We moved to a new Home! DAILY HYPOTHESIS

Hi CHA REVIEWS fans,

We have moved to a new home with the same standards and breaking news and covering a large variety of TOPICS. Politics, MUSIC, TECH, and COMICS only at dailyhypothesis.wordpress.com. Daily Hypothesis will be the home to every insight and analysis of every topic. So stay tuned.

Windows 10: the top 10 most requested features

– via The Verge

Microsoft is currently soliciting feedback for Windows 10 as part of a Technical Preview program to improve the features of the company’s next version of Windows. While testers are voting on a variety of changes that Paul Thurrott has documented well, Microsoft has also opened its own Windows feature suggestion page at the Uservoice feedback site. The software maker has previously used Uservoice for Windows Phone, and strong Uservoice support for the Cortana name actually swayed the company to keep the name following several leaks. So it’s clear the company looks at Uservoice closely. Here are the top 10 requests for Windows 10 features.

Add tabs to File Explorer

This suggestion is self explanatory. A tabbed interface for File Explorer would allow Windows 10 users to simply tab through different folders instead of having multiple folders open that clutter the desktop. A number of third-party solutions currently exist, and the suggestion includes the ability to view two tabbed folders side-by-side in a single Explorer window.

Make Windows Update the one stop for all drivers

Again, another simple request. Microsoft has added a variety of OEM drivers to its Windows Update service, but more often than not you still have to dig around the web to find the latest drivers. It shouldn’t be this way, especially for consumers. A lot of PC makers now have their own separate update tools, and the suggestion calls for Microsoft to own the process entirely to make Windows Update the one stop for all PC drivers.

Add a Persian calendar to Windows

This might not seem like the most obvious addition for Microsoft, but it’s clearly one that some Windows users want. With 983 votes at Uservoice, it’s as simple as adding a Persian calendar to Windows 10.

Bring back Aero Glass

With Apple bringing some transparent effects to OS X Yosemite, some Windows users are calling for the return of Aero Glass. Microsoft first introduced this feature in Windows Vista, but Microsoft cut most of the window transparency in Windows 8 to focus on improved battery life. The feedback request notes that millions of PCs are desktops and are equipped with capable graphics cards and memory to handle Aero Glass. Microsoft has added some drop shadow effects to the Windows 10 Technical Preview, so there are signs the UI could change a lot before the operating system ships.

Redesign and replace all Windows icons

Windows users have been calling on Microsoft to redesign its ancient iconography for years. Although some recent versions of Windows have improved upon this, there are still a number of areas you can stumble across where you’ll see an icon from 20 years ago. Long Zheng, a user experience designer from Australia, created a Windows UI Taskforce ahead of the Windows 7 release to encourage Microsoft to fix its many user interface quirks. Unfortunately, many still exist in Windows 8 today. There are signs in the Windows 10 Technical Preview that Microsoft is overhauling its iconography, as the File Explorer icon has a flat look to it now.

Provide a better Notepad application

The basic Notepad.exe application in Windows hasn’t really changed over the years. While Paint has been improved with a Ribbon and interface tweaks, Notepad is as simple as ever. While there is a Wordpad alternative built-in, some on Uservoice feel the default notepad application should be better. No support for Unix line endings, double click to select words is inconsistent, and undo doesn’t work well according to the feature request. Those are reasonable observations, and it’s probably about time Microsoft offered something as good as Notepad++ as the default in Windows 10.

Make Windows free for everyone

Anything free makes it into any good list, and some Windows users just don’t want to pay for the next version of Windows. “Simple as that,” notes the feedback, but it’s far from it. Microsoft still generates a huge amount of revenue from Windows, and although the company has made Windows Phone and Windows free for tablets under 9 inches, it’s highly unlikely the company will extend that to everything else anytime soon. Microsoft may, however, make Windows 10 free for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users. That would be a wise move to avoid Windows 7 becoming the next Windows XP.

Let me pin anything to the Start Screen

The Start Screen in Windows 8 supports “Metro-style” apps and traditional desktop apps for pinning, alongside Internet Explorer bookmarks. If you want to pin a file you’re out of luck. This popular feature request asks for exactly that, just let people pin anything to the Start Screen to make it more useful.

Windows 10 will run everywhere?

– via Wired

Myerson says Windows 10 will run on “the broadest range of devices ever,” from small “internet of things” gadgets set up in offices and homes, to game consoles, to handheld tablets and phones, to computer servers that drive websites and other business software inside massive data centers.

“Some of these devices have four-inch screens. Some of these devices have 80-inch screens. Some don’t have any screen at all,” Microsoft’s Windows chief proclaimed on Tuesday morning while unveiling an early version of its latest operating system at a press event in San Francisco. “Some you hold in your hand. Some you sit 10 feet away from and use with a controller or gestures. Some include a touchpad, some a mouse and keyboard. Some switch between input devices.”

All this sounds rather impressive. The question is what it actually means for the people and businesses interested in using the upcoming operating system—and that’s a question worth asking. As Myerson said during yesterday’s event, 1.5 billion people now use Windows in one form or another. But few use Windows on phones or tablets, it’s losing ground to the open-source Linux operating system in the data center, and relatively few businesses have moved to the latest flagship version of the OS, Windows 8. As it faces increasing competition—in various markets—from the likes of Apple and Google, Microsoft is fighting to maintain its place in the computing universe, particularly its place inside the world’s businesses.

According to David Johnson, an analyst with Massachusetts-based research firm Forrester Research, only about one-in-five businesses are currently offering Windows 8 machines to employees, and the older Windows 7 will reach the end of its life in 2020. “Microsoft has to give enterprises a reason to move to a new version before it becomes a crisis,” he says, warning that companies like Apple and Google will step into the breach.

That’s why Myerson is pitching Windows 10 as an OS that runs everywhere. At least nominally, Apple and Google still offer disparate OSes for disparate machines—Apple with Mac OS for desktops and iOS for mobile devices, Google with ChromeOS and Android. Myerson wants to show that Microsoft is doing something that others aren’t. But, really, what does his pitch ultimately mean? And how much does it matter?

Basically, it means that the same core operating system code will run wearables, game consoles, phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and servers—though, naturally, disparate devices will still offer different interfaces and other tools atop this core code. Microsoft has been moving in this direction for the past several years, and now, it seems, Windows 10 is taking things further.

But what does that mean? Well, Myerson tells WIRED it will ultimately lead to a more effective and reliable OS running across those myriad devices. “There’s quality that comes with scale,” he tells WIRED. “The same code being on the client? There’s so much quality and reliability that can then go into the server.”

Certainly, he has a point here. But Microsoft sharing core code in this way is nothing new. Its server, desktop, phone, and game console OSes already use a lot of the same core code, and, well, this kind of thing happens all the time. When it comes right down to it, Apple’s Mac OS X and iOS use much of the same core code, though they’re separate OSes in many ways. Google’s ChromeOS and Android are both based on Linux.

Myerson also says that the new Windows 10 will allow software developers to more easily build applications that run across disparate machines, and that the company will offer a “universal” app store that serves all devices. You know, it’s the old “write once, run anywhere” pitch. “Developers can write once and target many systems,” Myerson explains. A coder could build an app that, say, runs on both a desktop and a tablet or both a wearable and a server.

But how often will that really be possible? How often will it be necessary? Microsoft hinted that the Xbox will be able to run more applications built for desktops and laptops, but it’s unclear how this will work. And it’s unclear how many developers will really want to build apps that span devices at opposite ends of the spectrum. “There are examples where the answer is a categorical ‘Yes,’ and there are examples where the answer is ‘Of course not,’” he says, when asked about the possibility of wearable/server apps. “But this is about allowing coders to make their code available in more places.”

The idea is that the ubiquity of Windows 10 will lead to more applications on all devices, but while “write-once, run-anywhere” is easy to say, it’s really hard to pull off. In fact, it’s near impossible. Microsoft already took a step down the “same code” road with Windows 8—the predecessor to Windows 10—offering the same core software on both desktops and mobile devices, but coders are still required to do a lot of extra work if they want to build an app that runs in both places. Microsoft may take another step forward with Windows 10, making it easier to build apps for multiple devices, but how far? Even if the different devices use the same core code, developers still have to make changes in building software for each one. After all, they’re different devices.