Month: December 2021

Microsoft makes Windows 11 browser switches easier, adds buy now pay later to Edge

It was a week of ups and downs for Microsoft and Edge. First the company angered users by bolting buy now, pay later app Zip onto Edge. Then, just days later, Microsoft tweaked Windows 11 to make it easier for users to change their default web browser. If you’re asking why a web browser needs […]

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It was a week of ups and downs for Microsoft and Edge. First the company angered users by bolting buy now, pay later app Zip onto Edge.

Then, just days later, Microsoft tweaked Windows 11 to make it easier for users to change their default web browser.

Part of the Zip BNPL checkout flow in Edge

If you’re asking why a web browser needs a built-in tool like Zip, you’re not alone. Microsoft’s blog post announcing the arrival of “BNPL” in Edge has been met with a tidal wave of criticism. As I’m writing this post there are 12 pages of comments — and the vast majority are from users voicing their displeasure.

Several rightly point out that Edge, like the Chromium code it’s now built on, already supported extension. A Zip extension developed in partnership with Microsoft would have been far less invasive, leaving it up to the user whether or not BNPL functionality was worth always having at the ready.

Microsoft would likely argue that it’s trying to differentiate Edge from its competitors and online shopping is one way to do that.

The first stage of that push was adding a coupon-finding tool to Edge. It works like the Paypal-owned Honey app, automatically finding discount codes for the shopping websites you visit.

Edge browser built in coupon tool

Honey has tens of millions of active users. Zip reported 7.3 million in its quarterly report this July. Clearly there are plenty of users who find the two apps useful, and Microsoft may simply be betting that it stands to gain more users by attracting the average online shopper to Edge than it does by catering to the tech crowd.

While those folks aren’t fans of the shopping features, they are excited about Microsoft’s decision to make switching default browsers easier in Windows 11.

In a statement provided to Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet, Microsoft said it had “streamlined the ability for a Windows Insider to set the ‘default browser’ to apps that register for http:, https:, .htm, and .html.”

The change appeared in the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22509, which was released on Wednesday.

Microsoft routinely rolls out new features in Insider builds. Some — like this one — are driven by user feedback. That feedback and Windows telemetry are examined to determine whether the changes get delivered to all users.

The simplified default browser switching process seems like a safe bet to make the cut, if only to keep regulators from getting involved.

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Meta’s failed Giphy deal could end Big Tech’s spending spree

Not so long ago, Meta’s big-money deal to acquire Giphy would have been waved through.

Meta’s failed Giphy deal could end Big Tech’s spending spree

Enlarge (credit: Daniel Grizelj | Getty Images)

Instagram? Sure! WhatsApp? Go nuts. But don’t mess with GIFs. That’s the strange position taken by Britain’s competition watchdog in choosing to block Meta’s takeover of GIF repository Giphy. Meta, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ruled, must now sell all the GIFs—just 19 months after it reportedly paid $400 million for them. It’s a bold move—and a global first.

Never before has a tech giant been ordered to press undo on a completed deal rather than pay a fine or make promises about how the newly merged businesses would operate. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, isn’t pleased. A spokesperson says the company disagrees with the decision and that it is considering all options, including an appeal. Usually a cautious bunch, lawyers agree that the CMA’s decision is a significant moment in the global regulatory wrangling of Big Tech, as it means deals that slipped through in the past may now have a new bar to clear. “There's been a realization that quite small deals over the years have not been scrutinized very extensively,” says Richard Pepper, a partner at the law firm Macfarlanes.

That realization means regulators everywhere will now be on high alert for what the legal world calls “killer acquisitions”—where an established company buys an innovative startup in an attempt to squash the competition it could pose in the future. The CMA’s decision is also significant because Facebook’s Instagram takeover was waved through by its predecessor, the Office of Fair Trading, back in 2012, in what was the most high-profile probe into the deal outside the US. “The same worldwide enforcers that allowed Facebook to suck up Instagram and WhatsApp are now very wary of even small purchases by the major platforms,” says Eleanor Tyler, a legal analyst at Bloomberg Law, a legal research company. “What this shows is a change in attitude, and that's critical.”

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Flurfunk in der Krise

Wie ein Beitrag öffentlich-rechtlicher Sender auf “Instagram” zur Impfquote in Ostdeutschland in die Irre führt

Wie ein Beitrag öffentlich-rechtlicher Sender auf "Instagram" zur Impfquote in Ostdeutschland in die Irre führt

AetherSX2 beta released: PS2 emulator for Android

AetherSX2 is a PlayStation 2 emulator that runs on Android devices and which early testers have indicated offers strong performance on recent phones with flagship-class chips from Qualcomm Snapdragon or MediaTek. Now you can try it out for yourself. AestherSX2 Beta is now available from the Google Play Store. Note that this is a pre-release […]

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AetherSX2 is a PlayStation 2 emulator that runs on Android devices and which early testers have indicated offers strong performance on recent phones with flagship-class chips from Qualcomm Snapdragon or MediaTek.

Now you can try it out for yourself. AestherSX2 Beta is now available from the Google Play Store.

Image
@MishallRahman

Note that this is a pre-release testing build which may still have some bugs to work out. And the developer recommends running AetherSX2 on devices with Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 or later processor for best performance, or a device with similar performance (including four ARM Cortex-A75 or equivalent CPU cores).

While you can run AetherSX2 on slower hardware, games will run more slowly. And if you’re using a device with Mali or PowerVR graphics, for example, the Vulkan graphics API won’t be used, and graphics performance will be lower.

And, as with all PS2 emulators, AetherSX2 does not come with any games and it doesn’t include a PS2 BIOS file, since these are all proprietary, so you’ll need to provide your own.

But the app has generated a lot of buzz in recent weeks, and early reports seem to indicate that it runs most games well on flagship-class phones released within the past few years, although not every game will work perfectly on every phone.

via @MishaalRahman and /r/Android 

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What will it take to end deforestation by 2030?

Here’s how nations can put the brakes on deforestation.

A forest activist inspects land clearing and drainage of a peat natural forest in Riau province, Sumatra, Indonesia in 2014.

Enlarge / A forest activist inspects land clearing and drainage of a peat natural forest in Riau province, Sumatra, Indonesia in 2014. (credit: Ulet Ifansasti | Getty Images)

The world has lost a third of its forest since the last ice age, and an estimated 15 percent of global greenhouse gases still come from deforestation and forest degradation.

Now a new pledge made at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow last month hopes to change this stark picture. The Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, signed by key forest nations, aims to reduce deforestation to zero by 2030. The pledge has raised hopes that the world would see a fresh impetus to curb the devastating impacts of deforestation.

“If we could get deforestation to zero, it would be an incredible achievement,” says Simon Lewis, a researcher of global change science at the University of Leeds and University College London. “Both in terms of carbon [...] and for biodiversity and conservation, because two-thirds of the world's species are in the world's tropical forests.”

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Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram: Innenminister stellen sich bei Verschlüsselung gegen Ampel

Während die Ampelkoalition ein Recht auf Verschlüsselung plant, fordern die Innenminister den Zugriff auf die Kommunikation von Messengerdiensten. (Messenger, Instant Messenger)

Während die Ampelkoalition ein Recht auf Verschlüsselung plant, fordern die Innenminister den Zugriff auf die Kommunikation von Messengerdiensten. (Messenger, Instant Messenger)