What to expect at Microsoft's big hardware event on October 6th

Expect Surface tablets, Lumia smartphones, and maybe more at a rare Microsoft hardware event.

You don't usually see "Microsoft" with "hardware event," unless they are a guest, but Microsoft will be holding just that, a hardware event, on October 6 in New York City. The company sent out invitations on Monday morning.

Of course, Microsoft did not say what hardware would be on display, but it's fairly easy to guess. The most obvious choice is Surface 4, unless they change the name. The Surface 3 models are now more than a year old, ancient in hardware terms.

It really is time for a Surface update. Intel has released the Skylake processor, and Microsoft now has Windows 10. Plus, Apple has its new iPad Pro, Lenovo has a 12-inch tablet, and Dell has one coming in the next few months.

Then there's the Lumia business. Microsoft is sticking with it for now despite the fact that the Nokia acquisition has cost the company billions. The rumor is that two new flagship devices will be introduced: a 5.2-inch Lumia 950 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor and 1080p display, and the 5.7-inch QHD Lumia 950 XL with the newer Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor.

The final piece of hardware rumored for the event is an update to Microsoft's wearable, the Microsoft Band. It has been almost a year since its release, and at the time, it was viewed as a 1.0 product. In other words, it needed work. There isn't much floating around on the new Band, but it has nowhere to go but up.

On an unrelated note, you may have heard rumors last week that Microsoft was looking to buy a piece, or maybe all, of AMD. On the surface that seems ridiculous, but AMD is the chip supplier for the Xbox One and AMD is teetering on the brink of oblivion with plunging sales and continued losses.

Well, Citi's semiconductor analyst Chris Danely threw some cold water on that idea, saying "we seriously doubt it" and noting that Microsoft has a close partnership with AMD's rival Intel, among other reasons. He also noted that AMD has a cross-licensing patent agreement with Intel and any company buying AMD would have to renegotiate that deal, which would be awkward.

Danely said it might be possible that Microsoft acquires AMD's semi-custom processor businesses, although that too seems unlikely. The custom semi business not only makes the Xbox One's processor, it also makes the processor for the Sony PlayStation 4, and Sony would not sit quietly by and let that happen.

AMD is in rough shape, no question about it, and these rumors are constant. I'd say take them with a grain of salt, but really, you shouldn't take them at all when it comes to Microsoft. At best, Microsoft can throw them a financial lifeline like it did with Apple in 1997, but that's as far as it will go.

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Microsoft slips user-tracking tools into Windows 7, 8 amidst Windows 10 privacy storm

Worried about Windows 10's deep-reaching user tracking? Some of it's coming to Windows 7 and 8, too.

Windows 10 is a deliciously good operating system, all things considered, but its abundant user-tracking has prompted many privacy-minded individuals to stay pat with older versions of Windows. Now, Microsoft’s providing those concerned individuals a reason to upgrade.

No, the company’s not walking back its privacy-encroaching features. Instead, Microsoft’s quietly rolling out updates that bake new tracking tools into Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Yes, really.
The story behind the story: Privacy concerns have marred an otherwise sterling launch for Windows 10, which is already installed on 75 million PCs. Rolling out this Windows 7 and 8 updates amidst the controversy smacks of insensitivity—and it’s just plain poor timing, to boot.
All eyes on you

Ghacks discovered four recent KB updates for Windows 7 and 8, all designed to send Microsoft regular reports on your machine’s activities.

KB3068708 – “This update introduces the Diagnostics and Telemetry tracking service to existing devices. By applying this service, you can add benefits from the latest version of Windows to systems that have not yet upgraded. The update also supports applications that are subscribed to Visual Studio Application Insights.” This update replaced KB3022345.

KB3075249 – “This update adds telemetry points to the User Account Control (UAC) feature to collect information on elevations that come from low integrity levels.”

KB3080149 – “This package updates the Diagnostics and Telemetry tracking service to existing devices. This service provides benefits from the latest version of Windows to systems that have not yet upgraded. The update also supports applications that are subscribed to Visual Studio Application Insights.”

The latter two updates are flagged as Optional, but KB3068708 holds Recommended status, which means it would be downloaded and installed if you have Windows Updates set to automatic. It’s only functional in PCs that participate in Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program, which already sends Microsoft information on how you use your computer.

Opting out of the CEIP isn’t a single straightforward flip to switch. You have to disable it in all the software you’ve agreed to use it with. From Microsoft’s CEIP website:

“Most programs make CEIP options available from the Help menu, although for some products, you might need to check settings, options, or preferences menus. Some pre-release products that are under development might require participation in CEIP to help ensure the final release of the product improves frequently used features and solves common problems that exist in the pre-release software.”

If you use Office’s default settings, it signs you up for Microsoft's CEIP. How-to Geek has a tutorial explaining how to disable it, though if sending information to Microsoft before didn’t bother you, this new update probably won’t either.

Begone!
Disabling the tracking tools in the Recommended KB3068708 update isn’t simple, either. It connects to vortex-win.data.microsoft.com and settings-win.data.microsoft.com, which are hard-coded to bypass the Windows HOSTS file. In other words, it’s tricky to block unless you have a firewall that can block HTTPS connections as well as be configured manually, ExtremeTech explains. There are options in GPEdit.msc that allow you to disable application telemetry and CEIP participation, but it’s unknown if they behave correctly after the new patches are installed.

Where to uninstall updates. (Image ironically taken on Windows 10.)
If you don’t want these new tracking tools on your PC, the best thing to do seems to be simply uninstalling the offending updates, then blocking them from being reinstalled.

To do so, head to Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall or change a program. Here, click View installed updates in the left-hand navigation pane. In the search box in the upper-right corner, search for the KB3068708, KB3022345, KB3075249, and KB3080149 updates by name. If they’re installed, they’ll pop right up. If you find one, right-click on it and select Uninstall to wipe it from your system.
updates

To block the updates from being downloaded again, dive back into the Control Panel and head to System and Security > Windows Update > Check for updates. The system will look for updates, then say you have a certain number of updates available, separated by status (Optional, Recommended, Critical). Simply click the recommended updates link, find the KB3068708 and KB3022345 updates, then right-click them and select Hide update. Boom! Done.

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Silicon Valley's 'pressure cooker:' Thrive or get out

Spotlight may be on Amazon, but tech jobs are high profit and high stress

It's true. People working in Silicon Valley may cry at their desks, may be expected to respond to emails in the middle of the night and be in the office when they'd rather be sick in bed.

But that's the price employees pay to work for some of the most successful and innovative tech companies in the world, according to industry analysts.

"It's a pressure cooker for tech workers," said Bill Reynolds, research director for Foote Partners LLC, an IT workforce research firm. "But for every disgruntled employee, someone will tell you it's fine. This is the ticket to working in this area and they're willing to pay it."

The tech industry has been like this for years, he added.
Employees are either Type A personalities who thrive on the pressure, would rather focus on a project than get a full night's sleep and don't mind pushing or being pushed.

If that's not who they are, they should get another job and probably in another industry.

"A lot of tech companies failed, and the ones that made it, made it based on a driven culture. No one made it working 9 to 5," said John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an executive outplacement firm. "Silicon Valley has been the vanguard of this type of work culture. It can get out of control. It can be too much and people can burn out. But it's who these companies are."

Work culture at tech companies, specifically at Amazon, hit the spotlight earlier this week when the New York Times ran a story on the online retailer and what it called its "bruising workplace."

The story talked about employees crying at their desks, working 80-plus-hour weeks and being expected to work when they're not well or after a family tragedy.

"At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another's ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are "unreasonably high," the article noted.

In response, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos sent a memo to employees saying he didn't recognize the company described in the Times article.

"The article doesn't describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day," Bezos wrote. "More broadly, I don't think any company adopting the approach portrayed could survive, much less thrive, in today's highly competitive tech hiring market."

Bezos hasn't been the only one at Amazon to respond. Nick Ciubotariu, head of Infrastructure development at Amazon.com, wrote a piece on LinkedIn, taking on the Times article.

"During my 18 months at Amazon, I've never worked a single weekend when I didn't want to. No one tells me to work nights," he wrote. "We work hard, and have fun. We have Nerf wars, almost daily, that often get a bit out of hand. We go out after work. We have 'Fun Fridays.' We banter, argue, play video games and Foosball. And we're vocal about our employee happiness."

Amazon has high expectations of its workers because it's one of the largest and most successful companies in the world, according to industry analysts.

The company, which started as an online book store, now sells everything from cosmetics to bicycles and toasters. With a valuation of $250 billion, Amazon even surpassed mega retailer Walmart this summer as the biggest retailer in the U.S.

With that kind of success comes a lot of pressure to stay on top and to come up with new, innovative ways to keep customers happy.

That kind of challenge can lead to a stressful workplace where employees are called on to work long hours and to outwork competitors' own employees.

It's just the way of the beast, according to Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates Inc., a management consulting firm.

"If you go to work for a high-powered company where you have a chance of being a millionaire in a few years, you are going to work 70 to 80 hours a week," he said. "You are going to have to be right all the time and you are going to be under a lot of stress. Your regular Joe is really going to struggle there."

This kind of work stress isn't relegated to Amazon alone. Far from it, Janulaitis said.

"I think it's fairly widespread in any tech company that is successful," he noted. "It's just a very stressful environment. You're dealing with a lot of money and a lot of Type A personalities who want to get things done. If you're not a certain type of person, you're not going to make it. It's much like the Wild West. They have their own rules."

Of course, tech companies, whether Amazon, Google, Apple or Facebook, are known to work people hard, going back to the days when IBM was launching its first PCs and Microsoft was making its Office software ubiquitous around the world.

However, tech companies also are known for giving their employees perks that people working in other industries only dream of.

Google, for instance, has world-class chefs cooking free food for its employees, while also setting up nap pods, meditation classes and sandy volleyball courts.

Netflix recently made global headlines for offering mothers and fathers unlimited time off for up to a year after the birth or adoption of a child.

It's the yin and yang of Silicon Valley, said Megan Slabinski, district president of Robert Half Technology, a human resources consulting firm.

"All those perks - the ping pong tables, the free snacks, the free day care -- that started in the tech industry come with the job because the job is so demanding," she said. "There's a level of demand in the tech industry that translates to the work environment."

When asked if Amazon is any harder on its employees than other major tech companies, Slabinski laughed.

"Amazon isn't different culturally from other IT companies," she said. "I've been doing this for 16 years. You see the good, the bad and the ugly. If you are working for tech companies, the expectation is you are going to work really hard. This is bleeding-edge technology, and the trade-off is there's less work-life balance. The people who thrive in this industry, thrive on being on the bleeding edge. If you can't take it, you go into another industry."

Janulaitis noted that top-tier employees are always chased by other companies, but middle-tier workers - those who are doing a good job but might not be the brightest stars of the workforce - are hunkering down and staying put.

Fears of a still jittery job market have convinced a lot of people to keep their heads down, put up with whatever their managers ask of them and continue to be able to pay their mortgages, especially if they live in pricey Silicon Valley.

That, said Janulaitis, makes companies more apt to ask even more from their employees, who know they're likely stuck where they are for now.

"Once the job market changes, turnover will increase significantly in the IT field," he said.

Like stock traders working under extreme pressure on Wall Street or medical interns working 36-hour shifts, the tech industry is a high-stress environment - one that's not suited to every worker.

"If you can't live with that pressure, you should go somewhere else," said Reynolds. "For people in Silicon Valley, it's who they are. It's the kind of person they are."

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Microsoft's rollout of Windows 10 gets B+ grade

General vibe of the new OS remains positive, say analysts

Microsoft has done a good job rolling out Windows 10 in the first two weeks, analysts said today, and the general vibe for Windows 8's replacement has been positive, even though glitches have dampened some enthusiasm.

"If I had to give Microsoft a letter grade, it would be a B or a B+," said Steve Kleynhans of Gartner. "It's not an A because it hasn't gone perfectly. They've stubbed their toe over privacy issues, for example."

Microsoft began serving up the free Windows 10 upgrade late on July 28, giving participants in the firm's Insider preview program first shot at the production code. It then slowly began triggering upgrade notices on Windows 7 and 8.1 machines whose owners had earlier "reserved" copies through an on-device app planted on their devices this spring.

The Redmond, Wash. company has said little of the rollout's performance other than to tout that 14 million systems were running Windows 10 within 24 hours of its debut.

Estimates based on user share data from U.S. analytics company Net Applications, however, suggests that by Aug. 8, some 45 million PCs were powered by Windows 10.

Analysts largely applauded the launch. "As far as the roll-out, it's not any worse than any other Windows," said Kleynhans. "But it's all happening at this compressed timetable.

"And social media now amplifies any problems," he continued, much more so than three years ago when Windows 8 released, much less in 2009, when Microsoft last had a hit on its hands.

Others were more bullish on Microsoft's performance. "Windows 10's go-to-market was really quite good," said Wes Miller of Directions on Microsoft, a research firm that specializes in tracking the company's moves.

Miller was especially impressed with Microsoft's ability to make customers covet the upgrade. "Something Microsoft has not always done a great job of is creating a sense of exclusivity," said Miller. "But they're withholding [the upgrade] just enough that there's a sense of excitement. People are saying, 'I want it, I'm not getting the upgrade yet.' Arguably, that exactly what Microsoft wants."

Windows 10's rollout has departed from those of past editions in significant ways.
Historically, Microsoft released a new Windows to its OEM (original equipment manufacturer) partners first, who were given months to prepare new devices pre-loaded with the operating system. Only when the computer makers were ready did Microsoft deliver paid upgrades to customers who wanted to refresh their current hardware. Relatively few users paid for the upgrades; most preferred to purchase a new PC with the new OS already installed.

This cycle, Microsoft gave away the Windows 10 upgrade to hundreds of millions of customers -- those running a Home or Pro/Professional edition of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 -- to jumpstart the new OS's adoption. With some exceptions, the upgrade hit before OEMs had prepared new devices or seeded them to retail.

Because of the large number of customers eligible for the free upgrade, Microsoft announced it would distribute the code in several waves that would take weeks (according to Microsoft) or months (the consensus of analysts) to complete. While some had predicted that the upgrade's massive audience would stress the delivery system Microsoft had built, or even affect the Internet at large, neither happened.

The "Get Windows 10" app -- which was silently placed on PCs beginning in March -- not only served as a way to queue customers for the upgrade, but also ran compatibility checks to ensure the hardware and software would support the new operating system, another slick move by Microsoft.

"Microsoft rolled out Windows 10 to the audience that would be most receptive," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, referring to the Insiders-get-it-first tactic. "Then they rolled it out to those who weren't Insiders, but who had expressed a desire to get the upgrade. And only those [whose devices] passed all of its tests got it. That was a smart thing to do."

The latter was designed to limit upgrade snafus, something Microsoft has chiefly, although not entirely, accomplished. "While the rollout was pretty clean, there have been glitchy issues here and there," said Kleynhans, who cited post-Windows-10-upgrade updates that crippled some consumers' machines.

Moorhead echoed that, highlighting the out-the-gate problem many had keeping Nvidia's graphic drivers up-to-date as Microsoft's and Nvidia's update services tussled over which got to install a driver. "Problems have been more anecdotal than system-wide," Moorhead said. "And they seem to get remedied very quickly."

The bungles haven't been widespread enough to taint the generally favorable impression of Windows 10 generated by social media, news reports and Microsoft's PR machine, the analysts argued.

"Overall, I'd say Windows 10 has received a much more positive reception than other [editions of] Windows," said Moorhead, who said the reaction was justified, since the developing consensus is that Windows 10 is a big improvement over its flop-of-a-predecessor, Windows 8.

"The vibe is positive, but it's much more about consumers now than businesses," said Directions' Miller. Enterprises, he said, will take a wait-and-see approach -- as they always do -- before jumping onto Windows 10, as they must if they're to stick with Microsoft, a given since there isn't a viable alternative.

A credible reaction from corporate customers, Miller continued, won't be visible until Microsoft finishes unveiling its update tracks, called "branches," particularly the "Long-term servicing branch" (LTSB). That branch will mimic the traditional servicing model where new features and functionality will be blocked from reaching systems that businesses don't want to see constantly changing.

"People are liking what they are getting out of the other end" of the upgrade, added Kleynhans. "From what I've heard, they're happy, surprisingly happy, and generally pretty positive about the OS. But I'd expect the new shine to wear off after the first couple of weeks."

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Bad vibe brews about Windows 10

Upgrade errors, Edge-by-default, other problems and gripes sour social media buzz on new OS

Windows 10's vibe on social media has soured since Microsoft launched the operating system last week, Adobe today said as it cited new data from its metrics platform.

Adobe's Social, analytics that collect and categorize mentions from blogs, Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter and elsewhere, has seen a turn toward skepticism since July 29, when Microsoft began distributing Windows 10 upgrades.

Adobe drops social media impressions into a bunch of buckets labeled "admiration," "anger," "anticipation," "disgust," "joy," "sadness" and "surprise."

On July 29, Windows 10 garnered 49% from admiration and joy, the two most positive categories. After launch day, however, the collective admiration + joy percentage dipped to 40%.

Also notable was the increase in the slice tagged as sadness after Wednesday: On launch day, that negative metric stood at 29%, but post-launch it climbed to 35%.

(The launch-day numbers provided today at Computerworld's request were slightly different than Adobe published last week; the latter were based on about half a day's data on July 29, the company clarified today.)

Adobe credited the changes in Windows 10 buzz factor to several sources, including publicized bugs, upgrade problems, some Microsoft practices, and even to a "ransomware" campaign now circulating that leverages the widespread news about the OS's launch.

Mentions of Windows 10 bugs -- a generic term that could include everything from quirks in the OS and its apps, to error messages encountered when trying to upgrade -- soared 10-fold in the post-launch period, Adobe said.

In the last two days, Windows 10 bug mentions on social media jumped to a daily average of more than 11,000 from a pre-launch average of just 1,150. Although the 11,000 represented a small fraction -- just 0.4% of the 3 million or so Adobe captured -- the 10-fold increase signaled that, if nothing else, a bad vibe was brewing.

Contributing to the overall sadness metric -- again, Adobe pegged that at 35% post-launch, compared to 29% on July 29 and 27% leading up to the debut -- were some surprising factors. While some were expected, including the 13% of the sadness quotient derived from generic error messages some have seen when trying to upgrade (among the least helpful, one that simply read "Something happened"), others were not.

A fifth of the sadness score came from Microsoft's decision to make the new Edge browser the default in Windows 10 unless users interrupted the "Express Settings" part of the upgrade process, or later manually switched back to a rival browser, like Google's Chrome or Mozilla's Firefox. Last week, Mozilla's CEO Chris Beard demanded that his rival, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, step in to eliminate Windows 10's browser switcheroo.

And slightly more than a fifth was attributed to a new malware campaign that is slinging the free Windows 10 upgrade as bait for ransomware, attack code that encrypts the victim's files and demands payment for unlocking them. Cisco's security team first reported the campaign on Friday.

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The fake apps visit porn sites in order to click on ads

Google has removed dozens of apps from its Play Store that purport to be games but secretly click on advertisements on pornographic websites.

Security company Eset found 51 new apps that contained the "porn clicker" component, which it first discovered in April in a fake app mimicking a video app called Dubsmash.

Over the last three months, some 60 fake apps have been downloaded 210,000 times, showing how common it is for users to stumble across and download them.

"Following ESET's notification, Google has pulled the malware from the Play Store and also reports some of them as potentially harmful applications using its built-in security service," wrote Lukas Stefanko, an Eset malware researcher.

The bogus apps do not try to steal authentication credentials. If downloaded, the application presents itself as game or system application. It runs in the background and accesses porn websites and clicks on ads. The app could eat up data allowances on a person's mobile phone account.

Google scans apps uploaded to its Play Store using technology called Bouncer. The automated scan checks an app for five minutes, performing a dynamic analysis of its code, according to Trend Micro. But apps that do not misbehave in that time period may not be caught.

Although Google can catch malicious apps, malware authors have become more clever in finding ways to avoid Bouncer, which has apparently happened with the porn clicker applications.

This time around, bogus versions of Dubsmash were uploaded again along with fake versions of other legitimate apps including Pou 2, Clash of Clans 2, Subway Surfers 2, Subway Surfers 3, Minecraft 3, Flappy Birds and Hay Day 2. The harmful apps were available for almost a week.

Since it's hard for users to see if an app is malicious, Eset recommended that people pay close attention to the reviews of apps, which may provide a clue if a particular app is suspicious.

"Hopefully, Google is doing its best to fix this issue and find a way to prevent the developers of these porn clickers from publishing them to the Play Store," Eset wrote.

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Microsoft pulls back from phone business, announces 7,800 layoffs

Microsoft is scaling down its mobile phone activities, writing off the entire value of the former Nokia smartphone business it bought last year and laying off almost one-third of that business’ staff.

The company will no longer try to build a standalone phone business, but instead plans to build a Windows ecosystem that includes its own devices, CEO Satya Nadella told staff in an email announcing the changes.

Up to 7,800 jobs will be cut, most of them in the phone business. The cuts come in addition to 18,000 layoffs announced last year: Those cuts included around half of the 25,000 staff who joined Microsoft from Nokia.

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Microsoft also announced plans to write down the value of its Nokia acquisition, recording an impairment charge of US$7.6 billion. It bought the Finnish company’s devices and services business only last year for $7.2 billion.

The company explained the write-down by saying that it’s restructuring of the phone business meant that its future prospects were below original expectations. Its Lumia phones are languishing with a single-digit market share, and the company has produced no break-out successes to rival flagship phones from Samsung Electronics or Apple.

The layoffs should happen by year end, Microsoft said, adding that it would provide more information about the impairment charge in its fourth-quarter earnings announcement on July 21.

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