Windows 10 News: 8K Resolution and Secure Boot
Microsoft has just announced that Windows 10 will offer support for 8K displays. Even though such screens don't exist yet, and probably won't for a few more years, the company has its sights set on the future. Windows operating systems have always been very popular when it came to gaming, so the IT giant wants to make sure that when 8K games appear on the market, its customers won't have to wait for a new operating system.
8K screens will use 7680 x 4320 resolution. At recent conferences, all the major TV manufacturers have shown 8K display prototypes and NHK is testing out 8K broadcasting, but their goal is to make this type of transmissions available in time for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, so this technology is still some years away from becoming a part of our day to day lives.
Another interesting bit of news which could have important repercussion over future PCs is that vendors who want to have the "Designed for Windows" certification on their products may no longer be required to include a Safe Boot toggle once Windows 10 is launched. In case this sounds like gibberish, let me try to make things a little clearer: along with Windows 8, Microsoft adopted a protocol called UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) Secure Boot. Simply put, UEFI is a modern replacement for BIOS, and Secure Boot is designed to lock down the booting process, thus providing protection from any kind of malware that may try to corrupt it.
The problem was that, because of UEFI, those who wanted to run Linux instead of Windows had huge problems installing it, so Microsoft made the vendors install a toggle which allowed the users to turn the protocol on and off. However, the new devices, which will be manufactured to run on Windows 10, are no longer required to have such a toggle. The good news is that this will only be a problem on computers manufactured after Windows 10 is launched. Furthermore, there are some Linux versions which have been adapted to this new technology and can work with UEFI, but installing some specific Linux versions on new PCs might prove to be very problematic.
Source: ArsTechnica
