Microsoft stops sales of Windows 7 Pro, Windows 8.1 to PC makers...It's all Windows 10

After extending deadline by two years, Microsoft sticks a fork in the world's most popular operating system.

Gregg Keizer | @gkeizer

Computerworld

• Nov 1, 2016 3:01 PM

Microsoft today quietly put an end to sales of Windows 7 licenses to computer makers, marking a major milestone for the seven-year-old OS.

According to Microsoft’s rules, the Redmond, Wash. company stopped selling Windows 7 Professional or any version of Windows 8.1 to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) as of Oct. 31.

The end of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 left only Windows 10 as a long-term choice for OEMs that pre-load Windows on their wares.

The original end-of-sales deadline for Windows 7 Professional was to be Oct. 31, 2014—two years after the launch of Windows 8—but early that year Microsoft broke with practice and only called for an end to consumer systems. It left open the cut-off for Windows 7 Professional, saying it would give a one-year warning before it demanded that OEMs stop selling PCs with that edition.

Microsoft issued that warning a year ago.

Organizations with enterprise licensing agreements and Software Assurance—the annuity-like program that provides additional rights—may continue to purchase new PCs, then downgrade the OS from the already-installed Windows 10 to Windows 7 if they want to keep using the older edition.

And new Windows 7 Professional PCs won’t vanish immediately; OEMs will be allowed to use what licenses they have in stock.

For example, Dell’s online store today still listed 17 different notebook configurations equipped with Windows 7 Professional. The same goes for smaller computer sellers, like Puget Systems, an Auburn, Wash. custom PC maker: Such shops can continue to build new Windows 7 Professional PCs until their supply of licenses dries up.

Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows 7 even though it remains the most popular operating system on the planet. Windows 7 has lost about a fifth of its user share since the mid-2015 launch of Windows 10, but according to U.S. analytics vendor Net Applications, it powered 48% of all personal computers in October, more than twice Windows 10’s share.

Windows 7 support is to continue until January 2020, giving users just over three years to migrate to another operating system.

3 ways state and local governments can ensure the future of 5G mobile networks in the US

Ahead of the White House Frontiers Conference, Richard Adler, of the Institute for the Future, explained how state and local governments can help pave the way for 5G in 2020.

By Conner Forrest | October 11, 2016, 9:25 AM PST



The future of many technologies hinges on the deployment of 5G networks, but there are still a few potential roadblocks to their development Richard Adler, a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, said in a press call on Tuesday.

The call came a few days before the White House Frontiers Conference kicks off in Pittsburgh. The conference will focus on advances in science and technology, and Adler hosted a call to discuss the importance of 5G networks in supporting innovation and the role they will play in some of the technologies that the conference will focus on.

Mobile data traffic has experienced a 4,000x increase in the past 10 years, Adler said, and the next-generation 5G networks will help increase communication times, and improve speed and bandwidth as traffic continues to grow. The standard for 5G won't be completed until 2020, Adler said, but actions have been taken around the US to lay the foundation for the network.


One of the biggest differences with 5G is that it uses what is known as millimeter wave band, which has a shorter range, but is key to increasing capacity. Because of that, though, providers will

Google delays Android Wear 2.0 until 2017

By Tim Schiesser on September 30, 2016, 9:30 AM




Google was originally expected to release the next major version of Android Wear late this year, however a recent post from the company has revealed the smartwatch operating system has been delayed until early 2017.

The Android Wear 2.0 developer preview program will continue throughout the rest of this year and in to 2017, with watches set to get the final build early next year. Google announced the availability of the third developer preview several days ago, and the company says another developer preview will be released before the update is sent to OEMs.

In the third developer preview, Google has added the Play Store to Android Wear 2.0. It may seem a little cramped, however users can now browse and install apps directly from their watch, rather than using the equivalent app on their smartwatch. Searching for apps is as easy as using voice commands, the tiny Android Wear keyboard, or handwriting.



The Play Store on Android Wear also allows you to install only the watch app, provided the app supports this feature of Android Wear 2.0. This prevents apps you only use on your watch from clogging up the app tray on your smartphone.

The choice to delay Android Wear 2.0 until next year seems to fit with the plans of major Android Wear OEMs such as LG, Motorola and Huawei, who decided to hold off releasing any new smartwatches during the fall. In early 2017 we could see a major relaunch of Android Wear complete with new devices running the updated operating system.

Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook bat for a green future

#CLOUD COMPUTING

Representational image

  30 Sep 2016 , 12:54

By Muqbil Ahmar

Digitisation has left no area of human endeavor untouched. This has led to a veritable data tsunami. No wonder, data centers are springing up everywhere to meet the growing needs for data. With technology shifting from premise-based to cloud-based ones, there is a race to set up data centers all over the world, particularly in India and Asia. Internet services major Amazon launched its first set of data centers in India recently, Microsoft as three, IBM has two, and many others doing the same. As increasingly greater numbers of software companies shift to the cloud, the number of data centers is only set to explode.

Data centers are huge consumers of power
Modern data centers are big industrial facilities that consume huge amounts of power. A typical data center consumes as much electricity as a small town. According to a study by the US Department of Energy, data centers in the country consume around 2% of the total power produced. The facilities used around 70 billion kilowatt hours in 2014, according to the study conducted in collaboration with Stanford, Northwestern, and Carnegie Mellon universities, roughly translating into energy consumed by 6.4 million average American homes.

Consequently, IT giants are looking at several strategies to offset the environmental costs of running a data center, with the main thrust being on using alternative or renewable energy resources to power the massive facilities. As part of their commitment to a clean environment, technology biggies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon are moving their data centers towards all-green operations.

Microsoft leverages green power for its data centers
Microsoft recently announced that its data centers globally would be powered by 50 percent renewable energy by 2018. The IT giant also plans to increase the use of renewable power for data centers to 60 percent by 2020s.

“As we begin to tap the power of the cloud to address these challenges, we must also ensure that we are building a responsible cloud. Tremendous amounts of energy will be required to power this data-driven revolution. The leading cloud companies have a responsibility to address this energy usage. And Microsoft believes that, as large energy consumers, we have the opportunity to drive change that will benefit not only our company but the world,” said Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist, on Microsoft’s Green Blog.

“That is why Microsoft announced a new, principled approach to helping advance a clean energy future. We committed to greater transparency, including reporting our energy consumption across regions and the mix of sources for the power we use, while continuing to report our total energy consumption and impact of our carbon program,” added Bernard.

Microsoft is already powered by 40-45% renewable energy sources, claims Microsoft. The IT giant has committed to using 50 percent renewable energy by 2018, 60% by early next decade and to keep enhancing its capacity from there.

Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook also join the bandwagon
Recently, Apple too announced the completion of a 50MW solar farm in Arizona, USA, to offset power consumption by the company’s new data center in the same region. The company also aims for 100% renewable energy use in the future and has claimed that in 2015, 93% of its energy came from renewable sources of energy. In fact, Apple has been investing in renewable energy resources for many years.

Amazon also has plans to build a 253MW wind farm in the USA to to power its massive cloud operations. The wind farm would be the company’s fifth and largest renewable energy project till date. The cloud giant has also announced other wind and solar projects. According to the company, the entire yearly production of the renewable energy projects will surpass 2.6 million MWh. It has also claimed that 40 percent of Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) energy needs would be met by renewable sources by the end of 2016.

Google has aimed for 100% renewable energy sources, claiming to be the largest non-utility purchaser of renewable energy in the world. Facebook too plans to use renewables sources to meet 50 percent of its data center power needs by 2018. Smaller companies like Salesforce too have made substantial commitments to explore renewable energy options.

Renewable energy facilities offset environmental costs of data centers
According to NASA figures, global temperatures have risen by more than 1 degree since 1880, while 9 of the 10 warmest years ever recorded have occurred since 2000. In 2012, Arctic ice shrank to its lowest ever level. Global sea levels are rising at 3.4 mm per year. Against such a backdrop, cloud giants want to ensure that their operations don’t have an adverse effect on the environment.

As the hunger for data increases in modern society, giant cloud providers will scramble to keep their operations environmentally sustainable and ecologically viable, so that the environmental costs don’t overrun the cost of digitalisation.

With over 10 years of experience in the field of journalism, the author is a technology evangelist and avid blogger. 

SAP has set aside €2 bn to be invested in connected devices and IoT space till 2020

Image: Reuters

  28 Sep 2016 , 15:57

Europe’s biggest software maker SAP has earmarked 2 billion euros ($2.2 bln) for investments in products that help companies to connect everything from washing machines to cars to the Internet.

The German company said it would invest that amount by the end of 2020, targeting what it estimates to be a 250 billion-euro market in the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), in which regular objects are connected to networks to send and receive data.

Such functions are increasingly used in manufacturing and areas such as logistics, digital farming, drones or 3D printing.

SAP sealed a deal last week to work with German car parts maker Robert Bosch to connect everything from screwdrivers to cars to the Internet, and more deals could follow.

The company will launch a new product line, dubbed SAP IoT, which will combine large amounts of data from things connected to the Internet with machine learning and SAP’s real-time database S/4 HANA.

“It is a big and growing market and we think we can be a significant part of it,” said Tanja Rueckert, SAP’s executive vice president in charge of digital assets and Internet of Things.

“While business and public sector entities have unprecedented access to more information and real-time feeds, they still have difficulty tying it all together,” SAP said.

By 2020, 21 billion IoT devices will be in use worldwide, up from fewer than 5 billion last year, research firm Gartner has estimated.

Rueckert said part of the 2 billion euro investment plan would be reserved for targeted acquisitions, typically small bolt-on deals that fit in SAP’s IoT portfolio.

SAP said on Wednesday it had bought Italy’s PLAT.ONE and Fedem Technology from Norway for an undisclosed amount. Both acquisitions will be integrated into SAP IoT.

“We cooperate with Siemens, Dell, Intel, T-Systems and Vodafone among others. We talk to other partners as well. That is the direction we will continue to look at. To work with others in partnerships,” Rueckert said.

Reuters