Tag: microsoft

Windows 10 Gets a Package Manager For the Command Line

aojensen writes: ExtremeTech reports that the most recent build of Windows 10 Technical Preview shows that Windows is finally getting a package manager. The package manager is built for the PowerShell command line based on OneGet. OneGet is a command line utility for PowerShell very similar to classic Linux utilities such as apt-get and yum, which enable administrators and power users comfortable with the command line to install software packages without the need for a graphical installer. ExtremeTech emphasizes that “you can open up PowerShell and use OneGet to install thousands of applications with commands such as Find-Package VLC and Install-Package Firefox.” It’s a missing feature Linux advocates have long used to argue against Windows in terms of automation and scale. The package manage is open to any software repository and is based on the Chocolatey format for defining package repositories.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 10 Gets a Package Manager For the Command Line

OEM Windows 7 License Sales End This Friday

colinneagle writes This Friday is Halloween, but if you try to buy a PC with Windows 7 pre-loaded after that, you’re going to get a rock instead of a treat. Microsoft will stop selling Windows 7 licenses to OEMs after this Friday and you will only be able to buy a machine with Windows 8.1. The good news is that business/enterprise customers will still be able to order PCs ‘downgraded’ to Windows 7 Professional. Microsoft has not set an end date for when it will cut off Windows 7 Professional to OEMs, but it will likely be a while. This all fits in with typical Microsoft timing. Microsoft usually pulls OEM supply of an OS a year after it removes it from retail. Microsoft cut off the retail supply of Windows 7 in October of last year, although some retailers still have some remaining stock left. If the analytics from Steam are any indicator, Windows 8 is slowly working its way into the American public, but mostly as a Windows XP replacement. Windows 7, both 32-bit and 64-bit, account for 59% of their user base. Windows 8 and 8.1 account for 28%, while XP has dwindled to 4%. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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OEM Windows 7 License Sales End This Friday

Microsoft Is Bringing WebRTC To Explorer, Eyes Plugin-Free Skype Calls

An anonymous reader writes Microsoft today announced it is backing the Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) technology and will be supporting the ORTC API in Internet Explorer. Put another way, the company is finally throwing its weight behind the broader industry trend of bringing voice and video calling to the browser without the need for plugins. Both Google and Mozilla are way ahead of Microsoft in this area, both in terms of adding WebRTC features to their respective browsers and in terms of building plugin-free calling services that rely on the technology. In short, Skype is under threat, and Microsoft has finally decided to opt for an “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” strategy. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Is Bringing WebRTC To Explorer, Eyes Plugin-Free Skype Calls

Office 365 Subscribers Now Get Unlimited OneDrive Storage

In mid-July, Microsoft announced that’d it be rolling at a 1 TB storage increase for all its Office 365 Home, Personal, and University subscribers. But the team decided continue its push for cloud supremacy by upping its storage capacity into infinity. Office 365 users now have access to unlimited storage via OneDrive for free. Read more…

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Office 365 Subscribers Now Get Unlimited OneDrive Storage

Apple A8X IPad Air 2 Processor Packs Triple-Core CPU, Hefty Graphics Punch

MojoKid writes When Apple debuted its A8 SoC, it proved to be a modest tweak of the original A7. Despite packing double the transistors and an improved GPU, the heart of the A8 SoC is the same dual-core Apple “Cyclone” processor tweaked to run at higher clock speeds and with stronger total GPU performance. Given this, many expected that the Apple A8X would be cut from similar cloth — a higher clock speed, perhaps, and a larger GPU, but not much more than that. It appears those projections were wrong. The Apple A8X chip is a triple-core variant of the A8, with a higher clock speed (1.5GHz vs. 1.4GHz), a larger L2 cache (2MB, up from 1MB) and 2GB of external DDR3. It also uses an internal metal heatspreader, which the Apple A8 eschews. All of this points to slightly higher power consumption for the core, but also to dramatically increased performance. The new A8X is a significant power house in multiple types of workloads; in fact, its the top-performing mobile device on Geekbench by a wide margin. Gaming benchmarks are equally impressive. The iPad Air 2 nudges out Nvidia’s Shield in GFXBench’s Manhattan offscreen test, at 32.4fps to 31 fps. Onscreen favors the NV solution thanks to its lower-resolution screen, but the Nvidia device does take 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited by a wide margin, clocking in at 30, 970 compared to 21, 659. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple A8X IPad Air 2 Processor Packs Triple-Core CPU, Hefty Graphics Punch

BitTorrent Performance Test: Sync Is Faster Than Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox

An anonymous reader writes Now that its file synchronization tool has received a few updates, BitTorrent is going on the offensive against cloud-based storage services by showing off just how fast BitTorrent Sync can be. More specifically, the company conducted a test that shows Sync destroys Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive, and Dropbox. The company transferred a 1.36 GB MP4 video clip between two Apple MacBook Pros using two Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapters, the Time.gov site as a real-time clock, and the Internet connection at its headquarters (1 Gbps up/down). The timer started when the file transfer was initiated and then stopped once the file was fully synced and downloaded onto the receiving machine. Sync performed 8x faster than Google Drive, 11x faster than OneDrive, and 16x faster than Dropbox. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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BitTorrent Performance Test: Sync Is Faster Than Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox

FTDI Reportedly Bricking Devices Using Competitors’ Chips.

janoc writes It seems that chipmaker FTDI has started an outright war on cloners of their popular USB bridge chips. At first the clones stopped working with the official drivers, and now they are being intentionally bricked, rendering the device useless. The problem? These chips are incredibly popular and used in many consumer products. Are you sure yours doesn’t contain a counterfeit one before you plug it in? Hackaday says, “It’s very hard to tell the difference between the real and fake versions by looking at the package, but a look at the silicon reveals vast differences. The new driver for the FT232 exploits these differences, reprogramming it so it won’t work with existing drivers. It’s a bold strategy to cut down on silicon counterfeiters on the part of FTDI. A reasonable company would go after the manufacturers of fake chips, not the consumers who are most likely unaware they have a fake chip.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FTDI Reportedly Bricking Devices Using Competitors’ Chips.

Google’s Inbox App Wants To Read Your Email So You Don’t Have To

Today, Google revealed a project two years in the making. At first glance it looks just like a redesign of Gmail, and that’s sort of half true. It’s actually a completely new system called “Inbox” and it wants to reimagine your email. Read more…

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Google’s Inbox App Wants To Read Your Email So You Don’t Have To

China Staging a Nationwide Attack On iCloud and Microsoft Accounts

New submitter DemonOnIce writes: According to The Verge and original report the site that monitor’s China’s Great Firewall activity, China is conducting a large-scale attack on iCloud and Microsoft accounts using its government firewall software. Chinese users may be facing an unpleasant surprise as they are directed to a dummy site designed to like an Apple login page (or a Microsoft one, as appropriate). Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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China Staging a Nationwide Attack On iCloud and Microsoft Accounts

Why iOS Updates Require So Much Space

Every iOS update is a small deception. 117MB, well that’s not so bad! Then you look at the fine print, and some a few gigabytes are required make to actually install the damn thing. So what’s really going on here? Read more…

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Why iOS Updates Require So Much Space