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Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Microsoft reissues botched Windows 8.1 Update KB 2919355 Both Windows Update and corporate WSUS update servers should see a new patch in the next few hours that fixes installer error 80073712
Microsoft announced, moments ago, that it has re-released Windows 8.1 Update -- note the capital "U" -- and the new version should avoid the error 80073712 plaguing so many customers. If you haven't yet installed Windows 8.1 Update and can't see the new KB 2919355, wait a few hours for it to roll out the update chute. If you have successfully installed Windows 8.1 Update, you shouldn't see anything.
In one of the most polarizing missteps in recent Windows history, Microsoft released a faulty Windows 8.1 patch in the April Black Tuesday crop, then declared that Windows 8.1 users must install the patch before they would receive any additional Windows 8.1 patches. On top of a plethora of problems installing Windows 8.1 Update on Windows 8.1 machines, there were more problems specific to corporate installations running WSUS, Intune, and System Center Configuration Manager to keep client PCs patched.
Corporate Windows admins roared, and Microsoft backed off, pulling the patch from the WSUS update server regimen, fixing the WSUS-specific problems, and reinstating it eight days later all while simultaneously extending the drop-dead patching deadline for WSUS (and Intune and System Center Configuration Manager) corporate customers to August.
There was, and is, no analogous stay of execution for those of us who update Windows through Windows Update or Microsoft Update. If you want to get the May Black Tuesday patches, you have to install Windows 8.1 Update, KB 2919355. I keep hoping that The Powers That Be will grant a stay of execution for "normal" non-WSUS Windows 8.1 customers, but to date, there's been nary a peep.
Windows 8.1 Update itself has not raised any specific problems, as best as I can tell. The difficulty lies with the installer, which tosses off at least a half-dozen different error codes and fails to install Windows 8.1 Update on a large (but unknown) number of machines.
This new version of KB 2919355 is supposed to cure the 0x80073712 installation error. The KB 2919355 article (now up to Version 18.0) gives specific guidance if you hit error 0x80071A91. There's no word about other errors.
Windows Update may offer to re-install KB 2919355 in specific cases without actually telling you it's fixing problems in earlier versions of KB 2919355, in particular if your copy of Windows 8.1 Update came from Microsoft's MSDN or VLSC servers or if your machine needs "to resolve a Windows Update client issue." In any case, if you're offered the patch and install it, the installer is smart enough to only install the small "delta" between your copy of Windows 8.1 Update and the real McCoy.
If you're running Windows 8.1 and Windows Update (or WSUS) do not offer to install KB 2919355; you're fine, no need to take further action. This fix to KB 2919355 only affects the installer. In particular, note that the Control Panel's System applet says you have Windows 8.1 (or 8.1 Pro) installed, even if Windows 8.1 Update is alive and kicking inside your machine. So follow the recommendation in Windows Update, don't rely on any external signs, and don't try to second-guess Windows Update.
This story, "Microsoft reissues botched Windows 8.1 Update KB 2919355," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, followInfoWorld.com on Twitter.
MORE AT: http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/microsoft-reissues-botched-windows-81-update-kb-2919355-241891Thursday, May 1, 2014
Thousands of workers mark May Day
May Day, known also as International Workers' Day, is being celebrated across the world, with demonstrations and protests taking place in many countries. Many Asian and European stock markets are closed Thursday in observance.
May Day rallies are also planned across the USA, including a large one in Washington D.C. that will see a march from Union Station to the Capitol building and then on to the White House.
ISTANBUL
Police in Turkey used tear gas and water canon to disperse demonstrators pledging to defy a ban on protests in Taksim Square. Taksim, the city's most iconic square, carries significant importance for May Day. In 1977, 34 people were killed in the square when shots were fired into the crowd from a nearby building.
PHNOM PENH
Nearly 1,000 factory workers and supporters of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party gathered on the streets outside the the Cambodian capital's Freedom Park. A ban on demonstrations has been in place since January, following numerous labor protests for a higher minimum wage and opposition demonstrations denouncing last July's general election as rigged. Security forces beat demonstrators on Thursday, with at least five people injured.
JAKARTA
Around 50,000 workers intend to hold rallies in the Indonesian capital over the next two days and police have deployed nearly 20,000 officers to maintain order. Stagnant incomes, poor retirement and health insurances and rising transportation and housing costs are some of the items that demonstrators want the government to address.
BANGKOK
Thai laborers called on the government to improve working and living standards. They are also seeking a rise in the minimum wage. On Wednesday, Thailand's government and the state Election Commission agreed to hold elections on July 20.
MOSCOW
A huge rally took place on Red Square, the first time that has happened since 1991. As many as 2 million people were expected to be on hand for the event organized by Russian labor unions, which are mostly loyal to the Kremlin. The parade was led by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and around 100, 000 people took part.
BERLIN
In years past, Germany's capital city has seen police cars overturned and dozens of arrests on May 1. This year may be somewhat calmer with neo-Nazi groups said to have cancelled a planned march. Clashes between the far-right and leftist activists can't be ruled out, however.
Read more at: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/01/may-day-demonstrations/8550763/
Report: China to overtake U.S. economy this year
BEIJING (AP) — China has rejected a World Bank report that suggests it might pass the United States this year to become the biggest economy measured by its currency's purchasing power.
China is on track to become the No. 1 economy by sheer size by the early 2020s and possibly sooner. But its leaders downplay such comparisons, possibly to avert pressure to take on financial obligations or make concessions on trade or climate change.
The estimate by the World Bank's International Comparison Program says that based on 2011 prices, the purchasing power of China's currency, the yuan, was much stronger than was reflected by exchange rates.
By that measure, China's economy was 87% the size of the United States' in 2011, or 15% bigger than the previous estimate, according to a calculation by RBS economist Louis Kuijs. Faster-growing China would pass the United States in purchasing power terms this year, though it still would be about 60% the size of the U.S. economy at market exchange rates.
China's National Bureau of Statistics, which took part in the study, rejected its conclusion, according to the World Bank report.
The statistics bureau "expressed reservations" about the study's methodology and "did not agree to publish the headline results for China," the report said.
A figure was estimated anyway by researchers, but "the NBS of China does not endorse these results as official statistics," the report said.
The statistics bureau in Beijing did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
China's government has been reluctant to acknowledge previous milestones showing its economic rise when it passed Germany as the biggest exporter, Japan as the No. 2 economy and the United States as the biggest trader.
Its leaders have emphasized China's status as a middle-income country in resisting pressure to adopt binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, for which their country is the biggest source.
The International Comparison Program, conducted every six years, is meant to allow comparisons of living standards in countries with widely varying prices.
The results are a good tool for understanding living conditions for Chinese families but other uses are limited, said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist for Capital Economics.
"It does bring home the sheer size of the Chinese economy, in the services and goods and that people in China are producing," Williams said.
"Where it falls short is that it doesn't really tell us about China's economic standing relative to the rest of the world," he said. "When it comes to China's purchasing power abroad, we need to look at the figures adjusted for market exchange rates."
The International Monetary Fund has forecast China's economic growth this year at 7.5%, nearly triple the 2.8% outlook for the United States.
With its much larger population of 1.3 billion people, China barely ranks in the top 100 countries for income per person.
The report is a reminder that Chinese consumers only have about one-tenth as much money to spend as Americans, said economist Brian Jackson of IHS Global Insight. That is about half the world average, on par with the Philippines, Bolivia or Iraq.
Sellers of consumer goods "may find it discouraging, given it implies a relatively low cost regime for final sales," Jackson said in an email.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Google: Self-driving cars are mastering city streets
(CNN) -- Long a veteran of the highways of rural California, Google's self-driving car is working on becoming safer in the city.
Over the past year or so, Google has been fine-tuning how the software running its fleet of automated vehicles handles the complexities of stop-and-go driving in heavily populated areas.
"A mile of city driving is much more complex than a mile of freeway driving, with hundreds of different objects moving according to different rules of the road in a small area," Chris Urmson, the head of Google's self-driving-car project, said Monday in a blog post.
Urmson said engineers have improved the cars' software to recognize situations like pedestrian traffic, buses, stop signs held by crossing guards and hand signals made by cyclists.
And, he says, self-driving cars have the potential to handle all of that even better than we do.
"A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can't -- and it never gets tired or distracted," Urmson wrote. "As it turns out, what looks chaotic and random on a city street to the
And, he says, self-driving cars have the potential to handle all of that even better than we do.
"A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can't -- and it never gets tired or distracted," Urmson wrote. "As it turns out, what looks chaotic and random on a city street to the human eye is actually fairly predictable to a computer."
Since 2011, when self-driving vehicles became street-legal in Nevada, Google has logged nearly 700,000 miles with the cars, mostly on highways. The only reported accidents have happened when one of the cars was being driven by a person, or they were the fault of another driver.
Autonomous cars are also now legal in California, Florida and Michigan, although all states still require a human driver behind the wheel.
Google has been testing the cars around its Silicon Valley headquarters in suburban Mountain View, California.
There's more to learn before testing them in another city, Urmson wrote, "but thousands of situations on city streets that would have stumped us two years ago can now be navigated autonomously."
The cars' technology includes a laser radar system and a laser-based range finder that lets software create detailed 3-D maps of the surroundings.
In a YouTube video also posted Monday, one of the cars is shown recognizing and changing lanes in a construction zone, negotiating a railroad crossing and making a right turn at an intersection crowded with cars, cyclists and pedestrians.
"With every passing mile we're growing more optimistic that we're heading toward an achievable goal -- a vehicle that operates fully without human intervention," Urmson wrote.
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