Yes. These can read license plates and identify people. They are mass surveillance devices and store their data in a massive centralized system.

I guess I’m going to die beating this dead horse, but Flock cameras are just regular video security cameras and feed back to a cloud AI platform. If you go to their homepage right this minute you will see that not one single example of their camera views shows a license plate read, but several do show the platform identifying people instead.

EDIT: I think I am giving the wrong impression. These are domestic surveillance tools and it’s my belief these should be considered unconstitutional. I’m merely stating that these are not ONLY license plate readers (LPR’s), they are full cameras.

First off, Microsoft clearly isn’t reading the room on where they stand in 2026 with Apple hardware and Linux gaming gaining traction.

Secondly, isn’t a Windows OEM license like $100? If it increases by “7-10%”, wouldn’t that just be $7-10? That wouldn’t drastically change the price of hardware shipping with Windows at all, and that’s if the manufacturers don’t just eat that cost.

Sounds like we might find out how the courts will view it.