High court will hear Microsoft appeal over Xbox lawsuit

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will decide whether Microsoft Corp. must face a class action lawsuit by disgruntled owners of the Xbox 360 video-game system who say the console has a design defect that scratches game disks.

The justices agreed Friday to hear an appeal from Microsoft arguing that individual claims by the plaintiffs had previously been thrown out.

Microsoft has sold more than 80 million Xbox 360 consoles and says only 0.4 percent of owners report disk scratching. The company says any damage is the result of consumer misuse and not a product defect.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2012, ruling there were not enough complaints to justify a class action. But a federal appeals court reversed, saying it could go forward.source:bigstory

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Microsoft offering up to $250 for Apple Watch users to trade in for a Band 2

The new promotion actually covers a wide range of wearable devices, including options from Fitbit, Garmin, Nike, and Sony. Original Microsoft Band owners can also earn up to $35 for trading in their first-generation device, but Microsoft is offering the most credit for the Apple Watch.

Values on the trade-ins strangely do not correspond directly with the price of the unit. For example, the maximum $250 trade-in applies to the 38-millimeter stainless steel Apple Watch with milanese loop band, while owners of the larger, more expensive 42-millimeter size will receive only $100 on their trade toward a Band 2.

The Band 2 was unveiled by Microsoft in October, improving upon the first-generation model by switching to a curved OLED display, and adding a barometer for elevation tracking. Like the first-generation model, it features sensors for heart rate, UV levels, and dedicated GPS.

The Band 2 supports Microsoft's Windows Phone products, but is also compatible with the iPhone via the Microsoft Health app. There is also a Health app made by Microsoft for Mac OS X. It's priced at $249.

Though sales of the Band nor the Apple Watch have been disclosed by their respective companies, all signs indicate that the Apple Watch has been the dominant player in the wearables space since it launched last April. One estimate issued this week projected that the Apple Watch accounted for more than half of all smartwatch shipments across 2015, despite launching four months into the year and seeing limited availability initially.

Apple also trounces the competition on the number of third-party apps available — there are already around 10,000 available on Apple Watch, compared to 4,000 for the next largest platform, Android Wear.source: appleinsider

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The Xbox app for Windows 10 updates

The Xbox dedicated to Windows 10 application just received an update. In the program, the integration of Facebook friends and some other innovations.

After the update of the interface of Xbox One, it is the turn of Xbox proposed application within Windows 10 to benefit from an upgrade. The program of new products presented by Major Nelson in a video, there is Facebook integration, allowing you to easily locate friends within the column suggestions. A novelty which involves a large number of players connected their Facebook account to their Xbox Live account so that the functionality is working.

Among other additions, there is the ability to record voice on game videos made via Windows 10, using headphones, but also enriching sharing capabilities of Success and other content via the social part of the Live and the integration of Xbox Store within the app. Finally, the last novelty recording of all games available on the computer in the application, which allows to use the same functionality as for games on Xbox One.

The update is already available on Windows 10.

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For Microsoft, Windows 7 is potentially dangerous

That Microsoft would not do to encourage as many people to migrate to Windows 10? Recently a spokesman has chosen to pull the alarm on Windows 7.

On January 13, 2015, Microsoft abandoned the primary support of Windows 7. This means there will be more functional fixes or Service Pack published by Microsoft. However, until 2020, the system will continue to receive security patches as part of extended support.

Probably to avoid a similar phenomenon to that of Windows XP - whose market share was over 30% at the end of extended support - it seems that Microsoft has chosen to take now the alarm. Indeed, guest on the Windows Weekly podcast, Chris Capossela, Microsoft's marketing director, said that users who have chosen to stay on Windows 7 should do so "at their own peril."

"We are very concerned when people use an operating system 10 years old and with which they will buy the next printer will not work very well," said the man. He added that the new Fallout 4 type games also may cause compatibility problems.

Mr. Capossela said: "We encourage our software and hardware partners to design great new things by taking maximum advantage of Windows 10 but immediately make old products really bad in comparison, and that's not to mention viruses and security problems. "

Still, those words will certainly have a hard time convincing users. Windows 7 is a globally popular system. After the disappointments of the 8.x Windows interface for Windows 10, Microsoft has also insisted on a very close ergonomics of Windows 7, that is to say with a Start menu. For Microsoft, the challenge is to migrate including a maximum of companies to the new OS.

According to Net Market Share figures, at present, Windows 7 would have a market share of 55.69%. Suffice to say that the system is still largely supported by device manufacturers who dedicate him systematically a series of compatible drivers. And this is, of course, not an upgrade to Windows 10 that will make PC components readily compatible with a latest generation video game.

Finally in terms of security, patches will still be deployed for years. When asked by us in April 2014 on a possible parallel between Windows XP and Windows 7, Bernard Ourghanlian, technical director of Microsoft France, said that things were very different, especially in terms of software compatibility.

I think it is necessary to re-contextualize things. Windows XP was released in July 2001. This means that it was designed in 1997-98-99. At that time the Internet was not widespread. Potential threats were very different.

The withdrawal of Windows XP is not just business. It is especially today we can no longer protect him. If we wanted to get it right, it would completely change the core. Windows Vista and 7 were designed in the Internet age. They have a new kernel and we very consciously broke application compatibility.

Besides, in the end, it's the applications that make up the heart of the problem with Windows XP, either for the company or the consumer. This allowed us to put in place better protection devices and today we have a software compatibility logic very important between Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1.

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Remix OS—a multitasking, windowed Android OS—can now run on your PC

Jide's Remix OS—a... well, remixed version of Android that is more suitable for a PC's mouse and keyboard—is now available for download. The OS turns Android into a windowed desktop environment with the ability to multitask, just like Windows, Mac OS, and desktop Linux.

The OS is available today as a 700MB "alpha" version, which you should be able to run on your own hardware. The project's webpage says it is compatible with "most computers in the world powered by x86 chipsets," and it seems to require a 64-bit CPU. Remix OS is based on the long-running Android-x86 project, which has a crowdsourced hardware support list here, but the bottom line seems to be "try it and see what happens." You'll need at least an 8GB USB 3.0 flash drive with a recommended write speed of 20MB/s along with a PC with a "USB legacy" boot option.

We tried Remix OS at the end of a recent article that looked at Android on the desktop. The OS definitely proved nicer than vanilla Android with a mouse and keyboard, but just like with Android tablets, the biggest software weakness is app support for the new environment. Remix actually comes out a little better here, since if you get stuck with a phone app, you can usually just shrink it down to a phone-sized window. The other big weakness in our test setup was the hardware: Jide's own "Remix Mini" was woefully underpowered for serious multitasking, but with Remix now available for lots of hardware, you can fix that problem yourself.

Reports from respectable news outlets keep claiming that Google is going to merge Android and Chrome OS in the next year or so and release a version of Android tailored for PCs. With Remix OS, you might be getting a peek into the future.source:arstechnica

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Apple Denies It's Working On iPhone-To-Android Migration Tool

Apple has denied a claim that it is working on software to make it easier for iPhone users to migrate their data and information to Google Android smartphones and tablets, according to Re/code.

Its denial comes following a report from the UK's Telegraph, which initially claimed that Apple had quietly come to an agreement with European mobile operators to build migration software to make it easy for iPhone owners to move data such as their contacts, photos, music and more to an Android device.

“There is no truth to this rumor,” an Apple representative told Re/code. “We are entirely focused on switching users from Android to iPhone, and that is going great.”

Indeed, Apple in September launched its first Android app , dubbed “Move to iOS.” As the name implies, it’s a tool that makes it easier for Android owners switching to iPhone to transfer their data over from their old device while also suggesting similar apps to install on their new smartphone. Apple also has its own Apple Music streaming music app on Android, which replaced the now defunct Beats Music service.

While Apple isn’t planning to ease users’ switch over to Android via data migration, it has helped in other ways, namely its iMessage deregistering tool , which allows its users to disassociate their number with its proprietary messaging service even after they’ve gotten rid of their old iPhone.

That only came about in 2014 after former iPhone owners complained about the difficulty of receiving text messages from their friends that still had iPhones. While some of the former Apple smartphone owners attempted to sue the company in May 2014 for the iMessage issue, the suit failed to gain class action status in August 2015, according to MacRumors.source:ibtimes

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Facebook Mentions Parades On Android, Strutting Its 87MB Bloatastic iOS Interface

Facebook has many apps, side-projects, and different ways to suck you into its social network and try to get you to stay on it. One day it wants to be your news source, the other it wants to be your communication hub or your work's intranet. Facebook's Mentions launched in July 2014 with an iOS app as a way for celebrities to manage their pages, then was opened to all verified profiles in September 2015. Now the app has crossed the dark forest, jumped the big void, and ventured into the unknown abyss between iOS and Android and come to the Play Store.

You'd think that with a year and a half of time, the Mentions team would have at least opened a Google design spec document or downloaded some other Android app just to get an idea of what it feels like to live on our side of the mobile chasm. But nah. The Mentions app looks exactly the same on Android as it does on iOS. Top tabs, colors, buttons, fonts, and all. And it's not like the app is doing that well on iOS to begin with, to be a role-model for the Android version. Its current version has an average rating of 2 stars on iTunes and all versions hang at a mediocre 3 stars. That's not what I'd call a good mold to follow.

The app weighs 98MB on iOS, 87MB on Android... for a periscope-like streaming and update sharing/reading app. I, well, I just don't know what's happening there. Is there a baked-in easter egg video of Mark Zuckerberg Netflix and chillin' that gets unlocked after you reach a certain amount of followers? Or is there a secret celebrity-only club inside the app where you can view updates to each other's private photos without relying on 4chan hacks? I don't know and I can't know because the app is for verified accounts only. I've verified myself in real life, that's as much self-affirmation as I personally need.

For the record, the full Facebook app is only about 38MB 100MB and looks positively Android'y in comparison. Whatever is happening here can't possibly need more than double the size of that nearly the same size as that. Edit: Fixed to account for Facebook's additional data download.

We're getting away from our main topic, but I'd have been remiss not to mention all of that, hah. Anyway, if you have a verified Facebook account, you'll be able to grab Mentions for free then live stream, talk to your followers, see the users you follow, and share updates with your fans. It's exactly like Facebook, I guess, but only for the elite. Because the dark grey icon just looks classier on your screen than the blue one. Seems legit.source:androidpolice

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