Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by happyking4ever

Netflix has lost Star Trek streaming rights

happyking4ever — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 15:36:14 +0800

All Trek tv series gone from Netflix liao.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/11/star...ng-world-apart/

Dan Leckie has been a Star Trek fan since he pressed play on a VHS tape of the original TV show during Christmas of 1991. Leckie, from Aberdeen, Scotland, was instantly hooked on the sci-fi series and its subsequent iterations and regularly attends conventions to meet up with fellow fans. But on November 16 he noticed something weird: Netflix had stopped promoting the first three seasons of Star Trek: Discovery—and previews of season four, due to launch on November 18, had also vanished.

What Leckie had spotted would soon become a point of outrage for Star Trek fans the world over: Netflix had lost the rights to the fourth season of Discovery outside of the US, and the previous seasons, too. They would now appear on Paramount+, the streaming service formerly known as CBS All Access and owned by ViacomCBS—but not until 2022, and even then, not everywhere. (In the US, Star Trek: Discovery has always streamed exclusively on Paramount+/CBS All Access.) And Star Trek is just the beginning. What’s bad news for Discovery fans now is yet another glimpse of the increasingly muddled future of streaming.

Up until relatively recently, most intellectual property (IP) owners sold rights for TV and movies through paid TV, physical home video, and cinema. The concept of online streaming was seen as a non-priority. Then everything changed—and quickly. As Netflix’s popularity soared, Disney grabbed back the streaming rights to its vast catalog and launched Disney+ in November 2019, raking in 118 million subscribers to date. Others are following quickly—from Discovery+ to HBO Max and Britbox. And as streaming services scramble to produce more original content, anyone wanting to sit down and watch their favorite TV shows is left with a headache. Rather than subscribing to a single streaming service, with each passing year people are being asked to fork out more and more to access rival platforms.

“A lot of fans, in the UK and around the world, are outraged that they'll have to pay for yet another subscription service to enable them to see Discovery, and eventually the rest of the Star Trek TV series,” says Leckie. Glenn van t’Hof, a Dutch Star Trek fan, is more blunt. “What a dick move to announce this two days before the supposed European release date,” he says. “This is no service to the fans.” Leckie believes the move—which prevents people outside the United States and Canada from seeing season four of Discovery until 2022—will drive many toward pirated versions of the show. The rights deal with Netflix for Star Trek covered 190 countries and territories—but Paramount+ will only be available in 45 countries by the end of 2022. “That leaves three-quarters of their market unable to watch without piracy,” says Leckie.

Your insurance company give free roadtax sticker?

happyking4ever — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 13:33:58 +0800

Does your motor insurance company still give you free road tax sticker when you renew your policy? My sticker almost koyak already since never receive any sticker for a few years.

Good news for dups?

happyking4ever — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 14:16:13 +0800

Firefox Relay Lets Users Hide Their Email For Free

https://www.lowyat.net/2021/258772/firefox-...email-for-free/

Phase 1 of MRT2 delayed again

happyking4ever — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 15:15:37 +0800

Phase 1 of MRT Putrajaya Line postponed again

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/...ostponed-again/

PETALING JAYA: The operation of Phase 1 of the Putrajaya MRT line has been delayed and will not be able to open for service this month as scheduled.

MRT Corp chief executive officer Mohd Zarif Hashim said the opening timeline had to be revised because of incomplete activities during the trial operations.

“The trial operations for the MRT Putrajaya Line Phase 1 section has been ongoing since April 29,” he said in a statement.

“A total of 16 trains have been running between Kwasa Damansara MRT Station and Kampung Batu MRT Station in full-service mode daily but without passengers to simulate actual operations.

“During this period, the ‘final detailed inspection and system performance demonstration’ were carried out. However, the two activities have not been completed.

“As a result, MRT Corp is not able to take possession of the asset from the appointed turnkey contractor.”

Zarif said the MRT trains had clocked over 3,000 hours of trial operations and a “large amount” of data had been gathered.

“Having gone through the data ourselves, we detected that out of hundreds of system modules being implemented, two modules require further refinement.

“We need to ensure all primary, secondary and tertiary layers of systems are stable before we take possession of the asset and clear it for operations,” he said.

Previously, Phase 1 had been scheduled for opening in August but was postponed to mid-November.

The MRT Putrajaya Line (formerly known as the Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya Line) covers a span of 56.2km, with 36 stations from Kwasa Damansara to Putrajaya.

Phase 1 runs over 17.5km from Kwasa Damansara to Kampung Batu and will link places such as Damansara Damai, Bandar Sri Damansara, Kepong, Jinjang and Kampung Batu.

Foreign sourced salary income will be taxed

happyking4ever — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 16:12:18 +0800

I have received news that foreign sourced income including salary will be taxed, when being remitted to Malaysia, but only applicable to tax resident in Malaysia. By the way, only money that is income in nature, including passive income such as dividend and interest, will be taxed. Capital gain is not treated as income so no tax (for now, since capital gain tax is not practised in Malaysia, cukur)

Supposedly this means, if someone is working in Singapore and since physically present there most of the time, then he is considered a tax resident in Singapore and hence is subjected to be taxed in Singapore. If that money is remitted to Malaysia within the same tax year, and he can produce proof that he has fulfiled his tax obligation as Singapore tax resident, there will be no tax for him.

Now the more interesting question is, if he does not remit the money to Malaysia within the same year, but only remit that money some time in the future, will he be taxed? Supposedly if there is sufficient proof to show that the money was earned from a previous year and already being taxed in a different country, then it should not be taxed again. But I wonder what kind of proof is deemed sufficient since interpretations can be vary, especially if the remitted money is large and cover several years of income.

I know /k many professionals and experts one. So I share this info here so others can learn from your keen insight and knowledge.

inb4 declare it as donation and no need to be taxed.

Jobs that will never keep long term staff

happyking4ever — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 13:48:33 +0800

For example, cinema crew:

Cinema Crew
Salary: 1,300 - 1,820 MYR
Requirements:
To be successful in this role, you will need to have:

Secondary school level and above
Passionate in the entertainment industry
Able to work in shift hours, late shifts up to 4am
Able to work during weekends and Public Holidays
Good command of English and Bahasa Malaysia
How will this career benefit you?

Training and certification sponsored by the company
Career advancement
Annual Leave, Sick Leave
Rewards and recognition
Additional Benefits: Free movie tickets, medical

======

Obviously jobs like this won't be able to keep any staff on a long term basis. With living cost escalating year after year, such minimum wage level pay is simply impractical for any young people as it is impossible to raise a family later.

So what is the true solution? Use robots and self service kiosk?

The slowest TV series to be produced

happyking4ever — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 13:06:02 +0800

I think Westworld is the slowest TV series to be produced. 2016 is when season 1 came out right? Now already end of 2021 and there was only 3 seasons after a period of 5 years. If Arrowverse then already reach finale season already.

Is there any other TV series slower? X-Files season 11 does not count because that is more like milking an old series after decades of absence.

What is the best 1HP aircon thats worth buying?

happyking4ever — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 16:31:49 +0800

As title? Inverter 1HP worth it or better go with non-inverter? Is there any different if temperature is set at 24C with an inverter and will it cause the compressor to run non-stop anyway if 24C?

Captain Kirk goes to space for real

happyking4ever — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 11:19:11 +0800

When will rich ktard wanna go to space?

Ninety-year-old William Shatner, who gained fame portraying Captain Kirk on the original "Star Trek," just hitched a ride aboard a suborbital spacecraft that grazed the edge of outer space before parachuting to a landing, making Shatner the oldest person ever to travel to space.

"That was unlike anything they described," Shatner could be heard saying on the flight livestream just before landing.

Shatner blasted off onboard a New Shepard spacecraft — the one developed by Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, and the same vehicle that took Bezos himself to space this summer. Bezos, a lifelong "Star Trek" fan, flew Shatner as a comped guest. With him were three crewmates: Chris Boshuizen, a co-founder of satellite company Planet Labs, and software executive Glen de Vries, who're both paying customers, and Audrey Powers, Blue Origin's vice president of mission and flight operations.

"What you have given me is the most profound experience, I am so filled with emotion, just extraordinary," a visibly overcome Shatner told Bezos, immediately after emerging from the capsule. "I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now."

Their trip did not go exactly as the interplanetary jaunts Shatner captained during his acting career. New Shepard's flight lasted just ten minutes from takeoff to landing, and gave the passengers about three minutes of weightlessness.

The group strapped into a capsule that sits atop the 60-foot-tall New Shepard rocket Wednesday morning after a series of wind-related delays. At 9:51 am central time, the rocket fired up its engines and roared past the speed of sound, vaulting the capsule up past the Karman Line, which, at 62 miles high, is one line used to demarcate the beginning of outer space.

Shatner and his fellow passengers were expected to experience up to 5.5 Gs — which feels like five times their body weight pressing onto their chests — during their 2,000-plus mile-per-hour journey. Upon descent, a plume of parachutes then fanned out above the capsule to slow its descent, taking it from more than 200 miles per hour to less than 20 in just a few minutes.

Shanter's new record as the oldest person to fly to space one-ups the record set just three months ago by 82-year-old Wally Funk, who was a former astronaut trainee but was previously denied the opportunity to fly before she joined Bezos on his July flight.

Shatner's flight marked the second of what Blue Origin hopes will be many space tourism launches, carrying wealthy customers and thrill seekers to the edge of space. It could be a line of business that helps to fund Blue Origin's other, more ambitious space projects, which include developing a 300-foot-tall rocket powerful enough to blast satellites into orbit and a lunar lander.

But Shatner's flight comes amid a wave of headlines that paint a picture of internal turmoil at Blue Origin, including several exits from the among senior-level staff in the wake of the company losing a key NASA contract to Elon Musk's SpaceX.

A group of 21 current and former employees also co-signed an essay alleging that Blue Origin has a "dehumanizing" workplace environment that's rife with sexism. It also claimed that the company has created an unsafe environment and many of the essay's authors "say they would not fly on a Blue Origin vehicle." Much of the current criticism also centers on the leadership style of Blue Origin's CEO Bob Smith, who Bezos installed to run the company's day-to-day operations in 2017.

Blue Origin did not respond to requests for comment about the safety allegations. But the company has repeatedly stated that safety is its top priority.

Powers, the Blue Origin vice president who will be flying on Wednesday, also responded to the safety allegations in an interview with CNN's Erica Hill on Monday, saying the reports did not give her pause.

"I've been working at Blue on the new Shepard program specifically for the past eight years," she said. "A team of very, very talented professionals and colleagues — some of the best that I've worked with in my 20 years in human spaceflight — have been committed to to the safe operation of this program."

Is it safe?
Blue Origin has conducted more than a dozen uncrewed test flights of New Shepard, and Bezos decided to put himself on the first-ever crewed flight in July, in part to demonstrate that he trusts his own life with Blue Origin's technology.

Blue Origin has billed New Shepard as a spacecraft that virtually anyone can fly on with only a few days of light training. Though the vehicle will put the passengers through intense G-forces as it blasts upward and returns back toward Earth, the ride won't be nearly as intense as orbital flights like the one that SpaceX recently operated for four space tourists, which requires far faster speeds and a nail-biting reentry process.

On Blue Origin's website, it states the following criteria for passengers:
You must be 18 years of age or older.
You must be between 5'0" and 6'4" in height and between 110 pounds and 223 pounds in weight.
You must be in good enough physical shape to climb seven flights of stairs in a minute and a half
You must be able to fasten and unfasten a seat harness in less than 15 seconds, spend up to an hour and a half strapped into the capsule with the hatch closed and withstand up to 5.5G in force during descent.

Still, spaceflight is inherently risky. Drumming up enough speed and power to defy gravity requires rockets to use powerful, controlled explosions and complex technology that always involves some uncertainties.

"I'm really quite apprehensive," Shatner told CNN's Anderson Cooper last week. "There's an element of chance here."

From a physiological perspective, however, Shatner's age shouldn't be an issue, according to Dorit Donoviel, the executive director of the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH), a Baylor College of Medicine-led research group that partners with NASA.

Donoviel pointed to a series of studies in which people with pre-existing medical conditions, including elderly men with heart conditions, who experienced up to 6Gs in a spinning centrifuge to simulate the crushing forces the body is put through during spaceflight.

"They were perfectly fine," Donoviel said. "The only thing — medical condition — that was of concern when they did those studies was really anxiety and definitely claustrophobia."

Blue Origin passengers could experience up to 5.5Gs, which can also make it difficult to breathe or move their hands and arms. But they won't have the stress of piloting New Shepard, which is fully autonomous, so they can basically just sit there and wait out the most stressful portions of the journey.

One thing that is absolutely crucial for them, however, is to get back in their seats as soon as mission control warns the passengers that the capsule's three minutes of weightlessness are about to be over. As the spacecraft begins falling back to Earth, and the crushing g-forces return, passengers who aren't strapped into their seat and oriented in the proper position could risk serious injury.

"If they're facing the [wrong] way, the g-forces could pull all the blood away from the head and go down to the feet, in which case the person would pass out," Donoviel said.

Blue Origin plans to use New Shepard to compete directly with British billionaire Richard Branson and his suborbital space tourism company, Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic's tickets cost about $450,000 — more than the median home sales price in the United States. Blue Origin has not publicly set a ticket price, though it did recently sell one at auction for a whopping $28 million. Shatner will be flying as a complementary guest, though Bezos said in July that the company has sold nearly $100 million worth of tickets in total.

This is all part of a much broader push by commercial space companies — and NASA — to make space a place of business. The idea is that the private sector can spur innovation and drive down costs, paving the way for a future in which everday people — not just professional astronauts — live and work in space. That vision has elicited plenty of criticism, with skeptics questioning whether we can build an equitable future in space if it's mapped only by those with means.

It's also not clear how much sustained interest suborbital space tourism will garner from the world's wealthiest people. But Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic also plan to parlay their technologies into other ventures. In Blue Origin's case, that includes building a massive orbital rocket for launching military, science and commercial satellites and a lunar lander. Though, Blue Origin's bid to make a vehicle that will land the next humans on the moon was recently turned down by NASA and is now caught up in a court battle.

The squid game that kids play

happyking4ever — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 14:39:31 +0800

Do you remember you have played such game as a kid? It seems familiar but maybe not very popular in Malaysia in the past. I can only remember "mother chicken protect little chicken from hawk" game. But there was a game that used to be play with restrictions that you have to stay on lines on the ground and avoid being tagged or something, cannot remember the rules clearly and seems to be a form of squid game.

Current state of dine-in in KL

happyking4ever — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:38:26 +0800

I found some places where dine-in are allowed. Currently even when the shops put up sign to say they allow dine-in, either no one is actually dining in, or only 1 or 2 tables have people eating only.

Of course as time passes, things will change.

Have you dine-in so far?

This is what we need to open school

happyking4ever — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 15:32:08 +0800

MRT2 operating date

happyking4ever — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 16:23:55 +0800

Reported by paultan on 7 July 2021

MRT Corp announced today that the MRT Putrajaya Line Phase 1 will open in November 2021. The original target was August, so this is a three-month delay. The revision is due to an extension of the trial operations period as a result of the MCO 3.0 and now, the EMCO.

The company says that the construction of the overall MRT Putrajaya Line has been progressing well, and has passed the 90% completion mark. For the Phase One section between Kwasa Damansara and Kampung Batu stations that was supposed to launch in August, it’s at 99%. Currently, trial operations, which started on April 29, are being carried out on this stretch.

MRT Corp CEO Datuk Mohd Zarif Hashim says that in order to ensure that it achieves the required level of competency, the company has decided to extend the trial operations period. The original training schedule was impacted by the MCO 3.0 and EMCO, which has been imposed for Selangor and selected parts of KL.

Also, the new opening date is set to take place in Phase Four of the National Recovery Plan – that’s when the country’s economy is expected to be fully open, and the launch event can take place then. Phase 2 of the RM30.53 billion MRT Putrajaya Line – which is from Kampung Batu to Putrajaya Sentral – is scheduled to start operations in January 2023, completing the 57.7 km line.

Fully vac people one third as likely to get covid

happyking4ever — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 11:14:54 +0800

Not super great, but still better than nothing lah. So... more WFH for office workers until better vaccine or pill found?

Fully vaccinated individuals one-third as likely to get Covid, says England study

https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2021/0...england/1995041

LONDON, Aug 4 ― Fully vaccinated people in England were one-third as likely to test positive for Covid-19, according to an ongoing survey of the population released today.

The latest findings, from a long-running study by scientists at Imperial College London and market research company Ipsos MORI, were based on 98,233 swabs taken between June 24 and July 12.

They showed one in 160 people infected with coronavirus, with a prevalence rate of 1.21 per cent for unvaccinated respondents and 0.40 per cent for those fully jabbed.

The study also found double vaccinated people may be less likely to pass on the virus to others than those who have not received a vaccine.

However, officials and scientists in Britain have urged caution after the government eased all virus curbs in England on July 19, including the legal requirement to wear masks in certain indoor settings.

A US government document leaked last week warned that infections among fully vaccinated people are not as rare as previously thought and that such cases are highly contagious.

Paul Elliott, a professor at Imperial's School of Public Health and director of the survey programme, said the findings “confirm our previous data showing that both doses of a vaccine offer good protection against getting infected”.

“However, we can also see that there is still a risk of infection, as no vaccine is 100 per cent effective, and we know that some double vaccinated people can still become ill from the virus.

“So even with the easing of restrictions, we should still act with caution to help protect one another and curb the rate of infections.”

Who has tried Domino vaccine deal?

happyking4ever — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 10:52:32 +0800

2 regular pizzas for RM19. Need to pick up and show mysejahtera status. Has anyone tried and if you have ordered today can you order again tomorrow?

Promo Code = MYVAX
Until 30 August

13 July French Fries day

happyking4ever — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 10:50:17 +0800

Today's French Fries day

Current state of covid all around the world

happyking4ever — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 16:52:17 +0800

The bigger the ball the more serious. Many countries now have smaller balls. Moving average for past 14 days.

Source: google
https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-M...MY&ceid=MY%3Aen

How much money you need to retire by country

happyking4ever — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 13:23:25 +0800

Most of us will eventually ask ourselves, how much money do I need to retire? We all have been talking about the money from Malaysian perspective. But how about other parts of the world? Here is the article: (the amount shown is for a single person)

(Very depressing, no longer possible to move to Africa and can live like King for $10 a day)

https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/th...round-the-world

Key Findings

The most expensive country in the world to retire is Bermuda, where you would need $1,065,697.
Pakistan is the cheapest country to retire. You would need $182,018 to maintain our example lifestyle there.
Fourteen years of retirement in the US would cost $601,489.63 according to our metric: $40,917.66 per year or $2,841.50 per month.
We found 125 countries where retirement is cheaper than in the US and only 13 that are more expensive.

Depending on who you ask, Hong Kong and Switzerland are touted as the most expensive places to live. We found them to be the third and fourth priciest for retirement. Bermuda prices are targeted at those with lives of leisure. Restaurants in Bermuda are twice as expensive as in the US, and the capital, Hamilton, is known as the world’s most expensive city.

And the most affordable country? Pakistan is cheap across the scale. Only on utilities does the Asian country cost more than other cheaper destinations – twice the cost of utilities in India, but less than half the cost in the States. A Pakistani retirement would cost you $182,018.34, which is $10,318.50/year or $859.88/month.

In the United States, we calculated a base cost of $601,490, making it the second-costliest in North America, beaten only by Bermuda. Canada is significantly cheaper at $496,118 – a saving of $12k a year between the ages of 64 and 78.

Mexico is the cheapest place in North America, at the cost of $257,078. This is nearly a quarter of the cost of retiring in Bermuda. But if you’re hooked on the idea of retiring to paradise, the Bahamas is an option at $568,202 – $8k/year cheaper than the US.

South America provides many more affordable retirement options than the north of the continent. Even the most expensive country, Uruguay, is nearly half the cost of the US. You would need savings of $351,480 to land here.

Brazil and Colombia are neck-and-neck to be the cheapest retirement destinations in South America:

$216,877 and $215,493 respectively. If you’re planning on owning a car, it could end up cheaper for you in Brazil, while taxis are slightly cheaper in Colombia.

The financial centers of Switzerland and Luxembourg are known as pricey places to be. Both offer ‘fairytale-like’ landscapes and histories that appeal to lettered American Europhiles! However, since their $842,790 and $758,601 price tags eclipse the cost of an American retirement, you can probably find somewhere more affordable to your tastes by venturing east.

East, for example, is Georgia, a beautiful country with a rich culture and history and a retirement cost of $215,911 – just over one-third of the US price. Georgia is the cheapest retirement destination in Europe, followed by its neighbors Russia and Ukraine.

Israel is the most expensive part of this region for retirement, and a little more expensive than the US at $632,745. Owning a car here will cost you twice what it costs in the States, but if you can do without a car, then Israel starts to become an option.

Central Asia is home to some of the cheapest places to retire: the ‘Stans (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan) each come in below a quarter-mil, with Kyrgyzstan ($191,216) being the third-cheapest country in the world for retirement.

Only three countries in this region are costlier for retirement than the US. Singapore and Hong Kong are the second and third most expensive in the world. The other pricey destination in this region is Macau, which, like Hong Kong, is a Chinese Special Administrative Region with its own economic system. A retirement in Macau costs just $120/month more than in the US.

This region is also home to the cheapest destinations in our study: Pakistan ($182,018) and

India ($184,519). The average cost of living in Pakistan is 69.74% lower than the US, and the average rent is 89.26% lower. However, India has proved an attractive destination for expat retirees in recent years due to the sights, beaches and community.

It would be cheaper to retire to any country in Africa than to stay in the US. Africa’s most expensive destination for retirees is Ethiopia, at $458,986. Tourism is on the rise in Ethiopia, and recent economic and social reforms have encouraged the diaspora and foreigners alike to consider here.

Three of the five cheapest destinations on the continent are in North Africa. Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia each cost a little shy of a quarter-million dollars. The cheapest on the continent is Uganda, at $213,498. But South Africa is a more popular retirement destination and still costs just $304,282 – almost half the price of an American retirement.

METHODOLOGY & SOURCES
Our calculations are based on the average American retirement age of 64 years and the average American life expectancy of 78.4 years. Calculations of monthly living costs were completed in USD using Numbeo based on the following assumptions:

Members of your household = 1
Eating lunch or dinner in restaurants = 15%, Choosing inexpensive restaurants = 70%
Drinking coffee outside your home = moderate
Going out = once per week
Smoking = no, Alcoholic beverages = moderate
At home, we are eating = Western
Driving car = moderate, Taking taxi = no
Public transport = 2 round trips weekly
Sports memberships = all household members
Vacation and travel = two per year
Buying clothes and shoes = moderate
Rent = Apartment (1 bedroom) in city center
No children
Monthly living costs were collated for 124 countries, then multiplied by 176.4 = 14 years and 8.4 months between retirement age and life expectancy. To allow for a more comfortable retirement, the figures were further revised up by 20%.

Since Numbeo data is fully user-generated, it’s skewed towards capitals and big cities, which might account for the cost-of-living estimates in certain countries appearing inflated. Note that Numbeo cost estimator doesn’t include insurance, health-related expenses and doesn’t account for income tax in different countries.

Cost-of-living figures on Numbeo are updated regularly and may not fully correspond to the figures in the dataset, which were accurate at the time of data collection (November 2020).

This article first appeared on NetCredit.

What are the features you want in popular apps?

happyking4ever — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 15:59:02 +0800

Sharing the same account across multiple devices in Whatsapp, seems to be a feature to be available soon.

Spotify mobile app has also promised a mean to playback locally stored music files and the feature is currently being tested since beginning of the year, don't know when is going to be available. Why is this feature useful? Because Spotify does not have all the music and able to play some of your favorite songs unavailable in spotify, together with a spotify playlist will be great.

Do you have any other features you will like to see in popular apps?

Microsoft looks ready to launch Windows 11

happyking4ever — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 15:52:08 +0800

So, no more free upgrade for Windows 10? Need to pay again for a new version?

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/3/22466394/...h-teaser-rumors

Microsoft has been teasing a “next generation” of Windows for months now, but new hints suggest the company isn’t just preparing an update to its existing Windows 10 software, but a new, numbered version of the operating system: Windows 11.

The software giant announced a new Windows event for June 24th yesterday, promising to show “what’s next for Windows.” The event invite included an image of what looks like a new Windows logo, with light shining through the window in only two vertical bars, creating an outline that looks very much like the number 11. Microsoft followed up with an animated version of this image, making it clear the company intentionally ignored the horizontal bars.

Microsoft’s Windows event also starts at 11AM ET, not the usual start time for typical Windows and Surface events. Following the event invite, Microsoft exec Yusuf Mehdi said he hasn’t “been this excited for a new version of Windows since Windows 95!” It’s the first time we’ve heard Microsoft specifically mention a “new version” of Windows is on the way.

The event invite also comes just a week after Nadella teased a “next generation of Windows” announcement. Nadella promised that Microsoft would soon share “one of the most significant updates to Windows of the past decade.” Microsoft’s chief product officer, Panos Panay, also teased a “next generation” of Windows earlier this year.

If Microsoft is truly readying to move beyond Windows 10 and towards Windows 11, we’re expecting to see big visual changes to reflect that. Microsoft has been working on something codenamed Sun Valley, which the company has referred to as a “sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows.”

A lot of these visual changes will come from the work Microsoft completed on Windows 10X, a lightweight version of Windows intended to rival Chrome OS, before it was scrapped. That includes a new Start menu, new system icons, File Explorer improvements, and the end of Windows 95-era icons that drag Windows users back to the past in dialog boxes. Rounded corners and updates to the built-in Windows apps are also planned.

Significant changes are also on the way for Windows beyond the user interface. Microsoft appears to be ready to address a lot of lingering problems, with fixes planned for a rearranging apps issue on multiple monitors, an upcoming Xbox Auto HDR feature, and improvements to Bluetooth audio support.

Perhaps the biggest lingering issue waiting to be fixed is the Windows store. Microsoft has been working on a new app store for Windows in recent months, and rumors suggest it will be a significant departure from what exists today. Nadella has promised to “unlock greater economic opportunity for developers and creators” with Windows, and the Windows store seems like the obvious way to do that.

Microsoft is reportedly overhauling its Windows app store to allow developers to submit any Windows application, including browsers like Chrome or Firefox. This would significantly improve the store alone, but Microsoft might also be considering allowing third-party commerce platforms in apps. That would mean Microsoft wouldn’t take a cut from developers who use their own in-app purchase systems.

Moving to Windows 11 branding would also back up Microsoft’s reinvestment in Windows. The software maker signaled a renewed interest in Windows last year, during a pandemic that has demonstrated how important the operating system is. Windows usage jumped as workers and students across the world turned to laptops and PCs to work from home. PC shipments have also surged over the past year.

After slicing Windows into two parts back in 2018, Microsoft moved parts of Windows development back under Panos Panay’s control last year. The move was a clear admission that Microsoft’s Windows split didn’t work, after months of messy development experiences for Windows 10, delayed Windows updates, a lack of major new features, and lots of Windows update issues.

Moving to Windows 11 would still be a surprise move for Microsoft, though. The company previously referred to Windows 10 as “the last version of Windows” in its big push to position the OS as a service that’s continually updated. While there are monthly updates to Windows, the more significant changes are typically delivered twice a year.

Microsoft has struggled with naming these updates, though. We’ve seen the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Fall Creators Update, and simple dates like the November 2019 Update. Microsoft has also adopted yet another naming scheme recently, referring to updates as 20H1 or 21H1 to signify both the release year and part of the year the update launched.

A move to Windows 11 wouldn’t necessarily clear up Microsoft’s update naming issues, but if the company also adopted point releases like Windows 11.1, that would certainly help both consumers and IT admins to quickly understand which version is the latest.

OEMs would also be happy to see a Windows 11 release. A new version of Windows always drives new hardware sales and renewed interest in the operating system. If Microsoft backs that up with a new UI and a fresh look and feel for Windows, it will be the typical playbook we’ve seen for Windows for decades.

It’s not long until we find out whether Microsoft is ready to dial the version number of Windows up to 11. The Windows elevent (as I’m now calling it) will start at 11AM ET on June 24th, and The Verge will be covering all the news live as it happens.