android
Copying Apple is following the trends
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1 min read
Digital Trends reported that Android Phone Makers Embracing the Notch. “Some people will say it’s copying Apple, but we cannot get away from what users want,” Marcel Campos, head of global marketing operations at Asus, suggested in a pre-briefing. “You have to follow the trends.” It’s like saying that some people will say it is…
Quartz reported that Google collects Android users’ locations even when location services are disabled. Since the beginning of 2017, Android phones have been collecting the addresses of nearby cellular towers—even when location services are disabled—and sending that data back to Google. The result is that Google, the unit of Alphabet behind Android, has access to…
Android’s Emoji Problem
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2 min read
Emojipedia wrote about Android’s Emoji Problem. The Google design team had a head start over Apple in terms of emoji adoption. Unicode 9 support was first added to Android 7.0 in August, followed by genders and professions which arrived with 7.1 in October 2016. This was some timely updating from Google, especially compared to previous…
The Google Pixel phone is looking good
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1 min read
If you’re an Android fan, willing to buy a premium phone, the Pixel is your answer. To repeat: it’s simply the best Android phone I’ve tested. If you’re an iPhone user thinking of switching, the Pixel will seem physically familiar, but you’ll have to overcome the sticky links you’ve developed with fellow iPhone users, things…
AppleInsider reported on three new malware strains infecting 20,000 apps, impossible to wipe, only affect Android. “For individuals, getting infected with Shedun, Shuanet and ShiftyBug might mean a trip to the store to buy a new phone. Because these pieces of adware root the device and install themselves as system applications, they become nearly impossible…
CEO John Chen fumbling through the product and making vague remarks on a product he should be very familiar with. And “obviously it runs Google”.
Jeff Atwood wrote about The state of Javascript on Android in 2015. It seems the Android manufacturers are more interested in slapping n slow CPU cores on a die than they are in producing very fast CPU cores. And this is quite punishing when it comes to JavaScript. This is becoming more and more of…
Ars Technica reported on Google’s own researchers challenging key Android security talking point. Throughout the resulting media storm, Google PR people have repeatedly held up the assurance that the raft of stagefright vulnerabilities is difficult to exploit in practice on phones running recent Android versions. The reason, they said: address space layout randomization, which came…
How to hack an Android phone
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1 min read
Business Insider reported on hacking an Android phone by typing in a really long password. The vulnerability, discovered by John Gordon, is easy to exploit: simply open the phone’s “Emergency Call” feature, type a few characters and the repeatedly copy-and-paste them. The pasted text becomes longer and longer — Gordon’s reaches over 160,000 characters —…
Ars Technica reported on a new Android ransomware that locks out victims by changing lock screen PIN. Dubbed Android/Lockerpin.A, the app first tricks inexperienced users into granting it device administrator privileges. To achieve this, it overlays a bogus patch installation window on top of an activation notice. When targets click on the continue button, they…