Month: January 2023

Here’s where traffic sucked the most in 2022

Data from Inrix’s 2022 Global Traffic Scorecard finds Chicago has the US’s worst traffic.

Traffic on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago at dusk, with the downtown skyline behind.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Did your commute get worse in 2022? Overall, congestion cost the country more than $81 billion, says transportation data company Inrix. It just published its Global Traffic Scorecard for the past year, and the data says the typical US driver spent 51 hours in traffic last year, 15 hours more than in 2021. And due to increased fuel prices and other inflation, the average driver paid $134 more for fuel last year than the year before—and that's in addition to $869 in lost time.

Although it's not as severe as it was in 2020 or 2021, it's still possible to see the effect of the pandemic in Inrix's data. In the US, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) increased by 1 percent year-on-year, but we still drove 9 percent fewer miles per year than before the pandemic. Interestingly, Inrix says this is due to more people continuing to work from home, which it says now accounts for 17.9 percent of Americans—before the pandemic, work from home accounted for only 5.7 percent of workers, according to the US Census Bureau.

Sadly, road safety is still rather abysmal; the estimated fatality rate of 1.27 deaths per 100 million VMT is 17 percent higher than we saw in 2019, although there has been a slight reduction from 2021's high of 1.3 fatalities per 100 million VMT. And while some of the other trends found in the report exist in countries like the UK or Germany, the rise in road deaths appears to be unique to the US.

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Microsoft ends extended support for Windows 7 and 8.1

It’s been three years since Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows 7, but Microsoft allowed enterprise and education customers who wanted to continue using the operating system to pay for up to three years of extended security updates. N…

It’s been three years since Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows 7, but Microsoft allowed enterprise and education customers who wanted to continue using the operating system to pay for up to three years of extended security updates. Now time is up – Microsoft has ended extended security support for Windows 7, as well as […]

The post Microsoft ends extended support for Windows 7 and 8.1 appeared first on Liliputing.

Closing time: Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 have received their last updates

Major browsers like Chrome and Edge are also ending support for these platforms.

The first-generation Surface Pro running Windows 8.

Enlarge / The first-generation Surface Pro running Windows 8. (credit: Ars Technica)

It's the end of the line for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. Both of these older versions of Windows (plus Windows RT) stop receiving all security updates today, over a decade after their original releases. Microsoft will also stop providing Microsoft Edge browser updates for these operating systems in a few days, and the remaining third-party apps that still work will eventually follow suit (Google Chrome support, most notably, ends early next month).

Windows 7 support for most people actually ended three years ago, but businesses that still used it could pay for up to three years of additional support while they transitioned to Windows 10 or 11. That window has now closed, and Microsoft isn't offering a paid support option for Windows 8.1.

Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs are rare and getting rarer, but both are still in relatively wide use given their age. Statcounter says that both OSes count for just under 14 percent of all Windows PCs worldwide and closer to 8 percent in the US. For PCs in the Steam Hardware Survey, the number is currently hovering at around 2 percent.

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Windows 8.1: Die desaströs gescheiterte Rettungsmission von Windows 8

Windows 8.1 ist wohl einer der größten Tiefpunkte von Microsoft. Wir blicken auf das OS zurück, das am 10. Januar 2023 endgültig ausläuft. Ein IMHO von Oliver Nickel (Windows 8.1, Microsoft)

Windows 8.1 ist wohl einer der größten Tiefpunkte von Microsoft. Wir blicken auf das OS zurück, das am 10. Januar 2023 endgültig ausläuft. Ein IMHO von Oliver Nickel (Windows 8.1, Microsoft)

Police Pay Home Visits to Warn Pirate IPTV Users

Anti-piracy group FACT is helping UK police to deliver warning messages to alleged pirate IPTV users. Instead of simply sending letters in the mail, some cease-and-desist notices will be delivered in person. A recent IPTV crackdown resulted in the identification of over 1,000 subscribers, who will be asked to immediately stop any illegal activity, or else.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

doorbellOffering pirate streaming services is a serious offense in the UK, where several vendors have received multi-year prison sentences in recent history.

These sentences haven’t deterred others from following in their footsteps. Illegal access to paid sports and TV content remains readily available, with vendors and operators profiting from these unauthorized subscriptions.

Last month, anti-piracy group FACT announced that one of these IPTV operations had been disrupted. Worcester Trading Standards officers, helped by West Mercia Police, FACT and BT, seized a variety of equipment and identified a main target.

Knocking on Pirates’ Doors

The alleged operator of the service now faces a criminal prosecution which, as we’ve seen in other cases, may lead to a serious sentence. More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that subscribers are in the crosshairs too.

This month, FACT and police will pay home visits to people who used illegal streaming services. These people, more than 1,000 in total, were presumably identified following last month’s raids by West Mercia Police.

The raided service offered modified streaming boxes, Firesticks, and subscriptions. While details are scarce, those targeted were identified as users of the service through administrative records.

This month, some of them will receive a knock on the door, paired with an in-person warning notice.

“Throughout January, FACT and police are visiting homes across the UK, serving notices to individuals to cease illegal streaming activities with immediate effect and informing users of the associated risks, which include criminal prosecution,” FACT writes in a press release.

These home visits will undoubtedly have a deterrent effect but how many of the 1,000+ identified users will be visited remains unknown.

Responding to a request for clarification, FACT informed TorrentFreak that the plan is to reach out to all subscribers. However, some will receive an email instead of a knock on the door.

The home visits are scheduled to begin tomorrow in North East England, followed by Wales, North West, West Midlands, South East and London, up until January 24.

Prison Sentences for Pirate Viewers?

The overall theme of the announcement is that consumers of pirated streams are far from innocent. According to FACT, the unauthorized activity can even lead to lengthy prison sentences.

“In 2021, two individuals, Paul Faulkner and Stephen Millington were sentenced to a total of 16 months in prison for watching unauthorised streams,” FACT notes.

While it’s certainly true that consuming pirated streams is against the law, the cited convictions were not just for the “watching” part.

Millington, for example, also developed the pirate Kodi addon Supremacy, while Faulkner operated pirate IPTV service TV Solutions. Both also earned significant revenue through these illicit operations.

No Prosecutions Planned

Of course, any prison sentence should be sufficient to send a clear message to casual streamers. But in the event potential prison sentences aren’t enough of a deterrent, in their notices FACT and police also mention malware, viruses and scams as pirate streaming risks.

Technically, rightsholders could also choose to set an example by taking one or more of the subscribers to court, but that is not in the planning here.

“No, we are not planning any prosecutions during this initiative, the notice explains that a criminal offense may have been committed and that to date two people in the UK have been convicted of that offense,” FACT tells us.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.