Technology - Google News

Halo Infinite Multiplayer Surprise Drop Livestream - GameSpot
Samsung hasn’t completely forgotten its Tizen smartwatches - The Verge
Windows 10 is a security disaster waiting to happen. How will Microsoft clean up its mess? - ZDNet

Halo Infinite Multiplayer Surprise Drop Livestream - GameSpot

Posted: 15 Nov 2021 11:48 AM PST

Samsung hasn’t completely forgotten its Tizen smartwatches - The Verge

Posted: 15 Nov 2021 08:26 AM PST

When Samsung dropped the bombshell that it was ditching Tizen for Wear OS 3, it promised not to leave older Galaxy Watch models in the dust. Now Samsung has announced that the Galaxy Watch, Galaxy Watch 3, Galaxy Watch Active, and Galaxy Watch Active 2 will get new watchfaces and health features as part of One UI 4.

Fall detection isn't new on Samsung's smartwatches, but today's update will give you the option to tweak the feature's sensitivity. According to Samsung's press release, it says you can "choose to detect a fall when you are standing still." Previously, Samsung's fall detection feature was designed to detect hard falls when you're running or moving. Triggering the feature will automatically send an SOS message to pre-selected contacts. That said, the feature is limited to Samsung's newer Tizen watches and isn't coming to the original Galaxy Watch or Galaxy Watch Active.

Examples of the fall detection feature on a Samsung watch.

Another small health feature update is Group Challenges, which lets you keep track of the competition from your wrist. All four smartwatches will also get 10 new watch faces that launched this past summer with the Galaxy Watch 4. As for when all these updates will arrive, Samsung says they're coming to Bluetooth devices first, with the LTE rollout coming sometime later. The company also says you'll need to update to the latest Galaxy Wearable app and Galaxy Watch plugin.

Altogether these aren't earth-shattering updates, but it's encouraging to see Samsung hasn't abandoned its Tizen smartwatches — particularly since the Galaxy Watch Active 2 and Galaxy Watch 3 were still fresh when Samsung announced it was giving up on Tizen. Google has also been steadily adding and improving features in Wear OS 2, including Gboard and a revamped Play Store. It's especially important to see Samsung and Google support the older hardware, given the switch to the new unified Wear OS 3 will be a bumpy one. Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 lineup represents the only smartwatches that have the platform right now, and a mere handful of existing Wear OS watches will be eligible to upgrade in 2022.

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Windows 10 is a security disaster waiting to happen. How will Microsoft clean up its mess? - ZDNet

Posted: 15 Nov 2021 07:03 AM PST

In less than four years, Microsoft will draw the final curtain on Windows 10 after a 10-year run.

Windows 11 FAQ

Everything you need to know

What's new in Windows 11? What are its minimum hardware requirements? When will your PC be eligible for the upgrade? We've got the answers to your questions.

That news shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The end date is defined as part of Microsoft's Modern Lifecycle Policy, and it's documented on the Microsoft Lifecycle page: "Microsoft will continue to support at least one Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel until October 14, 2025."

When a Windows version reaches its end-of-support date, the software keeps working, but the update channel grinds to a halt:

[There] will be no new security updates, non-security updates, or assisted support. Customers are encouraged to migrate to the latest version of the product or service. Paid programs may be available for applicable products.

Ho-hum stuff, right? I mean, this sort of thing has happened before, and the world didn't come to an end. Windows XP got a multi-year support extension before it was allowed to die with dignity at the ripe old age of 13.

Likewise, Windows 7 hit end-of-support at the start of 2020, mostly without incident. Microsoft's customers grumbled but found upgrade paths. Microsoft even offered free app remediation services for enterprise customers who encountered compatibility issues.

But in both of those instances, Microsoft could implore its customers to fix the problem by upgrading to a newer version of the Windows operating system.

Read that part again: "Customers are encouraged to migrate to the latest version of the product or service." That's not an option for customers running Windows 10 on hardware that doesn't meet the stringent hardware compatibility requirements of Windows 11. When October 2025 rolls around, those devices will have no Microsoft-supported migration path to a newer version. The owners of those perfectly functional PCs, some less than five years old, will instead have the following options:

Continue running the unsupported operating system and hope for the best
Retire or dispose of the unsupported hardware
Install a non-Microsoft operating system, such as Linux
Ignore Microsoft's warnings and upgrade to Windows 11 anyway

Option 1 is unwise. Option 2 is unconscionable. Option 3 is unlikely.

That leaves only the fourth option, which comes with Microsoft's own supersized portion of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) in the form of a support bulletin titled "Installing Windows 11 on devices that don't meet minimum system requirements."

That document packs a lot of FUD into just a few paragraphs:

Installing Windows 11 on a device that does not meet Windows 11 minimum system requirements is not recommended. If you choose to install Windows 11 on ineligible hardware, you should be comfortable assuming the risk of running into compatibility issues.
Your device might malfunction due to these compatibility or other issues. Devices that do not meet these system requirements will no longer be guaranteed to receive updates, including but not limited to security updates.
The following disclaimer applies if you install Windows 11 on a device that doesn't meet the minimum system requirements:
This PC doesn't meet the minimum system requirements for running Windows 11 - these requirements help ensure a more reliable and higher quality experience. Installing Windows 11 on this PC is not recommended and may result in compatibility issues. If you proceed with installing Windows 11, your PC will no longer be supported and won't be entitled to receive updates. Damages to your PC due to lack of compatibility aren't covered under the manufacturer warranty.
[emphasis in original]

When Windows 7 reached its end-of-support date in 2020, I calculated that about 200 million PCs were still running that operating system. When Windows 10 hits its end-of-support milestone in 2025, the number of newly unsupported devices is likely to be even larger.

Business customers might be able to pay for extended security updates for Windows 10, although that will be a bitter (and expensive) pill to swallow. But small businesses and consumers won't have that choice.

What are the owners of those PCs supposed to do? Microsoft's bean counters would, of course, like them all to throw those old devices into the nearest landfill and replace them with shiny new hardware, but that's not going to happen. Instead, most of those customers are likely to do absolutely nothing and carry on with their unsupported operating system, endangering the entire PC ecosystem in the process.

This mess is Microsoft's responsibility, and doing nothing to clean it up isn't an acceptable option.

There is an alternative, though: Microsoft could extend the support deadline for Windows 10 on hardware that isn't compatible with Windows 11.

The company did the same thing, under similar circumstances, in the Windows XP era, and it's a perfectly appropriate solution here. The good news is that Microsoft's spinmeisters have three years to come up with a press release that makes it sound like they planned this all along.