I don't know that MS has been caught doing data transfers specifically(though they'd have to screw it up or have it leaked at a fairly high level to get caught; 'cloud' is basically always opaque on the back end as far as the customer can see); but there have been a couple of instances recently of service getting cancelled. When Trump got into a snit with the ICC cut their chief prosecutor off(Brad Smith mollified more or less nobody with the claim that they didn't cancel service to the ICC, just to the senior official that the feds were upset with, which is probably technically true in the sense of account GUIDs but not usefully true); and the also kicked Unit 8200 out of their cozy custom Azure environment; though apparently with enough notice that they were able to move the data somewhere else.

It seems likely that random European corporations see themselves as lower profile and less vulnerable than the ICC or Israeli military intelligence; but if anyone doing risk assessment for them hasn't at least considered the fact that basically a belligerent old man would just have to decide that they are 'very unfair' tomorrow; or that someone other than greenland needs to be brought into the homeland, and that would potentially be all it takes for your MS EA to just stop talking to you then they aren't doing their jobs very thoroughly.

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone trying to use the waste heat that all this computer power is generating? I realize that would impact cooling a little, but surely SOME of this can be recovered efficiently? Steam turbines are the usual way to turn heat into electrical power. Is there no way to do it for data centers?

For example, use a heat pump to concentrate the heat to above boiling temperature then use that to boil water to run a steam turbine. The heat pump would require some power to run, but I think you could run that at a net-positive for power?

that pardon cost? Trump doesn't strike me as the type to do anything like that for free.

"Generative" they said...

In the new CEO's expertly crafted I-am-villain statement; he explains: "The past, he added in an email, is “simply not relevant to the new future.”"

I, um, guess it was polite of him to not talk about "the bigger picture" to the people whose eyes he shut down?

It may be a trite saying, but it's as true in education as it is in a gym. If you don't exercise your brain, it's not going to improve.

There's a reason weightlifters don't use a forklift or crane to pick up the barbells and do a dozen reps. The problem is not that the weights are in need of lifting. And that's the same problem with homework. The teacher doesn't need a stack of 5 page reports; what they need is for their students to practice using their brains.

Unfortunately the education system is designed to evaluate output instead of process. It's easier to grade a paper or a test, not evaluate a demonstration of knowledge. It's always been ripe for cheating, but now the cheat tools are everywhere and made legitimate by techbros demanding AI productivity. So either teaching will change, or we'll head straight for idiocracy and nobody will be left with the skills to wonder why it all went to hell.

Will these ones retain vendor support longer than the last batch?

Uh, some of us in Windows land use PS/2 for NKRO gaming.

I suspect that they feel at least incrementally less burned in this case; since, while it wasn't obviously a good idea for a product, it at least goes somewhere: if you can make a phone functional and adequately rigid at that size; it's quite possible that there's a more sensible device size that you can still apply the miniaturized motherboard and whatever mechanical engineering you did for rigidity to; and just fill the rest of the case with battery; and there may be some other cases where the ability to get an entire SoC and supporting components into a particularly tiny area or make a thin component of a larger system quite rigid is handy.

Still doesn't really explain flaying a normal phone until it barely has a normal day's use with a totally fresh battery when you are still going to glue an entire baby spy satellite to one end of it; but some of the actual engineering is probably reusable.
The 'butterfly' keyboards, or the under-mouse charging port, by contrast, went nowhere. They tried and failed at a few iterations of keyboards that committed expensive suicide if you looked at them wrong; then just went back to allocating the extra mm or whatever once Jony was safely out of the picture; and it's not as though putting the port on the bottom rather than the front of the mouse involved any interesting capability development.

Whatever product manager thought that the 'air' would be a big seller deserves to feel bad; but the actual engineering team can probably feel OK about the odds that a future phone will look somewhat air-like if you were to remove the normally shaped case and larger battery.

I actually bought it quite recently, so I could take three bricks out of my laptop bag and replace them with just the one. Less space, less weight, and I love that built-in display. (it won't charge my watch unfortunately)

I've got a few spare older bricks from previous laptop purchases, so I can't say I'd need to buy a brick if my next laptop didn't come with one, but that shows my experience that bricks usually outlive their product. I also believe that most people have started accumulating unused bricks. (maybe it'll slightly lower the price of the next laptop I buy?)

According to Star Trek lore Earth was unified after a nuclear war in the 21st century. The way things are going you might get your wish, just not on the stardate you'd like.

Then they'll find out the hard way that Steve was right.

That's just begging for a "yo momma" joke...

When I was a kid, we too had stupid things. Besides elephant jokes (how many elephants can you fit in a VW Beetle? Five -- two in the front, two in the back, and one in the glove box), the dumbest joke I remember was to run up to a friend fast and breathless and demand "Guess what!" as if you'd seen a UFO or fire engine run by, then shout "Langendorf bread, that's what!" and run away cackling like Kamala Harris.

USB-C negotiates voltage and current, and current (and thus watts) are supplied on demand. So an oversize charger will always work fine on an undersize accessory. (there's NO risk of "blowing it up" if you try to charge a 60w macbook with a 140w charger)

There are also cases where a larger charger works better. We have some high end windows laptops here running CAD and they are entirely capable of DRAINING the battery WHILE PLUGGED IN because they shipped with lightweight chargers that supply fewer watts than the laptop can use when run hard. We ordered in some larger chargers (and yes, they're beastly bricks) that can keep up with and even charge the battery while CAD is running hard. So, bigger IS better.

I picked up a 140w Anker awhile ago, it's got three USB-C ports with quickcharge, and two USB-3 fast charge ports, with a nice built-in display. (it even came with a 140w USB-C cord) That's all I need to take with me, no matter which accessories I pack. It's so much better than ANY of the generic USB-C bricks they're including with laptops nowadays. I honestly don't WANT to pay more for an additional bundled brick I'm not going to take out of the box.