Tag Archives: Microsoft

June 27, 2024 · 01:17

The side not illuminated

The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5111qxl2nro) is giving us ‘Apple in breach of law on App Store, says EU’ We get a few sides, but one side is not given to us. We are given “European Union regulators have accused Apple of being in breach of new laws designed to rein in big tech companies” It sounds nice, but at present the station “rein in big tech companies” is at least sanctimonious. We are also given “The firm charges developers an average of 30% commission on its App Store” and the penalty is given as we are given “The firm faces a potential fine of up to 10% of its global revenue if it fails to comply with the rules”. You see the one part we are NOT given is that all these developers get a channel to publish their work. The get their million by harassing people with advertising. These developers have no interest in giving gamers a real gaming satisfaction (some, but massively too little). So the EU should consider the fallout. You see Apple and Google could do two things. Pull all the games with an advertising channel, stating that this is not permitted. The second part is that they can start charging for the service. The bulk of these gaming ‘companies’ will soon thereafter collapse. You see when all these companies get CHARGED for spreading these games and cyber security. The net thing we see is that these companies will go somewhere else and the dangers of servicing hackers becomes rather large. 

The next part is that this becomes a new setting where the UAE and Saudi Arabia will get the option to offer the same thing Apple and Google did, but charging a mere 5% to 10%, the rest will probably going to China, making the EU and US lose even more revenue. 

All this because the shareholders of Epic Games wanted more revenue and they got this by throwing a tantrum like a child so that they get charged less for services. And lets be clear, they were eager to accept the deal when they were small, now that they are big they can afford to pay for the services. But that is not the only part. Epic Games wanted another path and when even one of these 3rd parties get to be hacked and the players get the damage, Epic Games will face the largest class action lawsuit in history. At that point I wonder how the shareholders will reflect on a pay cycle that will cost them billions. They had a safe environment with Apple and Google, but when that falls away these two will help to give the victims all the numbers and all the support they need to clean out the vaults of all the game developers who took the greedy way out. In addition the EU will get a new problem. As game makers fall flat and optionally move to China or the Middle East the EU will lose revenue. In the last 8 years 10 games made $13,000,000,000. So what will the EU do when that goes to China (or the Middle East)? There are over 200 companies, 105 made over $500,000,000. This was a bad call. These politicians have a socialistic mindset, Take from the rich, but they forget that these rich companies set the foundation of growth. Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos were real innovators. The mediocrity of Microsoft is pushing them back more and more. And whilst they might be shown as the richest, they are losing more and more ground. Now with the EU, more and more business will move to better (read: non-European and American) shores. 

And the EU did this to themselves. Consider the DMA:

  • Business users who depend on gatekeepers to offer their services in the single market will have a Fairer business environment (But these services come at a cost, no more Freebees)
  • allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations. (If hacked those services become nullified)

Just to part, the first will nullify these innovators, they cannot afford these services and they will go to a cheap solution making them a target for hackers. The second part will end some games, gamers have no patience and no humour. So when their game stops they will all cry like little children, their toy was taken away and when a hacker does get to upper hand, the class actions will come calling for all these companies. It is a war that the EU cannot win and the larger companies will become empty shells (my prediction). 

Until this first case was decided there was merely a threat of things, now it is coming to pass. 

I wonder what happens to the ‘fake’ economy in Europe when this starts. When advertising through gaming stops. What will the damage be? Amazon, Apple and Google have other means for getting advertising revenue. The others? Anyones guess, but there is a chance that a few hundred companies are sweating because no revenue meant no cost and that could stop now. So they need to find bankers. And what will those bankers demand? All issues that the DMA (Digital Markets Act) did not consider. I believe that this Apple case is opening a can of worms  no one is ready for and the implications are long term.

And now it is Thursday, Enjoy this day when you get to this point.

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June 20, 2024 · 18:02

Changing the game

There was a setting that was designed with the recently departed Google Stadia and the Amazon Luna in mind. I set the premise to 50 million systems in phase one and up to 200 million in phase two in mind. Alas Amazon wasn’t attracted to such a sales venue. Last night I pondered a few items and I occurred to me that the Apple Vision Pro was equally set to that premise. There is a limitation, they would have to be able to run Unreal Engine 5 environments. When that is possible the rest would auto fill in, the other parts would not need UE5. Take that and like it to the Apple Arcade and they would make Microsoft irrelevant within a year, optionally to years. It is the setting that will show the other players (like Kingdom Holding) that they lost out. When this setting goes to apple, they can define a new niche customer base. Apple Arcade matter because not everyone can afford the Vision Pro. Even if a cheaper version comes to market close to 75 million people would be left in the cold. And I reckon that Apple wants the entire cluster of people. The fact that you get an arcade setting that could be upgraded to Vision Pro almost sells itself. And my predictions were conservative. 200 million is a little over 10% of the entire cluster with Indonesia, Bangladesh and Egypt leading the way. Places were Apple have great growth potential. That and a largely untapped advertisement potential as well. In the end It is a market that will end Microsoft, it gaming and their edge population (the little they had in the first place). I have been going over the numbers in the first place and I can see no downfall here. 

Apple’s first task is to set the Vision Pro to deal with Unreal Engine 5, it is the cornerstone of success, or at least it will be. In the end Apple will have to open (or enhance) a data cloud in Saudi Arabia with later on added clusters in Indonesia and Egypt. But I reckon that when they pass 100 million added people it would be a trivial expenditure. And if they surpass the 10% group (which requires data insight that I cannot lay my fingers on) the entire setting will cost Microsoft and Facebook revenue that they currently think is ‘safe’. But they didn’t count on a wildcard and it was lost because they never looked behind them. Their was billions in revenue and it was left on the floor. I wonder if Apple ever considered that. Apple has no blame, their mission statement was based on their niche market. But technology and requirements changed. With Brics it changes even more. Now they have Tencent Technology to content with. Tencent might not have the Vision Pro, but my system was initially designed without it. The Vision Pro has as  see it a larger benefit, but it is a mere ‘nice to have’. You see, sales engineering has a three tiered awareness approach. It is set to ‘must tell everyone’, ‘nice to have’ and the rest. When you focus on the first line, most people tend to ignore the ‘nice to have’ but it is there that the setting gives people outside the designated clusters are found. So don’t set to the wealthy, just make sure that they see the upside, and Vision Pro would do that. It sets the premise of a solution from 5 billion in phase one up to 18 billion in phase two and that will not include advertisement money over a dozen countries. I reckon that this is more than I can imagine (because this has not been done before) and several parts were found be looking behind me, something the current captains of technology industry aren’t doing. They are all looking forward, to the mystical AI (which does not exist). I decided to look at what was forgotten and tinkered it into a new mould. This implies innovation patents and all that is outside of the AR and printable displays (see other stories on this blog). All that and more are a future stage for the implementor of this solution, which was exactly why I got to Kingdom holding. On the far end of that, there was the real estate upgrade I considered. In light of what I noticed around Dubai. A side not considered, because all these web solutions couldn’t think out of their pond. But water is here it is and as such they didn’t consider it and it is here were I saw a side that could elevate Tencent and Huawei to a larger profit margin, not just for Dubai, but a global solution that allow real estates on a global setting to elevate their business to unfold. Dubai makes it clear. Yet it will not stop there. As the song goes New York, London, Paris, Munich they will all see the benefit and after that all metropolitan areas will follow suit. So do you think I was kidding when I said that Google et al fumbled the ball here? They ignored billions in revenue and they are all chasing a false AI dream. In a few years they will realise that a hype is merely a path to awareness and not towards revenue. Revenue needs to be real and achievable. For that we get “fake and deeply flawed Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rampant”, a quote by Frederike Kaltheuner based on works of over 20 writers. You see what the people regard s AI is merely to sides if it. LLM (Large Language Models) and DML (Deeper Machine Learning), both powerful and both opening all kinds of doors, but it is not AI, or Real AI as they now call it. Like other awareness hypes created, it isn’t real and in the mean time I created the idea for something real that could the right party give up to 18 billion a year. So when did these parts hit you, does it make sense that Google and Amazon lay off around 35,000 jobs? I will let you decide on that. In the mean time I will place more IP online so that it can only continue as Freeware. The Public Domain will show the rest on what they all missed out on. It might give me some cash, it might not. But I Will get the last laugh. I will have kept it out of the hands of Microsoft.

Have a great Thursday.

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May 14, 2024 · 21:00

Bully tactics?

I know, I added a question mark, because the Reuters article leaves me (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/uae-releases-new-ai-model-compete-with-big-tech-2024-05-13/) with questions. It is nice to see that the UAE is going all in for the AI generation and the Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII) is releasing a Falcon 2 series: Falcon 2 11B, a text-based model, and Falcon 2 11B VLM based system. However the US gives them scrutiny with the statement “American or Chinese technology.” As such the US is drawing battle lines in the middle east. Considering that we see “Emirati AI firm G42 pulled out Chinese hardware and divested stakes in Chinese companies before securing a $1.5 billion investment from Microsoft that was coordinated with Washington”. The danger for the US is that so far Microsoft hasn’t been delivering anything other that mediocrity. As such should this fall over the US will lose a hell of a lot more. Considering that the UAE is now BRICS, there is a chance that Microsoft (and a decent one) that Microsoft will go into its Delay, Blame and Miscommunication protocols. On the other hand I know NOTHING about either the Chinese or the American chip in question. The better setting is that UAE’s Falcon and Meta’s Llama, have made their code publicly available for anyone to use. As such that would imply the better creation of traction with the population. We are also given “Al Bannai said he was optimistic about Falcon 2’s performance and that they were working on “Falcon 3 generation”” In the end this was the first I heard about the Falcon, so we will be getting a lot more soon enough and I should look into the TII and what else they have cooking. You see “a vision-to-language model that can generate a text description of an uploaded image” has added bonus regarding yesterday’s blog. A simple scan of the boarding pass, or luggage tag could imply that booking a new tourist could be done in seconds. I have never been able to check into a hotel in under 5-10 minutes. Take that amount and multiply it by 53 million. That is an annual saving of 505 years. And that is only one country. That and a few other blogs I have written about shows you the essential need to upgrade tourist systems. The question. Then becomes whether such a system will have an Arabic setting and the UAE will have a system that benefits the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Indonesia. All places with growing tourism at present. That is a setting not to be ignored. And the west? Well that remains the question, they will see the benefit of upgrading son enough and when Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt and others see that time benefit, they will all come on board regardless of where that chip originated. 

Time will tell who wins that caper in the end, because the $1.5 billion investment doesn’t last long when you are confronted with Delay, Blame and Miscommunication tactics (if that happens). 

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May 13, 2024 · 22:44

It’s a WOW.

There was something unreal about the news I saw in several sources. The Emirates have posted record revenue boosts. The article (source Reuters) gives us “Dubai’s Emirates airline on Monday reported full-year profit up more than 60% at 17.23 billion dirhams ($4.69 billion), comfortably beating the previous year’s 10.6 billion dirhams” 

We can ‘deduce’ from that that they almost beat their last year target by 60%, that amounts to something. Because of some options in Dubai and Abu Dhabi I tend to keep an eye on anything UAE, so this was a whopper of an achievement. Then we get the additional “The state-owned airline will pay its staff a bonus equivalent to 20 weeks’ salary” which is big. I never recall BA or KLM doing anything like it, or Air France for that matter. Good people is about keeping them happy and the prospect of 20 weeks of vacation does just that. Your quality of life goes up. Take that with a previous article I mentioned about the recruitment drive that they have going implies that the run on Emirati jobs will increase rather dramatically. Now in light of Dubai Airport where everything is large, smooth and well catered to implies that it should drive tourism even further. Dubai is already one of the largest airports in the world, currently number 2 after Atlanta Georgia, but that will not last long. There is a new wave happening and I reckon that when they upgrade their Customer Service Systems (my speculation) the formula changes even further. Consider that arrival in Dubai also triggers the Hotel, so they know that you are coming, taking one queue partially away from you. We see all these software vendor scream AI whilst bullying you into installing add-ons (Google), or Advertising you to death (Microsoft) and they probably never considered to look at the foundations of Customer Care in tourism and travel. Weird isn’t it? 

A stage where some think “it is part of the journey, part of the pain”, and no one considered that this pain could be dealt with. Should the UAE and optionally Saudi Arabia deal with that pain places like France, UK, EU and USA will have a much larger issue. It isn’t that their sights aren’t worth seeing. It becomes a setting where it takes a lot more effort to see them. The first hurdle for any tourist. And it is a simple setting of one hand feeding the other. In 5 years the tourist picture will look very different. I wonder when some will catch on to what Emirates is currently achieving. 

 

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February 20, 2024 · 17:50

Many off ramps, same destination

It has been quiet here for 6 days. These things happen when you suddenly end up in hospital. I will spare you the details, they are not important. The cemetery is filled with people who had my condition, so there. We are about to take to trips before we get to the main event. Thee elements all matter to paint a picture, one of presentation, one of anticipation and one of speculation. In all matters I could be wrong, but I will let you decide for yourself. A small added treasure hint, I will add a new piece of IP tomorrow. The savvy programmer could become a millionaire. I will let you consider that for yourself. I am no programmer and I have other things on my mind. But if you are savvy and create a good program, you could get between 20-50 million downloads over time. At $0.49 per sale that will amount to serious money. So I leave it up to you to consider that tomorrow. Now we take a different gander. 

The dream
When you are locked (lets call it that) to a bed your mind gets to wander and my did (and then some). I was offered a job as a courier for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia based in Sydney. Their personal mailman and they started with one hell of an offer. My startup bonus was BTC300. Of course I accepted and that would be my initial payment for up to 6 months. So when was the last time you were offered a starting bonus of $24M? So, yes my dream was delusional, but it was my dream and I was locked to a bed. In my mind I visited the cities I have visited in the past (a fair amount of them) and my life was turned upside down.  

Now I am certain that you wonder why anyone would do that? And that would be a fair question. Now consider the other side.

  1. The consulate might have been desperate for staff members and they took one that knew several languages and had travel experience all over the world and I fit that bill (fortunately).
  2. The consulate might prefer a courier who did not speak or read Arabic for all kinds of reasons.
  3. An unknown reason, only known to them.

These three reasons are perfectly logical and they will matter soon enough. Anyway, it was a lovely dream and I saw the places I have missed for about a decade.

The next instance of a rewrite
That is something all writers face. In my case the story of Engonos (played by me off course) I end up with a powerful Olympic bident called Psychofagos (meaning soul eater). I never really explored the part on how I got it. So that came to my mind, setting the hospital as a stage (might not be like that in the end).

As I walked through the hospital I noticed a myst, it was different, it was like clouds of soot, but the people didn’t seen to see it. I saw some of them blink like they were dealing with blurry vision and my mind raced. This wasn’t new. It was the Myst of Tartarus. Hades added the myst thousands of years ago. You see in the early days of Tartarus he saw that the strong became stronger, too strong and the end result was that these people started to relax. Hades created the myst of Tartarus. You see that myst attacks all sense of a person. Vision, abilities, skills and the mind. In effect it becomes a free for all, the weaker convicts now have a chance against much stronger opponents and the myst comes sudden, it comes quick and it is relentless. Above all you need to realise that when you slay another in Tartarus, you become stronger, but a share of all kills go to lord Hades (a large share). Tartarus itself nourishes Hades and has done so for thousands of years. The myst gives the strongest a chance to really add to the Hades pool of souls. So there I was seeing that myst in the hospital and I looked around rather frantically. To see myst where none should be is unsettling and it never spells good for anyone. Because of my heritage I am not affected to the degree others are, but I will feel the impact of the myst to some degree, so I was not a happy camper to say the least. I started to move slower and moved towards a wall, no ay to be really surrounded when there was a wall. I saw a glimpse of one creature, then a second one. They were in the attire of Myrmidons. The heralds of Tartarus. They killed with such vigil on earth, they were rewarded with eternal wars in Tartarus. Their souls knew of no better reward and they were almost inhuman. Take the largest gladiator you ever saw, make him twice as strong and five times as fast and thrice as agile and you are close to a myrmidon. They train every moment of their existence that they are not engaged in wars. They are unsettling to say the least. And two just slowly started to appear in my sight. They were clearly looking for someone and suddenly I saw that they turned on a fellow patient. Andreas and his son Kostas, both Greeks. They were looking for something that they didn’t see and I saw them move in for the kill, the movements were clear as day for me. I grabbed someone dinner knife from his plate and stabbed one in the neck, he hadn’t seen me and that as the last mistake he would ever make. He halted for a second to shake off the pain that a knife in the neck makes. I grabbed is sword and cut off his head with one clear slice. The second saw this and attacked. But there he was in a disadvantage. I am a son of Ares, as such my battle skills were born with me and the knowledge of a thousand battles. I stepped aside, blocked in a low stance cutting his meniscus. He sidestepped with the other leg  quickly, he had been wounded before and now he was a lot more dangerous. He would let me do the attacks, giving him an advantage. I made a fake attack, which he parried, I circled his blade counterclockwise and stuck the blade through his breastplate in the chest. His grip on his blade loosened just enough for me to break his pinky and grab the sword and off went his head. The only sure way to get rid of a Myrmidon. The body like the other one was turning to ash and I now had two swords. It seems that they could see some of the opponents, not all but some. I told Kostas to protect his father. He nodded but he felt a little lost. The myst does that to nearly all. Then I noticed something else. I felt some resurge, it appeared that I was getting some of their energy as well. I felt the sickness go away in seconds and I saw a lot more. I saw that there were more opponents one floor down. I rushed down in a cautious way, they were looking. I snuck up on one and as he never expected to face opposition I got him unaware and decapitated him, more energy and more sight, like an illumination from the myst itself. There were three ore, two myrmidons and something else. The last two myrmidons were a little harder, they worked as a team and one cut my leg. But the defeated souls almost instantly repaired me. This has an effect on the myrmidons. They hesitated and the early bird that hesitates becomes worm food, so off with their heads (I’ll spare you the choreography). I reenergised and it repaired whatever scratches I had and also my overall energy levels went up. There was a third part that I had never felt before, I felt more secure and skilled with the sword. Something that was new to me, but then I hd never slain a Myrmidon before and now I had taken care of 5 of them. Then I saw the myst a lot clearer and it became a beacon or me, the last Myrmidon. This one was different, his helmet lit up as polished silver in the moon, as did his bident. A bident? That was unreal. His bident wasn’t silvery, but has a silvery shine. It also had a large gemstone on the edge of the fork, a ruby. It gave me a memory which I buried for now. He was going for a bed in the end of the room. The name on the small whiteboard gave me ‘Leandros’, another Greek name. He was suddenly aware of me and countered before I could strike. He was more cautious and was engaging with fake attacks. This was clearly a highly trained opponent. He cautiously moved from side to side, trying to find an opening and then I noticed that I could touch the Myst. An idea formed and as we moved form side to side, blocking each others attacks, I suddenly noticed what I had hoped for and I threw one of my swords as a spear, which he countered, but that one second when he thought I had made a tactical mistake. I had my hand free and grabbed a dense cloud of soot, closed my fist and blew in my hand, the hand became a blowpipe for myst straight into his face and I saw the effect it had on him. He frantically went into defence mode against people who weren’t there and I thrusted the sword under his jaw, severing the spinal cord. As the head fell, I grabbed the helmet which was no ordinary helmet. In addition to that I grabbed the bident. I suddenly felt a rush. The bident focussed on Leandros, I saw Greece, somewhere on the east of the Peloponnesus. I saw Argos, I seemingly flew south east to Tolo, then still South East to a small island. Then the image faded. Whatever they needed, it must be there. I looked at the bident. It was some kind of brass, but there was more to it. There was an inscription “ενωμένοι είμαστε πιο δυνατοί” Then the memory came back. 5 Myrmidon commanders decided to honour Hades with all the kills Hades had allowed them to do and they would honour Hades as long as they kept the orders of their commander Achilles. A true vow. I could get behind their train of thought. They travelled to Crete where a well known blacksmith resided, they brought gold and asked him to make 5 bident in honour of Hades (something that was rare to say the least). Each commander paid two bard of gold, which was an absolute fortune and the blacksmith went to work. It took several weeks after which he produced 5 bident, each with a stone. Menesthius was given the bident with the ruby, Eudorus got the bident with the sapphire, Peisander the amethyst, Phoenix the emerald and Alcimedon the diamond. They were all happy, their bidents were stronger then anything they had ever held, their weapons a lot lighter and stronger. And they all have the same small text engraved “ενωμένοι είμαστε πιο δυνατοί”. As such I looked at the bident again. It was superior in many ways, it was not an Olympic weapon, but stronger then anything that era had. So I now had the bident of Menesthius. Was it Menesthius I had just slain? It might be, but that was a worry for another day. As Menesthius was slain the myst started to disappear and I hid the weapon and helmet in the usual place. Time to be a patient again. The myst had a nice side effect, the last hour became fuzzy for anyone hid by it, which worked for me. Time to plan on a trip to Argos and then Tolo. 

The main event
You see what you saw was part of Engonos and as it is in my blog, now it is visibly mine. My concoction and my creativity. I need to see where in the script it will fit, but it should be added to seasons one. The main event is all about Microsoft. I saw the article last week but I was somehow indisposed. I had not forgotten it, because no matter how dim the BBC was. I saw something that others might have missed and that is the exercise of today. It is about delusional settings. We have intentional delusions and unintentional delusions. The intentional is often self inflicted like the dream, or the story. The unintentional version tends to come from speculated views or facts and the mulling of these facts. Some set to half truths by your own views and speculations and some are set to other parts (which is not up for discussion today). What matters is that you see these parts ‘as is’ not as truths or as ‘maybe truths’ that is the largest mistake that a speculation can lead these versions to. The media relies on this for flames and so on. I do not, but I am strongly set to presumptions. If a speculation is a guess, then the presumption is an educated guess based on available data. That is the underlying setting you need to see.

This started as I read ‘Xbox, Nintendo or PlayStation: does it still matter?’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68304967). The short answer was ‘Yes, it does’ but that is not what this is about. We see the spin by Microsoft and then there is a jewel. Perhaps unintentional, perhaps a quick slide to avoid what was ALMOST said. The first I saw was “The analysts Ampere estimated that in 2023 there were a total of around 46.5m consoles sold, of which only 7.6m were Microsoft’s Xbox. That leaves nearly 39 million gamers that Xbox exclusives such as the long awaited Starfield from Bethesda, didn’t reach.” Don’t get me wrong, I have been a Bethesda fan for the longest time. Now consider that the game was released on September 6th 2023. And now we see “Updates could play a big part in improving the future of Starfield, but there’s one key issue with the game that seems unlikely to ever be addressed. Although Starfield received some share of acclaim upon its release, it was also met with a lot of disappointment, as it didn’t necessarily live up to the standards set by prior RPGs from Bethesda Game Studios. Although there are a number of areas for improvement that updates could tackle, some underlying choices in the design and story may be frustrating forever.” (Source: Screenrant) As I see it the 39 million gamers are not overly sad on missing out. We see also on other media “Phil Spencer on Helldivers 2 Not Being on Xbox: ‘I’m Not Exactly Sure Who It Helps’”, well the answer is simple. It helps a game being shown at its maximum. Sony has a truckload of those and Microsoft fell behind by a lot. He sounds like the desperate executive who cannot make ends meet. How are developers given a fair shake when they are rewarded pennies when they are entitled to dollars? GamePass only works at the core of less then $10 a month leaving developers with less than $0.25 per gamer. How does that work out for them? The quote that set me off is ‘suddenly’ gone, so I am hoping others still have it and Gamespot still had it: “a future where every screen is an Xbox.” I personally believe that he wanted to say “a future where every screen is an Xbox data collection point.” To see this, I need to take you on a small journey as I have stated this danger in the past before. Consider that Activision Blizzard was acquired for $69,000,000,000. Sixty nine billion. Let that sink in. Now consider that Activision Blizzard made 7.53 billion USD in 2022, less than in 2021. This gives us that the investment will take 10 years to break even, 11 years when we consider the interest and even more time when they become GamePass games and the revenue will become smaller still. So how is that a good investment when gaming technology evolves the way it does and Microsoft is now losing ground awfully fast. But when you consider data where games collect data on every gamer the field changes and they will have sign up deals where you get something cosmetic every month for free, it costs nothing and thousands will sign up, the small print that they collect certain parts will be written in the small print over dozens of pages. Yes, this is ALL speculation but that is what I would do if I paid for an Edsel for a ’mere’ 69 billion. The latest games are disappointing and Microsoft is losing ground. They misjudged the field and the people are sticking to their consoles (mostly Nintendo and Sony). I reckon that Tencent will be outshining Microsoft too with the optional 50 million subscribers (also speculation). That will be the third time that Microsoft misjudged gamers and loses a lot in the process. We can understand the spin by Phil Spencer. I reckon he is now desperate to get a win but as I see it it is not in the cards for him. Not as things look at present. And it goes more arctic for Microsoft soon after that. They are betting on the wrong horse and whilst they shared the field closer to equals with Sony in the era of the Xbox360, they threw it away in under a decade and after that they invested almost 100 billion in a few software houses that could not bring home the bacon and I was eager to assist in their downfall by handing IP to independent developers giving Bethesda even more challenges down the road. In the end you are as good as your next success and Bethesda had it in 2011 with Skyrim. Then Microsoft messed up their mojo. That is how I see it and now Microsoft is (as I personally see it) going down hard and the ‘spin’ we see around Helldivers 2 doesn’t help Microsoft. And it gets to be worse. This is given to us with “Xbox president Sarah Bond even teased the idea of some brand new hardware in a podcast released by Microsoft on Thursday” yes Sarah, deliver or shut up. You either have something new coming up (which might be essential for Microsoft), or basically fudge off. Microsoft lost against Sony, then it lost against Nintendo, the weakest console of all and there is a decent chance that over the next 15 months it will lose against the Tencent Handheld as well. Consoles require (for the most) games, or something unique and GamePass was not enough, not when the pass owners are told that certain games will not be released on GamePass. When mediocrity is the sum of GamePass, the games will go somewhere else and Bethesda new elder scrolls is well over a year away (at least), gamers will go somewhere else and when that happens the 100 billion dollar is the anchor that drowns Microsoft games. So the statement of “Ampere does not expect Microsoft to exit the console platform business in the medium term as that would leave a gaping hole in its games-related revenues” I am not so sure. RedFall and Starfield are huge disappointments and that amounts to abandonment by gamers. They will find another venture and some will hold on to their console, that is fair enough. But with the abandonments also comes GamePass cancelations and that is revenue Microsoft desperately needs to make revenue. 

So how wrong am I?
Not all will pan out, I get that, but I feel that I am closer to the mark than most others and the two elements that will ensure the drop of Microsoft is now more exclusive games on Sony and the numbers that Tencent will get. The second one will cost Microsoft a gaming population, one they desperately need.

When you read between the media emotions you see that I am making a good case. Read up and form your own opinion. Don’t just take my word for it.

Enjoy the week.

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February 3, 2024 · 22:47

What are sports to you?

A question I have been pondering. It started a week or so as the Swift hatred entered my Twitter account. I have no idea why there was so much hatred. She is gorgeous, she is a singer and from one photo I saw she has the muscle tone of an olympic athlete. So, what is not to like or love about that youthful young sprout? But this is about sports and for this we need to go back to early 2003. I got my Xbox with a new mobile subscription. I wasn’t looking for it, I had my PS2 and I was happy. I had nothing against the Xbox, gaming is gaming. And on a nice summer 5 friends and me making a team of 6 decided to have a little American Football match. With the EA game that as possible, so on Saturday we started the elimination game each a 15 minute game (I believe) and I ended up 4th. I lost the last game against the Steelers and the steelers went to the podium to get 3rd. The final that was to be played Sunday (we were all tired) was set to noon (a Gary Cooper reason). And the final match a two times 30 minutes game was set between packers and raiders and the raiders won. It was perhaps one of the nicest weekends that year. There were snacks, there were suds, there was cake in-between and we were all having a great time. Even now 20 years later I still remember that weekend. Gaming and sports. I was playing the 49ers for the most nerdy, dorky reasons of all. I saw one of their cheerleader calendars that year and San Francisco seemed like a cool city. 

Does there need to be another reason? I like my hockey, my NHL games. So as the 49ers are due towards the Super Bowl these thoughts came flooding back to me. 

And as I was looking at the news I see how Taylor Swift could make the flight back from Japan with the words ‘You need to calm down: Taylor Swift can fly from Tokyo to Super Bowl in time, says Japan embassy’ (source: The Guardian) is the world mad? First if she can’t make it, she can watch it on TV. She has a jet with TV. She is a multi billion dollar business woman and she has her brand, just like Travis Kelce has his job and his job is on the line that day. He might not be the quarterback, but this is the game of a lifetime and he is just as important as the other players. This is one match when being a team matters. Prima Donna’s never make it to the finish line. They need their team and this is the grand slam of finals in sports. 

I doubt I’ll see it, I am not a football fan and I am not sure if it makes the Australian TV. I will keep an eye on the Google Scores. And it all matters, as I see “Big name advertisers from Netflix to Google paid as much as $7 million for a 30-second spot during the game, seeking to capture the attention of the roughly 100 million viewers who tune in each year.” Everyone wants to cash in, everyone wants to see part of that 100,000,000 audience. I get it, but it is about the sports (and perhaps the halftime show)

But what does it mean to you? You see EA has its franchise, but when did they go out to make it about a friends sphere? Not what THEY believe it to be, but what you believe it to be. You see, I never got to safe that game (and now It doesn’t matter as I do not have an Xbox), but the option to set that match in PDF, or perhaps the game created a social media page. When was that done? We underestimate the connection of sports and play and the franchise holders underestimate it even more. In a global view it matters to people in Pakistan and India to keep scores of their achievements in cricket and I reckon in other games too. 

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not far behind them. These 4 make up for a 2 billion population, not all are into sports, but it ends up being a lot more than the population of America. These franchise holders have been catering to the wrong cluster as far as I can tell. Now that sports are going to be a much larger presentation all over the Middle East these people need to consider changing gears and they need to do this before their next games come out. Whomever does it will have options to really become a larger player in sports. But it all reflects back to ‘What do sports mean to you?’ It is not the easiest question. Even kids misalign their views because of what they feel of any sport. But ask any Pakistani Kid and for the most their will answer that Cricket is their life. And Cricket (on PS5) heard that call. Yet we also get The user score for NHL 24 on Metacritic has the game received as “generally unfavourable”. Not a good thing. And it gets worse for them. The Middle East has no representation as far as I can tell and in the upcoming years it will matter. It might not be NHL, the Emirates Ice Hockey League (EHL) is starting to get noticed and that implies fans and youthful players. I believe that gaming can head it off giving the young players something to care for. And in all this sport is caring and caring is sports. You might think I am wrong and that is fine, but consider the numbers. How many people play the Cricket game per nation? I never found these statistics and now they matter. You see there is a shift and it is turning towards the Middle East. Not for American Football and not for the Super Bowl, but this even shows how much sports have been in decline in the west. Soccer players will disagree and I hand that to them, it is all about Europe there. Yet there is a shift there too. We are catering to the wrong crowds and these franchises better wake up soon because that is how rifts start. That is optionally how new and better franchises are created. By the way, in 2003 I could set my entire game towards a SF49 interface. Later it was dropped. Why? Consider the thought behind that change and wonder how there is not a shift amongst gamers. The NHL games never gave me that option, other then my home stadium and a collection of players and outfits. But the interface was generic. Why not appeal to their fans? Why can’t actual scores not be added to the game tweaking statistics? All ideas that have been floating around for at least a decade, but we aren’t seeing any of it in the NFL, NHL or NBA games. Why is that? What are games to you and what are game to them? When you consider that these franchises are merely interested in money, where does that leave you? I let you ponder that and you all as you enter the last week before the Super Bowl. Sports are more than one game, but this is their moment, their aim for the throne of footballs. We can merely sit by and watch it on TV (or if you are rich and lucky) watch it in person. 

So have fun and watch out for that wicket this day.

 

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January 29, 2024 · 15:40

Pushing buttons

That is the name of the exercise and this time it is not just having a go at Microsoft, it is time to call Apple to attention as well. You see we have been pushing buttons on a keyboard for years, optionally for decades. Yet when did we see ACTUAL evolution in these contraptions? The most interesting evolutionary step was seen in CSI Miami in 2002 when an episode evolved around a laser keyboard display.

It didn’t go far enough, but it was a start, since then for 20 years. two hundred and forty months no less, both Apple and Microsoft have been spinning all kinds of innovation, but leaving a larger gap. You see, the world is globalising and both were part of that, but they never embraced the world, they merely pushed American values which are not the same.

Now consider this image below. The black keys are small LCD screens (or something similar). 

This is not a leap, this technology, all parts exist. On the iMac you can literally change the keyboard on your screen, a decent case can be made to make the iPad the Keyboard to ANY other Mac, but that is a different conversation. You see, the next part makes sen se if you know more than one language, this example shows us an Arabic version.

A setting that many have seen (millions actually). Japan, China, Korea, Arabic Nations, Pakistan, Ukraine and that list goes on for a while, even in Europe (France, UK) they have different setups. 

So here is the screen below

A simple example from Hiragana. With a home font (the white character) and Hiragana. This was not rocket science. The elements have been around for DECADES and Apple kept itself asleep at the wheel (no one cares about that snoring dumbo Microsoft). A setting that is strangling market research, Advertising and any corporations with foreign needs. I get it, such a keyboard (for now) isn’t cheap (expected $399), but over time as these edges of technology are explored more and more, the prices will go down and two multi trillion companies couldn’t figure this out? And Apple is even in more hot water. They could have set this up by having an iPad (which has 99% of these abilities) at the ready, to make that iPad a Bluetooth keyboard for any other Mac (MacBook or iMac) and they just didn’t look that far? Too many blinders mister Timmy the Cook? 

I wrote about these part (not to the complete degree now) a few years ago and none of these two entertainment jollies (clowns seem too harsh an expression) didn’t catch up? This is the issue with those proclaiming innovation and iterating themselves into the next decade year after year. Innovation comes from making the jump no one else considered and commerce is nice. You see when Apple comes with this idea at $399, someone will reengineer the idea into a $129 solution that works. It is iteration grown from innovation, but Apple made the innovative step, from there evolution comes. Was that hard? 

Are there issues?
Of course there are. Pricing might be a problem, but the keyboard has been neglected for decades, time to open that rusty door. In the end Apple can only start the setting, what comes next is up to the actual innovator. At the ready the iPad could become the start of new Bluetooth technology, which could lead to iPad based keyboards (more rectangle) and with a decently stronger screen. All options in front of the eyes of the Apple cook who seemingly overlooked it all and never looked beyond the blinders they all had. And as for the issues. Is it my job to fix all their shortcomings? Nope it is not, but with the IP at the ready and optionally a massive pay package, I can hand over some idea showing the others that I have a much stronger hand that is not out in the open (Amazon take notice please). You see Amazon could see this too, which means that multi character set design systems will take a much larger stage next, a stage that Azure/Oracle doesn’t actively has and that gives opportunity. You see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is investing $200,000,000 in all kinds of IT solutions, the UAE has a $2,000,000,000 portfolio ready for startups. 2.2 billion and Amazon has options, so who else is asleep at the wheels (plural intended). Is it all to be had? Of course not, but gaining a slice of a 2.2 billion dollar cake is better then nothing and some people need to realise that the Middle East is here to stay and it is investing. So why not wake up, have a coffee and see where that could lead you? 

It is merely a thought, but who else gave you the option to consider a slice of a 2.2 billion yummy cake? And it all started with a keyboard, so where are these so called innovators now?

Enjoy Monday. 

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January 25, 2024 · 18:42

Those happy dreams

We all have them and I just had mine (not the one with Laura Vandervoort). The dream started with me attending some gameshow with Amazon bigwigs. I personally handed Phil Spencer a gold inlaid wooden spoon with the message that I try to keep my word. That morning Amazon with the Luna surpassed 75 million consoles (plus subscriptions) sold, Microsoft is now deal last in the gaming industry (nice achievement for the strongest console in the world), apparently big hardware isn’t everything. But the dream moved on, I was talking to His Excellency Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Minister of tourism for Saudi Arabia. 

I was explaining to him (and to myself) a new approach to customer service solutions and I called it the Complete Customer Service Solution System (C2S3 for short). The image is more for myself so I can recall it later. A complete system based on foundations of Nice CX One but with a massive difference, the organisations were no longer central here, they are still the centre or axial in it all, but the central setting becomes the tourist. A system no one ever considered (or off hand rejected), but in 2025-2030 the tourist, the customer needs to be the central hub in everything. Places like Saudi Arabia and the UAE need an evolved customer solution system because that is how they remain top player. The larger players (like Hilton and Marriott) will get on board fast, because they will see the benefit there, then the them parks and soon thereafter they all want to join such a system and in the cloud you can find a person fast. You see, the biggest drain on any vacation is time loss, people take it for granted, but what happens when one or two players throw that overboard and redo the whole thing? What happens when the total vacation has 0.1% logistics at best? You go through the mill in the Airport, at the hotel, at attractions, at resorts. So what if the airport is the start, but it is replicated to other places as soon as you go through gate one? What happens when you are in a new place and you do not get lost, because the tag you have tells you where you are and where you are supposed to go? Now consider that around the world, it is estimated that over one million young people are reported missing every year. Don’t be afraid, will over 95% is found within a day. Now consider this new system where a child is found within the hour, optionally quicker. The loss of stress in almost unimaginable. And it is not merely loss that is removed. It is that places will hand out badges with RFID, the RFID records your achievements and records what you have done, so the tourist will have a record on him that he can look at. 2 days of skiing, 12 slopes, they keep a progression record and a record of places. In Japan they have a booklet where you can stamp where you have been and every place has its own stamp. Now consider that digital record, connect that to a digital library and the tourist can make a small photo album with their own images and insert their digital records of places they have visited. They can make it anywhere in the world and it can remain private. A system where the foundation is Arrival and Departure, it does not matter where you go from there. You could visit as a family the Almasaa Cafe in Riyadh, wouldn’t it be nice to insert a digital sticker in your album when you were there with personal pictures? The list goes on and a system like that isn’t build overnight, but it has the merit that for once the tourist is the centrepiece of it all (some claim that, but it is their sales system). A setting where the customer solution is build and designed around the customer. In 43 years I have never seen such a system, have you? 

Now that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are about to be the pole position players in tourism, such a system would solve several items. They would also imply that they are about to stay at the top position until others catch on, and after the SEC blunder I saw yesterday some players will be behind these two players for years to come. 

Just a thought, enjoy Friday in 24 hours.

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January 20, 2024 · 15:53

The tables are starting to turn

This is a setting I always saw coming.It wasn’t magic or predestination, it was simple presumption. Presumption is speculation based on evidence, on facts. The BBC puts out a near perfect article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67986611) where we see ‘What happens when you think AI is lying about you?’ There are several brilliant sides to it, as such it is best to read it for yourself. But I will use a few parts of it because there is a larger playing field in consideration. The first to realise is that AI does not exist, not yet. 

As such when we see ““Illegal content… means that the content must amount to a criminal offence, so it doesn’t cover civil wrongs like defamation. A person would have to follow civil procedures to take action,” it said. Essentially, I would need a lawyer. There are a handful of ongoing legal cases round the world, but no precedent as yet.”

This is actually a much larger setting then people realise. You see “AI algorithms are only as objective as the data they are trained on, and if that data is biased or incomplete, the algorithm will reflect those biases” Yet the larger truth is that AI does not exist, it is Machine Learning or better, as such it took a programmer, a programmer implies corporate liability. That is what corporations fear, that is why everything is as muddled as possible. I reckon that Google, Microsoft and all others making AI claims are fearing. You see when you consider “The second told me I was in “unchartered territory” in England and Wales. She confirmed that what had happened to me could be considered defamation, because I was identifiable and the list had been published. But she also said the onus would be on me to prove the content was harmful. I’d have to demonstrate that being a journalist accused of spreading misinformation was bad news for me.” I believe it is a little less simple than that. You see algorithm implies programming, as such the victim has a right to demand the algorithm be put out in court for scrutiny. The lines that resulted in defamation should be open to scrutiny and that is what big-tech fears at present, because AI does not exist. It is all based on collected data and that data should be verified by the legal team of the victim and that stops everything for the revenue hungry corporations. 

In addition I would like to add an article, also by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68025677) called ‘DPD error caused chatbot to swear at customer’. It clearly implies that a programmer was involved. If language skills involve swearing, who put the swear words there? When did your youngest one start to swear? They all do at some point. So what triggered this? Now consider that machine learning requires data, so where is that swear data coming from? Who inclined or instituted that to be used? So when you see ““An error occurred after a system update yesterday. The AI element was immediately disabled and is currently being updated.” Before the change could be made, however, word of the mix-up spread across social media after being spotted by a customer. One particular post was viewed 800,000 times in 24 hours, as people gleefully shared the latest botched attempt by a company to incorporate AI into its business.” Consider that AI does not exist, consider that swear words are somehow part of that library, then consider that a programmer made a booboo (this is always allowed to happen) and they are ‘updating’ this. A system is being updated to use a word library. Now consider the two separate events as one and see how much danger the revenue hungry corporations have placed themselves in. When you go by ‘Trust but verify’ we can make all kinds of assumptions, but data is the centre of that core with two circles forming a Venn diagram. One circle is data, the other is programming. Now watch how big-tech is worried, because when this goes wrong, it goes wrong in a big way and they would be accountable for billions in pay outs. It will not be a small amount and it will be almost everywhere. The one case of a defamed journalist is one and in this day and age not the smallest setting. The second is that these systems will address customers. Some will take offence and some will take these companies to court. So how much funds did they think that they could safe with these systems? All to save on a dozen employees? A setting that will decide the fate of a lot of companies and that is what some fear. Until the media and several other dodo’s start realising that AI doesn’t yet exist. At that point the court cases will explode. It will be about a firm, their programmer and the wrong implementation of data. I reckon that within 2-3 years there will be an explosion of defamation cases all over the world. The places relying on Common Law will probably be getting more and sooner than Civil Law nations, but they will both face a harsh reality. It is all gravy whilst the revenue hungry sales people are involved. When the court cases come shining through those firms will have to face harsh internal actions. That is speculation on my side, but based on the data I see at present it seems like a clear case of  precise presumption which is what the BBC in part is showing us, no matter how courts aren’t ready. In torts there are cases and this is a setting staged on programmers and data, no mystery there and that could cost those hiding behind AI are facing. It is merely my point of view, but I feel that I am closer to the truth than many others evangelising whatever they call AI.

Enjoy the weekend.

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January 19, 2024 · 20:19

The other colour

That is what is ended up being. It started with the thoughts of ‘Pink is the colour of ignorance’, a story that might still make it, but I want to add more evidence. The Guardian had a good start, but it is more than that and I need to tag it. The other colour is green, the colour of dollars. Reuters give us some parts of it, but my mind is asking questions. Questions aren’t voiced by the media at present. As such we start with Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-invest-1-billion-uk-data-centre-2024-01-18/) where we are given ‘Google to invest $1 billion in UK data centre’ and this comes with the added text “It also comes weeks after Microsoft unveiled plans to pump 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) into Britain over three years, including in growing its data centre capacity, to underpin future AI services.” The math doesn’t work, especially now. You see UK pushed away from the EU and all this sets a weird station. I know that any data centre costs money and I have no idea how much. One argument is that a data center of the size that Facebook or Google might use would cost from $250 million to $500 million, so why is Google spending twice that and why is Microsoft spending 250% more than that? Now the twice I could get. Operational cost, rising energy costs and when you add that up you might get to 750 million and that is only 250 million away from the leap that Google is stating. 

Sp when you look at that setting we see two bulls fighting for the same population (Google and Microstupid) but the larger question becomes is why? Why spend that much to cater to 68 million people in the United Kingdom. It is not just services, it is data and data collection. To what degree is anyones guess, but wonder why Microsoft would spend $2,500,000,000 to service 68 million people. I am wondering who is buttering the sandwich of whom. I tend to distrust Microsoft, there have been too many issues and they have lost too many battles. Is this desperation? 

The open field
The questions in the open field is not the UK, you see if these two are there they are already growing in the Middle East or they are about to. You see, these investments make sense in the UAE with 9.5 million and Saudi Arabia with 36 million. Apart from their populations both these players will have exploding infrastructure needs (The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia more than the UAE), but the UAE is on a steep incline of services and services needs and I showed that in a few articles last week. The UK has none of that at present. More importantly the EU has also needs but not to these degrees and the UK facilities will have projected limitations as one might guess. So what gives? As for Future AI services. AI does not yet exist and the Machine Learning solutions are all massively dependent on data, something Microsoft is still short of. As I ponder more sides to this, I see more issues and also Huawei now has a data center in Abu Dhabi, giving them a much larger advantage in a place where cash is still king, or better stated cash has a more robust voice, more than the UK can muster at any given time before January 2026. 

As such there are issues and even as none of this is on Reuters (important to know), the setting is that the lack of visibility in several directions make me wonder where these two are going. No matter how good we think of Google (I still do) they both need data, Google to remain top dog and Microsoft to not be as irrelevant as they made themselves to be. 

Sides no one is looking at and I merely wonder why. Are they in a flim flam spin by Microsoft marketing? Do too many believe the shallowness of Microsoft presentations? Your guess is as good as mine, but when you start digging into actual sources that remain true non-biassed the math does not add up. At least for me it does not and I am not economist or econometrical engineer. Data is its own currency, the problem is that when it is the only currency remaining those who have it get access to everything, the rest do not.

Just a thought, enjoy your Friday.

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