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Easy. You call up the US vendor that sold China their Great Firewall and order another one. This one will be cheap, considering the UK's population is a fraction that of China.

Already done: TalkTalk (arguably the UK's worst ISP in general, as well as being the first to jump on the government's bandwagon) spent many millions of pounds (described in a related court case as "an eight figure sum") importing a horribly flawed censorship system from Huawei, which is one of the Chinese manufacturers of part of the Great Firewall.

A few principled UK ISPs are standing up to censorship, and still offering unfiltered services - though I do fear Cameron will attack them for it now: like most bullies, he can't handle criticism or opposition.

Wiping the contents of your laptop, or refusing to give a password in the US, is generally met with unfavourable consequences

Better than in the UK, where it's a criminal offence punishable by two years imprisonment. (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Part III)

And people are really locked up for that here.

It sounds like what you want is Swatch Internet Time http://www.pcpro.co.uk/computi...

hell, don't be too shocked if your own legal team files the petition against you - it's been known to happen:

http://www.yorkshireridingsmag...

Even solicitors can be declared bankrupt without judgement:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/36...

(not that that stops them from practising):

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/busi...

They probably went to the Donald Trump School of Hiding Wealth:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/cl...

(which was kinda handy for Ivana, who took half his assets - and none of the joint liabilities - in the divorce settlement)

Here's a real product that seems to almost do what the original poster is wanting, but not quite. But the it's a similar solution to what I described, but instead of discarding packets to allow the fasted packet to win, it aggregates bandwidth. Different problem, but similar solution.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/br...

I'm sorry but you're incorrect. In 2007 Windows Mobile had the largest market share of any OS for mobile devices, with 42% of the market:
http://bgr.com/2011/12/13/appl...

They had tied Blackberry the year before, and edged them out in 2007 which was when iPhone was released. Then the next year iPhone took over.

Going back pre-smartphone, when the only real players in the PDA arena were Palm and Microsoft, Microsoft surpassed Palm in 2004, and from then on it was all downhill for Palm as they tried to update an archaic OS to utilize advances in hardware.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/65...

Microsoft soundly won the PDA war, but then were totally decimated soon after the PDA market transitioned into the Smart Phone market. In turn, Palm, then Blackberry, then Microsoft all owned the market and then stagnated, failed to innovate, and were superseded by new OSes that didn't have legacy issues (or trying to maintain backwards compatibility, etc).

The USB stick that thinks it’s a keyboard Read more: The USB stick that thinks it’s a keyboard PC Pro blog http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2...

The won't find it that forgiving in the United Kingdom either. There has already been a copyright troll like this who tried to operate in the U.K. They are barred from practice at the moment and bankrupt. I suggest you search for "acs:law" to see how well it panned out for the last person who tried this.

Fair point. I'd forgotten about ACS:Law. That said, there are still fans of draconian measures against file-sharers in the current UK government. For example Government "must consider" jail time for illegal file-sharers.

I suppose there is always a place for more bandwidth, but the limiting factor is going to be spectrum space here. 5G is most likely going to increase bandwidth performance, but at what cost? Using 4G you can stream HD video now, what more do we actually need? For mobile devices, I'm not so sure there is much more necessary.

As always, the issue really is spectrum space. Where will it come from *this* time? Cell spectrum is generally well used (at least in urban areas) so there will be a huge push to find something else. Problem is that all the available spectrum is way up there, where solid state devices start having serious design issues and the power required is huge. You thought your 4G phone battery died quick...

Research is great, I'm just not thinking there is much practical that will come of this.

Well with 4G you can use your monthly data cap in five minutes. Many people look forward to the time when it will only take seconds.

For the TL/DR: graphical programming is inefficent, and error prone; better methods of viewing source code during read-back is more interesting.

Apple has the Automator, which takes actions and chains them together. You can define variables, and operate on them.

I used to work with an enterprise software called Adobe LiveCycle, which does business process automation -- the approach was that rather than defining the business workflows in a chart diagram, and handing it over to a programmer to implement, the diagram itself WAS the program - business workflow designers (often managers and business consultants who were not technical) could build the workflow as individual steps, and more tech savvy people would add the variables and stuff to make it work.

A quick search on Google images turns up a lot of interesting stuff, including this graphical programming tool . The techniques have been in the making for a while.

Needless to say, even with these visual aids, to get something worthwhile done, you need to have actual programming knowledge - the Automator is good for home use but cute at best in production environments due to lack of finer configurability, and the business process workflow programming I mentioned still required in-depth computer knowledge: the workflow creators' work was often computationally inefficient, and often had to be refactored to take into account finer points of logic flow from both efficiency and data management points of view.

On top of that, it's easier to search on the Internet and on forums for code snippets, and discuss these when they're already in text form - no programmer actually works in isolation, communication is essential. Some advantages in reading back code might be had in graphical representation, and certainly creating a "visualization tool" for reading back code or designing high-level ideas might be helpful - but making it the implementation language is probably a bad idea.

On that matter, I recently came across the LightTable IDE which facilitates programming by doing live demonstrations of what happens to variables directly in the code flow. This also catches syntax issues early, bad type casting, and other relevant issues. Much better than a graphical abstraction I think, but that may just be preference.

The linked article indicates that visual programming has had success with casual creators in very specific scenarios (education of young kids, and use in LittleBigPlanet) - not in the general purpose programming arena for business critical solutions, high throughput systems, etc. Also, it says nothing concrete apart from "it's a matter of opinion" - nothing about the advantages or disadvantages of either.

Ultimately, it's like asking why bread shops don't use bread making machines. Tools for the job, tools for the desired outcome. If the simpler method works at home, that's great - but if you want to work professionally, the more sophisticated method yields better control over the final product.

There's really no evidence that this is the case. Just speculation. PC Pro actually did some journalism and found that the actual ISPs had received no complaints

So the Guardian is doing the Daily Mail thing of nabbing articles from reddit, and accepting them at face value without any actual research. No wonder traditional newspapers are dying.

Not as good as it used to be, we run Forefront which uses the same definitions and have had a number of things get through it as of late.

MSE used to be good, but MS seems to have really slipped up last couple of years. They have fallen to the bottom of all the tests, that they use to be in the top of, and even if you don't believe in tests, more and more real-world reports of things slipping through, like poster above here. It has gotten so bad that MS themselves now publicly recommend that their customers use additional 3rd party AV. That is pretty damning.

The test you refer to (not tests) is a notoriously vendor-driven one, which really has no credence with the larger AV community. And there's a bit of misinterpretation; MSE is designed to be compatible with another AV solution, so that the two can coexist. This is made possible by the fact that MSE integrates with Windows as only a Microsoft product could. MS didn't say "don't use our solution all by itself, the MSE r h4x0red!"

Actually, I refer to tests. I guess you are probably referring to the beating they got in AV-Test, since MS publicly complained about that. But here is another one (look at bottom of graph page 9 or summary of results page 13 - zero stars to MSE). And here is another one, from the test lab used by PC Pro and others (see results page 7 and 8, not good).

Where did you get the notion that MSE is designed to co-exist with another AV-solution? Microsoft strongly recommends against this, it is the first line in their FAQ. If you have third party AV running when you install MSE it recommends to disable it. Which in almost all cases today would be a downgrade of your protection.

Not as good as it used to be, we run Forefront which uses the same definitions and have had a number of things get through it as of late.

MSE used to be good, but MS seems to have really slipped up last couple of years. They have fallen to the bottom of all the tests, that they use to be in the top of, and even if you don't believe in tests, more and more real-world reports of things slipping through, like poster above here. It has gotten so bad that MS themselves now publicly recommend that their customers use additional 3rd party AV. That is pretty damning.

The test you refer to (not tests) is a notoriously vendor-driven one, which really has no credence with the larger AV community. And there's a bit of misinterpretation; MSE is designed to be compatible with another AV solution, so that the two can coexist. This is made possible by the fact that MSE integrates with Windows as only a Microsoft product could. MS didn't say "don't use our solution all by itself, the MSE r h4x0red!"

Not as good as it used to be, we run Forefront which uses the same definitions and have had a number of things get through it as of late.

MSE used to be good, but MS seems to have really slipped up last couple of years. They have fallen to the bottom of all the tests, that they use to be in the top of, and even if you don't believe in tests, more and more real-world reports of things slipping through, like poster above here. It has gotten so bad that MS themselves now publicly recommend that their customers use additional 3rd party AV. That is pretty damning.

When you see "Russian", "USB key", "malware" and "SCADA" in a sentence you should automatically think Stuxnet, which TFA talks about at length.

Of all the things the Russians have been accused of, Stuxnet isn't high on the list. It's generally regarded as having come from a joint effort between the United States and Israel.

Stuxnet, happily, only attacks centrifuges,

And since a well-studied and highly innovative piece of malware that has been fully reverse-engineered, I'm sure we can all rest easy knowing nobody will ever come up with a variant that does anything different. Unless of course, it did.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html

Also, they impeded US investigation over that matter.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/374095/google-fined-for-impeding-wi-fi-data-investigation

Finally, they lied again about having already deleted the data.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9432518/Google-we-failed-to-delete-all-Streetview-data.html

Microsoft used secret APIs to give its programs an advantage over competitors. That had a big effect in the 1990's. It is apparently still going on in some things but we'll have to wait, as usual, a long time before it turns up in court records. And like before, the damage will have been done. The only way to stop it is to stop using M$ products.

You can find more like that if you wade through the material of the Comes V Microsoft case at the now archived Groklaw site. Basically anything bad that has been said about M$ and the people that work there is true.

Wasn't it just last year that SONY kept gettin' hacked for stupid security? And they weren't the only ones. Just a couple years ago, PC Pro had an article called "Is This The Golden Age of Hacking?". Last year, Ars Technica had an article "Why passwords have never been weaker—and crackers have never been stronger". The state of security on the internet is appalling & that was well known before Snowden woke people up with more facts about the appalling nature of internet security.

They just did: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2013/09/06/amazon-kindle-paperwhite-2013-review-first-look/

Yes, but at 40fps, 1024x768, and low detail settings.

Crysis never really was a "needs a beast rig to run" game. I played it on a low-end gaming laptop a year or so after it came out, on medium settings. The difficulty is mainly in maxing it out, at high resolutions. You still need a massive system to max it out at 2560x1440, or at 5760x1080. It's a game that starts at a moderately low load for minimum settings, but continues to benefit from performance increases until you reach a *very* high level.

Seems a reasonable bet... http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/software/379933/avira-free-antivirus-13

I agree Avira is good, I've used it even way back on windows 95/98/98SE. The current versions do tend to spam you with pop-ups trying to get you to buy the full product, but even so only a couple of times a day. Not quite to the annoying enough to switch to something else stage, but still it is annoying. I totally recommend buying it just to support them, and help get rid of the pop ups. I used to recommend bitdefender when they allowed you to buy multiple year subscriptions, but not so much anymore.

Seems a reasonable bet... http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/software/379933/avira-free-antivirus-13

Key passwords (maybe mail, the password managers ones, places where you must type your password frequently) should be easy to remember, and hard to crack (hint), the rest (there are always a lot of them) should be in one or more password managers (i.e. your browser, with a master password, but also more portable ones like KeePassX) where as are not meant to be remembered are easier to change, to put hardest complexity, and of course, to have all different. And try to avoid automated password trying, specially at fast speed, like using fail2ban or similar when possible or having a keyphrase in your private ssh certficate with PKCS #8 to slow down cracking,

But passwords are just a part of the equation, what run as your user usually have access as the same resources as you (i.e. could read your files, your clipboard, your keyboard input, so could capture passwords, no matter how complex they are), access sites to where you are identified on (i.e. single sign-on systems that enables the IP you are on means that a trojan running in your PC have your privileges, same for vpns, or internal systems not safe from xss attacks). And antivirus aren't as good as protection as they claim to be (Red October was active 5 years before being detected, they can be forced to contain backdoors). Using more secure OSs and browsers (at least, ones with no such overabundance of malware), and security practices (only install from official repositories, stop at mail server level things that don't come from where they claim to come, etc).

And of course, educate people. In real life you know things that are risky and dangerous (i.e. don't walk alone at night in high criminality rate neighbourhoods, drink and drive, touch electric wires, etc ), people should be able to understand what is dangerous or risky in internet too, including their private use at home (even if privacy is a lost cause, there are far more risks)

Trusting in someone that could be forced by law to give your encrypted communications (after all they have the right to see all your mails), or modify packaged software to let them in is risky this days. You maybe could trust in the FBI as in a concept, an entity that won't be interested in your trade secrets, but there are people working for them, and people and corporations giving orders to them directly or indirectly that have no problem abusing the power they have.

Open source, widely tested encryption and secure channels are your best options.

I use Windows 8 every day, and spend the large majority of that time on the *desktop.* Sure PC sales are flagging, and MS has to be more present in the tablet area. But the number are... anyone. Huge. They better get WITH IT! Because we Linux nerds know marketing, sales and what the people really want sooooo well. Also, when we all get into an echo chamber, the sound gets really loud! That means what we're all saying must be true! By Shona Ghosh Posted on 2 May 2013 at 11:18 Read more: Microsoft sold as many Windows tablets as all its partners combined | News | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/381583/microsoft-sold-as-many-windows-tablets-as-all-its-partners-combined#ixzz2SXEDxYcE http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/381583/microsoft-sold-as-many-windows-tablets-as-all-its-partners-combined "Including sales from Acer, Asus and other manufacturers, total Windows tablet sales came to 1.8 million, meaning Microsoft sold as many tablets as all of its partners combined." All you have to do is get off your asses and do the smallest amount of research to see that your positions of alarm for MS are debatable at best. I love when nerds get their panties in a bunch about an operating system that has already blown all Linux distributions into the weeds. Windows 8 is great. I think the Start Button replacement start screens are much better than searching through lists (click click click click click click). When people get used it, they'll start complaining about something else. Meanwhile, whatever PCs and Tablets with Windows and Windows RT will keep selling, way, way more than all desktop users using Linux. We should make a yearly "Microsoft is Going to Die Because _________," event where Slashdotters can carry signs that say, "The End of the World is Coming!"

I use Windows 8 every day, and spend the large majority of that time on the *desktop.* Sure PC sales are flagging, and MS has to be more present in the tablet area. But the number are... anyone. Huge. They better get WITH IT! Because we Linux nerds know marketing, sales and what the people really want sooooo well. Also, when we all get into an echo chamber, the sound gets really loud! That means what we're all saying must be true! By Shona Ghosh Posted on 2 May 2013 at 11:18 Read more: Microsoft sold as many Windows tablets as all its partners combined | News | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/381583/microsoft-sold-as-many-windows-tablets-as-all-its-partners-combined#ixzz2SXEDxYcE http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/381583/microsoft-sold-as-many-windows-tablets-as-all-its-partners-combined "Including sales from Acer, Asus and other manufacturers, total Windows tablet sales came to 1.8 million, meaning Microsoft sold as many tablets as all of its partners combined." All you have to do is get off your asses and do the smallest amount of research to see that your positions of alarm for MS are debatable at best. I love when nerds get their panties in a bunch about an operating system that has already blown all Linux distributions into the weeds. Windows 8 is great. I think the Start Button replacement start screens are much better than searching through lists (click click click click click click). When people get used it, they'll start complaining about something else. Meanwhile, whatever PCs and Tablets with Windows and Windows RT will keep selling, way, way more than all desktop users using Linux. We should make a yearly "Microsoft is Going to Die Because _________," event where Slashdotters can carry signs that say, "The End of the World is Coming!"

Citation needed. "They" is a bit non-specific.

Here you go, part 3 section 49 of RIPA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000

And here is a case where a kid has been jailed for not revealing his encryption keys: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/361693/teenager-jailed-for-refusing-to-reveal-encryption-keys

All this an a sainted device from Google

Except people [including myself have been incredibly impressed with having a high resolution; quad-core; small tablet running latest Android....and so are the reviews. Top searches on Google

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/tablets/google-nexus-7-1087040/review 4.5 stars
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/tablets/379261/nexus-7 3x 5 out of 6 and 1x6 out of 6
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/laptops/1297408/google-nexus-7 5 out of 5 User 5 out of 5 expert
http://reviews.cnet.com/google-nexus-7/ 4 out 5
http://www.wired.co.uk/reviews/tablets/2012-11/google-nexus-7 9 out of 10
http://www.theverge.com/products/nexus-7/5831 8.8 expert 9.1 User
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/tablets/google-nexus-7.aspx 4 out of 5
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406552,00.asp 4.5 out of 5

I know you love Apple but right now Apple need compelling products, priced competitively not fanatics spreading lies. It simply tarnishes the Apple brand more, and its been damaged enough just lately.

Print format: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/380167/does-your-camera-need-a-fast-sd-card/print

Well, has Ubuntu for Android been release to the general public in binary form? It does not look like it, and as far as I can tell they will release the source when they release the binaries.

The whole field of spintronics is opening up and includes quantum computing. Here's an interesting article on a new 3D spintronic memory which could produce new memory chips 1000s or even 1000,000s of times denser that existing devices with high speeds and all the advantage mentioned in this article mentioned about magnetic technologies.

You say that but what did Android offer over iOS? It's confusing because it looks different and can behave differently depending on who you get it from. It was incredibly buggy for the longest time, getting updates isn't consistent and it does have more malware.

Of course openness only appeals to a small number of people but these are the people that will talk about it the most and create hype and if Ubuntu create something that provides openness while making it a more consistent and better experience than Android then they'll do well.

Also if they improve security over android that will help. Android does get a lot of people buying their phones but it also has a higher level of customer dissatisfaction. in fact in some results, Windows phone ranks higher than Android.

http://www.slashgear.com/iphone-keeps-smartphone-satisfaction-crown-builds-lead-over-android-06246257/
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/wp7-ahead-of-android-and-right-behind-ios-in-customer-satisfaction-survey/13728

Another poll says that 1/3 of android owners would prefer to have an iphone. So is adroid only as big as it is because it's financially people's only choice? http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/11/14/poll-suggests-third-of-android-owners-really-want-an-iphone/

77% of iphone users say they'd buy another iphone. 20% of Android users say they'd buy another Android phone. http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/23/technology/iphone_4_att/index.htm

So basically all around it looks like there is a lot of dissatifaction amongst Android users and they're not overly keen on having an android phone. Maybe that's why they don't really buy apps or surf the net unlike iphone users.

So let's not pretend Google has perfected the mobile phone and no one should else should try. Again openness does mattter to get in the people who will get all fanboyish about it and promote it and if they can make something that also a superior user experience then they'll do well.

A self signed cert is useless other than testing.

You know that top level certs - those at the top of the hierarchy, are self signed, right? Gawd help us all, because if you are correct that means the entire X509 trust system is broken.

Actually, I say that's 1/2 right. Any system that forces you to go through an intermediate "trusted" third party you don't know from from a bar of soap is broken. You are far better off sending a self-signed cert via a side channel and not relying on a CA that may be compromised. GMail could offer you that option by allowed you to upload your cert, like just about every other POP/IMAP client on the planet does. But no, instead they insist on you using a system that that has already broken by countries like Iran to access GMail's users mailboxes, and almost certainly people have died as a result.

This sucks, Google.

..just using a phone instead of a laptop, and built-in NFC instead of an RFID reader.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/207966/oyster-hackers-roam-london-for-free

because I have seen exactly *ZERO* reviews out there.

blind or stupid? it might help to look...pwned!

That's not the logo. This is. You can see it clearly just a few lines below (and yes, I'm using noscript myself)

Surveillance cameras on every corner - not true

You're right, there are probably a few corners without CCTV. But there are enough cameras in the UK that there is one for every 32 citizens.

no freedom of speech - not true

Proof

no right to self defense - not true

Proof. Notice how strong the doublethink is in the judge, who exlclaims that "People have the right to use that reasonable force" while simultaneously sentencing someone for exercising that right.

no protection against self-incrimination (encryption keys) - not true (not true)

Proof

Others have come to the same conclusion as noh8rz5. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/375169/could-us-cyberspies-have-moles-inside-microsoft

Given the amount of disinformation we'll be seeing in MSM and here, I'd say we'll need to wait for a Wikileaks style whistleblower before we know for sure.

It is, & has been, TRULY the "Superior-Warrior" in the way of webbrowser programs + on MANY levels!

FOR SPEED OPERA ROCKS! (Especially over time):

B.) For SPEED & Opera leads again there, & CONSISTENTLY + for the LONGEST TIME, yes, even in javascript for the LONGEST time, until FF's new engines took its place, albeit, only TEMPORARILY!

(Until Opera 10.50 @ least, because that's gotten a decent "boost" in that area -> http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/12/22/1911216 (not that it matters though, speeding up javascript is like asking to get infected by malscripted sites &/or adbanners faster imo @ least - that of a "POV" of PC security, mostly)):

2.) SunSpider tests done here -> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/gallery/features/356350/on-test-the-hidden-seven-browsers-in-the-windows-ballot/145087 WHERE OPERA REGAINS ITS JAVASCRIPT PROCESSING SPEED LEAD OVER FF YET AGAIN!

OLDER DATA (on performance alone):

3.) And this one too last year also -> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49302491,00.htm

4.) AND IT HAS BEEN "BLOWING AWAY" FIREFOX IN HTML PARSING/PROCESSING SPEEDS AS WELL, & FOR YEARS NOW, per this test years ago -> http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#win

5.) Same here -> http://nontroppo.org/timer/kestrel_tests/

6.) Yet again/once more? Same story -> http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/08/1750241/Opera-Dominates-CNET-Survey-of-Underdog-Web-Browsers

(Opera "rocked the planet" in those cases... bigtime (& ESPECIALLY ON THE MOST USED PLATFORM THERE IS, BAR-NONE, FOR PC-COMPUTING: Windows!))

====

ALSO, FOR SECURITY? YES - OPERA ROCKS (as far as unpatched security vulnerabilities):

---

Vulnerability Report: Opera 11.x (05/26/2012):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/33328/

Unpatched 10% (1 of 10 Secunia advisories)

* Mind you, that over time? From all versions UP TO this current one just released today?? THIS IS USUALLY ZERO% & ZERO UNPATCHED! The single 1 remaining is the "history bug" ALL other browsers had also, & the simple fix? DON'T KEEP BROWSING HISTORIES!

(What ticked me off, is that Opera 12's out there, but Secunia doesn't have stats for it yet...)

---

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.x (05/26/2012):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/34591/

Unpatched 13% (1 of 8 Secunia advisories)

---

Vulnerability Report: Mozilla Firefox 12.x (05/26/2012):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/40737/

Unpatched 0% (0 of 0 Secunia advisories)

---

Vulnerability Report: Google Chrome 19.x (05/26/2012):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/40938/

Unpatched 0% (0 of 1 Secunia advisories)

---

A.) For SECURITY, OPERA ROCKS & HAS OVER TIME BIG TIME, usually @ ZERO unpatched security vulnerabilities AND zero unpatched sec. vulns counts period!

(& Opera leads there for the LONGEST TIME, yes, even in least security vulnerabilities found over time, typically of the "big 3" webbrowsers):

1.) iPhone, IE, Firefox, Safari get stomped at hacker contest -> (No Opera noted as "hosed" though, lol)

The question is, can you link to 4 pages of ads with a clean conscience when there is a print version?

I've been waiting for someone to publish a "why?" article. I wish the submitter had used the single page version and saved me a click. As to TFA,

1. Interactive tiles
Fine on a phone, but I don't want it in a PC OS.

2. Task Manager
Windows has had this for literally YEARS. IIRC Win 95 had it. BTW, is there anything like that in KDE? I'm hoping someone says "yes" and points me to it.

4. No new hardware requirements
LOL! "That means â" in theory, at least â" that any PC capable of running Windows Vista should be able to handle Windows 8." I'm running the latest kubuntu (just upgraded yesterday) on a machine I built out of ten year old parts, and it runs well. No way would Win 8 run on that thing. TFA looks like loke a Microsoft ad.

5. Airplane mode
Man, MS is really grasping at straws here. FN+F8 (F8 has a wifi icon) toggles wifi on my netbook, along with an indicator light. Bluetooth is shut off when you unplug the dongle. In short, this feature is completely useless.

6. SkyDrive integration
The Stones said it and I agree -- hey, you, get off of the cloud. I'll keep my own data on my own deviced, thank you very much.

7. Windows Store
Um, is that like Apper except you have to pay for the software?

8. Interactive lock screen
Rubbish. Nothing of substance, just "Ooh! Shiny!"

9. Split-screen apps
What's new here? New for phones, maybe, but not computers.

10. Split touch keyboard
Useless for PCs and laptops

11. App contracts
"Microsoft has published a set of APIs common to all Metro apps that allow them to freely exchange data. Itâ(TM)s possible, for example, to give a Twitter client access to the Photos app, massively simplifying the process of photo sharing."

It sounds unsafe to me. It also sounds like one of the kinds of thing I got away from Windows for. And people wonder why Windows is the only OS with malware problems.

12. Fewer surprise restarts
My Linux box has no surprise restarts whatever. In fact, the only time I restart it is when I'm upgrading the kernel, maybe once a year or longer. Meanwhile, the notebook still has Win 7 and I wind up having to reboot every week or two, thanks to MS's hatred of users.

13. Cross-device synchronisation
"The Windows 8 installation screen practically forces users to set up a Windows Live account." And they call that a feature???

14. Improved 3G support
Useless on a PC or notebook

15. Built-in antivirus
Not new, there's Windows Defender already. You're grasping at straws, Microsoft!

16. Picture passwords
Kind of cool I guess, but useless on a PC.

18. Windows To Go
"Another one in the eye for those who claim that Windows 8 has little to offer businesses is Windows To Go. This allows companies to provide employees with a locked-down installation of Windows 8 on a USB thumb drive." Uh, I've been doing that with Linux for a decade.

19. Secure Boot
Most emphatically DO NOT WANT!!!

20. Revamped Explorer
"The Windows Explorer is now graced with the ribbon interface"
Do Not Want!!

21. Restore PC
How anout instad they write an uninstaller that actually works? TFA says you have to reinstall all your apps after a restore, PITA. I don't have to put up with this nonsense in Linux.

22. Thumbnail previews
Probably useful on a phone, not on a PC.

23. Metro groups
Good on a phone, bad ona PC.

24. Kinect for Windows
I'll reserve judgement on this one, it might be good.

25. AppLocker
Again, nothing new, and TFA even says so.

26. Reset PC
Look, if you're going to wipe and reinstall your OS, just FDISK and install. I don't see what problem this "solution" solves, unless installing Windows is still the PITA it was with XP.

27. File copy revamp
*Yawn*

28. Faster boot times
This is one place Windows beats Linux (Most distros anyway). Fortunately, a L

Don't waste your time clicking through all the advert-ridden pages of banality.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/374587/30-best-features-of-windows-8/print

I know it doesn't address the rest of your comment but it's easier to read/skim.

One-page printable version for your pleasure viewing: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/374587/30-best-features-of-windows-8/print

Missing feature from the article: how well Windows 8 can be overwritten with Linux.

Missing feature from Windows 8: avoiding the Windows tax.

Now for my karma points, here's a link for the article on one page: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/374587/30-best-features-of-windows-8/print

Check out comment 143 from Barry's original PCPro article

Barry Collins Says:
April 27th, 2012 at 11:10 am
I consider myself suitably and rightfully admonished, Mr Winder. However, I don’t think I did fall victim to the zero-day exploit, as that would have required the hackers to reset the password. I was still able to access my account after it was hacked.

Barry Collins

Barry believes this was not the cause to his account being breached. Sounds like the fault may still be on his password choice.

Part of the interesting part of this adventure was to try the smooth new OS integrated features of Windows 8 for consumers. On that score at least it was a highly successful demonstration. Can't wait for the gold code to drop.

Come on, this isn't that hard to find: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/372859/amd-what-went-wrong/print

First, why not use the obvious countermeasure here. When you create an encrypted volume, you should enter 2 keys, not just one. One will unlock your drive, another will appear to unlock your drive, but in fact deletes the contents of the disk entirely. Essentially it replaces the on-disk encryption keys (which is what your password in reality unlocks) with keys that are only useful for the second partition. The second partition is then enlarged to extend over the original copy. Several programs provide this ability (granted they're for-pay and not cheap, but nevertheless, your privacy is worth something to you isn't it ?). This trick is known to have worked in China (that must have taken some serious amount of balls).

This is how banks do it (one code unlocks the safe, another, seemingly identical sets of an explosive charge destroying the vault's contents).

As for the extradition, let's hope for UK encryption users that they do that. After all, in the US, the above judge will probably get called back, providing such horribly weak justification. Even if this stands, the reality is : in the UK there is zero doubt : authorities can imprison you for not revealing passwords to them, in the US there is doubt (as the supreme court has not yet ruled on a case like this), with predictions that this judge's decision will not stand.

Very subtle, adding the bit about Bush about this judge. As if it's relevant. Nobody ever points out that democrat-appointed judges blocked the repeal of slavery for decades ... And that's equally relevant to today's democrats as this decision reflects on republicans.

In the UK, it is established legal precedent to imprison people for refusing to reveal keys. (in fact this can be applied to foreignors in the UK)

And of course nobody seems to have read the entire article. May I present a blatant repeat of a few paragraphs that seem to have escaped most people's attention ?

In March 2010, a federal judge in Michigan ruled that Thomas Kirschner, facing charges of receiving child pornography, would not have to give up his password. That's "protecting his invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination," the court ruled (PDF).

A year earlier, a Vermont federal judge concluded that Sebastien Boucher, who a border guard claims had child porn on his Alienware laptop, did not have a Fifth Amendment right to keep the files encrypted. Boucher eventually complied and was convicted. the article fails to mention this was not his laptop, but government property. He had signed that he would provide access to a govt administrator. So an obvious detail : you can rely on ecnryption, but don't rely on your employer doing it for you. Also : read contracts BEFORE signing them

The article provides a thoughtful conclusion :

Much of the discussion has been about what analogy comes closest. Prosecutors tend to view PGP passphrases as akin to someone possessing a key to a safe filled with incriminating documents. That person can, in general, be legally compelled to hand over the key. Other examples include the U.S. Supreme Court saying that defendants can be forced to provide fingerprints, blood samples, or voice recordings.

On the other hand are civil libertarians citing other Supreme Court cases that conclude Americans can't be forced to give "compelled testimonial communications" and extending the legal shield of the Fifth Amendment to encryption passphrases. Courts already have ruled that that such protection extends to the contents of a defendant's minds, the argument goes, so why shouldn't a passphrase be shielded as well?

FOR SPEED OPERA ROCKS! (Especially over time):

B.) For SPEED & Opera leads again there, & CONSISTENTLY + for the LONGEST TIME, yes, even in javascript for the LONGEST time, until FF's new engines took its place, albeit, only TEMPORARILY!

(Until Opera 10.50 @ least, because that's gotten a decent "boost" in that area -> http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/12/22/1911216 (not that it matters though, speeding up javascript is like asking to get infected by malscripted sites &/or adbanners faster imo @ least - that of a "POV" of PC security, mostly)):

2.) SunSpider tests done here -> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/gallery/features/356350/on-test-the-hidden-seven-browsers-in-the-windows-ballot/145087 WHERE OPERA REGAINS ITS JAVASCRIPT PROCESSING SPEED LEAD OVER FF YET AGAIN!

OLDER DATA (on performance alone):

3.) And this one too last year also -> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49302491,00.htm

4.) AND IT HAS BEEN "BLOWING AWAY" FIREFOX IN HTML PARSING/PROCESSING SPEEDS AS WELL, & FOR YEARS NOW, per this test years ago -> http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#win

5.) Same here -> http://nontroppo.org/timer/kestrel_tests/

6.) Yet again/once more? Same story -> http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/08/1750241/Opera-Dominates-CNET-Survey-of-Underdog-Web-Browsers

(Opera "rocked the planet" in those cases... bigtime (& ESPECIALLY ON THE MOST USED PLATFORM THERE IS, BAR-NONE, FOR PC-COMPUTING: Windows!))

====

ALSO, FOR SECURITY? YES - OPERA ROCKS (as far as unpatched security vulnerabilities):

---

Vulnerability Report: Opera 11.x (12/15/2011):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/33328/

Unpatched 14% (1 of 7 Secunia advisories)

* Mind you, that over time? From all versions UP TO this current one just released today?? THIS IS USUALLY ZERO% & ZERO UNPATCHED!

---

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.x (12/15/2011):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/34591/

Unpatched 17% (1 of 6 Secunia advisories)

---

Vulnerability Report: Google Chrome 15.x (12/15/2011):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/38537/

Unpatched 25% (1 of 4 Secunia advisories)

---

Vulnerability Report: Mozilla Firefox 8.x (12/15/2011):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/38734/

Unpatched 100% (1 of 1 Secunia advisories)

---

A.) For SECURITY, OPERA ROCKS & HAS OVER TIME BIG TIME, usually @ ZERO unpatched security vulnerabilities AND zero unpatched sec. vulns counts period!

(& Opera leads there for the LONGEST TIME, yes, even in least security vulnerabilities found over time, typically of the "big 3" webbrowsers):

1.) iPhone, IE, Firefox, Safari get stomped at hacker contest -> (No Opera noted as "hosed" though, lol) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/25/pwn2own_2010_day_one/

B.) AND, WHAT DOES A "HACKER/CRACKER"-SECURITY RESEARCHER TYPE CURRENTLY SAY, ABOUT OPERA (per Opera's showing in #1 above)?

OK:

----

FOR SECURITY OPERA ROCKS (as far as unpatched security vulnerabilities):

---

Vulnerability Report: Opera 11.x (12/06/2011):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/33328/

Unpatched 14% (1 of 7 Secunia advisories)

* Mind you, that over time? From all versions UP TO this current one just released today?? THIS IS USUALLY ZERO% & ZERO UNPATCHED!

---

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.x (12/06/2011):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/34591/

Unpatched 20% (1 of 5 Secunia advisories)

---

Vulnerability Report: Google Chrome 15.x (12/06/2011):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/38537/

Unpatched 33% (1 of 3 Secunia advisories)

---

Vulnerability Report: Mozilla Firefox 8.x (12/06/2011):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/38734/

Unpatched 100% (1 of 1 Secunia advisories)

---

A.) For SECURITY, OPERA ROCKS & HAS OVER TIME BIG TIME, usually @ ZERO unpatched security vulnerabilities AND zero unpatched sec. vulns counts period!

(& Opera leads there for the LONGEST TIME, yes, even in least security vulnerabilities found over time, typically of the "big 3" webbrowsers):

1.) iPhone, IE, Firefox, Safari get stomped at hacker contest -> (No Opera noted as "hosed" though, lol) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/25/pwn2own_2010_day_one/

AND, WHAT DOES A "HACKER/CRACKER"-SECURITY RESEARCHER TYPE CURRENTLY SAY, ABOUT OPERA (per Opera's showing in #1 above)?

OK:

----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/25/pwn2own_2010_day_one/

"The problem Microsoft has is they have a big market share, said Vreugdenhil, the hacker who attacked IE. "I use Opera, but that's basically because it has a tiny market share and as far as I know, nobody is really interested in creating a drive-by download for opera. The web at the moment is pretty scary, actually."

(Hence, again showing that even the "hacker/cracker" types use Opera, because it's safer to do so, & from the mindset of those DOING THE HACKING/CRACKING no less!)

----

FOR SPEED OPERA ROCKS ALSO (Especially over time):

B.) For SPEED & Opera leads again there, & CONSISTENTLY + for the LONGEST TIME, yes, even in javascript for the LONGEST time, until FF's new engines took its place TEMPORARILY!

(Until Opera 10.50 @ least, because that's gotten a decent "boost" in that area -> http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/12/22/1911216 (not that it matters though, speeding up javascript is like asking to get infected by malscripted sites &/or adbanners faster imo @ least - that of a "POV" of PC security, mostly)):

2.) SunSpider tests done here recently -> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/gallery/features/356350/on-test-the-hidden-seven-browsers-in-the-windows-ballot/145087 WHERE OPERA REGAINS ITS JAVASCRIPT PROCESSING SPEED LEAD OVER FF YET AGAIN!

OLDER DATA (on performance alone):

3.) And this one too last year also -> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49302491,00.htm

4.) AND IT HAS BEEN "BLOWING AWAY" FIREFOX IN HTML PARSING/PROCESSING SPEEDS AS WELL, & FOR YEARS NOW, per this test years ago -> http://