They keep wanting to turn the OS into a bunch of non-optional, deeply-integrated, unremoveable, application-layer talkie assistants.

It's been the same for decades - Active Desktop, the little paperclips and wizards, etc. Microsoft Bob infected them and they're still trying to make it happen.

If Windows was an OS, and Copilot was an optional app that you could download for free or buy, and which any similar AI assistant could plug into your OS in the same way (e.g. so you could choose Gemini or ChatGPT to help in your OS instead), and there was an option to just say "No, none of that"... I'd probably stick with Windows.

But my last 10 machine at home is coming to its end, and its replacement is not going to run Windows. Purely because... you forgot where the OS ends, and my data and my applications begin.

I just want the OS. I'm not interested in ANYTHING ELSE that you have to push. I don't have Office. I don't use Teams. I couldn't give a damn about Copilot or AI. I just want something that boots to a desktop and lets me click the icons of programs that *I* have chosen to put on there.

It's simply not possible on Windows. They proved with IE, literally broke the same laws again with Edge, now it's Copilot, etc. No. And now you're not just being a pain in the butt, intercepting my web traffic to pop up ads for your browser ("There's no need to download a different browser..."), but now you're actually reading all my data and taking screenshots of my screen.

I'm done. Make an OS and the rest as applications and not only would it reveal quite how many people WANT Copilot etc. but it would also mean that you wouldn't be literally breaking the anti-monopoly laws like you have for several decades now.

I live in an all-electric house.

I bought heatpumps within the first 2 years of buying it. Heating with resistive electric is expensive and inefficient (technically it's about 100% efficient... which is awful compared to a heatpump which can be MORE efficient... because it uses the tiny amount o of heat already present in the air outside your house, even in sub-zero temperatures).

My electricity bill is one-third of what it was when I moved in, purely because of heatpumps. By comparison, I have also moved all my home IT to half a dozen individual Raspberry Pi's which, collectively, run at about ~100W... less than it costs to run my laptop, let alone a server.

Most people are trying to reduce their base load and reduce their heating costs, not increase them.

Can it put the fecking taskbar icons back where they were? And let me drag it around the screen? And bring back the start menu? And finally move everything into either control panel or Settings (but not both)? And actually let me choose to NOT update if I so wish? And making things an OFF BY DEFAULT OPTION first, and never removing an option, just switching it off for those who don't want it? And letting me theme Office again so I can make it look like Office 2000? And ....

Because I absolutely hate AI with every fibre of my being, but if lets me do those things, I might well consider supporting it.

Good for you.

Now...

When can we fecking buy it?

Yeah, no doubt. But for all the good they do me, right?

Untethered means battery-powered wifi gaming.

Immediately, not interested.

I can play my Vive Pro as long as I like (e.g. at a party we can all have a go for hours), it's reliant on the power of the machine connected to it, not the device itself, and it provides tech specs far in advance of the wireless junk.

I solved that problem with a hook in the ceiliing and one of those springy-cord things (like people used to have on their keys) so that you can move in literally any direction and it doesn't matter at all as the cable will follow you, and then spring back to the hook when you step back again.

Literally a $10 solution, never had an issue after that.

Yeah, you remember when all the game-streaming services failed because they just couldn't actually overcome the latency issues?

And you know that in VR, latency is the thing that makes you feel travel sick and/or have an awful experience? (Good VR sets have such low latency that it's incredible, and this is basically a non-issue, but even a poorly-programmed game can introduce enough latency to have this effect even with perfect hardware).

And that wireless tech - regardless of its implementation - is subject to local radio noise and will "hang up" if there's interference?

Streaming shite to VR is a TERRIBLE idea. That's why they often need proprietary cables to do it, as per the OP.

I use Bing, and I get Microsoft Rewards points for that. Each month, the points I earn are automatically donated to the Wikimedia Foundation. Just sayin'.

Welllll, a bunch of countries use VAT, where you pay whatever is on the label. In the US, what you pay for a product will depend on where you buy it, despite it having the same price on the tag..

"Use" is relative, unless you mean "figure out how to cancel it."

I don't know. From what I can tell, Tizen seems OK. I just don't know how much "software" you really need in a television.

Hell, I don't like it now!

One reason I can think of is that different states and municipalities impose different rates of sales tax at the register. Multiplying a retail price by 8.75% may not always produce an even, round number.

If it was intelligent, it would be making its own money by now.