News
- Microsoft is prepping Windows XP Crocs, dubbed the '50th Anniversary Exclusive'
- It'll be the first version of Windows to take this step, if true
- The Crocs come with six Jibbitz and a carrying tote
Yes, Microsoft is still celebrating its 50th anniversary, and while the company has done a lot of looking back, it’s also looking forward. Err, at least taking a step forward.
Sure, we’ve seen some iconic Windows ugly sweaters, including one with Minesweeper and one with Clippy, but Windows XP is going where no other version of Windows has ever gone before – to Crocs.
TechRadar's confirmed with the tech giant that the Microsoft 50th Exclusive Crocs – aka the Windows XP Crocs – are official, and got five images of the shoes.
According to a report from The Verge, Windows XP Crocs are currently available for internal order by Microsoft employees – priced at $80 – with the story noting that the employees “get first dibs” ahead of a “worldwide launch.”
Image 1 of 5(Image credit: Microsoft)Image 2 of 5(Image credit: Microsoft)Image 3 of 5(Image credit: Microsoft)Image 4 of 5(Image credit: Microsoft)Image 5 of 5(Image credit: Microsoft)We’ve seen other collaborations from the Croc brand, with plenty of Disney properties included – I mean, kachow, Lightning McQueen Crocs that light up – along with fashion houses, and even McDonald's. The Windows XP Crocs, though, take the iconic green hills and blue skies wallpaper to the shoe form.
And I know what you’re thinking, but the images of the Windows XP Crocs do indeed confirm the existence of a Clippy Jibbitz (aka what Crocs calls their shoe charms). The Windows XP Crocs will come with an iconic helper as well as a pointer, the MSN butterfly, a classic Internet Explorer logo, the recycling bin, and a folder. That comes to a whopping six Jibbitz in total.
(Image credit: Microsoft)You also get a drawstring tote that's inspired by the classic, now iconic, Windows XP wallpaper. Microsoft did confirm the existence of the Crocs to us and shared these images, but didn't share anything more on pricing or availability.
At a reported price tag of $80, the Windows XP Crocs aren’t cheap, but if you’re a Microsoft collector or someone who’s also opted to get the previous ugly holiday sweaters, they might be the perfect shoe to add to your collection. Of course, I think many would be happy if Microsoft goes the route of other retro, nostalgia-fueled drops – it could be a fresh skin for Windows or even another wallpaper drop, and that would still be a great way to honor the 50th.
You might recall that Microsoft dropped a limited 50th anniversary edition of the Surface Laptop, which looked pretty snazzy. It’s also a more subtle way to celebrate 50 years of Microsoft than, say, blue and green Crocs.
Stick with TechRadar as once we learn more about pricing and how to get a pair of the Microsoft 50th Exclusive Crocs, we'll be sure to update this post.
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- Microsoft reveals it is developing an AI threat detection tool
- Project Ire has so far scored well in accuracy testing
- The tool has the potential to meet the 'gold standard' for malware classification
Microsoft has introduced a new AI tool it says has the ability to meet the “gold standard” of malware detection, identification, and classification.
While still only a working prototype, Project Ire has shown great promise in its ability to detect and reverse engineer malware without any context of the file’s origin or purpose.
Microsoft plans for Project Ire to be incorporated into Microsoft Defender as a ‘Binary Analyzer’ used to identify malware in memory from any source at first encounter.
Autonomous AI malware detectionThe tool is still very much in the early stages of development, but in Microsoft’s own real-world scenario testing, Project Ire managed to detect almost 9 out of 10 malicious files correctly in precision tests, but only managed to detect just over one quarter of malware in recall tests. However, in these initial tests, there was a false positive rate of 4%.
“While overall performance was moderate, this combination of accuracy and a low error rate suggests real potential for future deployment,” Microsoft said in a blog post. Additionally, in this testing, the AI tool had no knowledge of nor had it faced any of the 4,000 files it scanned.
The tool generates a report on each potentially malicious file it identifies, summarizing why certain parts of the file could indicate it as malware.
In a separate test against a public dataset of a mix of legitimate and malicious Windows drivers the tool again detected 9 out of 10 malicious files correctly with a false positive rate of 2%. The recall rate was also significantly higher, scoring 0.83 in this test.
Looking ahead, Microsoft will continue to work on improving Project Ire’s ability to detect malware at scale rapidly and precisely, and hopefully include the AI within Microsoft Defender as a threat detection and software classification tool.
Threat actors are increasingly leveraging AI tools to generate malicious files at scale, but cybersecurity organizations are also leveraging AI technology to fight back.
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