New Windows OS releases tomorrow
Microsoft will release the last full version of its Windows operating system, Windows 10, Wednesday.
The update is free to anyone with a registered version of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 (but not 8) who opts in within a year. After a year, the upgrade will cost $119 for the home version and $199 for the pro. Anyone upgrading from an older version of Windows, buying a stand-alone copy or buying a computer with Windows 10 pre-installed on it will have to pay from the outset, says Microsoft.
Future versions of Windows will be delivered by automatic downloads, so Windows 10 will likely be the last named version. Users fearful about auto-installed downloads got some ammunition because an update over the weekend caused problems for those running the beta version, according to Forbes.com.
Windows 10 will be used across all Microsoft devices, including phones, tablets and Xbox. The Explorer browser will be replaced by a new one called Edge and a Siri-like personal assistant called Cortana will be entwined in the software.
The update will be rolled out first to the 4.4 million beta testers and will come to others who have registered in waves.
A big week for space: NASA released pictures taken by the New Horizon spacecraft on a “close” 7,800-mile flyby of Pluto. The mysterious Pluto did not disappoint, with mountains of ice up to 11,000 feet and a Texas-sized plain with flowing ice somewhat like glaciers.
Pluto deserves a little compassion after the International Astronomical Union in 2006 stripped it of its planethood.
Why? Because it is named after a dopey Disney dog? No, it is named after the Roman god of the underworld. Rather, Pluto was thought to be the largest of a group of icy objects called the Kuiper Belt. But scientists discovered there is a bigger Kuiper object that they named Eris.
Also, to be a planet, a body must “clear its neighborhood” of other, smaller objects. Pluto is neither large enough to consume nearby objects, nor sling them away.
By the way, NASA.gov is an excellent website for space news and images. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft discovered a body, now named Kepler452b, the space agency announced last week. It is about 1,400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus, 60 percent bigger than Earth and located in its star’s habitable zone — the region where life-sustaining liquid water is possible on the surface of a planet.
Little is known about the object because it is so far away. One of those silly comparisons journalists so love: If you decided to drive to Kepler-452b at interstate highway speeds of 70 mph, it would take you 117.6 trillion years to get there. (I used wolframalpha.com, which will calculate just about anything, to get that number.)