Ford will stop selling Taurus, Focus and Fiesta in North America first

Without warning, Ford revealed in its Q1 financial report that it will stop selling almost all of its sedans in North America. Sure, it will still market SUVs, trucks and commercial vehicles in the region, but will gradually scale back all cars aside from the Mustang and yet-to-be-revealed Focus Active crossover. Now we know which will get phased out first. A Ford representative confirmed to Engadget that the Focus, Taurus and Fiesta will end production for North America by mid-2019.

Ford will stop producing the Focus for North America next month, the Taurus in March 2019 and Fiesta in May 2019. Why cut sedans in a region they once dominated? “Declining consumer demand and product profitability,” Ford stated in its Q1 report. People are ridesharing instead of buying, and when they do buy, they go for larger vehicles like SUVs. Ford will instead focus on models that blend the best of both, with “higher ride height, space and versatility.”

But phasing out sedans isn’t a new idea for the company. Last October, Ford’s CEO floated the idea of cutting cars from its lineup as part of a larger $14 billion cost-cutting plan and reallocate some $7 billion from sedans to SUVs. While the company previously said it would keep offering smaller vehicles like the Focus, perhaps that didn’t pertain to the North American market.

In any case, removing small cars is only part of the plan outlined in the Q1 report. The next generation of vehicles, from Mustangs to pickups, will transition to hybrid powerplants. The company will put out its first all-electric auto in 2020, and fill out its lineup to 16 EVs by 2022.

Source: TechCrunch

Everything you need to know about the HMD Global 2018 Nokia X

HMD Global is preparing to bring back another Nokia phone name from the past. However, unlike the Sirocco and 8110 it resurrected at Mobile World Congress, this one is likely a little less beloved. It’s the Nokia X, a phone range killed off in 2014, and set to return on April 27. A launch event is scheduled to take place in Beijing, China for the Nokia X, and here’s what we know about the phone so far.

Announcement and release

The Nokia X has been teased through several official sources already, so we know something with the name X is coming from Nokia and HMD Global. Initially, ads for a Nokia X were spotted in China, complete with an announcement date of April 27 attached. Subsequently, a teaser was posted on Nokia’s Weibo channel, showing shipping containers labeled Nokia X, and text hinting that we may see more than one model.

The teaser images for the Nokia X have only been seen in China at this time. This may indicate the device isn’t destined for international release, at least straight away. While the Nokia name is known all around the world, HMD Global has repeatedly launched its smartphones in China first — the Nokia 5, Nokia 6 and Nokia 7, for example — and maintaining this pattern for the Nokia X wouldn’t be a surprise.

Design

It’s possible HMD Global will use the Nokia X brand name to showcase multiple phones, much like Nokia and Microsoft did several years ago. The first, or one of the first, new X phones to launch could be a new Nokia X6, according to rumors and leaked images published recently. The phone looks set to become another with a notched screen, following a growing trend in the mobile industry.

The leak, which cannot be verified at the moment, shows a small chin under the screen, and a vertically mounted dual-lens camera on the back. Copper-colored highlights give the white body some flair, and are reminiscent of Nokia phones we’ve seen before. A fingerprint sensor is underneath the camera array.

On the day of announcement, a tweet from Ben Geskin — best known for his Apple iPhone leaks — showed live images of the Nokia X (or Nokia X6), and further teasers from China. the design is similar to the picture above, but not identical. See the logo placement for example, and the altered camera lens layout.

This is Nokia X pic.twitter.com/cKoyGXkib4

— Ben Geskin (@VenyaGeskin1) April 27, 2018

Specification

If the Nokia X6 is going to be Nokia’s first new X phone, rumors indicate it will have a 5.8-inch screen and a longer-than-usual 19:9 aspect ratio. Signaling the phone may be competitively priced, a MediaTek P60 processor may power it, with 4GB of RAM to help out. An international version may also launch later with a Snapdragon 636 chip and 6GB of RAM.

Name and history

Long-time Nokia and phone fans will recall that in 2014, Nokia — then under Microsoft’s control — launched several Nokia X phones, all with Android rather than Windows Phone. However, the Nokia X version of Android didn’t feature Google Play, or any of the familiar Google services, and instead pushed Microsoft services including Skype and Outlook. Since HMD Global took over ownership of the Nokia name, it has introduced true Android to the brand.

How about the name? We don’t know whether we will get a single Nokia X, or if the Nokia X will be the name of a complete new range of phones. HMD Global’s naming strategy has relied on numbers, and we’ve seen models ranging from the Nokia 2 to the Nokia 8 released already, with rumors surrounding a Nokia 9. This means it could go either way, with the Nokia X6 rumored above being one of several phones, or for a single Nokia phone with the X representing the Roman numeral for 10, just like Apple’s iPhone X.

We’ll keep you updated on the Nokia X right here.

Updated on April 27: Added in further rumors, and Weibo teaser image.

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Inside a Bitcoin mine, fans, silicon, and frigid temperatures keep crypto pumping

Step foot inside a Bitcoin mine, and the first thing you’ll probably notice is the temperature. Depending on what part of the facility you’re standing in, it’ll either be baking hot or freezing cold.

In our case, it was the latter. After descending down a very utilitarian plywood staircase and making our way through a series of locked doors, we emerged in a concrete-floored room where you could see your breath. This was partially because it was winter in Northern Washington state and therefore naturally cold, and partially because there was a giant cooling system blasting frigid air at us from across the room.

It was basically like stepping into a sauna.

We were in the server room: The part of the building where shelves full of highly specialized computers, known as Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), work round the clock to mine bitcoin. They do this by solving extremely difficult math problems, and all that work tends to make them get really, really hot. The solution, of course, is to supply them with a steady supply of cold air to prevent them from overheating.

The second thing we noticed was the noise. In addition to the large cooling system that blasts chilly air around the warehouse, each individual ASIC unit has its own fan, spinning feverishly and putting off a high pitched whine. Together, they build to a thunderous white noise that you have to yell over to communicate with the person standing next to you.

After shouting questions at our tour guide in the rather boring server room (it’s really just a bunch of blinking lights, whirring fans, and jumbled cables) long enough for our fingers to go numb, our guide decided it was time to warm up. We dipped through a heavy door haphazardly fitted into a wall of insulation.

It was basically like stepping into a sauna. This part of the facility, our guide explained, was where they vented all of the hot air from the servers and pumped it out of the building. You could feel the heat coming off each ASIC, which felt like a blow-dryer set to high. We conveniently used it to warm up our frozen hands before it was whisked away and blown into the grey winter skies of Wenatchee.

Almost all the profits gained from the facility we visited are used to buy new equipment

The third thing we noticed was the lack of employees. The whole facility was a ghost town. We were the only people there. Our guide — the guy who owns the place — explained that he employs just two on-call technicians who stop by only whenever something needs to be fixed. Once everything is set up, cryptomines like this one apparently require very little upkeep.

Most of the company’s manpower, we’re told, is dedicated to off-site expansion projects on the other side of town, where a handful of other mining facilities are currently under construction.

Since the bitcoin mining algorithm typically becomes more difficult as more miners come online, this endless expansion is the name of the game. Almost all the profits gained from the facility we visited are used to buy new equipment that can mine more bitcoin — and do it faster and more efficiently than before.

Where does it stop? Nobody knows. But if things keep going at the current pace, the last Bitcoin will be mined around 2,150.

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It took them 15 years to hack a master key for 40,000 hotels. But they did it

(in)Secure is a weekly column that dives into the rapidly escalating topic of cybersecurity.

What if you came back to your hotel room and found that your laptop was missing? What if there was no trace of an intruder, no forced entry, no evidence that the room was entered at all? Security firm F-Secure was faced with that question, and their answer was a simple one: Find out how to make the impossible possible. Find out how to be a ghost.

F-Secure announced this week that it had uncovered a massive vulnerability affecting millions of electronic locks worldwide. The exploit would let anyone walk into a hotel room undetected, leaving no trace. We sat down with the researchers who discovered the exploit, Timo Hirvonen and Tomi Tuominen, to talk about the events leading to its discovery and how this exploit may have made your next hotel stay a whole lot safer.

One night in Berlin

“The story starts in 2003, when we were attending a hacker conference in Berlin, Germany,” said Tomi Tuominen, Practice Leader at F-Secure. “When we got back to the hotel, we noticed our friend’s laptop had been stolen from his hotel room — and this was a nice hotel. We notified the staff, and they didn’t really take us seriously because they had looked at the log and there was no sign of entry or forced entry.”

“That got us thinking: how was it possible that somebody was able to enter the hotel room literally leaving no traces whatsoever?

That theft, adds Timo Hirvonen, senior security consultant at F-Secure, was the first step toward discovering a critical vulnerability in one of the most popular electronic lock systems in the world — the Assa Abloy Vision VingCard locking system.

“Our friend was doing some pretty interesting stuff back in those days, definitely a reason for someone to lift his laptop. That got us thinking, okay, how was it possible that somebody was able to enter the hotel room literally leaving no traces whatsoever?” Tuominen said.

For the next fifteen years, Tomi, Timo, and the rest of the F-Secure team worked on the exploit as a side project. They’re quick to point out though, that it wasn’t so much an intractable problem they were clamoring to solve as much as it was a puzzle — a hobby they worked on more out of curiosity than a drive to crack the VingCard system.

“Some people play football some people play golf, and we just do… these kinds of things,” Tuominen said with a laugh.

Cybersecurity firm F-Secure utilized a device called Proxmark (left) to hack the VingCard security system used in hotel keycards (right). Proxmark.org and F-Secure

As you can imagine, after spending so much time and energy on finding a way to circumvent the VingCard system’s security, they were ecstatic when they found the answer. It wasn’t just a single “Aha” moment though, the exploit came together in bits and pieces, but when they tried it for the first time and it worked on a real hotel lock, the F-Secure team knew they had something special on their hands.

“It was pretty amazing, I’m quite sure that we were high-fiving. There were smaller successes before that, but when the pieces finally came together for the first time,” Tuominen said. “When we realized how to turn this into a practical attack that takes only a few minutes, we were like yeah this is going to happen. We went to a real hotel and tested it and it worked, and it was pretty mind blowing.”

The master key

All right, so how does this attack work? Well, F-Secure didn’t go into the details for security reasons, but how it works in practice is — like Tuominen said — mind-blowing. It starts with a small device that anyone can pick up online, and once the F-Secure team loads their firmware onto the device, they could walk into any hotel using the VingCard system and have master-key access in a matter of minutes.

“We could ride an elevator with a guest, if the guest had a key in their pocket we could read the key through the pocket with our device. Then we’d just walk up to any of the doors and typically in less than a minute we can find the master key.”

“It takes only minutes. For example, we could ride an elevator with a guest, if the guest had a key in their pocket we could read the key through the pocket with our device. Then we’d just walk up to any of the doors and typically in less than a minute we can find the master key,” Hirvonen explained.

The attack works by first reading any card from the hotel they want to break into — even if its expired, or just a regular guest’s card. That part can be done remotely, as  Tuominen explained, reading the information they need right out of your pocket.

F-Secure

Then, it’s just a matter of touching the device to one of the electronic locks in the hotel long enough for it to guess the master key code based on the information in the card it first read. It’s not only a thorough circumvention of an electronic lock system, but it’s a practical attack using off the shelf hardware.

“It’s a small device, the hardware is called Proxmark, it’s something publicly available, you can buy it online for a couple hundred euros. The device is rather small, you can fit it in your hand easily, it’s about the size of a cigarette lighter,”  Tuominen explained.

Luckily, F-Secure is reasonably sure that this exploit hasn’t been used in the wild. The solution is fairly novel and once they knew they had a reproducible attack on their hands, they immediately reached out to lock manufacturer Assa Abloy to let them know.

“It was early 2017 when we first managed to create the master key. And immediately after we discovered that we had this capability we contacted Assa Abloy. We met them the first time face-to-face in April 2017. We explained our findings and explained the attack, and ever since then we have been working together to fix these vulnerabilities,” Tuominen said. “Initially they thought they’d be able to fix the vulnerabilities themselves, but when they fixed the vulnerability and sent us the fixed versions we broke those as well a few times in a row. We’ve been working together with them ever since.”

Should you be worried?

If you have a summer vacation planned, or if you’re a frequent traveler you might be wondering, is this something you need to worry about? Probably not. F-Secure and Assa Abloy have been working hand-in-hand to deliver software patches to affected hotels.

“[Assa Abloy] announced the patches at the beginning of 2018, so they’ve been available for a few months now. They have a product website where you can register and download the patches for free,” Tuominen explained. “It’s a software only patch, but first you need to update the backend software, and after that you need to go to each and every door and update the firmware of that door or lock manually.”

Tomi Tuominen F-Secure

So, you probably don’t need to keep an eye out for Assa Abloy brand electronic locks next time you’re in a hotel. The patches have been available since the beginning of the year, and according to F-Secure there’s no reason to believe this particular exploit has been used in the wild — outside their own testing of course. This is a point that Assa Abloy is quick to reiterate in its official statement, downplaying the hack.

Still, it never hurts to be cautious so if you’re traveling with expensive or sensitive electronics, make sure you keep them on your person or physically secured in your hotel room’s safe. It’s important to remember this won’t be the last time an electronic lock system is compromised like this. We’re just lucky it was F-Secure who found this vulnerability. Other companies, individuals, or even governments, might not be so forthcoming.

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Apple stops making AirPort base stations, exits Wi-Fi router business

Apple announced that it is officially exiting the Wi-Fi router business, and the company will now end production of its AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time Capsule models. After launching the first model in 1999, Apple more recently let its AirPort line stagnate when competitors — including Google, Samsung, Huawei, Netgear, Belkin, Linksys, and Eero — pushed forward with newer technologies like mesh connectivity. Some routers, like those from Samsung, also come with smart home integration, allowing consumers to replace a traditional router and a smart home base with one stand-alone unit.

“We’re discontinuing the Apple AirPort base station products,” Apple said in a statement given to iMore. “They will be available through Apple.com, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last.” If you’re in the market for a new router and prefer one made by Apple, you still have an opportunity to pick one up while Apple continues to sell its remaining inventory.

The cheapest AirPort model that Apple sells on its website is the AirPort Express, and that model retails for $99. The AirPort Extreme is listed at $199, while the AirPort Time Capsule starts at $299 for 2TB of storage. A 3TB model is also available for a $100 price bump.

Apple’s latest move may come as little surprise, since the company has begun offering Linksys’ mesh networking system called Velop in its retail stores. When the AirPort routers debuted, Apple showcased how routers could be made to look appealing in the home or a small office space. But now the minimalist design has been replicated by competitors in the space.

In addition to mesh connectivity and design, AirPort’s newer competitors also allow users to control and configure their networks using a connected smartphone app. The second-generation Eero mesh networking routers, for example, allow you to control which devices can access the internet through a smartphone app, and an optional subscription brings parental controls and more security features.

In a similar move, when Apple stopped offering its pro-quality Thunderbolt Displays, it chose to sell LG’s monitors in its stores instead.

If you are a current AirPort customer or are looking to obtain one of the remaining models in Apple’s inventory, Apple is committed to providing five years of support. If you need a router today, be sure to check out some of our picks for the best routers you can buy.

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Could this be Samsung’s first entry-level Android Go phone?

If an entry on benchmarking website Geekbench is to be believed, Samsung could be gearing up to release its first ever entry-level Android Go handset.

The currently unannounced device goes by the model number SM-J260G, and comes with a quad-core Exynos 7570 processor and 1GB of RAM. These meager specs put the device well within the usual range for an Android Go-equipped smartphone. The motherboard number is also mentioned as being “universal7570_go” — further adding to the speculation.

The operating system is listed as the latest version of Android Oreo — Android 8.1 Oreo. Since we have yet to even get a hint of Android 8.1 Oreo on Samsung’s top-end flagships, it seems a safe bet that this phone will be equipped with the stock, low-demand version of Android.

The bets are out on the name of this device, and judging by the model number and Samsung’s past behavior, our money is definitely on this device being some sort of variant of the Galaxy J-range. The Galaxy J2 Core seems likely, since the Galaxy J-range has been Samsung’s go-to budget model range, and it’s a range that the South Korean tech giant hasn’t been afraid to experiment with in the past. Recently, Samsung released a version of the Galaxy J2 Pro with no internet access, specifically intended for students studying for the Korean College Scholastic Ability Test.

Android Go is Google’s attempt to break into rapidly developing markets dominated by low-spec budget devices. As such, Android Go is a bare-bones version of stock Android that makes much lower demands on system resources — to fit lower-end hardware — and special versions of Google’s G Suite apps, specially optimized for entry-level devices and made to fit on smaller hard drives.

Since it’s a product directly from Google, phones with Android Go tend to benefit from security patches and updates straight from the tech giant — which cuts down heavily on the delays often seen in other, higher-end smartphones that come with manufacturer-altered versions of Android. Thanks to the low demand on system resources and timely updates, Android Go is Google’s best shot at dominating emerging markets in Brazil, India, and other high growth areas.

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Windows 10 April 2018 Update lands next week packing Timeline, Cortana updates

We figured Microsoft would wait until its BUILD developers conference to announce its Spring Creators Update for Windows 10, but given we’re near the end of April, why not reveal it now? It’s officially called the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, and it launches on Monday, April 30. You’ll have an option to manually update your Windows 10 PC using Microsoft’s Update Assistant or wait forever for the update to roll out to your machine. 

This mega-update adds new features to the Windows 10 experience to make your day easier, including an update to Cortana, who can now manage your smart home through your voice commands. Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of the Windows and Devices Group, specifically mentions smart thermostats by ecobee, Honeywell, and Nest that you can adjust through Cortana with just your voice. 

Microsoft Edge gets an upgrade, too. For starters, you can disable annoying audio running on tabbed pages you’re not even viewing by clicking on the tab’s audio icon. There’s also a new Grammar Tools button, seemingly targeting students, that can break words down into syllables, and highlight the different components of a sentence, including parts of speech such as nouns and verbs. Other updates include a “clutter-free” printing option, auto-fill payment information on web payment forms, and a full-screen view for books, PDFs, and Reading View pages. 

The biggest new feature rolling out to Windows 10 is Timeline. It’s a way to “go back in time” and locate the items you’ve seemingly misplaced on your PC, such as photos and music. The new feature essentially focuses on your timeline so that if you need to stop and switch devices, you can resume whatever you were doing on the second device and not lose track. 

Timeline goes back 30 days, thus if you emailed a specific document, but you can’t remember the recipient, you can use Timeline to dig through your email to locate the document faster than performing a manual search. Timeline lists each daily event as a tile, but if you still can’t remember the exact day you sent that document, there’s a search feature in Timeline to hunt down and access the file. 

Other notable new features provided in the April 2018 Update include an updated Dictation component. Simply place your cursor in any text field in Windows 10 or a related app and press Win + H to dictate your message. There’s also Focus Assist to eliminate distractions and help keep you “in the zone.” 

“The average amount of time people spend on any single event before being interrupted or switching tasks is about three minutes,” Mehdi says. “Since the average person needs about 23 minutes to regroup after being interrupted, we see our productivity and creativity diminished.” 

With this feature turned on, notifications, emails, updates, social calls and so on are “muted” so you can focus on the task at hand. When it’s turned off, you get a summary of what was nagging at your attention while you were focused elsewhere. You can manually switch this feature on and off, or have it turn on at specific times of the day. 

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Yield problems still plague Intel 10nm chips, delaying production to 2019

Intel CEO, Brian Krzanich Intel

Intel has had to push back the launch of its next-generation 10nm CPUs once again, this time into 2019 — making a three-year extension from the originally planned release date. As has become a common problem with 10nm and sub-10nm hardware, getting a sufficient yield of chips at that size is still problematic and Intel doesn’t see this getting resolved in the near future.

Moore’s law might not be quite as applicable today as it once was, but die shrinks thanks to similarly shrinking transistors are still a common achievement in computing. However, 10nm has proved to be a difficult barrier to cross, with a number of different fabrication facilities struggling to create the same kinds of numbers of viable chips as they have in the past at larger die sizes.

The latest announcement from Intel follows on from previous delays of mass 10nm production. The code-named Cannon Lake CPU line built on the 10nm technology was initially planned to debut in 2016. It was then pushed back to 2018 and now Intel acknowledges mass production won’t be possible until 2019. As Engadget highlights, low-scale production continues, but what kind of capacity that has reached is unclear.

While 10nm yield problems are not uncommon for any of the major chip fabricators, that hasn’t stopped everyone from releasing hardware. TSMC has been selling 10nm chips since mid-2017 and is well on the way to developing 7nm and even 5nm advances in the technology. Samsung is on its second-generation of 10nm hardware, too, which has some worried that Intel’s own hardware may be far less impactful when it arrives.

That seems unlikely in certain markets, like the desktop and laptop market, where even with stiff competition from AMD’s Ryzen lines, Intel is still the major player. However, AMD’s roadmap suggests its Zen2 architecture will debut in 2019 and as a 7nm lineup, it could well be more advanced than Intel’s offering by that time.

It seems hard to imagine Intel’s influence in the high-end computing space waning completely, but if the last year of Ryzen has told us anything, decent competition and relatively low gains from new-generation Intel hardware can mean AMD can make significant inroads.

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Glowing contact lenses could be the key to stopping diabetic blindness

Lance Hayashida, Caltech

Remember the early millennium trend for luminous contact lenses which almost appeared to be glowing in the eyes of whoever wore them? Whether it was Marilyn Manson or the WWE wrestler Rey Mysterio, these uncanny valley lenses were a hallmark of popular culture for a few years, before going the same way as downloadable ringtones, Von Dutch hats, and other bits of early 2000s-era ephemera. But researchers from the California Institute of Technology hope to bring them back — with the added twist that they could now be used to help battle blindness in the hundreds of millions of people around the world who suffer from diabetes.

“We’ve developed a ‘phototherapeutic’ contact lens that may be useful in treating leading eye diseases driven by retinal oxygen starvation, such as diabetic retinopathy,” Caltech graduate student Colin Cook told Digital Trends. “The lenses are worn overnight and contain an embedded light source that shines an imperceptible light onto the retina that can help reduce its metabolic needs.”

Cook explained that the rod cells in our eyes — aka the photoreceptors which allow us to see at night — burn a lot of oxygen in the dark to boost their sensitivity so as to capture the limited number of photons. Unfortunately, the same thing happens while we sleep. For diabetics with compromised retinal vasculature, this means that the limited oxygen supply gets wastefully consumed, thereby leaving the rest of the retina to starve. The team’s smart contact lenses use light to trick the rods into reducing their oxygen consumption so that more is available for the rest of the retina. Pretty smart, right?

Lance Hayashida, Caltech

“We know that within 10 to 15 years of diabetes onset, virtually all patients will develop some form of retinopathy,” Cook said. “Unfortunately, the current treatment options are rather invasive, including monthly eye injections of drug or sacrificing the peripheral retina with laser burns. Consequently, many patients avoid treatment altogether. Our lenses are being developed as a non-invasive, preventative therapy option for patients to slow progression of the disease and delay the need for invasive treatments.”

To take the project to the next stage, the Caltech researchers have partnered with Dr. Mark Humayun’s lab at the University of Southern California in order to evaluate efficacy. Working with the lab, they have demonstrated that the lenses can reduce rod photoreceptor activity by up to 90 percent. They have also shown that the lenses are imperceptible to the wearer, meaning that they don’t affect sleep.

“My mission is to get this technology into the hands of patients and so commercialization is a necessary step, and one I’ll pursue after graduation,” Cook said.

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The dull Windows 10 April 2018 Update is everything a patch should be

Microsoft has announced the latest major update to Windows 10. Officially, it’s called the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, but you could miss the name entirely if you’re not paying attention. It’s a name that surrenders to the mundane, coming in just a cut above patches known only by version numbers.

This is a new direction for Windows 10. Since release, Microsoft has treated each major patch like a red-carpet event. The company, understandably proud of a patch cadence that makes Apple’s MacOS updates look like fan patches thrown together by five developers in a coffee shop, wanted to shout its success from the rooftops.

That tactic backfired. Every upcoming update promised big changes alongside a slick name, like the Anniversary Update and  Creators Update. Some features, like Windows 10’s built-in game streaming, were cool. Others, like Paint 3D, were complete flops – and those over-hyped flops took away from what Microsoft was doing. Instead of eagerly anticipating updates, Windows users worried Paint 3D would sign MS Paint’s death warrant (it didn’t).

It’s not fair, really. Microsoft put a lot of work into building and boasting of updates that landed with a thud. But hey — that’s life.

Thankfully, Microsoft has learned. The Windows 10 April 2018 Update includes several interesting new features such as Timeline, which re-thinks how you manage tasks across multiple sessions and multiple PCs. It can also silence notifications to keep you productive and makes more (yes, more) improvements to the company’s Edge browser. Which, by the way, is pretty okay these days, so long as you’re not a browser add-on junkie.

It’s easy to imagine Microsoft going a different direction and shouting these updates from the rooftops, while shipping it out with an eye-catching name, like “Windows 10 For People Who Absolutely Kill It Update.” Instead, the company has given it a boring name. It’s also announced ahead of Microsoft Build, with availability landing before the show. By contrast, last year’s Fall Creators Update was announced at Build 2017, and it didn’t reach full release until five months later.

Microsoft isn’t teasing. It’s not drawing out the process with months of hints and anticipation. It’s going to deliver a patch and let everyone get on with their lives. Will most people notice or care? No, and they never would, not even if Microsoft celebrated by throwing a parade in every major U.S. city. A Windows patch, like a reliable car or comfortable sweater, is best when it’s not an event. The yawn-inducing April 2018 Update seems a step in that direction.

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