips are faster per core (6700K for one) and Xeons go up to 22 cores.

1. Not all transit providers are equal. Some make better deals with peers than others.

Not all watermelons are equal, either; some are larger and/or have fewer seeds than others. In fact, outside of mathematics, it is quite rare to find two truly equal entities. Basically, inequality is a given in the real world. Hell, not all streaming video providers are equal, which is why many people subscribe to two or more. In fact, Netflix uses multiple transit providers[1-8] for similar reasons.

2. Some transit providers are less expensive because they lack the ability to make the best deals with peers.

This is just plain backwards. A transit provider who makes better peering deals has lower costs, so they don't have to charge as much! I know this seems counter-intuitive when you consider that those providers also offer a better service, as you'd think that's something they could charge a premium for, but it should make a bit more sense when you consider the corollary: a transit provider who makes worse peering deals has higher costs, which they must recoup from their customer. Sort of like how Costco charges less because they make better deals buying in bulk; or, rather, other retailers must charge more because they didn't make the same deals.

3. To cut costs, Netflix chose a less expensive transit provider.

First of all, your assertion that Netflix uses a single transit provider is just plain wrong[1-8]. It has been made public knowledge (despite being none of our damn business) that their primary transit providers are Level 3 and Cogent[1-8], and that they purchase transit services from at least 4 other providers, Tata, XO, NTT, and Telia[1,3].

As for your assertion that Netflix only buys from the lowest bidder, well, it appears that the buy from anyone who can provide transit between them and the networks their customers are on[1-8]. Not only do they buy transit from all three available providers who route directly from their POIs to Comcast's[1], they even buy transit from Comcast now[3]. And, despite that, I still see buffering issues with Netflix on a 75Mbps Comcast Business connection, which points to the issue not lying with Level 3, Cogent, or any of Comcast's other providers with names not starting with C and rhyming with "bombast".

In case you want sources, here[1] are[2] a[3] few[4] you[5] can[6] check[7]. out[8].

At least you proved you weren't trolling; I guess that only leaves one other possibility.

Footnotes:
[1] "Netflix attempted to address congested routes into Comcast by purchasing all available transit capacity from transit providers that did not pay access fees to Comcast—which involved agreements with Cogent, Level 3, NTT, TeliaSonera, Tata, and X0 Communications. Although all six of those providers sold transit to the ent

How does Ubuntu Phone compare to Firefox OS?

I know that Firefox OS has received some of the most negative software reviews of all time. So in some ways it's hard to see Ubuntu Phone doing worse than Mozilla managed to do with Firefox OS.

While Firefox OS pretty much limited app developers to using limited technologies like JavaScript/HTML/CSS, does Ubuntu Phone have similar limitations? Can Ubuntu Phone apps be developed in real programming languages like C, C++, Java, C#, and Swift? Does it support real GUI widget libraries?

Despite being built upon Linux, it's like Firefox OS went out of its way to hide or replace everything good about Linux and instead offered us really shitty web-based alternatives. Does Ubuntu Phone make the same mistake?

You can make jokes but she has a point...why would I give a shit about the GPL if I'm a company if I can just take the parts I want and claim fair use? Do YOU have enough money to fight my corp, as well as all the other corps if they decide to jump on the bandwagon?

Remember boys and girls, Google is NOT a friend of the GPL, in fact they are slowly but surely pulling a EEE with Android by putting more and more critical functions behind the playwall. These megacorps give not a single fuck about your license, all they care about is what their lawyers say they can get away with...hell of a lot of GPL code that is little more than APIs, that equals a lot of code that corps can now snatch with impunity.

The best part was when that vapid bitch got in front of a microphone to state quite plainly that they "didn't buy Oracle" just to file the suit against Google.

Presumably you're referring to the Oracle co-CEO saying they didn't buy Sun just to file the lawsuit?

"Once inside the network, the hackers modified software called Alliance Access to both make the transactions and hide the evidence. Alliance reads and writes SWIFT messages to files on the filesystem, and it records transaction information in an Oracle database. The hackers created malware that removed integrity checks within the Alliance software and then monitored the transaction files sent through the system, searching the payment orders and confirmations for specific terms. These terms and the responses to them were specified by a Command and Control server in Egyp When a message with one of the search terms was found, the malware would do different things depending on the kind of message. Payment orders were modified to increase the amounts being moved, updating the Alliance database with new values. Confirmation messages from the SWIFT network were also modified. Confirmations are printed and stored in the database. Before being printed, the malware would alter the confirmations to show the original, correct transaction value; it also deleted conformations from the Alliance database entirely. It's still not clear how the initial transactions were entered into the system to trigger the malware in the first place. Getting the money out is also difficult. It is being laundered through the Philippines, and that laundering is currently being investigated by the Philippine senate. The $81 million that was successfully stolen was sent to the Philippines to accounts at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) held by two Chinese nationals who organize gambling junkets in Macau and the Philippines. The money was moved to several Philippine casinos and then subsequently to international bank accounts. Philippine casinos are exempted of anti-money laundering law that requires them to report suspicious transactions, making them an attractive target for this kind of crime. The Treasurer of RCBC has resigned, and the manager of one of its branches is facing criminal charges after she withdrew $427,000 from an account linked to the theft. The Governor of the Bangladesh Bank, Atiur Rahman, also resigned in March over the heist.t" http://arstechnica.com/securit...

Read about why the news media sucks and you shouldn't freak out. http://arstechnica.com/science...

http://arstechnica.com/science...

More pairs = more power required for repeaters.

There was a pretty good article explaining all this on Ars yesterday.

http://arstechnica.com/informa...

...Where is the government when we truly needs them?...

GOP budget bill would kill net neutrality and FCC’s set-top box plan

.
It looks like the Republicans that control Congress are firmly in the grip of the cable and ISP lobbyists.

The fiscally optimum amount of network infrastructure is not the amount where bandwidth congestion management isn't needed, but the amount where the marginal cost (MC) of expanding the network equals the marginal revenue (MR) it would bring. Or in other words, when the additional profit from expanding the network drops to zero.

So when you say a "properly built network" doesn't need data caps, you are actually referring to an overbuilt network.

Now that we know that a properly built network has congestion (absent any congestion management), let's discuss solutions. How about making the data caps only apply during peak usage periods? Then you can schedule your torrents to run overnight when there's plenty of spare network capacity. And for Netflix, there's a solution called NightShift.

Riversimple in the UK. The car is called the Rasa. Spec sheet:

http://arstechnica.com/cars/20...

Hydrogenics spec sheet for the fue cell (I hate PDFs):

http://hydrogenics.com/docs/de...

Based on the car spec sheet, fuel cell appears to be either the HD8-200 or the HD8-500

Wow, that's some major bullshit going on there with "FACT".

* http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

I guess the take-away is that it doesn't matter if you know you are right; if the government (or business), thinks you are wrong, then they will try everything in their power (and money) to convict you.

1) This is a non-event, about on par with the non-events in nuclear power that mdsolar regularly submits (which for some baffling reason gets approved). The reflected sunlight set a few wire bundles on fire, and the fire damaged some piping. That's it. Ars Technica has about the only non-dramatized coverage of it I've read. I suppose you could view the hype as counterbalancing mdsolar's anti-nuclear hype, but I'd just rather not have hype of any kind on /.

2) The danger of solar comes mostly during installation and maintenance. Working on the roof (where most PV panels are installed) is the most dangerous construction job out there. And the always-generating nature of PV panels makes them an electrocution hazard. Not really an issue here since Ivanpah is a solar thermal plant.

3) After fuels that you burn and Banqiao, solar is the most dangerous energy source once you normalize for amount of electricity generated. About 10x deadlier than nuclear power,

The 6th amendment right to confront your accuser has caused many cases brought about by so called stingray devices to be dropped for fear of violating the NDA's signed by the department utilizing the devices, FBI included. I'm not saying they aren't out there or that many departments aren't over-stepping their bounds but any decent lawyer will challenge the source of transcripts and many cases have magically faded away for the lack of evidence unless they are major cases that can invoke secret warrants or such as national security issues.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

http://forums.theregister.co.u...

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

"Most of the modular promises have been toned down—now all the "base components" of a smartphone are built into the Ara body, just like a normal smartphone. The Ara body contains a fixed CPU, GPU, antennas, sensors, battery, and display. " http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...

displays NOTHING for me.. content on page relies upon scripting. noscript = no content = no visit

i saw this article first on ars anyway. here's the actual source at backblaze that tfs should have linked to instead of that polluted extremetech page.

You mean there is NO other supplier of recording/ fast-forwarding STB in the US? That's astonishing.

Remember that the United States is the home of software patents. Other makers of DVRs that allow simultaneous playback and recording have to license the "time-warping" patent from TiVo, usually after TiVo files suit. The only other widely used DVRs are those leased by cable TV companies and satellite TV companies.

They straight-up admitted it's not going to be historically accurate because it wouldn't be any fun.

And while there's a time and a place for that (it's important to know how much the real World War 1 sucked) this is a video game.

Take some truth and drink it deep thats some tasty truth nom nom nom enjoy the big plate of truth, I can give you more if you would like, wallpaper the page if you want?

And are you that thick that you do not understand that Apple had to refuse that openly put demand (or suffer a sharp drop in sales because their customers would not trust them anymore) ? Their refusal tells you absolutily [sic] nothing about their ability to enter their phones or not.

Last I checked, Apple was not "the phone company." They are a manufacturer. Maybe you are ignorant of what a "phone company" is. Let me help you: https://www.google.com/#q=phon... Do you see Apple on that page?

You original assertion was that the phone company could use their sooper dooper hacking ability to defeat encryption. Are you moving the goal posts again? I have no doubt Apple has the ability to defeat their own encryption methods on some phones running some version of ios. I have never said otherwise. When you can point out that the FBI goes to Verizon or AT&T to get plaintext on an iPhone, I will be impressed.

You wrote --> The phone company can, and does have all kinds of (often called "debugging") access to your phone you have little to no clue about, and which, even if you knew, you can't do anything about. [...] Absolutily nothing that is stored on your phone or anything your phone can do that is outside the reach of a phone company, and thus the "law enforcement" agencies.

Well, I call bullshit. I am asking you to give me proof. I asked earlier and you wanted me to do your homework for you. You want me to prove a negative.

Yes, rather voluminous ... What was it, way less than 50 IIRC.

Your memory is either faulty or you are willfully ignorant. On Slashdot, articles have reported between 100 and 400 at the Federal level and many more if you add in local cases awaiting resolution of the New York case resolution before litigating. A New York Manhattan Prosecutor is on record for 175 himself.

Citation: http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo...

Comey himself mentioned the following: He (Director Comey) also said that since October 2015, the FBI has examined "about 4,000 digital devices" and was unable to unlock "approximately 500."

How many of those devices were actually encrypted?

Citation from Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... and Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article...

Pardon me ? If the FBI has the Law on their side, why should they start with threats ? What you are saying there is that those feds legally have nothing to go on, but try to bully others into doing their bidding anyway.

You do realize that is what TFA is about, right? The FBI threatening more litigation against tech companies using encryption by default.

And yours speeks [sic] loudly of plain-old gullibility. Don't blindly believe everything you read, especially if the ones claiming something have much to win by you believeng [sic] it.

I do not believe everything I read, including you. I am still waiting for you to cite one single case where a "phone company," which is an entity distinctly different from a phone manufacturer, hacked a cell phone for any law enforcement agency and successfully defeated encryption permitting them to prosecute. I do believe that Apple does have the resources currently to defeat encryption on some of their phones. I also believe that Apple will work to remove that capability to prevent being caught in the position of being "bullied" (as you said) again, provided the Burr-Feinstein bill goes nowhere. And as I

The most common usages of drone are for Predator-type vehicles used by the military and battery powered multicopters used by hobbyists and others for short-range, low-payload close in flights.
The former are extremely expensive pilotless airplanes backed by a large ground infrastructure with unique capabilities (like their own satellites).

Please define extremely expensive. It is possible to build something similar to a Predator for less than the median price of a new car. The military is paying for the advanced airframe, which is irrelevant to the mission if not being shot at.

A fixed-wing drone with a four foot wingspan can reasonably loiter and shoot video for half an hour to an hour, using a combination of GPS and inertial navigation... for just a few hundred dollars.

The latter are relatively inexpensive, but for the most part can't carry more than small video camera and can't travel all that far.

A $120 quadcopter can lift a SLR... or a grenade. And subsequently press the trigger... or pull the pin.

Based on the breathless summary of this article, they make it sound like we already have the equivalent of the former in the packaging and cost of the latter, just waiting to take off with a hundred or so gallons of pesticide or able to travel 10+ miles delivering heavy packages with precision.
Do we? Are there available commercial civilian drones that can be operated by 1-2 people able to actually do the job of a crop duster?

It's not actually even a complicated task, and the only thing missing is FAA cooperation. For instance, you can buy this big R/C crop dusting heli, and if a guy with a remote can crop dust with it then an onboard flight controller can do the same job.

The Amazon thing sounds even more ridiculous, the equivalent of a small helicopter in terms of range and lift capacity.

Amazon has already demonstrated a drone capable of doing the job. Getting approval to use it is another matter.

Sure, but first show me the robot you've invented that can do them.

We've been talking about them here on Slashdot for ages.

When they solve this

Second, when they can work in poor weather.

Third, when they "work" when you aren't exactly using your car to go from point "A" to point "B". E.G. When you can tell the car to go pick up some hookers for you.

Informative? Really mods? you DO know they didn't start shoving that telemetry shit until AFTER Windows 10 flatlined, yes? And that its dead simple to remove the telemetry from Win 7/8/8.1 and can be done with a simple batch file, yes? And that with Windows 10 its impossible to get it to stop leaking data, that even the pirates have failed to be able to strip enough from that Bonzi Buddy of an OS to get it to STFU, you DO know this...yes?

As for the other poster who called this koolaid drinker I'm responding to a shill? Look at the posting history before throwing around shill, as this one is obviously just a raging fanboy, no different than that Appletard I ran into here that still swears that "Apples don't get viruses" because his definition of a virus is so fucking narrow that no malware written past 1992 would pass, or the FOSSie that swears Linux is growing on the desktop and then when you provide the latest desktop stats starts talking about routers....he has guzzled the koolaid, can't admit he's been buttfucked by spyware, so will furiously wave his little winflag until his wrists break.

The difference between a shill and a fanboy is a BIG fucking difference and why shill shouldn't be thrown around lightly, shills are professionals sent to signaljam communication channels with propaganda, fanboys are just flag wavers for certain products. if you have trouble spotting the difference? Go look up the articles from this site that were tearing into the Metro UI when Win 8 was first shat out and you'll find plenty of actual shill posts. For those that are too lazy shills 1.- Either have new accounts or old accounts that are ONLY used when a company they are shilling for has an article and the rest of the time are dormant, 2.- They stay on message in every post, no talk of anything other than the positives of brand X or the negatives of brand Y, 3.- They almost always tend to slip into "buzzword bingo" because middle management likes them to push the latest company horseshit so you see words and phrases nobody uses outside the boardroom like "vertical integration", "product synergy", and "positive user experience" so it ends up reading like a PPT.

Contracts have limitations on what they can allow a party to do. Contracts are found to have unenforceable conditions all the time, and there are also limitations on what rights can be signed away. Just look at Illinois, which is allowing a lawsuit to proceed against Facebook for its attempt to tag people in photos without their permission.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

A clause in a contract stating that Apple has the power to take your music permanently in exchange for using their service temporarily is almost certainly unenforceable.

Austin defeated an ordinance that was forced onto the ballot by Uber and Lyft, who said "Pass our ordinance or we'll pick up our toys and go home."

This was never really about Austin. It was about teaching a lesson to other cities who might follow Austin's lead.

Uber and Lyft have backed themselves into a corner. If they leave, they'll leave an opening for other companies to come in and grow (GetMe is already here and probably salivating at the prospect); if they don't leave, they'll show other cities they can be cowed after all. So expect them to leave long enough to show other cities they mean business, but then come back with deep discounts and free rides to kill off any homegrown competition.

FWIW, it's not just about fingerprints. For example, currently, Uber and Lyft are theoretically prohibited from stopping in traffic lanes (because people die when they do that), but the proposed ordinance was going to change that because they can make more money if they inconvenience everybody else.

But to the extent it was about vetting drivers, don't for a minute think that Uber and Lyft are planning on cheerfully taking responsibility for the actions of their drivers anyway.

torrent sites aren't illegal...unless you live in some totalitarian shit hole.

Which, as USians, many /. readers do. And even if they don't, the LEOs from said totalitarian shit hole are forcing their corporate masters' will on other countries, so the rest of us get to "benefit" from said shit hole's demands. (See what was done to TPB and what they're attempting to do to much of the world with TPP, TTIP and TISA.)

Who the hell is this "APK" and why is this tool sending me e-mails???

HTTPS provides several benefits:

- Encryption which, as you point out, keeps other parties from knowing the content of data you access. Sure, the bulk of that data may be mundane, everyday stuff that you don't really care if anyone knows about, but there's no harm in keeping it private in transit. It's the same reason you enclose letters in envelopes rather than sending postcards.

- Verifying the authenticity of the server. Domain-validated certificates offer a relatively low level of validation, but they still provide you reasonable assurance that the server you're communicating is the one operated by the actual owner of that domain name -- your connection isn't being intercepted and spoofed by some shady wifi hotspot, for example. Organization-validated and Extended Validation certificates provide higher degrees of validation, and include details (e.g. company name, location, etc.) of the entity to whom the certificate was issued.

- Tamper-resistance. All HTTPS connections provide tamper-resistance by using either HMAC or AEAD ciphersuites. This prevents third parties from altering the content. A public hotspot or your ISP may inject content, malicious or not, into unencrypted connections. HTTPS prevents this.

Considering that there's essentially no costs for using HTTPS (certificates are free or exceedingly cheap, CPUs have hardware support for AES so there's basically no overhead for encrypting data, ECDHE key exchanges are extremely fast, as are ECDSA signatures, and so present minimal load to servers. RSA signing is a bit slower for servers, but modern CPUs are fast and TLS handshakes are brief and only happen occasionally.) and many benefits, why wouldn't everyone want to secure data in transit?

File "phone with no button" along with "thinner phone." I don't need or want it. I don't care if my phone has one button, or three, or none. For that matter, I don't really care if my phone has a fingerprint reader due to legal and practical reasons.

Your link is bad.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

How about Audiophile ethernet cables. Hey, they're directional!

Ars Took them apart. and had a Double blind study with James Randi.

How about Audiophile ethernet cables. Hey, they're directional!

Ars Took them apart. and had a Double blind study with James Randi.

There is no central command, no inner circle to infiltrate.

That's the theory, but in practice it's actually a small number of people directing the group. For example, most members are script kiddies who download clients like Low Orbit Ion Cannon to participate in DDoS attacks. The attacks are directed by the few anons with some actual skill - the app simply fetches a file with a URL in it and starts hammering away.

If you read the infamous IRC logs from Anonymous IRC channels and the archives of posts on 4chan, you can see that it's actually just a handful of people, lots of sock puppets and a legion of useful idiots who joined in our of shear ignorance.

[nice story omitted] This is the future.

I'm not sure. With the mergers, the lobbyists, wholly owned legislators, content provider-ISP relationships, etc., I think that it may not be the future. They are doing everything they can to reduce the community broadband competition, like they did everything to gain monopolies in their service areas. A lot depends on who runs the FCC. The decision to override the state laws against community broadband (see this) could easily be overturned by the next administration. It could easily kill your service.

What can't you timeshift? Streaming.

Yes, you can.

While I realise some customers in the USA may have only one choice of ISP

That assumption is why you don't understand. It's not some, it's most. Here's an excerpt from a report from the US Department of Commerce:

[...] only 37 percent of the population had a choice of two or more providers at speeds of 25 Mbps or greater;only 9 percent had three or more choices.

Source.

Another article says basically the same thing, coming from the FCC.
And even when customers DO have a choice, I wonder how often one of them would offer 'Unlimited' when its competitor doesn't.

They stared with forcibly not allowing Windows 7 and 8.1 to run on Skylake hardware after 18 months...
http://arstechnica.com/informa...

They're also removing USB 2.0 support, to make sure your much-older computers are properly neutered. Guess you're going to be using that Skylake-esque hardware after all...
http://wccftech.com/intel-skyl...

Don't ask a question if you don't want to know the answer!.

Yep and tons of companies are switching to alternatives. Microsoft is losing it's grip fast.

Reality bites.

It is not an easy time to be in the tech business, even Google would admit to that. But Microsoft remains strong where it has always been strong.

Microsoft currently has three reporting segments: Productivity and Business Processes (covering Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Skype, and Dynamics), Intelligent Cloud (including Azure, Windows Server, SQL Server, Visual Studio, and Enterprise Services), and More Personal Computing (covering Windows, hardware, and Xbox, as well as search and advertising).

Productivity and Business Processes revenue was $6.5 billion, up 1 percent year-on-year, with operating income of $3.0 billion, down 7 percent. Gross margin also fell 4 percent. A large part of this drop was due to the strong dollar; in constant currency, revenue was up 6 percent and gross margin up 1 percent. The quarter was marked by an unusually strong performance from Office consumer products and cloud services; after many quarters of large year-on-year declines...in the most recent quarter Office consumer revenue was up by 3 percent (6 percent constant currency). Office commercial revenue was unchanged (up 7 percent in constant currency).

Both commercial and consumer Office 365 offerings appear to be doing well. Commercial seats are up 57 percent year-on-year. Consumer subscriptions have nearly doubled, from 12.4 million to 22.2 million. The Dynamics range also continues to grow strongly, with revenue up 4 percent (9 percent constant currency).

Intelligent Cloud revenue was up 3 percent to $6.1 billion (up 8 percent in constant currency), but operating income was sharply down by 14 percent to $2.2 billion. Server product and cloud service revenue was unchanged (though up 3 percent constant currency). Enterprise Services revenue was up 11 percent (15 percent constant currency). Among server products, the company saw gains in subscription revenue offset by declines in transactional purchases. Azure revenue was up 120 percent (constant currency), with Azure compute and SQL usage doubling year-over-year,

Personal Computing revenue was $9.5 billion, up 1 percent (3 percent constant currency), and operating income was also up 57 percent to $1.7 billion. As with Office, the Windows figures showed surprising strength in consumer markets: Windows OEM non-Pro revenue was up 15 percent year-on-year, outpacing the consumer PC market, driven by a higher volume of premium device sales. .

Microsoft's $20.5B quarter: Office up, Surface up, cloud booming

Ars Technica is a little more cautious about what is being offered here --- which is an alpha release for the desktop only.

I am a little wary myself when someone promises "no fees, no limits" on services which tend to get expensive as you scale up. Opera bundles free, unlimited VPN client into its browser

If some startup proclaims to compete with google, they usually get bought up, and don't continue to offer their services.

Oh really?

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...

Actually, quite a lot of religious conservatives do protest...

And by quite a lot, I presume you mean a very small number of extremely vocal groups such as the Parents Television Council that roboform generate 99.8% of the complaints for obscenity, indecency, and/or profanity.