Users of Windows 10 who want to continue receiving security updates beyond October 2025 (the official end-of-life for Windows 10) now know what Microsoft will charge. Per machine, the first year will cost $61, the 2nd year will be twice as much with the 3rd and final year costing twice as much again or $244 per computer. Right now, these are the business user prices, Microsoft will actually offer something this time for home users but pricing has not yet been announced, hopefully it will be less per year. At least they are offering home users this security support option, unlike with Windows 7.
When is AI not AI? When Amazon cancels their “AI-powered” Just Walk Out checkout service and we find out that it was really powered by over 1,000 workers in India now out of a job.
Users of Adobe products who hate paying a monthly service charge might want to look at Canva again. Although Canva is an online graphic design platform they recently acquired Affinity, a creative suite that includes a photo editor, professional page layout software, a vector-based graphics software. Affinity works across Macs, iPads, and PCs. Canva is promising to maintain Affinity’s use of perpetual licensing, indicating they won’t switch to the only subscription model that Adobe uses.
If you are a fan of passphrases rather than passwords, you might want to try the insult passphrase generator at https://www.cheswick.com/insult The randomness is probably not great but they are amusing and way better than using your pet’s name.
Google Scholar can help you find peer reviewed papers, magazine articles and case law citations that may be more reliable than Facebook’s news. Scholar.google.com will get you started and you will definitely want to explore the advanced search capabilities under the hamburger or three-line menu in the upper left corner of the screen.
Microsoft Office “renters” who don’t like the annual subscription model but want to update their software will be able to purchase Office 2024 standalone online sometime this year. It will receive five years of support and security updates. Release date will be “later this year,” and there will be a Mac version. If you are wanting software that will let you work with Word and Excel files but not pay Microsoft, install LibreOffice from LibreOffice.org. It’s an office suite that works with many file formats and preserves the older look of what I call the classic Word and Excel. The big missing feature is collaborative editing, if you need that feature turn to Microsoft or look at CollaboraOffice.com
If you are playing or working with GPT but would love free access to GPT 4 or the newer Turbo, Microsoft’s CoPilot Free will let you. You have to choose either Creative or Precise modes to have CoPilot use GPT 4 Turbo. With Turbo mode you can craft a rather long question or prompt, estimate around 500,000 words as the longest question you could ask.
Some websites also make interesting wallpapers, letting you follow constantly updating visual information when you take a break and minimize all your windows. On a PC, try Lively Wallpaper https://www.rocksdanister.com/lively/ and on a Mac, you will want Plash https://github.com/sindresorhus/Plash If you wonder what you might even want to see, try making a wallpaper from https://window-swap.com/Window or an animation of wind patterns at https://earth.nullschool.net.