Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

I am waiting for my Echo to ship from Amazon. My wife got it for me last Christmas… but, no ship date yet! It looks like it will be fun!

Amazon Echo is finally becoming your shopping assistant

SlashGear – By: Chris Davies – “Back when Amazon launched its Echo, a digital personal assistant squeezed inside a cylindrical speaker, the obvious question was “why can’t I shop?” Now, roughly six months into its slowly-staged roll out, Echo is finally getting the ability to do voice-controlled shopping, with a new firmware update pushed out today adding support for re-ordering items you’ve previously purchased, all using nothing more than spoken commands.

In fact, it’s as straightforward as saying ‘Alexa,’ – or whatever wake command you’re using – “reorder [item].”

Amazon goes hunting through your previous orders through the account Echo is registered to, and will tell you the current price and ask if you want to re-order it. You’ll need to have a Prime subscription first, however, and Echo can only order things eligible for Prime shipping.

Although Amazon is positioning the functionality as only for items you’ve previously bought, in actual fact there’s at least limited support for ordering new things.

For instance, if you ask for something that Echo can’t find in your recent order history, it will automatically make a suggestion based on its most recommended alternative.

‘I didn’t find that in your order history, but Amazon’s Choice for [item] is [product name]. The order total is $[price]. Should I order it?’

Should no Choice-recommended item be available, and no previous order be found, Amazon will simply add the item to your shopping list for review when you’re next using a more traditional device with a browser.

If you make a mistake, meanwhile, the instruction “Alexa, cancel order” should pull the plug on the last thing you purchased.

The new support is an obvious addition to Echo, which uses voice-recognition and a sensitive microphone array to respond and react to spoken commands. So far, that’s been used to order up music streams and answer general knowledge questions, but it was really only a matter of time before Amazon weighed in with its most obvious method to monetize the $199.99 speaker.

It’s another example of Amazon’s recent push to add more straightforward ordering abilities to a broader range of devices. Last month, for instance, the retail behemoth added Apple Watch support, supporting voice search and purchasing from the wrist.”

Which one will YOU use?

Windows 10 will come in many flavors and be free for most

Fox News – By: Brooke Crothers – “Windows 10 will come in six core editions and arrive this summer, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

In announcing the new editions, the software giant reiterated that the full versions of Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro will be free for ‘qualifying’ Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices that upgrade in the first year after launch.

Windows 10 for the PC is the follow-on to the widely-unloved Windows 8.1, which introduced a hybrid operating system model, running a ‘modern’ touch interface side by side with a more traditional mouse-and-keyboard desktop.

Windows 10 Mobile, for smartphone and tablets, will also be offered as a free upgrade for Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft said.

Window 10 editions include:

—Windows 10 Home: This is the desktop edition for consumers. It will include the new Edge browser, a so-called ‘Continuum’ tablet-mode for touch devices, and Windows Hello biometric authentication, which uses your face, iris, or fingerprint to unlock devices. It will also bring the Cortana virtual assistant, similar to Apple’s Siri, to the Windows desktop. Cortana is already available on Windows Phone. Universal Windows apps like Photos, Maps, Mail, Calendar, Music and Video will also be included.

Microsoft will also bring Xbox gaming to Windows 10, which will give gamers access to the Xbox Live gaming community.

—Windows 10 Pro: This is similar to Windows 10 Home but adds features for small businesses. These features include the new Windows Update for Business, which Microsoft says can rein in management costs, provides controls over update deployment, and offers faster access to security updates.

—Windows 10 Mobile: This is designed for smaller, mobile, touch-centric devices like smartphones and small tablets. Windows 10 Mobile will allow some new devices to take advantage of Continuum for phones “so people can use their phone like a PC when connected to a larger screen,” Microsoft said. This also includes universal Windows apps.

Other editions are Windows 10 Enterprise for medium and large sized businesses, Windows 10 Education for school staff, administrators, teachers and students, and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise for business customers on smartphones and small tablets.

There will also be versions of Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise for industry devices like ATMs, retail point of sale, handheld terminals, and industrial robotics, Microsoft said. There is also a Windows 10 IoT (‘Internet of Things’) Core for small footprint, low cost devices like gateways.

Other changes coming to Windows 10 to keep in mind:

–Windows 10 will unify Windows across all Windows devices including PCs, phones, Xbox One, and the new HoloLens smart glasses.

–New Desktop: Microsoft is designing Windows 10 so there is a less jarring transition (if the user so chooses) between the traditional desktop and the touch-friendly (referred to sometimes as the “Modern” interface). This includes changes to the Start menu and changes to allow Modern apps to run within Windows on the desktop.

–Touch-friendly Universal Office apps will be coming to Windows, too. Early this year, Microsoft announced the upcoming availability of Universal Office apps for Windows 10, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote that can be installed on PCs, tablets and phones.”

Oh, you have GOT to be kidding?! Microsoft has sold it’s soul!

Windows 10 will ship with Candy Crush Saga preinstalled

PC World – By: Hayden Dingman – “Remember Chip’s Challenge? Jezzball? FreeCell? Minesweeper?

Well with Windows 10, Microsoft has a game it’s betting you’ll love just as much as those old classics: Candy Crush Saga. Wait, did I— That can’t be right. Hold on, I think there must be some sort of mistake here…

Nope. Candy Crush Saga, the game that’s enslaved millions of people’s attention on phones, will come pre-installed on Windows 10, regardless of whether you upgrade or do a clean install. From Microsoft’s official announcement:

‘Solitaire. Hearts. Minesweeper. These are games that have been played millions of times over the years in Windows. And they are coming back in Windows 10…In addition to these games, we’re also working with partners to bring some of their great games to Windows 10 too. And we’re excited to be able to announce today that King will bring their game, Candy Crush Saga, to Windows 10. Candy Crush Saga will be automatically installed for customers that upgrade to or download Windows 10 during the launch!’

It’s that exclamation point at the end that really gets me. ‘Are you not entertained?’ Microsoft asks, holding a gun to your head. ‘You wanted DirectX 12? Well you can have DirectX 12, as soon as you play Candy Crush Saga. Look how good Candy Crush Saga looks running on DirectX 12, you ungrateful little—’

Ahem.

Listen, I’m sure there will be some people excited by this news. Candy Crush Saga has millions of users for a reason, and that reason is that it exploits your easily-exploitable human psychology and tricks you into wanting to play it. (And buy those in-app purchases, of course.) Nevertheless, people like it! And that’s good for Microsoft!

But it’s the ‘pre-installed’ bit that sticks in my craw. It’s a staggering reversal from Windows 8, where even first-party apps like Solitaire and Minesweeper were banished to the Windows Store—the correct move, in 2015.

For anyone who doesn’t want to play Candy Crush Saga, this is bloatware plain and simple. Third-party bloatware. To have it included in clean installs of Windows 10 because of, what, a revenue-sharing deal? Disgusting. OEMs already stick enough garbage on computers without Microsoft aiding them at the operating system level.

We’ll update you as soon as we hear what other fun surprises Microsoft is embedding in Windows 10. If we’re lucky, maybe each copy of Windows 10 will also ship with Superfish.”

So, keep your eyes open this summer. The Google Cars are coming!

Green lights for our self-driving vehicle prototypes

The Official Google Blog – “When we started designing the world’s first fully self-driving vehicle, our goal was a vehicle that could shoulder the entire burden of driving. Vehicles that can take anyone from A to B at the push of a button could transform mobility for millions of people, whether by reducing the 94 percent of accidents caused by human error (PDF), reclaiming the billions of hours wasted in traffic, or bringing everyday destinations and new opportunities within reach of those who might otherwise be excluded by their inability to drive a car.

Now we’re announcing the next step for our project: this summer, a few of the prototype vehicles we’ve created will leave the test track and hit the familiar roads of Mountain View, Calif., with our safety drivers aboard.

We’ve been running the vehicles through rigorous testing at our test facilities, and ensuring our software and sensors work as they’re supposed to on this new vehicle. The new prototypes will drive with the same software that our existing fleet of self-driving Lexus RX450h SUVs uses. That fleet has logged nearly a million autonomous miles on the roads since we started the project, and recently has been self-driving about 10,000 miles a week. So the new prototypes already have lots of experience to draw on—in fact, it’s the equivalent of about 75 years of typical American adult driving experience.

Each prototype’s speed is capped at a neighborhood-friendly 25mph, and during this next phase of our project we’ll have safety drivers aboard with a removable steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake pedal that allow them to take over driving if needed. We’re looking forward to learning how the community perceives and interacts with the vehicles, and to uncovering challenges that are unique to a fully self-driving vehicle—e.g., where it should stop if it can’t stop at its exact destination due to construction or congestion. In the coming years, we’d like to run small pilot programs with our prototypes to learn what people would like to do with vehicles like this. If you’d like to follow updates about the project and share your thoughts, please join us on our Google+ page. See you on the road!”

Every day this week is the same backwards as well as forwards:

5/10/15
5/11/15
5/12/15
5/13/15
5/14/15
5/15/15

Palindrome-madness! How cool is that?