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Thanks to falling demand for PCs and increased competition from rival chip makers, it looks like Intel may be planning to layoff thousands of employees soon.  In addition to the introducing the new Surface Pro 9 and Surface Laptop 5 today, Microsoft has unveiled a Surface Studio 2+ for creative professionals… but it’s a kind of weird upgrade with a processor that’s nearly two years old. And secure messaging service Signal is going all-in on that security thing, and dropping support for SMS and MMS messaging since there’s no way to encrypt those messages.

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  1. I usually hate the phrase “dead on arrival”, but I’m genuinely struggling to understand what’s going on with the Studio 2+ here.

    Android 11+ on Surface Duo 2 could be rad. If it was possible to pick it up for cheap (say €4-600), I’d might get one just for fun. I need a new tablet anyway.

    Reply

    1. I think the point of the surface studio (including the first one) is to provide a workstation for that’s hard to steal and/or can easily use Bitlocker Network Unlock, or just provides a nice big area to draw on. It’s definitely a workstation though, you don’t get it if you aren’t using it to make money.

      Reply

  2. I guess Signal’s new president’s idea of harm reduction is irritating people into not using the application.
    Right? Isn’t the expected behavior, that when someone wants you to switch to another application, you’re supposed to get mad and stop talking to them, so they have to use whatever you use, and you’re especially supposed to get mad when you’re the kind of person who uses either the default “texting app” or whatsapp? So everyone who wants to speak to you securely is always fighting an uphill battle? And so they’ll have to switch back to the default MMS application and will probably just stay there where their message contents are totally exposed?

    Someone tell me I’m wrong, because I want to believe that people aren’t like this, but that’s all I’ve ever heard from my usual source.

    Reply

    1. Came to say the same thing.
      Just make it obvious which messages are unsecure with an “unlocked padlock” icon under those specific messages. And prompt the user every so often, perhaps by giving him an option to send an automated message to the recipient; asking them to join Signal.

      Besides that, it’s just going to lead to people using the App less, and then eventually to just drop the App altogether. Shame, since Signal is great and we need more of that, not less.

      Reply