Spying Windows 10 - How much truth is into this..

[zhangm Supervisor]

Just now, noneofyourbusiness said:

Just as an example... if only 20 - 25 year old males like Cortana what do they need to improve to make it acceptable to other demographics? Additional voices? Different visual appeal? Etc.

They can use the info for all sorts of purposes to make a product better.

In addition to this, there are other interesting questions that demographics can help answer: if a new set of glyphs or icons needs to be designed for a new app or program:

- What scales or size increments need to be made to accommodate the large majority of users?

- What's the best spacing to use between different interactive elements so that information density is correctly balanced against sufficient separation (differs by language, age)? How much contrast does there need to be between foreground and background?

- What sort of visual cues make sense for representing a particular action? Does a rotary phone dial still make sense? A floppy disk? Are multiple symbols necessary for specific regions, and if so, what is the minimum number that must be created?

 

There's also some more data that helps guide the interaction between users and software/hardware that involves more intensive data collection - one example correlating users to literacy levels (how technical can you make your help manual?) - but I don't think that's directly collected here.

 

Some of this is covered better than I can describe in a book called "User Interfaces for All: Concepts, Methods, and Tools". However, the basic gist is that one's understanding and interaction with a given interface is colored by some physical parameters, as well as cultural ones. Software conveys information. For anyone who has received training on presenting information, a common rule is to know your audience so that you can adjust your delivery to make the information more accessible.

[Joe User]

You know, you all could just read the privacy policy.

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

I really have no concerns, but if I did, it would be more along the lines of "what's in your wallet?" and how one uses and exposes "plastic".

[FiB3R]

Worth a look if it bothers you...

 

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/08/14/comparison-of-windows-10-privacy-tools/

 

I might take a closer look at W10Privacy.

 

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

43 minutes ago, zhangm said:

In addition to this, there are other interesting questions that demographics can help answer: if a new set of glyphs or icons needs to be designed for a new app or program:

- What scales or size increments need to be made to accommodate the large majority of users?

- What's the best spacing to use between different interactive elements so that information density is correctly balanced against sufficient separation (differs by language, age)? How much contrast does there need to be between foreground and background?

- What sort of visual cues make sense for representing a particular action? Does a rotary phone dial still make sense? A floppy disk? Are multiple symbols necessary for specific regions, and if so, what is the minimum number that must be created?

 

I had to honestly laugh a bit at this. I certainly don't get the impression MS concern themselves with such things in any amount of detail . If they do, you wouldn't know it by the result. If anything it seems to me they care way too much about 'the data' as a rationale for making design decisions (which you can always interpret any which way you want). Funny how that worked out for the Start Screen or the hidden Start button.

[binaryzero]

Cortana is a marketing gimmick and nothing else. It's simply search, with some chick making you feel good. 

 

Can easily be switched off via GPO, no biggie. 

[DavidM]

44 minutes ago, zhangm said:

In addition to this, there are other interesting questions that demographics can help answer: if a new set of glyphs or icons needs to be designed for a new app or program:

- What scales or size increments need to be made to accommodate the large majority of users?

- What's the best spacing to use between different interactive elements so that information density is correctly balanced against sufficient separation (differs by language, age)? How much contrast does there need to be between foreground and background?

- What sort of visual cues make sense for representing a particular action? Does a rotary phone dial still make sense? A floppy disk? Are multiple symbols necessary for specific regions, and if so, what is the minimum number that must be created?

 

There's also some more data that helps guide the interaction between users and software/hardware that involves more intensive data collection - one example correlating users to literacy levels (how technical can you make your help manual?) - but I don't think that's directly collected here.

 

Some of this is covered better than I can describe in a book called "User Interfaces for All: Concepts, Methods, and Tools". However, the basic gist is that one's understanding and interaction with a given interface is colored by some physical parameters, as well as cultural ones. Software conveys information. For anyone who has received training on presenting information, a common rule is to know your audience so that you can adjust your delivery to make the information more accessible.

 

1 hour ago, noneofyourbusiness said:

Just as an example... if only 20 - 25 year old males like Cortana what do they need to improve to make it acceptable to other demographics? Additional voices? Different visual appeal? Etc.

They can use the info for all sorts of purposes to make a product better.

@noneofyourbusiness @zhangm , if this is truly their goal there are better ways of getting feedback than forcing their users to give it.  It's not like they listen anyway, I remember the crap storm around the web when they pulled the Start Menu from Windows 8, then it continued with Windows 8.1, and it still continues today with Windows 10. People have been telling Microsoft they don't want a single UI for every device, but nope they keep plugging along. We keep telling them to let us opt out of their data gathering and they are not listening. They finally gave into on this for the Enterprise version, but only because they feared for their wallets if the business sector avoided Windows 10 due to privacy issues. Since they don't have to fear for their wallets with the consumer editions there will be no change.

 

Microsoft had the chance to kick the stink of Windows 8 off of themselves, but instead the seem to have decided to "data mine" their user base. Whats funny, if they had just given the option to opt out. nobody would care about it. It honestly boggles my mind how companies continue to shoot themselves in the foot, and if they are only getting the minimal amount of data, is it worth it to alienate their own user base?

[zhangm Supervisor]

Quote

We keep telling them to let us opt out of their data gathering and they are not listening.

It seems to me that many people who care about this issue have control over what goes in and out at the network level. Surely you can block anything that you wish with less suspicion than using an on/off toggle switch provided by Microsoft, whom you don't trust anyway.

 

I don't think you need to tell them how old you are, or whether you're male or female. I don't recall giving them such information.

 

Edit. Then again, based on access point signal strength, they may be able to tell which bathrooms you're going into.

Edited January 21, 2016 by zhangm

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

8 hours ago, Active. said:

As most of us know, Microsoft has relented and is now  offering enterprise customers a way to completely opt out of any telemetry due to privacy concerns of said decision makers. It's simply user-hostile to not  extend the same courtesy to their regular users. If they really wanted to, they could shut this whole discussion down fairly quickly. Change the user defaults and give users the option to opt out completely. 

Because the average user doesn't have the technical awareness to actually understand what it does (I'm thinking of the Dunning–Kruger effect, but I'm not entirely sure if it applies), similar as to why Microsoft doesn't let home users disable software updates, because those who do very rarely actually have a valid reason to (While the pro version is often used for workstations, where you want a centralized update schedule, etc.)

 

If people think something is bad, and they can turn it off, they will, regardless of what it actually does.

[Anibal P]

1 hour ago, The_Decryptor said:

Because the average user doesn't have the technical awareness to actually understand what it does (I'm thinking of the Dunning–Kruger effect, but I'm not entirely sure if it applies), similar as to why Microsoft doesn't let home users disable software updates, because those who do very rarely actually have a valid reason to (While the pro version is often used for workstations, where you want a centralized update schedule, etc.)

 

If people think something is bad, and they can turn it off, they will, regardless of what it actually does.

 

Worse than the clueless ones are the "Windows ricrers" (just made it up!) who actively believe, wrongly, that "tweaking" windows settings and disabling "unwanted" processes will somehow make windows "faster" and have no qualms breaking windows for 0.0001 seconds gained 

[binaryzero]

Oh, and I thought turning off the page file was recommended??? I do have 16gbs of RAM!!

[Mando]

On 1/21/2016 at 11:02 PM, Jared- said:

Cortana is a marketing gimmick and nothing else. It's simply search, with some chick making you feel good. 

 

Can easily be switched off via GPO, no biggie. 

thank the stars huh! 

On 1/22/2016 at 6:09 AM, Jared- said:

Oh, and I thought turning off the page file was recommended??? I do have 16gbs of RAM!!

^^ Your joking right?  cos we all trust and know programs and windows tobe coded correctly not to still need at least a tiny swapfile  I still stick with 2Gb static personally.

[Mr White]

On 1/16/2016 at 6:19 AM, fusi0n said:

I've upgraded to Windows 10 a few times and found my self downgrading back to 8.1 due to driver issues with my SLI.. However, I'm ready to give Windows 10 another try.. 

 

I realize that this could thread and start a huge debate, and please don't do that. Mods, feel free to lock this down as soon as some light is shed.. 

 

The only reason I'm asking is because of Neowin actually.. A lot of people post that it sends a lot of info back to Microsoft.. Some hackers around the world say the same thing.. And there are a lot of tools to disable this sort of tracking.. Just google Windows 10 Spy removal.. 
This is a good article.. http://bgr.com/2015/07/31/windows-10-upgrade-spying-how-to-opt-out/

Do you really think you will get an unbiased reply here ?  This site is called NeoWIN. Fire up Fiddler or another network monitor and see for yourself.

 

Dennis