https://liliputing.com/2017/04/whoops-antivirus-software-webroot-bricks-pcs-dele
ting-windows-system-files.html



What did MS do in the middle of the night that caused a 19 time winner of PC Magazine's Anti-Virus and Web Rootkit protector shootout contest to start identifying system related MS files as malwares?

Duh, because they were acting like malwares, maybe ???   Going places good software shouldn't go and then sending some data off to somewhere else ???   Mebbe ???   Possibly ???

Rest assured that MS will likely do a "pull back and reconsider" as the rest of the GOOD class of anti-virus softwares do watch specifically for certain types of behaviors and MS should not be doing those sorts of things, ever.  

And MS, replace all those tweeked files with the good stuff --- ASAP !!!

I'm an Andriod guy till I die.

Speaking of my old PC, I had a rule at one time that a generational benchmark point occurred whenever my current old refurbed Wintel machine got totally lapped by a cheap ARM SOC based credit card sized computer.

https://liliputing.com/2017/04/hkey-960-240-android-dev-boardcomputer-kirin-960.
html

 
this is a complete motherboard with an SSD slot on the back of it

This is a VR ready Octa core set up, with Quad core A-73s backed by a Quad core set of A-53s on top of 3 gigs of ram and full VR Mali-G71 MP8 graphics.   The SOC chipset comes out of a Huawei Mate 9 phone and apart from an elevated "first shot out of the gun" price point and a few gigs of memory my lap point is here, now.    

Within a year or so this will be mid to low range and CHEAP as dirt.

Kirin will sell a lot of these chipsets to go into set top boxes which WILL carry slots for any desired amount of SSD & systems memory and all/any of the I/O types that I could possibly ever want.   It already has full phone and WiFi radio capability (dual antenna, no less) and Bluetooth 5.0 as well.

The throughput power level with 4 each of the current generation A-73 as the "power" cores will be up in the Intel Core i5 range and the Mali-G71 graphics are second generation VR graphics capable so it is better than what is in your old Windows box now.


      this is a complete motherboard -- note it carries an SSD slot on the back for multi multi megabytes of fast HD storage

"At first glance, the LeMaker HiKey 960 looks a lot like a Raspberry Pi. Both are single-board computers with ARM-based processors, a handful of ports and developer-friendly connectors.

But while the Raspberry Pi 3 sells for about $35, the new HiKey 960 is priced at $240. So what makes this little computer worth nearly 9 times as much? It’s got the same processor as a Huawei Mate 9 smartphone, but in a desktop-style package.

The HiKey 960 is basically aimed at Android app developers that want to create and test applications on a speedy ARM-based system. But it could probably be used for a wide range of applications if you want one of the most powerful ARM-based mini PCs around.

The system features a Kirin 960 octa-core chip with 4 ARM Cortex-A73 CPU cores, 4 ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores, and Mali-G71 MP8 graphics.

It has 3GB of LPDDR4 memory, 32GB of UFS 2.1 flash storage and a microSD card slot, an HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 Type-C port, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1, a 60-pin connector and 40-pin connector.

The whole thing measures just 85mm x 55mm (3.34″ x 2.17″) which means it’s about the same size as a Raspberry Pi 3".




INTEL, put this inside your favorite used Altoids tin and it will flat-assed smoke all your existing low to mid range stuff .....  and some of your top of the line good stuff from a few years back like that big ol' Dell box that I am running right now.
     
                        ..... change, she comes .....



BUT, you say .... BUT is it REAL?   If it was Intel or MS it would be at least a year out into the fuzzy future
and it would never really arrive as originally stated.

Rest easy, it is NOW and it is REAL on Amazon for $239.   With Prime Shipping it arrives in two days or less.      

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RD3V34

Who is building this ???   Lenaro, 96 Boards, LeMaker, Google and Huawei have built the thing as "the reference board" for the current generation of state of the art ARM stuff.   As such, it was important that it arrive in a timely fashion, which it has done.   However, it arrives at the current state of the art, which will age quickly over the next year's time frame.

Next, what will it morph into?  Being a generational reference board the total sales life will be 1-2 years, then it may trickle on for a few more months before being overcome by events.   This board will see hardware on it get steady upgrades in components as the new stuff becomes available because being totally current is what it is all about.

It ships with a Debian Linux version and Android 7.1  installed on the 32 gigs of flash memory. so it comes to you ready to use if you are a programmer type.

Known flaws are very few, the Mali 71 VR graphics are very very sweet, but the HDMI jack on the board itself is pending a standards based upgrade to allow the full power of the VR graphics to shine on through on the "ancient" HDMI standard -- current recommendations are to use the USB C port to output any high level graphics as that USB C standard is much more current than the old HDMI standard     hey, 1080p on HDMI is sorta lame these days, sorry.

Follow the money ......

Intel posted a good year -- they had cut costs significantly by laying off all the PC people and closing down all the obsolete fabs and labs.   Intel is now lean and mean and now Intel confirms it will grow only in the directions that the new money is coming in from.

Intel is being funded by data centers and rack farm expansion sales right now, and their future business plan is going to be focused on that.    All spare R&D $$$ is being put into Automotive right now, but Intel still isn't making anything yet that anyone in Automotive really wants at this point in time.

What Automotive wants is this -- and it comes from ARM Holdings as of last month.



Part of Intel's problem in Automotive is that ARM has just put out the very first automotive vision system "C-71 Camera Imaging Processor SOC" licensed design -- supporting up to 35 standard phone style depth-sensing cameras which can be polled 4 at a time which will allow a self-driving car to guide itself in real time without using multiple Lidars as is being done now.   Self driving cars that you can afford, in other words.   Yup, based on enhanced cell phone camera tech and cell phone SOC lithography tricks.  

Stuff that you can afford, in other words.   Built in bulk at TSMC ....

Tesla and others are licensing the ARM tech, making their own layouts and planning their cars around it as we speak.   This Automotive grade ARM stuff is trickling back into phone land providing new super powerful phone, tablet and Chromebook product capabilities as well.

This new sort of uber-tech from ARM is also being reflected in two brand new integrate-able SOC systems design products, combined with a Cortex-A replacement tech and a Mali Graphics replacement tech.

The new core organizational systems design, DynamIQ, is an update to ARM’s existing Cortex-A offering. The Cortex-A variants made up almost 20 percent of all ARM-based chips in the first three quarters of 2016, according to the company’s last available regulatory filing.

The new core systems design may help ARM, bought for $32 billion last year by SoftBank Group Corp., compete with chips engineered for neural networks, a promising type of artificial intelligence software. Rivals like Intel Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. have recently unveiled chips designed for these applications.

It could also give ARM a better chance of making inroads against Intel in the lucrative server and data center market.    It will certainly grease the way for ARM SOCs to become full desktop SOCs.

Pair that with the new Mali-Cetas  graphics system design, new stuff that can be included in Automotive grade systems, in phones, in tablets and in laptops and desktops as it is wanted or as needed.









=======================================


Over in rack farm land,  Google's Tensor Flow AI boards are posing a major question to everyone in data farm / cloud tech land right now as they have HUNDREDS of times more throughput per rack card than anything else out there and there are lots & lots of people are attempting to talk OS and systems standards for this new Tensor AI based world at this point in time.   Rack farm world is really very very fragmented right now and inter-brand & inter company interchangeability standards are needed going forward.   DynamIQ may be a step towards providing this interchangeability standard.

Successful compute companies will make this jump over to Tensor land as early as they can -- and right now the phone chip based houses seem to have the edge here since ARM base designs are reflected in Tensor's guts, not Intel designs.   Older 28nm phone stuff in particular is strong in Tensor space -- Tensor isn't built nearly at state of the art lithography as it works very differently, by doing MASSIVE numbers of parallel tasks (200 per rack card right now) at relatively low megahertz speeds and low power levels.    

A single Google Tensor Flow processor on a single card is still yielding 30 times more throughput than Intel's fastest and most power hungry and very expensive rack farm card that is using lots of expensive memory and (count them) up to 32 Intel processor cores.



Boys and girls, the sheer amount and increased pace reflected in this recent ARM Holdings level of change is increasing beyond what was ever seen before .....  as Automotive and a new owner is driving ARM to innovate even quicker than Apple and Google ever did in years past.  

Look to see Google struggle to keep up with the Android OS systems needed to support this level of change year on year on year.

Intel simply can't run at this new pace, see Intel fall over its own feet and do repeated face plants until it simply can't get back up any more.

See Microsoft not be able to keep up with the programming needed for Automotive and see MS group itself together with Qualcomm to roll Windows over to Qualcomm ARM processors pretty much completely within the next 2 years and then see WinCom hunker itself down till the chaos and the shooting stops.

https://liliputing.com/2017/05/microsoft-surface-laptop-windows-10-s-leaks-sligh
tly-ahead-official-launch.html         (got to cut and paste this to your search bar, the address is too long for YaBB to handle)

https://liliputing.com/2017/05/microsoft-surface-laptop-designed-students.html

https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/2/15506378/microsoft-windows-10-s-os-operatin...


Today is Windows S day

Windows Cloud now has a name, Windows S     (S for School, maybe ???)

Well now, time has come to sort the peanuts from the shells so to speak.   First, this is an ANNOUNCEMENT of a new thing which is coming supposedly this fall.  (unlike ARM stuff, which isn't mentioned for much until it is available and being sold at Amazon in bulk)



OK, what is known and real at this point in time?   The only thing real at this point in time is a $999 Surface Pro laptop from MS and it is known to be running a cut down, locked down, limited version of Windows 10 called Windows S.

Cut down, locked down and Limited means you have to have only S certified softwares that can run on the machine, softwares that can only be bought from the MS Store.   S Books won't run anything without this MS Store Win S Origin Certification, so forget about your existing already bought software library as it won't run on S Books.   Forget about downloading any misc. softwares from various places too.  

Can you say "NO GAMES, KIDDIES" three times fast (unless the games come from MS that is)?

You can upgrade from Windows S to Win 10 at will, so I would think what we are also actually seeing is the phase in of the yearly subscription model on all Office 360 softwares which is taking place right now.    The rub will be that the Win S softwares are going to HAVE TO BE resource/feature downsized to fit the minimalistic hardware that will eventually be shipped as the real student level Win S devices.

So, we got no real devices right now at all, instead we got a $999 surface machine with a new stencil job on the lid and we got NO IDEA about the pricing structure for the required Office 360 S subscription package needed at the end of YEAR 1 nor do the School System Administrators have any costing or structure for the administrative softwares required to make up what is currently a "totally bare shelves" education software system.

https://liliputing.com/2017/05/microsoft-surface-laptop-designed-students.html

But in Microsoft’s case, this is a bit of a gamble: the Surface Laptop will be one of the first devices to ship with Windows 10 S, an unproven platform. One sure way to make it more attractive to first-time users would have been to offer an affordable Surface product that comes with the OS. Priced at $999 and up, it’s likely that the Surface Laptop won’t appeal to education customers or folks that aren’t die-hard Windows fans…



Does this sound kinda like assbackwards implementation and "built to fail" or perhaps it sounds kinda like it is just a MS PR Department Yak Yak thing so they can say to their shareholders that MS is "competing hard against Chromebooks"?

Compare and contrast to  the directions taken by Chromebooks and Google (entire PlayStore is now available to students, School Administrators Education Package is free, Google Apps are free and year 2 yearly maintenance/upgrade costs to the school system for the whole thing are minimal and are done in an inexpensive per seat fashion.    

Chromebooks are REAL, they are rugged and light and DURABLE.   Take it home and use it and beat the hell out of it,  you can't hurt your saved data, ever.  The Chromebook by itself is an education experience for the kiddies that they have proven that they can use and master.   The Web becomes their oyster and they have proven they can learn and thrive just fine on a $189 Chromebook.   No limitations, no lock downs --- side load whatever you want  (and the kiddies certainly know how to do just that).

In contrast MS S Surfacebook is expensive, light and fragile (not student durable at all right now).    Students are locked out of their OS unless they want to go BUY some new stuff from the MS Store.   When it gets here I don't think kiddies are going to be pleased with how far MS had to choke things down to get it to work on a real world minimalistic $189 Win S machine.

I predict just another mild 2-3 month blip in the sales of Chromebooks.   Since these Win S things are REALLY REALLY locked down, loading a lightweight Linux on the Win S's corpse will require a class action lawsuit or two (and mebbe a BIOS upgrade) to clear the pathway to be doing that simple reuse of the hardware.    

And folks really should be considering that before they go blithely hopping into that whirring MS wood chipper.


========================================


First pricing is in from HP and Acer at $299 (almost the exact same price as a Win 10 laptop)

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/5/2/15517120/windows-10-s-comput...

HP’s laptop is a new version of the ProBook x360 Education Edition, a rugged laptop with an 11.6-inch, 1366 x 768 display, Intel Celeron processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. The laptop typically sells for $329 or more with full Windows 10, but it’s on sale right now for $299, so it’s not clear how great a deal this Windows 10 S model is going to be.    

Wow, ON SALE right now for a big $30 cheaper than a Win 10 laptop normally costs  .....  heck, you will pay twice that $30 amount per year in the REQUIRED yearly maintenance subscription costs which start after year 1.

NEWS FLASH !!!!   The internet briefly showed ONE (1) older $189 HP Streambook's picture listed as a Win S machine, but it was actually a sarcastic troll ware listing that when followed through all the links actually went to a $300 on sale Amazon listing for a standard Win 10 laptop.


                                       


AVOID Windows S in other words .....    As it is now, simply AVOID Windows S    Remember, you can buy a real Win 10 laptop cheaper when they are on sale .....



========================================



Wait for it ......     the MS talking head apologists now say that the real $189 Win S student machines will supposedly run on Qualcomm and "other ARM processors"

...... when/if they ever really arrive in Win S land ......      


again, they say this Mickysoft apologist bullshite expecting us to believe that it is actually going to happen .....    Remember Qualcomm has 3-4 large Multi-10's of Billions of Dollars "restraint of trade" cases going on against them in South Korea, China and Indonesia and Qualcomm might simply lack the attention span and the investment $$$ right now to play "go take over the world" with Mickysoft.

Microsoft's mental picture vs Google's head set

Google is deeply embedded in Tensor and in self driving cars and being a Cell Provider and two dozen other projects in addition to herding Chromebooks along.   They can certainly allocate some more people to make the Play Store move quicker into Chromebooks, and they need to do this as this item is moving TOO TOO SLOWLY right now.

New theory is that Andromeda is coming soon, so Google is not spending as much time on ChromeOS as they used to -- as Google knows it will be REPLACED soon with a unified Google OS.    

Tossing all your stuff up in the air right now is stupid, so don't do that, Google.   Stick with what works, finish out the Play Store on Chromebooks and do it quickly.

Microsoft is much much tighter in their focus now and is moving more quickly in what they are doing.   MS HAS to be able to live and run on ARM processors in order to have a future, since Intel has signaled firmly that they are leaving the PC planet quite soon by the very first available rocket ship going over to the Automotive solar system.

MS has shown us they can CHANGE WINDOWS AT A FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL when they want to as they have done it twice just lately.   Once to support Samsung Galaxy 8's use of Office on the Phone PC thing and once again to put Win 10 S out as an anorexic diet slimmed version of Windows 10.  

Both items were done in support of ARM SOC space, supposedly.

The whole complete package pricing thing is sorta kinda wrong right now, but that can change as new ARM hardware gets built and the Win S package gets tuned to fit the ARM hardware.

AS FAR AS ARM SOCs GO ..... yeah, they really are strong enough to do the job now.   Really, they are.   MS has to go DO it though, because it is obvious their current Win S thing is clearly written for an Intel x86 chipset, not an ARM SOC.  

Qualcomm has just announced MS's Chromekiller chipset, the 8 core Snapdragon 660, composed of quad core A-73 and quad core A-53 with an Adreno GPU.

This is the point where the whole thing can unravel and go sideways, just like it has in the past.    See MS fail to pull off the software part while everyone else does their part to perfection yet again.

I begin to see a better willingness to just go GO DO IT from MS that is refreshing to see after all these years of fail/fumble/fail try try try again.   Perhaps they will actually go do it this time.

If MS cuts down on all the excess fat in Windows and Office and STOPS people from using bulky super fat programs, then a quick and light Win S might just work very well on the new A-73 based ARM SOCs.  

But it requires a total rewrite of the base OS code to do that.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3194946/computers/chromebook-shipments-surge-b...



This is from PCWorld, not a Chromebook site.

"In a slowing PC market, Chromebooks siphoned market share away from Windows PCs in 2016 as their popularity grew outside the education market.

Chromebook shipments grew by a stunning 38 percent in 2016 compared to 2015. Gartner estimated 9.4 million Chromebooks shipped, compared to 6.8 million units in 2015.

The number is just a fraction of overall PC shipments, but growth came in an otherwise down PC market. Overall PC shipments in 2016 were about 270 million units, a decline of about 6.2 percent, according to Gartner.

Looking forward, 2016 may go down as the best year ever for Chromebook shipment growth. Gartner is estimating shipments to continue growing in the coming years but at a slower pace.

In 2017, Gartner is projecting Chromebook shipments to be about 10.9 million units, a growth of about 16.3 percent compared to 2016. In 2018, the shipments will total about 11.9 million units, a growth of 8.6 percent.

Analyst firm IDC has also predicted Chromebook shipments will grow by double-digit percentages in coming years. Most of the Chromebooks are shipping to classrooms in the U.S., Nordic countries, Australia and New Zealand.

There is also growing interest in Chromebooks from businesses in the finance and retail sectors. Companies are using Chromebooks as no-frills mobile thin clients, considering they are cheap to deploy and easy to manage, said Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner.

While popular in the U.S., Chromebooks still haven't broken through in international markets, especially in Asia, Kitagawa said.

Some basic problems, like a lack of cellular modems, are holding back the adoption of Chromebooks. Chromebooks today are reliant on Wi-Fi, which has a strong presence in the U.S. but not developing countries, Kitagawa said.

Google, however, is taking steps to grow in international markets. Android is popular worldwide, and many new Chromebooks support apps downloaded from the Google Play store. Newer Chromebooks have touchscreens to run Android apps and now (being based more on ARM phone SOCs) they will have mobile carrier support as well.

Samsung just went public with a July date on the full phase in of the Play Store on all existing Samsung Chromebooks -- likely this means all other company's Play Store coverage and windowing content levels will pick up as well.

Let me repeat some of the numbers listed above.

Chromebook shipments grew by a stunning 38 percent in 2016 compared to 2015.

Overall PC shipments in 2016 were about 270 million units, a decline of about 6.2 percent, according to Gartner.

In 2017, Gartner is projecting Chromebook shipments to be about 10.9 million units, a growth of about 16.3 percent compared to 2016. In 2018, the shipments will total about 11.9 million units, a predicted growth of 8.6 percent.

Analyst firm IDC has also predicted Chromebook shipments will grow by double-digit percentages in coming years

Now do you get a picture for why MS is shooting off their brown vapor cannon right and left ???    

MS sees that they are LOSING GROUND to Chromebook, in REAL and INCREASING double digits right smartly unless they DO SOMETHING DRASTIC -- LIKE RIGHT NOW !!!

http://phandroid.com/2012/04/26/samsung-introduces-tablet-ready-dvd-drive-wit...




Yeah, you can do it, but it isn't stock to either Android or to Chromebook.    Both of these assume you are "more modern than that" and you want to stream your stuff directly from internet based web sources directly to your big screen.

So, if you want to watch your DVD collection it gets more fun, you need a USB plug in reader that is compatible with your DVD and your android device.

They exist, but with MULTIPLE international DVD standards in play simply buying a DVD reader for a given type can be a lot of fun now-days.

And, they ain't cheap any more, either.   Nor commonly available.

Hint:   Plug a $39 Chromecast into your TV and anything you can find on you phone is up there on the big screen, instantly.

"Digital Rights this and that" will stop you from making copies of stuff like you used to be able to do --- so if that is your goal keep your old hardware that can still do it.