Month: February 2019

Windows 7's free support period ends on January 14, 2020. Microsoft is offering three years of support updates for the operating system on a paid basis with a new program called Extended Security Updates. Unlike previous after-life support options for Windows, which were offered as part of separately negotiated support contracts, the Windows 7 ESU updates will be available to any volume license customer, regardless of size or sales channel.

Pricing for this support has now leaked to Mary Jo Foley. For organizations already subscribing to Windows Enterprise, the first year of updates will cost an additional $25 per device. This doubles to $50 for the second year and $100 for the third year. Organizations can't skip a year, either; previous years must be paid for to obtain the year two and year three support. For companies sticking with Windows 7 Pro instead of subscribing to Windows Enterprise, the first year will cost $50 per device and will double each subsequent year to $100 and then $200.

There's no minimum purchase for the ESU subscriptions, so companies can buy as few as they need. It's not clear if there will be any volume discounts for larger deployments still stuck with the legacy operating system.

Enlarge / Michelle Carter

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has upheld the involuntary manslaughter conviction of a 17-year-old girl who goaded her boyfriend to commit suicide in a series of text messages and phone calls. The state's highest court rejected her lawyer's arguments that she couldn't be held responsible for his death because she wasn't physically present and that prosecuting her violated her First Amendment rights.

Defendant Michelle Carter was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2017, but the sentence was put on hold pending appeal.

It's a chilling case. Carter didn't just suggest that Conrad Roy kill himself once or twice. Text messaging records show her repeatedly urging Roy to kill himself over several days prior to his 2014 death.

Enlarge / NASA's 2018 temperatures compared to the 1951-1980 average. (Numbers shown in K are identical to degrees Celsius.) (credit: NASA)

It’s that time of year again… or at least it was. NASA and NOAA normally release the final global temperature data for the previous year around January 18, but the government shutdown delayed that release. It finally happened on Wednesday, with both agencies finding that 2018 ranks at number four on the ever-changing list of the warmest years on record.

That matches the ranking from the independent Berkeley Earth dataset, which they released on January 24 by accessing raw US data during the shutdown. The UK Met Office also released its data today, ranking 2018 similarly.

So why 4^th place? Last year settles in just behind 2016, 2017, and 2015 as part of a continuing and human-caused global warming trend toward record temperatures—that's the reason the top years are all quite recent. Whether a year wiggles into 5^th or 1^st depends primarily on short-term natural variability that's layered on top of the human-driven trend.

Enlarge / Artist's view of the configuration of Ariane 6 using two boosters (A62) on the ELA-4 launch pad together with its mobile launch gantry. (credit: ESA - D. Ducros)

France's independent state auditor, the Cour des comptes, has raised concerns about the viability of Europe's new rocket, the Ariane 6 launcher. In its 2019 annual report, the auditor said the France-based launch company Arianespace is also being too cautious as it grapples with competitors like the US-based SpaceX.

"In 2017, Arianespace lost global leadership in the commercial market to the American company SpaceX," the report finds. "This competitor's business model is based on the breakthrough model of reusable rockets."

The report discusses the potential for further losses of market share and revenues against the rise of competition from SpaceX and a global dip in demand for the launch of commercial satellites to geostationary orbit. It also criticizes the choices European leaders made in 2014, when they selected the design for its next-generation rocket, the Ariane 6. This booster may fly for the first time in 2020 from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Enlarge / A Charter Spectrum vehicle. (credit: Charter)

Charter Communications will raise its "broadcast TV" fee from $9.95 to $11.99 on March 1, only four months after the previous fee increase.

Charter and other cable companies say they charge broadcast TV fees to recoup the cost of paying broadcasters for the right to retransmit their signals over cable systems. But Charter doesn't include the fee in its advertised rates, instead revealing the fee in the fine print, often giving customers bill shock when they learn that they have to pay more each month than expected.

Additionally, increases to the fee apply even to customers who agreed to deals that ostensibly lock in a specific monthly rate during a set period. In summary, Charter uses the broadcast TV fee to advertise lower rates than it actually charges and to raise prices on customers even before their promotional rates expire.