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Cyberpunk 2077

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2077

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Cyberpunk 2077 is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt, based on video game designer Mike Pondsmith's game series. Set in a dystopian cyberpunk universe, the player assumes the role of "V" (played by Gavin Drea/ Cherami Leigh), a mercenary in the fictional Californian city known as "Night City", where they deal with the fallout from a heist gone wrong that results in an experimental cybernetic "bio-chip" containing an engram of the legendary rock star and terrorist Johnny Silverhand (played by Keanu Reeves) threatening to slowly overwrite V's mind; as the story progresses V and Johnny must work together to find a way to be separated and save V's life.

The game's development began following the release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine (2016). The game was developed by a team of around 500 people using the REDengine 4 game engine. CD Projekt launched a new division in Wrocław, Poland, and partnered with Digital Scapes, Nvidia, QLOC, and Jali Research to aid the production. Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith was a consultant, and actor Keanu Reeves had a starring role. The original score was led by Marcin Przybyłowicz, and featured the contributions of several licensed artists. After years of anticipation, CD Projekt released Cyberpunk 2077 for PlayStation 4, Stadia, Windows, and Xbox One on 10 December 2020, followed by PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 15 February 2022.

Cyberpunk 2077 received praise from critics for its narrative, setting, and graphics. However, some of its gameplay elements received mixed responses while its themes and representation of transgender characters received some criticism. It was also widely criticized for bugs, particularly in the console versions which suffered from performance problems. Sony removed it from the PlayStation Store from December 2020 to June 2021 while CD Projekt rectified some of the problems. CD Projekt became subject to investigations and class-action lawsuits for their perceived attempts at downplaying the severity of the technical problems before release; these were ultimately cleared with a settlement of US$1.85 million. By October 2023, the game had sold over 25 million units. An expansion, Phantom Liberty, released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on 26 September 2023, which sold 4.3 million units by November 2023. Its total cost to develop and market (including updates and DLC) is reportedly over $436 million, making it one of the most expensive video games to develop. A sequel, codenamed "Project Orion", was announced in October 2022.

Gameplay screenshot of the player-character completing a mission

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing game played from a first-person perspective as V, a mercenary whose voice, face, hairstyle, body type and modifications, background, and clothing are customisable. Stat categories-Body, Intelligence, Reflexes, Technical, and Cool-influence player's gameplay style. The three primary play styles are Netrunner ( hacking), Techie ( machinery), and Solo ( combat). V must consult a "ripperdoc" to upgrade and purchase cyberware implants. The rarity of any given equipment is shown by a coloured tier system. V can take cover, aim, run, jump, double jump, and slide. Melee strikes can be dealt with close-combat weapons. There are three types of ranged weapons, all of which can be customised and modified-Power (standard), Tech (which penetrates walls and enemies), and Smart (with homing bullets). Ranged weapons are equipped to ricochet bullets in a target's direction and slow them down in bullet time. Four types of damage can be inflicted and resisted-Physical, Thermal, Electric, and Chemical. Weapon use increases accuracy and reloading speed, which are manifested in character animations. The game can be completed without killing anyone, with non-lethal options for weapons and cyberware.

The open world metropolis of Night City consists of six regions; the corporate City Centre, immigrant-inhabited Watson, luxurious Westbrook, suburban Heywood, gang-infested Pacifica, and industrial Santo Domingo. Its surrounding area, the Badlands, can also be explored. V navigates these locations on foot and in vehicles, which are subject to either a third- or first-person view. Pedestrians are vulnerable to vehicular collisions. Depending on the location, law enforcement may be alerted if V commits a crime. Radio stations are available to listen to. The full day-night cycle and dynamic weather affect the way non-player characters (NPCs) behave. V owns an apartment and a garage. Night City features non-English-speaking characters, whose languages can be translated with special implants. "Braindance" is a device that allows V to undergo other people's experiences. Branching dialogues enable interaction with NPCs and actions in quests. Experience points are obtained from main quests and fuel the stats; side quests yield "street cred", unlocking skills, vendors, places, and additional quests. Quests are acquired from characters known as Fixers. Throughout the game, V is aided by various companions. Consumables, like soft drinks, are used for healing, and objects can be inspected in V's inventory. Minigames include hacking, boxing, auto racing, martial arts, and shooting ranges. The player's in-game choices can lead to different endings.

Night City is an American megacity in the Free State of North California, controlled by corporations and unassailed by the laws of both country and state. It sees conflict from rampant gang wars and its ruling entities contending for dominance. The city relies on robotics for everyday aspects like waste collection, maintenance, and public transportation. Its visual identity is derived from the four eras it underwent-austere Entropism, colourful Kitsch, imposing Neo-Militarism, and opulent Neo-Kitsch. Homelessness abounds but does not preclude cybernetic modification for the poor, giving rise to cosmetic addiction, and consequent violence. Those whose addictions and heavy cyberization have rendered them mentally unstable, often referred to as cyberpsychos, are dealt with by the armed force known as MaxTac. Trauma Team can be employed for rapid medical services. Because of the constant threat of physical harm, all citizens are allowed to carry firearms in public openly.

The game begins with the selection of one of three lifepaths for the player character V ( Gavin Drea or Cherami Leigh): Nomad, Streetkid, or Corpo. All three lifepaths involve V starting a new life in Night City with local thug Jackie Welles (Jason Hightower) and working together as mercenaries with a netrunner, T-Bug (Cynthia Kaye McWilliams).

In 2077, local fixer Dexter "Dex" DeShawn ( Michael-Leon Wooley) hires V and Jackie to steal a biochip known as "the Relic" from Arasaka Corporation. They acquire the Relic, but the plan goes awry when they witness the murder of the megacorp's leader Saburo Arasaka ( Masane Tsukayama) at the hands of his treacherous son Yorinobu (Hideo Kimura). Yorinobu covers up the murder as poisoning and triggers a security sweep in which Arasaka's netrunners kill T-Bug. V and Jackie escape, but Jackie is fatally wounded in the process, and the Relic's protective case is damaged, forcing V to insert the biochip into the cyberware in their head.

Furious at the unwanted police attention, Dex shoots V in the head and leaves them for dead in a landfill. Upon awakening, V is haunted by the digital ghost of war veteran turned iconic rock star and terrorist Johnny Silverhand ( Keanu Reeves), believed to have died in 2023 during his own thermonuclear attack on Arasaka Tower. V learns from their ripperdoc Viktor Vector ( Michael Gregory) that Dex's bullet triggered resurrection nanotech on the biochip, repairing the damage to V's brain but starting an irreversible process to overwrite their memories with those of Johnny, whose memory engram is stored on the chip, leaving V only a few weeks before the process completes. The biochip cannot be removed without instantly killing V, so V must find a way to remove Johnny and survive.

Through reliving Johnny's memories, V learns that in 2013, Johnny's then-girlfriend Alt Cunningham ( Alix Wilton Regan) had created Soulkiller, an artificial intelligence able to copy netrunners' minds through their neural links. However, the process destroyed the target's brain. Arasaka kidnapped Alt and forced her to create their own version of Soulkiller, which would store the minds of its targets in Arasaka's digital fortress, Mikoshi. Johnny led a rescue effort to save Alt, but failed to find her before Arasaka used Soulkiller on her; Johnny's later thermonuclear attack was a cover to free Alt's consciousness from Arasaka's subnet, but Arasaka's head of security Adam Smasher ( Alec Newman) captured him and used Soulkiller on him as well.

By 2077, Arasaka was advertising a "Secure Your Soul" program and conducting secret research into writing a digital copy of a mind into a living human brain, from which the Relic arose. Eventually, V must decide whether to mount an attack on Arasaka Tower to gain physical access to Mikoshi and use Soulkiller to remove Johnny from their body or to make a deal with Arasaka to extract the Relic.

Depending upon player actions throughout the game, V can choose different options to conduct the attack. V can allow Johnny to take over and stage the attack with his former crew, suppress Johnny and mount the attack with Nomad allies, mount the attack solo, or simply commit suicide. Regardless, after beating Adam and either successfully using Soulkiller or after having Arasaka perform surgery on them, it is revealed that the damage to V's body is irreversible. Depending on player choice, V either requests Arasaka to be uploaded into Mikoshi until a suitable host body is found, remains in their body with an uncertain life expectancy, or allows Johnny to take over permanently. If the latter is taken, Johnny pays his respects to his friends and leaves Night City to start a new life.

After concluding the Voodoo Boys business in Pacifica, V is contacted by Song "Songbird" So Mi (Minji Chang), the aide of NUSA President Rosalind Myers (Kay Bess). She explains that their transport, Space Force One, has been hacked over Night City and is about to crash in the lawless district of Dogtown. Songbird asks V to help rescue Myers in return for her assistance in preventing the Relic from destroying V's brain. Songbird also warns V that the warlord who rules Dogtown, Kurt Hansen (Eliah Mountjoy), will likely attempt to use the opportunity to kidnap Myers. V is able to extract Myers from the crash site and escort her to a safehouse, but they lose contact with Songbird on the way. At the safehouse, Johnny warns V that Songbird and Myers may be hiding secrets from them.

The next morning, Songbird is still missing in action. A concerned Myers asks V to make contact with Solomon Reed ( Idris Elba), a NUSA sleeper agent stationed in Dogtown. Reed agrees to help, but V learns that Reed was abandoned by the NUSA in Night City after Reed narrowly survived an assassination attempt by Arasaka. They enlist the aid of a fellow agent named Alexa "Alex" Xenakis (Yvonne Senat Jones) and an underworld netrunner named Slider, who traces Songbird's trail. He is shocked to discover that Songbird penetrated the Blackwall, the firewall that protects the world from rogue AIs inhabiting the old Net, to make contact with V. Slider is able to reestablish contact with Songbird, who tells V she is in Hansen's custody, but Slider is killed when his connection short-circuits.

V regroups with Reed in his safehouse, where he reveals that the NUSA ordered Songbird to sell him out to Arasaka. He also discloses that Songbird has been probing the Blackwall under Myers' orders, which is prohibited by international law. Regardless, Reed wants to rescue Songbird, so he and V infiltrate Hansen's headquarters. They meet Songbird, who explains that her mind has been corrupted by the Blackwall, but Hansen possesses a device called the Neural Matrix that can cure both her and V's conditions. Songbird sets up a plan to steal the matrix from Hansen, while Reed and V realize that the plane crash was orchestrated by Songbird so that she could reach Hansen and acquire the matrix to save herself. V then has a choice: let Songbird complete her objective or betray her using an icebreaker given to them by Reed.

If V betrays Songbird, she will secure the matrix but succumb to cyberpsychosis after recognizing V's treachery. Songbird alerts Hansen, who then kills Alex. V kills Hansen in pursuit of Songbird, but cannot stop her from fleeing to Cynosure, an old Militech facility meant to counter Soulkiller. By the time V catches up, Songbird is already succumbing to the Blackwall's effects. Depending on V's choices, they either euthanize Songbird to prevent her from falling into NUSA custody, or hand her over to Reed so he can help her.

If V goes along with Songbird, Alex kills Hansen while V and Songbird flee the area. Songbird then enlists V to help her escape from Night City's spaceport to the Moon. On the way there, Songbird admits to V that the matrix will disintegrate after being used once, so it can only save one of them. V is left with the decision to surrender Songbird into Reed's custody or assist Songbird's launch to the Moon, the latter of which leads to a standoff with Reed dying.

If Reed and Songbird both survive, a new ending to the game is unlocked. Myers congratulates V for completing their mission and Reed informs them that the matrix can be used to cure V. If V accepts, NUSA surgeons use the matrix to successfully remove the Relic from V's brain, but the surgery fully deletes Johnny, puts V in a two-year coma (during which most of V's friends move on), and causes irreparable damage to V's brain that renders them unable to use combat implants. Being unable to return to their old life as a mercenary, V is forced to accept that they must live quietly as a regular civilian from now on.

Mike Pondsmith was consulted by CD Projekt Red on the development of Cyberpunk 2077' s story.

Preliminary work on Cyberpunk 2077 began following the release of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition (2012). CD Projekt Red-CD Projekt's internal development studio-approached Mike Pondsmith, the writer of and founder of R. Talsorian Games, in early 2012, sending him a copy of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011). Impressed with the studio's unparalleled knowledge of the Cyberpunk universe at the time, Pondsmith and CD Projekt Red reached an agreement to license s story from the year 2077 onward to CD Projekt Red, while Pondsmith retained the rights for media in the Cyberpunk universe set up until the year 2077. To ensure s story remained cohesive during development, Pondsmith served as a consultant on Cyberpunk 2077. Pondsmith's experience at Microsoft developing games such as Crimson Skies (2000) and (2001), and at Monolith Productions developing The Matrix Online (2005), provided valuable wisdom to CD Projekt Red, in comparison to Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski's indifference towards the studio during the development of The Witcher (2007) and The Witcher 2.

The concept of Cyberpunk 2077 was adapted from Pondsmith's Cyberpunk series. Antithetical to the stereotypical cyberpunk genre, the concepts explored in Cyberpunk evoke a sense of rebellion and whimsy while retaining the genre's grim tone. The protagonist of Cyberpunk-in comparison to the typical archetype of a hero attempting to save the world-attempts to save himself, from a downtrodden and lowly perspective. Lead gameplay designer Marcin Janiszewski sought to remind players of its connection to the Cyberpunk universe, writing, "We want to assure fans of the pen-and-paper game that this is still the same Cyberpunk you know". In comparison to CD Projekt Red's development on The Witcher series, the time difference between the events of Cyberpunk and Cyberpunk 2077 allotted the studio more freedom towards adapting the series, although they attempted to stay true to Pondsmith's original works.

Cyberpunk 2077, by extension, presents an alternate history, in which the United States became mired in wars in Central America in the 1980s deeply undermining its power and economy, the Soviet Union failed to dissolve and Japan became a superpower, diffusing its culture as far as California. The events of Cyberpunk 2077 take place in the fictitious Night City, a megalopolis immersed in Japanese culture that lies between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Stereotypical cyberpunk motifs, such as sadism, commercialization, cruelty, and satisfaction, remain as mainstays in the political landscape of Night City. A hedonistic wonderland, Night City is divided into two distinct classes: the downtrodden, who use psychedelic substances and physically augmented sex workers as a form of escapism, while the elite corporate class (known as "corpos") dominate society and are afforded great financial success.

The script was first written in Polish and translated into English, a standard practice for CD Projekt games, according to quest director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz.

V is voiced by Gavin Drea and Cherami Leigh for the male and female versions of V, respectively. CD Projekt Red sought a suitable voice actor for the role of Johnny Silverhand. Keanu Reeves was approached in July 2018 for the role, and noted for his work as Neo in franchise. Reeves' performance was recorded using motion capture technology, a process he had previously used for his performance as Neo in (1999). Although a newcomer to the video game format, Reeves enjoyed the script. Silverhand is featured prominently in the game, with CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwiński recalling in an interview with Bloomberg News that Silverhand's dialogue count is second only to V.

Cyberpunk 2077 was developed using REDengine 4, the fourth iteration of CD Projekt Red's internal game engine. REDengine 3, REDengine 4's predecessor, implemented improvements to terrain and vegetation rendering. To achieve this, regions are streamed from a clipped mipmap (through a method known as clipmapping) in memory. Six clipmaps are created in total; the elevation, control map, and color clipmaps are streamed, while the vertical error, normal, and terrain shadow clipmaps are generated at runtime. In addition, a technique known as tessellation is used, where polygons are divided. In particular, polygon triangulation is used, where data is tessellated into triangles. The error maps are downsampled prior to hardware tessellation. This avoids costly computation, as large areas with high levels of tessellation aren't rendered. Furthermore, REDengine3 employs a radical approach to texturing; textures are painted using two textures: a background texture and an overlay texture. For slopes, the slope angle is computed and compared against a threshold value. Creating a thick cover on slopes was made possible through boosting the overlay texture when the vertex normal looked up; however, this presented complications in ground features, such as cobblestones, where improper distribution was applied. To address this, damping was added, along with blend sharpening. These measures created an ultimately low memory footprint. Other advancements made by REDengine 3 include refined animations, volumetric effects allowing for advanced rendering of particle effects, such as clouds, dynamic physics, and an advanced dialogue mimic system. These improvements allowed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to have a more immersive open-world.

Although Cyberpunk 2077 was initially developed using REDengine 3 as far back as 2013, CD Projekt Red developed REDengine 4 after facing difficulty developing the game, which used a first-person perspective, a departure from the third-person perspective CD Projekt had developed in for earlier iterations of REDengine. REDengine 4 was developed using a US$7 million grant from the Polish government. Nearly every aspect of REDengine was changed as a result, including the particle effects editor. CD Projekt Red continued to work on REDengine throughout Cyberpunk 2077' s development cycle, and as late as 2017. Cyberpunk 2077 is the final game to use REDengine, as future games from CD Projekt Red will instead be developed using Unreal Engine 5.

REDengine 4 implemented various lighting adjustments to create a more realistic world, including hardware-accelerated ray tracing through DirectX, global illumination, diffuse illumination, and ambient occlusion. These features are not present on the console versions of the game. Other features include physically based rendering-an improvement over REDengine 3, screen space reflections, and pin sharp reflections, although the player's character is omitted from the bounding volume hierarchy structure generated ray traced reflections. The player's character does appear, however, in render to texture objects, such as mirrors. Improvements to shadows include cascaded shadow maps, screen space shadows, and ray traced shadows with contact hardening, while improvements to character rendering include subsurface scattering and realistic skin shading. These features introduced computational complexity, testing older consoles, such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Cyberpunk 2077 uses vertical asset streaming, or culling, a rendering technique that omits objects below and above the player's field of view. This technique saves memory.

During the development of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red partnered with several companies. These companies include Vancouver-based studio Digital Scapes to create additional tools, multinational technology company Nvidia to implement real-time ray tracing, developer QLOC for quality assurance. In addition, artificial intelligence company Jali Research helped CD Projekt Red implement lip syncing for all ten localizations through procedural generation.

CD Projekt Red used a first-person perspective to immerse the player further in the world and hone in on the megacorporation motif. To seamlessly blend cutscenes with gameplay, CD Projekt Red decided to frame cutscenes in first-person, including the sex scenes, with limited exceptions. Players can, however, drive in third-person, and the player's character is visible in areas such as mirrors and security cameras. The decision by game director Adam Badowski to include nudity was tactfully planned, with Badowski stating, "Nudity is important for us because of one reason. This is cyberpunk, so people augment their body. So the body is no longer sacrum [sacred]; it's profanum [profane]", expanding upon transhumanist beliefs.

The quest team took several changes in comparison to the quest system in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015). Game logic was implemented to allow for players to undertake quests in seemingly random orders while remaining coherent, while doubling down on The Witcher 3' philosophy of a "quest twist". To reuse the stories written during the game's development, unused parts from the main story were turned into side quests.

When designing Night City, the art design team at CD Projekt Red took multiple sources of inspiration. German industrial designer Dieter Rams and American neo-futurist concept artist Syd Mead inspired the team, who used Rams' elegance to juxtapose the low-class neighborhoods in Night City and Mead's vibrant colors and materialism to create the demeanor of Night City, in what the team called " kitsch". Building these environments took the team eight years. To create a cyberpunk look for Night City, the team incorporated retro and futuristic elements. To accomplish this, the team looked at dilapidated or old-fashioned buildings-aspects of a familiar reality-with futurism. "For example, you could have a run down building with an old wooden door, but an LED light might be attached to that door, which could be a part of a high-tech security system," Hiroshi Sakakibara, Environment City Coordinator at CD Projekt Red, said during a Cyberpunk 2077 livestream at Tokyo Game Show 2020. A key source of inspiration for the team was Blade Runner (1982), which Sakakibara referred to as the " Bible of all cyberpunk". Other sources of inspiration for the team include the manga and anime series Ghost in the Shell, and other video games such as System Shock (1994) and the first part of (2000). To design the buildings in Night City, the team consulted with urban planners and drew upon the themes of Brutalist architecture. The game's yellow-themed design serves as the antithesis to typical neon art. The designs of Marcello Gandini helped shape the appearance of many of the cars in the game. A motorbike akin to the one in the Akira manga and anime film appears in the game, as well as a car inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

To develop the world building in Night City, the team used four distinct visual styles-austere Entropism, colorful Kitsch, imposing Neomilitarism, and opulent Neokitsch-to explain what happened to the world prior to the events of the game. Bulky cars and unappealing buildings represent Entropism, an architectural style that came about through necessity. In Entropism, practicality is valued more than aesthetics. As the economy recovered, the vibrant style of Kitsch gained traction. The style of Kitsch was countered with Neomilitarism, an ascetic movement where the rise of corporations undid many of the stylistic decisions made in Entropism. Finally, Neokitsch incorporated the classist systems in Neomilitarism with the vibrance of Entropism. In Neokitsch, the rich use scarce materials, such as wood and marble, to construct their buildings, and wear clothes from animals. Night City features six districts, each with a unique gusto. Pacifica, for instance, was a prosperous vacation destination until an economic crisis hit, leaving the Haitian community to form a civilization around the buildings.

The team used the digital compositing software Nuke to design Night City. A challenge for the team was creating a global illumination system that would cast a variety of light sources on narrow streets. Nuke was used to analytically reference the lighting in REDengine with Nuke. In contrast to most other video games, which use tone-mapping, Cyberpunk 2077 uses a classic film LUT. In addition, Nuke was used to design the game's user interface and splash screen.

Multiple licensed artists contributed to Cyberpunk 2077' soundtrack. Hip hop duo Run the Jewels, composed of rappers El-P and Killer Mike, wrote "No Save Point" for the game's soundtrack-a track that vividly critiques the socioeconomic state of Night City. The song is featured in the game and performed by El-P and Killer Mike as "Yankee and the Brave", a reference to the duo's fourth studio album, (2020). Other contributors include Canadian musician Grimes (as Lizzy Wizzy), Swedish band Refused (as Samurai), American rapper ASAP Rocky, English musician Gazelle Twin (as Trash Generation), and American musician Ilan Rubin, among others.

" I Really Want to Stay at Your House" is a song by British singer Rosa Walton written for the game. Featured in the fictional radio station 98.7 Body Heat Radio, the song was included by Lakeshore Records on the soundtrack album Cyberpunk 2077: Radio, Vol. 2 (Original Soundtrack), which was released on 18 December 2020. The song would later on go viral in 2022 after being utilised heavily in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and chart in the United Kingdom at number 68.

Cyberpunk 2077 was announced in May 2012. Trailers for the game were released in January 2013, at E3 2018, and at E3 2019. The game was initially confirmed for Windows, with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One announced at E3 2018. Stadia was announced in August 2019.

At E3 2019, an initial release date of 16 April 2020 was announced. This was delayed to 17 September, then 19 November, and finally 10 December. The developers received death threats over the last delay. The final delay was decided suddenly, with discussions commencing a day before the initial announcement. Due to Polish law, CD Projekt was not allowed to inform every member of the development team due to its large size; around ninety percent were not informed until the last minute. Rockfish Game's Everspace 2's early access release and an expansion to Grinding Gear Games's Path of Exile, scheduled to be released in December 2020, were delayed until the following month in order to avoid competing with Cyberpunk 2077's release.

With E3 2020 cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, CD Projekt's online event Night City Wire showed additional trailers, more gameplay, and making-of footage. Next-generation ports for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 were initially scheduled for release in 2021, but were delayed in October 2021, before eventually releasing on 15 February 2022. Owners of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions were able to freely download the game on their respective next-generation models. The delayed standalone multiplayer was announced to launch after 2021.

As with The Witcher 2 and The Witcher 3, both Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Bandai Namco Entertainment served as physical distributors in North America and Central Europe, Australia, and New Zealand respectively. Spike Chunsoft published the physical PlayStation 4 copies in Japan.

The versions of Cyberpunk 2077 released in Japan and China were subject to a reduction in the amount of nudity and gore portrayed in order to meet rating agency requirements and censorship laws. A datamine of the game's source code by hackers in February 2021 revealed that content flagged for censorship in China was tagged under " Winnie the Pooh", a reference to an internet meme in which Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping was compared to the titular character.

Funko Pops were obtainable starting 16 April 2020. CD Projekt Red held a cosplay competition from June 2019 to October 2020. A card game created alongside publisher CMON Limited, Cyberpunk2077- Afterlife: The Card Game, was slated for 2020 but has yet to be released; no updating announcements have been made and the card game's future remains uncertain. McFarlane Toys signed a three-year agreement to manufacture action figures. The Cyberpunk2077-themed Xbox One X, which includes a digital copy and downloadable content, became the final limited edition of that console. Designed with the same aesthetic were video cards, gaming chairs, energy drinks, sneakers, smartphones exclusive to China, and peripherals. From May 2020, advertising company Agora Group had newspapers, online services, and radio channels doing promotion in Poland. Their subsidiaries carried out publicity outdoors and in movie theatres, using established brands to disseminate information about the game.

A "Collector's Edition" consisting of a custom box, steelbook case, figurine depicting a male V, hardcover artbook, metal pin set and keychain, A Visitor's Guide to Night City, embroidered patches, world compendium, Night City postcards and map, and stickers was released along with the game. The standard edition also contains the compendium, postcards, map, and stickers. Digital items that come with every copy are the soundtrack, art booklet, Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook, wallpapers, and Cyberpunk2077: Your Voice comic. Purchases through CD Projekt's subsidiary GOG.com include the digital comic Cyberpunk2077: Big City Dreams.

Prior to the announcement of the game's only planned expansion, Phantom Liberty, CD Projekt Red released 18 different DLCs for the game which added cosmetics and additional gameplay content. One of the DLCs released included content from the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime.

On 6 September 2022, CD Projekt Red confirmed that Phantom Liberty, would be released for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 in 2023. It is the only planned expansion for the game, with Reeves reprising his role of Johnny Silverhand. On 16 November 2022, it was confirmed that Phantom Liberty will be a paid expansion pack, akin to expansions Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone. A trailer for Phantom Liberty was released during The Game Awards 2022 which revealed Idris Elba had joined the project. A release date of 26 September 2023 for the Phantom Liberty expansion was revealed during the 2023 Xbox showcase as part of the Summer Game Fest, alongside another trailer and an announcement of the new additions coming to the expansion, amongst them interactive car chases with vehicular combat, overhauled level and progression systems, and equipped cyberware now being able to send the player's character into a "cyberpsycho" state. Pre-orders of Phantom Liberty grant the player a bonus in-game vehicle. Ahead of the release of Phantom Liberty, CD Projekt released a major title update titled Update 2.0 on 21 September for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, which introduces the features that were announced alongside Phantom Liberty.

On 5 December 2022, CD Projekt Red confirmed a "Game of the Year" edition of Cyberpunk 2077 will be released after Phantom Liberty; both are slated for a 2023 release. CD Projekt Red president Adam Kiciński commented that "it's the natural order of things", mentioning that after their previous title The Witcher 3 received the story expansions Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone, the firm released a "Game of the Year" edition of the title, combining all released DLC, and expects the same to happen with Cyberpunk 2077. A physical release of the game for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, which includes Phantom Liberty, was announced on 21 November 2023. Players on PC could purchase this version digitally, and PlayStation 5 releases come with a digital code instead of a disc. This release, titled Ultimate Edition, is set for release on 5 December 2023.

In October 2023, CD Projekt Red would reveal that they have spent over $120 million on Cyberpunk 2077 since launch, accounting for updates, bug fixes and development/marketing of Phantom Liberty (it costing about $84 million). According to a report from Kotaku, the base game cost $174 million to develop and $142 million to market. The total cost of the game is now reportedly over $436 million, making it the second-most expensive video game to develop (behind Star Citizen).

The World of Cyberpunk2077, a 192-page art book, was published by Dark Horse Books on 29 July 2020.

On 9 September, Dark Horse Comics brought out the first issue of a comic book series called Cyberpunk 2077: Trauma Team with writer Cullen Bunn and illustrator Miguel Valderrama. A number of other comic series in the world of Cyberpunk 2077 have also been published by Dark Horse Comics, including Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams (2022), and Cyberpunk 2077: Blackout (2022).

, an anime spin-off collaboration co-produced by CD Projekt Red and Studio Trigger, premiered on 13 September 2022 on Netflix.

The game was highly anticipated before its release. It won over one hundred awards at E3 2018, including Best Game, Best Xbox One Game, Best PC Game, Best RPG, and People's Choice at , Best Role-Playing Game and Game of the Show at Game Informer, Best of E3 at , and Game of the Show at GamesRadar+. The second trailer was considered one of the best at the expo, although writer William Gibson, credited with pioneering the cyberpunk subgenre, described it as " skinned-over with a generic 80s retro-future". Gibson later responded more positively to the first gameplay demo. The first-person perspective, in contrast with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's third-person, was subject to criticism. Cyberpunk2077 was the most widely discussed game of E3 2019, where it was presented awards for Best of E3 at GamesRadar+, PC Gamer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and Ars Technica, and Best Game, People's Choice, Best PS4 Game, Best Xbox One Game, Best PC Game, and Best RPG at IGN. The third trailer was lauded with emphasis on Reeves' reveal.

Liana Ruppert, a journalist for Game Informer who has photosensitive epilepsy, experienced a grand mal seizure while reviewing the game days before its release. The seizure was triggered by the game's "braindance" sequence, which contains red and white flashing lights that reportedly resemble the patterns produced by medical devices used to intentionally trigger seizures. In response, CD Projekt Red made a public statement and reached out to Ruppert. The company then released a patch to add a warning, and issued a later patch on 11 December to reduce the risk of inducing epileptic symptoms.

Prior to the release of the game, CD Projekt Red provided review copies of Cyberpunk to several major outlets. CD Projekt Red issued strict review embargo terms on these review copies, requiring reviewers to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and only allowing for footage provided by the company to be shown in reviews; according to Wired Magazine (which did not receive a reviewer copy), violating the NDA could cost around $27,000 per violation. Concern also arose over the fact review copies were issued for the PC version of the game, ensuring that all pre-release reviews related to the PC version of the game, excluding consoles. As a result, this eroded trust from some consumers.

The PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series releases of Cyberpunk 2077 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game received "mixed or average" reviews.

Critics praised the quality of the story as well as the depth and expansiveness of side quests, immersive atmosphere of the world, visual quality, and freshness of the cyberpunk setting. The game's systems such as crafting, driving mechanics, and combat received a mixed response. Some critics, while acknowledging the game's many strengths, nonetheless criticised its shallow portrayal of the cyberpunk genre, and also described its portrayal of related themes such as anti-capitalism and anarchism as ironic. Others took issue with the portrayal of transgender people, who they felt were fetishized by in-game material but were not given any meaningful role in the narrative.

On launch day, the game exceeded 1 million concurrent viewers on Twitch.

Along with several post-release patches, following the release of the animated series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Netflix in September 2022, the game's player count on PC boosted to levels last seen with the game's initial release. The million-plus daily player count continued for at least four weeks following the release of Edgerunners.

The release of Cyberpunk 2077 was a high-profile event and was considered a disastrous launch as a result of the game suffering from numerous bugs and performance issues, particularly on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions. The Guardian called the release "a shambles", while The New York Times said it was among the most conspicuous disasters in the industry's history, with CD Projekt Red prominently failing to meet expectations for what was anticipated to be the biggest game release of the year. Other gaming industry commentators have described the post-launch reception of Cyberpunk 2077 as a fall from grace for CD Projekt Red, who had previously enjoyed a fiercely pro-consumer reputation.

Some of the initial reviews that had been based only on the PC version of the game were later updated to add a caveat about the notable difference in performance between this version and its console releases. Because of the game's performance on consoles, CD Projekt issued an apology, particularly for their pre-release secrecy regarding these versions, concluding that unsatisfied consumers could opt for refunds. This was initially followed by multiple reports of players unable to get said refund. CD Projekt Red later stated that they had no specific deals in place with either Microsoft or Sony to facilitate such an action; refunds are dealt with according to standard refund policies. On 17 December 2020, Sony announced that it would offer refunds to customers who had purchased Cyberpunk 2077 through the PlayStation Store and removed it from the store "until further notice"; once returned to the store in June 2021, the PlayStation Store warned users that "Users continue to experience performance issues with this game. Purchase for use on PS4 systems is not recommended." The Xbox One version of the game remained available for purchase from the online Microsoft store, albeit with a warning about the game's performance issues. Players who bought the game through the Microsoft store were also offered refunds. In the US, GameStop accepted returns of boxed versions of the game even if the box was opened, an exception to the store's usual refund policy.

Although the game's reviews were largely positive, its aggregate score was thought to be disappointing by analysts. CD Projekt SA stock fell by up to 9.4% after the publication of Metacritic's reviews. The reviews aggregation OpenCritic criticised CD Projekt Red for deliberately attempting to misrepresent the game, and not delivering review copies for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, knowing it would receive negative reviews. A class-action lawsuit representing those making investments in CD Projekt during 2020 was filed on 24 December 2020 in California, asserting that the company made fraudulent claims to the state of Cyberpunk 2077 as to mislead those investors; a second similar class-action suit had also been filed by January 2021. By May 2021, four separate lawsuits against CD Projekt had been filed over Cyberpunk 2077, and had been subsequently merged into one common action. CD Projekt proposed a settlement with the investors in December 2021, providing US$1.85 million to the group as part of the terms which was approved by a judge in January 2023. Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection began an investigation of the game in January 2021, asking CD Projekt for an "explanation regarding problems with the game and actions taken by them". Having previously asked its employees to work 6-day weeks for several final months of the development of the game, the company ditched plans to tie developers' bonuses to review scores, choosing instead to pay out the full bonus regardless.

Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News said that, based on discussions with CD Projekt developers, a major reason for the poor performance of Cyberpunk 2077 on release was underestimating the effort that would be needed. While more than twice as many developers were brought on board to help with the game compared to The Witcher 3, CD Projekt had only expected the same amount of time to complete the game, so that the bulk of development towards the game only began in late 2016. The expanded scope of Cyberpunk 2077 including the game's new engine had created difficulties, and while there were more developers, there was less organization of their various functions that further hampered the development, according to Schreier's report. Many developers urged management to hold off on the game's release. Co-CEO Marcin Iwiński issued an open message to players on 13 January 2021, apologizing for the state of the game and the company's plans to correct it. Iwiński stated that the company "underestimated the risk" in bringing a game optimized to run on personal computers over to consoles, particularly the older Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. He specifically faulted the in-game streaming engine that was used to load in assets from storage on the fly as the player moved through the game, which was scaled back to work on the older consoles. While they had tested these versions as they approached release, they had not seen the same issues that players had reported in the released version. He affirmed that the developers were not responsible for the release state of the game, but instead this was a choice made by himself and the other management of the company. Besides working to issue refunds and bring the game to a state to return it to the PlayStation Store, Iwiński outlined a year-long path that will involve multiple patches to bring the older consoles' versions to better performance and then looking to optimizing the game for newer consoles, prior to any further additional content development.

Despite the rampant technical issues that were prevalent during its initial release that affected the game's sales, Cyberpunk 2077 saw an increase in the number of units sold during the year 2022 of up to 18%, with 94% of the sales being digital. This increase was partially attributed to the release of the Netflix anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, which garnered positive reviews from both critics and fans, and the concurrent release of a game update which added material from the series in the form of multiple items. CD Projekt Red recognized the success of Edgerunners having driven sales of Cyberpunk 2077 by stating that "a significant increase in the amount of the Group's Sales in the third quarter of 2022 in relation to the reference period was mainly due to a good reception of the Cyberpunk Edgerunner update 1.6 which preceded the release on Netflix of the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime series." The series would again be referenced in the Cyberpunk 2.0 update that came alongside the Phantom Liberty downloadable content.

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Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
Phantom Liberty received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, while the Xbox Series X/S version received "universal acclaim", according to review aggregator website Metacritic.

Cyberpunk 2077 received eight million pre-orders on all platforms, of which 74% were digital, and it received more pre-orders than The Witcher3: Wild Hunt; one third of PC sales were through GOG.com. It was a best-seller on Steam in China. CD Projekt Red has stated that digital preorders for the title alone recouped the game's production cost as well as the game's 2020 marketing cost. According to a CD Projekt investors call, sales saw a drastic decline four days after release owing to the technical issues present. After the launch, analyst estimations for sales over 12 months fell from 30 million to 25.6 million.

Within twelve hours after its release, the game had over one million concurrent players on Steam. In Japan, the PlayStation 4 version of Cyberpunk 2077 sold an estimated 104,600 physical units during its debut week, making it the second best-selling retail game of the week in the country. The game passed 13 million units sold in December 2020. It had the biggest digital game launch of all time, selling 10.2 million digital units and grossed $609 million in digital sales by 31 December 2020. By September 2022, the game had sold over 20 million copies units. As of October 2023, it has sold over 25 million units, and Phantom Liberty has sold 3 million units in a week after release. By November 2023, Phantom Liberty had sold 4.3 million units.

A sequel, codenamed "Project Orion", was announced in October 2022. It will be developed by CD Projekt North America, which has studios in both Vancouver and Boston. Several core team members working on Cyberpunk 2077 will be relocated to Boston to work on the game. The game's development will begin following the release of Phantom Liberty. The next installment is rumored to use Unreal Engine 5 due to the new technology partnership between Epic Games and CD Projekt Red. In June 2023, the director of Phantom Liberty expansion and upcoming sequel, Gabe Amatangelo confirmed the use of Unreal Engine in Cyberpunk 2077's sequel.

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Cyberpunk 2077 is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt, based on video game designer Mike Pondsmith's game series.

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FBI Virtual Case File System:
The Requirement Issue: The Virtual Case File (VCF) system was intended to modernize the FBI's case management process. However, the project faced changing and unclear requirements, with different agencies within the FBI having different needs and expectations.
Consequences: The inaccurate and shifting requirements led to a software system that was overly complex, difficult to use, and unable to meet the varied needs of the FBI's agents and investigators. The project was eventually abandoned after significant time and money had been invested.

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Dyson Electric Car

Development of an electric car Project name: The Dyson Date: Oct 2019 Cost: £500M Synopsis: The future of transportation is here to see and it is of course electric! As a result, the development of electric cars has been a growth area for the past ten years and the pace of change continues to grow.

Contributing factors: Lack of upfront due diligence (failure to analyse costs, market competitive landscape, market size, production costs and profit margins). Underestimation of costs. Perfectionism. Focal imbalance (focusing on the product rather than full spectrum of work need to launch a car brand).

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Microsoft - Windows Vista (Longhorn)

Windows Vista, was a major operating system release developed succeed Windows XP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista

Reason for Failure:

1. Ambitious Scope: The project's scope and feature set grew significantly during development

2. Hardware Demands: Windows Vista had higher hardware requirements compared to its predecessor, Windows XP

3. Driver Compatibility Issues: The new driver model introduced in Windows Vista aimed to improve stability and security by requiring signed drivers

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Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years earlier, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft's Windows desktop operating systems. Development was completed on November 8, 2006, and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released internationally and made available for purchase and download from the Windows Marketplace; this is the first release of Windows to be made available through a digital distribution platform.

New features of Windows Vista include an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed " Aero," a new search component called " Windows Search," redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems, and new multimedia tools such as Windows DVD Maker. Windows Vista aimed to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and media between computers and devices. Windows Vista included version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, allowing software developers to write applications without traditional Windows APIs. Windows Vista removed support for Itanium and devices without ACPI.

While these new features and security improvements garnered positive reviews, Windows Vista was also the target of much criticism and negative press. Criticism of Windows Vista includes its high system requirements, more restrictive licensing terms, lack of compatibility, longer boot time, and excessive authorization prompts from User Account Control. As a result of these and other issues, Windows Vista saw lower initial adoption and satisfaction rates than Windows XP. However, Windows Vista usage had surpassed Microsoft's pre-launch two-year-out expectations of achieving 200 million users, with an estimated 330 million Internet users in January 2009. On October 22, 2010, Microsoft ceased sales of retail copies of Windows Vista, and the original equipment manufacturer's sales for Windows Vista ceased a year later. The market share of Windows Vista fell below 1% by the end of 2021, coinciding with the release of Windows 11.

Mainstream support for Windows Vista ended on April 10, 2012, and extended support ended on April 11, 2017. Windows Vista was succeeded by Windows 7. As of February 2022, 0.18% of PCs run Windows Vista.

Microsoft began work on Windows Vista, known at the time by its codename "Longhorn", in May 2001, five months before the release of Windows XP. It was originally expected to ship in October 2003 as a minor step between Windows XP and "Blackcomb", which was planned to be the company's next major operating system release. Gradually, "Longhorn" assimilated many of the important new features and technologies slated for Blackcomb, resulting in the release date being pushed back several times in three years. In some builds of Longhorn, their license agreement said "For the Microsoft product codenamed 'Whistler'". Many of Microsoft's developers were also re-tasked to build updates to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 to strengthen security. Faced with ongoing delays and concerns about feature creep, Microsoft announced on August 27, 2004, that it had revised its plans. For this reason, Longhorn was reset to start work on componentizing the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 codebase, and over time re-incorporating the features that would be intended for an actual operating system release. However, some previously announced features such as WinFS were dropped or postponed, and a new software development methodology called the Security Development Lifecycle was incorporated to address concerns with the security of the Windows codebase, which is programmed in C, C++ and assembly. Longhorn became known as Vista in 2005.

The early development stages of Longhorn were generally characterized by incremental improvements and updates to Windows XP. During this period, Microsoft was fairly quiet about what was being worked on, as their marketing and public relations efforts were more strongly focused on Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003, which was released in April 2003. Occasional builds of Longhorn were leaked onto popular file sharing networks such as IRC, BitTorrent, eDonkey and various newsgroups, and so most of what is known about builds before the first sanctioned development release of Longhorn in May 2003 is derived from these builds.

After several months of relatively little news or activity from Microsoft with Longhorn, Microsoft released Build 4008, which had made an appearance on the Internet around February 28, 2003. It was also privately handed out to a select group of software developers. As an evolutionary release over build 3683, it contained several small improvements, including a modified blue "Plex" theme and a new, simplified Windows Image-based installer that operates in graphical mode from the outset, and completed an install of the operating system in approximately one third the time of Windows XP on the same hardware. An optional "new taskbar" was introduced that was thinner than the previous build and displayed the time differently. The most notable visual and functional difference, however, came with Windows Explorer. The incorporation of the Plex theme made blue the dominant color of the entire application. The Windows XP-style task pane was almost completely replaced with a large horizontal pane that appeared under the toolbars. A new search interface allowed for filtering of results, searching for Windows help, and natural-language queries that would be used to integrate with WinFS. The animated search characters were also removed. The "view modes" were also replaced with a single slider that would resize the icons in real-time, in the list, thumbnail, or details mode, depending on where the slider was. File metadata was also made more visible and more easily editable, with more active encouragement to fill out missing pieces of information. Also of note was the conversion of Windows Explorer to being a .NET application.

Most builds of Longhorn and Vista were identified by a label that was always displayed in the bottom-right corner of the desktop. A typical build label would look like "Longhorn Build 3683.Lab06_N.020923-1821". Higher build numbers did not automatically mean that the latest features from every development team at Microsoft was included. Typically, a team working on a certain feature or subsystem would generate their working builds which developers would test with, and when the code was deemed stable, all the changes would be incorporated back into the main development tree at once. At Microsoft, several "Build labs" exist where the compilation of the entirety of Windows can be performed by a team. The name of the lab in which any given build originated is shown as part of the build label, and the date and time of the build follow that. Some builds (such as Beta 1 and Beta 2) only display the build label in the version information dialog (Winver). The icons used in these builds are from Windows XP.

At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in May 2003, Microsoft gave their first public demonstrations of the new Desktop Window Manager and Aero. The demonstrations were done on a revised build 4015 which was never released. Several sessions for developers and hardware engineers at the conference focused on these new features, as well as the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (previously known as "Palladium"), which at the time was Microsoft's proposed solution for creating a secure computing environment whereby any given component of the system could be deemed "trusted". Also at this conference, Microsoft reiterated their roadmap for delivering Longhorn, pointing to an "early 2005" release date.

By 2004, it had become obvious to the Windows team at Microsoft that they were losing sight of what needed to be done to complete the next version of Windows and ship it to customers. Internally, some Microsoft employees were describing the Longhorn project as "another Cairo" or "Cairo.NET", referring to the Cairo development project that the company embarked on through the first half of the 1990s, which never resulted in a shipping operating system (though nearly all the technologies developed in that time did end up in Windows 95 and Windows NT). Microsoft was shocked in 2005 by Apple's release of Mac OS X Tiger. It offered only a limited subset of features planned for Longhorn, in particular fast file searching and integrated graphics and sound processing, but appeared to have impressive reliability and performance compared to contemporary Longhorn builds. Most Longhorn builds had major Windows Explorer system leaks which prevented the OS from performing well, and added more confusion to the development teams in later builds with more and more code being developed which failed to reach stability.

In a September 23, 2005 front-page article in The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, who had overall responsibility for the development and delivery of Windows, explained how development of Longhorn had been "crashing into the ground" due in large part to the haphazard methods by which features were introduced and integrated into the core of the operating system, without a clear focus on an end-product. Allchin went on to explain how in December 2003, he enlisted the help of two other senior executives, Brian Valentine and Amitabh Srivastava, the former being experienced with shipping software at Microsoft, most notably Windows Server 2003, and the latter having spent his career at Microsoft researching and developing methods of producing high-quality testing systems. Srivastava employed a team of core architects to visually map out the entirety of the Windows operating system, and to proactively work towards a development process that would enforce high levels of code quality, reduce interdependencies between components, and in general, "not make things worse with Vista". Since Microsoft decided that Longhorn needed to be further componentized, work started on builds (known as the Omega-13 builds) that would componentize existing Windows Server 2003 source code, and over time add back functionality as development progressed. Future Longhorn builds would start from Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and continue from there.

This change, announced internally to Microsoft employees on August 26, 2004, began in earnest in September, though it would take several more months before the new development process and build methodology would be used by all of the development teams. A number of complaints came from individual developers, and Bill Gates himself, that the new development process was going to be prohibitively difficult to work within.

By approximately November 2004, the company had considered several names for the final release, ranging from simple to fanciful and inventive. In the end, Microsoft chose Windows Vista as confirmed on July 22, 2005, believing it to be a "wonderful intersection of what the product really does, what Windows stands for, and what resonates with customers, and their needs". Group Project Manager Greg Sullivan told Paul Thurrott "You want the PC to adapt to you and help you cut through the clutter to focus on what's important to you. That's what Windows Vista is all about: "bringing clarity to your world" (a reference to the three marketing points of Vista-Clear, Connected, Confident), so you can focus on what matters to you". Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin also loved the name, saying that "Vista creates the right imagery for the new product capabilities and inspires the imagination with all the possibilities of what can be done with Windows-making people's passions come alive."

After Longhorn was named Windows Vista in July 2005, an unprecedented beta-test program was started, involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers and companies. In September of that year, Microsoft started releasing regular Community Technology Previews (CTP) to beta testers from July 2005 to February 2006. The first of these was distributed at the 2005 Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, and was subsequently released to beta testers and Microsoft Developer Network subscribers. The builds that followed incorporated most of the planned features for the final product, as well as a number of changes to the user interface, based largely on feedback from beta testers. Windows Vista was deemed feature-complete with the release of the "February CTP", released on February 22, 2006, and much of the remainder of the work between that build and the final release of the product focused on stability, performance, application and driver compatibility, and documentation. Beta 2, released in late May, was the first build to be made available to the general public through Microsoft's Customer Preview Program. It was downloaded over 5 million times. Two release candidates followed in September and October, both of which were made available to a large number of users.

At the Intel Developer Forum on March 9, 2006, Microsoft announced a change in their plans to support EFI in Windows Vista. The UEFI 2.0 specification (which replaced EFI 1.10) was not completed until early 2006, and at the time of Microsoft's announcement, no firmware manufacturers had completed a production implementation which could be used for testing. As a result, the decision was made to postpone the introduction of UEFI support to Windows; support for UEFI on 64-bit platforms was postponed until Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 and 32-bit UEFI would not be supported, as Microsoft did not expect many such systems to be built because the market was quickly moving to 64-bit processors.

While Microsoft had originally hoped to have the consumer versions of the operating system available worldwide in time for the 2006 holiday shopping season, it announced in March 2006 that the release date would be pushed back to January 2007 in order to give the company-and the hardware and software companies that Microsoft depends on for providing device drivers-additional time to prepare. Because a release to manufacturing (RTM) build is the final version of code shipped to retailers and other distributors, the purpose of a pre-RTM build is to eliminate any last "show-stopper" bugs that may prevent the code from responsibly being shipped to customers, as well as anything else that consumers may find troublesome. Thus, it is unlikely that any major new features would be introduced; instead, work would focus on Vista's fit and finish. In just a few days, developers had managed to drop Vista's bug count from over 2470 on September 22 to just over 1400 by the time RC2 shipped in early October. However, they still had a way to go before Vista was ready to RTM. Microsoft's internal processes required Vista's bug count to drop to 500 or fewer before the product could go into escrow for RTM. For most of the pre-RTM builds, only 32-bit editions were released.

On June 14, 2006, Windows developer Philip Su posted a blog entry which decried the development process of Windows Vista, stating that "The code is way too complicated, and that the pace of coding has been tremendously slowed down by overbearing process." The same post also described Windows Vista as having approximately 50 million lines of code, with about 2,000 developers working on the product. During a demonstration of the speech recognition feature new to Windows Vista at Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting on July 27, 2006, the software recognized the phrase "Dear mom" as "Dear aunt". After several failed attempts to correct the error, the sentence eventually became " Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all". A developer with Vista's speech recognition team later explained that there was a bug with the build of Vista that was causing the microphone gain level to be set very high, resulting in the audio being received by the speech recognition software being "incredibly distorted".

Windows Vista build 5824 (October 17, 2006) was supposed to be the RTM release, but a bug, where the OOBE hangs at the start of the WinSAT Assessment (if upgraded from Windows XP), requiring the user to terminate the msoobe.exe by pressing Shift+F10 to open Command Prompt using either command-line tools or Task Manager prevented this, damaging development and lowering the chance that it would hit its January 2007 deadline.

Development of Windows Vista came to an end when Microsoft announced that it had been finalized on November 8, 2006, and was concluded by co-president of Windows development, Jim Allchin. The RTM's build number had also jumped to 6000 to reflect Vista's internal version number, NT 6.0. Jumping RTM build numbers is common practice among consumer-oriented Windows versions, like Windows 98 (build 1998), Windows 98 SE (build 2222), Windows Me (build 3000) or Windows XP (build 2600), as compared to the business-oriented versions like Windows 2000 (build 2195) or Server 2003 (build 3790). On November 16, 2006, Microsoft made the final build available to MSDN and Technet Plus subscribers. A business-oriented Enterprise edition was made available to volume license customers on November 30, 2006. Windows Vista was launched for general customer availability on January 30, 2007.

Windows Vista introduced several features and functionality not present in its predecessors.

Windows Aero: The new graphical user interface is named Windows Aero, which Jim Allchin stated is an acronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open. Microsoft intended the new interface to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than those of previous Windows versions, featuring new transparencies, live thumbnails, live icons, and animations, thus providing a new level of eye candy. Laptop users report, however, that enabling Aero shortens battery life and reduces performance.

Windows shell: The new Windows shell offers a new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities: Task panes in Windows Explorer are removed, integrating the relevant task options into the toolbar. A "Favorite links" pane has been added, enabling one-click access to common directories. A search box appears in every Explorer window. The address bar has been replaced with a breadcrumb navigation bar. Icons of certain file types in Windows Explorer are "live" and can be scaled in size up to 256 × 256 pixels. The preview pane allows users to see thumbnails of various files and view the contents of documents. The details pane shows information such as file size and type, and allows viewing and editing of embedded tags in supported file formats. The Start menu has changed as well; incorporating an instant search box, and the All Programs list uses a horizontal scroll bar instead of the cascading flyout menu seen in Windows XP. The word "Start" itself has been removed in favor of a blue orb that bears the Windows logo.

Windows Search: A new search component of Windows Vista, it features instant search (also known as search as you type), which provides instant search results, thus finding files more quickly than the search features found in previous versions of Windows and can search the contents of recognized file types. Users can search for certain metadata such as name, extension, size, date or attributes.

Windows Sidebar: A transparent panel, anchored to the right side of the screen, wherein a user can place Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose (such as displaying the weather or sports scores). Gadgets can also be placed on the desktop.

Windows Internet Explorer 7: New user interface, tabbed browsing, RSS, a search box, improved printing, Page Zoom, Quick Tabs (thumbnails of all open tabs), Anti-Phishing filter, several new security protection features, Internationalized Domain Name support (IDN), and improved web standards support. IE7 in Windows Vista runs in isolation from other applications in the operating system (protected mode); exploits and malicious software are restricted from writing to any location beyond Temporary Internet Files without explicit user consent.

Windows Media Player 11, a major revamp of Microsoft's program for playing and organizing music and video. New features in this version include word wheeling (incremental search or "search as you type"), a new GUI for the media library, photo display and organization, the ability to share music libraries over a network with other Windows Vista machines, Xbox 360 integration, and support for other Media Center Extenders.

Windows Defender: An antispyware program with several real-time protection agents. It includes a software explorer feature, which provides access to startup programs, and allows one to view currently running software, network-connected applications, and Winsock providers (Winsock LSPs).

Windows Mail: A replacement for Outlook Express that includes a new mail store that improves stability, and features integrated instant search. It has a Phishing Filter like Internet Explorer 7 and Junk mail filtering that is enhanced through regular updates via Windows Update.

Games: Most of the standard computer games included in previous versions of Windows have been redesigned to showcase Vista's new graphical capabilities. New games available in Windows Vista are Chess Titans (3D Chess game), Mahjong Titans (3D mahjong solitaire game), and Purble Place (a small collection of games, oriented towards younger children, including a matching game, a cake-creator game, and a dress-up puzzle game). Purble Place is the only one of the new games available in the Windows Vista Home Basic edition. InkBall is available for Home Premium (or better) users.

Windows Mobility Center is a control panel that centralizes the most relevant information related to mobile computing (brightness, sound, battery level/power scheme selection, wireless network, screen orientation, presentation settings, etc.).

Windows Fax and Scan Allows computers with fax modems to send and receive fax documents, as well as scan documents. It is not available in the Home editions of Windows Vista, but is available in the Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions.

Windows HotStart enables compatible computers to start applications directly from operating system startup or resume by the press of a button-this enables what Microsoft has described as appliance-like availability, which allows computers to function in a manner similar to a consumer electronics device such as a DVD player; the feature was also designed to provide the instant-on feature availability that is traditionally associated with mobile devices. While Microsoft has emphasized multimedia scenarios with Windows HotStart, a user can configure this feature so that a button launches a preferred application.

Shadow Copy automatically creates daily backup copies of files and folders. Users can also create "shadow copies" by setting a System Protection Point using the System Protection tab in the System control panel. The user can view multiple versions of a file throughout a limited history and be allowed to restore, delete, or copy those versions. This feature is available only in the Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista and is inherited from Windows Server 2003.

Windows Update: Software and security updates have been simplified, now operating solely via a control panel instead of as a web application. Windows Mail's spam filter and Windows Defender's definitions are updated automatically via Windows Update. Users who choose the recommended setting for Automatic Updates will have the latest drivers installed and available when they add a new device.

Parental controls: Allows administrators to monitor and restrict user activity, as well as control which websites, programs, and games each Standard user can use and install. This feature is not included in the Business or Enterprise editions of Vista.

Windows SideShow: Enables the auxiliary displays on newer laptops or supported Windows Mobile devices. It is meant to be used to display device gadgets while the computer is on or off.

New fonts, including several designed for screen reading, and improved Chinese (Yahei, JhengHei), Japanese (Meiryo), and Korean (Mulgan) fonts. ClearType has also been enhanced and enabled by default.

Improved audio controls allow the system-wide volume or volume of individual audio devices and even individual applications to be controlled separately. New audio functionalities such as room correction, bass management, speaker fill, and headphone virtualization have also been incorporated.

Problem Reports and Solutions, a feature that allows users to check for solutions to problems or view previously sent problems for any solutions or additional information, if available.Windows System Assessment Tool is a tool used to benchmark system performance. Software such as games can retrieve this rating and modify its own behavior at runtime to improve performance. The benchmark tests CPU, RAM, 2-D and 3-D graphics acceleration, graphics memory and hard disk space.

Windows Ultimate Extras: The Ultimate edition of Windows Vista provides, via Windows Update, access to some additional features. These are a collection of additional MUI language packs, Texas Hold 'Em (a Poker game) and Microsoft Tinker (a strategy game where the character is a robot), BitLocker and EFS enhancements that allow users to back up their encryption key online in a Digital Locker, and Windows DreamScene, which enables the use of videos in MPEG and WMV formats as the desktop background. On April 21, 2008, Microsoft launched two more Ultimate Extras; three new Windows sound schemes, and a content pack for DreamScene. Various DreamScene Content Packs have been released since the final version of DreamScene was released.

Digital Locker Assistant: A program that facilitated access to downloads and purchases from the Windows Marketplace distribution platform. Apps purchased from Windows Marketplace are managed by Microsoft Account credentials, which are used to access a user's digital locker that stores the app and its associated information (e.g., licenses) off-site.

Vista includes technologies such as ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive, which employ fast flash memory (located on USB flash drives and hybrid hard disk drives) to improve system performance by caching commonly used programs and data. This manifests itself in improved battery life on notebook computers as well, since a hybrid drive can be spun down when not in use. Another new technology called SuperFetch utilizes machine learning techniques to analyze usage patterns to allow Windows Vista to make intelligent decisions about what content should be present in system memory at any given time. It uses almost all the extra RAM as disk cache. In conjunction with SuperFetch, an automatic built-in Windows Disk Defragmenter makes sure that those applications are strategically positioned on the hard disk where they can be loaded into memory very quickly with the least physical movement of the hard disk's read-write heads.

As part of the redesign of the networking architecture, IPv6 has been fully incorporated into the operating system and a number of performance improvements have been introduced, such as TCP window scaling. Earlier versions of Windows typically needed third-party wireless networking software to work properly, but this is not the case with Vista, which includes more comprehensive wireless networking support.

For graphics, Vista introduces a new Windows Display Driver Model and a major revision to Direct3D. The new driver model facilitates the new Desktop Window Manager, which provides the tearing-free desktop and special effects that are the cornerstones of Windows Aero. Direct3D 10, developed in conjunction with major graphics card manufacturers, is a new architecture with more advanced shader support, and allows the graphics processing unit to render more complex scenes without assistance from the CPU. It features improved load balancing between CPU and GPU and also optimizes data transfer between them. WDDM also provides video content playback that rivals typical consumer electronics devices. It does this by making it easy to connect to external monitors, providing for protected HD video playback, and increasing overall video playback quality. For the first time in Windows, graphics processing unit (GPU) multitasking is possible, enabling users to run more than one GPU-intensive application simultaneously.

At the core of the operating system, many improvements have been made to the memory manager, process scheduler and I/O scheduler. The Heap Manager implements additional features such as integrity checking in order to improve robustness and defend against buffer overflow security exploits, although this comes at the price of breaking backward compatibility with some legacy applications. A Kernel Transaction Manager has been implemented that enables applications to work with the file system and Registry using atomic transaction operations.

Improved security was a primary design goal for Vista. Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative, which aims to improve public trust in its products, has had a direct effect on its development. This effort has resulted in a number of new security and safety features and an Evaluation Assurance Level rating of 4+.

User Account Control, or UAC is perhaps the most significant and visible of these changes. UAC is a security technology that makes it possible for users to use their computer with fewer privileges by default, to stop malware from making unauthorized changes to the system. This was often difficult in previous versions of Windows, as the previous "limited" user accounts proved too restrictive and incompatible with a large proportion of application software, and even prevented some basic operations such as looking at the calendar from the notification tray. In Windows Vista, when an action is performed that requires administrative rights (such as installing/uninstalling software or making system-wide configuration changes), the user is first prompted for an administrator name and password; in cases where the user is already an administrator, the user is still prompted to confirm the pending privileged action. Regular use of the computer such as running programs, printing, or surfing the Internet does not trigger UAC prompts. User Account Control asks for credentials in a Secure Desktop mode, in which the entire screen is dimmed, and only the authorization window is active and highlighted. The intent is to stop a malicious program from misleading the user by interfering with the authorization window, and to hint to the user about the importance of the prompt.

Testing by Symantec Corporation has proven the effectiveness of UAC. Symantec used over 2,000 active malware samples, consisting of backdoors, keyloggers, rootkits, mass mailers, trojan horses, spyware, adware, and various other samples. Each was executed on a default Windows Vista installation within a standard user account. UAC effectively blocked over 50 percent of each threat, excluding rootkits. 5 percent or less of the malware that evaded UAC survived a reboot.

Internet Explorer 7's new security and safety features include a phishing filter, IDN with anti-spoofing capabilities, and integration with system-wide parental controls. For added security, ActiveX controls are disabled by default. Also, Internet Explorer operates in a protected mode, which operates with lower permissions than the user and runs in isolation from other applications in the operating system, preventing it from accessing or modifying anything besides the Temporary Internet Files directory. Microsoft's anti-spyware product, Windows Defender, has been incorporated into Windows, protecting against malware and other threats. Changes to various system configuration settings (such as new auto-starting applications) are blocked unless the user gives consent.

Whereas prior releases of Windows supported per-file encryption using Encrypting File System, the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Vista include BitLocker Drive Encryption, which can protect entire volumes, notably the operating system volume. However, BitLocker requires approximately a 1.5-gigabyte partition to be permanently not encrypted and to contain system files for Windows to boot. In normal circumstances, the only time this partition is accessed is when the computer is booting, or when there is a Windows update that changes files in this area, which is a legitimate reason to access this section of the drive. The area can be a potential security issue, because a hexadecimal editor (such as dskprobe.exe), or malicious software running with administrator and/or kernel level privileges would be able to write to this "Ghost Partition" and allow a piece of malicious software to compromise the system, or disable the encryption. BitLocker can work in conjunction with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) cryptoprocessor (version 1.2) embedded in a computer's motherboard, or with a USB key. However, as with other full disk encryption technologies, BitLocker is vulnerable to a cold boot attack, especially where TPM is used as a key protector without a boot PIN being required too.

A variety of other privilege-restriction techniques are also built into Vista. An example is the concept of "integrity levels" in user processes, whereby a process with a lower integrity level cannot interact with processes of a higher integrity level and cannot perform DLL-injection to processes of a higher integrity level. The security restrictions of Windows services are more fine-grained, so that services (especially those listening on the network) cannot interact with parts of the operating system they do not need to. Obfuscation techniques such as address space layout randomization are used to increase the amount of effort required of malware before successful infiltration of a system. Code integrity verifies that system binaries have not been tampered with by malicious code.

As part of the redesign of the network stack, Windows Firewall has been upgraded, with new support for filtering both incoming and outgoing traffic. Advanced packet filter rules can be created that can grant or deny communications to specific services.

The 64-bit versions of Vista require that all device drivers be digitally signed, so that the creator of the driver can be identified.

While much of the focus of Vista's new capabilities highlighted the new user interface, security technologies, and improvements to the core operating system, Microsoft also adding new deployment and maintenance features:

The Windows Imaging Format (WIM) provides the cornerstone of Microsoft's new deployment and packaging system. WIM files, which contain a HAL-independent image of Windows Vista, can be maintained and patched without having to rebuild new images. Windows Images can be delivered via Systems Management Server or Business Desktop Deployment technologies. Images can be customized and configured with applications then deployed to corporate client personal computers using little to no touch by a system administrator. ImageX is the Microsoft tool used to create and customize images.

Windows Deployment Services replaces Remote Installation Services for deploying Vista and prior versions of Windows.

Approximately 700 new Group Policy settings have been added, covering most aspects of the new features in the operating system, as well as significantly expanding the configurability of wireless networks, removable storage devices, and user desktop experience. Vista also introduced an XML-based format (ADMX) to display registry-based policy settings, making it easier to manage networks that span geographic locations and different languages.

Services for UNIX, renamed as "Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications", comes with the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Vista. Network File System (NFS) client support is also included.

Multilingual User Interface-Unlike previous versions of Windows (which required the loading of language packs to provide local-language support), Windows Vista Ultimate and Enterprise editions support the ability to dynamically change languages based on the logged-on user's preference.

Wireless Projector support

Windows Vista includes a large number of new application programming interfaces. Chief among them is the inclusion of version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which consists of a class library and Common Language Runtime. Version 3.0 includes four new major components:

These technologies are also available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 to facilitate their introduction to and usage by developers and end-users.

There are also significant new development APIs in the core of the operating system, notably the completely re-designed audio, networking, print, and video interfaces, major changes to the security infrastructure, improvements to the deployment and installation of applications (" ClickOnce" and Windows Installer 4.0), new device driver development model (" Windows Driver Foundation"), Transactional NTFS, mobile computing API advancements (power management, Tablet PC Ink support, SideShow) and major updates to (or complete replacements of) many core subsystems such as Winlogon and CAPI.

There are some issues for software developers using some of the graphics APIs in Vista. Games or programs built solely on the Windows Vista-exclusive version of DirectX, version 10, cannot work on prior versions of Windows, as DirectX 10 is not available for previous Windows versions. Also, games that require the features of D3D9Ex, the updated implementation of DirectX 9 in Windows Vista are also incompatible with previous Windows versions. According to a Microsoft blog, there are three choices for OpenGL implementation on Vista. An application can use the default implementation, which translates OpenGL calls into the Direct3D API and is frozen at OpenGL version 1.4, or an application can use an Installable Client Driver (ICD), which comes in two flavors: legacy and Vista-compatible. A legacy ICD disables the Desktop Window Manager, a Vista-compatible ICD takes advantage of a new API, and is fully compatible with the Desktop Window Manager. At least two primary vendors, ATI and NVIDIA provided full Vista-compatible ICDs. However, hardware overlay is not supported, because it is considered as an obsolete feature in Vista. ATI and NVIDIA strongly recommend using compositing desktop/ Framebuffer Objects for same functionality.

Windows Vista is the first Microsoft operating system:

To use DVD-ROM media for installation

That can be installed only on a partition formatted with the NTFS file system

That provides support for loading drivers for SCSI, SATA and RAID controllers from any source in addition to floppy disks prior to its installation

That can be installed on and booted from systems with GPT disks and UEFI firmware

Unification of OEM and retail installation

Windows Vista unifies the previously separate OEM and retail distributions of Microsoft Windows; a license for the edition purchased determines which version of Windows Vista is eligible for installation, regardless of its originating source. OEM and retail versions of Windows before Windows Vista were maintained separately on optical media-users with a manufacturer-supplied disc could not use a retail license during installation, and users with a retail disc could not use an OEM license during installation.

Some notable Windows XP features and components have been replaced or removed in Windows Vista, including several shell and Windows Explorer features, multimedia features, networking related functionality, Windows Messenger, NTBackup, the network Windows Messenger service, HyperTerminal, MSN Explorer, Active Desktop, and the replacement of NetMeeting with Windows Meeting Space. As a result, BOOTMGR in Windows Vista and later versions replaces the functions performed by NTLDR in all Windows NT versions up to Windows XP and directly executes winload.exe, the system loader used to continue the Windows boot process. Windows Vista also does not include the Windows XP " Luna" visual theme, or most of the classic color schemes that have been part of Windows since the Windows 3.x era. The "Hardware profiles" startup feature has also been removed, along with support for older motherboard technologies like the EISA bus, APM and game port support (though on the 32-bit version game port support can be enabled by applying an older driver). IP over FireWire (TCP/IP over IEEE 1394) has been removed as well. The IPX/SPX protocol has also been removed, although it can be enabled by a third-party plug-in.

Support for the original release of Windows Vista (without a service pack) ended on April 13, 2010. Service Pack 1 reached end of support on July 12, 2011, over three years after its general availability.

Mainstream support for Windows Vista officially ended on April 10, 2012. The "Extended Support" phase would last for the next 5 years, until April 11, 2017. Microsoft is no longer offering no-charge incident support, warranty claims, or design fixes for the operating system. For IT pros or users who needed to make specific fixes to the commercial Windows code, Microsoft required an extended hotfix agreement, which provided an additional 90 days from April 10, 2012.

As part of the Extended Support phase, Vista users were still able to get security updates, and could still pay for support per incident, per-hour, or in other ways. Microsoft also made Windows Vista product information available through its online Knowledge Base. On April 11, 2017, support for Windows Vista ended.

Microsoft in 2020 announced that it would disable the Windows Update service for SHA-1 endpoints and since Windows Vista did not get an update for SHA-2, Windows Update Services are no longer available on the OS as of late July 2020. However, as of April 2021, the old updates for Windows Vista are still available on the Microsoft Update Catalog, or through Legacy Update, a community-driven third party replacement for the Windows Vista update servers.

Windows Vista shipped in six different editions. These are roughly divided into two target markets, consumer and business, with editions varying to cater to specific sub-markets. For consumers, there are three editions, with two available for economically more developed countries. Windows Vista Starter edition is aimed at low-powered computers with availability only in emerging markets. Windows Vista Home Basic is intended for budget users. Windows Vista Home Premium covers the majority of the consumer market and contains applications for creating and using multimedia. The home editions cannot join a Windows Server domain. For businesses, there are three editions as well. Windows Vista Business is specifically designed for small and medium-sized enterprises, while Windows Vista Enterprise is only available to customers participating in Microsoft's Software Assurance program. Windows Vista Ultimate contains the complete feature-set of both the Home and Business (combination of both Home Premium and Enterprise) editions, as well as a set of Windows Ultimate Extras, and is aimed at enthusiasts.

All editions except Windows Vista Starter support both 32-bit ( x86) and 64-bit ( x64) processor architectures.

In the European Union, Home Basic N and Business N variants are also available. These come without Windows Media Player, due to EU sanctions brought against Microsoft for violating anti-trust laws. Similar sanctions exist in South Korea.

Windows Vista has four distinct visual styles.

Windows Aero

Vista's default visual style, Windows Aero, is built on a desktop composition engine called Desktop Window Manager. Windows Aero introduces support for translucency effects (Glass), window thumbnails on the taskbar, window animations, and other visual effects (for example Windows Flip 3D), and is intended for mainstream and high-end video cards. To enable these features, the contents of every open window are stored in video memory to facilitate tearing-free movement of windows. As such, Windows Aero has significantly higher hardware requirements than its predecessors: systems running Vista must have video card drivers compatible with the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM), and the minimum graphics memory required is 128 MB, depending on the resolution used.
Windows Aero is not included in the Starter and Home Basic editions. A variant of Windows Aero, dubbed Windows Vista Standard, lacking the glass effects, window animations, and other advanced graphical effects, is included in Home Basic.

Windows Vista Basic

This visual style does not employ the Desktop Window Manager; as such, it does not feature transparency or translucency, window animation, Windows Flip 3D or any of the functions provided by the DWM. It is the default visual style on Windows Vista Starter and on systems without WDDM-compatible display drivers, and has similar video card requirements to Windows XP. Before Service Pack 1, a machine that failed Windows Genuine Advantage validation would also default to this visual style.

Windows Standard

The Windows Standard and Windows Classic visual styles reprise the user interface of Windows 9x, Windows 2000 and Microsoft's Windows Server line of operating systems. As with previous versions of Windows, this visual style supports custom color schemes, which are collections of color settings. Windows Vista includes four high-contrast color schemes and the default color schemes from Windows 98 (titled "Windows Classic") and Windows 2000/Windows Me (titled "Windows Standard").

Computers capable of running Windows Vista are classified as Vista Capable and Vista Premium Ready. A Vista Capable or equivalent PC is capable of running all editions of Windows Vista although some of the special features and high-end graphics options may require additional or more advanced hardware. A Vista Premium Ready PC can take advantage of Vista's high-end features.

Windows Vista's Basic and Classic interfaces work with virtually any graphics hardware that supports Windows XP or 2000; accordingly, most discussion around Vista's graphics requirements centers on those for the Windows Aero interface. As of Windows Vista Beta 2, the NVIDIA GeForce 6 series and later, the ATI Radeon 9500 and later, Intel's GMA 950 and later integrated graphics, and a handful of VIA chipsets and S3 Graphics discrete chips are supported. Although originally supported, the GeForce FX 5 series has been dropped from newer drivers from NVIDIA. The last driver from NVIDIA to support the GeForce FX series on Vista was 96.85. Microsoft offered a tool called the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor to assist Windows XP and Vista users in determining what versions of Windows their machine is capable of running. The required server connections for this utility are no longer available. Although the installation media included in retail packages is a 32-bit DVD, customers needing a CD-ROM or customers who wish for a 64-bit install media can acquire this media through the Windows Vista Alternate Media program. The Ultimate edition includes both 32-bit and 64-bit media. The digitally downloaded version of Ultimate includes only one version, either 32-bit or 64-bit, from Windows Marketplace.

The maximum amount of RAM that Windows Vista can support varies, depending on both its edition and its processor architecture, as shown in the table.

The maximum number of physical processors in a PC that Windows Vista supports is: 2 for Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate, and 1 for Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium.

Microsoft occasionally releases updates such as service packs for its Windows operating systems to fix bugs, improve performance and add new features.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released on February 4, 2008, alongside Windows Server 2008 to OEM partners, after a five-month beta test period. The initial deployment of the service pack caused a number of machines to continually reboot, rendering the machines unusable. This temporarily caused Microsoft to suspend automatic deployment of the service pack until the problem was resolved. The synchronized release date of the two operating systems reflected the merging of the workstation and server kernels back into a single code base for the first time since Windows 2000. MSDN subscribers were able to download SP1 on February 15, 2008. SP1 became available to current Windows Vista users on Windows Update and the Download Center on March 18, 2008. Initially, the service pack only supported five languages - English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese. Support for the remaining 31 languages was released on April 14, 2008.

A white paper, published by Microsoft on August 29, 2007, outlined the scope and intent of the service pack, identifying three major areas of improvement: reliability and performance, administration experience, and support for newer hardware and standards.

One area of particular note is performance. Areas of improvement include file copy operations, hibernation, logging off on domain-joined machines, JavaScript parsing in Internet Explorer, network file share browsing, Windows Explorer ZIP file handling, and Windows Disk Defragmenter. The ability to choose individual drives to defragment is being reintroduced as well.

Service Pack 1 introduced support for some new hardware and software standards, notably the exFAT file system, 802.11n wireless networking, IPv6 over VPN connections, and the Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol.

Booting a system using Extensible Firmware Interface on x64 systems was also introduced; this feature had originally been slated for the initial release of Vista but was delayed due to a lack of compatible hardware at the time. Booting from a GUID Partition Table -based hard drive greater than 2.19 TB is supported (x64 only).

Two areas have seen changes in SP1 that have come as the result of concerns from software vendors. One of these is desktop search; users will be able to change the default desktop search program to one provided by a third party instead of the Microsoft desktop search program that comes with Windows Vista, and desktop search programs will be able to seamlessly tie in their services into the operating system. These changes come in part due to complaints from Google, whose Google Desktop Search application was hindered by the presence of Vista's built-in desktop search. In June 2007, Google claimed that the changes being introduced for SP1 "are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers". The other area of note is a set of new security APIs being introduced for the benefit of antivirus software that currently relies on the unsupported practice of patching the kernel ( see Kernel Patch Protection).

An update to DirectX 10, named DirectX 10.1, marked mandatory several features that were previously optional in Direct3D 10 hardware. Graphics cards will be required to support DirectX 10.1. SP1 includes a kernel (6001.18000) that matches the version shipped with Windows Server 2008.

The Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) was replaced by the Group Policy Object Editor. An updated downloadable version of the Group Policy Management Console was released soon after the service pack.

SP1 enables support for hotpatching, a reboot-reduction servicing technology designed to maximize uptime. It works by allowing Windows components to be updated (or "patched") while they are still in use by a running process. Hotpatch-enabled update packages are installed via the same methods as traditional update packages, and will not trigger a system reboot.

Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 was released through different channels between April and June 2009, one year after the release of Windows Vista SP1, and four months before the release of Windows 7. In addition to a number of security and other fixes, a number of new features have been added. However, it did not include Internet Explorer 8, but instead was included in Windows 7, which was released four months after Vista SP2.

Windows Search 4 (available for SP1 systems as a standalone update)

Feature Pack for Wireless adds support for Bluetooth 2.1

Windows Feature Pack for Storage enables the data recording onto Blu-ray media

Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi configuration

Improved support for resuming with active Wi-Fi connections

Improved support for eSATA drives

The limit of 10 half-open, outgoing TCP connections introduced in Windows XP SP2 was removed

Enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones

Support for ICCD/CCID smart cards

Support for VIA 64-bit CPUs

Improved performance and responsiveness with the RSS feeds sidebar

Improves audio and video performance for streaming high-definition content

Improves Windows Media Center (WMC) in content protection for TV

Provides an improved power management policy that is approximately 10% more efficient than the original with the default policies

Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 share a single service pack binary, reflecting the fact that their code bases were joined with the release of Server 2008. Service Pack 2 is not a cumulative update meaning that Service Pack 1 must be installed first.

The Platform Update for Windows Vista was released on October 27, 2009. It includes major new components that shipped with Windows 7, as well as updated runtime libraries. It requires Service Pack 2 of Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 and is listed on Windows Update as a Recommended download.

The Platform Update allows application developers to target both Windows Vista and Windows 7. It consists of the following components:

Some updates are available as separate releases for both Windows XP and Windows Vista:

Although extensive, the Platform Update does not bring Windows Vista to the level of features and performance offered by Windows 7. For example, even though Direct3D 11 runtime will be able to run on D3D9-class hardware and WDDM drivers using " feature levels" first introduced in Direct3D 10.1, Desktop Window Manager has not been updated to use Direct3D 10.1.

In July 2011, Microsoft released the Platform Update Supplement for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, which contains several bug fixes and performance improvements.

BlueKeep patch

Microsoft has released an update for Windows Vista SP2 to resolve the BlueKeep security vulnerability ( CVE- 2019-0708), which affects the Remote Desktop Protocol in older Windows versions. Subsequent related flaws, CVE- 2019-1181, CVE- 2019-1182, CVE- 2019-1222 and CVE- 2019-1226 (collectively known as DejaBlue) do not affect Windows Vista or earlier versions of Windows. The installation of this patch changed the build number of Windows Vista from 6002 to 6003.

Text Services Framework patch

The Text Services Framework was compromised by a privilege escalation vulnerability ( CVE- 2019-1162) that could allow attackers to use the framework to perform privileged operations, run software, or send messages to privileged processes from unprivileged processes-bypassing security features such as sandboxes or User Account Control. Microsoft remediated issues related to this vulnerability with the release of a patch in August 2019 for Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2, and later versions of Windows.

Malware Protection Engine patch

A vulnerability related to Windows Defender that affected the way the Malware Protection Engine operates ( CVE- 2017-0290) was reported in May 2017. If Windows Defender scanned a specially crafted file, it would lead to memory corruption, potentially allowing an attacker to control the affected machine or perform arbitrary code execution in the context of LocalSystem; the vulnerability was exacerbated by the default real-time protection settings of Windows Defender, which were configured to automatically initiate malware scans at regular intervals. The first version of the Protection Engine affected by the vulnerability is Version 1.1.13701.0-subsequent versions of the engine are unaffected. Microsoft released a patch to address the issue.

Windows Vista received mixed to negative reviews at the time of its release and throughout its lifespan, mainly for its much higher hardware requirements and perceived slowness compared to Windows XP.

It received generally positive reviews from PC gamers who praised the advantages brought by DirectX 10, which allowed for better gaming performance and more realistic graphics, as well as support for many new capabilities featured in new GPUs. However, many DirectX 9 games initially ran with lower frame rates compared to when they were run on Windows XP. In mid-2008, benchmarks suggested that the SP1 update improved performance to be on par with (or better than) Windows XP in terms of game performance.

Peter Bright of Ars Technica wrote that, despite its delays and feature cuts, Windows Vista was "a huge evolution in the history of the NT platform [...] The fundamental changes to the platform are of a scale not seen since the release of NT [3.1; the first version]." In a continuation of his previous assessment, Bright stated that "Vista is not simply XP with a new skin; core parts of the OS have been radically overhauled, and virtually every area has seen significant refinement. In terms of the magnitude and extent of these changes, Vista represents probably the biggest leap that the NT platform has ever seen. Never before have significant subsystems been gutted and replaced in the way they are in Vista." Many others in the tech industry echoed these sentiments at the time, directing praise towards the massive amount of technical features new to Windows Vista.

Windows Vista received the "Best of CES" award at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2007.

In its first year of availability, rated it as the biggest tech disappointment of 2007, and it was rated by as No. 2 of Tech's all-time 25 flops. Microsoft's then much smaller competitor Apple noted that, despite Vista's far greater sales, its own operating system did not seem to have suffered after its release, and would later invest in advertising mocking Vista's unpopularity with users.

Computer manufacturers such as Dell, Lenovo, and Hewlett-Packard released their newest computers with Windows Vista pre-installed; however, after the negative reception of the operating system, they also began selling their computers with Windows XP CDs included because of a drop in sales.

A Gartner research report predicted that Vista business adoption in 2008 would overtake that of XP during the same time frame (21.3% vs. 16.9%) while IDC had indicated that the launch of Windows Server 2008 served as a catalyst for the stronger adoption rates. As of January 2009, Forrester Research had indicated that almost one third of North American and European corporations had started deploying Vista. At a May 2009 conference, a Microsoft Vice President said "Adoption and deployment of Windows Vista has been slightly ahead of where we had been with XP" for big businesses.

The internet-usage market share for Windows Vista after two years of availability, in January 2009, was 20.61%. This figure combined with World Internet Users and Population Stats yielded a user base of roughly 330 million, which exceeded Microsoft's two-year post launch expectations by 130 million. The internet user base reached before the release of its successor (Windows 7) was roughly 400 million according to the same statistical sources.

Windows Vista received mixed reviews. Criticism targets include protracted development time (5-6 years), more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of several technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, and the usability of the new User Account Control security technology. Moreover, some concerns have been raised about many PCs meeting "Vista Premium Ready" hardware requirements and Vista's pricing.

While in 2005 Microsoft claimed "nearly all PCs on the market today will run Windows Vista", the higher requirements of some of the "premium" features, such as the Aero interface, affected many upgraders. According to the UK newspaper in May 2006, the full set of features "would be available to less than 5 percent of Britain's PC market"; however, this prediction was made several months before Vista was released. This continuing lack of clarity eventually led to a class action against Microsoft as people found themselves with new computers that were unable to use the new software to its full potential despite the assurance of "Vista Capable" designations. The court case has made public internal Microsoft communications that indicate that senior executives have also had difficulty with this issue. For example, Mike Nash (Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Management) commented, "I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine" because of his laptop's lack of an appropriate graphics chip so hobbled Vista.

Criticism of upgrade licenses pertaining to Windows Vista Starter through Home Premium was expressed by Ars Technica's Ken Fisher, who noted that the new requirement of having a prior operating system already installed was going to irritate users who reinstall Windows regularly. It has been revealed that an Upgrade copy of Windows Vista can be installed clean without first installing a previous version of Windows. On the first install, Windows will refuse to activate. The user must then reinstall that same copy of Vista. Vista will then activate on the reinstall, thus allowing a user to install an Upgrade of Windows Vista without owning a previous operating system. As with Windows XP, separate rules still apply to OEM versions of Vista installed on new PCs: Microsoft asserts that these versions are not legally transferable (although whether this conflicts with the right of first sale has yet to be clearly decided legally).

Initially, the cost of Windows Vista was also a source of concern and commentary. A majority of users in a poll said that the prices of various Windows Vista editions posted on the Microsoft Canada website in August 2006 make the product too expensive. A BBC News report on the day of Vista's release suggested that, "there may be a backlash from consumers over its pricing plans-with the cost of Vista versions in the US roughly half the price of equivalent versions in the UK." Since the release of Vista in 2006, Microsoft has reduced the retail, and upgraded the price point of Vista. Originally, Vista Ultimate was priced at $399, and Home Premium Vista at $239. These prices have since been reduced to $319 and $199 respectively.

Windows Vista supports additional forms of DRM restrictions. One aspect of this is the Protected Video Path, which is designed so that "premium content" from HD DVD or Blu-ray Discs may mandate that the connections between PC components be encrypted. Depending on what the content demands, the devices may not pass premium content over non-encrypted outputs, or they must artificially degrade the quality of the signal on such outputs or not display it at all. Drivers for such hardware must be approved by Microsoft; a revocation mechanism is also included, which allows Microsoft to disable drivers of devices in end-user PCs over the Internet. Peter Gutmann, security researcher and author of the open source cryptlib library, claims that these mechanisms violate fundamental rights of the user (such as fair use), unnecessarily increase the cost of hardware, and make systems less reliable (the "tilt bit" being a particular worry; if triggered, the entire graphic subsystem performs a reset) and vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks. However, despite several requests for evidence supporting such claims Peter Gutmann has never supported his claims with any researched evidence. Proponents have claimed that Microsoft had no choice but to follow the demands of the movie studios, and that the technology will not actually be enabled until after 2010; Microsoft also noted that content protection mechanisms have existed in Windows as far back as Windows ME, and that the new protections will not apply to any existing content, only future content.

End-users of licenses of Windows 7 acquired through OEM or volume licensing may downgrade to the equivalent edition of Windows Vista. Downgrade rights are not offered for Starter, Home Basic or Home Premium editions of Windows 7. For Windows 8 licenses acquired through an OEM, a user may also downgrade to the equivalent edition of Windows Vista. Customers licensed for use of Windows 8 Enterprise are generally licensed for Windows 8 Pro, which may be downgraded to Windows Vista Business.

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Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years earlier, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft's Windows desktop operating systems. Development was completed on November 8, 2006, and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels.

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מטוס קונקרד מטוס נוסעים הכי מהיר שכשל
https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%93

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יאנה, חניל ואיתן

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יאנה, חניל ואיתן

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Bolit
Customer service, finance and administration system

Too complicated, bad functioning, cost overrun. The project was after completion never used, the agency still today does not have a working IT system.[3][4]

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האפליקציה irecorder screen recorder
חוקרי סייבר גילו שהיא ריגלה אחר משתמשים..
כסוס טרויאני לגישה מרחוק.

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https://www.trainingbytesize.com/12-failed-projects-lessons-learned/

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https://www.trainingbytesize.com/12-failed-projects-lessons-learned/

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A $2 billion air traffic control system failed due to insufficient computer memory

https://www.exoplatform.com/blog/5-of-the-biggest-information-technology-failures-and-scares/

The system failure was sparked due to a U-2 spy plane that was flying through the region. The $2.4 billion system, made by Lockheed Martin Corp, cycled off and on trying to fix the error, which was due to a lack of altitude information in the airplane’s flight plan. After an air traffic controller entered an estimated altitude of the plane, the system calculated all possible flight paths to ensure that it was not on a crash course with other planes. However, that process caused the system to fall short in memory and shut down every other flight processing function.

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https://raygun.com/blog/costly-software-errors-history/
EDS child support system 2004

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11 of the most costly software errors in history | Raygun Blog

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Software errors can cause chaos, with costs that bring down businesses or even governments. Not even NASA is immune from code errors - here are the most costly bugs, crashes and outages of all time.

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שחר וכילר & שחר דלאל

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שחר וכילר & שחר דלאל

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מסעדה באמריקה פרסמה שכעת הם מוכרים את ההמבורגרים בגודל שלם או בחלקים, ולגבי השליש הם החליטו למכור במחיר של רבע המבורגר אבל האמריקנים לא אהבו את זה כי הם חשבו שזה הפוך
יענו rip off

מצורף קישור:

https://bettermarketing.pub/the-a-w-third-pounder-failed-because-people-didnt-understand-fractions-a86b966a973a

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חברה ששאפה לייצר תעשיית רכב ירוקה ויעילה יותר אך הדרישות הגבוהות גרמו לחוסר יעילות.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)

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Better Place was a venture-backed international company that developed and sold battery charging and battery switching services for electric cars. It was formally based in Palo Alto, California, but the bulk of its planning and operations were steered from Israel, where both its founder Shai Agassi and its chief investors resided.

The company opened its first functional charging station the first week of December 2008 at Cinema City in Pi-Glilot near Tel Aviv, Israel. The first customer deliveries of Renault Fluence Z.E. electric cars enabled with battery switching technology began in Israel in the second quarter of 2012, and at peak in mid September 2012, there were 21 operational battery-swap stations open to the public in Israel.

Better Place filed for bankruptcy in Israel in May 2013. The company's financial difficulties were caused by mismanagement, wasteful efforts to establish toeholds and run pilots in too many countries, the high investment required to develop the charging and swapping infrastructure, and a market penetration far lower than originally predicted by Shai Agassi. Fewer than 1,000 Fluence Z.E. cars were deployed in Israel and around 400 units in Denmark, after spending about US$850 million in private capital. After two failed post-bankruptcy acquisition attempts, the bankruptcy receivers sold off the remaining assets in November 2013 to Gnrgy for only $450,000.

The company was publicly launched on October 29, 2007, as Project Better Place , by Shai Agassi, the company's founder and CEO at the time. According to Agassi, his vision was inspired by a question asked by Klaus Schwab at the 2005 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: "How do you make the world a better place by 2020?" As of January 2011 it had raised $700 million, and about a third was spent in setting up the battery switch stations. Also, several countries and states had offered tax breaks.

Better Place announced deployment of electric vehicle networks in Israel, Denmark and Hawaii in 2008 and 2009. The company planned to deploy the infrastructure on a country-by-country basis, and said it was in talks with more than 25 additional regions around the world. Australia, Ontario, Oregon, and California also announced deployment of Better Place electric car networks.

In January 2008, Better Place announced a memorandum of understanding with Renault-Nissan to build the world's first Electric Recharge Grid Operator (ERGO) model for Israel. Under the agreement, Better Place would build the electric recharge grid, and Renault-Nissan would provide the electric vehicles.

A shut-down battery swap station in Katzrin, Israel

On October 2, 2012, Agassi resigned from his role as worldwide Better Place CEO, and was replaced by Evan Thornley, CEO of Better Place-Australia. Agassi briefly remained on the company board, but a week later he resigned from that position as well. A few days after Thornley's appointment, Better Place asked its investors for a round of emergency funding, totalling about $100 million. On October 29, 2012, Ynet reported that Better Place would that week lay off 150 to 200 of its 400-person staff in Israel as it sought financing to combat its cash-flow problems.

In late January 2013, Thornley was fired by Chairman Idan Ofer, and Dan Cohen was named acting CEO by the board. As a consequence of the financial problems, the Australian rollout was put on hold, as the company decided to concentrate on its two existing markets. However, on 26 May 2013, Better Place filed for bankruptcy in Israel. Following the decision of the board of directors of the global company, Better Place Danmark A/S also decided to initiate bankruptcy proceedings on the same date.

The company's financial difficulties were caused by the high investment required to develop the charging and swapping infrastructure, about US$850 million in private capital, and market penetration significantly lower than originally predicted by Shai Agassi, who expected 100,000 cars on Israeli roads by 2010. Fewer than 1,000 Fluence Z.E. cars were deployed in Israel and around 400 cars in Denmark. Under Better Place's business model, the company owned the Fluence Z.E. batteries, so the court liquidator would have to decide what to do with customers who do not have ownership of the battery and risk being left with a useless car.

In July 2013, an attempt to acquire Better Place was made by the Sunrise group that comprised entrepreneur Yosef Abramowitz and the Association for the Advancement of Electric Transportation in Israel. Court filings showed that the acquisition would be worth 18 million Israeli shekels (US$5 million) for Better Place's assets in Israel, and 25 million Israeli shekels (US$7 million) for its intellectual property, held by Better Place Switzerland. The deal was canceled by the court after the Sunrise group failed to make the first agreed payment of 3.52 million shekels (US$976,300), even after an extension.

In August 2013, the Central District Court ruled that Better Place Israel would be sold to Success Assets Ltd., owned by Tsahi Merkur, for 11 million shekels (US$3million). To effect the acquisition, Merkur was to sign a personal guarantee within seven days for the full amount of the acquisition, and a personal guarantee for a letter of indemnification covering the guarantees made by Better Place Israel's subsidiaries to the Ministry of Transport. Within 21 days, Merkur was to deposit with the company's special managers an opinion on a property on which a commitment to register a lien of up to 5 million shekels would be placed. By 30 September 2013 he was to make a payment of 2 million shekels. On 17 October 2013 the deal was canceled after Success Assets failed to make the required payments.

In November 2013, the court-appointed receivers decided to sell the remaining assets of Better Place in parts and liquidate the business.

Electric forklifts have used battery swapping since at least 1946 and a rapid battery replacement system was implemented to help maintain 50 electric buses at the 2008 Summer Olympics in China.

Better Place implemented a business model wherein customers entered into subscriptions to purchase driving distance similar to the mobile telephone industry from which customers contract for minutes of airtime. The initial cost of an electric vehicle might also have been subsidized by the ongoing per-distance revenue contract just as mobile handset purchases are subsidized by per-minute mobile service contracts. Better Place's goal was to enable electric cars to sell for $5,000 less than the price of the average gasoline car sold in the United States, or the impact of electric cars would be minimal. For example, the Prius hybrid had been sold for 13 years at a price of $4,000 more than other gasoline cars and had captured less than 2% of the worldwide car market.

The Better Place approach was to enable manufacturing and sales of different electric cars separately from their standardized batteries in the same way that petrol cars are sold separately from their fuel. Petrol is not purchased upfront, but is bought a few times a month when the fuel tank needs filling. Similarly, the Better Place monthly payment would cover electric "fuel" costs including battery, daily charging and battery swaps. Better Place was to allow customers to pay incrementally for battery costs including electric power, battery life, degradation, warranty problems, maintenance, capital cost, quality, technology advancement and anything else related to the battery. The per-distance fees would cover battery pack leasing, charging and swap infrastructure, purchasing sustainable electricity, profits, and the cost of investor capital. All battery problems would be handled by Better Place which would then bundle the costs and bill their customers monthly for providing all the infrastructure.

The Better Place electric car charging infrastructure network was based on a smart grid software platform using Intel Atom processors and .NET Framework, or comparable vendors. This platform was first of its kind in the world and was to enable Better Place to manage the charging of hundreds of thousands of electric cars simultaneously by automatically time-shifting recharging away from peak demand hours of the day, preventing overload of the electrical grid of the host country. According to Agassi, Better Place would be able to provide electricity for millions of electric cars without adding a single electricity generator or transmission line by using smart software that oversaw and managed the recharging of electric cars connected with Better Place. An analysis of this business model and some of the missing considerations was late developed by the University of Denmark.

Better Place encouraged governments to mandate the use of international standards and open access to recharge across charging networks to facilitate competing networks. Standardization efforts such as SAE J1772, however, had not yet yielded global consensus as of August 2009. Better Place displayed Charge Spot charging stations that used a connector with the same pin layout as SAE J1772-2009 but housed in a non-standard, triangular plug. They also displayed a wall mounted charging station using IEC 62196 Type 2 receptacle. Battery pack switching outside of Better Place's network was not to be allowed. Better Place said it had pre-sold enough contracts to make its first deployed network in Israel profitable at launch.

Agassi stated that the company's plan was to have the network's electricity generated entirely by renewable energy from solar arrays and wind farms if necessary, thus invalidating the "long-smokestack" accusation leveled against electric vehicles which rely on the nonrenewable sources of the electricity. However, achieving the 100% renewable energy goal would have depended on the local electric grid's energy sources.

In Israel, where the first Better Place deployment took place, the electric grid is based mostly on fossil fuels, rendering the renewable energy vision practically impossible in the short term.

Prototype modified Renault Laguna EVs charging at the Better Place visitor centre in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, north of Tel Aviv.

Nissan eRogue in Hawaii.

The first prototype car was the Renault Laguna with a battery instead of a fuel tank and an electric motor instead of an internal combustion engine. The battery for electric vehicles was a Lithium iron phosphate ion device. The range of the car running on just one battery was from about 160 kilometres (99 mi) to 190 kilometres (120 mi). By replacing the battery at a battery switch station, the range between longer charging stops was to be limited only by the geographical distribution of the battery-swapping infrastructure.

The Renault Fluence Z.E. was announced at the Frankfurt Motor Show on September 15, 2009, as the first electric car to be available on the Better Place network using a switchable battery. Shai Agassi said that EVs had to be priced at $5,000 less than the price of the average gasoline car to be successful. In April 2010 Renault announced that sales of the Fluence Z.E. were scheduled for 2011 in Israel, Denmark and the rest of Europe. In August 2010 Better Place announced a non-binding order of 100,000 Renault Fluence ZE and four months later Better Place claimed to have sold 70,000 cars from that order, a year away from the public launch of its network.

The floor-mounted battery packs in these electric cars were designed to be changed out robotically in less than two minutes, which was quicker than the average petroleum refuel, allowing for battery-swap services like those proposed by Better Place and Tesla Motors. Better Place expected battery packs to cost between US 4¢ and 5¢ per mile over their life, provide the cars with a 160 km (99 mi) range per charge, perform for 2000 recharge cycles, and last for 8 years.

With areas around cities covered with battery switching stations, also called battery-swap stations, drivers would potentially have electric cars with an unlimited driving range for long-distance trips. The QuickDrop battery switch system would enable Renault Fluence Z.E.'s battery, the only vehicle deployed in the Better Place network, to be swapped in approximately three minutes at dedicated battery exchange stations. The actual robotic battery switching operation took about five minutes in the deployed stations. While each exchange station would cost $500,000, the then CEO of Better Place, Shai Agassi, said that cost would be half the price of a typical petroleum fuelling station.

Better Place's battery switching Station in Israel

During 2010, Better Place operated a demonstration battery switch station in Tokyo allowing three specially equipped cabs to exchange their car's depleted battery pack for a 100 miles (160 km) fully recharged one in 59.1 seconds on average. Better Place used the same technology to swap batteries that F-16 jet fighter aircraft use to load their bombs.

Better Place battery switch stations were claimed to support multiple battery types of all kinds of electric cars as long as the battery could be removed from under the car. A battery switch station using only 15 batteries allegedly had the ability to swap batteries for 2,500 EV's. Better Place claimed it had battery station installation teams who could install one battery switch station in just two days, one every 25 miles in every route and at the same cost of 7 days of oil in the United States, Better Place claimed it could cover all of the United States with battery switch stations and all the required infrastructure.

The main alternative technology to the battery switching technique promoted by Better Place is DC fast charging. A nationwide fast charging infrastructure is/was being deployed in the United States that by 2013 would cover the entire nation. DC Fast Chargers are going to be installed at 45 BP and ARCO locations and will be made available to the public as early as March 2011.

Better Place claimed that its subscription model had customers effectively paying only the prorated mileage cost without any battery ownership problems, whereas the fast charging model involves the customer bearing all the battery purchase, ownership, maintenance, and replacement costs, in addition to the cost of the electricity to recharge the battery.

Better Place claimed that far fewer fast charging and battery switch stations would be needed than the current number of petroleum fuel refill stations, because drivers would usually recharge ("refuel") electric cars at home, offices, shopping centers, commercial areas, and the like. Drivers would need alternatives only if they forgot to recharge, couldn't get to a charge spot, had insufficient time at a charge spot, or were driving non-stop in excess of 160-kilometre (99 mi), typical of long distance vacations and business trips.

On May 13, 2009, Better Place premiered their battery switching station to the public in Yokohama where they had been invited by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment. The battery switching station demonstrated was set up similarly to a gas station automatic car wash. The vehicle drove up on a ramp and was aligned on the swapping pad. The battery shuttle then engaged and rose up toward the bottom of the vehicle. It made contact with the battery, released it, lowered it, and moved the depleted battery pack away from the car. The charged battery pack was then inserted. The discharged battery was returned to the charging bay. The battery switch was complete in less than two minutes and the vehicle drove away. The battery swap was designed to require less time than filling a tank of gas. In order to keep electric vehicles in demand, Better Place was going to try to keep the vehicles competitive with the other cars on the market. By building infrastructure that made owning an electric car more practical, they hoped to increase demand.

The first prototype battery switch station opened in Yokohama, Japan on May 14, 2009, was designed by Yoav Heichal, chief engineer for Better Place research and development group.

The company signed an agreement with Dor Alon Energy to install battery replacement points, which would run alongside the petroleum refueling station' normal business. Dor Alon CEO, Israel Yaniv, said, "Dor Alon is the first energy company that will enable owners of electric car owners of the future to obtain electric refueling services at its gas stations. We consider this agreement with Better Place to be a strategic partnership that will create real value and innovation for the company's activity."

In April 2010, a 90-day switchable-battery electric taxi demonstration project was launched in Tokyo, using three Nissan Rogue crossover utility vehicles, converted into electric cars with switchable batteries provided by A123 Systems. The battery switch station deployed in Tokyo was more advanced than the Yokohama switch system demonstrated in 2009. During the three-month field test the EV taxis accumulated over 25,000 miles (40,000 km) and swapped batteries 2,122 times, with an average battery swap time of 59.1 seconds. Nissan decided to continue the trial until late November 2010.

In October 2010 Better Place announced its commitment to launch a three-year demonstration program with electric-powered taxis in the San Francisco Bay Area, in partnership with the cities of San Francisco and San Jose, California, taxi operators and carsharing programs, regional and state agencies, consumer and EV organizations, and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The program would deploy and operate four battery switching stations in the San Francisco to San Jose corridor to support a fleet of switchable-battery EV taxis. As of December 2011, Better Place had made no further statements of progress on this program.

A battery-powered 10-taxi demonstration project was launched at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, in 2012.

As of 2010, the company had raised US$700 million from various sources including, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Israel Corporation (33% ownership), Israel Cleantech Ventures, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Acorns to Oaks II, Esarbee Investments Canada, GC Investments LLC, Musea Ventures, Ofer Group, Vyikra Partners, Wolfensohn & Co. and Maniv Energy Capital. In late 2007, Agassi began raising US$111 million in Series-A funding for the project, one of the largest and fastest seed rounds in history. Investors included VantagePoint Venture Partners, Israel Corporation, Israel Cleantech Ventures, Morgan Stanley, and private investors led by Michael Granoff of Maniv Energy Capital. In 2009, the company raised an additional US$135 million for Better Place Denmark, including an investment from DONG Energy, the leading utility in Denmark. Following the announcement in Israel, Better Place said it had launched its network in Denmark, Australia and in two United States locations - Hawaii and Northern California. The company said it was in talks with more than 25 countries around the world.

In Australia, Better Place announced agreements with AGL Energy and financial advisor Macquarie Capital Group to raise A$ 1,000,000,000 and begin deploying an electric vehicle (EV) network powered by renewable energy. According to Better Place, its model for sustainable mobility would help Australia move toward oil independence. With the world's seventh highest per capita rate of car ownership, the country had nearly 15 million cars on the road after adding over a million new cars in 2007.

In January 2010, as Israel Corporation completed its investment of US$100 million in the company, a consortium of investors signed a Series-B funding round to invest a further US$350 million in Better Place, citing their confidence that "Better Place has the technical and commercial solutions to allow for the mass adoption of electric cars in the near term." The Series-B round was led by HSBC, which invested US$125 million, and included all Series-A investors plus Morgan Stanley Investment Management and Lazard Asset Management. The deal represented one of the largest financial investments of its kind by HSBC, which gained a seat on the Better Place board of directors and approximately 10% of the company's shares.

From its early days, doubts were raised as to the effectiveness of Better Place's centralised model of providing charging infrastructure, with some anticipating that the model would not be widely adopted.

Further partnerships with other manufacturers were not announced, and Peter Rawlinson, VP and Chief Engineer for Vehicle Engineering at Tesla was quoted as saying "Different batteries suit different cars. It's far too simplistic to look at batteries as isolation,"

Better Place also announced plans to develop electric recharge grids in the city of San Francisco and the state of Hawaii.

In March 2008, Deutsche Bank analysts issued a glowing report on the company stating that its approach could be a "paradigm shift" that caused "massive disruption" to the auto industry, and which had "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine altogether." Three months later, the same institution issued a second report, finding "electric vehicles destined for much more growth than is widely perceived". The same report stated that "[i]mprovements in battery technology will allow for increased power, increased electrical propulsion, and bigger gains in fuel economy."

In 2009, CBS Money Watch cast doubts on Better Place's business model, noting that it would cost up to $500,000 to construct a battery switching station

A Better Place Mitsubishi i-MiEV company car in Melbourne.

A public Better Place charging station in Canberra.

In Australia a roll-out of 500 charge stations was planned to begin in the major eastern coast cities before expanding nationally. It was estimated that these would give comparable coverage to the existing 13,000 petrol stations then in operation. The total cost of this roll out was claimed to be between $1 and $1.25 billion AUD.

The first charge spot was installed in Canberra in late 2011, but in January 2013, after fewer than 20 public charge spots had been installed the rollout was halted and the board of Better Place decided to concentrate on its two existing markets, Israel and Denmark.

In 2011, Better Place announced an agreement with China Southern Power Grid Company, the world's eighth-largest utility company. Before the end of the year, Better Place was going to open a battery switch station and joint education center in the southern city of Guangzhou. Shai Agassi said that China Southern Grid was embracing battery switch as the primary means of range extension. China Southern Grid Chairman Zhao Jianguo said that the battery-switch model might become mainstream in China and that the joint visitor center and battery switch demonstration project with Better Place would help promote electric-car adoption in China by allowing potential customers to experience this innovative solution.

China Southern Power Grid pilot projects and other joint activities were supposed to explore the benefits that switchable-battery electric cars and the networked infrastructure that supports them might deliver to the electric grid in CSG's service area, which spanned five provinces, one million square kilometers, and 230 million people in Southern China.

Electric utility State Grid Corporation of China planned to build over 2,351 electric-charging and battery-swap stations by 2016. These would have had 220,000 charging poles, but they did not indicate how many, if any, of them would have been battery-swap stations. The director of the State Grid smart grid research center commented "The construction of a large-scale charging station costs 20 to 30 million yuan ($3.05-4.57 million) and a small-scale one costs less than 10 million yuan, but it costs more than 100 million yuan to build a battery-swap station."

In April 2010, Better Place signed a memorandum of understanding with Chery Automobile, China's biggest independent car maker, to develop prototypes for electric vehicles to be used in regional state-sponsored pilot projects.

The Renault Fluence Z.E. was the electric car available on the Better Place network in Israel and Denmark.

A Better Place battery swap station in Denmark.

Better Place partnered with Denmark's leading energy company, DONG Energy, in a €103 million Euro (770 million Danish Kroner) investment to introduce electric cars and infrastructure to Denmark. The country currently generates 20% of its electric power from wind energy, but much of it is exported because there is currently no way for utilities to store the excess power. Using the Better Place model, DONG hoped to take advantage of the existing electric grid and electric vehicle batteries to harness and store the abundance of wind-generated power, and distribute it appropriately for transportation consumption.

The Renault Fluence Z.E. sold in Denmark at a price of 205,000 DKK (€27,496 or US$38,378) including VAT plus the monthly fee for the switchable-battery. Consumers paid a one-time fee of 9,995 DKK (€1,341) for a private charging station and customers were offered a choice of five fixed-price switchable-battery packages based on kilometers driven per year. For more than 40,000 km (25,000 mi) a year the monthly fee was 2,995 DKK (€399) per month. The network commercial launch was in late 2011.

The first battery switch station in Denmark, out of 20 which were planned to be deployed across the country as part of the network of charging infrastructure, was unveiled in June 2011 at in Gladsaxe, near Copenhagen. Sales of the Fluence Z.E. began in late 2011, and 198 units were sold in Denmark through December 2012. Cumulative sales through April 2013 reached 234 units.

As of December 2012 there were 17 fully operational battery switch stations in the country, enabling Danish customers to drive anywhere across the country in an electric car. On 26 May 2013, and following the decision of the Board of Directors of Better Place's global company, Better Place Danmark A/S decided to begin bankruptcy proceedings. Because the batteries are owned by Better Place, Renault announced it would honor the existing agreement to around 500 customers that bought their electric cars through Better Place.

Better Place deployed about 80 charging stations and 154 charge points in Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island, and had almost 700 customers. The operation of the charging stations was acquired in March 2013 by OpConnect. No interruption of service was expected due to Better Place bankruptcy.

Parade of Renault Fluence Z.E. electric cars enabled with battery swapping technology to commemorate the first deliveries to Better Place employees in Israel in January 2012.[127][128]

Renault Fluence Z.E. sold through Better Place in Israel.

Better Place charging stations outside the Leonardo Club Hotel in Tiberias.

Battery switch stations were supposedly opening to customers almost weekly in 2012. That map indicates with "orange circles" the handful of battery switch stations available in June 2012, and shows with "grey circles" the full buildout of battery switch stations expected by year's end. The Baran Group signed an agreement with Better Place stating its intention to build 51 battery switch stations over the course of 2011 to cover all of Israel. However progress was not nearly as rapid as was planned.

According to the Financial Times around 400 corporations in Israel signed letters of intent to begin switching their fleets to Better Place electric car network as soon as the service becomes available. This represented a potential of 80,000 electric cars. Out of the 100,000 Renault Fluence Z.E. that Better Place agreed to buy from Renault, the company claimed to have already signed around 70,000 orders, most of them from commercial fleet customers.

Better Place launched its first battery-swapping station in Israel, in Kiryat Ekron, near Rehovot in March 2011. The station was supposed to be the first of approximately 40 stations to begin operating in the near term. The battery exchange process took five minutes. The company also erected over 1,000 functional charging spots for the cars and thousands more were supposed to be put in place by the end of 2011, according to the CEO of Better Place Israel.

Orders for the Renault Fluence ZE in Israel began in July 2011. According to Better Place, their customers regular maintenance costs would be about 40% less than for regular family cars, insurance also will be less at around NIS 3,700 a year, and its comprehensive solution of electric car and services would cut annual vehicle maintenance costs by 20%.

The first deliveries of the Renault Fluence Z.E. took place on 22 January 2012 and around 100 electric cars were allocated to Better Place's employees. Better Place planned a staged delivery process as the infrastructure across the country was completed. Retail customer deliveries began in the second quarter of 2012. As of mid September 2012, there were 21 operational battery-swap stations open to the public in Israel. Cumulative sales through July 2012 reached 300 cars, and as of the end of October, just 490 cars had been sold, making the company's target of 4,000 customers by June 2013 a difficult goal to achieve. In October 2012, Better Place signed a deal with Elco to supply 125 cars worth NIS 15m. The 125 Renault Fluence ZEs were to be delivered through 2012 and 2013. As of December 2012, a total of 518 cars were sold in the country. In the first four months of 2013, a total 422 cars were sold, bringing the total to 940. Alan Gelman, chief financial officer said in January 2013 that the company had turned a corner in recent weeks with large sales to fleets and that the days of not selling cars were over Nevertheless, on 26 May 2013 the company filed for bankruptcy in Israel.

Charging spot in Israel

Better Place wanted electric car customers who could make a successful transition from range anxiety to ordinary range awareness within the company's growing infrastructure. During the sales process, Better Place aimed to educate and assess each customer's electric car suitability. The company was going to exclude drivers frequently traveling irregular routes that span the country. Eventually, Israel was supposed to have enough battery switch stations and recharging spots at parking garages, shopping centers, hotels, commercial areas, and elsewhere, to cater for most drivers.

At minimum, customers needed dedicated off-road parking at home and, for higher mileage drivers, Better Place was going to install charging spots at people's workplace. The preferred high-mileage customer might commute 130-kilometre (81 mi) each way between home and office. Lower distance customers might only need their home charging spot, with battery switching being infrequent.

Electric cars are not allowed by law to directly plug into ordinary Israeli electrical outlets. Better Place charging stations were to have smart grid interactivity that automatically time-shifted the charging process away from peak electrical demand hours. Most critics claimed it was an attempt to monopolize the charging of car batteries, and had in fact the reverse effect, which discouraged many potential customers in Israel from buying Better Place's cars.

Edmunds.com selected battery-charging infrastructure developers Coulomb Technologies and Better Place as recipients of its first annual Green Car Breakthrough Award. In 2010, Shai Agassi was included at number 28 in a list of the 100 Top Global Thinkers published by Foreign Policy magazine, for his efforts to make electric cars a mass-market success.

A number of companies have announced plans to install charging station networks. In France, Électricité de France (EDF) and Toyota announced plans to provide recharging points for PHEVs on roads, streets and parking lots. EDF also announced a partnership with Elektromotive, Ltd. to install 250 new charging points over six months from October 2007 in London and elsewhere in the UK. Coulomb Technologies was aiming to deploy its ChargePoint charging station network throughout the USA.

In March 2009, Tesla Motors announced a partnership to deploy battery swap stations among their existing Supercharger network to service their Model S platform cars. Tesla abandoned battery swapping citing low demand.

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Better Place was a venture-backed international company that developed and sold battery charging and battery switching services for electric cars. It was formally based in Palo Alto, California, but the bulk of its planning and operations were steered from Israel, where both its founder Shai Agassi and its chief investors resided.

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Google Glass - דרישות המערכת לא תאמו צרכי משתמשים
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass

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Google Glass is a brand of smart glasses-an optical head-mounted display designed in the shape of a pair of eyeglasses. It was developed by X (previously Google X) with the mission of producing a ubiquitous computer. Google Glass displayed information in a smartphone-like, hands-free format. Wearers communicated with the Internet via natural language voice commands.

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Fake call& sms apk
סגנון של שיחה מחסוי
נפל בעקבות הרגולוציה על חברות התקשורת.

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קורל אלעד ואיליה

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קורל אלעד ואיליה

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גששית בשיתוף פעולה אמריקאי-אירופאי, הפרויקט כשל עקב חוסר התאמה במידות (כשל בהמרה ממטרים).

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Garden Bridge - גשר ירוק מאוד יקר שלא קרה עקב דרישות מוגזמות
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Bridge

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The Garden Bridge project was a private proposal for a pedestrian bridge over the River Thames in London, England. Originally an idea of actor Joanna Lumley, Thomas Heatherwick worked with Arup on a proposal by Transport for London (TfL) for a new bridge across the Thames between Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges.