Personal Tech

My name is Bill Gates and I am an Android user

Sir. Have you no, er, shame?

Andrew Orlowski Tue 26 Sep 2017 // 16:33 UTC

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has admitted to switching to an Android phone but he still won't entertain using the Jesus Mobe iPhone.

With Windows 10 mobile orphaned into the slow lane (it no longer receives the latest Redstone 3 and 4 development in line with the desktop release) and Microsoft not selling own-brand handsets, the ability to run modern mobile apps clearly became too great.

The world's richest man confirmed he only succumbed to temptations "recently" and wouldn't say which Android device he habitually uses.

Almost 20 years ago, Gates regarded the development of the smartphone as a mortal threat to Microsoft. In two anxiety-ridden memos to staff, which subsequently leaked, he predicted the Nokia-inspired Symbian platform would "create proprietary protocols so that other devices have to pay them royalties if they want to interoperate" – and that would be terrible for Microsoft.

Microsoft became so obsessed with losing out that an official transcript famously obliterated the name of Symbian, Microsoft's new competitor.

Microsoft's own stores in the US sell a Galaxy S8 loaded with Microsoft software. Asked specifically, in the interview with CNET, whether he used an Apple iPhone, Gates issued what is known as a "categorical denial".

Years ago we learned that the iPhone was banned from the Gates household.

In 2007, CEO Steve Ballmer predicted the new iPhone would have "no chance" of becoming a mass-market product. How times have changed. Microsoft's current CEO has been seen toting an iPhone on a number of occasions. ®

87 Comments

Other stories you might like

Self-sailing Mayflower ship to have another crack at Atlantic crossing next year

Big Blue to return to the big blue waves

Katyanna Quach Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 22:14 UTC

The Mayflower, the crewless, autonomous ship built with the help of IBM, will try to sail across the Atlantic again next year, after its first attempt failed shortly after it left the UK for the US.

Created by maritime non-profit Promare, the vessel was designed to not only steer itself but also collect data for scientists to study all sorts of stuff from microplastics to whales. The Mayflower was designed to operate autonomously; it has a mixture of cameras, radar sensors, and machine learning software to detect objects in its environment and navigate safely around cargo ships and fishing vessels. It also has GPS to stay on course, and runs on solar power with a diesel generator for backup duties.

In June, three days into an attempt to sail over 3,000 miles from Plymouth in the UK to its counterpart port Plymouth in Massachusetts, it suddenly malfunctioned, and was brought back to British shores for some engineering attention.

Continue reading
Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-filters grow

From January 2023, add-os built with Manifest V2 API will fail

Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 20:51 UTC

Google this month said Chrome browser extensions written under its Manifest V2 specification will stop working in January 2023.

Thereafter, only Manifest V3 extensions will be supported in Chrome, a change that critics fear will hobble the add-ons and make them little more than toys.

"Years in the making, Manifest V3 is more secure, performant, and privacy-preserving than its predecessor," said David Li, product manager for Chrome extensions and the Chrome Web Store, in a blog post. "It is an evolution of the extension platform that takes into consideration both the changing web landscape and the future of browser extensions."

Continue reading
Amazon delivery staff 'denied bonus' pay by AI cameras misjudging their driving

Plus: Why trans gamers are turning to deepfake voices, and more bits and bytes

Katyanna Quach Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 19:06 UTC

In brief AI cameras inside Amazon’s delivery trucks are denying drivers' bonus pay for errors they shouldn’t be blamed for, it's reported.

The e-commerce giant installed the equipment in its vehicles earlier this year. The devices watch the road and the driver, and send out audio alerts if they don't like the way their humans are driving.

One man in Los Angeles told Vice that when he gets cut off by other cars, the machine would sense the other vehicle suddenly right in front of him, and squawk: “Maintain safe distance!” Logs of the audio alerts and camera footage are relayed back to Amazon, and it automatically decides whether drivers deserve to get bonuses or not from their performance on the road.

Continue reading
Container security without governance is neither secure nor governed

Encryption in a Kubernetes environment

Timothy Prickett Morgan Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 17:00 UTC

Sponsored In the first article of our four-part series on Kubernetes in the enterprise, we outlined the data services that underpin a properly constructed Kubernetes container environment. Data security, data governance, data resilience, and data discovery are the pillars that support the evolution of Kubernetes from raw storage, either persistent or ephemeral, to true data services that are suitable for deployment in enterprises.

In this and subsequent articles we will drill down to those specific data services. Here, we cover data security and data governance together because they are in some ways two sides of the same coin. You can think of security as a layer in data governance or data governance as a higher-level kind of security.

With containers flitting about a cluster of machines, spawning chunks of microservices code and demanding access to data, it is vital to secure data at the storage layer underneath Kubernetes and from within the Kubernetes platform itself.

Continue reading
Two months after Microsoft's fee slash, Google prepares to take a lower cut from vendors on Cloud Platform

It's dev-ine intervention

Paul Kunert Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 16:15 UTC

Google Cloud Platform – the perennially third-placed provider in the infrastructure-as-a-service sales race – will reportedly slash the fees charged to third-party vendors that use its cloud marketplace to punt their own services.

According to CNBC, GCP will take a 3 per cent cut of the revenues generated by other vendors on its digital souk instead of the 20 per cent it has historically swallowed.

A spokesperson at the Chocolate Factory refused to confirm or deny the specific financials in the change but sent us a statement:

Continue reading
Samsung is planning to reverse-engineer the human brain on to a chip

'Here I am, 100 billion neurons and all you want me to do is calculate all the ways this could possibly go wrong?'

Matt Dupuy Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 15:16 UTC

Industrial mega-conglomerate Samsung is working to "copy and paste" the structure of the human brain onto computer chips.

The Korean megacorp has linked with Harvard University to replicate the make-up of the brain in a chip format in the hope that doing so will allow future chips to access the brain's "low power, facile learning, adaptation to environment, and even autonomy and cognition" capabilities.

According to Samsung: "The brain is made up of a large number of neurons, and their wiring map is responsible for the brain's functions. Thus the knowledge of the map is the key to reverse engineering the brain."

Continue reading
UK's National Crime Agency WLTM Deputy Director of Digital Data & Technology

Up to £118,000 and use of Cycle2work scheme for successful applicant

Paul Kunert Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 14:31 UTC

Britain's National Crime Agency – charged with thwarting serious and organised crime – is putting out the feelers for a senior figure to head up, among other things, the threat response, analysis, capability exploration and research unit, otherwise known as TRACER.

The Deputy Director of Digital Data and Technology (DD&T) role at the law enforcement agency is being advertised with a wide-ranging salary of between £71,000 and a little under £118,000, presumably dependent on the levels of skills the chosen candidate can demonstrate.

The winning candidate will also operate as the NCA's Chief Science and Innovation Officer.

Continue reading
Baby, I swear it's déjà vu: iFixit prises open the iPhone 13 Pro

Battery still swappable – rest fiddly

Richard Speed Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 13:44 UTC

It wasn't only eager fanbois awaiting their Apple deliveries last week - teardown terror iFixit also got its hands on the iPhone 13 Pro and did what it does best.

The team took on the 128GB version of Apple's A15-powered iPhone 13 Pro, replete with 6GB RAM, a 6.1-inch (2,532x1,170 pixel) screen and 12MP triple camera system.

Prising open the phone in a similar way to the iPhone 12 Pro revealed a worryingly flimsy combined digitiser and display cable, and an L-shaped battery.

Continue reading
Fake 'BT' caller fleeces elderly victim of £30k in APP app scam

That's authorised push payment – where they get the mark to make the transfer

Tim Richardson Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 12:58 UTC

Police have issued an urgent warning after an elderly man was scammed out of £30,000 by phone fraudsters pretending to be from BT.

The incident happened last Thursday (23 September), prompting West Mercia Police to issue a bulletin warning people to be on their guard against suspicious phone calls.

In this case, the victim was called with the perpetrators pretending to be from BT. They then asked him to download an application onto his mobile.

Continue reading
Want to feel old? Aussie cyclist draws Nirvana baby in Strava on streets of Adelaide because Nevermind is 30

Meanwhile, Nirvana baby unchuffed about being Nirvana baby

Richard Currie Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 12:13 UTC

Poor Spencer Elden. Not only does the chap have to live with his "unauthorised" baby pic on the cover of Nirvana's breakthrough record Nevermind – the image has now been immortalised on the streets of Adelaide via GPS exercise tracker Strava.

In case you missed it, Nevermind, one of the greatest guitar albums ever made, turned 30 on Friday (feel old yet?), but the anniversary has been soured somewhat by the sleeve art's subject suddenly deciding he doesn't like his infant body being exposed on the shelves of every record store in the world.

Elden has sued the surviving members of the punk power trio – drummer Dave Grohl, now of Foo Fighters, and bassist Krist Novoselic – and the estate of late frontman Kurt Cobain, along with a number of other defendants, for sexual exploitation.

Continue reading
Yet another Big Tech exec heads to central government: This time IBMer Dan Bailey in 6-month stint

Big Blue UK and Ireland cloud man hired as 'interim' CTO, tasked with creating fellowship of the cloud

Paul Kunert Mon 27 Sep 2021 // 11:28 UTC

IBM UK and Ireland exec Dan Bailey has been seconded to the Cabinet Office for a six-month contract as interim chief technology officer. His tasks are to include the creation of a pan-government CTO council for the cloud, raising questions of a conflict of interest.

At the time of publication, Bailey still stated on his LinkedIn profile that he is cloud services leader and CTO at IBM UKI, but The Reg can confirm he was hired last month by former 29-year Big Blue veteran Joanna Davinson, who was herself recruited as exec director for the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) within the Cabinet Office in February.

A senior source in government IT told us: "Bailey is leading cross-government conversations on future cloud and data strategy with the Functional Leaders Group."

Continue reading