This is the first part, the second part is not related to this in any kind, but I just got a second confirmation from Beijing and it matters towards this as well. You see, the first part is merely for (or on) Apple. The article (at https://www-bleepingcomputer-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/apple/apple-find-my-network-can-be-abused-to-steal-keylogged-passwords/amp/) comes from Bleeping Computers and the text ‘Apple ‘Find My’ network can be abused to steal key-logged passwords’ seems to be worrying and it very well might be. We see graphics and we see the setting of the consumer (yet again) getting screwed over because BigTech wanted ALL the data they could get. This is not an accusation, this merely is what it is and Apple is not as innocent as many others.
Yet I thought back to around 1990. In the Netherlands someone came up with a solution named Aegon LAR and it was an awesome solution. The solution does not matter, but the approach to it does. You see, Apple had the longest of times to get a solution in place. The solution was to pair one device to a ‘master’ and THAT master alone. We could set it to daily, weekly, or even monthly. With the optional setting to send one more bleep when the power is down to 5%-15%.
It would need to be paired by the owner at the beginning and we could pair through an app to PC’s, to our mobiles (iOS or Android) and so on. So instead of getting “They integrated a key-logger with an ESP32 Bluetooth transmitter into a USB keyboard to show that it’s possible to relay passwords and other sensitive data typed on the keyboard through the Find My network via Bluetooth”, Apple had the option to create a service where EVERY Apple user had an option to relay a clear message to ONE receiver instead of someplace abusers could hijack anything you have. But I suspect that the powers that be at Apple wanted more data and now it could cost the consumer a lot more than they thought. The fact that ‘Find My Network’ could be abused is no small issue and I do expect that Apple has been on this from the start, but as I fear the need for data exceeded the need for safety as this article highlights and that is a problem and not just for Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM and Microsoft. The moment players like Huawei and Tencent Technologies SHOW the people that they are more reliable they will gain marketshare and a lot more and a lot faster than ever before. Don’t forget that the western consumer base was never given actual and explicit evidence of any Huawei transgressions. A mere settled case of 2011 was at the most given and that was not showing ay interference by the Chinese government, merely an optional oversight by Huawei.
Getting back to the Apple issue, it needs to be said that I found more voices all quoting the same voice, so there isn’t a second independent voice. It lowers reliability. I am saying that upfront, one voice is not a given but a worrying setting none the less. The larger issue that is this (at www.Heise.de) is correct, the setting is a worrying one, especially if there was a 1990 solution that could have enabled more consumer safety. My setting comes from the front of my mind and it is not tested, but at least I am trying to relate a solution, not merely state that bit one and bit zero indicate that you are either 10 or 17 years old (a byte of a joke).
Now we have a larger stage, the media at large did not touch this even as the news is more than 2 days old, so in light of all the new Apple products, was this not tested (optionally debunking Heise)? When a new device is $1,849, or perhaps even $8,699 would you not want the guarantee of consumer safety? I reckon it is much more important than seeing it in Space Black (in space no one can here you frustrate) or Silver (when you merely have golden dreams). To know and to see that YOUR safety is adamant matters and I think that Big Tech is forgetting about that part of the equation, but that could be my view as I tend to get exposed to a lot more negativity that others and the media with its approach to deafness isn’t helping any, but that could be my view on the matter.
My weekend ends in 270 minutes, how about yours? Enjoy the day you have left.
That is not a term you are too familiar with, but in the old days (really old days) it became important to clean the reeds of all weeds. Weeds take the nourishment away from the reeds. It seems trivial but when a farmer had to live from a one acre field the impact of weeds becomes irritating and almost damaging. It is that setting that gets us to the Guardian who gives us ‘Microsoft accused of damaging Guardian’s reputation with AI-generated poll’ The article (at https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/31/microsoft-accused-of-damaging-guardians-reputation-with-ai-generated-poll) gives us “Microsoft’s news aggregation service published the automated poll next to a Guardian story about the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney last week.” In my personal view it is a populist setting by a desperate joke (Microsoft).
Take a moment You see, AI does not exist that is the first thing you need to realise. We do not have the technology to have AI at present. I believe in 10 years we will be able to do so. IBM has two elements that are still in their infancy. The quantum computer and shallow circuits are still not up to speed, but these two essential parts are missing everywhere. I stated before “Machine Learning and Deeper Machine Learning” are two elements and they are awesome, but they are not AI.
The second stage is that whatever Microsoft has, it is lacking data, they don’t have enough and their data is not clean. To be stupid and tasteless to give us a poll with the three options “murder, accident or suicide”, so whatever idiot (at Microsoft) playing spokesperson with the lamest of all excuses “We have deactivated Microsoft-generated polls for all news articles and we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content. A poll should not have appeared alongside an article of this nature, and we are taking steps to help prevent this kind of error from reoccurring in the future.”
Stage Three Stage three is painfully obvious. You see the two missing parts of any poll we see tends to be ‘Don’t know’ and ‘no opinion’, but that doesn’t fit the populist agenda of Microsoft. It wants to rock, rule and conquer and it is done emulating generals like Cadorna, Pillow, Haig, Ludendorff, McClellan and fear not, Microsoft has plenty of stupid people ready to emulate whatever they need to make their ego’s shine at the expense of everyone else.
The second part is that any poll is set to a hypotheses and the data once verified will result in top-line numbers. The hypotheses is based on insight and whatever Microsoft has can’t do that. In addition any poll needs to be overlooked and optionally revised. This is pretty much 101 in market research. Microsoft ignored it all, just like they ignore all the usual culprits and they care only for the bottom line. That is one of the clear results that this poll gives you. So, whatever idiot was linked to “we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content” should not be in any IT business. This should never have happened. All the issues state that their was no proper testing, no proper oversight BEFORE publishing and those hiding behind “better to ask forgiveness then ask permission” will merely assist bringing Microsoft down (and that is fine by me). And consider that in one swoop they also diminished Microsoft Start, which is about to make it market failure number eight. To lose market share to all these competitor eight times over. How long until the core subscriptions will also lose market share. Google and Adobe are ready to take over. In one article some time ago I made mention on how Adobe could set a much larger stage. A stage where Microsoft will only have Excel to rely upon. So how do you think they will maintain their $198,300,000,000 (2022) annual revenue when they lose fight after fight being short sighted and overlooking the obvious? I will let you ponder that but the results and evidence is showing up in more and more places. So how long until others figure out that Microsoft is pretty much the paper tiger we see, we admire the origami skills that were required to fold it, but we forget that any origami can be crushed with the hand of a child. The one obvious setting overlooked by all and especially people listening to Microsoft Marketing who will claim it is the prettiest and it has the sharpest claws of all the tigers in the world. Yet in the end a small child can crush it, not entirely unlike what Nintendo with its Switch did to the Xbox series X. Once you see that spin you will realise the parts I saw appear on the edge of my eyesight 3 years ago and I have written about it often enough. So when Adobe and Google make a partnership and we see that evolve Microsoft with its Office, its Office365, the connected outages, the Exchange server security holes and we can go on for some time. It is (as I personally see it) a diversifying screw-up of the highest kind and now that players like Adobe, Amazon, Google and IBM have their ducks in a row, they can start taking over Microsoft marketshare. This will not happen overnight, but before December 2026 Microsoft will be what we call an empty egg, all shell and no substance. That was the larger danger that they opened to everyone else and I reckon that a player like India will see their own indie developers take the first bites out of what was once a great company. They merely left it (as I personally see it) to greed driven executives, their biggest mistake. So when I made reference with the chihuahua stating “try Azure, Azure smells nice” I wasn’t kidding. We saw (a few months ago) “Microsoft’s Azure revenue is at least 25% lower than our previous estimates”, so was this fraudulent reporting (like the stuff Sam Bankman-Fried is found guilty of) or was this Microsoft ignoring the system missing part, something any market researcher knows from the get go (see Stage three). Your guess is as good as mine, but a drop of 25% is not a rounding error, it also gives me consideration why Microsoft was so desperate to partner up with Oracle. But Oracle has no master, it can optionally partner with Adobe, IBM and Google too. What it does show (to me at least) is that the Sybase engine that Microsoft bought in 1989 (I think) is no longer hacking it. It was once a contender, now it is down 25% and lagging massively behind Amazon.
Just like the weeds in the reeds, to be an eight time loser takes a particularly creative kind of stupid. But that is just me.
Enjoy Friday, the weekend and its 48 hour span are upon us.
This is the setting I found myself in. Early this morning (0r late last night) I wrote ‘War never Changes’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/10/29/war-never-changes/). It was several hours after that when I got a message from JB-Hifi who was flogging the Microsoft laptop ‘Surface Laptop Studio 2’ and I decided to search on some reviews. I knew nothing of this device and soon enough I understood why. The Verge gives us ‘Surface Laptop Studio 2 review: this could be so much more’ with the byline “Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Studio 2 has new chips, a new touchpad, and a very, very high price tag”, the review was given to the people on October 4th (world animal day no less) and there we see “there’s the biggest problem for the Surface at this price, which is that its battery life is not anywhere near what Apple can offer. I only averaged four hours and 19 minutes of continuous use out of this device with Battery Saver on” as such this battery is a lot less then what the MacBook Air gave us in 2020, the new MacBook Air is even better. More importantly it loses 7 out of 8 tests against the MacBook Air with a M2 processor. I was horrified that it took Microsoft 47% longer to export 4K video. That is nothing less than a joke. The larger issue isn’t this, it is that Intel just announced its “Meteor Lake” CPU generation, and we expect to see those laptops roll out around December. I have no idea how Microsoft stacks up against that puppy, but I fear the worst for Microsoft.
You see, we get that not every laptop is a given for everyone, I am fine with that. Yet to rely on an I7 processor implies you need a sturdy battery to begin with and that one is missing from the get go.
This is the larger setting of Microsoft, wanting to be in a race merely to compete, never to win it. They lost 6 times over already and they are losing more. How much longer before the Microsoft sycophants give up on the brand? Microsoft always had competitors (Asus, Apple, Dell, HP) and now Intel is in a position to surpass them as well. That is the problem with Microsoft, they aren’t in it to win it. They can claim whatever they want, yet when you get “Unfortunately, the Studio 2’s benchmark scores were underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong: it’s certainly an improvement over the OG Studio. Whether exporting in Premiere or running Tomb Raider, it is faster. But these are far from the best numbers you’ll see among premium workstations today.” To be labelled underwhelming is a problem. They shouted for the longest time that their console was the most powerful in the world and within 2 years it was surpassed by the weakest console of them all (Nintendo Switch) and I am about to hand 50 million potential customers (in phase one) to another vendor (preferably Amazon).
Microsoft is now the favourite corporation to end up with the wooden spoon (dead last in a race). They lost against so many (see previous article for names) and now we see that Intel and Tencent Technologies are potential better players too. It puts Microsoft on a sliding scale of revenue. It needs to get $4 billion in interest alone on current loans and when their so called mountain of revenue dwindles down because they are losing too many places where they are in the top 2 it becomes awkward and disappointing on several levels. This is the setting I spoke about yesterday and some still call me delusional. Not to worry, the facts are out there and the Verge (at https://www.theverge.com/23900932/microsoft-surface-laptop-studio-2-2023-intel-review) added to the hardship of Microsoft.
When you get quotes like “right now is a particularly not-great time to be buying a horrendously expensive 13th Gen laptop” especially when the 14th gen laptops are being released next month before Christmas. Then we get “the current Surface Laptop Studio is an okay convertible. For its price, it should be more than that”, as I see it it is Mediocrates all over again. He was the man famous for “Meh, good enough” and in IT that just doesn’t hold the mustard. If there is an upside then it would be the design and the screen. All these parts that I saw looked pretty spectacular. But does that warrant the $3,499.99 price-tag? I personally don’t believe so, but others might feel differently on that. It seemingly has more options to connect and that is good, but as stated lacks a full SD slot. That is an issue I had with the Lenovo Chromebook 5 years ago, but that thing was $349, for $3K more I expect better and the lack of a full slot tends to have other issues when working in laptop mode, but I will agree that could merely be me.
So on Sunday I learn that Microsoft still worships Mediocrates, not a good setting to be in, not at all.
In continuation of yesterday’s part. I did more mulling (or brooding) on the setting of the case file. If you consider that the case file is a collection of three mini games, the first thing I considered that three did not make the cut, so I came up with two more mini games. That led me to two considerations. The first was on the setting of ‘evidence’ the second was on progression.
Danger One The first danger was that you get too much of a “then I went there, then I did this then I saw that”. I need to consider another path. Almost like a diary, but with changing premisses.
Even as we adhere to some setting we can start with the date, the action and the location can be programmable. As such, we get more than a dozen versions of the first element which contains the action and location. From there we get (as illustrated) 4 versions as a start that describes the event we ‘just played’. That part is set with actions and clues. The clues (hints we uncovered) are set to text parts and these elements make up for a chapter in the case file. The problem here is not that it is too detailed, it becomes what elements are required. On the other hand, if I set the larger wheels in motion, the re-engineer will solve the setting.
Complication One The 4 versions are the four versions of the text, it might be that ChatGPT can ‘solve’ it all making the solution easier to get up to two dozen versions and that is ‘painted’ with the writer style that is selected. So that every case-file has a different artsy approach resembling the thriller and espionage greats of the past.
It is rather invigorating, trying to engineer a new solution from scratch. With the IP I made it was somewhat simple, now that I am getting to the nitty gritty part of the bottom layer, I need to set a different premise. The original solution that had 3 64KB mini games now becomes a lot more connecting. Each mini-game will not merely be larger, it will also give us more properties and more parameters to consider, to implement and to keep on the side to make the story work (or make it more of a story).
From there I will need to consider the elements to make it a framework. As such it is not a framework, but a setting to create a framework for each case file. When I get that I avoid replication to a larger degree making it much more long term, or at least longer term. You see the case file is merely one side of the appeal. The cases need to have the appeal for the whole game to remain interesting, not a connection of repeated actions. The idea to enhance the original was for me a trigger to create a better game, the case file was merely an extra. Yet the idea to make it a way to connect your gaming to any other mobile solution (for the case file) will add to the larger interest for gamers and that could also be set to enhancing the gamer profiles of gamers (if the gamer desires). There are still several parts to dig into. The first is to let the gamer set the connections and data collectors in place. That gave me a few ideas to enhance the game further. The second was to set the game in a ’24 hour’ setting.
Consider this example. Even as we see that action one and action two are interchangeable in the beginning, the setting past the second timeframes is that we could see different information in time frame three. When we add to the fact that action one and action two gives us different data we get a different and larger frame to work with, yet I also believe that any upside needs to receive a downside. We get on one side, but we are through that way denied other intelligence to work with (sorry for sounding cryptic). It becomes an altering frame within the game and now we get a new premise. We can create cases with altering time constraints. It adds to the dimensions of gaming enthusiasm. Adding the two ‘mini games’ was’t the challenge, it was how t fit it into the frame for players. Getting the introduction levels to get the first two ‘tools’ to teach the players what to do, then we get the ‘main tool’ and in the second intro mission we add one tool and in the third mission we add the second tool and after that the real missions start giving me a lot more challenges to upgrade the game from what was into what could be, but that is for soon enough.
That was the setting I was in yesterday. I love linked technologies. My first real interaction was connecting my Gameboy Advance to my Gamecube and in a game, the game boy was the map to the game I was playing on the Gameboy. This was neat (dorky but accurate). In the past I wrote about parts of this, but in a slightly different setting. In this case I am in the process of remastering IP (making it new or optionally innovative IP). The stage is that a game (or games) use a connection to something like ChatGPT to create case files based on writing styles like Chandler, Le Carre (an essential writer in my view), Desmond Bagley and Alistair McLean. That setting as the case file is merely a short story will not impede on the original writers.
So why does this matter? You see, games tend to have the EXACT SAME narrative. This is not on the games, but evolution is where you could create it. You see, even as Restoration has some alterations towards the narrative, this game requires a different approach to be a bigger hit. You see, the group of people who are gamers and are also bookworms (or enthusiast readers) is rather large. Another cluster that Amazon, Google and Microsoft missed. As such Amazon with the Luna and Kindle will have an advantage. That is until Tencent Technologies creates such a setting, or partners with Alibaba or Amazon to do the same thing. You see, what happens when a game you love creates (through ChatGPT, or an alike) create a case-file (read: narrative) that you can read and send to your friends, or place on your profile so that others can read these narratives. That makes the ChatGPT essential. Thousands of case files, similar but not exact copies. That create new waves, new interactions and new fans. All options that the larger three missed (a few times over). Now we get the narrative to a remaster all missed.
You see, streaming games need to evolve and bring more to the game. They will never replace the Nintendo or the Sony consoles, but they will be a brother to the other two and that is where the larger gains can be made and that is where I am looking and the larger three are all missing the boat. Well, Google dumped the Stadia, so they aren’t even in the game anymore. But the larger setting with Kindle can create a double whammy, especially when you consider how small some margins are, that sets up all kinds of new connections and create new evolutions in gaming and I am all about evolving gaming, as I get better or more inclusive games, me, myself, I and all other gamers win and winning is the marker we all accept.
All innovative directions the big three either ignored, rejected or never saw and it is not about the Kindle. You could set this to a PDF. The setting is that you add to any profile to make the profile more, not more advertising, but more profile we all win and that is the second tier of creating waves. Let the game push all sides of gaming, not merely the game, or the narrative. As I personally see it another side ignored by the two remaining players (Amazon and Tencent Technologies). Now to be fair Tencent is new to this, but they are more and more in a position to take up a massive chunk of gaming marketshare and if they do it well, it is fine by me. I as a gamer win (other gamers too) and that is what I am after. More and better games, not Microsoft or Ubisoft iterations, but more and better games.
So whilst we see iteration after iteration, gamers hunger for more and that time is already now. So, lets see what time and innovation will be brought to gamers and readers alike.
That is the setting I have been looking at for the last few days. What was the number one BUSINESS solution on social media has become a populist self promoting machine of garbage. Yes, a treasure to some is garbage to others.
Small Issue See here the small issue. Aqualand Australia, it is more than just a method of presentation.
We can all agree that presentation would be part of LinkedIn and I have zero issues with that. Yet the link goes to a place lacking all kinds of information and you MIGHT get more, if you only hand over your details and e-mail. A simple email grab, not unlike cybercriminals out for some phishing spots. I don’t mind them being bad at informing you, but the email grab? I have an issue with that. It is the lowest least acceptable form of sales technique done by people who lack sales skills. You see, if they were proper sales people, they would have included a PDF (example) with ALL the information. If the information is good, the real people would be in contact, they would be making the next move. Yet in Australia housing is expensive and I personally suspect that the lack of information is to ensure that these salespeople get every dime out of you that they can get. Not merely the price of the house, but the maximum drain they can get. Now, I accept that I might be wrong on a few things and it could have been resolved by giving us all the goods and the real deal, but we aren’t getting that are we?
Big Issue This is becoming an actual nuisance. LinkedIn members are getting more and more hassled with fake polls.
Consider “Is your job hunt in the Intelligence Community becoming more challenging and what specific challenges are you encountering?” Is this an actual Yes/No question? And I am seeing several a day. Some will actually try to connect to whomever answered the question, because the author can see how YOU voted. It is a sales technique that is not clever, it is not innovative. It is (as I personally see it) merely stupid and with groups becoming public, this issue will merely grow.
The larger issue is that LinkedIn was an established professional network, by changing the rules and through that increase traffic, they are now becoming their own words enemy. Consider that players like Xing (German version) is starting to get into a position where they could poach plenty of LinkedIn members by doing nothing and by preventing that these actions will be allowed. Less than half a dozen little actions that could diminish LinkedIn with their 950 million members in more than 200 countries could make them lose close to 10% annually. LinkedIn will be a larger network for some time, but the foundations are shifting. Players like Xing, Jobcase, Hired and Hirect are nowhere near that size, but people might decide to take up a second network and when that network is giving them what they need, LinkedIn will lose a lot more than they thought of. I personally see this that their need to increase traffic for all kinds of reasons is starting to have a more negative impact.
The number one question becomes how wrong could I be? I could always be wrong, but the populist approach seldom has a positive outcome. It is only those seeking (and lacking) attention seek the populist method and as I personally see it, those lacking sales skills (marketing too) need all kinds of attention, some valid, some questionable. Yet this is merely my point of view.
As such, LinkedIn need to reassess what they are doing and what they allow to be ‘collected’ A mere change in certain paths might solve part of the problem for LinkedIn for now.
LTG or Long Term Gaming was today’s topic. It was a tweet that brought me to this point. It wasn’t entirely that tweet. When I created the foundation of Restoration replayability was the setting I focussed on.
As such the image made me giggle but then I considered the impact of what could be and that is going to be all the rage in streaming games, or GaaS as some techno dudes set their cap.
You see, would it not be an idea to have a blend of iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 when you play that game in 2024? And I am not merely talking cosmetic. You see in a game like Watchdogs 2, the phones could have additional power and optionally additional protection. Sneaking into a parking lot (one of the WD2 missions) could make it a lot more challenging. That setting is overlooked. It is not the fault of the creators, this setting was never an option in gaming. But now it is possible. For example in Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, some of the elite guards could in 2024 be sporting Body armour by manufacturer XTEK. You see, games never had the additional parameters, but the new streaming consoles will be different, gaming will be taken to a whole new level making it essential that games are upgraded, as will be the need for more and better equipment. Before you start going on ‘that’s too hard’ consider that we see now what was never an option in the Commodore Amiga or the Atari ST. Games and systems evolve and now we get a setting where one system (a streaming system) will add new dimensions of gaming. I will not part with my PS5, I love it too much, but having a streaming system next to it will become more and more commonplace. Now these evolutions are not a given. Assassins Creed Mirage will not be impacted, it plays 1200 years ago. But there are plenty of games where if COULD apply. Newer speedboats, new model cars, new model nearly everything and there is a larger setting.
On February 13th 2022 I wrote “Just like the stage of combining deeper machine learning to a lens (or google glasses), a camera lens that offer direct translations, and the fun part is we can select if that is pushed through to film, or merely seen by us, now consider filming in Japan with machine learning and deeper machine learning auto translating ANY sign it sees” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/13/looky-looky/) in the article ‘Looky Looky’ Now we see advertisements by Google iPhone doing that very thing. Another example where my creativity trumped a big tech company, in this case Google. Gaming was about pushing boundaries and it could do so again, not at the behest of Microsoft when they finish some new piece of software, but ahead of that software. People like Sid Meier danced on the edge of the CBM64 with Pirates in 1987. He did what even Commodore did not consider possible and he was not alone. We need to push art back to that stage and streaming systems are the most logical choice here. A setting where long term gaming could evolve and for the streamers (Amazon and Tencent Technologies) that stage needs to be explored sooner rather than later. When gamers see that they get a new dimension in gameplay. They will come and tip their toes in the water. Gamers always do and that is why Sony was scared of the SEGA Dreamcast.
Soul Calibur was something that no one had, not even Sony. SEGA pushed the envelope and of course Xbox360, PS3 and PS4 had their own innovative successes. Now it is time for a new level of innovation and it is my believe that streamers could be holding that trump card. How players like Ubisoft will go about it? This is anyones guess, but I reckon that a player like Guerrilla Software and Santa Monica Studio are looking into that chapter right now, because the first one in will get the larger slice of pizza, that has always been a given and it is one of the reasons I oppose Microsoft invasion of the safe space that we gamers had. It was not about making gaming for everyone, it was pure and simple greed and greed will diminish a game EVERY TIME. There is no exception to that rule, which is why I am making a lot of my thoughts public domain. I hope to inspire and spark independent game makers. Yes, I had a dollar sign on my head as well (a person needs to eat and pay rent) but a lot is already PD here, so I will never see a penny of that myself.
So, whilst I am ‘evangelising’ Long Term Gaming, the setting in a GaaS (Gaming as a Service) is not new and it will exist and it should exist. Game Pass was a brilliant idea. It was Microsoft’s decision to not include several games until 2024, but there could be a legal reason (I do not know).
What matters is that I just had an additional idea that no game is sporting at present, that is not on those games. They were limited by hardware. With streamers it is a lot less limiting on deployment and physical copies. It is a different animal where we get a new stage, a new kind of food and a new kind of animal, but not one we have ever seen before and that makes it exciting.
Enjoy the weekend. Down here Saturday is a mere 1827 seconds away.
Yes, this happens. Even to me and Microsoft apparently figured part out, part I had hoped to include in the sale of my IP, IP which might now be made public domain. I refuse to let Microsoft walk away with it all. You see, I made the second (or third mention) in ‘Ring around the currency’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/25/ring-around-the-currency/) on Christmas day 2022, almost a year ago. I had seen how gaming went and I made some calculations. Between 1985 and 1999 the systems Atari 800, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga had a little over 10,000 games. I reckoned that if you took the list sorted by rating and you take the top 10% you end up with 1,000 games. Now we get that some still have IP protection. I reckoned that if we set that marker to 50% (really high) we still end up with 500 games, a lot more than Amazon or Google had. The others are fair game, no IP protection and these games could easily be transformed for cloud gaming. Going from 64KB to 1MB-15MB is still a good gig and these games were really fun and addictive. A system with 500 games (merely one of three pillars). That is what the seemingly bright people at Amazon missed and I was laughing most of the year, knowing that my giggles were temporary at best. It was one part that ensured 50,000,000 consoles and alas Kingdom Holding (with Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud) were not taking the bait for billions in revenue. Neither was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who was driven to eSports. But I thought ahead of the pack. You see eSports people get there by training and the younger they are the better they become and these games set up my and the next generation, so the new generation could do worse than train on these games. Still that was not my focus, it was a focus on fun. The fun I had through decades of joyful gaming. Not hopping like a kangaroo in FPS games. I also saw the option to reengineer some games (like Defender of the Crown) to be a little more realistic and more Arabic driven, a combination of that game with a focus of the 1st Crusades. Show the current generation what Islamic life in 1095-1291 achieved. And that was not all, many games were up for grabs, rejected and forgotten. As such the creation of a large coffer of games would propel any console and that was the setting I set out to do, but it was only one of three pillars. I tend to make the other two pillars public domain soon enough especially as my retirement in Toronto is now no longer a reality.
There were several other games that required remastering in the new setting. There was Knight Games on the CBM64, and setting this with a Saracen style might appeal to a lot of Arabic gamers. The nice part was that I had played most of those games and I would be able to recall plenty of details and plenty of gaming sides, even improve on some of them. A setting that was never considered in those days.
All this came to the surface when I saw ‘Phil Spencer Teases the Revival of Older Microsoft Franchises’. It came with ““With Game Pass, we have the ability to maybe pick a couple of franchises every year and almost do a ‘revisited’,” Spencer explained. Although he clarified that it was not an official branding term, he expressed the potential to recognise the significance of these games in gaming history and make them available through Game Pass.”
Yes, that was the setting that gave me pause to think. Spencer does not think in small settings and as I make this now public domain others will come and see what they can have. You see Microsoft has committed 69 billion, as such making sure that all these games get multiple contenders all vying for a piece of the pie makes the slice for Microsoft smaller and that is not the only thing they will face. So all who read this, if you develop games, see what old games you could purchase, get the IP for or register the new gaming IP. It will be the first disappointment for Microsoft. They will have to share the pie with many others. The other side is that these people could get a slice of the game through the new Tencent Technology handheld. Another mess they never banked on. I had hoped to keep ahead of the curve, but it seems that this is no longer an option. The only thing left is to make these steps as expensive as possible for Microsoft. They invested to get a mile, so if I can make the setting so that they merely get a furlong it will be a good day for me, or at least a better day than it was this morning. So here you see it, this is what Amazon and Google missed. Well, it was one of three parts they missed and I wonder if someone over there will wake up at some point.
Enjoy the day, I will enter Friday being decently grumpy today.
We have all heard this one. The setting that people doing exactly the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different outcome. A patent clerk named Alfred came up with it according to a fair amount of people, but here you would be wrong. It originated somewhere around 1980 apparently by Narcotics Anonymous. The US government has taken this setting of insanity to heart as we can see.
Not the first but we get at some point that the US government was stopping Android towards China, Huawei especially. The consequence was that Huawei created HarmonyOS. They are now at 4.0.0.121 which is available in 77 languages, so not just in China. It might not have the following that makes it a threat to Google and it likely won’t be for years to come. But the stage has been created. To give some kind of relativity “Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group claimed that HarmonyOS had reached 300 million smartphones and other smart devices, including 200 million devices in the ecosystem and 100 million third-party consumer products from industry partners.” The setting that it is now in 300,000,000 smartphones and smart devices implies that those machines are NOT using Google’s Android. Nice example of stupidity US government.
So here is the prequel, now we get to the main event dished to us by the BBC. Here (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67141987) we are given ‘Beijing unhappy at latest wave of US restrictions’. The setting sounds one way, but when you get to “The measures target chipmaking tools as well as advanced chips, including two from market leader Nvidia. The move is being seen as an attempt to close loopholes that became apparent after an initial wave of chip controls last October. America said the measures were designed to prevent China from receiving cutting-edge technologies that it could use to strengthen its military, especially in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).” So stupidity continues in a few ways. You see AI does not yet exist and the one player most likely to push that into completion is IBM. And for the statement “prevent China from receiving cutting-edge technologies” is pretty much a joke. China already has cutting-edge technologies. Huawei is more advanced then anything the west has and we see that in action all over the Middle East. The second part is that Nvidia is a market leader, but it became one through business based cutting corners. This is not negativity, what they did was sound, clear and business based. But there is a downside for the US (yet again), like HarmonyOS, China can create its own chips. Granted that it will not be as powerful as Nvidia but it will work. And there is a second tier to all this now.
For example the PNY NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation Graphics Card is next level shit, we can all agree that this is the case and for $15,790 it is all yours. Yet, who could afford that? Now China gets to be in the place to create a competitor that can only do 90% of what this card could do, but for $3,500. The bulk of people who cannot afford the Nvidia card will jump at the Chinese option and then what? This is not some speculation, it is a given certainty. The US is throttling whatever they can and alternatives become a reality. First HarmonyOS, then we see that Saudi Arabia has the fastest 5G by leaps (over 700% faster than 5G in the USA) and that list merely becomes bigger, all whilst they set the stage for others to take over marketshare. Have they forgotten the harsh lesson they saw in 1985-1995? They blocked Russia from getting PC’s and other hardware and as a result Toshiba became a world player with an annual revenue surpassing ¥158.94 billion (2021). Marketshare lost to Compaq, HP, Dell, and so on. So, what will the US do when China stops exports to the USA? Cry?
America thinks it is a global player, but that is no longer the case and their 325 million people includes well over 50% who cannot afford any of it. That gives China the option to expand into Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The two richest nations (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) are now in a stage where they give more and more expansion options to China. I like the comparison that the West Wing gave us “America designed a pen that works in outer space, it costed them millions. Russia? They used a pencil” That stage is returning to us again and again. China will create new processors and through that new cloud systems and notebooks. In the meantime as people need to get cheaper stuff will end up with Chinese hardware. Europe has roughly 750,000,000 people, twice the population of America. Africa has a population of 1,215,000,000 people and the Middle East has around 370,000,000 people. All now getting a small nudge towards China. So, what will America do when it defaults at the same time that the people of the world moves towards Huawei, Harmony and whatever comes next?
So whilst we are given “The Biden administration has denied it was trying to hurt China economically, but Beijing’s foreign ministry branded the move “forced de-coupling for political purposes”.” We need to consider that this is a final act of desperation and the news that Chinese stock is down 1.2%, consider what happens to the stock of Microsoft, Google and Samsung when HarmonyOS is releasing 5.0 which is likely a year away. When the CEO of Huawei tells the world that their HarmonyOS is now in well over 500 million devices, that is the point that big-tech starts getting nervous and when Tencent technologies is told to end its partnership with Microsoft we will see the first sparks of a race that had only one outcome, all due to ego driven political posturing. I know that this will be an event as I have several pieces of IP that none of the other players have and I should not have this advantage. I got it by looking at what was possible, not what greed demanded I would do and that would result in some losing 3%-5% marketshare and that was why I initially went to the Saudi government. They can afford to buy it, the American firms will hide behind “Trust us, we’ll do right by you” but they will not deliver, they merely want freebees and now at the end of the margins that sloppy setting will cost them their house.
Could I be wrong? That is the first question I ask myself and I ask it all the time. To critically look at your own settings is how you can find flaws and I did find a few but consider that HarmonyOS did not exist before 2019. Consider that there was only Google and Apple and now one in 20 houses have Huawei and optionally HarmonyOS to some degree. It might be slow now, but in 2-3 years that amount will have doubled. Apple and Google are still safe and still firm, but this third player was never a blip before and now they are more than a blip. I personally believe that their grow markets are the Middle East and Asia. I reckon that India is the first setting. We were given “We are open to doing business with any company anywhere as long as they are investing and conducting their business lawfully and are in compliance with the Indian laws,” A statement by Deputy Minister for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar, as such India is now open for business. Huawei is re-entering Pakistan with smartphone solutions no later than early 2024. That opens up the corridor between China and Egypt and when Egypt comes across, which it already did in January as we saw “Telecom Egypt, the country’s first integrated telecom operator, in cooperation with Huawei Technologies” sets the stage that Huawei is now at the front door of Europe. The moment that Ericsson fails to remain on par, which it isn’t at present the flood gates into Europe open up and all this could have been prevented by focussing on innovation, which the telecom providers failed at all over Europe and in the USA. So that is the consequence that a lack of innovation brings and still the same old greed driven play is being pushed by America and as they financially buckle more and more, the game will get a different continuation.
This is not the first mention of this, I made several publications going back 2-3 years into this field and now that the stage is at the edge of readiness we see some mention of “it could use to strengthen its military” I merely laugh. The bulk of American politicians want to stop supporting Ukraine against Russia. If they are not ready for that setting they will not like what military encounters with China will look like. China doesn’t need to fight, it can just wait until America collapses and as things go that moment is coming closer and closer. The nanny state looks good on paper, but when you have too many children and only one nanny chaos is an absolute certainty, ask any mother. They can tell you just how bad things can get.
As I personally see it the US-China chip war is a paper tiger. It might sound nice now but it is staged on a setting that nothing changes and that is never a reality. Change is the number one part in evolution and innovation. In 2022, the total number of invention patents filed in China reached 4.21 million, of which 3.28 million were held by inventors from mainland China, do you really think that all innovation comes from America? Lets not forget that Nvidia only had an additional $60 million in revenue over the last year and that is one number that greed driven Wall Street does not like. There is no telling what happens when China get its own systems running and that is a certainty, no government will rely on foreign technology. Not in the west and not in the east. Yet that marker seems a lot more clear in the east, but feel free to refuse my view on that matter. That would be fair enough.
What will happen next? That is anyones guess, I stated clearly what is out in the open and what I expect to happen next. Make up your own mind and always check what you are given, no matter what or who the source is.
I was honestly a little surprised this morning when I saw the news pass by. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67137773) gives us ‘Twitter glitch allows CIA informant channel to be hijacked’. To be honest, I have no idea why they would take this road, but part of me gets it. Perhaps in the stream of all those messages, a few messages might never be noticed. The best way to hide a needly is to drop it in a haystack. Yet the article gives us “But Kevin McSheehan was able to redirect potential CIA contacts to his own Telegram channel” giving us a very different setting to the next course of a meal they cannot afford. So when we are given “At some point after 27 September, the CIA had added to its X profile page a link – https://t.me/securelycontactingcia – to its Telegram channel containing information about contacting the organisation on the dark net and through other secretive means”, most of us will overlook the very setting that we see here and it took me hours to trip over myself and take a walk on the previous street to reconsider this. So when we are given “a flaw in how X displays some links meant the full web address had been truncated to https://t.me/securelycont – an unused Telegram username” the danger becomes a lot more visible. And my first thought was that a civilian named McSheehan saw this and the NSA did not? How come the NSA missed this? I think that checking its own intelligence systems is a number one is stopping foreign powers to succeed there and that was either not done, or the failing is a lot bigger then just Twitter. So even as the article ends with “The CIA did not reply to a BBC News request for comment – but within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” we should see the beginning not the end of something. So, it was a set of bungles that starts with the CIA IT department, that goes straight into the NSA servers, Defence Cyber command and optionally the FBI cyber routines as well. You see, the origin I grasp at is “Installation of your defences against enemy retaliation” and it is not new, It goes back to Julius Caesar around 52BC (yes, more then two millennia ago). If I remember it correctly he wrote about it in Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Make sure your defences are secure before you lash out is a more up to date setting and here American intelligence seemingly failed.
Now, we get it mistakes will be made, that happens. But for the IT department of several intelligence departments to miss it and for a civilian in Maine to pick it up is a bit drastic an error and that needs to be said. This is not some Common Cyber Sense setting, this is a simple mistake, one that any joker could make, I get that. My issue is that the larger collection of intelligence departments missed it too and now we have a new clambake.
Yes, the CIA can spin this however they want, but the quote “within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” implies that they had not seen this and optionally have made marked targets of whomever has linked their allegiance to the CIA. That is not a good thing and it is a setting where (according to Sun Tzu) dead spies are created. Yet they are now no longer in service of America, but they are optionally in service of the enemies of the USA and I cannot recall a setting where that ever was a good thing. You see, there was a stage that resembles this. In 942 the Germans instigated Englandspiel. A setting where “the Abwehr (German military intelligence) from 1942 to 1944 during World War II. German forces captured Allied resistance agents operating in the Netherlands and used the agents’ codes to dupe the United Kingdom’s clandestine organisation, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), into continuing to infiltrate agents, weapons, and supplies into the Netherlands. The Germans captured nearly all the agents and weapons sent by the United Kingdom” For two years the Germans had the upper hand, for two years the SOE got the short end of that stick and this might not be the same, but there is a setting where this could end up being the same and I cannot see that being a good thing for anyone (except the enemies of America). Now, I will not speculate on the possible damage and I cannot speculate on the danger optional new informants face or the value of their intelligence. Yet at this point I think that America needs to take a hard look at the setting that they played debutante too. I get it, it is not clear water, with any intelligence operation it never is. Yet having a long conversation with the other cyber units is not the worst idea to have. You see, there is a chance someone copied the CIA idea and did EXACTLY the same thing somewhere else. As such how much danger is the intelligence apparatus in? Come to think of it, if Palantir systems monitor certain server actions, how did they miss it too? This is not an accusation, it is not up to Palantir to patrol the CIA, but these systems are used to monitor social media and no one picked up on this?
Just a thought to have on the middle of this week.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 
X to the power of sneaky
I was honestly a little surprised this morning when I saw the news pass by. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67137773) gives us ‘Twitter glitch allows CIA informant channel to be hijacked’. To be honest, I have no idea why they would take this road, but part of me gets it. Perhaps in the stream of all those messages, a few messages might never be noticed. The best way to hide a needly is to drop it in a haystack. Yet the article gives us “But Kevin McSheehan was able to redirect potential CIA contacts to his own Telegram channel” giving us a very different setting to the next course of a meal they cannot afford. So when we are given “At some point after 27 September, the CIA had added to its X profile page a link – https://t.me/securelycontactingcia – to its Telegram channel containing information about contacting the organisation on the dark net and through other secretive means”, most of us will overlook the very setting that we see here and it took me hours to trip over myself and take a walk on the previous street to reconsider this. So when we are given “a flaw in how X displays some links meant the full web address had been truncated to https://t.me/securelycont – an unused Telegram username” the danger becomes a lot more visible. And my first thought was that a civilian named McSheehan saw this and the NSA did not? How come the NSA missed this? I think that checking its own intelligence systems is a number one is stopping foreign powers to succeed there and that was either not done, or the failing is a lot bigger then just Twitter. So even as the article ends with “The CIA did not reply to a BBC News request for comment – but within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” we should see the beginning not the end of something. So, it was a set of bungles that starts with the CIA IT department, that goes straight into the NSA servers, Defence Cyber command and optionally the FBI cyber routines as well. You see, the origin I grasp at is “Installation of your defences against enemy retaliation” and it is not new, It goes back to Julius Caesar around 52BC (yes, more then two millennia ago). If I remember it correctly he wrote about it in Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Make sure your defences are secure before you lash out is a more up to date setting and here American intelligence seemingly failed.
Now, we get it mistakes will be made, that happens. But for the IT department of several intelligence departments to miss it and for a civilian in Maine to pick it up is a bit drastic an error and that needs to be said. This is not some Common Cyber Sense setting, this is a simple mistake, one that any joker could make, I get that. My issue is that the larger collection of intelligence departments missed it too and now we have a new clambake.
Yes, the CIA can spin this however they want, but the quote “within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” implies that they had not seen this and optionally have made marked targets of whomever has linked their allegiance to the CIA. That is not a good thing and it is a setting where (according to Sun Tzu) dead spies are created. Yet they are now no longer in service of America, but they are optionally in service of the enemies of the USA and I cannot recall a setting where that ever was a good thing. You see, there was a stage that resembles this. In 942 the Germans instigated Englandspiel. A setting where “the Abwehr (German military intelligence) from 1942 to 1944 during World War II. German forces captured Allied resistance agents operating in the Netherlands and used the agents’ codes to dupe the United Kingdom’s clandestine organisation, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), into continuing to infiltrate agents, weapons, and supplies into the Netherlands. The Germans captured nearly all the agents and weapons sent by the United Kingdom” For two years the Germans had the upper hand, for two years the SOE got the short end of that stick and this might not be the same, but there is a setting where this could end up being the same and I cannot see that being a good thing for anyone (except the enemies of America). Now, I will not speculate on the possible damage and I cannot speculate on the danger optional new informants face or the value of their intelligence. Yet at this point I think that America needs to take a hard look at the setting that they played debutante too. I get it, it is not clear water, with any intelligence operation it never is. Yet having a long conversation with the other cyber units is not the worst idea to have. You see, there is a chance someone copied the CIA idea and did EXACTLY the same thing somewhere else. As such how much danger is the intelligence apparatus in? Come to think of it, if Palantir systems monitor certain server actions, how did they miss it too? This is not an accusation, it is not up to Palantir to patrol the CIA, but these systems are used to monitor social media and no one picked up on this?
Just a thought to have on the middle of this week.
Leave a comment
Filed under IT, Military
Tagged as Abwehr, BBC, CIA, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Common Cyber Sense, DoD, Englandspiel, FBI, Julius Caesar, Kevin McSheehan, Maine, NSA, Palantir, SOE, Special Operations Executive, Sun Tzu, Twitter