Month: April 2017

Microsoft's invitation with its educational hashtag.

Microsoft is holding an event in New York on May 2. We're expecting a mix of hardware and software news, but perhaps not the hardware or software news that some people will be expecting.

According to sources familiar with the matter, we won't be seeing a Surface Phone, which is no surprise to anyone no matter how much certain Windows die-hards want Microsoft to release such a thing. But what may come as a shock is that we're hearing that we won't see a Surface Pro 5 at the event either. The Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book are both in dire need of a hardware refresh, and an upgrade is more than a little overdue at this point but... May 2 is not the day.

Microsoft is using the hashtag "MicrosoftEDU" to promote the event, which allows us to connect a few dots. Microsoft's Joe Belfiore has recently returned to the company after an extended sabbatical during which he travelled the world and tried a number of experimental hairstyles, and his new role includes acting as "education sponsor and advocate."

(credit: Aurich Lawson)

The more we hear about the Xbox One's upcoming Scorpio update, the more it sounds like Microsoft's effort to upend the idea of distinct console generations completely. The Xbox One ecosystem seems to be morphing into a PC-like space where one piece of software can run at different levels of detail depending on the power (and price) of the hardware it's running on.

In an in-depth interview with Gamasutra published today, Microsoft's Phil Spencer gave some strong indications that Microsoft is headed in this direction with the Xbox platform. Spencer cited games like Destiny, Call of Duty, Minecraft, and GTA V to highlight how the biggest titles are starting to maintain their popularity across hardware updates and how Xbox needs to accommodate that.

"So from a development platform, we needed to think about our hardware as multi-generational," he said. "Because we said, 'OK, there's gonna be games that are going to live multiple generations. And our software platform really has to service a developer's need to service an ongoing set of users.' As much as it has to serve, you know, how do I get a disc done?"

Enlarge / A siren similar to the type set off by a "hacker" in Dallas last weekend. (credit: Getty Images/CPCollinsPhotography)

Last Friday night, as midnight approached, someone managed to trigger the emergency siren system used by the city of Dallas for tornado warnings and other emergencies. And that someone managed to keep the alarms in action for 95 minutes—even after emergency services workers shut them off. The entire system had to be shut down.

Dallas officials initially blamed "a hack" for causing the midnight siren escapade—a statement that was initially interpreted as some sort of network intrusion into Dallas' emergency services computer systems. But in a statement issued yesterday, Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax clarified the cause, saying that the “hack” used a radio signal that spoofed the system used to control the siren network. He would not go into details. "I don't want someone to understand how it was done so that they could try to do it again," Broadnax said. "It was not a system software issue, it was a radio issue."

Broadnax said that measures had been taken to prevent the incident from happening again, but he would not say what those measures were.

Enlarge / Internet Association members. (credit: Internet Association)

The plan to eliminate net neutrality rules and replace them with voluntary commitments is not winning over lobbyists for major Internet companies.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and his staff met yesterday with the Internet Association, a trade group whose members include Amazon, Dropbox, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, PayPal, Reddit, Spotify, Twitter, and about 30 other Web companies. The meeting occurred about a week after Pai reportedly met with broadband industry lobby groups to discuss his plans for eliminating net neutrality rules.

Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman and General Counsel Abigail Slater attended the meeting with Pai and his staff, telling the chair that he should keep the existing net neutrality rules.