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Microsoft Announces First Mobile Carriers To Support Always Connected PCs (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The push behind the Always Connected PC vision has been ramping up in recent weeks, with manufacturers like HP, ASUS, and Lenovo all joining the fray with their own LTE PCs based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform. Now, Microsoft and Qualcomm have announced the first batch of mobile operators that will actively support Always Connected PCs around the world. These initial carriers will help to bring "easy and affordable connectivity plans to consumers on advanced LTE wireless networks," Microsoft and Qualcomm said in a press release. Throughout the first half of 2018 and beyond, the companies say, mobile operators in China, Italy, the UK, and the U.S. will officially support Always Connected PCs. Here's a look at the carriers you can expect to roll out support in each region: China -- China Telecom, Italy -- TIM (Telecom Italia), U.K. -- EE, U.S. -- Sprint, Verizon. In addition to supporting connected PCs on their LTE networks, you can expect each operator to stock Always Connected PCs in their retail store, Qualcomm and Microsoft say.
Just wait for those Win10 updates!
This ... Microsoft has more to gain from this always connected than consumers do.
I mean, all of that location data to use to sell ads. If you don't think the end-game of this is for MS to start putting ads and behavior tracking into Windows you're delusional.
MS is pretty much ramping up to monetize your world, and ensure there is infrastructure to do so.
Fuck that, not interested in having a cell bill associated with my PC. I'll connect to the internet where and how I wish -- and it won't include a cell company.
We seem to be hurtling towards all of the worst parts of the dystopian future -- the version in which corporations control everything, know everything you do, and make money off it.
It won't be long before governments do the bidding of the megacorps .. at least, more openly than they do now.
No way, no how is this good. This is just more gouging of the consumer.
A portable telescreen! Neat!
Ezekiel 23:20
..."Windows is a service." I seen that blerb on some support document on Microsoft's website recently. We speculated they'd try to move the OS into a subscription model. Just more gearing up for that move.
I don't mind my PC being always connected. It pretty much already is. Where I'm going to get really upset is when my PC stops working properly when my internet is down for whatever reason.
However, my concern regarding Windows becoming more walled garden like is not really there. Steam, SteamOS and Steam for Linux is making leaps and bounds to bring what I use my PC for primarily into modern times: Gaming. I just hope by the time Windows becomes truly unbearable to use, Steam for Linux is better and more stable. It's not bad now.
Microsoft's play here feels like folly. They're like the last company selling operating systems. Everyone else just sells hardware and gives the OS away with the machine, either it be Apple's offerings, or your average Android smartphone. I'm not sure what they're planning exactly, but.. competing with free is never an easy game to play.
The Always Connected PC is just another toll of the death knell of ownership.
You will pay per-use for autonomous cars owned by corporations, because owning cars will be deemed illegal, lobbied by Corporate Greed.
You will lease all software, because a one-time cost does not satisfy Corporate Greed, who wants you to pay per month forever.
You already lease cell phones. Damn things don't last more than 2-3 years. If they do last longer, then support for them dies prematurely. Either way, you're paying for new hardware as often as Corporate Greed demands.
This is our future. Unfortunately, the mindless masses don't give a shit enough to change the way we're headed. Vote with your wallet is dead.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret: The goal posts for tinfoil-hat paranoid have moved so far it is hard to believe.
Many years ago talking about echelon got you labelled as a bit of a crank.
The reality is, we know that wide scale surveillance is real. We have learned that, yes, someone is probably trying to hack you at all times. We've learned that a huge amount of email is phishing and spam, and it gets harder and harder to identify. We see time and time again that with fake caller ID most of our incoming calls are fraudulent scams.
To survive in the modern connected world, your default level of suspicion has to be at the tinfoil-hat level. The level of distrust you need in your day to day life would have been a clinical disorder not even 10 years ago. We have to teach our parents and grandparents to have a level of distrust many of them can't even grasp. And ad companies with their web tracking analytics do try to monitor everything you do, and can and will hand that information over to governments -- often in secret due to shit like the PATRIOT Act.
Having been one of the tinfoil-hat crowd for the last 15 years or so ... I can't say I feel vindicated to be proven right. Because we now live in a shit hole of a world like I've been saying we would for a very long time. There is no satisfaction in that.
So, fuck it, I'm not one of the cool kids. I no longer buy this shit, I actively block everything I can, and I'm no longer willing to participate in most of this on-line shit, and block companies like Facebook at my firewall. I try to tell my friends why they need to take this seriously.
The problem is those of us who sounded tinfoil-hat crazy a decade ago just have had to move the paranoia to its logical conclusion ... which means we probably sound like raving loons.
But I can't trust 99% of the incoming calls to my house. I can't trust a significant amount of emails which my ISP allows through. I can't trust my devices not to spy on me. I can't trust webpages not to spy on me.
At the end of the day, you either sound crazy, but are 100% right ... or you drink the kool-aid and decide you don't care. And I can't do the latter.
So join the club. Many of us have been saying this for years, and we've all been dismissed with "that is so crazy it will never happen". And here we are -- living in a world in which the level of distrust you must exhibit to not get constantly get scammed would have been a clinical disorder as late as the mid 90's.
The problem for some of us is that we never crazy, but the world around us sure as fuck is. Great, I was always right, and the world is a seething shit hole where every government and corporate entity wants to spy on you -- I feel so much fucking better now.