June technology blogspot

By Rod Fielding

Windows 7 support ending early for some

Official Microsoft support for Windows 7 users continues until January 2020, unless they happen to be running the operating system on PCs with processors unable to handle what are known as SSE2 extensions. (Streaming Single Instructions Multiple Data [SIMD] Extensions 2 since you ask). Following the March 2018 update for Windows 7, these admittedly quite elderly (pre-Pentium 4) machines have been left out in the cold in what looks like another deliberate stepping away by the company from its most popular operating system, launched in 2009 and still running half the computers in the world. Although SSE2 capability is a requirement for installing Windows 8 and later versions of Windows, it was never a requirement for installing Windows 7. Support cannot be regained for abandoned machines by upgrading to newer versions of Windows because they won't install without SSE2. The only options that affected machine users have is to continue using an unpatched system, upgrade the processor, get a new PC altogether, or switch to Linux. It seems that Microsoft is trying at every opportunity to get users to upgrade to newer versions of Windows by limiting support and ignoring problems introduced in recent updates. Last month, the company revealed that its support agents won't be helping users any more in the Windows 7 or Windows 8 forums on the company's Microsoft Answers support site, despite the fact that buyers were guaranteed support until 2020 when they purchased those systems.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3282066/microsoft-windows/microsoft-quietly-cuts-off-win7-support-for-older-intel-computers.html

Windows XP losing steam

Steam won't run on Windows XP or Vista next year. Players who run the gaming platform on devices powered by Microsoft's Windows XP or Windows Vista operating systems won't be able to run the client much beyond Christmas, now only six months away. Steam parent company Valve says that the company will end support for Windows XP and Vista officially on the first of January 2019. The company states that Steam won't run on those systems after that and says that users who run devices with those operating systems will need to switch to a supported operating system to continue using Steam. Valve explains that Steam relies on embedded versions of Google Chrome that don't function on XP or Vista: "The newest features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 7 and above." Linux might be an alternative option, Steam does support Linux although some games won't run on the open source system. There's a Linux section on Steam where you can find out about supported games. Google ended support for Windows XP and Vista in April 2016. Mozilla will drop the last version of Firefox with official XP and Vista support later this year.https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-will-drop-windows-xp-and-vista-support-at-the-end-of-the-year/

Trump as font

Thanks to designer Mattias Mackler, there's now a font - Trump Grotesk - available for the American President's critics to use and typographically remind the rest of us about some of the truly grotesque things his opponents say he's doing and will continue to do - especially with the Supreme Court recently weighted in his favour. Trump Grotesk came about as part of a launch campaign by New York's Snyder Studio for their illustration sister agency opening an office in London. According to the agency: "Our intention was never to bring attention to the man; he does an undeniably good job of that all by himself - but rather to his inflammatory oratory. Words are important, especially when they come from the supposed leader of the free world, and this was an attempt to balance the rhetoric. Having said that, we can’t deny the family of fonts was crafted by taking tongue-in-cheek visual cues from the President - the top of the font resembles the trademark hair and the bottom of the font represents his equally iconic orange skin tone."
http://www.mattiasmackler.com/work/trump-grotesk

Search engine of the month

Although better known as yet another Forex trading robot promising to make huge profits for its users, 'Million Dollar Bot' is now also the name IBM has chosen for its new search engine, which uses the company's famous Watson super computer to provide results. IBM Watson made its debut as a research project in 2006 and later gained fame as a "question answering machine" after beating two human competitors on the US television quiz show Jeopardy! The supercomputer has been involved in a range of projects using artificial intelligence (AI) since then, from changing the way doctors diagnose patients to improving sports reporting at the World Cup and Wimbledon. IBM claim that its Billion Dollar Bot search engine "goes further than displaying search results that contain the keywords provided by users by showcasing pertinent information relating to recent studies, media coverage, and logical connections that help expand on the subject matter in question." The Billion Dollar Bot’s media representative went further: "Our experimental Billion Dollar Bot is taking on Google Search and empowering the billion people who have been let down by other popular search engines to now solve their problems with IBM Watson, which is why we are excited to be offering a new on-demand, solution-based search engine able to keeps abreast with the latest developments in artificial intelligence."