[yellowapple]

I'm not sure if I should be disturbed or amused by Microsoft putting telemetry in (at this rate) literally every one of its products.

Like, what the hell do they even track? I guess the obvious ones are things like application crashes, but now I'm curious if they have the data on the most common calculations, folks' favorite numbers, etc.

[criddell]

I'm pretty sure I've entered 58008 in every calculator I've ever touched. That's probably in my Microsoft file somewhere...

[yellowapple]

And I'm sure your ads are targeted accordingly ;)

[kevinventullo]

The Scientific/Math/Programmer expanded calculators have a bunch of features. Maybe they can test how often the "cube root" button is used versus Arcsinh or something.

[selimthegrim]

This is actually pretty relevant because TI has been goofing up the cube root function in its calculators for decades.

[megy]

How is that telemetry relevant? The bug needs to be fixed no matter how many people use it.

[selimthegrim]

TI doesn’t think anyone actually uses it in a nontrivial manner.

[theunamedguy]

I have a hard time believing this and can't find any details online. Source please?

[selimthegrim]

I should specify I mean the ones they market to middle and high schools , TI-89, Nspire, and etc

[copperx]

Is there a bug in there?

[selimthegrim]

TI will tell you, “It’s a feature.” Play around with the cube root of negative real fractions ( with even and odd denominators) and integers (starting with -1) and see what you find.

[abakker]

I mean, I guess it would be cool to know what kind of operations people are doing most often? Maybe you send different ads to people who only use addition/subtraction than people who use sin / cos?

[mgkimsal]

or target people who use large numbers with financial planning ads, for example?

[dvtrn]

Not like I'm going anywhere with this, just morbidly curious but...this is spoken (typed) in parody/jest, right?

[justinclift]

Don't give them ideas. ;)

[mgkimsal]

i can't even tell anymore...

[Kye]

Are there that many rich physicists?

[megy]

What would you imagine with differentiate +/- people to sin users?

[sebazzz]

Telemetry is not used for ads, but since it is open-source you can check and get a pretty good idea what they actually send.

[gpm]

Here is the list of events, the jokes seem pretty on point to me: https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/blob/057401f5f2b4bb1...

A small selection:

    constexpr auto EVENT_NAME_INVALID_INPUT_PASTED = L"InvalidInputPasted";
    constexpr auto EVENT_NAME_VALID_INPUT_PASTED = L"ValidInputPasted";
    constexpr auto EVENT_NAME_BITFLIP_PANE_CLICKED = L"BitFlipPaneClicked";
    constexpr auto EVENT_NAME_BITFLIP_BUTTONS_USED = L"BitFlipToggleButtonUsed";
    constexpr auto EVENT_NAME_ANGLE_BUTTONS_USED = L"AngleButtonUsedInSession";
    constexpr auto EVENT_NAME_HYP_BUTTON_USED = L"HypButtonUsedInSession";
    constexpr auto EVENT_NAME_FUNCTION_USAGE = L"FunctionUsageInSession";
    constexpr auto EVENT_NAME_BITLENGTH_BUTTON_USED = L"BitLengthButtonUsed";

Do you have a source for "not used for ads"?

[howeyc]

How can you be sure it's not used for ads, their privacy statement says they do[1]:

"You provide some of this data directly, and we get some of it by collecting data about your interactions, use, and experiences with our products."

"Microsoft uses the data we collect to provide you with rich, interactive experiences. In particular, we use data to:

...

Advertise and market to you, which includes sending promotional communications, targeting advertising, and presenting you with relevant offers."

[1] https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-US/privacystatement

[AbsoluteHawxy]

You're looking for: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-gb/privacystatement#mainadv... (data seems different on the US site?)

TL;DR: AdvertisingID handles ad tracking in windows and can be opted out of during install, in settings and globally on your account. AFAIK you can also wipe any previously tracked data. AID tracking is unrelated to telemetry.

Telemetry does not contribute to advertising at all unless "tailored experiences" is enabled in settings, and even then the data is mostly used for Microsoft to suggest features and fixes for problems.