Paul Thurrott's short film: April 5

Because my son is about to turn 21 and as time passes, this edition of Short Takes looks at the glorious but expected updates from Microsoft about Windows 10 updates, the removal of Microsoft's mainstream market, Huawei's government spying by Samsung, falling profits, and more.

Microsoft's expected turnaround on Windows 10 updates is a victory for mankind

For the past four years, Microsoft has imposed frequent, disruptive and often unreliable software updates on Windows 10 users. But this week, finally, he announced to have heard the critics: from Windows 10 version 1903, whose release is scheduled for May, it will allow all users of Windows 10 – yes, even the very poor users of Windows 10 Home previously treated as update Guinea cins – to postpone quality updates, which arrive one or more times a month, up to 35 days. In addition, and more importantly, it moves the "feature updates", which are actually major upgrades to the Windows version, out of the normal process of updating Windows so that it can not be used. no user could inadvertently install a gigantic upgrade while he was really trying to do it. was to make sure their PC had the latest security updates. People, that's what I've been asking for four years. And although I do not appreciate the time it took, I applaud the fact that this is finally happening.

"Microsoft finally corrects one of the worst problems of Windows 10"

Get rid of emojis?

It's official: Microsoft out of the mainstream market

It will be the same, but as Microsoft is killing another consumer service, I call it: the company is not even trying to seriously tackle the consumer market. And no, Xbox and video games do not matter: even though players are, in semantic terms, "consumers", they are actually consumers and premium device buyers who have more in common with the consumers. PC Surface owners that with footballers. play Words with Friends on their smartphone. The future of games relies on the cloud, which has more to do with Azure than with Minecraft. Yes, Microsoft offers many products and services for people, but they are almost uniformly focused on productivity (OneDrive, Office 365, OneNote, Outlook.com, etc.) and are actually aimed at encouraging users to offer more managed solutions. No need to worry: Microsoft is keen on what it does well. And exit consumer markets for which he has no competence or special interest. So, let's take a moment of silence and move on. It's over.

"Microsoft Nukes Its Ebooks Store, and it's probably for the best"

No, it would have been better not to launch it.

The US government spied on Huawei and found evidence of sanctions violations

The US government becomes really silent when asked to prove that the Chinese electronics giant Huawei is working with the Chinese government to spy on Western companies and governments. (Because there is none.) But it's not above being hypocritical, apparently, since the US government itself spied on Huawei. And although he found no evidence of collusion, he said he found evidence that Huawei had violated the Microsoft Nukes Its Ebooks Store, and it was probably for Bestns against Iran and had committed bank fraud. The news of American espionage on Huawei comes from a federal hearing during which US Attorney General Alex Solomon said he intended to use information "obtained or derived from Huawei's electronic monitoring and 'physical search'. Oh the irony.

"Apple hires Google's best expert in artificial intelligence"

Now, it will also be necessary to call on an expert in ethics.

Samsung's profits plummet

Apparently, Apple is not the only giant smartphone to experience difficulties: Samsung said this week that its operating profit in the last quarter had dropped 60% over the previous year, reaching 5.5 billion dollars, its largest decrease in four years. Samsung's problems are not all related to the phone – in fact, it's memory chip sales that have contributed the most to the lack of sales – and the new S10 handset range is expected to increase over the next quarter. But we'll have to wait until later this month to get exact numbers on smartphone sales. I'm waiting for a bloodbath: the S10 range launched during the quarter for which Samsung now publishes results. I do not see things getting better in the future.

"AirPower: the best Apple gadget ever made"

You are terrible.

Jeff Bezos retains control of Amazon during a divorce

I do not usually report on celebrity divorces for obvious reasons, but it could have had significant repercussions. Fortunately, however, Jeff Bezos will retain control of Amazon as a result of his divorce with his wife MacKenzie, who will leave only with 25% of the online retail giant. This will allow Bezos to retain control of his vote on his $ 143 billion stake in Amazon. But do not worry about MacKenzie: her stake in Amazon is still worth $ 36 billion, making her the third richest woman in the world. But here's a better way to look at it: MacKenzie Bezos' stake in Amazon is worth more than the market value of nearly 70% of the S & P 500 companies. I guess it's really worthwhile to get married in wealth .

«France does not participate in the" crusade "against the United States with the digital tax»

Right. It's just a crusade against some giant tech companies. All are based in the United States.