Tuesday, October 23, 2012

What does Microsoft want do do with Windows 8?

Recently I was looking at the Modern User InterfaceI (formerly Metro Interface) and thinking about the many discussions in other places about Windows 8 pro and cons. 

I realized that Microsoft wants me to tell them among others:
  1. Who I communicate with via email
  2. Who I communicate with more informally (instant messaging)
  3. Who I am "friends" with (social networking)
  4. Where I live and when and where I am on business and/or vacation
  5. What I schedule in my calendar
  6. What photos I take when and where, the latter if I a have a modern camera with GPS feature (smartphones!)
  7. What stocks are in my portfolio or I am interested in
  8. What I store on Sky Drive
  9. What news I am interested in
  10. Where I take a vacation or travel to or plan to eventually travel to
  11. What sports I am interested in
  12. What media I consume
  13. What I look up and/or do and/or buy on the Internet (IE10)
And there is more, so much more...From my 48 years in IT (sorry, sometimes I have to brag a wee bit; please forgive me) I have a vague idea what Artificial Intelligence programs can do when they scan my emails, my communications and correlate that with all the details I have had to tell Microsoft about myself to fill the tiles on the Modern UI with, for me, meaningful information.
And Microsoft really tries quite obviously to coax me into using my age-old Hotmail account to log in. That would give them the unique ID to easily tie it all together.
I believe I am usually fairly bland and somewhat straight headed but THIS is THE ONE ASPECT of Windows 8's Modern UI that fills me with a lot of trepidation. Apple has made an incredible fortune "having access" to all this information about their customers and as I see it Microsoft wants to bake themselves a similar pie, not only get a slice.
Once I realized this my reaction was "Big Brother. . . ". Please don't tell me anything about "conspiracy" or similar, I have expressed only some thoughts, not a theory at all!
I am really curious what kind of comments this will get; let it rip guys!
Oh, before I forget it, I do know that much, if not most of that information is already out there on some computers; but it is distributed over many computers in different companies. What really scares the heebie jeebies out of me is to GIVE IT ALL INTO ONE HAND!
 
 As usual I welcome suggestions and comments right here in the blog.

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