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Archives for June 2018

Microsoft Purchases GitHub – What Does This Mean For Open Source?

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Microsoft just made a big, significant purchase that has raised more than a few eyebrows.  They just acquired GitHub for a hefty $7.5 billion.

What makes the purchase interesting and potentially troublesome is that Microsoft is the world’s largest proprietary software company, and GitHub is the world’s largest open source hosting service.

The natural question on everyone’s mind then, is what does this mean for open source?  Is it doomed?  Is it soon to go the way of the dinosaur, or will Microsoft hold the reins of power loosely and let open source continue to flourish?

Those are fair questions, especially given that GitHub is used by more than 28 million developers around the world, and is home to more than 85 million code repositories.  In addition to that, the company was built on Git, which is an open source version control software written by Linus Torvalds (the creator of Linux). Its founders have worked hard to develop innovative workflows that have made the hub easy to use and work with.

The fear is that Microsoft will start strangling those developments and insist that GitHub begin using proprietary Microsoft products.  While it’s too early to say for certain, the early indications are encouraging.  Microsoft has stated that GitHub will be allowed to retain its status as an “open platform” and its service will continue to be offered for free.

Having said that, there will be some changes, including the fact that Microsoft will be offering integration between its AppCenter mobile testing service and projects hosted on GitHub.  This builds on previous collaborations between Microsoft and GitHub.  Last year, GitHub announced that they would support Microsoft’s “Git Virtual File System,” which the company designed for enterprise-sized data repositories.

The skeptics are right to be skeptical, but so far, the early indications are positive.  Note that it’s not a done deal just yet.  The merger is subject to regulatory approval in both the US and the EU.

Microsoft Is Issuing Surface Book 4 Replacements

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Do you own a Surface Book 4?  If you do, you may have been unfortunate enough to get one that suffers from a peculiar screen flickering issue.  It’s not known exactly how many Surface Book 4’s have been affected by the issue, but thousands of angry users have been comparing horror stories about it on various discussion forums around the web.

For their part, Microsoft has been very slow to even acknowledge the existence of the issue, even though there are some user videos showing the screen flicker in real time. In addition, there are videos of various crude hacks and workarounds owners have been using to get the screen to behave normally. These have included popping their computers in the freezer or running a hair dryer over them.  Even when these “fixes” worked, they only worked for short periods of time.

Finally, the company has officially acknowledged the problem, and have now begun offering to replace the units for anyone dealing with “Flickergate.”  Sadly, it’s too little, too late for some frustrated users, who have shelled out an average of $450 to replace the problematic screens on their own.

If you have a Surface Book 4, are dealing with the aggravating screen flicker issue and haven’t replaced it on your own yet, stop by Microsoft’s website and follow the prompts to see if you qualify for a replacement.

Over the past couple of years, Microsoft has done a good job at demonstrating nimbleness and responsiveness to customer complaints, which makes their handling of Flickergate more than a little disappointing.  Our hope is that in the months ahead, whatever shape or form the next issue the company faces might be, they’ll return to recent form and be much more responsive than they were this time around.

Embedded Sound Waves Could Damage Your Computer

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It seems like a new attack vector emerges on a weekly basis, and this week is no exception.  The latest threat:  Emails containing specialized audio files whose acoustic vibrations can damage your computer’s hard drive. This is possibly damaging to the point of causing system failure, data corruption, and making it impossible to successfully reboot your machine.

As the researchers point out, “Intentional acoustic interference causes unusual errors in the mechanics of magnetic hard disk drives in desktop and laptop computers, leading to damage to integrity and availability in both hardware and software such as file system corruption and operating system reboots.  An adversary without any special-purpose equipment can co-opt built-in speakers or nearby emitters to cause persistent errors.”

It should be noted that as scary as this type of attack sounds, in practice, it is of limited value.  An increasing percentage of laptops and desktop PCs sold today come with SSDs for storage, which are not vulnerable to this type of attack.

In addition to that, not just “any” sound will do.  For the attack to be successful, the acoustic vibrations have to be strong enough to do real harm, and quiet enough that the attack is difficult to detect, lest it be aborted immediately.  The combination of those two factors make it unlikely that this one will gain widespread attention from the hacking community.  Nonetheless, it pays to be both mindful and vigilant, especially if you have an older PC or work in an office with older equipment.

The research team who discovered the new attack vector have created a new sensor fusion model that could be delivered through a firmware update.  Once updated, it would prevent unnecessary head parking in the hard drive, thus limiting the potential damage the attack could cause.  So far, there has been no word that PC manufacturers are considering making the necessary changes to their firmware.  Time will tell.

Apple Users Are Getting Group Facetime

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Apple’s Legions of users love FaceTime, but there’s a problem with the highly popular app.  It only allows you to see and talk to one person at a time.  Apple fans have been clamoring for Group FaceTime for almost as long as the app has existed, and soon, they’ll get their wish.

Beginning with iOS 12, Group FaceTime will finally be “a thing,” allowing you to simultaneously talk with up to 31 of your contacts.  Even better, the new functionality will allow you to turn any iMessage group chat into a group FaceTime session, and switch back to iMessage at will.

Don’t want to be on camera in a group setting?  Apple has an answer for that too.  The company has announced that when Group FaceTime is rolled out, you’ll be able to place an Animoji over your face, or apply one of several different photo filters to disguise you. This is because they know that some days, you just might not feel “camera ready.”

At the end of the day, Group FaceTime is probably going to be a lot like tabbed browsing was for many users.  Until you try it, and until it’s readily available, you won’t truly appreciate its value. Once you try it for the first time, it won’t be long before you’re unable to imagine life without it.  It’s a cool, indispensable addition whose time has come.

Kudos to Apple’s loyal fan base for keeping Group FaceTime on the radar, and kudos to Apple itself for finally listening to their customers and giving them what they want.  While we could quibble that they took longer than we’d like to make this feature a reality, in the end, they listened.  That is the essence of business, isn’t it?  Giving your customers what they want.

Microsoft Surpasses Google In Latest Valuation

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Microsoft’s stock price is surging, putting the company’s total valuation at $753 billion. This makes it the third most valuable company on the planet, behind Amazon (782 billion), Apple ($923 billion) and leaving Google in fourth place, valued at $739 billion.

Google first overtook Microsoft in 2012, and since that time, the two companies have traded places repeatedly. So Microsoft’s current 3rd place position is expected to be relatively short-lived.

It’s worth noting, however, that since Satya Nadella took over for Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s stock price has more than doubled, the company has moved decisively into some new areas, and has been dramatically refocused.

Some of those changes include:

A big emphasis on cloud-based technologies

A heavy emphasis on artificial intelligence

Big investments in quantum computing

Equally large investments in mixed-reality headsets

An emphasis on cross-platform technologies

Even more significantly, the company has veered away from two areas that had long been Microsoft staples.  The company has abandoned efforts to develop a Windows-based smartphone, and has moved away from the strategy of putting Windows at the center of everything Microsoft.

Although Google is likely to regain its #3 market cap position in the near future, Microsoft has some important strategic advantages over both Google and Apple that will serve it well in the long run.  The most significant of these is the fact that it has a much more diverse revenue stream.

Google gets some 90 percent of its income from advertising, and Apple gets some 60 percentof its income from the venerable iPhone. Microsoft, based on the most recent quarterly report, is generating 35 percent of its income from the Surface and its gaming division, another 30 percent from its cloud-based services, and a similar percentage from Office and the company’s various productivity tools.

Latest IPhone Update Syncs Messages Across All Devices

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If you use Apple products, you may have noticed an annoying “feature”.  If you’re using the messaging app on your phone and texting someone and then you move to your Mac and access the same program there, the conversation you were having on your phone isn’t present.  The two devices are messaging islands that can’t reliably communicate with each other. Since they can’t, you can’t start a conversation on one device and then pick it up later on another.

True, Apple fans have found workarounds for the issue, but these are far less than perfect.

There’s good news, though.  As of the latest iPhone update, your phone will now synchronize your messages across all Apple devices you own.

It’s a small thing, but you’d be amazed at how often it matters.  Back in the “good ol’ days” most people just had one computer they used for everything.  We no longer live in that world.  Today, there are more active smartphones than there are people living on the planet, and the smartphone is just one of the many computing devices we use.

The advent of cloud-based technologies made accessing data across multiple devices possible, allowing you to work seamlessly on the same project with whatever device you have in hand at the moment. However, some things (like messaging) have been impossible, or at least highly inconvenient to access across multiple devices. That is, until now.

Granted, this improvement won’t change the world, but it will serve to make your world more seamless, convenient, and efficient. That makes it worth talking about.

In a lot of ways, the upgrade is like tabbed browsing.  Until you start using it, you cannot fully appreciate just how awesome it is. By the time you realize how great it is, you’re hooked and can’t imagine messaging any other way.  Kudos to Apple for an excellent enhancement!

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