By now, you've probably noticed that Microsoft would love nothing more than for us Windows users to link our Windows PCs to Microsoft online accounts. Our only way out: offline accounts. And while Microsoft never tire of reminding us of the many benefits of a Microsoft account, like better access to Office 365, Xbox Live and the Microsoft Store (for us and a wealth of personal data for them), they've grudgingly tolerated local accounts for years. This practice may soon come to and end though!
Some topics we just don't like to talk about, like death and inheritance. The internet, with its multitude of paid service offerings, has complicated matters further. Who owns a Facebook profile once its original owner has deceased? What happens to digitally purchased movies and ebooks once the buyer is no longer with us? Is it safe to just delete the affected accounts? There are a lot of questions that need answering—and don't count on PayPal, Microsoft, apple, Amazon and others for help.
Every large corporation needs competition, an archrival even, for interesting tales to emerge around their products. Intel have been ruling the roost in terms of chip design for many years, but for the first time since 2006, the semi-conductor specialist is gradually losing ground to AMD! Once primarily a low-budget choice, AMD's products have evolved into a genuine Intel alternative—even regularly outclassing them!
A few years ago, I needed to get to Hamburg urgently. I didn't know my way around the city so I depended on my navigation device—and was thoroughly disappointed. The display stayed black and has remained this way ever since. In my distress, I turned to Google Maps, for the first time, and boy was in for a shock. The app sucked by battery dry like an electric blanket and I ended up in some shady harbor district, with even more shady characters eyeballing my factory-fresh rental car. The whole time, Google Maps advised me to turn around. Eventually, I was just as lost as the navigation service. It was a friendly local who ultimately came to my rescue. A lot has changed since then. Google Maps is now celebrating its 15-year birthday and, what started as a digital map, has become a powerful exploration tool.
Imagine playing a resource-hungry, visually highly demanding game—on your cellphone, TV or in your browser without dedicated hardware. All you need is a display, internet connection and controller! That's exactly what Google have in mind with Stadia, and they're not shy on large-scale expectations: "If we reach only 100 or 200 million people, we have done something wrong", said Jack Buser, head of business development at Google. The projected figure went as high as 2 billion future Stadia users. It's been a good two months since Stadia launched and all hopes around the hype have faded. Too much went wrong!
