The relevant question is, what is more harmful to the nation, second hand smoke or back handed big government disguised in do-gooder healthcare rhetoric.
*Takes deep breath free of cigarette smoke*. I'm going with back handed big government since I'm not being killed by someone replacing my breathable oxygen with carcinogenic smog against my consent.
The point is that this can be implemented server side to save storage of existing JPEGs. This is a better way to store existing images, not a better way to compress images.
You phones exist right? It would be a lot easier to setup a cushy job via phone than in front the entire press corp with cameras documenting the meeting.
Every foot of maglev is functional. Most of hyperloop is just inert metal pipe with the occasional maglev booster. And the pods are dramatically smaller than a train so the engineering is reduced on pylons etc.
Except that as Google has demonstrated, an autonomous vehicle needs to behave like a human to "fit in" even when it skirts the law. Slowing traffic and causing people to continually pass you isn't safe.
Yeah. And people get distracted and miss stop signs and stop lights all the time. The question isn't whether "it will result in deaths" the key word that you have in there that's ambiguous is "Additional". Additional in comparison to the technology not-existing or additional in addition to the (1) that has occurred.
Absolutely the latter. I wager the edge cases where the code fails will vastly be outnumbered by the edge cases where a human brain fails.
Musk wants to be the first guy to make a self-driving car. In part because he measures "Additional" by relative terms instead of sensationalist media outlets who measure it in absolute terms. Relative terms is in my not so humble opinion the obvious way we should be measuring safety. If we ban technology which is superior to the status quo, because it's not perfect we're denying life-saving technology because of irrational paranoia.
Voters can choose whether the crimes of a politician exclude them from public office. After all a crime of this sort is a crime "against" the American People. It looks suspiciously like political interference with the democratic process to arrest political candidates during the campaign. Obviously if they murdered or raped someone the victim should get justice. But in this case even if she was guilty... she was guilty of betraying the public's trust to steward their own government's information. The Victim is the voters. So the voters can decide the "guilt" of the candidate through the electoral process.
Nishimura admitted to destroying evidence and knowingly retaining classified documents. He also made copies deliberately of the documents.
Patraeus was guilty of *LYING* to the FBI and deliberately sharing books of classified information with a mistress who could arguably blackmail him.
There was another example where someone snuck documents out hidden in his coat. That's clear intent.
The last example was of someone prosecuted who had a relationship with someone who turned out to be a Chinese spy. and it was suspected that he might have known this.
In all of these examples they were prosecuted more because they lied to investigators or they did something worse (perhaps collaborating with Chinese agents) but they would have a hard time proving those harsher charges, so they used the lower charges as a proxy for those crimes.
Scrubbed by lawyers who were instructed to only remove private emails. Those lawyers would be committing a massive crime if they actually deleted classified emails.
What was to stop her from having an Email server anyway for her private communication that isn't covered by freedom of information releases? That's the problem with this line of argument. You have no choice but to trust them. A secretary of state is not forbidden from using a Gmail account. And you have no recourse to force them to release their emails from that private gmail. If someone wants to circumvent it with a shadow email system they can do that by saying "All of those emails are private."
I feel the same way about the Loretta Lynch meeting with Bill Clinton. People claim it's improper because they met. But they could have just as easily used two burner phones if they wanted to plot without any evidence. It's trivial. It's pathetically easy to communicate secretly.
The only email server which would have evidence of crimes that are unwipable would be an email server that the person *thinks* isn't FOIA accessible but is. If you have a corporate email, you don't use it for embezzlement, you know that it's not "secure". If you want to embezzle you use your private email. If you want to commit a crime in government you use your private email that nobody can check. And there isn't jack shit anyone can do.
Yes if you were that negligent you would be fired. But you also aren't the head of a department. Sorry but there is a double standard and it's not necessarily a bad one. If you are a CEO you can leak your product's release date. You can discuss future plans with reporters. You are high enough in the organization that your opinion is valid on when to bend the rules is outweighed by the drawbacks. Balancing speed of communication with time sensitive information vs the fallout from it leaking is within an executives' purview (up to a point). Obviously a marketing exec can't leak a social security number of a customer willingly but if you have a project under NDA they get a lot more leeway in violating that NDA than a random contractor. Everything is a cost/benefit. The farther up the chain you get the more flexibility you're given on a number of topics.
It would be a bit like complaining about a double standard where an airline pilot is allowed to carry a gun while passengers aren't. Yeah... because an Airline pilot can already crash the plane so theoretically the risk of them carrying a gun is different from you or I.
When you develop for console you develop for the lowest common denominator. This IS the advantage you have. Now you have two console with the same targeted environment, one slightly better at throughput than the other, and initially with lower numbers. Would you target that, add millions of dollars worth of development in bell and whistle , only to have barely a better sales, and risk the ire or their "lower" console brethen because the screenshot presented were only for scorpio ? And if you develop *for* scorpio you will miss on xbox one 1.0 player.
Every AAA game already is developed for multiple consoles and PC. Realistically up until very recently nearly every game got a PS3, Xbox 360, PS4 and Xbox One version as a given (unless it was first party in which case the economics are about selling hardware anyway and you can throw "economic considerations" out the window). Almost every game will also see a PC release. A few games will also get a WiiU release as well. Realistically all that it means is that you create an OpenGL and a DirectX render path for your game.
PS4 and Xbox One are so close to PC that the PC release is pretty trivial all things considered. The art assets for all the generations are created all at once. Effectively all of the art assets are created at beyond-PC resolution and then detail re-projected onto the target quality levels for 360/One/PC levels. And you have to create those anyway for Level-Of-Detail. So even if you're on PC, you have a LOD tree where a model starts out as a card, then a blocky chunk and then a last-gen quality model and then finally a high detail quality model as it gets up in your face for a cinematic. Similarly textures are mip-mapped because you get aliasing issues far away with high detail textures. So every texture is automatically downscaled to multiple mipmap levels. As you get closer, the engine swaps the textures. This is also the infamous "texture pop" when the mipmapping level of detail fails to load the right texture in time.
Any game that will be released for PC will need a HQ mode better than the best console in existence can handle. So if you have a PC build of your game you already have to create the HQ assets. And if you want to make money these days you also need a PC release. There are almost 0 console exclusives except for a specific console and then you have a first party release so it's all about investing as much as it takes to market a first party piece of hardware.
There are also considerations outside of asset quality that would justify more power. Maybe you have a 4k TV. That requires 4x more pixel pushing power. Maybe you want VR at 1440p and 90fps. That requires more than 4x more power. Even if games looked "The Same" there would be room on the market for a 4k console and a 1080p console that played otherwise identical games.
There is also a host of other areas in a game where you can for "Free" on the developer's side add quality with no art work. Turn up AA and your game looks better. It's just a driver flag. Turn up texture filtering: driver flag. If your LOD system is good, it might even automatically just keep higher poly models in longer. You can change a global system variable and use a higher resolution shadowmap. All of this will make your game look better. And it won't require any expensive artist input.
PC game developers are well adept at releasing a game that runs well on a near infinite variety of hardware configurations. If they can handle then 1,000,000s of combinations from a laptop to a quad GPU monster gaming rig, the team responsible for 4 consoles instead of 2 can easily handle it and it's absurd to suggest that they would just ship the last-gen version for both.
Except that even in law there is often a good bit of leeway assigned to intent when interpreting law. And since a code fork *can* reverse a contract, clearly "The Code" can be manipulated both for and against unintended outcomes.
It's hypocritical to say that the code acted as intended, and then also criticize changing the code as unethical. The fork also worked as intended.
Then they changed their mind and now they wish they had purchased a regular perpetual license rather than trying to save money by leasing it.
Yeah, this sounds to me like the heart of it. If you lease a car year-to-year you might pay less than owning it. The company effectively is trying to end the lease and reclaim the vehicle but the company wants to keep it without making any more payments.
From the vendor's perspective probably what the Health Department has been paying for, for the last 20 odd years is support costs while receiving the software for "Free". Now they want to get the software without a support contract. So arguably they've paid the metaphorical depreciation but they've made no payments towards capital. This lawsuit will most likely just be used as leverage to demand a large software license fee and a clear contract that excludes them from liability should this unsupported product die. Even then, I would be wary of "selling a license" as well since there is the potential for a massive hack resulting in government inquiries and bad publicity for "insecure software" being associated with your company.
I agree. I had shitty local ISPs in my small home town. Even the cable internet was terrible. I moved to a Comcast territory and it was night and day. 10x faster for 1/2 the price. And it was extremely reliable. I moved out of Comcast Territory and the regional cable provider was again god awful and then moved again into a DSL territory and it was even worse.
The most reliable and lowest latency network I've ever had is Comcast. I have a really hard time hating on them.
they effectively both destroyed the console lifecycle I expect we'll soon see the law of diminishing returns kick in as people stop buying consoles because they're worried they might out of date in a few years rather than the usual 5 or more.
Exactly the opposite. Now you can buy an older generation console for less if you don't need the latest features but still play the latest games with your friends who do rush out to buy the latest and greatest. More importantly you'll be able to play your games in higher quality later when the latest and greatest drops in price.
If you're budget conscious this is a great change for consoles. Let's compare:
Before: You buy the Xbox 360 for $199 when the Xbox One came out at $499. You don't need 1080p, you don't care that much about graphics and the xbox360 is "enough". You play that for the last few years and now you're starting to see some Xbox One exclusives that aren't coming to the 360 and you can't play with your friends who have now almost all bought Xbox Ones. So you buy an Xbox One for $299. Oh, but your copy of Battlefield 4 only works through the Backwards Compatibility feature. Oh and also you still can't play with your friends because it's still the Xbox 360 version of the game. And the game still looks like the Xbox 360 version. You upgraded but everything is the same or worse. So you now buy Battlefield 4 Xbox One Edition and have paid twice.
Future: You buy an Xbox One S for $199 when Scorpio is released. You don't have a 4k HDR TV and you don't play in VR so the discounted console is a great value. You can still play with all of your friends who have the latest and greatest HDR 4k TV. After a couple years you also buy a 4k HDR TV so you want some of the new features. So you spring for the now discounted Scorpio Slim (The now-latest Xbox in 2020 is sporting raytraced reflections and shadows and global illumination lighting) for $299. Your games look awesome on your new console. You don't have to rebuy anything. Your controllers still work with your new console and you can play with gamers on the "Next-Gen" console just without the whizbang features. And to top it all off, you're able to play the same game on your tablet on the plane without having to buy a PC version in addition to the console version. The resolution is lower and the framerate isn't as good but it's good for killing time at 30k feet.
"Hey assholes, stop updating and maintaining your flagship product!"
This would set a really really bad precedent if they somehow did find Microsoft Legally guilty of something. What would that something be? Illegally updating code without consent? Downloading a bit without explicit consent?
Issue a security patch, have it install automatically: lawsuit. Replace certificate in keychain: lawsuit. Cache website before it's clicked on: lawsuit. Download email automatically using default settings: lawsuit.
It's also incredibly ironic that Google is criticized for failing to keep the OS up to date on most devices causing fragmentation and Microsoft is criticized for failing to allow their OS to become fragmented. I'm sure most people with an Android device wished they had the problem "Google keeps ensuring every device gets the latest version of Android."
Why would Microsoft care if Windows 7 users who have no interest in ever upgrading, switch to Linux? It's not like they make any money off of people who already have Windows 7.
Microsoft has a massive incentive to get people onto an OS where they have a convenient store where people spend money and they get a cut. Microsoft also has a massive incentive to get everybody off of Windows 7 so that they can stop supporting it with security and bug fixes. Windows 7 only represents a cost to Microsoft but no revenue. Windows 10 while a free upgrade represents a future where they never have to again support an OS for 15 years except for customers who pay them a costly support contract for long-term support. Everybody else will come hell or high water be on the latest consistent build within 6-18 months of its release (consumer/enterprise).
Ending legacy support is every developer's wet dream. And anybody who isn't on board with that business model isn't a customer they want. Do you want to run Windows 7 in the year 2025? Well Microsoft doesn't want you to. They would very very much prefer you're running Windows 2025 edition. So maybe you as a customer are not worth selling to.
I can see a good number of people switching to Linux, but most people have no need for 15 years of support. At 6 years and 2 major releases old Microsoft hates Windows 7 more than Linux probably at this point. Linux requires no support. Windows 7 means they have to back-port all of their security fixes to a more than half decade old OS that honestly offers its users nothing over their latest build.
I agree. I always wished I had an LCD board in my back window with preprogrammed responses.
"Sorry, I was a total asshole and didn't see you." "Thanks!"
On a more serious note I still think the Google Cars need a bright red flashing light in the back window for when it detects an oncoming car when it's stopped. Lay on the horn and flash a bright red light at them. Then if they're texting and are about to rear-end you (most google car accidents it seems) they will be alerted and hopefully stop their vehicle.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that Mad Max is one of the most CGI intensive films in recent history.
The relevant question is, what is more harmful to the nation, second hand smoke or back handed big government disguised in do-gooder healthcare rhetoric.
*Takes deep breath free of cigarette smoke*. I'm going with back handed big government since I'm not being killed by someone replacing my breathable oxygen with carcinogenic smog against my consent.
The point is that this can be implemented server side to save storage of existing JPEGs. This is a better way to store existing images, not a better way to compress images.
You phones exist right? It would be a lot easier to setup a cushy job via phone than in front the entire press corp with cameras documenting the meeting.
Every foot of maglev is functional. Most of hyperloop is just inert metal pipe with the occasional maglev booster. And the pods are dramatically smaller than a train so the engineering is reduced on pylons etc.
Except that as Google has demonstrated, an autonomous vehicle needs to behave like a human to "fit in" even when it skirts the law. Slowing traffic and causing people to continually pass you isn't safe.
Yeah. And people get distracted and miss stop signs and stop lights all the time. The question isn't whether "it will result in deaths" the key word that you have in there that's ambiguous is "Additional". Additional in comparison to the technology not-existing or additional in addition to the (1) that has occurred.
Absolutely the latter. I wager the edge cases where the code fails will vastly be outnumbered by the edge cases where a human brain fails.
Musk wants to be the first guy to make a self-driving car. In part because he measures "Additional" by relative terms instead of sensationalist media outlets who measure it in absolute terms. Relative terms is in my not so humble opinion the obvious way we should be measuring safety. If we ban technology which is superior to the status quo, because it's not perfect we're denying life-saving technology because of irrational paranoia.
Voters can choose whether the crimes of a politician exclude them from public office. After all a crime of this sort is a crime "against" the American People. It looks suspiciously like political interference with the democratic process to arrest political candidates during the campaign. Obviously if they murdered or raped someone the victim should get justice. But in this case even if she was guilty... she was guilty of betraying the public's trust to steward their own government's information. The Victim is the voters. So the voters can decide the "guilt" of the candidate through the electoral process.
Nonsense.
Nishimura admitted to destroying evidence and knowingly retaining classified documents. He also made copies deliberately of the documents.
Patraeus was guilty of *LYING* to the FBI and deliberately sharing books of classified information with a mistress who could arguably blackmail him.
There was another example where someone snuck documents out hidden in his coat. That's clear intent.
The last example was of someone prosecuted who had a relationship with someone who turned out to be a Chinese spy. and it was suspected that he might have known this.
In all of these examples they were prosecuted more because they lied to investigators or they did something worse (perhaps collaborating with Chinese agents) but they would have a hard time proving those harsher charges, so they used the lower charges as a proxy for those crimes.
Scrubbed by lawyers who were instructed to only remove private emails. Those lawyers would be committing a massive crime if they actually deleted classified emails.
What was to stop her from having an Email server anyway for her private communication that isn't covered by freedom of information releases? That's the problem with this line of argument. You have no choice but to trust them. A secretary of state is not forbidden from using a Gmail account. And you have no recourse to force them to release their emails from that private gmail. If someone wants to circumvent it with a shadow email system they can do that by saying "All of those emails are private."
I feel the same way about the Loretta Lynch meeting with Bill Clinton. People claim it's improper because they met. But they could have just as easily used two burner phones if they wanted to plot without any evidence. It's trivial. It's pathetically easy to communicate secretly.
The only email server which would have evidence of crimes that are unwipable would be an email server that the person *thinks* isn't FOIA accessible but is. If you have a corporate email, you don't use it for embezzlement, you know that it's not "secure". If you want to embezzle you use your private email. If you want to commit a crime in government you use your private email that nobody can check. And there isn't jack shit anyone can do.
Yes if you were that negligent you would be fired. But you also aren't the head of a department. Sorry but there is a double standard and it's not necessarily a bad one. If you are a CEO you can leak your product's release date. You can discuss future plans with reporters. You are high enough in the organization that your opinion is valid on when to bend the rules is outweighed by the drawbacks. Balancing speed of communication with time sensitive information vs the fallout from it leaking is within an executives' purview (up to a point). Obviously a marketing exec can't leak a social security number of a customer willingly but if you have a project under NDA they get a lot more leeway in violating that NDA than a random contractor. Everything is a cost/benefit. The farther up the chain you get the more flexibility you're given on a number of topics.
It would be a bit like complaining about a double standard where an airline pilot is allowed to carry a gun while passengers aren't. Yeah... because an Airline pilot can already crash the plane so theoretically the risk of them carrying a gun is different from you or I.
When you develop for console you develop for the lowest common denominator. This IS the advantage you have. Now you have two console with the same targeted environment, one slightly better at throughput than the other, and initially with lower numbers. Would you target that, add millions of dollars worth of development in bell and whistle , only to have barely a better sales, and risk the ire or their "lower" console brethen because the screenshot presented were only for scorpio ? And if you develop *for* scorpio you will miss on xbox one 1.0 player.
Every AAA game already is developed for multiple consoles and PC. Realistically up until very recently nearly every game got a PS3, Xbox 360, PS4 and Xbox One version as a given (unless it was first party in which case the economics are about selling hardware anyway and you can throw "economic considerations" out the window). Almost every game will also see a PC release. A few games will also get a WiiU release as well. Realistically all that it means is that you create an OpenGL and a DirectX render path for your game.
PS4 and Xbox One are so close to PC that the PC release is pretty trivial all things considered. The art assets for all the generations are created all at once. Effectively all of the art assets are created at beyond-PC resolution and then detail re-projected onto the target quality levels for 360/One/PC levels. And you have to create those anyway for Level-Of-Detail. So even if you're on PC, you have a LOD tree where a model starts out as a card, then a blocky chunk and then a last-gen quality model and then finally a high detail quality model as it gets up in your face for a cinematic. Similarly textures are mip-mapped because you get aliasing issues far away with high detail textures. So every texture is automatically downscaled to multiple mipmap levels. As you get closer, the engine swaps the textures. This is also the infamous "texture pop" when the mipmapping level of detail fails to load the right texture in time.
Any game that will be released for PC will need a HQ mode better than the best console in existence can handle. So if you have a PC build of your game you already have to create the HQ assets. And if you want to make money these days you also need a PC release. There are almost 0 console exclusives except for a specific console and then you have a first party release so it's all about investing as much as it takes to market a first party piece of hardware.
There are also considerations outside of asset quality that would justify more power. Maybe you have a 4k TV. That requires 4x more pixel pushing power. Maybe you want VR at 1440p and 90fps. That requires more than 4x more power. Even if games looked "The Same" there would be room on the market for a 4k console and a 1080p console that played otherwise identical games.
There is also a host of other areas in a game where you can for "Free" on the developer's side add quality with no art work. Turn up AA and your game looks better. It's just a driver flag. Turn up texture filtering: driver flag. If your LOD system is good, it might even automatically just keep higher poly models in longer. You can change a global system variable and use a higher resolution shadowmap. All of this will make your game look better. And it won't require any expensive artist input.
PC game developers are well adept at releasing a game that runs well on a near infinite variety of hardware configurations. If they can handle then 1,000,000s of combinations from a laptop to a quad GPU monster gaming rig, the team responsible for 4 consoles instead of 2 can easily handle it and it's absurd to suggest that they would just ship the last-gen version for both.
http://imgur.com/a/O5Fj4
It's a direct lift. Probably "vertex for vertex". Definitely a copyright violation.
Yeah that was my reaction too. "Uhh... I don't think Tony's frozen pizzas are made by humans. "
Just increase the number of bots and you still have the majority of bots being the "lottery winners".
Except that even in law there is often a good bit of leeway assigned to intent when interpreting law. And since a code fork *can* reverse a contract, clearly "The Code" can be manipulated both for and against unintended outcomes.
It's hypocritical to say that the code acted as intended, and then also criticize changing the code as unethical. The fork also worked as intended.
Then they changed their mind and now they wish they had purchased a regular perpetual license rather than trying to save money by leasing it.
Yeah, this sounds to me like the heart of it. If you lease a car year-to-year you might pay less than owning it. The company effectively is trying to end the lease and reclaim the vehicle but the company wants to keep it without making any more payments.
From the vendor's perspective probably what the Health Department has been paying for, for the last 20 odd years is support costs while receiving the software for "Free". Now they want to get the software without a support contract. So arguably they've paid the metaphorical depreciation but they've made no payments towards capital. This lawsuit will most likely just be used as leverage to demand a large software license fee and a clear contract that excludes them from liability should this unsupported product die. Even then, I would be wary of "selling a license" as well since there is the potential for a massive hack resulting in government inquiries and bad publicity for "insecure software" being associated with your company.
Video is searchable. Adobe Premiere lets you search video. You just index it as metadata through automatic transcription.
That being said. Who wants to have to make themselves presentable to post something on facebook? Or put on clothes.
I agree. I had shitty local ISPs in my small home town. Even the cable internet was terrible. I moved to a Comcast territory and it was night and day. 10x faster for 1/2 the price. And it was extremely reliable. I moved out of Comcast Territory and the regional cable provider was again god awful and then moved again into a DSL territory and it was even worse.
The most reliable and lowest latency network I've ever had is Comcast. I have a really hard time hating on them.
they effectively both destroyed the console lifecycle I expect we'll soon see the law of diminishing returns kick in as people stop buying consoles because they're worried they might out of date in a few years rather than the usual 5 or more.
Exactly the opposite. Now you can buy an older generation console for less if you don't need the latest features but still play the latest games with your friends who do rush out to buy the latest and greatest. More importantly you'll be able to play your games in higher quality later when the latest and greatest drops in price.
If you're budget conscious this is a great change for consoles. Let's compare:
Before:
You buy the Xbox 360 for $199 when the Xbox One came out at $499. You don't need 1080p, you don't care that much about graphics and the xbox360 is "enough". You play that for the last few years and now you're starting to see some Xbox One exclusives that aren't coming to the 360 and you can't play with your friends who have now almost all bought Xbox Ones. So you buy an Xbox One for $299. Oh, but your copy of Battlefield 4 only works through the Backwards Compatibility feature. Oh and also you still can't play with your friends because it's still the Xbox 360 version of the game. And the game still looks like the Xbox 360 version. You upgraded but everything is the same or worse. So you now buy Battlefield 4 Xbox One Edition and have paid twice.
Future:
You buy an Xbox One S for $199 when Scorpio is released. You don't have a 4k HDR TV and you don't play in VR so the discounted console is a great value. You can still play with all of your friends who have the latest and greatest HDR 4k TV. After a couple years you also buy a 4k HDR TV so you want some of the new features. So you spring for the now discounted Scorpio Slim (The now-latest Xbox in 2020 is sporting raytraced reflections and shadows and global illumination lighting) for $299. Your games look awesome on your new console. You don't have to rebuy anything. Your controllers still work with your new console and you can play with gamers on the "Next-Gen" console just without the whizbang features. And to top it all off, you're able to play the same game on your tablet on the plane without having to buy a PC version in addition to the console version. The resolution is lower and the framerate isn't as good but it's good for killing time at 30k feet.
Maintaining their distribution software, paying for bandwidth, and a couple of servers to store the data.
Also building the .NET/WinRT Framework, DirectX and ya know.. Windows.
What exactly would they even charge them with.
"Hey assholes, stop updating and maintaining your flagship product!"
This would set a really really bad precedent if they somehow did find Microsoft Legally guilty of something. What would that something be? Illegally updating code without consent? Downloading a bit without explicit consent?
Issue a security patch, have it install automatically: lawsuit.
Replace certificate in keychain: lawsuit.
Cache website before it's clicked on: lawsuit.
Download email automatically using default settings: lawsuit.
It's also incredibly ironic that Google is criticized for failing to keep the OS up to date on most devices causing fragmentation and Microsoft is criticized for failing to allow their OS to become fragmented. I'm sure most people with an Android device wished they had the problem "Google keeps ensuring every device gets the latest version of Android."
Why would Microsoft care if Windows 7 users who have no interest in ever upgrading, switch to Linux? It's not like they make any money off of people who already have Windows 7.
Microsoft has a massive incentive to get people onto an OS where they have a convenient store where people spend money and they get a cut. Microsoft also has a massive incentive to get everybody off of Windows 7 so that they can stop supporting it with security and bug fixes. Windows 7 only represents a cost to Microsoft but no revenue. Windows 10 while a free upgrade represents a future where they never have to again support an OS for 15 years except for customers who pay them a costly support contract for long-term support. Everybody else will come hell or high water be on the latest consistent build within 6-18 months of its release (consumer/enterprise).
Ending legacy support is every developer's wet dream. And anybody who isn't on board with that business model isn't a customer they want. Do you want to run Windows 7 in the year 2025? Well Microsoft doesn't want you to. They would very very much prefer you're running Windows 2025 edition. So maybe you as a customer are not worth selling to.
I can see a good number of people switching to Linux, but most people have no need for 15 years of support. At 6 years and 2 major releases old Microsoft hates Windows 7 more than Linux probably at this point. Linux requires no support. Windows 7 means they have to back-port all of their security fixes to a more than half decade old OS that honestly offers its users nothing over their latest build.
I agree. I always wished I had an LCD board in my back window with preprogrammed responses.
"Sorry, I was a total asshole and didn't see you."
"Thanks!"
On a more serious note I still think the Google Cars need a bright red flashing light in the back window for when it detects an oncoming car when it's stopped. Lay on the horn and flash a bright red light at them. Then if they're texting and are about to rear-end you (most google car accidents it seems) they will be alerted and hopefully stop their vehicle.