Windows 10 For Mobile For Windows Phones Will Rollout December

Windows 10 is to begin rolling out for Windows phones this December.

Microsoft’s Lumia division announced the release date, late Tuesday evening on the Lumia Facebook page, of all places.

For those who can’t wait that long, Windows 10 for mobile will be available on Microsoft’s newest Lumia flagship 950 and Lumia 95 XL at the beginning of November.

Free Upgrades

Just like Windows 10 was free to any user of Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 who chose to avail of the free upgrade to Windows 10 earlier this year, Windows 10 for mobile will also be available for free to all users of Lumia phones that meet the technical requirements

Some older Lumia’s such as the Nokia Lumia 520 and 530 could be out of luck however due to a lack of internal memory. It is still unknown whether Windows 10 will be able to install on phones that have large enough capacity on external storage cards.

There has been a lot of speculation in recent months as to just what Windows smartphones will be able to make the transition to Microsoft’s highly anticipated new operating system for their range of mobile phones.

Most of the rumours have now been put to bed permanently as result of the announcement from the Lumia team. Microsoft state that the majority of their smartphones currently running Windows 8.1 and that have at least 8 GB of internal storage will be able to make the transition to Windows 10 for mobile

New Features Will Not Work Across All Phones That Qualify For Upgrade

While Windows 10 is expected to work even more seamlessly with their Lumia range of smartphones, than it did when Windows 10 was released for laptop and desktop computers earlier this year, not every feature will work on every phone.

Microsoft have come a long way since launching their original own version mobile phones. Windows 10 for mobile will come with free OneDrive storage, Cortana across the range, and of course the free mobile version of Microsoft Office.

While most of these features are already available on any mobile using Windows 8.1, a lot of work has apparently gone into developing Office so it is easier and more productive to use on Windows 1o for mobile.

Time will tell.

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Source Code Denied Its Day In Court

In the US justice system, a citizen who is accused of a crime is (in theory) granted the right to a fair trial. An attorney will be provided by the government if he can’t afford one, he is not allowed to be held for indefinite amounts of time before his case is heard, and he has the right to face his accuser… unless that accuser is a piece of proprietary software, in which case it remains a deeply shrouded, legally protected secret.

And that doesn’t sit well with many legal and tech advocates.

So much of our forensic science relies on proprietary software, for everything from hair follicle matching to bite mark patterns to DNA testing. As one now thrown out case in the US has proven, even breathalyzer technology runs on software, programs which have been proven to have “bugs” just like any other software can. And just as software developers and publishers have proven, these bug fixes are routine. The difference is when your smartphone’s OS has a bug, you can’t open Candy Crush; when the state lab uses software that contains a bug, not only can you be convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death, you’re not allowed to investigate the source code to look for the bug (or have your attorneys bring in experts to investigate).

According to Rebecca Wexler for Slate, “Coding errors have been found to alter DNA likelihood ratios by a factor of 10, causing prosecutors in Australia to replace 24 expert witness statements in criminal cases. When defense experts identified a bug in breathalyzer software, the Minnesota Supreme Court barred the affected test from evidence in all future trials. Three of the state’s highest justices argued to admit evidence of additional alleged code defects so that defendants could challenge the credibility of future tests.”

Why this investigative secrecy? Software developers claim that releasing the software could cost them money if the expert steals the code.

Yes, the court system has decided that the risk of a subpoenaed expert investigating a piece of software, then turning around and building his own startup to try to sell that software as a competitor product, outweighs the rights of a citizen who is facing the criminal penalties. Four states have already made similar rulings that the defense can scrutinize the forensic expert who determined things like DNA matches connecting the defendant to the crime, but cannot investigate the software that the expert used to make the determination.

While this has troubled legal advocates for some time, the recent news about Volkswagen’s emissions-cheating software has raised new concerns. Even government auditors aren’t allowed to see the source code in a lot of industry software, and instead have to rely on trying it out repeatedly to determine whether or not it produces valid results. Legal experts are revisiting their long-held concerns about the way we let “secret” software determine the fate of citizens.

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Changing The Role Of Software Patents, Licenses

When a group of major corporations within the same industry get together and agree not to target each other legally, it’s usually cause for alarm. The government–and consumers, if we’re being honest–starts to raise its collective eyebrows over fears of price fixing, monopoly, and more. But in the case of the Open Invention Network, or OIN, the goal of such a group is far more noble.

Originally formed ten years ago with some powerhouse names like IBM and Sony, the purpose of the group was to buy up patents that were crucial to the work being done in computing, then license those patents to the members of the OIN without cost. Who would do such a thing? Anyone who wanted to see more collaboration and less litigation in the technology world.

As it stands, practically every time a new touchscreen device reaches the market, one company files a lawsuit with the claim that they hold the patent for capacitive touchscreens and that this new device will hurt their bottom line. There’s no telling how much Apple has been sued for since the company filed the patent in 2008. Interestingly, suing over patent use isn’t always a malicious event; many times, it’s par for the course with the launch of a new product or concept. The lawyers will just meet and decide how much the one company has to pay the other company in order to use their patented idea or design without actually having to buy the license.

That’s a pretty inefficient way to operate, and it costs a lot of money in legal fees. Therefore, the OIN invites its member companies to create without fear of patent litigation. Even more interesting, OIN has actually purchased patents and licensed them to smaller companies that were in danger of being sued. That’s kind of like watching a cop about to issue a speeding ticket to a hapless motorist, so you get the speed limit changed and hang up a new sign on the side of the road before the ticket happens.

What would be the purpose in such an investment? A better way to build open source software. Without the fear of patent litigation hanging over their heads–now that the member companies agree not to sue one another for use of patents that OIN licenses to all its members, some 2000 patents to date according to PC World–companies are free to develop better software.

Unfortunately, this air of cooperation isn’t the norm in the world of software. Just as news about OIN’s important work was released, another article appeared from BackBytes that outlined the struggles companies are now facing through software audits thanks to the ease of cloud computing and the shift in the way software is being developed. Accusations abound that some software companies are “squeezing” their business clients for everything they can get, and that some companies are even sneaking in new terms to the license whenever companies install an update, just so they can slap them with a fine for violating the terms.

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NTLite Free 1.0.0.3363 Beta

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