Computer and Smart Phone Updates are making Millions Cry

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NOTE: 
This blog is mainly confined to posts on doings of mech71 friends, but lest the world gather the impression that all mech71ers do is party, drink and dance, this single post in this blog is an exception on a general topic as an illustration of the fact that mech71ers do other things at times too, often making an importance difference in the world just as this post did in the lives of all on the planet
Internet based devices such as smartphones and computers have become part of modern life making it possible for carrying out tasks that were impossible or very difficult in past. But it is has been a mixed blessing and there are aspects of it that are creating misery for humans too. This note touches on just one of them – Frequent Updates

As a user, a human attempts to acquire a good device or computer to meet his essential needs. Perhaps it has a windows operating system or a Google android one. He has some preinstalled applications to carry out common tasks or downloads others from the net. Having got his device, the user now gets a cup of coffee and relaxes down to carry out some pending work with a sigh of relief. But wait, messages begin popping up,

You have updates waiting for you
You have security updates
Your computer is at risk
Automatic updates are recommended
Could not install updates
Do not turn off your device, updates are in progress
You have version 3467.34.123.Xy.21 , version 7467.346.123.Xy.21 is available

And so on and on ---! Well you decide to put off some of the work for the day and go through that. After all maintenance of a human body also takes some time. A day passes and you think your devices are now all up-to-date and hunky dory and you settle down to some peaceful work again the next morning,  but the process begins again,

You have security updates
Your computer is at risk
Could not install updates
Do not turn off your device, updates are in progress
3 applications have updates

Meanwhile your service provider sends a message, you have exhausted your data limits, please renew your data pack etc.  A proof many of these updates are superfluous and unnecessary as a scientist is that they have numbers like version 36345.543.65 etc. If they were necessary ones they would have been no more than once a year with simple numbers like version 2018, 2019 i.e. the number of the year.

 I began using Hotmail email service in 1998. It was a fast and simple service to use then. Since then there seems to have been a zillion updates and yesterday when I turned it on, there was a message, we received your feedback and have a new version, would you like to try it? After these seemingly zillion updates over two decades, Hotmail has not become better it seems to me. Rather it has become worse. Imagine the millions of dollars wasted in the development! Wish they can scrap it all and find the old 1998 version and stop changes forthwith.

Such changes require users to be monitored by various application developers on a continuous basis. Not all are honorable operators. Some can compromise privacy and harm as the world gets pushed closer to George Orwell’s 1984. Even from among honorable operators all are moved by profits and many would rather have a greater profit than provide you with greater peace. There are options to turn of updates but it is not easy because each application, system and devices have several. Some keep coming back. On the latest Windows 10 operating system it is not easy to do that. On top of the installed update feature in the operating system they have added another called, an Update assistant that is not easy to uninstall. Millions are screaming around the world that when they do that it keeps coming back and slows their computers down to a crawl while their data bills hit the roof.

At the root of these frequent software changes and resulting updates are young enthusiastic engineers ever ready to come up with something new and please their boss. The boss understands less of the specifics and lets many of these updates slip through. However, what the senior management can do is draw up policy and it may be something like this,

1.Updates for only major bugs and deficiencies and virus definitions may be issued on a regular basis. Others are to be held back for testing in a private users group and an annual year end release.

2. All improvements that are not bugs are to be also held back to be pooled in with a year-end annual release in a version to be named after the year 2018, 2019 etc. and not 4567.3462.86u.7684.9996 -----ad infinitum1 

It is hoped that the industry self-disciplines and makes these changes before the public cries out for legislation to do the same.The Chief executives of both, Microsoft and Google, Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella are just like some of the students or class fellows of this author at the IITs where he has been both a student and Professor himself. This note follows tweets to them this morning with a plea to please help millions of users around the world with this problem with some regards for the concern of an ex IITian and an Ex Prof. Hope they can help else as always humanity can count on the Good Lord, the God who created this Universe. It is because of this this author has moved now primarily to spiritual pursuits rather than scientific ones, for in the Lord only is there ultimate solace.

UPDATE: October 2018

Seems soon after this note and another on similar lines in a companion blog, at
https://steamcenter.blogspot.com/2018/02/microsoft-please-call-spade-spade.html  
were sent to microsoft, it made a difference. Microsoft simplified its decades old practice of silly nomemclatures and called their April and October Windows 10 updates as simply April 2018 Update and October 2018 update. I did not forget to send back a thank you tweet. Screen prints of my tweets are here,







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