Lenovo preloading all new PCs with Pokki suite


Recommended Posts

Source: http://allthingsd.com/20130822/full-pokki-suite-will-be-preloaded-on-all-lenovo-pcs-with-native-windows-app-support-in-store/?reflink=ATD_yahoo_ticker

 

 

Lenovo has agreed to preload onto all of its new PCs the full range of SweetLabs? Pokki software, which tweaks the Windows operating system, the companies announced today.

 

The deal is the second major OEM partnership this summer for Pokki, which runs a platform for installing and using Windows apps, making the desktop experience feel more like a mobile one. Back in June, Acer began preloading a Pokki-powered game ?arcade? onto all of its new PCs.

 

Today?s announcement is broader than that, though. Under the Pokki brand, SweetLabs makes the games launcher, a custom Start menu that launches apps via a mobile-esque interface, and an app store for discovering new apps. All of those products will be bundled together in the Lenovo deal.

 

Well, guess I shan't be buying a Lenovo laptop then, which is a shame as they are rock solid.  I could bear this IF it came with user discounts.

You don't format and create your own install when you get a new machine?

 

Just curious.. I don't know any techies who keep the original software. When ordering online I request a blank hard drive if possible.

actually since Windows 95 release, MSFT actively forbade OEM to includes/bundling of non-microsoft shell replacements/tweakers.

I guess the Metro UI/Desktop hybrid outlooks is sooo bad that OEM began to disregard that.

 

its not a shell replacement.its a taskbar shortcut that opens a start menu looking window. this is kind of like the samsung s menu.

 

of course they cant put this in the bottom left corner in windows 8.1,and thats probably why microsoft put the button back in in the first place.

its not a shell replacement.its a taskbar shortcut that opens a start menu looking window. this is kind of like the samsung s menu.

 

of course they cant put this in the bottom left corner in windows 8.1,and thats probably why microsoft put the button back in in the first place.

Semi-untrue.  If the fake start menu was placed over top of the one MS is adding it.. it is possible.   I remember back when I thought coding viruses and RAT tools was the cool thing to do, I would create an invisible window overtop of the users start button.  This prevented them from clicking start. 

 

Semi-untrue.  If the fake start menu was placed over top of the one MS is adding it.. it is possible.   I remember back when I thought coding viruses and RAT tools was the cool thing to do, I would create an invisible window overtop of the users start button.  This prevented them from clicking start. 

 

of course its possible to do,but blocking the start button is probably not allowed in the oem windows license agreement. the current solution of using a shortcut in the taskbar and running an application is perfectly legit,as it is just like any other applications.

This is why as soon as a new pc arrives, we wipe it and reload a clean image onto it.  Who actually uses the preloaded garbage?

 

Mr & Mrs Average Joe, 95% of the consumer base for these sort of machines, don't have a bloody clue how to do any of that.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • The laptop in the bedroom is an Acer with i7-10510U CPU. Acer's website states they will not be upgrading it so I had little choice other than disable secure boot. I know next to nothing on these matters so hopefully it will be fine.
    • GitHub removes manual model selection from Copilot free and student plans by Karthik Mudaliar GitHub is removing the ability to manually select an AI model from its Copilot Free and Student plans, making its automatic routing system the default and only way to choose a model. This means users on these tiers will no longer be able to deliberately select a particular OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or Microsoft model for a task. In its announcement, GitHub said Copilot Auto will dynamically choose what it considers the best model for each request. Free and Student accounts will retain access to models from multiple families, although the available selection will continue to depend on the restrictions attached to each plan. GitHub did not identify a fixed pool of models that Auto will always use, and its documentation warns that model availability can change over time. GitHub describes Auto as more than a random fallback system. On supported surfaces, its task-optimization technology evaluates the complexity of a request alongside real-time information about model health and availability. Straightforward prompts can be routed to faster and less expensive models, while more demanding coding tasks may be sent to higher-cost reasoning models. The company says this approach should reduce rate limiting, latency, and failed requests. Auto generally selects one model along natural prompt-caching boundaries rather than repeatedly switching models during a session, as GitHub found that mid-session changes increased costs without producing sufficient improvements in output quality. Users can still check which model generated a response. In Copilot Chat, the information appears when hovering over an answer, while Copilot CLI and the Copilot cloud agent display the selected model alongside their output. Auto is available in Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, and the cloud agent, with the exact implementation and release status varying between supported development environments. The latest restriction follows several months of adjustments to Copilot’s individual plans. GitHub temporarily halted new Pro, Pro+, and Student subscriptions in April as it sought to manage demand and service reliability. It later introduced token-based billing and began gradually reopening individual-plan registrations on June 17. Alongside the picker change, GitHub is retiring the “Preview” label from Microsoft-developed models. It argues that the label is no longer necessary because Auto handles model routing and models are continuously updated behind the scenes.
    • Look up 'inflation' kid. Ask an AI for the numbers between both games.
    • Google reportedly set to lose two key Gemini and DeepMind researchers to Anthropic by Karthik Mudaliar Google is reportedly preparing to lose two more prominent artificial intelligence researchers, with Gemini contributors Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel planning to join rival AI developer Anthropic. According to a report from Bloomberg, both researchers are viewed internally as important contributors to Google’s flagship Gemini model family. Adler worked on Google’s AI coding efforts, while Pritzel was involved in the process used to train AI systems. Neither company has publicly confirmed the moves. The report also does not say when the researchers will formally leave Google or what positions they will hold at Anthropic. Training a large AI model requires decisions covering its architecture, data preparation, distributed computing infrastructure, and post-training methods that shape how the finished system behaves. Researchers with experience operating at the scale of Gemini are consequently difficult to replace quickly. Both Adler and Pritzel have previously contributed to Google DeepMind’s scientific research as well. They are listed among the authors of the company’s work on expanding AlphaFold protein-structure predictions across entire proteomes, alongside AlphaFold researchers including John Jumper. The reported departures arrive shortly after another important change within Google’s Gemini organization. Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving Google for OpenAI, after returning to the search company in 2024 through its deal with Character.AI. Shazeer is particularly well known as one of the authors of the Transformer paper, whose architecture became the foundation for most modern large language models. Anthropic, meanwhile, has been recruiting recognizable figures from other leading laboratories. OpenAI co-founder and former Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy joined Anthropic’s pre-training team in May. His move, followed by the reported recruitment of several Google researchers, suggests Anthropic is strengthening the research teams responsible for the core capabilities of future Claude models rather than concentrating solely on product and enterprise sales. The competition is complicated by the companies’ extensive commercial relationships. Anthropic competes directly with Google’s Gemini models, but it also relies on Google as an infrastructure partner. In April, Anthropic announced an expanded agreement with Google and Broadcom covering multiple gigawatts of next-generation Tensor Processing Unit capacity. TPUs are Google-designed accelerators used to train and run large AI models. via Bloomberg
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      Philsl earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      D0nn13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Rookie
      +ChiefOfNeo went up a rank
      Rookie
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      461
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      177
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      124
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      79
    5. 5
      Xenon
      76
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!