Tag: operating systems

Article

The EU will be using two new tools to regulate Big Tech significantly

EU names six tech giant ‘gatekeepers’ under DMA guidelines | Mashable

From the horse’s mouth

European Union

Digital Markets Act: Commission designates six gatekeepers (europa.eu)

My Comments

The European Union is taking serious steps towards controlling Big Tech further and enforcing a competitive market within its territory.

They recently passed the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act laws which apply to companies that have a significant market presence in the EU. The former one is about assuring real competition by doing things like pry open app stores to competition, require a service to accept advertising for its competitors or assure end-users have access to the data they generate through their services. As well, the latter one regulates online services to assure a user experience with these services that is safe and in harmony with European values as well as supporting innovation and competitiveness.

Initially, six powerful Big Tech companies have been designated as “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act. These are Alphabet (Google, Jigsaw, Nest), Amazon, Meta (Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp), Apple, ByteDance (TikTok) and Microsoft.

The European laws will also be about prying open the app-store marketplace for mobile platform devices

Most of the products like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Amazon’s marketplaces, the familiar Google search engine, and the mobile app stores ran by Apple and Google are listed services or platforms subject to scrutiny as “gateways”. Even the iOS, Android and Microsoft Windows desktop operating systems are also deemed “gateways” under this law. But I am surprised that the Apple MacOS operating system wasn’t even deemed as a “gateway” under that law.

There is further investigation about Microsoft’s Bing search platform, Edge browser and Advertising platform and Apple’s iMessage messaging service regarding deeming them as “gateways”.

The latter one has attracted intense scrutiny from the computing press due to it not being fully interoperable with Android users who use first-party messaging clients compliant with the standards-based RCS advanced-messaging platform put forward by the GSM Association. This causes a significantly-reduced messaging experience if iPhone users want to message Android users, such as not being able to share higher-resolution images.

What happens is that “Gatekeeper” IT companies will be under strict compliance measures with requirement to report to the European Commission. These include requirements to:

• accept competitors on their platform, which will apply to app stores, operating systems and online advertising platforms
• ensure that end-users have access to data they generate on the platform
• allow end-users and merchants to complete transactions away from app-store and similar platforms owned by the gatekeeper company
• assure independent verification by advertisers of ad impressions that occur on their ad-tech platform

At the moment, an online service or similar IT company is considered a “gatekeeper” if they have:

• EUR€7.5bn turnover
• EUR€75 billion market capitalisation
• 45 million or more active users in the 27 European-Union member countries

Personally, I would like to see the geographic realm for active users based on a larger area in Europe because of non-EU countries like Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and the UK and EU-candidate countries also contributing to the user base. For example, this could be based on the European Economic Area or membership of the Council of Europe which standardises fundamental human-rights expectations in Europe.

Failure to comply will see the company face fines of 10% of its global turnover, even the ability for the European Union bureaucrats to subject a company to a Standard Oil / AT&T style forced breakup.

At the moment, it is about EU setting an example on reining in Big Tech with DMA being considered a gold standard by the consumer IT press just as GDPR was considered a gold standard for user privacy. But the United Kingdom is putting a similar recommendation in place by introducing the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill before Parliament. This is while the USA are trying to pry open app stores with various anti-trust (competitive-trade) and similar legislation.

A question that will also arise is whether the European Union bureaucrats can effectively have control over corporations anywhere in the world such as to force the breakup of a dominant corporation that is chartered in the USA for example. This is although they could exert this power over a company’s local affiliate offices that exist within Europe for example.

There is still a very serious risk of Big Tech “dumping” non-compliant software and services in to jurisdictions that aren’t covered by these regulations. This will typically manifest in software or services that have the features desired by customers like sideloading or competitive app-store access for mobile operating systems or ad-free subscription versions of social networks being only available in Europe for example. This was a practice that happened with Microsoft when the EU forced them to allow the end-user to install an alternative Web browser when they install Windows as part of commissioning a new computer for example, with this feature only occurring within Europe.

A previous analogy I used is what has been happening with the vehicle market in Australia where vehicles that aren’t fuel-efficient to current international expectations appear in this country whereas other countries benefit from those vehicles that are fuel-efficient. This is due to Australia not implementing the fleet-wide fuel-efficiency standards being used in many countries around the world.

Who knows how long it will take to push similar legislation or regulation aimed at curbing Big Tech’s marketplace powers around the world. Only time will tell.

Article

Your iPhone or iPad will have security and software-quality updates delivered separately from the main functionality upgrades

Apple Could Soon Split iOS Updates And Security Updates | Ubergizmo

My Comments

A trend that is increasing in relationship to software maintenance and quality assurance is to assure the ubiquitous availability of critical security, software-quality and compliance updates for a device or program. This is through delivering such updates under separate cover from major updates that primarily add features and functionality.

You may think of these critical updates as just security patches for the device or program but these can include general bugfixes, software refinements to to have the program run more efficiently or compliance modifications such as to update daylight-saving-time rules for a particular jurisdiction.

Microsoft, Google and Apple headed that way with Windows 10, Android and with MacOS respectively.  This approach benefits the software developer and the user equally because the security, software-quality or compliance patches are usually small files. The software developer can assure guaranteed delivery and installation even with older devices that aren’t able to take newer versions of the software thus hardening the device’s platform against security exploits.

Similarly the user can choose not to install a functionality update if they don’t see fit or may find that it offers a steep learning curve due to significant user-experience changes. It is more so where a user would rather run with a highly-stable version of the operating system than the latest “rushed-out” version that carries bugs.

Apple will be taking this approach with iOS soon. Previously, the iOS mobile operating system was maintained using the delivery of major versions offering major functionality. But Apple would deliver iOS bugfixes and security patches as a minor or “point” version dependent on a major version, something that was considered orthodox in the world of software maintenance and quality assurance.

But if they were to “reach” older iOS versions with a security or compliance update, they would need to offer a minor or “point” version for a prior major version as a separate software package. This is an issue that affects people who maintain older iOS devices, especially iPads or iPod Touch devices that are less likely to take newer major versions of iOS.

Through the development of iOS 14.5, Apple has looked in to the idea of “splitting” the critical updates from the main software package so that these can be delivered under separate cover. This could also allow Apple to package one of these updates to touch multiple major versions of the operating systems.

It could also be a chance for Apple to see a long service life out of iOS devices especially where older devices may not run the latest major version of iOS. This would be very applicable to iPad and iPod Touch users who see long-term use out of those devices or families who pass down older iPhones to their children. It could also be a chance for Apple to keep multiple hardened codebases for iOS going but able to support different device abilities.

It will also encourage Apple to deliver frequent software patches to iOS users especially if they can be installed without restarting the device. This is more so if Apple wants to create a tighter software-quality-assurance regime for their platforms.

But Apple also has to provide separate critical-update delivery to their tvOS operating system which drives their recent Apple TV devices and their watchOS operating system that drives their Apple Watch products. It can then be about creating a robust software quality-assurance approach across all of their products but catering to people who maintain older products.

Select Options to set up the Bedtime Mode behaviour

Apple’s iOS operating system since version 12 have support for “Bedtime” mode which allows you to have a good sleep. This is achieved through optimising the display to reduce blue light in a sleep-friendly manner along with default automatic enablement of “Do Not Disturb” mode where the iPhone won’t ring through during the hours the Bedtime mode is in operation. This will be heralded by your iPhone ringing a phrase of Brahms’ Lullaby with a music-box sound when that mode is effective.

But some of us may don’t want to miss important calls that come through at night due to work or personal reasons. An example of this could be a person who is a registered keyholder for a premises and needs to know of alarm incidents affecting that premises. Or someone you expect home may be arriving late and wants to let you know they are on their way or changed plans. In a simple case, you may not want to miss that important call from someone who is on the other side of the world.

The default implementation for Bedtime mode has your iPhone in “Do Not Disturb” mode where your iPhone won’t ring or sound a notification tone for text messages while that mode is in effect. But you may want most of the sleep-friendly benefits of this mode while being able to be woken by those important calls.

Clear the Do Not Disturb option to allow calls and texts to come through during Bedtime Mode

To enable this, you need to go to the Clock app and select the Bedtime screen. Select “Options” and turn off the “Do Not Disturb” mode on that screen to allow calls to come through. The display will still be dimmed through this time but the iPhone will ring or sound a notification tone.

You may also have to check for scheduled “Do Not Disturb” times in case you used this feature to set up a “do-not-disturb” period surrounding your normal bedtime. This is a feature that an iOS user may have implemented before updating to iOS 12. You can check this feature in the “Do Not Disturb” option in the Settings app.

If you do use the “Do Not Disturb” option, you can allow certain caller groups to break through and cause your phone to ring irrespective of when this option is in effect. One of these is “Favourites” which allows you to mark contacts as a “favourite”. Or you can use the Groups option to allow calls from contact groups that you have pre-defined. This is important if you mark out your contacts in to contact groups like “work” or “family” and is a complex procedure that requires you to use your Apple iCloud.com account on a Web browser.

The use of a predefined caller list to override “Do Not Disturb” may not work well with callers who call you using VoIP or from behind a business phone system. This is because you may find that the caller ID for their call may be different from their phone number due to them, for example, calling from the nearest extension rather than their own extension.

iOS and Android could natively follow the Symbian (original Nokia feature-phone operating system) approach where you have different situation-specific alerting presets that affect your phone’s audio / vibration / indicator-light behaviour. This can also allow the use of one or more priority call lists so that callers you select for a particular situation can ring through. Such presets can be linked to operation modes like the “Bedtime” mode or alarm clock so they can be effective during these modes.

As well, Apple could simplify the process of creating and managing caller groups on the iOS contacts list while you are using your iPhone’s user interface. This is important for processes like adding new contacts to your list or revising your contacts, and can make the process more intuitive.

Article

Running modern always-updated operating systems and applications on your laptop is a way to keep your computing environment safe and secure.

Should you be scared of your laptop’s webcam? | ZDNet

Previous Coverage

Regular operating systems and their vulnerability to security threats

My Comments

An article appeared about whether one should be scared of their computer’s integrated Webcam and microphone. Here, a Webcam and microphone integrated in a computer or monitor or a USB Webcam that is always plugged in could turn the computer in to a surveillance device. But it highlighted the fact that recent versions of operating systems and productivity applications are “secure by design” when used to default settings.

It went through two different “what-if” hacking scenarios with different software combinations to see how hard they were to penetrate in order to “open up” the Webcam. The trigger point was to receive a “loaded” document with instructions that the user must follow, something that can be done through an email phishing attempt. Here, the document would have a macro that would install malware to open up the Webcam and stream its vision remotely.

The first scenario involves a Windows 10 computer running the latest version of Microsoft Word while the second scenario involved MacOS 10.14 Mojave and the latest version of LibreOffice. All operating systems and applications were run in the default protected mode but MacOS Mojave was temporarily configured to admit software from other sources in order to admit LibreOffice on to the Mac.

What was highlighted was the recent operating systems’ flagging or blocking of questionable software when the article’s author was asked to click on the required link within the document. The operating systems having their own basic endpoint-protection software underscored the ability to keep users safe from rogue software. Even productivity application software running documents supplied by email or from questionable sources in a protected mode to inhibit the execution of macros was also highlighted.

Webcams, whether external like this one or integrated in a computing device, aren’t able to be bugs if you keep your computer software up-to-date with the latest patches and have it running “secure by default”.

This meant that neither the Webcam nor the microphone could not be accessed without the user knowing. It was demonstrating the recent “secure by design” approach of newer regular-computer environments that assured the average user of their data security. You may harden that attack surface by masking an integrated Webcam that is part of your computer or monitor, or disconnecting an external Webcam.

Unless you need to, keep your computer’s operating system, applications and endpoint-security utilities running in a “default-for-security” manner. This also includes updating them to the latest version, preferably with the software updating themselves.

If you are supporting other systems, don’t disable the computing environment’s security features unless you are sure they need to be disabled. Also educate the other users about data-security risks including the security warnings that will pop up on their computer.

If you are dealing with an old computer that is running a very old operating system and application software that doesn’t have the “secure by design” approach, you may have to cover or disconnect the Webcam. This is more so if it is found to be running the software “out of the box” without any patches or updates applied to it.

In most cases, the “secure-by-design” approach of most modern computing environments allows us to be able to use regular or mobile computer equipment in a secure manner.

Article

There is the risk of over-promising and under-delivering when there is a short time between major operating system updates

Where do we stand with features for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update? | Supersite Windows

My Comments

An increasing trend for regular-computer and mobile operating systems is for them to be updated on a regular basis along the model of “software-as-a-service”.

With this model, the companies behind these operating systems will typically license the operating system with new hardware, but not require the user to pay to acquire newly-developed functionality. It is in conjunction with making sure that all bugs and security exploits are removed from the system.

A problem that has been found with this method of delivery is that it can be easy to over-promise and under-deliver as what Microsoft commonly does. This has shown up more so with the Fall Creator’s Update of Windows 10 where Microsoft removed Windows Timeline and Cloud-Powered Clipboard, two highly-promised features, from the feature list for that update.

What is underscored here is the frequency of major updates that add significant amounts of functionality to an operating system, along with calling out the promised improvements for these updates. Apple and Google implement a yearly cycle when it comes to delivering major operating-system updates that are about adding extra features while Microsoft undertakes this on a six-monthly basis.

The advantage of the long lead-time that Apple and Google run with is that they can deliver on their promises by writing in the code and subjecting it to a long debug and optimisation cycle including delivering it in publicly-available beta-test packages. This is conversant with Microsoft calling out features for a major functionality update and having to have all of them work to expectation by the time the update is considered “feature complete”.

But how can Microsoft and others who implement the short lead times for major functionality updates avoid the issue of over-promising? Here they could announce that some features are being destined for the upcoming functionality update while others are being destined for the subsequent update.

Similarly, they could deliver the functionality in an “out-of-band” form such as free-to-install apps provided through the platform’s app store, a practice Google is undertaking with the Android platform. In the case of functionality dependent on a particular peripheral class, it may be delivered as part of the onboarding process that the operating system performs when that peripheral is connected for the first time.

Personally, I would like to see some effort put towards fine-tuning the peripheral and network interface software code to encourage more “driver-free” peripheral connectivity that occurs in a secure stable manner to the latest specifications for that device class.

What is being highlighted here is the risk of over-promising and under-delivering when it comes to delivering major functionality updates for an operating system.

Article

You don’t really want Windows to throw pop-up notifications during that important business presentation

How to disable notifications while presenting on Windows 10 | Windows Central

My Comments and how to go about this further

Most of us encounter times in our work and personal computing lives where we don’t really like Windows to “pop up” too many notifications while we are concentrating. Situations where this is more so include running a presentation, watching video material, engaging in a videocall or playing games where we really crave the minimum of distractions.

.. nor while watching that bit of video-on-demand content on your computer

There are multiple approaches to reducing distractions caused by Windows when it pops up those notifications. These depend on the screen setup you are running with.

One screen

Quiet Hours button in Action Center on Windows 10

Most of you who are using that laptop or convertible 2-in-1 will be using this machine’s screen to view your long-form video or show that presentation to two or three people at the “second-office” café. Or you are using a traditional desktop computer like that “gaming rig” and don’t want Windows to distract you from that game you are playing.

Right click on the bubble to pop up this menu

Here, you can enable the “Quiet Hours” function to prevent Windows 8 or 10 from popping up notifications when you don’t want them. This can be enabled using a “button” in the Windows 10 Action Center or by right-clicking on the Windows 10 Action Center bubble at the right-hand corner of the screen then selecting “Turn on Quiet Hours”. This will mute all notifications coming in so you aren’t disturbed.

When you have finished, you then disable “Quiet Hours” by repeating the above process. If you right-click on the Action Center bubble, the option that will show up will be “Turn Off Quiet Hours”.

Two Screens – Duplicated display

Use this option to hide notifications when you have two screens replicating each other

Some of you who have a laptop may connect your computer to the projector or large-screen TV and set it up to “duplicate” the display. This is often seen as a simplified approach to putting things up on the large screen especially if both displays have the same resolution and aspect ratio.

As well, this scenario may please those of us who are using Windows Media Player, Windows Photo Viewer, the Windows Store apps or similar software that doesn’t address displays separately, or are simply working with the Web.

Windows 10 has a dedicated setup for this scenario where if you are duplicating the display, you don’t see any of the notifications appearing on both screens. This is a separately-selectable option in the Notifications And Actions settings screen as “Hide Notifications When I’m Duplicatiing My Screen”.

Two Screens – Extended display

Extended Display setup – for a secondary display as a dedicated screen – Windows 7

There are those of you who have your computer connected to an external display in the “extend” mode. This may be because you are using presentation software that can separately address the external displays or are using the extended multiple-screen desktop.

In this scenario, you would be having your notifications appear on your setup’s primary screen such as your laptop screen. This is although, in a presentation setup, you would be having the presentation appear on the large screen.

But you may want to be sure that you are not disturbed during the presentation or video content. Here, you can follow the instructions for enabling “Quiet Hours” as described in the “One Screen” context.

Managing your system’s sound

On the other hand, you may not mind the visual notifications on your screen such as when you are watching a video or engaging in a videocall. This may be because you want to make sure you don’t miss that message for example.

But you may want to play things a bit more discreetly and not have chimes or bells associated with incoming messages or error notifications disturb you. This is more so when you have the sound coming through a sound system or a large-screen TV’s speakers, and these sounds at the default volume level can be increasingly annoying to hear.

This situation shows up very strong where the software you are using doesn’t allow you to determine which sound-playback device it should play through and you have to use the Windows “default sound device” typically shared by the system for its notification purposes. This situation applies mainly with Web-based situations, UWP / Modern / Metro apps that you get from the Windows Store or some online-service clients like Spotify.

There is the ability to turn off audible chimes for apps that put up notifications but let them put up the visual notifications. Here, you may have to use the Notifications settings screen and work through each app and turn off the “Play a sound when a notification arrives” option on each app. Then you would have to do this rigmarole again when you want the audio prompts back.

Volume Mixer in Windows – System Sounds are the notification chimes and dings

Here, you can work around this problem by using the Windows Volume Mixer to reduce the System Sounds volume output so that those beeps and chimes don’t come through very loud. You can even slide that volume right down so that those sounds can’t come through at all. If you are using Windows Store apps like some of the Windows 10 clients for the various online video services, you could use “Ear Trumpet” (Free download from Windows Store) which is an advanced volume mixer that works with these apps as well as Desktop (classic) apps as well as integrating with the Windows 10 look and feel.

Those of you who run Windows 10 April 2018 Update (build 1803) will have the integrated Volume Mixer function able to manage the sound from both the legacy Win32 apps and the UWP Windows Store apps in the same interface. This also extends to the ability to direct which sound device a program uses for its sound output so you don’t hear the notification chimes coming through your TV’s speakers, home theatre or PA system.

Ear Trumpet volume mixer app for Windows 10 – manages Windows Store apps

What Microsoft could do

Microsoft could support a “notifications profiles” setup in Windows where you can turn off the notifications abilities for particular apps and save these setups as one or more profiles. Here, it could be useful to allow users to create situation-specific profiles such as one to have when watching video content, running a business presentation or going to bed.

It could be implemented also with notifications being assigned “priority” levels so as to allow users not to have “hints-and-tips” or similar unimportant notifications come through at “do-not-disturb” times yet have important notifications come through. For email, messaging and similar software, user could assign priority levels for their contacts so that they don’t miss messages from the contacts that matter like the boss.

The sound-management software in Windows could allow you to create situation-specific sound-level settings like what happened with the Symbian-based Nokia phones. This was where you could create sound-level scenarios for particular situations by varying different sound outputs like ringtone, notification tones and multimedia sounds (music or video playback). This also appeals to other ideals like being able to relegate sound classes like system notifications to particular output devices independent of other sound classes like multimedia and communications.

Conclusion

Once you know how to manage the notifications that pop up in Windows 10’s Notification bar, you can be able to make sure you aren’t distracted by this noise when you want to run that important presentation or watch that favourite Netflix. Similarly, adjusting the sound output of your apps, especially those that are only about notifying, can allow you to achieve that quiet environment while you enjoy music, watch videos or give presentations.

Update

I have updated this article to highlight the improvements that Windows 10 April 2018 Update (Build 1803) offers in relation to sound-level and device management.

Article

These NAS units can now work with your Chromebook thanks to a Google SMB/CIFS file-system hook

Chromebooks can now seamlessly access Windows network file shares | PC World

Download link (Chrome OS)

My Comments

An issue you may find with the newer Chrome OS is that you could become stranded when it comes to gaining access to files. This may place limitations on your Chromebook’s utility value and you may find it serving as a glorified tablet.

Now you can download a Google-created app which serves primarily as a “hook” between Chrome OS and the SMB/CIFS network file exchange protocol implemented in just about all of the desktop operating systems for file sharing and in every network-attached storage device on the market.

This app takes advantage of an API made available for the Chrome OS platform that allows people to create software that links this platform with various file-storage systems and has been published as an open-source program, due to it being based on the Samba SMB/CIFS software used in every NAS. This could open up paths for creating various “hooks” for operating systems and computing platforms that make them work with these NAS units.

The article raised the issue of Dropbox and Microsoft writing native “hooks” for their cloud storage systems rather than users of these systems using flaky software to have their Chromebook work with Dropbox or OneDrive.