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Next Big Windows Update Will Bring Hardware-Accelerated AI (zdnet.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the why-not dept.

Mary Jo Foley, writing for ZDNet: Every tech vendor these days is quick to slap the AI label on products and services. Up until today, I thought Microsoft had done an admirable job in refraining from doing this with Windows. But the shark has been jumped as of March 7, the company's latest Windows Developer Day. Cue the eye rolls. Microsoft is telling developers that the next release of Windows 10, which we are still calling by its codename, "Redstone 4," will enable developers to "use AI to deliver more powerful and engaging experiences." Microsoft execs say there's now an AI platform in Windows 10 that enables developers to use "pre-trained machine learning in their apps on Windows 10 devices."

87 comments

  1. more powerful and engaging experiences by sinij · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "more powerful and engaging experiences" is a euphemism for spying on users.

    1. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "more powerful and engaging experiences" is a euphemism for spying on users.

      And having Cortana laugh at them too.

    2. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh,NO! Clippy meets the Terminator!

    3. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aww, and I thought it would mean putting Nic Cage faces on all the porn I watch.

    4. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Excelcia · · Score: 2

      That's only half right. "Engaging" is the user spying. "Powerful" is the other half of the coin, improving Microsoft's ability to remotely control our computers.

    5. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, at least they give the users the option to update [sic] their machines, right? Right?

    6. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this, in spades. Just one more thing you'll have to jump through hoops, and hack the hell out of the registry to disable.

    7. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aww, and I thought it would mean putting Nic Cage faces on all the porn I watch.

      The thought of seeing Nic Cage faces on any porn that I watch almost turned me off $ex permanently.

    8. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      MS has documented the of data they collect from someone using their OS.

      No, they documented some interfaces and data formats. If you look carefully at the documentation you'll see quite a bit of it is undefined key/value pairs that is never actually concretely specified.

      You can configure the OS to not send information to MS.

      No you can't. Microsoft's own documentation makes this very clear. You cannot turn it off. You can limit what is transmitted but you can't stop it at least not with the levers and knobs provided by Microsoft assuming those levers and knobs don't mysteriously reset themselves every time a forced update is installed.

      Any telemetry data collected and sent to MS is anonymized and encrypted.

      I would guess very few people concerned with privacy actually care or believe any of this. The point is it's none of Microsoft's business in the first place... It's not about how careful they are or what they do with it.

      They also collect just enough data to provide the automatic update process which 99% of their users take advantage of.

      LOL like anyone has a choice. Like you can turn off updates even if you wanted to.

      It is possible to design an update process that doesn't require data collection. In fact the early versions of windows update did just this even going so far as to print out a message on the display that updates were being performed without sending any data to Microsoft.

      If you are concerned about someone spying on you then g after the chief violators of your privacy. Focusing your angst on MS sort of makes you look like an idiot who is not capable of identifying the real culprits.

      Have you actually read Microsoft's privacy policy? Do you not understand by default Microsoft grants itself the right and ability to exfiltrate both configuration and data from your system without your knowledge? They have remote access tools baked into the software to do this.

      Saying Windows 10 isn't a privacy problem isn't a credible position. Their own documentation, their own privacy policy makes this much crystal clear to anyone who has bothered to read it. There is absolutely no way out.. no way to spin it otherwise.

      Google collects, stores, analyzes, and sells your personal information every time you use any of their services.

      Google is also a creepy stalker, what's your point? I hope your not trying to deflect responsibility by saying "look Google does it too!!".

      Every cellphone in use today can and does transmit every thing you do when using the phone.

      This is both irrelevant and false. Third party images are readily available for a large number of devices without any spyware shit baked into them.

      With GPS enabled you are transmitting your location data which details every where you go.

      GPS is a receiver not a transmitter. You can use GPS without transmitting data to third parties.

      And let's not leave out Facebook and all the other time wasting applications where people give away all their personal information on purpose.

      You can offer up a list of a billion other corporations who do the "same thing". It changes nothing. It doesn't absolve Microsoft from violating everyone's privacy. No matter what example you dream up of someone else doing something else it changes nothing.

    9. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're actually serious. This place has really gone to shit.

    10. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      If you're going to shill for Microsoft it's more effective to use an actual logged-in account instead of posting as AC.

    11. Re:more powerful and engaging experiences by sinij · · Score: 1

      They are still working out the bugs out of shilling AI.

  2. Hardware has stagnated, software has stagnated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AI for the win! Robotics are already useful. I don't see machine learning on a PC as being close.

  3. Microsoft Windows 10 and AI by oldgraybeard · · Score: 1

    What a hoot ;) lolololololol

    just my 2 cents

  4. Clippy on steroids by h8sg8s · · Score: 2

    MS Bob is now pumped up and will shove animated AI paperclips up your @ss if you do anything he doesn't like. I, for one, welcome our new Skynet overlords..

    --
    Organization? You must be joking..
    1. Re:Clippy on steroids by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Yeah will it seems, a playstation or steambox for gaming and a Linux box for coms and cursing M$ to hell for anything else, not that I believe but the 9th level with the betrayers would be suitable for them.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  5. Hardware acceleration? by nmb3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft execs say there's now an AI platform in Windows 10 that enables developers to use "pre-trained machine learning in their apps on Windows 10 devices."

    That's not hardware acceleration, because you need, ya know, specialized hardware for that which you can't send via a software update. In fact, the word "hardware" isn't even in the linked article, so where did this silly headline even come from?

    --
    "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
    /)
    1. Re:Hardware acceleration? by jetkust · · Score: 3, Informative

      They did include an architectural diagram in the article. The hardware part is WindowsML -> DirectML which will utilize the GPU and/or the AVX-512 instruction set of the CPU, or any possible future chip created with ML in mind.

    2. Re:Hardware acceleration? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hardware accellerated AI means AI running on hardware especially suited for AI.

      AI specifically needs a general purpose CPU, so this is just AI running on a computer :-/

      And no, AVX-512 is nothing special. General purpose cpu, albeit faster than one without AVX-512.

    3. Re:Hardware acceleration? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Correct. GPU aren't just for graphics and physics, they will be taking on the role of performing AI as well. Just ask nVidia.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    4. Re:Hardware acceleration? by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      Yep, they even included 640 Tensor cores in their Titan V GPU.

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    5. Re:Hardware acceleration? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is pretty neat even if the headline is misleading. And it makes sense: deep learning networks really do benefit from GPUs, but it would be really cumbersome to do all the "if gpu x present then use method y, otherwise use..." in your code every time, so why not abstract it away to an API and let the OS take care of choosing the most optimal implementation based on available hardware?

    6. Re:Hardware acceleration? by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      AI specifically needs a general purpose CPU, so this is just AI running on a computer

      No this uses Nvidia Titan xp's dedicated neural net chip and Qualcom 835's dedicated neural net chip.

      It also will run on a general purpose GPU or CPU as a fallback.

    7. Re:Hardware acceleration? by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 1

      I beg to differ. The internal on CPU chip hardware for advanced vector extensions (AVX) executes many parallel fused multiply and divide instructions in one clock cycle. This is fundamental to critical machine learning algorithms. The underpinning of linear regression is y=mx+b and AVX is purpose built for this.

      One of the advantages to this approach is reducing the bottleneck of moving large amounts of data from the matrix math oriented machine learning system to a conventional procedural CPU.

      --
      Greed is the root of all evil.
  6. Re:Slashdot is tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More like anti everything but that's not all bad. Clickbait internet articles deserve reader derision. Slashdot is reinvigorated after the recent outage, the editors sadly did not get an upgrade.

  7. I guess a stabler OS was too much to ask for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is money sunk into flaky features instead of stabilizing the OS?
    MS should be ashamed that they produced better and more stable OSs (and more in touch with their users wants and needs) over 17 years ago than they do now.

    1. Re: I guess a stabler OS was too much to ask for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you know where to look, on the Microsoft site you can download an iso that contains in a non-obvious way the full pro version of the latest Windows that did not have spyware built in. And itâ(TM)s also an edition Microsoft said they would not put spyware in. And the best part - you donâ(TM)t even have to activate. MS is already giving you all this for free. It just requires knowing what you are doing and 15 minutes of browsing and a manual install. Sadly most people fail at those.

    2. Re:I guess a stabler OS was too much to ask for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MS should be ashamed that they produced better and more stable OSs (and more in touch with their users wants and needs) over 17 years ago than they do now.

      Kind of like how a man should be ashamed they produced a better and more stable relationship (ie more in touch with their wife's wants and needs) over 17 years ago than they do now. The reason is the man is concentrating on the girlfriend he WANTS rather than the wife he HAS.

      Microsoft resents of and takes for granted the users they already have. They want new and different users that are into social media everything, don't care about privacy, and go for form over function. Microsoft is like the middle age business man that is trying to court the young, popular, beautiful, and vapid woman young enough to be his daughter. Creepy and awkward.

    3. Re: I guess a stabler OS was too much to ask for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go on Hotshot, tell us what the fuck you're talking about.

    4. Re: I guess a stabler OS was too much to ask for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What version?

    5. Re: I guess a stabler OS was too much to ask for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Download all the eval isos. Examine install.wim with dism, notice which channels are contained inside. Also examine docs about bevahior of certain windows versions and their editions when they are not activated, find the one Iâ(TM)m talking about. Do a manual dism installation with the right channel.

  8. Re:Slashdot is tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lazy writeup? It's verbatim from the article, written by MJ Foley. The issue is the context here, no one doubts AI and ML are powerful, but just slapping a label on your OS update with the new buzzwords isn't saying much.

  9. Creepy laughing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, now Windows will start to creepily laugh at people too?

  10. Re:Slashdot is tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Found the hipster fanboy.

  11. This is a good idea, not "eye rolling" by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    I can't believe the seemingly low understanding of modern AI and neural networks that seems to linger on Slashdot...

    It's a good idea to provide frameworks that help the system use GPU or other dedicated hardware to work with pre-existing neural networks. It means practical use of local pre-defined networks for things like image or speech recognition - or did you seriously all WANT all of that traffic going to a server for processing?

    Apple just introduced this last year themselves, they call it CoreML.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re: This is a good idea, not "eye rolling" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I donâ(TM)t actually need or even want such features baked into the OS in the first place. I would rather buy a standalone application from a specialized developer if I did any work that needed these.

    2. Re:This is a good idea, not "eye rolling" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't believe the seemingly low understanding of modern AI and neural networks that seems to linger on Slashdot...

      I was all in on ANNs twenty years ago until I realized it was incapable of anything other than pattern recognition with any hardware we could conceivably build and completely lost interest. The truth of the matter is we have way better hardware and way better outcomes today .. both hardware and algorithms EACH thousands of times better yet nothing substantive has changed. It's still as much of a dead end today as it was decades ago. The only differences is CMDR data's 60 trillion operations per second is now understood to be pedestrian and laughably inadequate.

      I used to research and develop expert systems for a living "AI" was just as much noise then as it is now. I get why big companies and big data firms are all excited about this shit but at the end of the day it's still shit.

      It's a good idea to provide frameworks that help the system use GPU or other dedicated hardware to work with pre-existing neural networks. It means practical use of local pre-defined networks for things like image or speech recognition - or did you seriously all WANT all of that traffic going to a server for processing?

      I'm sorry after having a front row seat for decades as the speech recognition industry withered and died under the weight of severe consumer disinterest and Nuance sabotage this bullshit that all of the sudden everyone wants speech recognition everywhere is not a reality I am willing to accept.

      The vendors are PUSHING speech recognition expressly because it provides an excuse for data exfiltration. They won't stop... they won't ever stop unless consumers force them to stop.

    3. Re: This is a good idea, not "eye rolling" by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      I don't necessarily want it baked into the OS either but a bunch of incompatible and expensive third party systems isn't an improvement. The best of all worlds would be a standard cross-platform open source toolkit.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    4. Re: This is a good idea, not "eye rolling" by jddj · · Score: 1

      Um...TensorFlow? Neural Compute stick?

    5. Re: This is a good idea, not "eye rolling" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that a neural compute stick or are you just happy to see me?

    6. Re: This is a good idea, not "eye rolling" by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      Thank you for making my point by mentioning two competitors.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    7. Re: This is a good idea, not "eye rolling" by jddj · · Score: 1

      The neural compute stick (I have one) can run tensor flow models. What's your point?

  12. Caling it... by mapkinase · · Score: 1

    ... Artificial Stupidity would not carry such a marketing zing, would it?

    --
    I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
    1. Re:Caling it... by jetkust · · Score: 1

      Artificially Simulated Stupidity would.

    2. Re:Caling it... by suutar · · Score: 1

      we've had artificial stupidity for decades. Very fast, too :)

    3. Re:Caling it... by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Natural born and bred stupidity is best. It can even win trade wars!

  13. "Hardware-Accelerated AI "? by Gaxx · · Score: 2

    Er... so that would be a computer, then?

    --
    -- Gaxx
  14. Sounds reasonable by EndlessNameless · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Per the article, they will let developers train their AI in Azure and then import directly into applications. Training a neural network is exactly the kind of limited-duration, CPU-heavy activity that the cloud is designed for. Borrow a thousand CPUs to knock it out in short order and get on with your work.

    And imagine if you wanted to train an algorithm with different inputs to see which method yields the best results in your application. You can burn through the training process in parallel in the cloud quickly, and then start building packages for testing immediately. You can iterate faster to fine tune things once you've picked the best baseline training. Without paying for an expensive AI "render farm" up front. The idea is promising, although the devil is always in the details.

    And, obviously, any decent hardware-level support for AI would be great. The article only refers to the Azure integration though, so it appears the Slashdot headline is misleading.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    1. Re:Sounds reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CPU-heavy activity that the cloud is designed for. Borrow a thousand CPUs to knock it out in short order and get on with your work.

      Most A.I. frameworks target the GPU and GPU manufacturers already increased their support for half float operations. Why anyone would train their A.I. on a CPU cloud when the massive amounts of inputs are best suited for GPU processing escapes me. On the other hand Microsoft Azure also provides quantum computation (simulation) at insane memory and computational cost so there might be a stupid enough target audience ready to be parted from their money at the drop of a buzzword ( A.I., quantum computing, ...) .

    2. Re:Sounds reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slashdot headline misleading. Cue the eye rolls!

    3. Re:Sounds reasonable by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

      GPUs can be virtualized as well. Plus, all of the big players are customizing hardware to accelerate their cloud workloads. That includes Microsoft, Google, and Facebook for sure, and probably Amazon as well---though Amazon has never said anything publicly.

      If Microsoft wants to do NN training, they could easily add GPUs, custom ASICs, or FPGAs to support those loads. They have done ASICs and FPGAs before, so I'd be shocked if they aren't already gearing up for AI workloads. Since they control the entire stack from the UI down to the hardware, they have almost unlimited flexibility with Visual Studio in Azure.

      --

      ---
      According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  15. Surveillance capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wake up dude. Everything is a euphemism for spying on users these days.
    "Innovation" literally means "more spying" from now on.

    1. Re:Surveillance capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm glad I run an OS that I have total control over and which doesn't spy on me.

      Windows is a toy and a joke.

    2. Re:Surveillance capitalism by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Hardware-Accelerated Spyware.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:Surveillance capitalism by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 0

      Your hard drive, your keyboard and your mouse all run an OS that you don't have complete control over. Okay, it's more of an embedded piece of software, but in some cases it's even remotely updatable firmware.

  16. Technology is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The whole field of technology is dead as fuck. It's just scams and spying, and venture capitalist bullshit.

  17. it's a clipnado by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    it's a clipnado

  18. pre-trained machine learning by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

    Don't worry, "pre-trained machine learning" is probably a euphemism for if-statements, so it's unlikely that either will be necessary.

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    1. Re:pre-trained machine learning by invalid_user · · Score: 1

      C'mon. As much as I despise them, I'm sure there are script-kiddies who can code Keras or PyTorch at Microsoft.

      https://www.kaggle.com/gaborfo...
      https://github.com/Cadene/pret...

  19. Really?!?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's bad enough that Window rearranges things due to it's 'I know best' development stance. At least I can find and shut off those annoying features. Now I have to be like David Bowman and figure out which holographic logic modules to disconnect to allow me to us the OS the way I want to.... before it decides to blow me out of an airlock.

    I have no problem with helpful things being helpful (e.g. ABS, adaptive steering, etc.). What I have a problem with is when things attempt to be helpful when A) they aren't much help B) I really don't want them to be.

    There are some great benefits to deterministic systems...

    Fred in IT

  20. What a bunch of BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How many will even consider this useful in the millions of Windows users? Other then cringing every time a major release of Windows 10 comes out. Wondering what will break in this release? I could care less what wonderful crap Microsoft has dreamed up. Just don't fuck up the basics Microsoft.

  21. Re:Slashdot is tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're just worried that 2018 might not be the Year of the Linux Desktop after all

  22. Jumping sharks? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    So 90s. I thought we stopped Jumping Sharks when we started Nuking Fridges.

    1. Re:Jumping sharks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I recall correctly, the fridge actually did pass over a tiny shark as it passed through the air so the happy days reference still holds.

  23. Not spying, Trying to by OYAHHH · · Score: 1

    Sell crap!

    --
    Caution: Contents under pressure
    1. Re: Not spying, Trying to by TrumpThemAll · · Score: 1

      More like spying to sell crap.

  24. Re:Slashdot is tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    t. Prajeet

  25. Re:Slashdot is tired by EvilSS · · Score: 1

    The anti microsoft bullshit here at slashdot is very tired. what a lazy writeup this is about a real technology. poopooing machine learning as though its nothing when its most definitely not. lame journalism.

    Don't you know the best and the brightest are only on /.? More than every academic and corporate research center in the world combined. If someone in a /. comment or summary poo-poo's AI, then that's the final word.

    --
    I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
  26. Re:Slashdot is tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Criticizing Slashdot for some straw man argument or something they've done for 20 years is tired.

  27. Re: Slashdot is tired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    don't let the door hit ya, where the good lord split ya, good bye old timer. you dont belong here anymore. Us youngins are taking over now. No, we don't validate parking. Get a job you fucking you hippy.

  28. Marketing noise by Weaselmancer · · Score: 1

    It's a marketing ploy. AI is being mentioned in the news a lot lately, so Microsoft has to look like they're on board. That's all this is. I'm surprised they didn't say "blockchain" in there somewhere as well.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
    1. Re:Marketing noise by oldgraybeard · · Score: 1

      I'm surprised they didn't say "blockchain", yep! your right I did not look at it that way when I first read it ;)

    2. Re: Marketing noise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shitty smelly H1b hindu-chimps now infest AI department of Monkeyshit Corp, splendid.

    3. Re: Marketing noise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which part of 'Satya Nadella' did you miss when it was first explained to you?

  29. Windows - pah! by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Just checked out two Windows laptops, running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. On each, I checked Windows Update and found the usual uninstalled stack of Optional Updates waiting to be downloaded. On each machine, I dutifully checked all the installation boxes and clicked Download and Install. Both machines cranked away for a half hour and then crapped out with "Cannot find updates. Try again later?"

    Before Microsoft puts anything resembling AI into Windows, could it deign to release a version of the OS that doesn't turn into unupdatable shit after the first year?

    1. Re:Windows - pah! by marcle · · Score: 1

      Yes this. I have been supporting Windows machines for friends, family, and clients for years.
      I can't recommend Microsoft any more. They were never terrific, although Windows 7 was a high point. But now they've gone full tilt into this remote-controlled walled garden kind of thing.
      Want to guess how an app could use AI? Such as noticing your activity and recommending various products and services? Or, worse, reconfiguring things for you?

    2. Re:Windows - pah! by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      Let me guess... instead of waiting for a Windows update to rearrange all the systems settings UI, this "A.I." feature will dynamically rearrange things for you on the fly.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    3. Re:Windows - pah! by MemeRot · · Score: 1

      Predictive analytics to move the update now button under your mouse at the most unexpected time

    4. Re:Windows - pah! by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      "It looks like you're trying to find a shortcut on your desktop. Would you like help?"

        -Clippy

  30. AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is why I'm still using widows 7. It's not the job of the os to give me engaging anything. The os should launch the programs I install and give me enough tools to troubleshoot or configure it as I please. Other than that, it should be invisible.

  31. It's a trap! by rune2 · · Score: 2

    Need I remind you that this is the company that invented Clippy?

    There, fixed it for you:
    "Redstone 4," will enable developers to "use AI to deliver more powerful and annoying experiences."

  32. put it in user land by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't make it part of your OS. Just one more dimension to configure through registry hacks and group policy.

  33. Hardware accelerated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ouch, my software-only system will take a performance hit.

  34. Windows 10 is already untrustworthy and disturbing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Installs programs with your consent, forced spying / telemetry that you can't switch off completely, all sorts of arms from the cloud in to your system.

    Oh yeah, it TRICKS YOU in to setting up a Microsoft account even after you've installed it with a local account. Go ahead try it, start with a local account and try to use Office or other Microsoft services. At some point they'll trick you in to converting your LOCAL ACCOUNT to a MICROSOFT ACCOUNT.

    Microsoft has become an impressively user-hostile company.