181–190 of 596 posts
I guess that "free" upgrade business model includes harvesting data globally to sell to surveillance state agencies through round-about ways cough> palantir cough>
Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant, so I expected to see all these things as defaults. The advanced features just couldn't work without it. I'm glad there's at least an opt-out, but I do think that Windows needs an OS-wide incognito mode, just a simple switch to record or not record data. I generally use that on my browser for whe…
Yeah there should definitely be a "Hey Cortana, off the record,..." query mode. I'm a bit conflicted now. My girls are 7 & 9 and they've been using Microsoft Accounts. With the final Win10 build having all this (none of these settings worked a few months ago), it looks like I've got a lot of reading and explaining to do for them.
My own children are still using computers with Windows 7. They play Spore (Windows only), Sims 3 (Windows only) Minecraft (Java, so playable anywhere), Osu! (no idea, really), and a couple of other games. I have no intention of upgrading Windows on their computers past 7. Take a look at your options, you might be surprised how easily Windows is replaced with anything else.
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> I'm getting sick of having to open incognito mode on Chrome unless I want Google Now to happily repeat whatever I was looking at later. Isn't that what incognito mode is for? If don't want your searches in cards at all, you completely opt-out of the cards that are strictly based on your search history. Ctrl+Shift+N seems like a small, reasonable step to go off the record. What is the alternative?
Why are you complaining about having to wear a bag over your head whenever you go out to pick up your prescriptions or meet your mistress, citizen? It's a small, reasonable step to go off the record. What is the alternative?
Of course you did. Large companies have no vested interest in building systems that do the "right thing" for you as defined by tech types like us who are arguably more sensitive on this subject than most people. They are building services that take your information and try to do something interesting enough with it to make it worthwhile...and why is it on by default? Because they want to make money off of the new fea…
I've never understood how people can truly believe that by checking (or unchecking) a checkbox their privacy will be fully protected. Especially since we're talking about a closed-source OS. I mean I cannot possibly verify what exactly goes on in the annals of the operating system and what happens to my data, where it is logged and where it is stored and how it is sent. So regardless of the settings, I always assume…
You mean besides the fact that collecting personal data without your consent is illegal?
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Something like Cortana could have been built to work locally, using your own resources. But it wasn't. This was an opportunity to say "we're not like Siri and Google Now, we respect your privacy", but instead they built something just like them.
I imagine the resource costs would be too high to really make that worthwhile. The choice is probably between bad privacy settings, a bad personal assistant, or bad battery life and disk usage. Microsoft chose the option that would likely upset the smallest group of people.
Now, I expect that such a local agent would need to have quite a bit of fine-grained control to satisfy privacy concerns (e.g., do you agree to allow me to send your query about films in your zip code to the MSN Movies site to get showtimes?) But I feel the actual processing of the day-to-day personal assistant features is not only eminently feasible on my desktop, but most likely also on my Surface or laptop.
The cloud is pernicious and voracious, its dominion grows quickly enough without needlessly exaggerating the necessity of offloading computation like this. Local computing devices—especially those that conventionally run Windows (desktop PCs and laptops)—are extremely capable.
Cortana is a cloud agent not because of requisite processing power. Illusory local processing deficiency is just a convenient justification for why it doesn't run locally.
But then, I am a strong advocate of personal compute servers and mainstreaming secure private networks. So I am obviously fringe in today's culture that embraces the centralized cloud.
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For the US market, the way you frame the concern is the legal reality for Microsoft...parents who will blame Microsoft when information about their children passes online...are why there are no privacy guarantees in Microsoft's new policy. It's just too easy for a lawyer to convince a trier of fact that Microsoft "should have known".
Doesn't the US impose privacy guarantees on those storing data about the under-13s anyway?
Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant, so I expected to see all these things as defaults. The advanced features just couldn't work without it. I'm glad there's at least an opt-out, but I do think that Windows needs an OS-wide incognito mode, just a simple switch to record or not record data. I generally use that on my browser for whe…
"Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant." Who wanted that for desktop computers or laptops? This is not going to fly with business customers. Microsoft has already bombed twice in the business space, with Windows Vista and Windows 8. This looks like another bomb. Windows 7 is still pretty good, and it will probably be the main Microso…
We were spun a load of marketing disguised as listening and attention. This turned out to be exactly what Microsoft wanted which was another aggressive move against customers both business and consumer. Despite all this the noise and confusion and dubious love for the products is shining out of the arses of every non technical news source.
What did we expect?
I've left the party now. Closed my MS accounts, cancelled MSDN and AP subs, rolled out CentOS 7 on my laptop and have moved the remaining windows dependencies I have to a VM. If you don't like it, now is the time to make it known.
This is after using MS products since about 1993. No more loyalty or milking.
The software industry is moving away from the model of servitude to a vendor. Good riddance.