An anonymous reader shares a report: Most people know that Microsoft really wants everyone to move onto Windows 11. But just in case there are some Windows 10 users still unaware of this fact, the company is once again nagging them to upgrade with full-screen, multi-slide popups. The lengthy advertisement for Windows 11 was highlighted by Windows Latest after it installed the optional January update (in preview) on a Windows 10 machine.

The nagging Windows 11 upgrade promo consists of an excruciating number of screens (i.e., more than one): The first informs users that they can switch to Windows 11 for free and that they can still use their PC while the newer OS is set up in the background; another is Microsoft recommending the move and noting that users can revert to Windows 10 within the first ten days of upgrading; the last is for those who decide to stay on Windows 10, with a reminder that Windows 11 remains a free upgrade option. There is another panel that lists some of Windows 11 features, but this only appears for those who select the 'See what's inside' button.

Mozilla claims in a new 74-page research report that Microsoft "repeatedly uses harmful design" and "dark patterns" to push users toward Microsoft Edge and away from rival browsers like Mozilla's Firefox or Google's Chrome browser. PCMag: "Microsoft uses the harmful preselection, visual interference, trick wording, and disguised ads patterns to skew user choice," the report argues, adding that "Microsoft's harmful design practices mean users are unable to download, install, use, or set as default an alternative browser without interference." The researchers claim this harms consumers because they can experience "distortion of choice," lose trust in the broader tech industry, and even possibly experience "emotional distress" as a result of Microsoft's efforts.

For the study, user experiences were tested on Windows 10 Home and Windows 11 Pro as well as the Windows 11 Home Insider Preview Version. The UK-based testers did not attempt to use a VPN to change or hide their IP addresses during their investigation. While Microsoft recently said it will allow users in the European Union to uninstall Edge as part of its efforts to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), it's unclear whether US, UK, or other users around the globe could ever get the same option. Some Windows 11 users can remove five other apps that come preinstalled, however.

For the first time, Microsoft's Q2 earnings report includes the impact of the company's $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition. "While Microsoft isn't breaking out specific numbers, it says that its overall gaming revenue increased by 49 percent, 44 points of which came from the 'net impact' of the Activision deal," reports Engadget. From the report: Microsoft's More Personal Computing division, which includes Xbox, Surface and Windows, was up 19 percent ($16.9 billion) since last year. The company says the Activision deal accounted for 15 points of that increase. It's a huge change for a division that's been severely impacted by dwindling PC sales (which affects Windows licenses and Surfaces) and struggling Xbox consoles. PC device revenues were down 9 percent for the quarter, while Xbox hardware sales were up 3 percent. Xbox content and services revenue is also up 61 percent since last year, 55 points of which comes from Activision. Overall, Microsoft reported revenues of $62 billion, up from $52.7 billion a year earlier. Microsoft's cloud division posted revenue growth of 28%, with its intelligent-cloud revenue up 20% to $25.9 billion. Meanwhile, its productivity and business-processes segment generated $19.2 billion.

Benj Edwards reports via Ars Technica: In a move that marks the end of an era, New Mexico State University (NMSU) recently announced the impending closure of its Hobbes OS/2 Archive on April 15, 2024. For over three decades, the archive has been a key resource for users of the IBM OS/2 operating system and its successors, which once competed fiercely with Microsoft Windows. In a statement made to The Register, a representative of NMSU wrote, "We have made the difficult decision to no longer host these files on hobbes.nmsu.edu. Although I am unable to go into specifics, we had to evaluate our priorities and had to make the difficult decision to discontinue the service."

Hobbes is hosted by the Department of Information & Communication Technologies at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. In the official announcement, the site reads, "After many years of service, hobbes.nmsu.edu will be decommissioned and will no longer be available. As of April 15th, 2024, this site will no longer exist." The earliest record we've found of the Hobbes archive online is this 1992 Walnut Creek CD-ROM collection that gathered up the contents of the archive for offline distribution. At around 32 years old, minimum, that makes Hobbes one of the oldest software archives on the Internet, akin to the University of Michigan's archives and ibiblio at UNC.

Apple's longest-running product is an increasingly small part of the company's business. And yet, it's never been more successful. Jason Snell, writing for The Verge: Twenty years ago, on the Mac's 20th anniversary, I asked Steve Jobs if the Mac would still be relevant to Apple in the age of the iPod. He scoffed at the prospect of the Mac not being important: "of course" it would be. Yet, 10 years later, Apple's revenue was increasingly dominated by the iPhone, and the recent success of the new iPad had provided another banner product for the company. When I interviewed Apple exec Phil Schiller for the Mac's 30th anniversary, I found myself asking him about the Mac's relevance, too. He also scoffed: "Our view is, the Mac keeps going forever," he said.

Today marks 40 years since Jobs unveiled the original Macintosh at an event in Cupertino, and it once again feels right to ask what's next for the Mac. Next week, Apple will release financial results that will reinforce that Mac sales are among the best they've been in the product's history. Then, a day later, Apple will release a new device, the Vision Pro, that will join the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch in an ever-expanding lineup of which the Mac is only one small part. As the Mac turns 40, it's never been more successful -- or more irrelevant to Apple's bottom line. It's undergone massive changes in the past few years that ensure its survival but also lash it to a hardware design process dominated by the iPhone. Being middle-aged can be complicated.

Mac users -- and I've been one of them for 34 of those 40 years -- have been on the defensive for most of the platform's existence. The original Mac cost $2,495 (equivalent to more than $7,300 today), and it had to compete with Apple's own Apple II series, which was more affordable and wildly successful. The Mac was far from a sure thing, even at Apple: in the years after the Mac was first introduced, Apple released multiple new Apple II models. (One even had a mouse and ran a version of the Mac's Finder file manager.) It took a long time for the Mac to emerge from the Apple II's shadow. And as revolutionary as the Mac's interface was -- it was the first popular personal computer to have a mouse-driven, menu-oriented user interface rather than a simple command line -- it also had to overcome an enormous amount of resistance for being such an outlier. Once Microsoft truly embraced the Mac's interface style with Windows, it took over the world, leaving the Mac with measly market share and diminishing prospects. Further reading:
Apple Shares the Secret of Why the 40-Year-Old Mac Still Rules.
Greg Joswiak on the Mac's Enduring Appeal.
Mac at 40: The Eras Tour.
40 Years Later, the Original Mac is More Amazing Than Ever.
The Birth of the Mac: Rolling Stone's 1984 Feature on Steve Jobs and His Whiz Kids (March 1, 1984).

Version 9.0 of Wine, the free and open-source compatibility layer that lets you run Windows apps on Unix-like operating systems, has been released. "Highlights of Wine 9.0 include an experimental Wayland graphics driver with features like basic window management, support for multiple monitors, high-DPI scaling, relative motion events, as well as Vulkan support," reports 9to5Linux. From the report: The Vulkan driver has been updated to support Vulkan 1.3.272 and later, the PostScript driver has been reimplemented to work from Windows-format spool files and avoid any direct calls from the Unix side, and there's now a dark theme option on WinRT theming that can be enabled in WineCfg. Wine 9.0 also adds support for many more instructions to Direct3D 10 effects, implements the Windows Media Video (WMV) decoder DirectX Media Object (DMO), implements the DirectShow Audio Capture and DirectShow MPEG-1 Video Decoder filters, and adds support for video and system streams, as well as audio streams to the DirectShow MPEG-1 Stream Splitter filter.

Desktop integration has been improved in this release to allow users to close the desktop window in full-screen desktop mode by using the "Exit desktop" entry in the Start menu, as well as support for export URL/URI protocol associations as URL handlers to the Linux desktop. Audio support has been enhanced in Wine 9.0 with the implementation of several DirectMusic modules, DLS1 and DLS2 sound font loading, support for the SF2 format for compatibility with Linux standard MIDI sound fonts, Doppler shift support in DirectSound, Indeo IV50 Video for Windows decoder, and MIDI playback in dmsynth.

Among other noteworthy changes, Wine 9.0 brings loader support for ARM64X and ARM64EC modules, along with the ability to run existing Windows binaries on ARM64 systems and initial support for building Wine for the ARM64EC architecture. There's also a new 32-bit x86 emulation interface, a new WoW64 mode that supports running of 32-bit apps on recent macOS versions that don't support 32-bit Unix processes, support for DirectInput action maps to improve compatibility with many old video games that map controller inputs to in-game actions, as well as Windows 10 as the default Windows version for new prefixes. Last but not least, the kernel has been updated to support address space layout randomization (ASLR) for modern PE binaries, better memory allocation performance through the Low Fragmentation Heap (LFH) implementation, and support memory placeholders in the virtual memory allocator to allow apps to reserve virtual space. Wine 9.0 also adds support for smart cards, adds support for Diffie-Hellman keys in BCrypt, implements the Negotiate security package, adds support for network interface change notifications, and fixes many bugs. For a full list of changes, check out the release notes. You can download Wine 9.0 from WineHQ.

Karl Bode, reporting for TechDirt: Back in 2019 we noted how the streaming sector risked driving consumers back to piracy if they didn't heed the lessons of the past. We explored how the rush to raise rates, nickel-and-dime users, implement arbitrary restrictions, and force users toward hunting and pecking their way through a confusing platter of exclusives and availability windows risked driving befuddled users back to piracy. And lo and behold, that's exactly what's happening.

After several decades of kicking and screaming, studio and music execs somewhere around 2010 finally realized they needed to offer users affordable access to easy-to-use online content resources. They finally realized they needed to compete with piracy and focus on consumer satisfaction whether they liked the concept or not. And unsurprisingly, once they learned that lesson piracy began to dramatically decrease. That was until 2021, when piracy rates began to climb slowly upward again in the U.S. and EU. As the Daily Beast notes, users have grown increasingly frustrated at having to hunt and peck through a universe of different, often terrible streaming services just to find a single film or television program.

As every last broadcaster, cable company, broadband provider, and tech company got into streaming they began to lock down "must watch" content behind an ever-shifting number of exclusivity silos, across an ocean of sometimes substandard "me too" services. Initially competition worked, but as the market saturated and the most powerful companies started to silo content, those benefits have been muted. Now users have to hunt and peck between Disney+, Netflix, Starz, Max, Apple+, Acorn, Paramount+, Hulu, Peacock, Amazon Prime, and countless other services in the hopes that a service has the rights to a particular film or program. When you already pay for five different services, you're not keen to sign up to fucking Starz just to watch a single 90s film. And availability is constantly shifting, confusing things further.

Dan Goodin reports via Ars Technica: Software maker Ivanti is urging users of its end-point security product to patch a critical vulnerability that makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to execute malicious code inside affected networks. The vulnerability, in a class known as a SQL injection, resides in all supported versions of the Ivanti Endpoint Manager. Also known as the Ivanti EPM, the software runs on a variety of platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS, and Internet of Things devices such as routers. SQL injection vulnerabilities stem from faulty code that interprets user input as database commands or, in more technical terms, from concatenating data with SQL code without quoting the data in accordance with the SQL syntax. CVE-2023-39336, as the Ivanti vulnerability is tracked, carries a severity rating of 9.6 out of a possible 10.

"If exploited, an attacker with access to the internal network can leverage an unspecified SQL injection to execute arbitrary SQL queries and retrieve output without the need for authentication," Ivanti officials wrote Friday in a post announcing the patch availability. "This can then allow the attacker control over machines running the EPM agent. When the core server is configured to use SQL express, this might lead to RCE on the core server." RCE is short for remote code execution, or the ability for off-premises attackers to run code of their choice. Currently, there's no known evidence the vulnerability is under active exploitation. Ivanti has also published a disclosure that is restricted only to registered users. A copy obtained by Ars said Ivanti learned of the vulnerability in October. [...]

Putting devices running Ivanti EDM behind a firewall is a best practice and will go a long way to mitigating the severity of CVE-2023-39336, but it would likely do nothing to prevent an attacker who has gained limited access to an employee workstation from exploiting the critical vulnerability. It's unclear if the vulnerability will come under active exploitation, but the best course of action is for all Ivanti EDM users to install the patch as soon as possible.

Microsoft is adding a dedicated "Copilot" key to PC keyboards, adjusting the standard Windows layout for the first time since 1994. The key will open its AI assistant Copilot on Windows 10 and 11. On Copilot-enabled PCs, users can already invoke Copilot by pressing Windows+C. On other PCs, the key will open Search instead. ArsTechnica adds: A quick Microsoft demo video shows the Copilot key in between the cluster of arrow keys and the right Alt button, a place where many keyboards usually put a menu button, a right Ctrl key, another Windows key, or something similar. The exact positioning, and the key being replaced, may vary depending on the size and layout of the keyboard.

We asked Microsoft if a Copilot key would be required on OEM PCs going forward; the company told us that the key isn't mandatory now, but that it expects Copilot keys to be required on Windows 11 keyboards "over time." Microsoft often imposes some additional hardware requirements on major PC makers that sell Windows on their devices, beyond what is strictly necessary to run Windows itself.

Steam: As of January 1 2024, Steam has officially stopped supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems. After that date, existing Steam Client installations on these operating systems will no longer receive updates of any kind including security updates. Steam Support will be unable to offer users technical support for issues related to the old operating systems, and Steam will be unable to guarantee continued functionality of Steam on the unsupported operating system versions.

In order to ensure continued operation of Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users should update to a more recent version of Windows. We expect the Steam client and games on these older operating systems to continue running for some time without updates after January 1st, 2024, but we are unable to guarantee continued functionality after that date. The Verge adds: 95.57 percent of surveyed Steam users are already on Windows 10 and 11, with nearly 2 percent of the remainder on Linux and 1.5 percent on Mac -- so we may be talking about fewer than 1 percent of users on these older Windows builds. Older versions of MacOS will also lose support on February 15th, just a month and a half from now.

Microsoft is working on significant updates to its Surface Pro and Surface Laptop lines. According to Windows Central, new devices "will be announced in the spring and will be marketed as Microsoft's first true next-gen AI PCs." From the report: For the first time, both Surface Pro and Surface Laptop will be available in Intel and Arm flavors, and both will have next-gen NPU (neural processing unit) silicon. Sources are particularly excited about the Arm variants, which I understand will be powered by a custom version of Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Series chips. Internally, Microsoft is calling next-generation Arm devices powered by Qualcomm's new chips "CADMUS" PCs. These PCs are purpose-built for the next version of Windows, codenamed Hudson Valley, and will utilize many of the upcoming next-gen AI experiences Microsoft is building into the 2024 release of Windows. Specifically, Microsoft touts CADMUS PCs as being genuinely competitive with Apple Silicon, sporting similar battery life, performance, and security. The next Surface Pro and Surface Laptop are expected to be some of the first CADMUS PCs to ship next year in preparation for the Hudson Valley release coming later in 2024.

So, what's changing with the Surface Laptop 6? I'm told this new Surface Laptop will finally have an updated design with thinner bezels, rounded display corners, and more ports. This will be the first time that Microsoft's Surface Laptop line is getting a design refresh, which is well overdue. The Surface Laptop 6 will again be available in two sizes. However, I'm told the smaller model will have a slightly larger 13.8-inch display, up from 13.5 inches on the Surface Laptop 5. Sources say the larger model remains at 15-inches. I'm told Surface Laptop 6 will also have an expanded selection of ports, including two USB-C ports and one USB-A port, along with the magnetic Surface Connect charging port. Microsoft is also adding a haptic touchpad (likely with Sensel technology) and a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard deck for quick access to Windows Copilot.

The next Surface Pro is also shaping into a big update, although not as drastic as the Surface Laptop 6. According to my sources, the most significant changes coming to Surface Pro 10 are mostly related to its display, which sources say is now brighter with support for HDR content, has a new anti-reflective coating to reduce glare, and now also sports rounded display corners. I've also heard that Microsoft is testing a version of Surface Pro 10 with a slightly lower-resolution 2160 x 1440 display, down from the 2880 x 1920 screen found on previous Surface Pro models. Sources say this lower-resolution panel is only being considered for lower-tier models, meaning the more expensive models will continue to ship with the higher-resolution display. Lastly, I also hear Microsoft is equipping the next Surface Pro with an NFC reader for commercial customers and a wider FoV webcam, which will be enhanced with Windows Studio Effects. It should also be available in new colors. I've also heard we may get an updated Type Cover accessory with a dedicated Copilot button for quick access to Windows Copilot.

"10 years later, the demise of Google Reader still stings," writes PC Magazine. But "Time marches on and corporate priorities shift. Here are the products and services that took a final bow in 2023..."

Some of the highlights? 'Clubhouse' Clones
In the early days of the pandemic, when Zoom happy hours and sourdough starters proliferated, Clubhouse burst onto the scene with an app that facilitated audio-only chats between groups large and small. Tech giants quickly churned out their own Clubhouse clones, but these party-line throwbacks were not long for this world. Facebook was the first to go, ditching its Live Audio Rooms in December 2022, but 2023 also saw the end of Reddit Talk, Spotify Live, and Amazon's live radio DJ Amp app. [X Spaces is still around]

Amazon Smile
Launched in 2013, AmazonSmile saw Amazon donate 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases made through smile.amazon.com to charity, with consumers able to choose from over a million charitable organizations to support. On Feb. 20, however, the program shut down because it "has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped," Amazon said at the time.

NFTs on Facebook and Instagram
Remember non-fungible tokens (NFTs)? Somehow, crypto bros convinced people to spend big bucks on what are essentially JPEGs. (Don't try to convince me otherwise.) Meta got in on the action in 2022, allowing Instagram users to create NFTs and Facebook users to share them. It didn't exactly set either social network on fire and Meta said in March it would be "winding down digital collectibles."

Cortana on Windows
In June, AI claimed its latest victim by coming after Microsoft's Cortana. The voice assistant never really made a splash compared to Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri, and with the launch of Bing Chat (now Copilot), Microsoft removed Cortana as a built-in app on Windows.
Also on the list are Blizzard's Overwatch League, third-party Reddit clients, and Venmo as a payment option on Amazon (effective this January 10).

Looking further into the future, Gmail's Basic HTML View disappears in 2024, while Wordpad will eventually be removed in an unspecified future release of Windows.

According to Canalys Research, Microsoft's plan to end support for Windows 10 could result in about 240 million computers being sent to landfills. "The electronic waste from these PCs could weigh an estimated 480 million kilograms, equivalent to 320,000 cars," adds Reuters. From the report: While many PCs could remain functional for years post the end of OS support, Canalys warned demand for devices without security updates could be low. Microsoft announced a plan to provide security updates for Windows 10 devices until October 2028 for an undisclosed annual price. If the pricing structure for extended Windows 10 support mirrors past trends, migrating to newer PCs could be more cost-effective, increasing the number of older PCs heading to scrap, Canalys said.

Longtime Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: Microsoft has released a new software tool to remove printer software from HP that was installed without user permission or system need. A few weeks ago, users noticed that Windows Update installed HP printer software even if they did not have HP printers or printers at all. Affecting Windows 10 and 11, consumers reported that this update sometimes caused problems as it could rename their non-HP printers as HP printers causing some printing features to be inaccessible. Microsoft has not disclosed the root cause of the issue. The fix released by Microsoft requires users to download and run a dedicated troubleshooting tool available from Microsoft's support site. "There are four different versions of the troubleshooter, depending on whether you have the 32- or 64-bit version of an Arm or x86 version of Windows," notes Ars Technica. "Microsoft will also release an additional recommended troubleshooting tool 'in the coming weeks' that will fix the problem in Windows 11 upon a user's request without requiring the download of a separate tool."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Thirty years ago, a botanist in Germany had a simple wish: to see the inner workings of woody plants without dissecting them. By bleaching away the pigments in plant cells, Siegfried Fink managed to create transparent wood, and he published his technique in a niche wood technology journal. The 1992 paper remained the last word on see-through wood for more than a decade, until a researcher named Lars Berglund stumbled across it. Berglund was inspired by Fink's discovery, but not for botanical reasons. The materials scientist, who works at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, specializes in polymer composites and was interested in creating a more robust alternative to transparent plastic. And he wasn't the only one interested in wood's virtues. Across the ocean, researchers at the University of Maryland were busy on a related goal: harnessing the strength of wood for nontraditional purposes.

Now, after years of experiments, the research of these groups is starting to bear fruit. Transparent wood could soon find uses in super-strong screens for smartphones; in soft, glowing light fixtures; and even as structural features, such as color-changing windows. "I truly believe this material has a promising future," says Qiliang Fu, a wood nanotechnologist at Nanjing Forestry University in China who worked in Berglund's lab as a graduate student. Wood is made up of countless little vertical channels, like a tight bundle of straws bound together with glue. These tube-shaped cells transport water and nutrients throughout a tree, and when the tree is harvested and the moisture evaporates, pockets of air are left behind. To create see-through wood, scientists first need to modify or get rid of the glue, called lignin, that holds the cell bundles together and provides trunks and branches with most of their earthy brown hues. After bleaching lignin's color away or otherwise removing it, a milky-white skeleton of hollow cells remains. This skeleton is still opaque, because the cell walls bend light to a different degree than the air in the cell pockets does -- a value called a refractive index. Filling the air pockets with a substance like epoxy resin that bends light to a similar degree to the cell walls renders the wood transparent.

The material the scientists worked with is thin -- typically less than a millimeter to around a centimeter thick. But the cells create a sturdy honeycomb structure, and the tiny wood fibers are stronger than the best carbon fibers, says materials scientist Liangbing Hu, who leads the research group working on transparent wood at the University of Maryland in College Park. And with the resin added, transparent wood outperforms plastic and glass: In tests measuring how easily materials fracture or break under pressure, transparent wood came out around three times stronger than transparent plastics like Plexiglass and about 10 times tougher than glass. "The results are amazing, that a piece of wood can be as strong as glass," says Hu, who highlighted the features of transparent wood in the 2023 Annual Review of Materials Research.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Windows 10's end-of-support date is October 14, 2025. That's the day that most Windows 10 PCs will receive their last security update and the date when most people should find a way to move to Windows 11 to ensure that they stay secure. As it has done for other stubbornly popular versions of Windows, though, Microsoft is offering a reprieve for those who want or need to stay on Windows 10: three additional years of security updates, provided to those who can pay for the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program.

The initial announcement, written by Windows Servicing and Delivery Principal Product Manager Jason Leznek, spends most of its time encouraging users and businesses to upgrade to Windows 11 rather than staying on 10, either by updating their current computers, upgrading to new PCs or transitioning to a Windows 365 cloud-based PC instead. But when Leznek does get to the announcement of the ESU program, the details are broadly similar to the program Microsoft offered for Windows 7 a few years ago: three additional years of monthly security updates and technical support, paid for one year at a time. The company told us that "pricing will be provided at a later date," but for the Windows 7 version of the ESU program, Microsoft upped the cost of the program each year to encourage people to upgrade to a newer Windows version before they absolutely had to; the cost was also per-seat, so what you paid was proportional to the number of PCs you needed updates for.

One difference this time is that Microsoft told us it would be offering Windows 10 ESU updates to individuals, though the company didn't offer particulars. More details should be available on Windows 10's lifecycle support page soon. Leznek reiterated that Windows 10 22H2 would be the final version of Windows 10 and that the operating system would not receive any additional features during the ESU period.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from XDA Developers: A few days ago, we spotted that the HP Smart App was being installed on people's PCs without their consent. Even worse, the app would reappear if users tried to uninstall it or clean-installed Windows. Now, the cause has finally been identified: a recent Windows 10 and 11 update is renaming everyone's printers to "HP LaserJet M101-M106" regardless of what model it actually is. As reported on Windows Latest, the latest update for Windows 10 and 11 seems to think that people's printers are an HP LaserJet model, regardless of their actual brand. It's believed that the bug appeared after HP pushed its latest metadata to Windows Update, but something went awry in the code and caused other printers to be labeled as HP LaserJet printers.

This explains why the HP Smart App has been sneaking onto people's computers without their consent. A key part of Windows Update is keeping third-party drivers and devices updated, including downloading any apps that the devices depend on. After the printer metadata incorrectly identified everyone's printers as HP LaserJet printers, Windows installed all the software needed for an HP printer to work smoothly, including the HP Smart App. Fortunately, the bug only affects the metadata for the printer. While the printer may show up with a different name on your system, you should still be able to send print jobs to it. Microsoft has since removed the fault metadata from Windows Update, so anyone performing a clean install from now on should get their original printer's name back and stop the HP Smart App from re-downloading. Further reading: HP Exec Says Quiet Part Out Loud When It Comes To Locking in Print Customers

Windows users are reporting that Hewlett Packard's HP Smart application is appearing on their systems, despite them not having any of the company's hardware attached. From a report: While Microsoft has remained tight-lipped on what is happening, folks on various social media platforms noted the app's appearance, which seems to afflict both Windows 10 and Windows 11. The Windows Update mechanism is used to deploy third-party applications and drivers as well as Microsoft's updates, and we'd bet someone somewhere has accidentally checked the wrong box.

Up to now, the response from affected users has been one of confusion. One noted on Reddit: "I thought that was just me. I didn't install it, it just appeared on new apps in start menu out of nowhere." Another said: "I just checked and I had it installed too. Checking the event log for the Microsoft Store shows that it installed earlier today, but I definitely did [not] request or initiate it because I do not have any devices from HP." And, of course, there was the inevitable: "Would it be that hard for Microsoft to just provide an operating system without needless bloat?" To be clear, not all users are affected.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Air pollution from traffic can cause a significant rise in blood pressure that can last up to 24 hours, according to a study via the University of Washington. The spike is comparable to the effect of a high-sodium diet and can contribute to cardiovascular problems. Long-term exposure to vehicle exhaust has been widely linked with respiratory problems such as asthma, especially in children. "Traffic air pollution increases blood pressure within an hour of being in traffic and it stays elevated a day later," said author of the study Joel Kaufman, a physician and professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington.

Sixteen healthy people between the ages of 22 and 45 underwent three separate drives as passengers through Seattle rush hour. Two of those drives were "unfiltered," meaning the road air was allowed to enter the car, as is the case for many drivers on the road today. On the third drive, a Hepa (high efficiency particulate absorbing) filter was installed in the car, with participants unaware which drive had filtration. The researchers measured the blood pressure of the passengers before, during and after the two-hour drive. Breathing unfiltered air resulted in blood pressure increase of more than 4.5mm Hg (millimeters of mercury) compared to filtered air. Most of the pollution came from tailpipe exhaust or the fossil fuel combustion, as well as brake and tire wear. The filters were most effective in reducing ultrafine particles (86% decrease), black carbon, which is mostly from diesel (86%), and PM2.5 (60%) while gasses like carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide were unaffected. "The clue here is that these tiniest particles are probably what's responsible for blood pressure difference," Kaufman said.

"If you live in an area that has heavy traffic-related air pollution, you want to keep your windows closed and have air filtration capability in your home."

Bill Gates argues that when it comes to climate change, "there are more reasons to be hopeful than many people realize — and it's not just that renewable energy sources like wind and solar are getting cheaper.

"And it's not just because many of the steps already taken to reduce carbon emissions are working: Carbon emissions from fossil fuels will probably peak in 2025." The main thing that makes me optimistic is all the innovation I'm seeing. As someone who has been funding climate solutions for years, I get to learn from ingenious scientists who are working on ideas that will help the world solve climate change. And their work makes me confident that innovation will help the world get on track to meet its climate goals.

Some people are skeptical when a technology person like me says innovation is the answer. And it's true that new tools aren't the only thing we need. But we won't solve the climate problem without them.

There are two reasons for this. First, we need to eliminate emissions from every sector of the economy. Although some behavior change will help, the world can't achieve its zero-emissions goals without inventing new ways of doing things. For example, the production of concrete and steel alone accounts for around 10 percent of the world's annual greenhouse gases, but right now, we don't have practical ways to make either one without releasing carbon dioxide.

The second reason is that, in a world with limited resources, innovations allow us to magnify the impact of our efforts... We couldn't solve the climate problem with existing technology even if we had unlimited resources — and, of course, we don't have unlimited resources. So we need to be as rigorous as possible about doing the most good with the funding that is available. In my view, that boils down to inventing and deploying new ways to cut emissions and to help people survive and thrive in a warming world.
Gates believes we're at "the beginning of a Clean Industrial Revolution" --pointing readers to Breakthrough Energy's recent State of the Transition Report for more details.

But Gates also provides some specific examples of optimism-fuleing breakthroughs"

• "To reduce emissions, we need to replace the synthetic fertilizers that release nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, when broken down by microbes in the soil; Pivot Bio has genetically modified microbes to provide plants with the nitrogen they need without the excess greenhouse gases that synthetic alternatives produce."

• "Cement and steel are two of the biggest sources of emissions in this category. Boston Metal is well on the way to making steel with electricity (which can be generated without emissions) instead of coal. CarbonCure and Ecocem have developed low-carbon processes for making cement, and Brimstone has a way to do it while actually removing carbon from the air."

• "Because of inefficient windows and gaps in what's known as the building envelope, as much as 40% of heated or cooled air leaks out of the typical building. If we can drive that number down, buildings will require less heating and cooling — which will substantially lower our emissions. Aeroseal has developed a polymer that can seal ducts and other crevices; more than a quarter of a million buildings in the U.S. and Canada are already using their product. Another company, Luxwall, has developed a window that's many times more efficient than the single-pane windows used in most buildings. And unlike double-paned windows, it's thin enough to replace single-paned glass without having to rebuild the frame."