Is Windows 10 Reading your mind?

Microsoft  admits they will use Windows 10 to collect all the data made available to better target ads, personalize the operating system, and improve its software and services. It will be doing this through the almost thirty points of contact available within any device using it.

Big  data is the big question  and what is Microsoft  going to do with it? While advertising  is quick go to answer for the public. One has to think that a corporation with the power and resources of  Microsoft has something else in mind.

Predicting the Market

With a  flagging PC market to keep up  Microsoft can no longer wait for a users decision. They'll have to  predict it and the best way to  do this is with big data and predictive analytics.  Not to just know the market but to know what the market is thinking. To stop reacting to trends and create them instead.

"Devices will come and go," said Nadella. "The most interesting thing is the data that's being collected." 

You shouldn't be surprised by the increasingly accurate predictions commercial companies can make about our behaviours. While companies like Amazon are using consumerism and reading habits to collect data and  Google is using search. Microsoft has been a step behind them in having a venue to harvest. Attempts to have a competing search in Bing did not pan out.  So now it's up to Windows to save the day.  

Privacy not a Problem

Whatever it is, privacy is not going to stand in the way of it. It will also take a while for the public to make a choice between privacy and cool.

We’re not necessarily condemning Microsoft with this article, but with all the recent interest in privacy and Windows 10, we decided to build a list of all the things being sent back in Windows 10 and let you decide what you think.

Though it is possible to configure the functionality it does not always work . What Windows 10 is doing has become common and normal across the web. The Chrome web  browser sends everything you search for  back to Google. But  Chrome is hardly as much a part of life as Windows has become.

Ars Technica has been testing how the new operating system behaves when various monitoring functions are enabled or disabled, and what they’ve found is that the operating system can’t resist phoning home, even when ordered not to do so.

I am not a conspiracy theorists but I can't help thinking a Windows 10 developer at some point said that.   Cue dramatic trailer music.....

developers -- "This OS is so intrusive, filled with possible security risks that can leak a users entire life to anyone or everyone online."  "If  people find out about it's true nature we won't be able to give it away".

Then  in counter argument  the top executives said something that would surprise everyone that believes Microsofts true business goal is to continue to collect licensing fees for Windows. 

executives -- "Then give it away. To everyone, even those irritating pirates." "Find a way to let them have it, all of it."

developers -- " I think we can use the updater  for previous versions to advertise a free upgrade to everyone."

executives -- " Good. Now get out."

Developers turn to leave.

executives -- "And make sure that we get copies their of  all their fixes. We can  use them." 

 Honestly regardless of  attempts to be "less evil"  Windows 10 makes Microsoft seem more nefarious than ever. The only thing missing is a Marvel character to head up the corporation.  The new CEO Satya Nadella is going to have to do many things to keep the public from seeing him as the bad guy in a world where knowledge is power.

There were many influences on me while growing up. In the late Seventies and early Eighties when I was growing up in Hyderabad, it was a bit more laid-back, and that gave you time to think about things differently without perhaps being caught up in the narrow approach to one's journey through life. -- Satya Nadella

 Let's just hope that this guy, the leader is not one of those influences.

His right-cerebrum higher brain functions, including pattern recognition, information storage and retrieval, and logical and philosophical structuring, have been enhanced to inhuman levels. His intuitive left-cerebrum functions have been enhanced to the point that his hunches are almost always correct. 

Windows 10 privacy concerns might be the catalyst that finally pushes Linux on the Desktop to a market share that it has been scratching to get for the last decade.  But we'll just have to see how things go with the new device sales and pre-installed operating systems.  A greater concern should be the aftermath of Microsofts harvesting of user data.  And why are they so willing to give away profits to get it?