Huawei has postponed indefinitely the release of a new laptop

(June 12) Huawei has postponed indefinitely the release of a new laptop that uses Windows as an OS according to the Windows laptop consumer CEO Richard Yu.

The new laptop was set to be announced at CES Asia show

The 2019 Consumer Electronics Show Asia will be held in Shanghahi this week: "Be part of the tech revolution. Experience groundbreaking technology and get in touch with the world’s brightest minds at Asia’s leading tech event. CES Asia is the place where startups, entrepreneurs and global brands converge to form game-changing partnerships. CES Asia 2019 will return to Shanghai, China June 11-13, 2019. The only industry event focused on the Asia-Pacific market will take place at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC) and the Kerry Hotel in Pudong New Area."

The new US trade sanctions are restricting Huawei's ability to use US software such as Microsoft's Windows 10 and Intel processors. Yu said the situation was unfortunate and said that the new product would have been revealed this week but without a release date. Given the problems with the US ban as Huawei is on the US Entity List the company decided not even to announce the product. Unless Huawei is removed from the blacklist the laptop may never see the light of day.

Addition of Huawei to the US Entity List

The Federal Register summarizes the addition of Huawei to the Entity List: "In this rule, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by adding Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) to the Entity List. The U.S. Government has determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Huawei has been involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. BIS is also adding non-U.S. affiliates of Huawei to the Entity List because those affiliates pose a significant risk of involvement in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. Huawei will be listed on the Entity List under the destination of China. This final rule also adds to the Entity List sixty-eight non-U.S. affiliates of Huawei located in twenty-six destinations: Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Germany, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Madagascar, Netherlands, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and Vietnam."

Notice 68 affiliates in 26 other countries are also on the list.

Huawei to stop production of laptops

No details of the new laptop have been revealed except that it will be in the MateBook line. In February Huawei announced the Matebook 14 and also updated its well thought of Matebook X Pro line. But neither has shipped as yet.

Digitimes had reported earlier this week that Huawei is actually halting production and development of laptop computers. Microsoft has said nothing about what is happening but has removed Huawei laptops from sale.

Huawei stockpiling parts and technology

Huawei hopes to mitigate the effects of the ban on existing laptops as it has been stockpiling US components of the laptops.

The laptop division is a very small part of the company's total business. However, the laptops had represented the biggest consumer success in the US so far. It was a success too for the US companies who supplied components.

Previously published in the Digital Journal

Windows 10 now on 800 million devices world wide but short of one billion target

The latest Microsoft Windows operating system Windows 10 is now running on 800 million devices globally the company has announced.

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The figure includes not only traditional desktop and laptop computers but hybrids such as the Surface Pro, consoles such as the Xbox One X, and phones that are still running the Windows 10 Mobile. The Mobile version will not have any security updates at the end of 2019.

Prediction in April of 2015

In an announcement back in April of 2015 the company predicted it would be used on a billion devices within two or three years of its release: "Microsoft has huge hopes for Windows 10, and it wants to quickly see the new operating system become its most successful ever. Windows chief Terry Myerson said today that Microsoft wants to see Windows 10 on 1 billion devices within two or three years of its release. "No other platform working in any ecosystem is available on 1 billion devices," he said. Microsoft believes that between its free upgrade offer for existing Windows customers, new devices, and plans for business users, it should be able to hit that target."

Revised prediction in 2016

In July of 2016 Microsoft realized it might taken longer to be installed on a billion browsers: "..Windows marketing head Yusef Medhi says the poor performance of its mobile division means it won't likely hit its original milestone within three years after release."Windows 10 is off to the hottest start in history with over 350 million monthly active devices, with record customer satisfaction and engagement," he said. "We're pleased with our progress to date, but due to the focusing of our phone hardware business, it will take longer than FY18 for us to reach our goal of 1 billion monthly active devices. In the year ahead, we are excited about usage growth coming from commercial deployments and new devices - and increasing customer delight with Windows." Starting July 30th, 2016, the company will no longer give out the upgrade for free and instead will start charging $119. So the upgrade rate is expected to slow further."

Indeed, ceasing the free upgrades no doubt slowed the growth of usage. The failure of the mobile version also meant that other operating systems such as Android were dominating the phone market.

Microsoft is still short of its target

While Windows 10 on 800 million devices worldwide is the most popular desktop operating system in the world it is still a long way from being on a billion devices even though it is now over three years since its release. Last year Windows 10 overtook the older Windows 7. WIndows 10 is currently on 40 percent pf PCs according to Net Applications but Windows 7 is still in second place with 38.5 percent. The most popular Apple Mac OS is Mojave 10.14 at just less than 5 percent.

Statcounter data

Statcounter has data on operating system shares on all devices plus particular devices such as desktops and also shows the share of different Windows versions on desktops. On desktops Windows 10 is on more than half the desktops globally by far the most prevalent OS on desktops. However, if one looks at all devices then it is the Android OS that wins at present with 36.5 percent of the market just above that of Windows systems at 35.99 percent. Apple's mobile iOS has 13.9 percent while its OS X has another 6.37 percent. Linux has a mere 0.79 percent with the rest being unknown or an unlisted brand.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Microsoft finds another way of imposing its own browser Edge on users

Microsoft revealed today that it is testing a new change to its future version of Windows 10 which will make links clicked on in the Windows Mail app open in Microsoft Edge.

Ignoring your default browser if it is not Edge

There are many browsers that are available for free download. Among the most popular are: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. There are many others. I use Vivaldi as well as Opera. Edge is the recent Microsoft browser with Internet Explorer being Microsoft's older browser.

Any of these browsers can be set as your default. However, Microsoft will now ignore that when you click a link in its mail app. and open the link in Edge.

Forcing you to change in this way is nothing new to Microsoft. If you use Cortana it forces you to use Bing as your search engine even though you may have set Google as your default search engine. It also opens results in Edge even if it is not your default browser.

Microsoft wants feedback

Microsoft's Dona Sarkar said in a blog post: “As always, we look forward to feedback from our WIP community."

There is a feedback hub that you can get at this site.

In spite of Microsoft pushing Edge Chrome is still the top browser

Other attempts to push Edge consisted of videos critical of Chrome's claims about battery life and even ads within Windows 10 itself to promote Edge. I would add that Edge cannot be uninstalled as can any other browser you download. Yet Chrome is still the top browser whether considering all browsers or just desktops.

Top browsers

As an article in Wikipedia explains different there are problems measuring browser use accurately but StatsCounter rates the percentage use of different browsers for desktop browsers, all browsers, and other categories such as tablets and smart phones.

For all browsers Chrome comes on top with usage share in February 2008 at 57.46 percent. Apple's OS Safari is second with 14.39 percent. UC, mostly used in developing countries is third with 7.91 percent. Firefox is fourth with 5.5 percent. Edge is far down the list at only 1.86 percent. Even Opera is twice as popular at 3.86 percent.

The situation does not improve if only desktops are included. Chrome is still first in February at 67.9 percent, in front by far. Firefox is second at 11.54 percent. Ironically, third is IE, Microsoft's old browser at 6.9 percent. Safari is fourth at 5.42 percent. Edge is next at 4.04 percent.

Edge cannot even reach the level of usage that discontinued IE does. However, Microsoft may find further devious devices to force us to use it. One foolproof way to avoid all this is to install any free Linux operating system of which there are dozens of versions. You can always install a dual boot system in case you want to use Windows as well.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Microsoft making it more and more difficult to boot Linux

There are numerous computer operating systems (OS) other than the various versions of Windows and this includes well over 100 distributions of Linux-based systems.

Wikipedia gives a short history of Linux. A list of some of the more popular versions for 2015 together with their relative virtues can be found here.

Until the development of Windows 8, it was relatively simple to install Linux distributions from a DVD or from a USB stick on computers that allow booting from a USB stick. I use Lili USB creator to create mine but there are several other free creators. The instructions are easy to follow. Once you have your USB stick or DVD with the Linux installer and distribution on it, you simply use it to boot up your computer into the Linux OS.

To do this it used to be easy before Windows 8. You simply went into your BIOS settings by pressing a designated key when booting. Often what key to press is shown during the bootup process. You can then change the boot order so that the computer will boot from the USB stick or DVD. There will be a list of choices. Some computers will not have the USB alternative. You then restart your computer and it will boot into Linux. You have the choice of just running Linux from the DVD or USB-stick, installing Linux alongside Windows (dual boot) or wiping out your Windows and installing just Linux. Newer distributions often also allow you to run Linux from within Windows.The installer has a program that will help you partition your hard drive but this can also be done within Windows 10 and perhaps earlier versions. A good account of how to install Linux in a dual boot system can be found here.

With the advent of Windows 8.0 and 8.1 and Windows 10, the traditional BIOS sytem was changed to a UEFI system. However, you could still access the UEFI settings so that you could set them to boot from your DVD or USB stick. Accessing the UEFI settings is a bit more difficult than with the earlier or legacy BIOS setttings but there are at least different ways of doing it Three ways are described here. However, since Windows 8 there is another problem, UEFI Secure Boot.

UEFI Secure Boot is described a follows: When you boot a new Windows 8 PC, the Secure Boot feature in the UEFI firmware checks the operating system loader and its drivers to ensure they’re signed by an approved digital signature. On Windows PCs, the UEFI Secure Boot feature generally checks to see if the low level software is signed by Microsoft or the computer’s manufacturer. This prevents low-level malware like rootkits from interfering with the boot process.But the same feature that blocks rootkits will also block other software, like Linux boot loaders.This created a huge problem for those who wanted to install a dual boot system or just try out Linux from a DVD or USBstick. The system refused to boot because there was no Microsoft or other approved signature.

However, there was a work-around to this problem. There was a switch within the boot settings to turn Secure Boot off or on. Turning it off allowed Linux users to boot the system into Linux. Microsoft required that Windows 8 have this switch. However, in Windows 10, Microsoft had a surprise. Having the switch became optional: Manufacturers will be able to enable UEFI Secure Boot without giving you a manual kill switch, as they have to do with Windows 8 systems. If that happens, you’ll only be able to boot Microsoft-approved operating systems on these locked-down PCs. Microsoft is turning the Secure Boot screws tighter, and Linux users are right to be concerned—but the issue is more complicated (and probably less disastrous) than it seems at first blush.

There are still some Linux systems that are able to boot even though UEFI Secure Boot is turned on, including popular versions such as Ubuntu, since they have an approved signature. However, many versions will not.

I tried booting Linux Mint from a bootable USBstick with my HP Pavilion P6 series computer running Windows 10. It failed to boot. I checked to see if there is a toggle switch to turn off Security Boot. There was not. I then went to my Gateway SX2185, also running Windows 10, and found it had the toggle switch and I turned off Secure Boot. I was able to run Linux Mint with no problems. I then created a bootable USBstick for Ubuntu 14.04.3. I tried to boot from it on the Pavilion. It works fine. Microsoft has not stopped users from trying Linux or creating dual boots. It has just made it more difficult so that less people will be bothered. Readers could carry out a little experiment. Go to your local computer store and ask them which of their computers have switches to enable or disable UEFI Security Boot. It would be interesting to see how many sales people know what you are talking about.