Like many individual consumers, the U.S. government is having a tough time letting go of Windows XP. Despite having more than six years to prepare for the end of the OS’ support, more than 10 percent of government PCs will continue to use the aged operating system once Microsoft’s April 8 end of support date arrives less than a month from now, according to The Washington Post.
Much of the government’s IT infrastructure was designed for Windows XP, so even after kicking off a transition process to move away from XP more than two years ago, the number of PCs expected to be running XP when Microsoft kills support are expected to number in the hundreds of thousands.
The news follows a security bulletin issued last week from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, warning the public that PCs still running XP after the April 8 cutoff date, especially in conjunction with Internet Explorer, would pose a major security risk.
“Once XP goes out of support and is no longer patched, you’ve just raised the vulnerability significantly on the whole Windows platform in your organization if you haven’t moved off XP,” former Department of Homeland Security Chief Information Officer Richard Spires told the Washington Post.
Though the Department of Homeland Security told The Post that their computers will be off of Windows XP by April 8, — thousands of computers that reside on classified military and diplomatic networks will likely still be running the XP.
Federal officials have reportedly asked Microsoft to extend the XP support deadline, but Microsoft refused to accommodate them. Mark Williams, Microsoft’s chief security officer for federal systems, says the company feels that computers running XP are not necessarily in imminent danger:
“Because we are tightly working with our customers, and because of the types of systems that have yet to make the move off XP, we do not feel there is a substantially greater risk for the federal government on April 9 than there is on April 7,” Williams told the Post. “That being said, at the end of the day, it’s important to remember that the most safe system is a modern one.”
As a consolation, Microsoft said they would consider offering “custom support agreements,” which would provide a small amount of security for government machines. However, that service will likely not be as robust as the services Microsoft currently provides.
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.