If you've ever used a Windows PC, you have most likely experienced the "Blue Screen of Death," which would show up when a program experienced a fatal error or became unresponsive. In later versions of Windows, you'd see this blue screen any time you pressed “Control-Alt-Delete.”
Well, according to a blog post from Microsoft developer Raymond Chen (via The Verge), the text from that famous blue screen was written by none other than Steve Ballmer, the bombastic ex-CEO of Microsoft.
Chen says Ballmer was head of Microsoft's system division when he paid a visit to the Windows team. And when he saw Control-Alt-Delete and the original text for the Blue Screen of Death, he said, "This is nice, but I don't like the text of the message. It doesn't sound right to me.”
According to Chen, someone from the Windows team challenged Ballmer to write a better message if he thought he could do a better job — and he did. Chen says Ballmer's text “went into the product pretty much word for word.”
Here is that text, courtesy of Chen:
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Contoso Deluxe Music Composer This Windows application has stopped responding to the system. * Press ESC to cancel and return to Windows. * Press ENTER to close this application that is not responding. You will lose any unsaved information in this application. * Press CTRL+ALT+DEL again to restart your computer. You will lose any unsaved information in all applications. |
SEE ALSO: Steve Ballmer Will Teach At Stanford In The Fall, USC In The Spring
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The average pedestrian walks around with more sophisticated navigation and communication technology in his pocket than our soldiers have on the battlefield. That's why the military is working hard on developing a battle-ready smartphone that would bring our troops up to speed. According to the soldiers who've tested the Pentagon's prototypes, the tech can't come soon enough.
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-- For more information read the original article here.
Apple has been quietly putting together a plan to blow open the mobile-payments industry, making major deals with credit-card companies in a move that could threaten the dominance of PayPal and other mobile-payment companies.
These deals could make Apple the go-to source for mobile payments.
Baird Equity Research published a note saying eBay and its PayPal unit were directly threatened by Apple's impending launch of a mobile-payments system on iPhone 6:
For years, Apple was seen as the “elephant in the room” with respect to mobile and online payments, and the source of speculation around the presumed launch of a consumer payments “iWallet.” While there is no shortage of competition in payments, we view Apple as perhaps the most legitimate potential threat to PayPal's strong position – particularly with respect to growth opportunities at point of sale.
Reports claim Apple has signed deals with three major credit-card companies: American Express, Mastercard, and Visa.
One of the biggest problems with mobile payments has been the sheer number of different apps and services needed to pay for the things you buy every day. Between the Starbucks mobile app, Venmo, Square, Amazon, and PayPal, most users need to download, install, and hand over their card data to a variety of companies. But if Apple has united three major cards together, then it could save users a ton of time by letting them go to one place to make mobile payments.
Nearly A Billion Existing Customers
It's not just credit-card agreements that could make Apple's rumored iWallet a major player in mobile payments. The company already has a vast amount of credit card information, with Bloomberg reporting that there are over 800 million iTunes accounts, the majority of which have credit-card information associated with them. Apple has proved over a number of years that consumers trust it with their card data, and that it can manage a thriving ecosystem. Whether it's the App Store or iTunes, people are used to handing over their credit-card information to Apple.
TouchID
There's a secret weapon in Apple's mobile-payments arsenal, and that's TouchID. Apple's fingerprint sensor, first introduced with the iPhone 5S in 2013, provides an extra layer of security for the iPhone by requiring users to place their finger on the home button to scan their fingerprint. It's a neat trick for everyday usage, but combine -- For more information read the original article here.
Microsoft's new pair of Lumia smartphones are all about taking photos with the front-facing camera. The newly unveiled Lumia 730 and Lumia 735 both come with a wide-angle front lens that can supposedly capture a much broader scope than traditional camera lenses.
Since Microsoft is touting the phone's front camera as its main feature, it'll come with a Lumia Selfie app just for taking photos of yourself and a free three-month subscription to Skype Unlimited World.
The Lumia 730 and 735 are exactly the same — the only difference is the 730 model can support two SIM cards. The phones will be launching this month, and the 4G LTE version is expected to cost around $285 (€219) before taxes and subsidies. The 3G dual-SIM Lumia 730 will be slightly cheaper at about $258 (€199).
The phones both come with 6.7-megapixel rear cameras, which don't quite compare with the 13-megapixel and 16-megapixel cameras on today's biggest smartphones. But, since these are designed for those with tight budgets, there obviously had to be some compromises made.
The new Lumias will also launch with Microsoft's latest software update known as Lumia Denim, which adds some Cortana improvements, a new guest mode-like feature called Apps Corner, and the ability to combine apps into folders among other additions. Both phones also come with a 4.7-inch 720p screen.
The Lumia 730 and 735 are among several new Lumia devices recently unveiled by Microsoft. For example, the company also unveiled the Lumia 830 as its "affordable flagship," which also focuses on photography. It comes with Nokia's PureView camera technology, which is usually only available on more expensive phones.
SEE ALSO: 15 Stunning Photos You Wouldn't Believe Were Taken With A Smartphone
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Apple looks bad after the theft of thousands of nude photos of celebrities allegedly taken from its iCloud servers, even if the company denies responsibility. The fiasco is one reason that company shares fell 4.2% on Wednesday, and some have warned it could spoil the expected Sept. 9 announcement of the iPhone 6 and a smartwatch.
But Apple is not alone in cybersecurity vulnerability. Home Depot, Target, UPS, and thousands of other businesses have suffered major data breaches, while more than a billion passwords were recently stolen from around the web by Russian hackers, with untold more taken through the Heartbleed bug
More than any one company, it's cybersecurity in general that is broken. Passwords have become unreliable, especially since few people have the wherewithal to create, remember, and update dozens of long and unique passwords — and solutions offered by password managers are unwieldy, as I've learned while using LastPass for the past few weeks.
In the face of this crisis, Apple may be closer than anyone to a viable solution.
It starts with the fingerprint sensor in the iPhone. Introduced in the iPhone 5S, this technology works much better than versions in other phones and while not infallible it is very secure, with fingerprint data stored in highly encrypted form on the device and nowhere else.
So far this technology has been available for logging into iPhones and making purchases from Apple, but it was opened up to third-party developers earlier this summer.
Letting other apps use it could make all mobile payments much more secure — so much so that analysts are warning PayPal and other mobile-payment competitors are in trouble.
What's more, adding fingerprint technology to password managers, as promised by 1Password and hinted by LastPass, could finally make those programs work smoothly.
And current fingerprint technology is just the beginning.
A recent Apple patent for a way to change security requirements based on location mentions the possibility of "DNA, fingerprints, retinal scans, voice identification, cadence of typing, walking, talking, and other biometric identification methods." In other words, highly secure multifactor authentication systems are likely in the works.
All told, these innovations could boost Apple's mobile security by leaps and bounds.
As for nude selfies, however, we're still waiting for assurance from Apple that iCloud -- For more information read the original article here.
AARP is getting into the gadget game with the RealPad, a tablet expressly made to help seniors who want to stay connected, but don't want to spend a lot of time learning the technology.
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-- For more information read the original article here.