Windows 10: Ten Things You Need To Know About Free Upgrade

Windows 10: Ten Things You Need To Know About Free Upgrade Deadline And Anniversary Edition

BY DAVID GILBERT @DAITHAIGILBERT ON 06/30/16 AT 8:18 AM

Microsoft launched Windows 10 last year to a great deal of fanfare setting itself the challenge of getting the new software running on 1 billion devices by 2018. With its first birthday fast approaching, here is a run down of how well Windows 10 is doing, when the free upgrade ends and what features will be in the Anniversary Update of the operating system.

1. Windows 10 is doing well.

Since it launched July 29, 2015, Windows 10 has been installed on 350 million PCs, according to the latest figures released by Microsoft this week. That’s more than a third of the way to its stated goal in about a third of the time frame Microsoft set for itself.  

2. Windows 10 hasn’t ignited the PC market.

While getting 350 million people to upgrade to new software in less than a year is impressive, most of those have updated from Windows 7 or Windows 8 on old machines rather than buy new computers. So despite Microsoft’s claims that Windows 10 would help ignite the PC market, this hasn’t happened. According to figures from both Gartner and IDC, shipments of PCs in the first quarter of 2016 fell by somewhere around 10 percent, and are expected to continue to fall throughout the year.

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3. The free upgrade option is coming to an end.

Microsoft launched Windows 10 under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella (pictured), a release that’s been promoted as the last major version of Windows ever.PHOTO: SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Microsoft made a big play about offering Windows 10 as a free upgrade — something Apple has being doing with its Mac OS X software for several years — but the good times had to come to an end. The option to upgrade for free from Windows 7 or Windows 8 will end July 29 according to Microsoft, just before it pushes out its first major update to the software Aug. 2.

4. Windows 10 adoption is gathering speed.

The pace at which people are upgrading to Windows 10 has increased in the last six months. The number of people updating to Windows 10 every month was around 23 million in March. That increased to 24 million by May, but the latest figures put that monthly figure at 29 million.

The reason for the increase? Simple, with the free upgrade offer deadline looming, those who put off upgrading are finally getting around to doing it.

5. Windows 10 will soon cost $119.

For those who don’t upgrade before the July 29 deadline, the price to upgrade to Windows 10 Home with be $119. For those who want the Windows 10 Pro version, which adds business-orientated features like remote log-in and improved security, the price will be $199. 

6. People like Windows 10.

A lot of people didn’t like Windows 8’s confusing interface, lack of a proper desktop environment and the removal of the Start menu, so it’s no surprise that Windows 10 — which reinstates all of these features — is faring much better. According to Microsoft, customer satisfaction is higher than any previous version of Windows, and customer engagement is also “incredible” with more than 135 billion hours of use on Windows 10 since launch.

7. People don't like Microsoft’s pushy Windows 10 reminders.

For nearly a year now some users have been getting popup notifications on their PCs and laptops, urging them to upgrade to Windows 10. These pop-ups were designed to appear every single day without fail. And even if users clicked the little “x” on the window, that meant the update would install anyway at the suggested time. This angered a lot of people. Indeed things were so bad that Microsoft reportedly agreed to pay $10,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a woman who said her computer upgraded to Windows 10 without her permission. 

Microsoft is paying a California woman $10,000 after an automatic Windows 10 installation left her computer unusable. In this picture, a display for the Windows 10 operating system is seen in a store window at a Microsoft store at Roosevelt Field, New York, July 29, 2015.PHOTO: REUTERS/SHANNON STAPLETON

Microsoft has finally awakened to the fact that it is annoying people and changed the pop-up notification to be more user friendly. No longer will pressing the “x” cause the update to install automatically.

8. It's time for the anniversary edition.

While Windows 10 has been receiving regular minor updates since it launched (five in total), Microsoft is now about to launch the first major update to the system. Called the Anniversary Update, it will be arriving for Windows 10 users Aug. 2.  

9. The Anniversary Update will have a lot of new features.

Here are the main new features of the updates OS:

• Windows Ink — Allows users take notes on any part of the OS to quickly jot down notes or annotate images or web pages.
• Cortana — The voice-activated digital assistant which is baked into Windows 10 will now be available above the lock screen to allow users to set reminders, ask questions or play music without unlocking the device.
• Windows Hello — The security feature that allows users to log into their Windows 10 machines with their faces will now extend to apps and websites though a compatible camera on the PC or laptop is still needed.
• Windows Defender — The automated security program for Windows 10 will now allow users to schedule regular scans of their PCs to check for malware. 

10. Microsoft wants customers to buy a new PC.

Windows 10 may not have enticed many people to buy a new PC or laptop yet, but Microsoft is not giving up. To encourage customers to upgrade to Windows 10 in the next month by buying new hardware it has announced a range of offers. 

Deals include $300 off for students when they purchase an Xbox One and Surface at Microsoft Stores, or a free TV when they purchase a Dell PC worth more than $699. Everyone take take advantage of an offer from HP for $150 off select devices or $100 off select Asus and Samsung devices.

http://www.ibtimes.com/windows-10-ten-things-you-need-know-about-free-upgrade-deadline-anniversary-edition-2388471

Home PC outperforms a supercomputer in complex calculations

Michael Irving  June 30, 2016

Scientists have used a consumer-level Nvidia GPU to solve some incredibly complex equations in a fraction of the time taken by a supercomputer .

The GPU in your gaming rig performs crazy amounts of calculations to really bring to life the Cyberdemon in the new Doom, but scientists are increasingly applying that power to more academic pursuits. Russian physicists have put a computer running a consumer-level Nvidia GPU to work on equations that are normally performed using a powerful supercomputer, and found that the home PC solved them in 15 minutes – far faster than the supercomputer's time of two or three days.

A GPU is designed with multiple threads of processing power, which allows it to perform many more simultaneous calculations than a CPU. The researchers from the Lomonosov Moscow State University wanted to take advantage of that, and test whether consumer-level tech would make an accessible alternative to supercomputers, in situations where many equations had to be run parallel to each other.

The GPU tackled few-body scattering equations, which describe how multiple quantum particles interact with each other. Where three or more of these bodies are involved, the equations become extremely difficult to calculate, involving a table containing tens or even hundreds of thousands of rows and columns of data. Running on Nvidia software as well as custom programs written by the researchers, the GPU performed better than expected.

"We reached a speed we couldn't even dream of," says team leader Vladimir Kukulin. "The program computes 260 million complex double integrals on a desktop computer within three seconds. No comparison with supercomputers! My colleague from the University of Bochum in Germany carried out the calculations using one of the largest supercomputers in Germany with the famous blue gene architecture, which is actually very expensive. And what took his group two or three days we do in 15 minutes without spending a dime."

In using consumer technology, the team's goal was to make these areas more accessible. Generally, only supercomputers are up to such tasks, and even then it's a time-consuming process. That means only a few groups around the world have the resources to perform these calculations, which hinders the overall progress of the fields of study related to them, including quantum mechanics and nuclear and atomic physics.

The processors used by the team retail for between US$300 – $500, which is far easier on the wallet than the hundreds of millions of dollars an institute can spend on a supercomputer. In fact, GPUs have been capable of this kind of application for the past 10 years or so, but their value is only now beginning to be appreciated.

"This work, in our opinion, opens up completely new ways to analyze nuclear and resonance chemical reactions," says Kukulin. "It can also be useful for solving a large number of computing tasks in plasma physics, electrodynamics, geophysics, medicine and many other areas of science. We want to organize a kind of training course, where researchers from various scientific areas of peripheral universities that do not have access to supercomputers could learn to do on their PCs the same thing that we do."

Source: Lomonosov Moscow State University

Home PC outperforms a supercomputer in complex calculations

Michael Irving  June 30, 2016

Scientists have used a consumer-level Nvidia GPU to solve some incredibly complex equations in a fraction of the time taken by a supercomputer .

The GPU in your gaming rig performs crazy amounts of calculations to really bring to life the Cyberdemon in the new Doom, but scientists are increasingly applying that power to more academic pursuits. Russian physicists have put a computer running a consumer-level Nvidia GPU to work on equations that are normally performed using a powerful supercomputer, and found that the home PC solved them in 15 minutes – far faster than the supercomputer's time of two or three days.

A GPU is designed with multiple threads of processing power, which allows it to perform many more simultaneous calculations than a CPU. The researchers from the Lomonosov Moscow State University wanted to take advantage of that, and test whether consumer-level tech would make an accessible alternative to supercomputers, in situations where many equations had to be run parallel to each other.

The GPU tackled few-body scattering equations, which describe how multiple quantum particles interact with each other. Where three or more of these bodies are involved, the equations become extremely difficult to calculate, involving a table containing tens or even hundreds of thousands of rows and columns of data. Running on Nvidia software as well as custom programs written by the researchers, the GPU performed better than expected.

"We reached a speed we couldn't even dream of," says team leader Vladimir Kukulin. "The program computes 260 million complex double integrals on a desktop computer within three seconds. No comparison with supercomputers! My colleague from the University of Bochum in Germany carried out the calculations using one of the largest supercomputers in Germany with the famous blue gene architecture, which is actually very expensive. And what took his group two or three days we do in 15 minutes without spending a dime."

In using consumer technology, the team's goal was to make these areas more accessible. Generally, only supercomputers are up to such tasks, and even then it's a time-consuming process. That means only a few groups around the world have the resources to perform these calculations, which hinders the overall progress of the fields of study related to them, including quantum mechanics and nuclear and atomic physics.

The processors used by the team retail for between US$300 – $500, which is far easier on the wallet than the hundreds of millions of dollars an institute can spend on a supercomputer. In fact, GPUs have been capable of this kind of application for the past 10 years or so, but their value is only now beginning to be appreciated.

"This work, in our opinion, opens up completely new ways to analyze nuclear and resonance chemical reactions," says Kukulin. "It can also be useful for solving a large number of computing tasks in plasma physics, electrodynamics, geophysics, medicine and many other areas of science. We want to organize a kind of training course, where researchers from various scientific areas of peripheral universities that do not have access to supercomputers could learn to do on their PCs the same thing that we do."

Source: Lomonosov Moscow State University

PC Connection acquires

PC Connection acquires software technology firm

Softmart deal seen as helping NH firm grow sales to larger businesses

BY BOB SANDERS

1

Published: June 2, 2016

 

PC Connection has purchased Softmart, a firm based outside of Philadelphia that sells software technology to institutions with more than 200 employees and $200 million in sales. The terms of the deal are not announced.

The Merrimack-based company said the deal will help it continue to grow its business selling IT to larger businesses and institutions.

In the last year, small business sales constituted 41 percent of PC Connection’s sales, with 37 percent going to large businesses and 22 percent to the public sector.

“Through this acquisition, PC Connection is enhancing its service and solutions capabilities, including our cloud services, and strengthening our position with Microsoft,” said CEO Tim McGrath

PC Connection record $2.6 billion in sales last year with a net income of $46.8 million, up a little more than $4 million compared to the prior year.

In the first quarter of this year, however, sales fell 1.5 percent, to $572.4 million, largely because of a decline in the number of larger customers. Profits, however, increased by 5.6 percent, to $9.1 million, or 34 cents a diluted share.

McGrath said that he expected the deal to be accretive to PC Connection’s earnings, but offered no details.

Richard Sloane, Softmart’s founder and chairman, will be leaving the organization to pursue other interests. The company will continue to operate under the Softmart, PC Connection said.

http://www.nhbr.com/June-10-2016/PC-Connection-acquires-software-technology-firm/

CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 3 REVIEW

BY BRIAN ALBERT With alternate histories and crazy weapons, Treyarch’s Black Ops games have always been Call of Duty’s oddballs. After killing mind-wolves with a swarm of nano-bees in the new campaign, I’m happy to say Black Ops 3 not only continues that trend, but smartly embraces its sci-fi oddities more than ever before.

But the most remarkable thing about Black Ops 3 isn’t its tone; it’s the sheer amount of content which, at its best, is some of the greatest I’ve seen in Call of Duty (note: the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions lack many of the features of the current-gen and PC version). Multiplayer still has the depth fans expect by now, but the addition of unique Specialists makes every player more important. Likewise, the option for four-player co-op and the new focus on playing how you want make the campaign and Zombies modes more rewarding and fun to play than they’ve ever been.

Mind Games

The six-hour story is set in the not-too-distant future, and, like most similar sci-fi fare, it includes its own techno-gibberish to get used to. Black Ops 3 settles on “Direct Neural Interface,” or DNI for short. This ubiquitous technology allows humans to mentally interact with computers, weapons, and other people. It introduces both terrific new abilities and important new limitations that changed the way I thought about playing Call of Duty. For example, you can’t use enemies’ dropped weapons because they’re registered to someone else’s brain – hence Black Ops 3’s focus on cool new combat powers.

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Humans can mentally interact with computers, weapons, and other people.

Without getting into spoilers, I’ll say that Black Ops 3 didn’t spend enough time making me care about its characters before it tried to cash them in for an emotional payoff. It’s disappointing, because Black Ops 3 begins to explore some genuinely interesting and taboo topics: What happens when people no longer own their thoughts, or when they don’t receive the mental health care they need? The answer: kill more robots!

With Our Powers Combined...

Killing more robots (and other enemies) is actually quite fun thanks to the new powers, which come in three flavors: blow things up, beat things up, or control your enemies and have them blow things up for you. Each power tree promotes a certain style of play, and you don’t earn enough points to level up all three paths unless you choose to sacrifice extra perks, weapon upgrades, and more. Even then, you can usually only use one type per level, so committing to one path is important. Plus, this leaves enough points to beef up your trusty primary weapon, which feels more important than it ever has. The gun you pick will likely stay in your hands for the entire level.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/11/06/call-of-duty-black-ops-3-review