New submitter bondman writes: Windows 95 was released a full quarter century ago today, on August 24th, 1995. Long gone, nearly forgotten? I'm surprised to not have come across a retrospective article yet. I've linked to the Wikipedia article. As for me I still haven't grown to re-like The Rolling Stones "Start Me Up" yet. I got so sick of hearing it with all the pre-launch and post-launch hype, as the song was tied heavily to the Win 95 launch event. Microsoft paid the Stones a princely sum to use it. I still remember how exciting it was to see the full-length, full-screen video included on the installation CD-ROM, "Buddy Holly" by Weezer. Mind-blowing to watch a whole music video on your computer. Crappy resolution by our standards today, and a very limited palette to my memory. But as I said, amazing in the day. Windows 95 had many fans and many critics. At the time, I recall it as an exciting OS (or GUI on top of DOS, if you prefer). PC users were riveted to all the magazine and other media coverage pre-launch. I remember it fondly (with all the obligatory respect due Mac OS, the Amiga, and all the other early GUIs of course).

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jmcbain writes: The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average, a selection of 30 companies that aims to represent U.S. industries at large, is going to have its largest change in seven years. Notably, Salesforce will replace Exxon on the DJIA (and Amgen and Honeywell will replace Pfizer and Raytheon), marking the end of Exxon's 92-year stay on the index. CNBC notes that Exxon's removal is a sign of the times, "as the company -- and energy sector broadly -- falters, a weakness made all the more apparent by strength in technology names." Analysts observe that "five tech stocks -- Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook -- are individually larger than the entire U.S. energy sector." But why is this change happening right now? It's apparently due to Apple's upcoming 4-for-1 stock split on August 31, which will significantly reduce the DJIA's exposure to the technology sector. "Basically Apple -- by itself -- took the technology [weighting] within the Dow down from 27.6% to 20.3%. It's a significant decline," Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, told CNBC. "By adding Salesforce, you can come back to 23.1% of the Dow being in technology."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Human rights advocates filed a new court petition against the Israeli phone hacking company Cellebrite, urging Israel's Ministry of Defense to halt the firm's exports to Hong Kong where security forces have been using the technology in crackdowns against dissidents as China takes greater control of Hong Kong. In July, police court filings revealed that Cellebrite's phone hacking technology has been used to break into 4,000 phones of Hong Kong citizens, including prominent pro-democracy politician and activist Joshua Wong. He subsequently launched an online petition to end Cellebrite's sales to Hong Kong which gained 35,000 signatures. "Defense Ministry officials must immediately stop the export of the Cellebrite system which is used for infringement on privacy, deprivation of liberty and freedom of expression, and political incrimination of Hong Kong citizens under the new National Security Law," Wong wrote in a Facebook post urging Israel to stop the Cellebrite's exports to Hong Kong. Hong Kong activists say that Cellebrite's tech is "used to inflict terrorism on the city's residents and to attack demonstrators and pro-democracy activists." Israeli human rights advocates say exports to Hong Kong police should legally have stopped in 2019 when anti-democratic crackdowns grew dramatically. Now the Israeli petition in court aims to put legal and political pressure on the Tel Aviv-based technology firm. "I'm asking the Minister of Defense to stop the Cellebrite exports to Hong Kong," says Eitay Mack, the human rights lawyer who filed the petition in the district court in Tel Aviv. "I'm also saying that, as far as I know, they never got an export license. The Ministry of Defense needs to enforce the law from companies with licenses but also they need to do oversight on companies working without a license."

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Today's song: My wife.

Lincoln Project: Let's call it what it is -- evil.

As Amazon signals its growth in India with its office in Hyderabad, its largest in the world, local business owners are pushing back. From a report: The austere building is hardly distinguishable in the landscape of glass and concrete buildings making up Asia's Silicon Valley, as Hyderabad, India, is known. It is one of Amazon's latest developments, the online retailer's largest office building in the world. With plans to cement its place as the center of gravity around which online retail revolves, Amazon has turned to India, the world's fastest-growing market for internet users. And it has picked Hyderabad, a city of nearly 10 million in India's south, as its base of operations there. But the project faces challenges, including pushback from local businesses and politicians. Hyderabad has emerged in a few short years as a technology and financial center and a beacon for young talent. The city, which saw the biggest surge in tech office space last year, is already a base in India for other multinational tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple, which spent $25 million for the development of its offices there. "Hyderabad is a known software tech talent center, and the government has been an enabler for us to have a campus this size," said Minari Shah, an Amazon spokeswoman. "This is an important confirmation of how India continues to be important to Amazon."

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Google today launched Chrome 85 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. Chrome 85 brings tab management changes, 10% faster page loads, PDF improvements, and a slew of developer features. From a report: Google is promising under-the-hood performance improvements with Chrome 85. You can expect two types of speed gains: Profile Guided Optimization, which delivers up to 10% faster page loads, and Tab Throttling, which helps reduce the impact of idle background tabs. The latter, however, is coming to the Beta channel meaning it's not yet ready. Profile Guided Optimization is a compiler optimization technique where the most performance-critical parts of the code can run faster. Profile Guided Optimization prioritizes the most common tasks using real usage scenarios that match the workflows of Chrome users around the world.

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Last October, Microsoft unveiled a transcription feature -- Transcribe in Word -- that is designed to let users leverage the power of the cloud to transcribe audio. After nearly a year in development, Transcribe in Word is now generally available in U.S. English at no cost to existing Microsoft 365 subscribers. It will come to Android and iOS later this year. From a report: You could say Microsoft is late to the party -- speech-to-text is hardly novel, after all. But Microsoft project manager Dan Parish says the company is "uniquely positioned" to provide a one-stop shop for transcription. "You don't have to worry about fussing around with different Windows apps," he said during a briefing with reporters. "What we're trying to do with all of our investments in the natural user interface space -- whether they have touch or voice, you name it -- is enable everyone to work in the way that's best for them so that they can be more effective, they can spend less time and energy creating the best work, and they can really focus on what matters most." Microsoft 365 subscribers using Edge or Chrome will now see a Dictate menu under the Home tab when they create a new Word document from Office.com. Selecting Transcribe will start a recording, which can be paused at any time, while hitting the "Save and transcribe now" button will send the recording to the Azure cloud for transcription. Prerecorded files in .wav, .mp4, .m4a, and .mp3 formats can be uploaded via the new Upload audio option.

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Africa has been declared free from wild polio by the independent body, the Africa Regional Certification Commission. From a report: Polio usually affects children under five, sometimes leading to irreversible paralysis. Death can occur when breathing muscles are affected. Twenty-five years ago thousands of children in Africa were paralysed by the virus. The disease is now only found in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is no cure but the polio vaccine protects children for life. Nigeria is the last African country to be declared free from wild polio, having accounted for more than half of all global cases less than a decade ago.

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Over the years I've resisted characterizing the Trump voter because I was pretty sure it was more than racism, because we're all racist. It takes a special kind of racism to act on it the way they do. I think it's best described as white supremacy. All kinds of things freak them out but the one that they can't live with is equality for "others." Strips their gears. Not negotiable. They'll tear the country down before they let that happen. As long as all they have to do is vote. They're not very strong, and as soon as hard times really hits them they'll crumble. They've lived sheltered lives for generations, feel entitled.

A podcast on flat discussion groups on the net. Mail lists, Facebook groups, GitHub threads, Clubhouse chatrooms. People in these flat structures always behave the same way over time. After 40 years of being part of online groups, I see there are no new tricks in the human species, these things always evolve the same way. That's what this podcast is about. Might be a chapter in a book someday.

An anonymous reader writes: After more than a year of development, Mozilla today launched Firefox 79 for Android, branded Firefox Daylight. Like with Firefox 57 Quantum, Firefox Daylight gets its own name as it marks "a new beginning for our Android browser." The new version is "an entirely overhauled, faster, and more convenient product." Firefox Daylight includes Enhanced Tracking Protection on by default, a new user interface, Mozilla's own mobile browser engine GeckoView, and a slew of new features. Mozilla is rolling out the new Firefox for Android globally, starting in Germany, France, and the U.K. today, and North America starting August 27.

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I updated the BingeWorthy Howto, and changed the Docs link in the app to point to it.

Nintendo plans to debut an upgraded model of its Switch console next year along with a lineup of new games, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter said, ceding 2020's holiday spotlight to rival devices from Sony and Microsoft. From the report: The specifications of the new machine have yet to be finalized, though the Kyoto-based company has looked into including more computing power and 4K high-definition graphics, people briefed on the strategy told Bloomberg News, asking not to be identified because it's private. Nintendo faces stiff competition for gamers' attention this fall as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are set to arrive in time for the shopping season. The release of the upgraded Switch would be coupled with, or followed by, a slew of games from Nintendo itself and related outside studios, the people said. Those games would address a wide range of players, from casual gamers seeking small doses of escapism to more devoted fans putting in marathon gaming sessions. The focus on next year's pipeline explains Nintendo's relatively quiet software release schedule so far this year, the people said.

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A district court denied Epic Games' motion to temporarily restore Fortnite game to the iOS App Store, but also ordered Apple to not block the gaming giant's ability to provide and distribute Unreal Engine on the iPhone-maker's ecosystem in a mixed-ruling delivered Monday evening. From a report: U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said Apple can't retaliate against Epic Games by blocking the gaming firm's developer accounts or restrict developers on Apple platforms from accessing the widely-used Unreal Engine tools. "The record shows potential significant damage to both the Unreal Engine platform itself, and to the gaming industry generally, including on both third-party developers and gamers," she said, adding that even as Epic Games violated App Store's guidelines, it did not breach any contracts related to Unreal Engine and developer tools. "Apple has chosen to act severely, and by doing so, has impacted non-parties, and a third-party developer ecosystem," said Rogers. But the ruling was not a complete win for Epic Games, which had also requested the sleeper hit title Fortnite to be restored on the iOS App Store. Rogers said the game will remain off the App Store unless Epic Games attempted to bring it back in accordance with App Store guidelines.

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