Windows: It's over, tech site declares

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  Screenshot of the Windows 8 Start screen, as shown at the D9 Conference in 2011.Microsoft

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  The new Windows 8 Start screen.Microsoft Corp.

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  Microsoft demonstrated for the first time the next generation of Windows, internally code-named "Windows 8," at the D9 conference. The company calls it a "reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface."YouTube

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Calling the latest operating system a “failure” and Microsoft’s leaders “idiots,” a top tech website has proclaimed the PC era over. Windows is coming to a dead end, they say.

PC shipments collapsed in the last quarter by almost 14 percent, analysts with IDC said last week, marking the biggest drop in sales since the firm started tracking them 19 years ago. The problem, said ZDNet’s well respected Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, isn’t the designs from the likes of HP and Dell or the size of consumer’s wallets. It’s Microsoft.

'Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed.'

- ZDNet writer Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols

“Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed,” Vaughn-Nichols wrote in an essay on the site. “Microsoft is betting all its chips on the silly notion that Metro will be the one true interface for its entire PC and device line.”

“Idiots,” he wrote.

While Vaugh-Nichols is clearly opinionated, his perspective was supported by IDC analyst Jay Chou, who told The Wall Street Journal a similar story last week: “The reaction to Windows 8 is real.”

Windows 8, released Oct. 25, 2012, transformed the traditional computer interface to reflect a growing dependence on tablet computers and touch interface. It wraps the “desktop” metaphor that most people have grown comfortable in a blanket of multicolored tiles that shift and twinkle, revealing bits of information and inviting the user to poke at them.

The problem: the vast majority of laptop and desktop users have no way to poke. Most users will find this new interface language as shocking (and hard to work with) as a bucket of cold water the face.

Vaugh-Nichols argued that users have responded to an operating system they simply don’t want by not buying PCs, turning instead to tablets. And Windows 8 tablets have yet to catch on in the market.

“Windows tablets don’t even rate a blip in the $64 billion tablet market,” he said.

Microsoft is likely to respond to the growing frustration of users this summer when the company releases “Windows Blue,” the first major upgrade to the OS, which is likely to become “Windows 8.1.”

An a developer event scheduled for June 26-28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the Redmond, Wash.-based company will unveil what’s next for Windows.

Enthusiasts familiar with unreleased early versions of that software say there is a “direct to desktop” mode that bypasses the new Start screen, an especially touch-focused part of the new operating system that has drawn the focus of unhappy users.

But that’s hardly enough for the likes of Vaugh-Nichols.

“Microsoft could continue to dominate the important, but no longer growing, desktop market for years, even decades to come,” he wrote.

“However, I don't think they will.”

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'Windows 8.1' may ship in 2013

5 things that could sink Windows 8

Windows 8 blamed for biggest PC shipment plunge ever

View the original article here

Windows: It’s over, tech site declares

• 

  Screenshot of the Windows 8 Start screen, as shown at the D9 Conference in 2011.Microsoft

• 

  The new Windows 8 Start screen.Microsoft Corp.

• 

  Microsoft demonstrated for the first time the next generation of Windows, internally code-named "Windows 8," at the D9 conference. The company calls it a "reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface."YouTube

Next Slide Previous Slide

Calling the latest operating system a “failure” and Microsoft’s leaders “idiots,” a top tech website has proclaimed the PC era over. Windows is coming to a dead end, they say.

PC shipments collapsed in the last quarter by almost 14 percent, analysts with IDC said last week, marking the biggest drop in sales since the firm started tracking them 19 years ago. The problem, said ZDNet’s well respected Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, isn’t the designs from the likes of HP and Dell or the size of consumer’s wallets. It’s Microsoft.

'Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed.'

- ZDNet writer Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols

“Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed,” Vaughn-Nichols wrote in an essay on the site. “Microsoft is betting all its chips on the silly notion that Metro will be the one true interface for its entire PC and device line.”

“Idiots,” he wrote.

While Vaugh-Nichols is clearly opinionated, his perspective was supported by IDC analyst Jay Chou, who told The Wall Street Journal a similar story last week: “The reaction to Windows 8 is real.”

Windows 8, released Oct. 25, 2012, transformed the traditional computer interface to reflect a growing dependence on tablet computers and touch interface. It wraps the “desktop” metaphor that most people have grown comfortable in a blanket of multicolored tiles that shift and twinkle, revealing bits of information and inviting the user to poke at them.

The problem: the vast majority of laptop and desktop users have no way to poke. Most users will find this new interface language as shocking (and hard to work with) as a bucket of cold water the face.

Vaugh-Nichols argued that users have responded to an operating system they simply don’t want by not buying PCs, turning instead to tablets. And Windows 8 tablets have yet to catch on in the market.

“Windows tablets don’t even rate a blip in the $64 billion tablet market,” he said.

Microsoft is likely to respond to the growing frustration of users this summer when the company releases “Windows Blue,” the first major upgrade to the OS, which is likely to become “Windows 8.1.”

An a developer event scheduled for June 26-28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the Redmond, Wash.-based company will unveil what’s next for Windows.

Enthusiasts familiar with unreleased early versions of that software say there is a “direct to desktop” mode that bypasses the new Start screen, an especially touch-focused part of the new operating system that has drawn the focus of unhappy users.

But that’s hardly enough for the likes of Vaugh-Nichols.

“Microsoft could continue to dominate the important, but no longer growing, desktop market for years, even decades to come,” he wrote.

“However, I don't think they will.”

Related Stories

'Windows 8.1' may ship in 2013

5 things that could sink Windows 8

Windows 8 blamed for biggest PC shipment plunge ever

View the original article here

Sen. Paul declares victory after Holder offers assurance on drones

It's one of the few remaining issues that can bring Democrats and Republicans together -- fear of unchecked government drones. 

Sen. Rand Paul's historic 13-hour filibuster has drawn renewed attention to a technological expansion that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and new legislation that's meant to rein it in. 

While the Obama administration increasingly employs armed drones as a pivotal counterterrorism tool overseas, domestic law enforcement agencies are also moving to broaden the use of surveillance mini-drones over the next several years. The Federal Aviation Administration projects as many as 10,000 licensed systems by 2017. 

The lethal drones used in Pakistan are a far cry from the unarmed eyes in the sky used in America. But Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and a host of other lawmakers see constitutional pitfalls across the board -- namely focusing on how armed, and unarmed, drones might someday be used against American citizens. 

Paul and the senators from both sides of the aisle who joined him on the floor Wednesday described a bleak future where an unscrupulous government might use drones against its own population if left unchecked. 

"Your notification is the buzz of propellers on the drone as it flies overhead in the seconds before you're killed. Is that what we really want from our government?" Paul asked. 

Despite the filibuster, a vote on the nomination of John Brennan for CIA director -- whom Paul was technically holding up with his speech -- is expected to proceed as early as Thursday. 

But lawmakers have already started pushing legislation to rein in the drone program -- legislation that might get a second look after Paul's dramatic performance Wednesday, and into early Thursday morning. 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Ted Poe, R-Texas, last month introduced a bill to regulate domestic drones much like the government regulates wiretaps. 

It would require officials to obtain a warrant in order to perform many kinds of surveillance with those drones. Further, it would prohibit law enforcement drones from being equipped with firearms or explosives in U.S. airspace. 

"As we enter this uncharted world of drone technology, Congress must be proactive and establish boundaries for drone use that safeguard the constitutional rights of Americans," Poe said in a statement last month. 

The use of armed drones in U.S. airspace fueled Paul's lengthy filibuster Wednesday. Before he took the floor, Paul announced that he had received a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder which opened the door, in extremely rare circumstances, to using a drone to kill someone within U.S. territory. Holder said "catastrophic" attacks such as the Sept. 11 attacks or the attack on Pearl Harbor are examples of circumstances where the president could conceivably feel such an action is necessary. 

Testifying on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Holder agreed that it would be unconstitutional to use a drone on American soil against a U.S. citizen and suspected terrorist who did not pose an imminent threat. 

Paul, during his filibuster, said he wanted a formal assurance from the administration that it would not use drones to kill noncombatant Americans. 

Aside from the legislation in the House, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have floated the idea of establishing a sort of drone court to screen potential targets -- much like a court screens surveillance of foreign targets in the U.S.

View the original article here

NBC Declares War on Christians

Does NBC hate Christians?

That’s what I was wondering over the weekend as I watched “Saturday Night Live” blaspheme Jesus Christ in a violent and bloody Quentin Tarantino parody – just three days after Ash Wednesday.

The fake movie trailer for “Djesus Uncrossed” featured the Savior brandishing guns and blowing away Romans in classic Tarantino-style. Blood and gore and profanity spewed across flat screens from coast to coast; at one point Jesus sliced a man’s head in half.

“Critics are calling it a less violent ‘Passion of the Christ,’” the announcer declared. “I never knew how much Jesus used the N-word.”

Offending Christians is apparently what passes for entertainment these days.

A few days before the SNL episode, NBC Sports blogger Rick Chandler wrote a scathing smear against a prominent Christian church in Dallas.

Offending Christians is apparently what passes for entertainment these days.

The First Baptist Church in Dallas had invited Tim Tebow to speak at an upcoming service. Chandler urged the outspoken Christian football player to reconsider.

“Tim Tebow to speak at virulently anti-gay, anti-Semitic Dallas mega-church,” read the headline on Chandler’s hit piece.

Sing Oldham, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention, told me he’s not surprised by NBC’s blistering assault on American Christians.

“It’s open season on those who profess personal faith in Jesus Christ and pattern their lives by biblical morality,” he said. “Evangelical Christians are treated with contempt and targeted for ridicule.”

And at the Peacock Network, the contempt and ridicule are on steroids.

NBC removed the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance during a produced video that aired during the U.S. Open.

NBC medical editor Nancy Snyderman infamously denounced the religious part of Christmas during an episode of Today.

“I don’t like the religion part,” said Snyderman. “I think religion is what mucks the whole thing up.”

The “religion” she was referring to is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

The network has also produced religion-bashing shows like “The New Normal” and “The Book of Daniel.” That particular show as so offensive it led American Family Radio Chairman Donald Wildmon to declare, “We are tired of NBC’s anti-Christian bigotry.”

I wish I could tell you that this sort of anti-Christian bigotry is an anomaly. Sadly, it is not.

We’ve seen the networks and national news publications denigrate the Christian faith with great flair  -- from the “Good Christian B****es” of ABC to Newsweek’s Christmas essay about the “The Myths of Jesus.”

I find it interesting that the networks always mock and ridicule Christianity – but they give other religions a pass.

Why aren’t the writers at SNL churning out weekly skits about Islam – or the Prophet Mohammed? Where’s the mock movie trailer for “Jihad Undetonated?” Where’s the television show called “Good Muslim B****es?” Or the magazine essay about “The Myths of Mohammed?”

I suspect we all know the answer to why.

I’ve often wondered why the people at 30 Rock hold Christians in such contempt. Maybe they choose to attack Christians because we are easy targets.

Southern Baptist spokesman Oldham said it should come as no surprise that networks like NBC target Christians for ridicule.

“Jesus said, ‘the world will hate you because of my name,’” he said, referring to a passage in the New Testament.

As best as I can tell, the folks over at NBC are either ideological bullies or religious bigots.

Either one is enough for me to change the channel.

Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary and the author of "Dispatches from Bitter America: A Gun Toting, Chicken Eating Son of a Baptist's Culture War Stories."

View the original article here