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posted by janrinok on Wednesday December 06 2017, @08:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the well-armed dept.

Microsoft Windows is back on ARM:

Just shy of a year after announcing that Windows was once again going to be available on ARM systems, the first two systems were announced today: the Asus NovaGo 2-in-1 laptop, and the HP Envy x2 tablet.

[...] The Asus laptop boasts 22 hours of battery life or 30 days of standby, along with LTE that can run at gigabit speeds. HP's tablet offers a 12.3 inch, 1920×1280 screen, 20 hours battery life or 29 days of standby, and a removable keyboard-cover and stylus. Both systems use the Snapdragon 835 processor and X16 LTE modem, with HP offering up to 8GB RAM and 256GB storage to go with it.

Lenovo is expected to announce a similar system in the coming weeks.

Also at The Verge, Engadget, and TechCrunch.

Previously: Big Changes Planned by Microsoft - Windows 10 on ARM, Laptops to Behave More Like Phones
Windows 10 PCs Running on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 to Arrive this Year
New Windows 10 S Only Runs Software From Windows Store
Microsoft Knows Windows is Obsolete. Here's a Sneak Peek at Its Replacement.
New App Allows Win32 Software to Run on Windows 10 S
Intel Hints at Patent Fight With Microsoft and Qualcomm Over x86 Emulation


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday December 06 2017, @10:29PM (5 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 06 2017, @10:29PM (#606453) Journal

    If I understand correctly, Microsoft CAN lock out other OSes on ARM systems.

    UEFI secure boot. See this [wikipedia.org].

    In 2011, Microsoft announced that computers certified to run its Windows 8 operating system had to ship with secure boot enabled using a Microsoft private key. Following the announcement, the company was accused by critics and free software/open source advocates (including the Free Software Foundation) of trying to use the secure boot functionality of UEFI to hinder or outright prevent the installation of alternative operating systems such as Linux. Microsoft denied that the secure boot requirement was intended to serve as a form of lock-in, and clarified its requirements by stating that Intel-based systems certified for Windows 8 must allow secure boot to enter custom mode or be disabled, but not on systems using the ARM architecture. Windows 10 allows OEMs to decide whether or not secure boot can be managed by users of their x86 systems.

    So as ARM based systems take off, Linux may find itself excluded.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday December 06 2017, @11:36PM (4 children)

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday December 06 2017, @11:36PM (#606472) Journal

    So as ARM based systems take off, Linux may find itself excluded.

    Not true as the brain damaged ARM-PC hybrid MS designed with UEFI is limited to MS infected hardware. So long as ARM licensees keep the fuck away from that Wintel disaster their chips will happily boot anything you ask them to. If you see UEFI or any other PC baggage on an ARM, run. Run far, far away.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 11 2017, @03:02PM (3 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 11 2017, @03:02PM (#608278) Journal

      Yes. Agree.

      The problem is that ARM licensees might build systems pre-infected with Windows, and systems with open source. Now remember when netbooks first appeared. Existing Laptop OEMs decided to get in on the netbook fun. Microsoft did arm twisting: "if you dare to make a non-crippled netbook, then you might find bad things happen with your favorable OEM Windows License pricing. Just sayin', with love, Steve Ballmer."

      So an OEM might be subject to Microsoft extortion and arm twisting unless they don't make ANY systems that are pre-infected with Microsoft products.

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      The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
      • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday December 11 2017, @03:27PM (2 children)

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday December 11 2017, @03:27PM (#608283) Journal

        I think Arm is relatively safe from the grips of MS as they are a small fraction of the overall market. They don't have the influence like they did with the IBM/PC Intel platform they were a part of since day 1. MS was thankfully late to that party meaning they don't have much say in it if any.

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 11 2017, @07:04PM (1 child)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 11 2017, @07:04PM (#608385) Journal

          MS is so "visionary" they almost missed the World Wide Web boat. And they completely missed the smartphone and mobile devices boat. When iPhone was announced, Steve "sweaty dancing monkey boy" Ballmer publicly laughed at the iPhone.

          But there are other Microsoft missteps as well. I remember back in the day of flip phones and candy-bar style brick phones. Google offered this neato Google 411 service. You call it, ask for a directory listing, and they gave it to you. Better than the existing Directory Assistance. And for FREE. Ballmer laughed at this and cited Google as not knowing how to run a business by giving away such a service for free.

          What was Google's strategy? To train their voice recognition models. Even if a human, behind the scenes, had to look up and type in the phone number(s) to return, this was training the voice recognition system for all types of speakers with all types of accents. Heh, heh.

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          The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
          • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday December 11 2017, @07:16PM

            by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday December 11 2017, @07:16PM (#608390) Journal

            It's good that they made so many blunders as it finally smashed their grip on the computing market. Imagine if they didn't miss those boats(shudders)...