Windows 10

[7/29/15] So the day is finally here. Microsoft today launched Windows 10 giving the millions of people who own Windows 7 and 8 computers a chance to obtain for free to the company’s latest operating system.

The reason that the decision to take the plunge and swap operating systems is more difficult with Windows 10, is that Microsoft is offering Windows 10 for free to anyone owning a computer currently running Windows 7 or 8. In the past the company always charged a fee, generally around $100, for its latest operating system. That alone, along with the complexity of personally handling the upgrade, scared off many people and they simply stuck with the software that came with their computer.

However, with Win 10 being a freebie more people will seriously consider making the change even if they are not particularly tech savvy. The good news is the upgrade process is painless and can be completed by even a computer novice.

Microsoft is hyping a few key features it believes will sway people to upgrade. Primarily that 10 will work across all hardware platforms computer, tablet, smart phone and even Xbox One. So if a consumer owns a tablet or phone running Windows, as opposed to Android or iOS, he or she will be able to seamlessly move between devices.

Microsoft has also resurrected its famous Start button and the desktop interface itself is a mix between Windows 7, which is much beloved by its users, and Windows 8, which is basically despised by many of its users. This gives those who decided against moving up to Windows 8 an additional reason to give Windows 10 a try.

There is also a new browser, dubbed Edge, in Win 10 that offers the neat trick of being able to annotate a web page directly and then share it with another person. In addition, Microsoft has moved Cortana, its version of Siri or Google Now, to desktops and tablets. It has been available on Windows Phone for over a year.

[10/1/14] Today, Microsoft took the wraps off the next version of Windows. You’ll be able to install a free, unfinished “technical preview” version this week, or get it in final form sometime next year. It’s called Windows 10.

(Why is it Windows 10? What happened to 9? Making sense of the Windows naming sequence is like solving one of those Mensa “What’s the pattern?” puzzles. So far, we have this: Windows 1, 2, 3, 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10. OK, whatever.)

Windows 8, as the world now knows, was a superimposed mishmash of two operating systems. There was the touchscreen-friendly TileWorld interface, as I called it. (Microsoft, at various times, called it Modern or Metro; it has officially retired both of those terms and replaced them with nothing.)

And, underneath, there was the regular desktop:

They are quite separate, these two environments. Each has its own Help system, its own Web browser, its own email program, its own control panel, its own conventions and gestures. Worse, each runs its own kind of programs. Regular Windows programs open at the desktop, as always — but TileWorld apps open in TileWorld, with no menus overlapping windows. Like iPad apps.

Microsoft believed at the time (2012) that the world was going touchscreen crazy. That, sooner or later, every PC would have a touchscreen.

It bet wrong. Most computers still don’t have touchscreens. Windows 8 was a massive flop with critics.

Windows 8 was a massive flop with consumers, too. Today, 51 percent of desktop PCs still run Windows 7; only 13 percent have “upgraded” to Windows 8 or 8.1, according to Net Applications.

And at the Windows 10 announcement, you would not have believed the words coming out of Microsoft’s mouth.

“In Windows 8, when users launched a Modern [TileWorld] app, it sort of had a different environment,” OS Group VP Joe Belfiore said in his demo. “We don’t want that duality.”

Now, when I wrote exactly that in The New York Times, Microsoft PR descended on me like the beasts of hell.

The answer has always been screamingly obvious: Split up the two halves of Windows 8. Or, as a wise man once wrote, “Put TileWorld and its universe of new touchscreen apps on tablets. Put Windows 8 on mouse-and-keyboard PCs.” (OK, it was me.)

Anyway, here’s the big news: In Windows 10, Microsoft has done just that.

3D XPoint memory

The decade-long partnership between Intel and Micron to build better NAND (or Flash) memory used in solid-state drives has yielded an entirely new form of computer memory. This is a big deal. It’s as if a 10-year effort by Ford and GM to build a better car also produced a Segway.

New types of computer memory pop up every few years as firms such as HP, IBM, Motorola/Freescale and even startups try to create alternatives that are cheaper, faster, more dense or otherwise offer a different series of trade-offs than the dominant forms of memory used today. Some will find specialty applications in embedded systems, but most are too expensive or fragile to find mainstream use cases.

What Intel and Micron are hoping with this product is that is can achieve mass popularity.

The two companies are calling their new memory 3D XPoint memory (pronounce 3D crosspoint memory) because its structure creates an lattice-like stacked layer of wires that looks like Xes when viewed from above. It combines properties of NAND Flash memory that is currently used inside solid state drives (SSDs) inside computers and phones, but it is 1,000 times faster and can last through 1,000 times more data writes.

That speed and endurance isn’t as important in your personal computer, but as SSDs are gaining use inside data centers because of their speed, both factors open up new use cases for the 3D Xpoint memory. One might be use for in-memory databases such as those made by Oracle and SAP, where the memory is located close to the compute. Usually in-memory databases require a lot of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which is co-located with the processor, but DRAM is in limited supply and it loses everything when the power is turned off.

But Rob Crooke, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group, explained that because the 3D Xpoint memory combines some of the elements of NAND and DRAM, you can have a lot of it (10 times more than current DRAM) and it’s non-volatile, which means that when the power goes off the data stored in it will stick around.

Video Buzz

In the dark ages before YouTube was an official Roku channel there were a number of workarounds for Roku users who wanted to access the most popular Streaming application and website. There was YouTube through Plex, and YouTube through Twonky. Both required extra hardware to use computers, tablets app downloads etc.

When Video Buzz from Utmost Solutions emerged it changed the game for a number of Roku owners. Finally there was a YouTube option that could work on its own without the aid of an external device. It survived Roku banning the private channel by becoming a development channel (called MyVideoBuzz) but did not survive the arrival of the official YouTube Channel in 2014. After YouTube’s recent API update the app ceased working.

But another developer has been quietly building a new Video buzz for about a year  under the radar with a bit of a different look but the same functionality. Video Buzz by Protuhj has the same navigation style and menu selection as the original with the addition of streams from other popular streaming options like Twitch and Reddit. While it uses a different color scheme and logo the feel is very much the same.

How do you get it?
Like “My Video Buzz” the development channel successor to the original channel the the current Video Buzz must be side loaded on to the Roku via a computer. There are a number of steps required.

***

Yep, MyVideoBuzz stopped working on my Roku HD, so I removed it.

OK, let's see if I can get this new Video Buzz working since youtube on my Roku HD is agonizingly slow.

1) find Roku IP address

192.168.2.4

2) enter the Roku Developer Screen

enable installer and restart

developer agreement
I agree

select development webserver password
webserver username is rokudev

password

set password and reboot

took a little while and came back to the regular screen (how do I know that it's in developer mode?)

anyway...

download Video Buzz zip file
create Video Buzz Zip folder on desktop
copy the zip file into the Video Buzz Zip folder

Enter the Roku portal

username: rokudev
password: password

browse
select the videobuzz zip file and open
click install

Currently Installed Application:
90d3793442560cc036178ed85995e505
zip file in internal memory (671884 bytes)

Application Received: 671884 bytes stored.

Install Success.

Hey I'm in the app!

Let's try it out

Hey it works.  And is much faster than the official youtube channel on the Roku HD.  Unfortunately, youtube captions aren't supported though.  Well, I guess I shouldn't complain.

AT&T merges with DirecTV

The No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier AT&T Inc and the biggest satellite-TV provider DirecTV became the country's largest pay-TV company on Friday, completing their $48.5 billion merger after receiving final regulatory approval.

The newly expanded AT&T leapfrogs the biggest U.S. cable company Comcast Corp. The company said it will serve more than 26 million U.S. customers and more than 19 million in Latin America, making it the world's biggest pay-TV company.

After more than a year of review, the Federal Communications Commission finalized its vote to approve the deal with conditions, imposed for four years and enforced by an internal and an external compliance officers.

The requirements from the FCC, which ensures that deals are in the public interest, include protections for rival video and pledges to expand high-speed Internet services to schools, low-income Americans and other customers.

AT&T shares were up 1.1 percent at $34.29 and DirecTV shares were up 1.5 percent at $93.55 at the market close.

"We'll now be able to meet consumers' future entertainment preferences, whether they want traditional TV service with premier programming, their favorite content on a mobile device, or video streamed over the Internet to any screen," AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said in a statement.


As the U.S. wireless market reaches saturation, AT&T hopes to tap into DirecTV’s business and has been expanding its footprint in Mexico after buying the third and fourth largest wireless carriers in that country recently.

The success of the deal in passing regulatory muster is in sharp contrast to rival telecom mega-merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc, which was rejected in April largely over the combined companies' reach into the broadband market.


Video companies Netflix Inc and Dish Network Corp, traffic company Cogent Communications Holdings Inc and others had fought for the FCC to reject the $45 billion Comcast merger, but took a more lenient tack with AT&T.

Kepler-452b

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.  >> The W.M. Keck telescope on Mauna Kea helped scientists confirm the discovery of  a "close cousin" planet similar to Earth -- orbiting a sun-like star in a zone that might harbor life.

The researchers announced their discovery Thursday based on observations from NASA's Kepler space telescope and ground-based telescopes, including the W.M. Keck Observatory.

"It is the closest thing that we have to another place that somebody else might call home," said Jon Jenkins, the lead data analyst from NASA's Ames Research Center in California.

This older, bigger cousin to Earth is called Kepler-452b. What makes this planet remarkable is that it orbits its star at about the same distance that Earth orbits the sun. What's more, its home star looks to be similar to our sun.

Based on what scientists know today, Jenkins added, "This is the closest thing we have to another Earth-sun twin system."

John Grunsfeld, NASA's science mission chief, said the exoplanet system "as far as we can tell, is a pretty good close cousin to the Earth and our sun." The planet itself is "the closest twin, so to speak, to Earth 2.0" yet found in the Kepler data.

"This is about the closest so far," Grunsfeld said, "and I really emphasize the 'so far.' "

One unanswered question is whether the planet is rocky. Scientists believe there's a better than even chance it is. As for age and size, the planet is about 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than Earth, and 60 percent larger in diameter than our home planet. Its star, Kepler 452, is also older and bigger, as well as brighter than our sun.

Planet 452b takes 385 days to orbit its star, just a little more than Earth takes for a one-year lap. It's just a bit farther from its star than Earth is from our sun.

The planet is in a solar system that is 1,400 light years from our own, located in the Constellation Cygnus, or swan.

"So pack your bags, it's a long trip," joked Jenkins.

NFL Game Pass coming to Apple TV?

The NFL has long offered various packages that let football enthusiasts watch games on their mobile devices, but it's always been difficult to get that content on the Apple TV. That may be changing, however, according to a website dedicated to a revamped Game Pass program that the NFL plans to debut later this summer.

For viewers in the United States, the NFL currently offers Game Rewind, with access to on-demand NFL games after they air on broadcast television. As of July 31, 2015, Game Rewind is being discontinued in favor of Game Pass, a consolidated service that will offer all 256 NFL season games on-demand as well as access to live out-of-market preseason games.

Game Pass access will be added to the existing NFL Mobile app on the iPhone and the iPad, and the website indicates Game Pass content will also be available on "select connected TV devices" including the Apple TV. When the new Game Pass service is made available on the Apple TV, it'll be the first time the NFL has allowed full game broadcasts on Apple's set-top box, which is big news for football fans who are also cord cutters.

At the current time, there's an NFL Now channel on the Apple TV, but this is limited to historic videos, breaking news, and game highlights, rather than complete games due to contracts with television providers. With the prior Game Rewind service, the NFL went so far as to disable AirPlay mirroring to the Apple TV in an effort to keep broadcasts limited to iOS devices.

***

Don't get too excited, it's live only for pre-season games.  The current price for Game Rewind is $24.99 which will provide access through the end of the month (like one more week).

Apple TV service coming?

[7/14/15] Apple might not be working on a standalone TV set of its own, but the company is still interested in changing the way you watch TV. And in the process, it might offer its customers one more reason to cut the cord – or at least dump their current cable provider and enjoy live TV streamed over the Internet to an affordable Apple TV box.

According to information obtained by The New York Post from various sources familiar with Apple’s negotiations with networks, Apple is set to launch the unnamed live streaming TV service this fall alongside a refreshed Apple TV box. The service has reportedly not yet been priced, and will cost anywhere from $10 to $40 per month.

“The platform is ready and it rocks,” a source told the paper.

Apple has apparently convinced networks to give it streaming rights for their affiliates’ feeds and negotiate deals on the company’s behalf, so it didn’t have to talk directly to affiliates.

Apple’s cable-killing TV app will offer customers access to a wide range of channels, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Disney, Discovery and ESPN, according to the news site.

Disney or CBS will be the first to ink a deal with Apple, a source said. But certain issues remain, such as Apple’s insistence on getting 30% of the subscription fee as long as the subscriber signs up through the App Store. The Post also says that negotiations are further complicated by the industry’s “most favored nation” deals, which say that networks can’t charge some distributors less than others.

Apple’s Eddy Cue has been recently spotted chatting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Patriots owner Bob Kraft at Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, prompting speculation that Apple is also working on a possible NFL offering.

“The theory is that it could have been staging to give TV executives the shivers,” an unnamed executive joked.

[3/16/15] Apple's long-rumored online TV service could be announced as soon as June, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company is reportedly preparing to offer a service with around 25 channels from broadcasters like ABC, CBS, and Fox and launch it this September across all iOS devices and the Apple TV. The bundle could include the likes of ESPN and FX, and Apple is said to be pushing for a large on-demand library, but it will likely leave out a lot of smaller networks. Recode said last month that Apple was in talks with broadcasters to offer bundles of content.

But although the WSJ reported a year ago that Apple was teaming up with Comcast on a set-top box that would take advantage of priority internet traffic, talks between the two are said to have broken down, meaning that the service at present won't include channels from Comcast-owned NBCUniversal. The WSJ's sources say Apple decided that Comcast was "stringing it along" while diverting effort to develop its own X1 box.

Last week Apple scored a major media deal when it secured exclusive rights to HBO's over-the-top streaming service for three months, and it also dropped the price of the Apple TV to $69. Rumors of a TV service, a new set-top box, or an entirely new TV itself have been floated for many years; 2015 could be the year that Apple starts to get a grip on the tangled TV industry.

[If they can score ESPN and FoxSports, they could one-up Sling TV.  And if they can offer live ABC, CBS, and Fox, this could be serious threat to the cable networks.  But with "only: 25 channels?]

More from the Wall Street Journal story:

The technology giant is in talks with programmers to offer a slimmed-down bundle of TV networks this fall, according to people familiar with the matter. The service would have about 25 channels, anchored by broadcasters such as ABC, CBS and Fox and would be available on Apple devices such as the Apple TV, they said.

Meanwhile, Apple has been talking to Walt Disney Co., CBS Corp., and 21st Century Fox Inc., among other media companies. The idea is to offer consumers a “skinny” bundle with well-known channels like CBS, ESPN and FX, while leaving out the many smaller networks in the standard cable TV package. 21st Century Fox and News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, were until mid-2013 part of the same company.

Some media executives said they believed Apple was aiming to price the service at about $30 to $40 a month. The company is aiming to announce its new service in June and launch it in September, according to people familiar with the matter. The service would work across all devices powered by Apple’s iOS operating system, including iPhones, iPads and Apple TV set-top boxes.

***

[well a little more expensive then SlingTV.  But yes, it sure sounds like live network TV over the internet.  This has to be threatening to traditional broadcast television.]

Pluto TV

From CordKillers 78, I saw the story that PlutoTV has signed a deal with Hulu making all their content available on their site.

Curious, I went over to the Pluto.tv website.

It's an interesting experience.  They take streaming content and turn your computer into "live TV".  Well, obviously not live, but most of live TV isn't live anyway.

What they do is give you a bunch of channels.  And each channel shows a particular show or category.

The categories are Music, News & Info, Sports, Entertainment, Comedy, Lifestyle, Tech, Art & Culture, Education, Kids.

In the entertainment category, there's a Star Trek Channel, Joss Whedon Shows Channel, 70's TV Shows, 80's TV Shows, Ellen DeGeneres, for example.  Also Conan O'Brien, Late Night TV (currently showing Tonight Show with Johnny Carson), Seinfeld, South Park, Oprah Winfrey, etc.

This is kind of what the streaming services don't do quite as well as cable TV.  When you don't know what to watch, you can mindlessly channel surf until something catches your eye.

The (big) drawback, is that you can only view what they're currently streaming.  So say you don't want to watch that episode of Star Trek they're showing.  You can just stop it and pick something else.  (Well, of course you can by switching to hulu or Netflix.)

I see it's also available as an app for iOS and Android.  So I wonder if you can now watch free hulu on your tablet this way [nope, reading the article].  It would be interesting to see if a Roku app ever comes out.

The Cord Cutting Show

Roy mentioned on facebook that he's watching a new show called Mr. Robot.

I see it's available on the USA Now app on the Apple TV.  And I assume there's a comparable USA Now app for the iPad.  (And also on Hulu.)

That got to be to wondering whether there was an USA Network app for the Roku.  Searching... Apparently there's not an official channel, but you can watch USA Network shows on the Roku via the Plex app.  [7/8/15 - didn't see the channel on the Plex server side, but was able to install it on the Roku side.  It works and supports subtitles too!]

That story was from www.thestreamingadvisor.com website, from which I saw that there is a show called The Cord Cutting Show, which was news to me.  The current episode is episode 12 which can be accessed on iTunes.  (Checking the podcasts on the AppleTV, apparently it's audio only.)

I wondered if it was available on youtube and it is.  Since AFTVNews.com (Amazon Fire TV News) is one of the contributors (along with thestreamingadvisor and CordCuttersNews.com), they have uploaded it to their channel apparently starting with episode 9.

So CordKillers now sort of has competition.

There is a big difference.  In The Cord Cutting Show, you never get to see the people talking.  Where, of course, it's the opposite on CordKillers [which, as I'm watching/listening to it now, has an order of magnitude more personality, though perhaps not as much raw content].

[9/7/15] Actually I've been watching it on and off and it's actually pretty good as far as the information conveyed.  They now have a dedicated website.

Blue Planet Energy Systems

High above the bustling city of Honolulu, in a quiet, exclusive hillside neighborhood where some of the island's wealthiest residents live, there is an extravagant home that's not quite like the others.

The 6,000-square-foot house has a view overlooking Diamond Head, Waikiki and the Pacific Ocean, and two Tesla cars in the driveway. It's not the two electric cars that set the property apart from its swanky neighbors.

The difference is that this solar-powered home is completely energy independent.

Homeowner Henk Rogers, 61, hopes the technology he is using in his home can help make other homes across Hawaii — and the world — energy independent as well.

Rogers is famous for discovering the video game "Tetris" more than 20 years ago. He now manages the worldwide rights for the game along with his business partner, Alexey Pajitnov, who wrote the program.

"If you're going to clean up the world, first of all you have to clean your own room," Rogers said, referring to Hawaii, which has some of the highest energy costs in the nation.

Rogers will announce his new company, Blue Planet Energy Systems, on Monday. The new venture, which will sell and install battery systems for homes and businesses running on solar technology, plans to begin sales on Aug. 1. He declined to say how much the systems would cost, but said there will be a five- to seven-year return on the investment for a typical project that his company will install.

The Blue Ion system, which Rogers has been testing in his home for the last year, uses Sony lithium iron phosphate batteries, which can last for 20 years and do not require cooling, he says.

Partnering with Sony, Rogers believes the batteries can be a solution to the long-standing problem of storing the sun's energy and helping lower energy costs in Hawaii.

Sony has been developing lithium ion batteries since 1991, and the units being used in Rogers' home are top of the line.

The batteries store energy from solar panels, allowing people to use it at night without having to rely on expensive energy from the grid.

Rogers' company will sell and install the battery systems for commercial and residential use, supplying everything from the housing to the software to monitor and maintain the systems.

Robert Harris, a spokesman for the Alliance for Solar Choice, a solar advocacy group, said consumers haven't had much call to invest in battery storage systems because of the cost and incentive programs that encourage people to stay linked to the grid. Harris, who is also the director of public policy at Sunrun, a solar equipment supplier in Honolulu, said homeowners with solar panels typically put energy into the grid and take it back as needed, something called net metering.

"A lot of energy can be put into the grid right now, so it hasn't been a big incentive necessarily for a homeowner to invest in storage," Harris said. That could change in the next few months with several new systems besides Rogers' expected to hit the market.

"These products will be capable of storing and putting out energy on a daily basis at a fairly reasonable price point," Harris said.

Rogers, who also owns a ranch on Hawaii's Big Island that is energy independent, said he had an epiphany after suffering a heart attack and near-death experience in 2006.

While recovering, he decided he would take advantage of the second chance. Rogers read about the possibility of losing all the coral reefs in the world because of ocean acidification, which has been linked to climate change and rising carbon in oceans.

"We're going to end the use of carbon-based fuel, and that is my mission No. 1," he said.

Nintendo Playstation

This article, Nintendo's PlayStation, the Holy Grail of Game Memorabilia, Has Been Found, originally appeared on GameSpot.

An extraordinarily rare prototype of the SNES-CD console, which was created as part of a failed partnership between Nintendo and Sony some 25 years ago, has been discovered.

Never-before-seen images offer the first ever close-ups of the machine, now yellowed with age, which combines the form factor of the SNES along with the branding of PlayStation.

The console is so rare that its specific design features, such as a horizontal volume slider at the front and an assortment of outputs at the back, were not public knowledge. There are several other known prototypes of the SNES-CD, each with different variations on its design, which likely means that the version pictured below is the only in existence.