Microsoft Will Roll Out Windows 10

Microsoft’s news on how the company plans to release Windows 10 to the masses later this month. The launch will begin with OEM partners so that they can get their products ready for the July 29 release date. After that, Microsoft will release a build to retailers so that they can assist customers who purchased devices with Windows 8.1 installed.

Once July 29 arrives, Microsoft will begin rolling out Windows 10 to the individuals participating in the Windows Insiders program. The company will also begin rolling out the new OS to those who reserved a space in the release schedule. This will be done in waves and will “slowly scale up" the release.

“Each day of the roll-out, we will listen, learn and update the experience for all Windows 10 users,” Myerson writes. “If you reserved your copy of Windows 10, we will notify you once our compatibility work confirms you will have a great experience, and Windows 10 has been downloaded on your system.”

For customers that are not ready for the upgrade, Microsoft may provide those users with information about contacting the device manager or application provider. If the device is incompatible, customers are encouraged to upgrade anyway and hit the new Windows Store to seek out “alternative compatible solutions.”

On July 29, customers may see new device boxes on retail shelves with a Windows 8.1 installation. If the device is compatible with Windows 10, they will see a sticker slapped on the front indicating that Microsoft and the OEM have tested the device for Windows 10 compatibility.

According to the post, Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Professional will be made available on launch day. Then starting on August 1, Volume licensing customers will be able to download Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Education on the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).

“Window 10 Pro, Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Education offer a rich set of fundamentals that you would expect from Windows, and a range of security, deployment and management features. Just like for our consumer customers, we’ll continue to introduce new features and updates in an ongoing manner, including Enterprise Data Protection later this year,” Myerson writes.

Windows 10 on the desktop caters to the keyboard and mouse customers while making the Start Screen an optional tool. The big changes to the platform include a new Start Menu, a new browser called Microsoft Edge, DirectX 12 and Cortana, Microsoft’s answer to Google Now and Apple’s Siri.

Around 5 million customers have participated in the Windows Insiders program.

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Google's self-driving cars will soon hit the streets

Watch the road, Google's self-driving cars will soon hit the streets of California

 

 The first self-driving cars built by Google are heading to public roads for the first time.
A “few” of the prototype vehicles Google has developed will appear on the streets of Mountain View, California, this summer, the company said Friday. Until now, those vehicles have been tested and driven on private property.
“Safety drivers” will go along for the ride, but they’ll take control only “if needed,” using a removable steering wheel and brake and accelerator pedals, according to the company.
The initial prototype Google showed in May of last year lacked manual controls and had only one button (for start/stop), but the company promised that later versions would include these components.


The prototype cars have been tested to ensure that their sensors and software work as planned, according to Google, which also released a video of a prototype car navigating a course of orange cones and going over a bumpy track. Google reiterated that the cars’ speed will be capped at 25 miles per hour, a point it made last year.
Google has been experimenting with autonomous driving cars for years. The company retrofitted 20 Lexus sport utility vehicles with hardware and software that allows them to operate without a driver. Those vehicles have been tested on public streets with a driver behind the wheel for the past six years, recording 1 million miles of autonomous driving.
During that time, the cars have amassed a safe driving record: They’ve been involved in 11 accidents, and in every incident the damage was minor, no one was injured and the Google car wasn’t at fault, according to the company. The software that powers the Lexus fleet also runs the prototype cars.
Google said getting the cars on the road will let it gauge people’s reactions to them and see how the vehicles handle challenging scenarios, such as heavy traffic and road construction.

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LG returns to Windows Phone

LG returns to Windows Phone with a whimper

 

 

 

Three years after swearing off Windows Phone, LG is back with a budget handset for Verizon Wireless.

The LG Lancet has a 4.5-inch display with 854-by-480 resolution, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor, 8 GB of storage (with MicroSD expansion), an 8-megapixel rear camera, a VGA front camera, and a 2,100 mAh battery.
Those specs put the Lancet squarely on the low end of the smartphone spectrum, but it has a price to match. Verizon is charging just $120 for the phone without a contract, or you can get it with a two-year commitment for $20.
For software, the Lancet runs Windows Phone 8.1, but LG is also borrowing some features from its Android phones. For instance, users can wake or lock the phone by double-tapping on the display, and can snap a selfie with a hand gesture. A Quick Memo application lets users take notes or capture the screen during phone calls.
The Lancet is available now through Verizon’s website. If you’re looking for a new high-end Windows Phone, it’s not going to happen until Windows 10 arrives this summer.
The story behind the story: LG was one of the first Windows Phone manufacturers in 2010, but a few years ago the company publicly declared that it would stop supporting Microsoft’s platform, citing a lack of meaningful market share. While Windows Phone is still far behind iOS and Android, Microsoft’s hardware reference design and support for on-screen buttons now makes it easier for phone makers to turn their existing Android handsets into Windows Phone variants. That seems to be the case here, as the Lancet is very similar to one of LG’s recent low-end Android phones, the Leon.

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Google Play's 'Designed for Families'

Google Play's 'Designed for Families' selection is likely to go live at I/O conference

 Google is giving Android developers a firm deadline for submitting apps and games they want to the new Designed for Families section of the Play Store.
The cutoff is May 28, just one day before the beginning of Google I/O. The developer conference is where Google makes announcements about new initiatives, so we're expecting the new family-friendly app selection will get prominent play.
The email (pictured) reminds developers their apps must meet specific content ratings and other requirements in order to be included.



 

The story behind the story: Google's Designed for Families program is an effort to showcase the kid-friendly apps and games in its Play Store. Making them easier to find could mean more downloads and in-app purchases, which is good for Google and the developers alike. The new effort may also help Google catch up to Apple's App Store, which is regarded as having the best collection of educational and kid-friendly apps

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Android M Adding Stronger Privacy Controls

With "Android M" reportedly just weeks away from making its debut, the rumor mill is heating up.
Word has it that the new version of Android will offer more controls for privacy-conscious users. According to Bloomberg Business, which cited unnamed people "familiar with the matter," Android M will "give users more detailed choices over what [information] apps can access."
As Phandroid noted, this is a long-awaited feature for Android fans. Upon installing something, for example, you could let an app access your contacts but not your photos.
Fiddling with permissions, however, is a good way to break your app, so "we're guessing it'll be something similar to how iOS asks the user to grant apps permission to access their gallery, or camera app in order to function," Phandroid said. 

Google last year simplified the permission information it displays to people before they download an app, letting them decide whether to continue or cancel. With Android M, those decisions will reportedly get a bit more granular.
The move comes amidst the ongoing shift to mobile, Bloomberg said. Google, indeed, just this week said that more searches now take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries, including the U.S.
Google will likely provide a first look at Android M at its annual I/O developer conference later this month. Google I/O 2015 takes place on May 28 and 29 in San Francisco's Moscone Center West, so stay tuned.
Other rumors suggest that the next version of Android might be built directly into new cars. In December, Reuters said Google's software could become the standard system that powers future cars' entertainment and navigation features — a huge step up from Android Auto, which requires an Android phone to be plugged in to access things like music, maps, and apps.

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Windows 10: the Last Version of Windows?

 Windows 10 will be the last major version of Microsoft's operating system.
Microsoft's developer evangelist Jerry Nixon made the announcement at the company's Ignite conference in Chicago last week.

"Right now we're releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we're all still working on Windows 10," he said. But don't let his comments freak you out — Windows isn't going away — far from it.
Microsoft is instead changing the way it distributes improvements for the operating system in the future. Instead of releasing a whole new version every few years, as it's done until now, Microsoft plans to improve Windows through regular updates.
"Recent comments at Ignite about Windows 10 are reflective of the way Windows will be delivered as a service bringing new innovations and updates in an ongoing manner, with continuous value for our consumer and business customers," a Microsoft spokesperson told PCMag

This jibes with Microsoft's recent announcement that it's killing off Patch Tuesday in favor of pushing out patches to Windows 10 users as soon as they're ready, on a 24/7 basis.
At this point, it's unclear whether Microsoft plans to keep the Windows 10 moniker forever, though. The company does have a history of making frequent and sometimes unpopular name changes.
"We aren't speaking to future branding at this time, but customers can be confident Windows 10 will remain up-to-date and power a variety of devices from PCs to phones to Surface Hub to HoloLens and Xbox," the spokesperson said today. "We look forward to a long future of Windows innovations."
 

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Australia's first Android TV

Australia's first Android TV device arrives with Google Nexus Player.

The Google Nexus Player is finally arriving in Australian stores from next week.

The player, which runs the Android TV platform, was released in the U.S. in October 2014. It will be sold at JB Hi-Fi and Dick Smith from Tuesday for A$129. The device sits in the same market as Apple TV, and is the first device to offer Android TV locally.

You can use Google's voice search technology to find out information about programs, discover content, find a YouTube video and navigate around the screen while the interface brings your favourite TV shows or apps to the surface. It also lets you play Android games on the big screen with the game controller, which will set you back an extra A$49.

The Nexus Player, a collaboration with Asus, is billed as the "new platform that puts Android inside televisions and set-top boxes." Its main difference from Google's Chromecast dongle, which allows you to share your laptop, phone or tablet screen with your TV, is the Google interface. It will allow a user to bring up Google Play apps, music and movies, while also casting content from their devices.

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Which Antivirus Is Best?

Which Antivirus Is Best? Tough Test Separates Winners and Losers

These days you don't have to download a Trojan to get infested by malware. Drive-by downloads and other sneaky techniques can infest your computer just because you surfed to a malicious or hacked site. To evade detection, the bad guys often configure their nasty code so it doesn't attack every visitor. It might attack one visitor in ten, or only trigger once for a given block of IP addresses. Researchers atDennis Technology Labs take these tactics into account when testing antivirus software with a test system that ensures each product gets hit by precisely the same attack. It's meant to be as close as you can come to a real user's experience.

Every day for two months, the researchers select newly-discovered malicious sites and use a capture/replay system to present each of ten antivirus products with the exact same scenario. The number of products is low because this test is seriously labor-intensive. After two months of testing, they collect and analyze the results to produce a quarterly report.

Nine products remain the same from quarter to quarter (though Webroot replacesBitdefender starting this quarter). The tenth slot goes to a rotating guest product. For the first quarter of 2015, Panda Free Antivirus was the guest.

Scoring Protection
The best antivirus protection stops the attack before it ever reaches your computer—this kind of complete defense earns three points. If the malware launches but then gets detected and cleaned up, that's still worth a point. And if the cleanup is complete, with no dangerous traces left, that's worth another point. A product that fails to detect the malware, or lets it damage the test system, loses five points. With 100 samples, the possible scores range from 300 to minus 500.

Final certification ratings incorporate both the detection test and a separate very detailed test that examines how successfully the antivirus products refrain from blocking or warning about valid programs. The false positives test takes into account each sample's prevalence and also distinguishes degrees of bad behavior. Wiping out a valid program and reporting it as malware is worse than asking the user whether to block or allow it, for example. For full details, see the Dennis Technology Labs website.

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Google Announces Anyone Can Port Android Apps Onto Chrome OS

Google Announces Anyone Can Port Android Apps Onto Chrome OS (Chromebooks).

Both Android and Chrome OS are different operating systems but it seems that Google wants users from Android to be able to run apps on their Chromebooks without any issues. Just last year at Google I/O, the company announced that Android apps would soon be arriving onto Chrome OS, although safe to say that the apps haven’t exactly been pouring in.
However Google had recently confirmed with The Verge that as of today, any Android developer will be able to start using App Runtime for Chrome. It should be noted that the feature is still in beta at this point in time, but for the most part hopefully it shouldn’t give developers any trouble. It will also allow developers to port their Android apps over onto Chrome OS without much fuss, so perhaps we could start seeing an influx of Android apps on Chrome OS.
Of course it remains to be seen how optimized such Android apps will be on the Chrome OS platform, but we suppose if there is a particular app that you absolutely have to use but can’t because there isn’t a Chrome OS-optimized version of it, then the Android version will have to make do. Google and ASUS have also recently announced the Chromebit dongle which basically takes any HDMI display and turns it into a Chrome PC.

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Microsoft Apps Will Come Pre-Installed On Android Devices

Microsoft Apps Will Come Pre-Installed On Android Devices From 11 Manufacturers



Over the past few months Microsoft has been working hard to put its apps everywhere. It is much more open to rival platforms now and is forging partnerships that puts its apps and services on iOS and Android. Just yesterday the company announced the expansion of its partnership with Samsung that will see Microsoft apps and services arrive on some Android tablets. Microsoft has announced that 11 Android manufacturers are going to put its apps on their devices.


Microsoft has announced that it is expanding “strategic agreements” with Dell which will see its apps on the company’s Android devices coming to market later this year.
Dell is the only global OEM in this list, others are regional. Similar agreements have also been made with Germany’s TrekStor, Portugal’s JP Sa Couto, Italy’s Datamatic, Russia’s DEXP, Canada’s Hipstreet, Pakistan’s QMobile, Turkey’s Casper and Africa’s Tecno. Pegatron is also included in the list.
All of these manufacturers will pre-install Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype on their Android devices that will be released later this year.

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