59 years ago today, the first computer program written in #BASIC was run.
The easy-to-learn and -use #programming language revolutionized #computing. A decade later, #BillGates would co-found #Microsoft to develop and sell the BASIC interpreter for the #Altair 8800, the first commercially successful desktop microcomputer.
Oh wow... This is something special! I found an early pre-release version of "Castle of the Winds" .. v0.5.4. This was apparently released exclusively for Microsoft employees back in the day.
I think it's an awesome collector's piece! My gratitude goes to "iamxray" for his generous upload.
Make no mistake— #AI is owned by #BigTech
If we’re not careful, #Microsoft, #Amazon, and other large companies will leverage their position to set the policy agenda for AI, as they have in many other sectors. With vanishingly few exceptions, every #startup, new entrant, and even AI research lab is dependent on computing infrastructure of Microsoft, Amazon, and #Google to train their systems, and on those same firms’ vast consumer market reach to deploy and sell their AI. https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/05/1084393/make-no-mistake-ai-is-owned-by-big-tech/
Wohl wegen ChatGPT: Wasserverbrauch von Microsoft 2022 um ein Drittel gestiegen
KI-Technik wie ChatGPT ist nicht nur in der Tech-Branche das Hype-Thema des Jahres. Der damit verbundene Ressourcenverbrauch stand bislang aber selten im Fokus.
Wer 2023 immer noch mit #Microsoft in seinem Unternehmen plant, dem sei gesagt: Der Maschinenraum dieser »Titanic« ist bereits voll Wasser gelaufen. Die Datenschützer & Sicherheitsexperten haben schon unzählige Male oben im Tanzsaal Alarm geschlagen. Aber dort wird noch Champagner getrunken, die Kapelle spielt irgendwas. Die hören nicht, dass das Ganze untergeht. 🌊
"Der Diebstahl eines Signatur-Schlüssels wirft weiterhin Fragen auf, die Microsoft nicht beantwortet. Was betroffene Unternehmen jetzt selbst tun können."
Den Aufruf von @ju916 kann ich nur unterstützen! Stellt bzw. flutet Microsoft so lange mit Fragen, bis endlich aussagekräftige Antworten kommen. heise bietet entsprechende Fragen/Vorlagen, die ihr einfach für eure Anfrage kopieren könnt. 👇
In this week’s #Linux and #OpenSource news video, we have the EU forcing #Microsoft to open #Windows a bit, we have AMD teasing some Open Source stuff, and a nice roadmap for #Peertube, with pretty great improvements and a mobile app!
Die (langfristige) Strategie von #Microsoft besteht darin, alles in die Cloud zu verlagern, einschließlich des Betriebssystems. Ob im privaten oder im geschäftlichen Bereich, die entscheidende Frage lautet nun: Soll man alle Daten bedingungslos Microsoft anvertrauen oder endlich den Sprung zu Alternativen wagen? Noch drastischer: Begibt man sich in die vollständige Abhängigkeit, die mit dem totalen Verlust der Datenhoheit einhergeht, oder zieht man die Reißleine? Die Entscheidung liegt bei euch!
Folks, I know… I use Duck Duck Go also but remember they have venture capital. Enjoy it while it lasts (or let’s fund and build alternatives differently that aren’t temporary businesses with profit motives and exits but commons-owned institutions working for the common good).
»Der Bundeshaushalt sei "zu einer Gelddruckmaschine für Software-Konzerne geworden". Nachdem insbesondere Microsoft jahrelang die Preise in die Höhe getrieben und seine Monopolstellung "schamlos ausnutzen konnte. [...] Deutschland und Europa müssten sich unabhängiger von Big-Tech-Konzernen machen, sonst drohten weitere Preisschocks und Datenmissbrauch.«
Zusammengefasst: Deutschland zahlt. Microsoft lacht. Unabhängigkeit? Vielleicht irgendwann. Seufz. 🤦♂️ 👇
🆕 blog! “Safelinks are a fragile foundation for publishing”
Microsoft loves you and wants to protect you. So every time you receive an email with a link in it, Microsoft Outlook helpfully rewrites it so that it goes through their "safelinks" system. Safelinks allow your administrator, or someone at Microsoft, to stop you visiting a link which is malicious or s…
Microsoft loves you and wants to protect you. So every time you receive an email with a link in it, Microsoft Outlook helpfully rewrites it so that it goes through their "safelinks" system.
Safelinks allow your administrator, or someone at Microsoft, to stop you visiting a link which is malicious or suspicious. Rather than going to example.com, your link now goes to safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=example.com.
Hurrah! If you accidentally click on a naughty link you won't cause chaos and ructions.
Except, there's a tiny problem. People like to copy and paste links that they receive. Someone sends an email which says "here's the link to that report you asked for" which then gets copied into a document or a web page.
That forces everyone who visits that link to go through Microsoft's proxy. That might protect users if a link later becomes suspicious. But, more likely, it will be used in analytics to further profile users who click on links. It also undermines a user's ability to see the final destination of a link unless they can manually URl-decode content in their head.
Look, I get why people do this. They copy a link from an email, paste it in, click it, and it works. No one writes raw HTML by hand, nor should they have to. Our WYSIWYG tools work really well and hide all the mumbo-jumbo. Copy editors look at text; not hypertext. It's only nerds like me who hover over a link before clicking on it.
Perhaps I should stop worrying? Perhaps it is OK that Microsoft intercepts the clicks from people all around the world? Perhaps they can competently run a proxy which detects and blocks inappropriate content? Perhaps they won't ever abuse that facility?
Here's my prediction. In the next five or so years, Microsoft is going to accidentally shut off *.safelinks.protection.outlook.com and a million copy-and-pasted links across the web are going to break.
Either way, if you work in digital publishing, please make sure that your links point directly to the content that you want; not to Microsoft's safelinks service.
Wir sollten bei jeder Gelegenheit die Vorteile von quelloffener Software und Diensten hervorheben. Die Deutungshoheit Microsoft, Google, Meta, Apple und Co. zu überlassen, hat uns dorthin geführt, wo wir heute stehen: Ein datengetriebenes Web, das ohne Nutzerdaten nicht überlebt und uns mit Werbung bombardiert.