Geeks are Sexy Technology News » Microsoft

Court Orders Refund for “Windows Tax”

JLister — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:00:43 +0000

A French man has become at least the fourth person to gain a refund for a copy of Windows that came pre-installed on a new computer. This looks to be the first case, though, where a court has ordered the refund.

Microsoft’s general policy is that it sells Windows to the retailer and the retailer then sells it to the customer as part of the computer package. If you don’t want Windows (for example, if you want to run Linux on the machine), that’s between you and the retailer. That policy is covered by the End User License Agreement which you click to approve before using Windows.

In the three previous cases:

An American man persuaded HP to refund him $200 from a $599 laptop when he decided he didn’t want to use Vista (which is understandable.) Although HP tried to deter him, and at one point argued it was Microsoft’s responsibility, persistence eventually paid off.
An Israeli man sued Dell for refusing to refund him for Vista. Possibly fearing a court ruling setting a precedent, Dell eventually offered him an out of court settlement of $100, the price it had paid Microsoft for the Windows license. The man then talked them into paying the $137 he’s sued for, which covered the full consumer retail price of the system at the time.
A British customer persuaded Amazon to refund him the cost of Windows after buying an Asus laptop. It was a simple process, which appeared to be a case of him getting lucky and speaking to a customer service representative with a good knowledge of open source software.

The new case went as far as several court rulings. Stephane Petrus bought a Lenovo laptop and asked for a refund, citing a French law that says you cannot make the sale of one product dependent on the sale of another. The French court initially rejected that, ruling he should simply return the PC. An appeals court later ordered a retrial, saying the original judge had not fully considered a European directive on unfair commercial practices. Such directives must be adopted in the domestic law of European Union member countries.

The original court has now ruled in Petrus’ favor. It did reject his somewhat baffling estimate that of the €597 price of the computer, €404.81 was made up of the Windows license. Instead the court ordered Lenovo to hand over €120 as a refund, but a further €800 in damages for making him take the case through the courts, and €1,000 to cover legal costs.

Not only does this establish a legal precedence in French law, but the European Union directive angle means people across the continent may now have a stronger argument for saying they have a legal right to a Windows refund in their own country.

(Image credit: Alan Lord/The Open Sourceror)

PC retail chain accused of mass Windows piracy

JLister — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:00:49 +0000

Microsoft has launched legal action against a major electrical retailer after accusing it of large-scale piracy.

It claims the Comet Group PLC unlawfully copied and produced more than 94,000 sets of recovery disks for Windows XP and Vista, selling them to customers who purchased Windows-loaded PCs and laptops.

Comet is owned by a French parent company but the legal action relates to its stores in the United Kingdom. The disks in question were sold for £14.99 (approx US$25) between March 2008 and December 2009.

On the face of the comments made by the two sides, Comet appears to have been incredibly naive. It says that it has taken legal advice and will defend the claim. It added that “Comet firmly believes that it acted in the very best interests of its customers. It believes its customers had been adversely affected by the decision to stop supplying recovery discs with each new Microsoft Operating System based computer.”

Microsoft has noted that the computers in question already had recovery software installed on their hard drives, and that customers could have legally made their own recovery discs or obtained one directly from Microsoft.

Had Comet simply made the recovery discs and bundled them with new PCs, it would at least had have something of a moral defense given that nobody would have been gaining unfairly. However, making an additional profit by selling unauthorized copies appears to be a textbook definition of commercial piracy and it’s hard to see how Microsoft wouldn’t win the case.

Xbox Menus Get Voice & Motion Control

JLister — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:00:31 +0000

Microsoft is launching a new Xbox 360 dashboard tomorrow, and if you’ve got Kinect, you’re in for some high-tech gadgetry use.

The new-look dashboard, reportedly based on the Metro interface that will feature in Windows 8, is designed to extend use of the motion control device beyond simply playing games. Kinect owners will now be able to use the microphone and cameras on the device to use both voice and gesture controls to navigate around the Xbox’s menu. Users can also control the navigation using a Windows Phone handset as if it were a remote.

The update also integrates the technology in the Bing search engine. That means users should be able to carry out a single search that covers all XBox Live services, including games, videos and music.

Depending on your location, there will be new TV channels added for access through your Xbox, with ESPN and MSNBC Today in the US, as well as access to Netflix and Hulu Plus.

Gamers aren’t left out completely, though. Users will now be able to make game saves online, meaning you can continue a game on a friend’s console without having to carry a USB stick with you. There’ll also be closer integration with Facebook, including an option to automatically post an alert when you are looking for friends to play a particular game online. The same alert can be set to appear on friends’ screens whenever they switch on their console.

The new features all sound impressive, though how much difference they’ll really make is open to question. If the voice recognition or motion control is less than perfect, particularly with accents, it may be that a lot of people decide using the controller to navigate isn’t that much of a chore after all.

A Geek Girl’s Guide to Holiday Shopping

Meredith Placko — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:00:29 +0000

by Meredith Placko

While millions of Americans fought tooth, nail, and pepper spray to get their hands on some mighty deals, this geek girl somehow managed to avoid the annual contact sport known as Black Friday. While sitting in my office, pouring over YouTube videos of people at their very best in Holiday cheer (and boxing), I took the time to reflect on what is most important this season: presents (/sarcasm). And how to acquire them for the people most important to me.

Now I don’t know about you, but my friends range in a wide and varied sort. Some are gadget geeks, others are Otaku, then there are those who simply freak out over sports. Whatever your flair is, there has got to be a gift for the die hard fan we all know and love.

LomoKino 35mm Movie Camera – $79.00 from Lomography.com

For the Hipster Geek, you can’t go wrong with the LomoKino 35mm movie camera. Even Hipstamatic doesn’t have an app for this yet!

Get ready to have your world turned upside down! The LomoKino, Lomography’s very own 35mm movie camera, is set to revolutionize the analogue landscape forever. Forget about the rules and direct your own stunning short films – with this handy camera, all you need is a 35mm roll and your creativity!

Air Swimmers Flying R/C Sea Life – $39.00 from The Neatoshop

Do you have a friend who always wanted to be a Marine Biologist? Now’s your chance to fulfill his dreams and get him his own flying fish (or shark!). Okay, it really has nothing to do with marine biology, but imagine how cool you’ll be if you give out one of these in the Secret Santa exchange. Way better than that singing fish. Also, a good gift for Dr. Who fans who may want to recreate the man-eating, flying fish scene from A Christmas Carol.

Hours of flying sea creature fun for the whole family
Durable, high-quality nylon material will stay inflated for weeks
Remote functions: Climb, descend, and tail fin control for turning

Click Watches – $149.00 from Watchismo

You know that old pal of yours who liked to build computers in his garage? He might have gone on to build one of the most successful electronic companies in history. But if he’s anything like my dad, he may be a whiz with a punch card, but is horrible with showing up on time for lunch! Ooh and aah your tech savvy friends with these nifty time pieces from Watchismo.

If you look at the circuit boards of an 80′s arcade game, you’d find these Dip Switches. This type of switch is designed to be used on a printed circuit board along with other electronic components and is commonly used to customize the behavior of an electronic device for specific situations. Each switch activates a different function of the watch as seen in the diagram below. Functions ranging from bar graph metered time display, 12 hour and 24 hour digital time display, month, date, day of week and backlight.

Custom Body Pillow – $60 – $120 from Dakimakura Pillow

Do you have a friend who suffers from the “forever alone” syndrome? It’s hard getting out there, meeting new people and finding things in common to talk about. Don’t let your best bud go alone this holiday, you can get him (or her!) a custom body pillow printed with their favorite anime character, western movie star or comfort food.

Dakimakura is a hug pillow: over-sized pillows designed to be extremely huggable. These are security objects and usually never leave the grasp of sleeping Japanese children. So addictive is the comfort provided that many older men and women still use them.

Star Wars Themed Kitchen Goods – $9.99 – $29.99 from Williams-Sonoma

For the baking geek who also likes to walk on the Dark Side, Williams-Sonoma has an array of cookie cutters, stencils, even sandwich cutters that you can take a bite out of the Rebels (or the Empire, if you lean that way) every time you cook!

Marvel Comics Digital Subscription – $59.88 from Marvel.com

What do you get the discriminating comic fan who owns every #1 issue ever printed? Since they probably won’t be taking those books out any time soon, they can still enjoy what’s inside without getting grease on the pages with a digital subscription to Marvel Comics!

Access to over 10,000 New and Classic Titles
Exclusive New Issues Available Online First
Stories Featuring Spider-Man, Iron Man, X-Men, Hulk & More!

Building Windows 8: Reengineering the Windows Boot Experience [Video]

Geeks are Sexy — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:00:43 +0000

With continued innovation in the hardware ecosystem, the biggest shift in firmware in 30 years, and software changes leading to boot times of ~7 seconds on machines with solid-state drives (SSDs), we decided it was time to bring the PC boot user experience into the 21st century. In a previous post by Gabe Aul, we discussed how fast startup mode will make faster boot times a reality in Windows 8. You may have noticed from his fast boot video that boot felt different – not only was it super fast, it was seamless, from the time the power was switched on all the way to the Start screen. In this post, we will explore how the team has reimagined the complete Windows boot user experience to make that possible.

[Source: Building Windows 8 | Via [H]]

Windows 1.0 vs. Windows 8 [Pic]

Geeks are Sexy — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:00:00 +0000

Yep, looks about right to me!

[Via]

Windows 8 Boots Fast… Really Fast! [Video]

Geeks are Sexy — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 16:00:12 +0000

Now here’s the key difference for Windows 8: as in Windows 7, we close the user sessions, but instead of closing the kernel session, we hibernate it. Compared to a full hibernate, which includes a lot of memory pages in use by apps, session 0 hibernation data is much smaller, which takes substantially less time to write to disk. If you’re not familiar with hibernation, we’re effectively saving the system state and memory contents to a file on disk (hiberfil.sys) and then reading that back in on resume and restoring contents back to memory. Using this technique with boot gives us a significant advantage for boot times, since reading the hiberfile in and reinitializing drivers is much faster on most systems (30-70% faster on most systems we’ve tested). [SOURCE]

[Via]

The History of Mobile Productivity [Infographic]

ACrezo — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:00:16 +0000

For a larger version, click here.

[companionlink]

Intel Opens Fat Wallet for Thin Machines

JLister — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:00:05 +0000

Intel is planning to invest $300 million to create what it’s calling a new form of computer to bridge the (somewhat slender) gap between a netbook and a tablet.

According to the company, the Russian doll-like sequence of laptop/notebook/netbook/tablet needs a new family member: the Ultrabook. As is usually the case with hybrid devices, the idea is to take the best parts of two concepts: the instant switch-on, slimline build and lengthy battery life of the tablet, with the processing power and “full” computing of the netbook.

How you make a full-fledged computer with a battery life that covers all-day use and multiple days on standby, while still making it portable, is in this case the $400 question. Intel is going to work on its own processors to try to cut power use, but is also ready to put money into hardware and software companies with relevant ideas.

You certainly can’t accuse Intel of a lack of ambition: not only does it believe it can make such devices available before Christmas for under $1,000, but it reckons that by the end of 2012, 40 percent of all consumer laptops will be in the “Ultrabook” category. It’s not clear if that refers to manufacture or sales: it’s hard to imagine laptops that are anywhere close to a thousand bucks making up 40 percent of sales.

The plan is to release the new models in waves, the first of which will effectively be souped up, slimmed-down and always-connected netbooks, while the second will combine keyboards with a touchscreen and will likely run Windows 8.

And if any of this sounds familiar, Intel has flat-out admitted that one of the goals is to have a competitor for the MacBook Air at far below Apple prices.

The New York Times notes that Intel has already released guidelines on suitable designs for manufacturers to use chips specifically designed for “Ultrabooks.” The problem is that manufacturers working to the first design are struggling to get the device below the $1,000 barrier.

XP Gets Yet Another Death Sentence

JLister — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:53:44 +0000

In the latest in a series of unconvincing announcements, Microsoft is claiming Windows XP really will die in 2014. All those previous announcements were just for show, but this time the company really means it. Honest.

Microsoft’s Stephen Rose has issued a statement that is, perhaps unwittingly, extremely telling about the company’s history over the past decade and the reason XP is still going:

Windows XP had an amazing run and millions of PC users are grateful for it. But it’s time to move on. Two reasons: 1) Extended support for Windows XP is running out in less than 1000 days, and 2) there’s an OS out there that’s much better than Windows XP.

He goes on to hype Windows 7 as said operating system. And what does that imply? That Vista wasn’t much better than Windows XP. Ouch.

The problem with all the various back and forth moves of extending XP’s official lifespan and then trying to encourage people to get off the system, particularly among business users, is that Microsoft is caught in a quandry. As well-received as Windows 7 has been, this isn’t a time in economic history when businesses will buy new software and/or hardware without a damn good reason.

And the most compelling reason Microsoft can offer is that when it pulls the plug on extended support, XP will become far more exposed to security threats. But if millions of machines get infected with malicious software, few are going to care that people are using the system past its official use-by date: the story will simply be that Windows is insecure.

Getting people off XP will be no easy task: some estimates put it on a 51 percent share of all computers worldwide. That figure will drop naturally as people either voluntarily upgrade or are forced into doing so when an old machine bites the dust. But it’s still one hell of a tough sell to tell the majority of computer users that their machine, which in most cases works perfectly well, is going to be thrown to the mercy of hackers in three years unless they stump up the cash for a new operating system and, in many cases, a new PC.

How We Treat Our Computers [Comic]

ACrezo — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 22:00:45 +0000

[Sticky Comics]

Young Dance Central Wizard [Video]

Geeks are Sexy — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 02:00:06 +0000

I don’t know how old this kid is, but he’s certainly not over 7 or 8. In the above video, you can see him beating Disturbia on the Hard level.

[Youtube]