computers

14 May 2026

Slashdot

UK Antitrust Regulator Is Officially Investigating Microsoft Office

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority is opening a formal investigation into whether Microsoft's bundling of Windows, Office, Teams, Copilot, and related products harms competition. Engadget reports: "Our aim is to understand how these markets are developing, Microsoft's position within them and to consider what, if any, targeted action may be needed to ensure UK organizations can benefit from choice, innovation and competitive prices," CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said in a statement published by Reuters. She also stressed the importance of the investigation by noting that hundreds of thousands of UK residents use business software and Microsoft products. The organization will take a look into the company's cloud licensing practices. The CMA has stated that the inquiry will conclude by February. At that point, Microsoft could get slapped with a strategic market label. Microsoft says it's "committed to working quickly and constructively with the CMA to facilitate its review of the business software market." A strategic market designation doesn't automatically assume wrongdoing, but will give the CMA more leeway when conducting further interventions.

AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile Team Up To Eliminate 'Dead Zones' Across US

AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have agreed in principle to form a joint venture (JV) aimed at reducing U.S. mobile dead zones through satellite connectivity, especially in rural areas and during emergencies when ground networks fail. Here are three of the customer benefits listed by the JV (as highlighted by Droid Life): Fewer coverage gaps: Will nearly eliminate dead zones in the U.S. currently without mobile service, reaching previously unserved areas. Reliable connectivity in emergencies: Redundant connectivity will become available when existing ground-based networks are unavailable due to extreme natural disasters or other unusual disruptions. Improved network performance: Will give customers more consistent performance and simpler access to satellite services across providers. This will speed up feature updates and improve connectivity for everyone, everywhere. "It will still take time for these improvements to be available to customers, but this all seems like a positive step," writes Droid Life's Tim Wrobel.

Ars Technica

Men use "vocal fry" more than women, counter to stereotype

Study suggests "the bias is real but socially constructed, rather than grounded in how women actually sound."

14 May 2026 9:32pm GMT

Fired hacker twins forget to end Teams recording, capture own crimes

One little mystery-solved.

14 May 2026 9:02pm GMT

Slashdot

Writers Are Fleeing the Substack Tax

A growing number of writers are leaving Substack for alternatives most people haven't heard of like Ghost, Beehiiv, Patreon, and Passport. The reason, writes The Verge's Emma Roth, is the "platform's increased focus on social features as well as a pricing model that puts a chokehold on their business." From the report: Sean Highkin, the creator of the NBA-focused publication The Rose Garden Report, tells The Verge that he makes "significantly more money" after switching from Substack to Ghost last April. "When I first joined up, [Substack] gave me a big push and featured me and funneled a lot of traffic to me, which led to a good amount of growth," Highkin says. "But once I wasn't one of the 'new recruited talent' they could tout, they stopped featuring me and I saw my growth stagnate." Highkin now pays $2,052 per year using Ghost and an add-on called Outpost, compared to $4,968 per year on Substack. The Rose Garden Report's subscriber base has grown 22 percent since the end of 2024, Highkin says. [...] Substack launched in 2017 as a platform that allows writers to create their own newsletters and manage paying subscribers. Unlike some of its biggest rivals, Substack takes a 10 percent cut of total subscription revenue. That tax may not seem substantial at first, but it quickly adds up as creators gain subscribers and begin charging more for their subscriptions. A calculator on Substack's own website estimates that for a newsletter charging $10 per month with 400 subscribers, the total monthly cost -- including the platform's 10 percent cut and credit card processing fees -- would add up to $636. That cost jumps to $15,900 per month with 10,000 subscribers and skyrockets to $79,500 per month for 50,000 members -- nearly $1 million per year. Many Substack rivals charge a flat monthly fee, rather than a commission. Ghost, an open-source platform for blogs and newsletters, starts at $15 per month with 1,000 members for website creation, email newsletter capabilities, and a custom domain. Beehiiv, a creator platform with tools for launching a newsletter, website, and podcast, is free for up to 2,500 subscribers with limited access to certain features, like a built-in ad network, while its other plans vary in price based on subscriber count. A person with 10,000 subscribers, for example, will pay $96 per month for Beehiiv's "Scale" plan. There's also Kit, a newsletter platform that offers a tiered pricing model similar to Beehiiv, costing $116 per month with 10,000 subscribers on its "Creator" plan. It's not just the 10% fee critics are complaining about; they also argue the platform offers limited customization and third-party integrations compared to some of the mentioned alternatives, heavily promotes its own branding and social features, and makes creators more dependent on its ecosystem. Beehiiv founder Tyler Denk argues that creators should be able to build their own brands without the platform taking center stage: "We don't want to take credit for the work of our content creators." While writers can export subscribers, content, and some payment relationships, they cannot take Substack "followers" or Apple-managed iOS billing data with them.

OSnews

The data is abundantly clear: the EU Digital Markets Act is working

The EU's Digital Markets Act has been in effect for a mere two years, but despite all the obstructionism, malicious compliance, and steady stream of lies from US tech companies and Apple in particular, it seems this rather basic consumer protection legislation is already bearing fruit. In a two-year review report on the DMA, the European Commission notes that alternative browser usage has soared, data portability solutions are spreading, alternative application stores are growing, and much more. On top of that, end users can now opt out of companies combining various data sources for profiling, and a "significant share" of EU users have apparently done so. Furthermore, end users in the EU can now remove preinstalled applications (whereas American users cannot) and they can download their data from big technology companies and authorise other companies to use that data. Mozilla published a blog post detailing how it has profited from the Digital Markets Act, and it ain't no peanuts: every ten seconds, someone on iOS chooses Firefox on iOS' browser choice screen, which amounts to more than six million Firefox users on iOS. They also tend to stick with Firefox on iOS, as retention is five times higher when this browser is chosen through a browser choice screen. Academic analysis points the same way. Independent researchers compared Firefox daily active users in the EU with 43 non-EU countries. Comparing the 15 months before and after browser choice screens rolled out on iOS, they found that Firefox daily active users (DAU) were 113% higher in the EU than it would have been without the DMA. On Android, it was 12% higher. The smaller Android effect is due to the fact that Firefox usage there started from a much higher base, and the Android rollout has been more uneven than on iOS. The research also shows that the DMA's effect is growing over time. ↫ Gemma Petrie and Tasos Stampelos on the Mozilla blog Both the underlying data in the EC report and the data Mozilla provides indicates that the Digital Markets Act is having real and tangible effects, for end users, developers, and companies alike. The neverending barrage of anti-EU and anti-DMA propaganda from Apple, the US government, and their PR attack dogs seems to have been weirdly justified, from the American perspective: basic consumer protection legislation does, indeed, work to lessen the stranglehold major technology companies have on our lives. And considering just NVIDIA's market cap alone is now equal to more than 17% of the United States' GDP, it makes sense the Americans are unhappy with the DMA. That's going to make one hell of a sound when it pops.

14 May 2026 8:47pm GMT

Ars Technica

Cell phone users can't stop incriminating themselves

People confide almost everything to their phones.

14 May 2026 7:27pm GMT

OSnews

Classic 7 combines Windows 7’s Aero Glass with Windows 10

Interest in classic user interface design is spiking, and today we've got another great example, highlighted yesterday by Micheal MJD. Classic 7 combined Windows 10 LTSC with a whole slew of themes and deep modifications to deliver Windows 10, but made to look, feel, and even act like Windows 7. Classic 7 is a Windows 10 (IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021) modification made to look 1:1 to Windows 7. It has all of the goodies that Windows 7 had along with some extras included! Classic 7 features a 1:1 OOBE recreation, meaning it'll feel just like your PC simplified once more. ↫ Classic 7 website As Micheal MJD's video shows, this is much more than a mere theme, and extends far deeper into the operating system than these kinds of projects generally do. I have no idea how stable this really is, or if it's even remotely legal to do something like this, but who the hell cares - this is incredibly fun, and seems quite well done.

14 May 2026 6:12pm GMT

13 May 2026

OSnews

Haiku gets basic SMP support for ARM64, and unveils its GSoC projects: Bluetooth improvements incoming

The months, they don't stop coming, so here's another progress report for Haiku, our beloved successor to BeOS, the best operating system ever made. This past month the team's added basic support for SMP on ARM64 (enough to use it in QEMU), the MIME sniffer's internals have been overhauled for some serious performance gains, and a long list of smaller, but no less important or impactful, changes. Beta 6 still seems to be a ways off due to a number of unfixed bugs and an upcoming WebPositive release, but my usual spiel applies: you don't need to wait for a beta to test Haiku. It's stable enough as it is, and a nightly release will do you just fine, including updating to newer nightlies and application releases. This past month also saw which projects Haiku's GSoC people will be working on. Two projects will focus on improving Haiku's Bluetooth stack, including adding HFP profile support and support for HID devices, as well as general Bluetooth improvements across the board. The third and final project will focus on improving and expanding Haiku's Devices application to turn it into a real management utility along the lines of those available on many other modern operating systems.

13 May 2026 8:55pm GMT