Thoughts Unboxed

Artificial Intelligence has emerged as a transformative force in society in recent times. Yet, as with any technology, it carries its own set of controversies, limitations, and potential risks of abuse. AI is not exempt from these challenges, and a prominent illustration of this is the rise of Deepfakes—AI-generated simulations of real individuals so convincingly realistic that they prompt us to question the age-old adage, "Seeing is believing." Taylor Swift is the latest pop-star being targeted by AI generated Deepfake images. In recent days, an alarming number of AI-generated deepfake images featuring pop sensation Taylor Swift surfaced on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter). Notably, a significant portion of these images was of explicit nature, intensifying concerns about the misuse of AI technology.  In response to Deepfake images, Swift's devoted fan base took immediate action by flooding X with authentic images of the singer while acti

Much to my envy, a site I had long hoped to set up was established this week. I often wondered why there was no "Killed by Microsoft" counterpart to Google's "Killed by Google," and the wait is finally over. Launched by Victor Frye, the Microsoft Graveyard is an open-source compilation showcasing discontinued Microsoft-made software and hardware. It's worth noting that the site has no affiliations with Microsoft itself. According to the developer, the website is a "passion project" born out of a fondness for many of these products that met an untimely end. Among them are some of the recent casualties including WordPad , Visual Studio for Mac , Cortana , Windows Phone alongside some late distant memories like ASP.Net Web Matrix, Microsoft Bob, Windows Vista and Zune. The Microsoft Graveyard encourages contributions as it's an open-source project hosted on GitHub . You are welcome to add missing items, correct typos, suggest improveme

In the post Panos Panay world, Microsoft held its first major event centered around Surface products and AI updates on September 21st, 2023. While Panos's departure came as a surprise , the missing of many surface products from the rooster raised many eyebrows.  Does Microsoft's Surface Division fall prey to the company's recent cost-saving strategies? Is there a link between missing products and Panos's exit? Clarity is expected to emerge over time, however, it would be extremely short-sighted on Microsoft's end to kill-off Surface Division after all these years of building premium products. Surface devices, despite some imperfections, have earned recognition for their top-tier construction and have pushed industries forwards by introducing many creative innovations that were lacking in the past. Here is the list of all the Surface Products that were missing from the event and we don't know if they would ever be getting their successors or not

Artifical Intelligence surely has been the hot selling point for tech giants since the rise of conversational AI. Microsoft held its September Surface and AI even on Thursday, September 21st. The event focused on hardware refresh to the surface product line alongside further integration of Microsoft's AI assistance named CoPilot into more products and features. Here are the major announcements happened during the event: HARDWARE ANNOUNCEMENTS Surface Studio Laptop 2 The star of the hardware was Surface Studio Laptop 2. This is the successor to the Surface Studio Laptop that was launched exactly 2 years ago. The original was a great idea but its 11th Generation Intel processors were already outdated. It also lacked port variety.  Surface Studio Laptop 2 builds on the positives of the predecessor and added 13th Generation Intel processors and up to NVIDIA GeForce 4060 dedicated graphics card. The laptop also added a USB-A port and a MicroSDXC card slot. Pricin

The time has arrived. Google Domains has joined many Google Products in the Oblivion-yard. Starting September 7th, Google has stopped taking new domain registrations. Current owners would be transitioning to Squarespace in the coming months.  If you visit Google Domains site right now, you would be welcome with the following message: On September 7, 2023 Squarespace acquired all domain registrations and related customer accounts from Google Domains. Customers and domains will be transitioned over the next few months   The page also has a big blue link "Get a new domain from Squarespace" that would take you Squarespace for new domain registrations. It is fun that Google would still be taking a piece of the cut if you do so. The page indicates the link to the Squarespace is an affiliate link. So, even though Google Domain is dead, Google is still taking this grim opportunity to squeeze out every single penny off the platform. Here

Windows and Surface Division chief Panos Panay is leaving Microsoft after almost 20 years. The surprise news was shared on Monday by Rajesh Jha - Microsoft's VP of Experience and Devices in an email to the employees. He said: After nearly 20 years at the  company, Panos Panay has decided to leave Microsoft.  The timing of the news is really confusing. Microsoft is about to announce the next generation of surface lineup in an event happening on coming Thursday - September 21st. Panos would not take part in the event. Yousuf Mehdi - Microsoft Consumer Marketing Head - is set to succeed Panos Panay. In a statement by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, he thanks Panos for his services. He said: I’m grateful for your leadership, support, and all you’ve done for Microsoft and our customers and partners. As Rajesh stated, we remain steadfast and convicted in our strategy and Yusuf Mehdi will take lead on our Windows and Surface businesses and products externally

In a surprising move, Microsoft has decided to retire Visual Studio for Mac, its macOS counterpart to Visual Studio. In a blog post, Anthony Cangialosi - The Group Product Manger of DevDiv announced the news:   Today we are announcing the retirement of the Visual Studio for Mac IDE. Visual Studio for Mac 17.6 will continue to be supported for another 12 months, until August 31st, 2024, with servicing updates for security issues and updated platforms from Apple. While the decision has been made to retire Visual Studio for Mac, we remain committed to our developers on Mac with alternatives like the recently announced C# Dev Kit for VS Code and other extensions that will allow you to take advantage of our ongoing investments in .NET development on a Mac.   This is a surprise decision considering Microsoft overhauled the IDE while announcing Visual Studio 2022. Microsoft touted the overhaul back then stating: Our goal with Visual Studio 2022 for Mac is t

Microsoft is on a chopping spree of late. After chopping off Cortana and Visual Studio for Mac, the latest victim of this trend is WordPad - a program that was part of Windows since Windows 95! In a Blog Post on the official site, the company outlines features that will be deprecated from the future versions of Windows and this time around, WordPad made it to the list. Microsoft will not only stop supporting the unfortunate piece of software, it will actually remove it from the future Windows updates. Microsoft recommends Microsoft Word and NotePad as alternatives depending upon the requirements. Here is the official details and mitigation: WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows. We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt   Analysis WordPad began its life almost three decades ago as a replacement to another software - Microsoft Write. It was shipped with W

After a failed acquisition attempt by Nvidia, Arm, owned by SoftBank, is once again gearing up to become a publicly traded company. According to SEC filings, the company is eyeing a staggering valuation of $52 billion, making Arm's IPO the largest on the US Stock Exchange this year. A Return to Public Trading Arm, once a publicly traded company, entered the private sector when SoftBank offered a $32 billion acquisition deal in 2016. Now, Arm is set to raise approximately $8 billion through its IPO on Nasdaq, translating to a per-share price in the range of $47 to $51. The Antitrust Hurdle The decision to take Arm public comes in the wake of the collapsed takeover plans by Nvidia. Concerns about antitrust issues raised by various regulatory bodies led to Nvidia dropping its acquisition plans. SoftBank, no stranger to recent high-profile setbacks, including the WeWork debacle, sees an opportunity amid the surge in AI. Arm's Strategic Position Arm's reference designs are licen

Microsoft's Katie Savage - The Program Manager DevDiv Community - have announced the release of a new foundational C# certification in collaboration with freeCodeCamp - a charity based organization that creates free learning resources for Math, Computer Science and Programming. Speaking about the significance of the certification, she said:   Our Foundational C# Certification provides just that — a testament to the time and effort you’ve invested in mastering this versatile language. While no certification can guarantee a job, adding this to your portfolio demonstrates your commitment to continuous growth and your proficiency in C#. Partnering with the esteemed freeCodeCamp, our certification is not just a badge, but a mark of quality education. It’s comprehensive, globally accessible, and free. This ensures that learners everywhere can benefit from a robust C# training on Microsoft Learn.   The Foundational C# Certification is available completely free of cost worldwide. To fac

Short-term attention spans are getting more common and it is infiltrating our day to day activities. Someone could be a hero one day followed by becoming a villain the next day. Soon after the takeover by Elon Musk, X( formerly Twitter) caught itself into a myriad of controversies and is fighting some of them to this day. Those controversies sparked a concerted efforts towards finding an alternative to micro-blogging platform. Most of it was based on the controversial figure that Elon Musk is and to the new policies he had been introducing to the platform since then. Instagram's Threads tried to take advantage of one such moment to give a knock-out punch to perhaps the only other viable competitor to Meta in the social media space - X (formerly Twitter). And its success topped the charts initially again, showing the immense level of short-term attention span of the society in general. Meta itself has been perceived as a Villa

Atari once was among the competing gaming consoles. But that part is now a history. However, seems like the group currently holding the rights to Atari brand has something up its sleeves. The official X account from the group that holds the rights to the Atari Video Game brand has shared a teaser video that looks like a classic Atari Console. The unveil will happen on Tuesday, August 22nd.  Incoming… 👀 pic.twitter.com/IrjDsejlvI — Atari (@atari) August 21, 2023   Analysis Going by the teaser video, seems like we may be getting a retro Atari Console. There are some speculations Atari may be announcing a DLC pack for the recently released 50-games pack for XBox, PlayStation and Switch. It may also be about the new Rollercoaster Tycoons title considering Atari secured a 10-year IP deal for the game. However, Atari may pull the biggest surprise of the year by announcing a completely new gaming console to enter the Gaming Console Arena. We won't have to

If you've installed AdBlocker to skip those pesky YouTube ads, brace yourself for some unfortunate news! YouTube has been intensifying its battle against AdBlockers, and recently, reports have emerged from Reddit users about an intrusive popup notification. This pop-up warns users that their access to videos will be blocked if they persist in using adblockers. Within this warning, viewers are presented with three options: 1. Disable Adblocker 2. Add YouTube to the whitelist 3. Subscribe to YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience     Adding a sense of urgency, a countdown timer is displayed at the top right corner of the popup, indicating the time left for users to make their decision. Users have reported it being 30-60 seconds long. This development marks the next phase in YouTube's strategy to steer consumers towards either paying for a premium experience or enduring a suboptimal ad-laden journey. This new popup progression follows a prior phase in which users were informed

In a move that echoes Microsoft's strategic shifts, the tech giant has officially discontinued the Cortana App for Windows. Launching the App would greet you with the following message: Cortana in Windows as a standalone app is deprecated. The support page further details the discontinuation: We're making some changes to Windows and Microsoft 365 that will impact Cortana users. Cortana in Windows as a standalone app is deprecated. Support for Cortana in Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams display, and Microsoft Teams Rooms will end in the fall of 2023. Cortana in Outlook mobile will continue to be available.     Analysis Cortana's journey commenced during the Windows Phone 8 era and seamlessly transitioned into Windows 10 in 2015. Expanding its reach, Microsoft also introduced the Cortana App for iPhone and Android platforms. This endeavor drew inspiration from the AI hologram of the same name in Microsoft's HALO series. However, Microsoft's attempts to posi

Holiday season is typically a busy season for shoppers, but right now, it's a busy season for the corporate lawyers across the technology industry. We have seen a ton of high-profile lawsuits over the past few months and now, Apple has been dragged into one as well. Daniel Ackerman, Editor-in-Chief of Gizmodo and author of "The Tetris Effect," has initiated legal proceedings against Apple and other parties associated with the Tetris Movie. Ackerman alleges that the movie has unlawfully appropriated elements from his work, "The Tetris Effect." Published in 2016, Ackerman's "The Tetris Effect" seamlessly intertwines historical events with his personal research. The lawsuit contends that the movie improperly borrows from his work, particularly framing the game's release within the context of a "Cold War spy thriller." According to the lawsuit: The movie entitled "Tetris" demonstrated the confiscation of Dan

Apple has released its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2023, ending on July 1, 2023. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $81.8 billion, down 1 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.26, up 5 percent year over year.   Let's dive into the numbers and analyze the performance of the company during this period. Revenue Overview Overall, Apple's revenues for the quarter were $81.797 billion, showing a slight decrease compared to $82.959 billion from the same period last year. This marks the third consecutive quarter with a year-on-year revenue decline for the company. Net Income Growth Despite the slight dip in revenues, Apple's net income for the quarter experienced a modest increase, reaching $19.881 billion, compared to $19.442 billion during the same period in the previous year. Revenue Breakdown by Product Categories Despite breakdown of the revenue by product categories, Apple doesn't provi

Amazon Clinic, the virtual message and video based medical consultation service from Amazon for more than 30 common health conditions has gone mainstream. The company announced the availability of the service across all 50 states and Washington DC in a blog post by Dr. Nworah Ayogu - Chief Medical Officer and General Manager of Amazon Clinic. In the post, Dr. Nworah Ayogu said: Last November, we introduced Amazon Clinic , a virtual health care marketplace that makes it easy for customers to quickly get the care they need for more than 30 common health concerns like urinary tract infections, pink eye, and erectile dysfunction.   He further said that the customers who have taken advantage of the trail service are generally satisfied with the service giving it a 96% approval rating. He also shared Amazon Clinic reviews: I woke up with pink eye and had prescription eye drops called in to my pharmacy within 15 minutes. I had the eye drops in ha

Samsung is gearing up for the second part of its highly-anticipated bi-annual Unpacked event, scheduled for July 27th at 7AM ET. The first part of this event took place back in February when Samsung unveiled its impressive S23 lineup alongside the Galaxy Book series, including the flagship Galaxy Book3 Ultra. However, the absence of the Galaxy Tab S9 series left fans eager for more. The upcoming event has been teased with the tagline "Join the Flip Side" in Samsung's marketing material, heavily hinting at the launch of the next generation of foldables, which includes the Galaxy Flip5 and Galaxy Fold5.    How to Watch the Event? The Galaxy Unpacked event will be live-streamed on Samsung's official website , as well as their YouTube account . For your convenience, we have included a direct link to the live stream in this post, so you can easily tune in and catch all the action. Here is the timings for various regions: 7:00 AM Eastern Time (ET) 4:00 AM Pacific T

According to information from undisclosed insiders, Microsoft has ceased production of the Surface Duo 2, as reported by Windows Central. Although a limited number of devices might still be available at select retailers, no new units will be manufactured. While the phone is slated to receive Android security updates until at least October 2024, prospects for further Android OS updates, specifically beyond 12L, appear highly doubtful. Windows Central's attempts to obtain comments from Microsoft regarding their intentions to update the phone to Android 13 or the subsequent Android 14 have been unsuccessful. In addition to this, Windows Central's report suggests that a "majority" of the software team for the Surface Duo 2 has been reassigned to work on the Android version of Teams Rooms. Earlier this year, online reports claimed that Microsoft had abandoned plans to make the Surface Duo 3, and had instead decided to work on a true foldable phone. However, there has been