Microsoft details how to stop Windows 10 nagging, European employees can legally snoop on private messages, YouTube returns to Pakistan, Twitter stock continues to drop, and Snoop Dogg isn’t happy with Xbox Live outage.
Microsoft has finally realized that not everyone wants to upgrade to Windows 10, even though it’s available for free. Therefore, at the same time as inviting more users to upgrade to Windows 10, it has also detailed how to stop your PC from nagging you to upgrade. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as ticking a box to make it all go away.
Those using eligible systems, which is everything other than Enterprise editions of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, need to follow Microsoft’s guide. This involves disabling Windows Update and modifying the Windows Registry. Neither of which are steps we would recommend for novices who don’t know exactly what they’re doing.
Still, this is better than nothing, and it comes at a time when Microsoft is offering free Windows 10 upgrades to more users than ever, bringing small businesses into the fold. Let’s just hope administrators taking Microsoft up on this offer avoid the various issues other users experienced when upgrading to Windows 10.
My newborn just shit his pants in protest at the European Court of Human Rights granting employers access to employees' private messages.
— Dan (@figuremonkey) January 14, 2016
If you’re reading this while at work in a country within the European Union, then your company could be spying on you. And according to a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), they have every right to do so.
This legal right for employers to snoop on what their employees are doing during working hours came to light as a result of one particular case. Bogdan Barbulescu, a Romanian man who discovered his employers had read messages he sent through Yahoo Messenger while at work, appealed to the ECHR after losing his case in Romania’s domestic courts.
According to BBC News, the judges stated:
“The employer acted within its disciplinary powers since, as the domestic courts found, it had accessed the Yahoo Messenger account on the assumption that the information in question had been related to professional activities and that such access had therefore been legitimate. The court sees no reason to question these findings”.
The issue seems to be that Barbulescu’s employer had banned all employees from sending personal messages while at work. In order to check whether this was happening, they had to access his records. Which is where the line between personal and work became blurred.
Still, the judges made it clear that, “All employees should be notified personally of the said policy and consent to it explicitly”. So if you have never formally agreed to your employers snooping on what you do while at the office you may still have a case.
How silently we got the localised version of YouTube. Welcome to official unblocking of @YouTube in Pakistan pic.twitter.com/Bm9bqTAN4n
— Nighat Dad (@nighatdad) January 11, 2016
YouTube is taking a much more personal approach to delivering its service in parts of Asia. Internet users in Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka now have their own versions of YouTube, which reside on separate domains, and are localized in terms of language and content.
By doing this, YouTube is hoping to deliver “the most relevant videos in a YouTube experience tailored for you”. However, even more relevant is the fact that YouTube has been banned in Pakistan since 2012 after the company refused to remove a low-budget flick called Innocence of Muslims. Curating content in this way may just be enough to get that ban overturned.
I would like to buy one Twitter stock please.
— Beverley Theresa (@hellobeverley) January 14, 2016
Twitter could be in big trouble, as its stock continues to plummet. The social network’s stock soared to $70-per-share in the weeks following its floating on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). However, recent months have seen the stock tanking, and it has now (at the time of writing) hit a new low of less than $19-per-share.
There are various reasons behind investors running scared. The most obvious cause is the general downturn in the market, with tech stocks being hit particularly hard. There are also doubts as to whether Twitter can grow beyond its current levels. Add to that a muted reaction to proposed new features and an ongoing battle over free speech on the site, and this is the result.
And finally, with gamers now so focused on playing online with other people, when Xbox Live or PlayStation Network goes down, all hell breaks loose. People rant and rave on social media, telling Microsoft and Sony exactly what they think of this latest outage ruining their evening.
Even Snoop Dogg is affected by all of this. We know so because Xbox Live went down for some people yesterday (Jan. 13), and Snoop made his feelings known in a foul-mouthed Instagram post. We’re not sure Bill Gates is the man to rally against, but still. [H/T VentureBeat]
Should you have to mess with the registry to stop Windows 10 from nagging you? Should employers be allowed to spy on you? Should YouTube cater to individual countries? Will you be buying Twitter stock? Do you agree with Snoop Dogg?
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Tech News Digest is a daily column paring the technology news of the day down into bite-sized chunks that are easy to read and perfect for sharing.
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