OSnews

Two very interesting articles about Android's future that are strongly related. First, Vlad Savov wonders why Android OEMs continue to make Android phones when there's little to no profit to be gained.If there's no money in it, why would a company continue to be an Android OEM today? Ideally, every mobile OEM would like a bottom line that looks like Samsung's, but no others have achieved it. It's not even certain that Samsung Mobile will sustain its profitability, with industry analysts describing its present Herculean efforts as "running to stand still." So how do others bridge the cognitive dissonance between the desired outcome and the perpetual failure to achieve it?It's no secret that Android OEMs are facing hard times, and since there are no alternatives people are willing to buy, they really don't have anywhere to go... Except exit the smartphone business.Interestingly enough, that's where the second article, from Ars Technica, comes into play.A report from The Information (subscription required) states that Google wants to take "greater control" over the design and building of Nexus phones. Currently, a Nexus device is a co-branded partnership between Google's Android team and an OEM, but this report says Google wants to move to a more "Apple-like" approach.The report says that in the future, "hardware makers will be much more like order-takers, similar to the way contract manufacturers like Hon Hai (Foxconn) follow Apple's directions for producing the iPhone." Apple designs its phones, SoC, and other parts and then ships the plans off to third-party factories to have them built.I'm sure Google is looking at the massive profits Apple is raking in with its iPhone, as well as the tight control Apple gets to exert over its hardware, and thinking to itself: why aren't we doing this? Looking at the complete failure of OEMs to properly update phones, I can't do anything but strongly applaud Google taking the Nexus program closer to its chest, and build true Google phones.

When we talk about laptops still being popular and important, we tend to talk about things like the precision of the mouse and the power and flexibility of a desktop operating system. We talk about all the things they can do better than a phone or a tablet. We talk about more. But it's worth talking about the power of technology that strives to do less - much less. The thousand dollars I spent on a Pixel didn't buy my mom crazy extensibility, or the ability to run powerful apps like Photoshop or Excel. It didn't even buy her that much storage. But it did buy her a beautiful, well-designed product. And most importantly, it bought her focus, and the ability to spend her time using her computer instead of trying to learn how to use it.That's a lesson I think Steve Jobs would have liked very much.There's something happening with Chromebooks that seems to take place much outside of the sphere of the technology press - in schools now, but once kids have them, they'll find their way elsewhere. We may indeed be entering a post-PC world, but it's not based on tablets.It's Chromebooks.

The Turing Phone, a fancy Android phone promising to be extra secure and which sports an unusual casing and design, has just announced that it's switching from Android... To Sailfish OS.Many of you have asked numerous times through our Facebook fan page as well as emailed us about our OS development. We can now confirm that TRI has chosen to drop Android and use Jolla's Sailfish OS. Sailfish OS is now running perfectly on the Turing Phone and we have started the final OS software testing phase.Sailfish OS runs exceptionally fast on the Turing. You will not have to worry about performance issues with Turing's Snapdragon 801 because Sailfish OS has been optimized to run fast on your Turing Phone. The Turing Phone will still be able to run Android Apps on the Sailfish OS without issue. An Android application store will be available for you to download your favorite apps.This seems like an... Odd choice, to say the least. The device's preorders have been filled months ago, so users expecting a fancy Android phone will now be getting a Sailfish phone. And while I applaud the idea of more non-establishment phones and operating systems, it seems a bit dishonest (is that too strong a word?) to shift platforms on products already sold on the promise of a different platform.On top of that, Sailfish is, by no means, in any way, shape, or form, or by any stretch of the imagination, a full-on replacement for Android. The operating system itself is unfinished, often unstable, lacks any form of applications more serious than crappy puzzle games, and the Android compatibility is slow and buggy, at best. I'm not so sure Turing buyers who're expecting Android will turn out to be thrilled with Sailfish.That being said, it's a little bright spot for the very much troubled Jolla, and that's something we can all be happy about.

After the EU's highest courts rejected the standing safe habour agreement between the EU and the US, the two superpowers had to come up with a new one. They just did:The EU-US Privacy Shield reflects the requirements set out by the European Court of Justice in its ruling on 6 October 2015, which declared the old Safe Harbour framework invalid. The new arrangement will provide stronger obligations on companies in the U.S. to protect the personal data of Europeans and stronger monitoring and enforcement by the U.S. Department of Commerce and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), including through increased cooperation with European Data Protection Authorities. The new arrangement includes commitments by the U.S. that possibilities under U.S. law for public authorities to access personal data transferred under the new arrangement will be subject to clear conditions, limitations and oversight, preventing generalised access. Europeans will have the possibility to raise any enquiry or complaint in this context with a dedicated new Ombudsperson.I'm assuming the new agreement is incredibly complex and full of intricate legalese, so we'll have to wait until the agreement is ever tested in courts or otherwise comes under scrutiny from independent experts before we can reach an conclusions about its effectiveness.

Public service announcement: as announced October last year, Windows 10 is now a recommended upgrade in Windows Update, meaning the installation will automatically start.As announced last October, the free Windows 10 update has been promoted from an "optional" update to being a "recommended" one. This means that with the default Windows Update settings, the new operating system will be downloaded automatically, and its installer will be started.The operating system will not actually install itself unattended; Microsoft says that users will be able to reject the upgrade or reschedule it for a time that's more convenient. The company has also described a variety of registry settings that suppress the upgrade.Windows 10 will be the most popular Windows version of all time! Just look at all those people upgrading!

Speaking with The Economic Times of India, Damian Tay (Senior Director for Product Management, BlackBerry Asia Pacific) described the new Priv as "essentially our transition to [the] Android ecosystem. As we secure Android, over a period of time, we would not have two platforms, and may have only Android as a platform [for smartphones]. But for now, we have BB10 and Android platforms for our smartphones."If those comments somehow left you in any doubts about the company's intentions, Tay continued: "The future is really Android. We went for Android essentially for its app ecosystem. In addition, all the enterprise solutions that we have been doing have been cross-platform for a long time now. So it's a natural progression towards Android."Just in case you thought BB10 had a future.

NayuOS is an ongoing project at Nexedi: We are mainly using Chromebooks for our daily development work and wanted to have more customizable, secure and privacy-compliant devices - not running any proprietary software, because we love Free Software. A few experiments later NayuOS - our free alternative to Chrome OS - was born. NayuOS is currently on a good enough way to meeting most of our needs, so we decided to spread the word and share what we have done so far.

The Debian project is pleased to announce the third update of its stable distribution Debian 8 (codename jessie). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories were published separately and are referenced where applicable.

In that spirit, we now have answers for those of you who have been waiting for the next Jolla Tablet update - thanks again for your patience. As already stated in our New Year's post, we plan to ship an additional small batch of Jolla Tablets to early Indiegogo backers. And, for the rest of our backers, we now have a refund process in place.They're shipping 540 tablets - no, that's not a typo - to early backers, of which I am one, but whether or not I'll actually be one of the 'lucky' 540, I don't know yet. Otherwise, it'll be the refund program. I'm glad they're offering this program, because the whole ordeal has been quite the letdown.

Windows Phone started off life as a promising alternative to Android and iOS five years ago. Microsoft positioned its range of Windows Phone 7 handsets as the true third mobile ecosystem, but it's time to admit it has failed. If a lack of devices from phone makers and even Microsoft itself wasn't enough evidence, the final nail in the coffin hit today. Microsoft only sold 4.5 million Lumia devices in the recent quarter, compared to 10.5 million at the same time last year. That's a massive 57 percent drop. Even a 57 percent increase wouldn't be enough to save Windows Phone right now.I remember being attacked in the comments for claiming Windows Phone was actually not doing as well as some claimed it was, and predicting its inevitable demise - years and years ago.Vindication.

Panic, one of the most respected OS X/iOS developer houses, published their yearly report, this time covering 2015, obviously. This paragraph is intriguing:iOS Revenue. I brought this up last year and we still haven't licked it. We had a change of heart - well, an experimental change of heart - and reduced the price of our iOS apps in 2015 to normalize them at $9.99 or less, thinking that was the upper limit and/or sweet spot for iOS app pricing. But it didn't have a meaningful impact on sales.More and more I'm beginning to think we simply made the wrong type of apps for iOS - we made professional tools that aren't really "in demand" on that platform - and that price isn't our problem, but interest is.This obviously ties into the previous news item, and Panic hits the nail on the head. They are, of course, specifically talking about iOS, but the same applies to competing platforms like Android: nobody wants to do anything even remotely resembling serious work on a "post-PC" device, regardless of platform. Both Apple and Google are really trying to posit their platforms for work (iPad Pro, Pixel C), but just as Microsoft is having a hard time scaling Windows down for consumption, Apple and Google are having trouble scaling their operating systems up for work.It is no surprise, then, that Panic's upcoming great project for 2016 isn't a big new application... But a videogame.

We're continuing our streak of Apple news, diving into the only review of the iPad Pro that really matters: the one from AnandTech.Overall, the iPad Pro is an incredibly good tablet. Iâve always liked the idea of a tablet, but for the most part I've been deeply dissatisfied with the implementations of tablets. With the iPad Air 2 review I really emphasized how a proper keyboard and a good stylus would really make the user experience much more compelling, and with the iPad Pro we're finally starting to see movement towards the tablet that I've always wanted. The iPad Pro is arguably the first tablet that I personally want to even consider buying. It isnât perfect by any means, and there is still a lot of work to be done - seemingly fitting for a first-generation Apple device - but for the first time in a long time it feels like the broader tablet market is advancing once again. If you want a proper tablet that can replace pencil and paper with a keyboard for extended typing sessions, I have no problem recommending the iPad Pro. If you're hoping for a laptop that can also double as a tablet, I suspect that the Surface Pro 4 will remain the right choice for you.In the end, the success of the iPad pro is pretty much a given. It's a bigger iPad, and there are enough people in the world who'd love a bigger version of their Netflix machine. However, whether or not the iPad Pro lives up to its moniker - i.e., it becomes a tool tons of people rely on for their work - remains to be seen. After the first few days or maybe even a few weeks of excitement, I remain convinced artists will go back to their Cintiqs and Photoshops, journalists writing "can it replace a laptop?"-articles will go back to their MacBook Airs, and everybody else didn't even look up from their smartphone.

Good morning everyone! Experiencing problems with Safari on iOS and OS X today? Is Safari crashing when you tap the address bar? You're not alone. Apple is experiencing a major issue with Safari today, causing the browser to reliably crash on all iOS devices, and Safari on OS X seems to suffer from UI problems and other issues. This one's big, and seems to affect all iOS and OS X devices in the world (!).The culprit seems to be Safari's search suggestions implementation. Something seems to be wrong server-side, and it's causing the search session code to raise an exception, after which the application doesn't know what to do. Tapping the URL field in Safari will cause Safari on iOS to crash immediately, while Safari on OS X suffers from other issues. If you are not currently experiencing this problem on iOS, that's because caching is saving you for now. If you switch airplane mode on and off on your iOS devices, these caches are reset, and the problem will appear.From what I can gather - which means, from what iOS developers I talk to can gather, because I, myself, am an idiot - this is a huge problem, affecting all iOS and OS X devices. On my iPhone, the Safari crash is 100% reproducible, and any tap on the address field crashes Safari. I can't type in any URL. A temporary workaround is to disable "Include search engine suggestions", but a permanent fix most likely has to come from Apple itself. Even then, said hypothetical fix might take a while to actually fix the problem.

Apple just posted its Q1 2016 financial report, where it posted record revenues and profits once again. But the more interesting thing might be what it's predicting for next quarter, where the company expects to report between $50 and $53 billion in revenue. That would put it below the $58 billion it reported in Q2 2015 and would mark the first year-over-year decline in revenue for the company in years.The slight decrease can likely be attributed to falling iPhone sales, which have been predicted for some time now. In Q1, Apple reported sales of 74.7 million iPhones, which is just barely better than the 74.5 million it did in the same quarter last year. Apple did not say how many it expects to sell in Q2, but analysts have predicted declines as high as 25 percent. During the investor call following today's report, CEO Tim Cook admitted that "iPhone sales will decline in the [second] quarter," but he noted that the company doesn't expect them to fall as much as outside estimates have said.iPad sales continue to plummet, by 21% to 16.1 million. So far, it seems like the iPad Pro hasn't made much of a dent. Apple isn't releasing sales numbers for the Apple Watch, so it's hard to say anything meaningful about that one.That being said, Apple's numbers are still every bit as staggering as they've been for a while now, and we all knew the increase in iPhone sales would stall eventually. With as much cash stashed in tax havens as Apple has, there's really very little to worry about regarding Apple's continued existence, but stock traders see this differently - they're not interested in past results, they're only interested in growth. And right now, the iPhone is pretty much the one big pillar responsible for virtually all of Apple's growth, and if that one starts to stall, Wall Street folk will get nervous.

Death and taxes. You can't escape them. But corporations can and do.It's common knowledge by now that big multinational companies exploit the inconsistencies between national tax regimes to secure the lowest possible tax rate for their profits. This is legal and deeply frustrating. In the wake of a popular backlash against profit-shifting practices, the UK government has begun to take some remedial actions. At the end of last week, Google agreed to pay the UK treasurer £130 million ($185 million) in back taxes, covering the period since 2005, and to also pay higher taxes in the future. UK Chancellor George Osborne hailed it as a "major success." The numbers disagree.Obviously, Apple isn't the only one dodging taxes through shady deals. We haven't forgotten about you, Google.

Do not be mislead by the title of this page: Android by and large is the best mobile operating system out there however as a fan of it, I cannot help but notice certain things which warrant attention and should be fixed right away because they are simply crucial.This is from the same author of the similarly-styled Linux, Windows 10 and iOS lists.

A fan-created ASCII version of the 1999 sci-fi classic The Matrix is the oldest known torrent that's still active. Created more than 12 years ago, the file has outlived many blockbuster movies and is still downloaded a few times a week, even though the site from where it originated has disappeared.Impressive.

This week, the French government announced a plan to standardize the French-language computer keyboard, as part of an effort to help protect and nurture the language. The ministry of culture and communication says it's "nearly impossible to correctly write French" on keyboards sold in the country today, meaning that the language's strict grammatical rules are being flouted more regularly. The ministry has partnered with a standardization group to develop a new keyboard norm, which will be presented for public feedback this summer.To many monolingual people - especially those in English-speaking countries - the idea of a keyboard layout influencing a language as a whole often seems insane. It happens, though, and it's very real - I talked about this before, but for Dutch. Modern technology really is changing language in multiple ways all over the place. This really isn't up for debate.The question, however, is not if technology can change language; no, the real question is whether or not you should care. I personally believe that no, you should not. Language has always been ever-changing, is ever-changing, and always will be ever-changing. The idea that one particular set of rules for English, French, or Dutch from a very particular area and from a very particular timeframe is somehow more or less correct is not only wrong, it's downright insulting.Much like other aspects of culture, language is often used as a means to discriminate, insult, or ridicule. A great - and sad - example of this is African American Vernacular English, which was often seen as dumb, stupid, and incorrect, reflecting the perceived social position of African-Americans in American society and emphasizing stereotypes about African-Americans. However, when linguists actually started studying AAVE, they found out it was incredibly rich in grammatical rules and constructs that are very different from regular English, but not dumber or less complex.Coincidentally, AAVE sounds beautiful. It flows really well.The point being, the idea that you somehow need to "protect" language is kind of silly. Stopping a language from changing - which is exactly what "protecting language" means - is like trying to make it stop raining. If you start to try and stop a language from changing, basically all you're doing is trying to create an ever-widening rift between written language and spoken language, up to a point where the written word deviates so much from the spoken word it starts to get troublesome.There's nothing wrong with wanting a standardised French keyboard - even if only for something as important as accessibility - but it's not going to stop the French language from changing, being influenced, and modernising itself.

But Google over the past year or so has gotten serious about getting more apps in front of more users, particularly in search results - which remains Google's bread and butter. App indexing - wherein Google actually sorts through the content of an app so it can present it back to users in any number of ways - is the key to all this. You can open a traditional web search result directly into an app. And later Google would show a button that take you to the Play Store to install the app.And now Google has cut out the middleman - for some of us, at least - by skipping the step of opening the Google Play Store app before installing. Technically speaking, that's probably not a huge leap. And, frankly, it's not as big a deal as headlines are making it seem.Installing applications is just one of the many things where Android outshines iOS. For instance, it's 2016, and you still can't install applications from the App Store web listing to your iPhone or iPad. I spend most of my computing time on my desktop computer, and I've lost count of how many times I came across an interesting iOS application, only to realise that the only way to actually install on my iPhone was to actually get my iPhone, which could be anywhere in the house, open the App Store, search for the application, hopefully actually find it (search in the App Store is dreadfully bad), and then install it, all the while hoping the App Store app won't soil its undies halfway through.For Android applications, I just click install on the Play Store web listing, and I'm done. It's one of those niceties that companies that understand web services can do properly without much effort. And it seems like Google is taking all this a step further now, allowing you to install stuff straight from Google SearchMeanwhile, the iOS App Store application is so unreliable and terrible, it needs a hidden "tap ten times to reload" shortcut.OK.

But Google over the past year or so has gotten serious about getting more apps in front of more users, particularly in search results - which remains Google's bread and butter. App indexing - wherein Google actually sorts through the content of an app so it can present it back to users in any number of ways - is the key to all this. You can open a traditional web search result directly into an app. And later Google would show a button that take you to the Play Store to install the app.And now Google has cut out the middleman - for some of us, at least - by skipping the step of opening the Google Play Store app before installing. Technically speaking, that's probably not a huge leap. And, frankly, it's not as big a deal as headlines are making it seem.Installing applications is just one of the many things where Android outshines iOS. For instance, it's 2016, and you still can't install applications from the App Store web listing to your iPhone or iPad. I spend most of my computing time on my desktop computer, and I've lost count of how many times I came across an interesting iOS application, only to realise that the only way to actually install on my iPhone was to actually get my iPhone, which could be anywhere in the house, open the App Store, search for the application, hopefully actually find it (search in the App Store is dreadfully bad), and then install it, all the while hoping the App Store app won't soil its undies halfway through.For Android applications, I just click install on the Play Store web listing, and I'm done. It's one of those niceties that companies that understand web services can do properly without much effort. And it seems like Google is taking all this a step further now, allowing you to install stuff straight from Google SearchMeanwhile, the iOS App Store application is so unreliable and terrible, it needs a hidden "tap ten times to reload" shortcut.OK.

Cobalt mined by child laborers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may be entering the supply chains of major tech companies like Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft, as well as auto manufacturers like Volkswagen and Daimler AG, according to an investigation from Amnesty International and Afrewatch, a DRC-based non-government organization.The report, released today, lays out how cobalt mined by children as young as seven is sold to a DRC-based subsidiary of Huayou Cobalt, a Chinese company. The subsidiary, Congo Dongfang Mining International (CDM), processes cobalt ore and sells it to companies in China and South Korea, where it is used to manufacture lithium-ion batteries for use in smartphones and electric cars. Amnesty contacted 16 multinational companies listed as customers of the battery makers, based on investor documents and public records. Most said they were unaware of any links to the companies cited in the report, while others, like Apple and Microsoft, said they were evaluating their supply chains. Amnesty says that none of the companies provided enough information to independently verify the origin of their cobalt supply.This will remain a problem for a long time to come. Many of the rare resources we use every day are gathered in some of the most unstable and poorest places on earth.

All of the new features introduced in iOS 9.x (plus the iPad Pro) point to Apple's intentions for the iPad, which still sells fairly well but has experienced a steady year-over-year sales slide for every quarter since early 2014. Like the iPhone, the iPad will continue to be a touch-first platform that assumes you're using the touchscreen as the primary method of input, but it will continue to pick up more "computer-y" features that make better use of its larger screen and more powerful internal hardware.With that in mind, here are a few iPad-specific feature requests for iOS 10, all of which balance the iPad's traditional strengths and the needs of people more used to "traditional" desktop OSes.

Well, this is interesting. The Dutch Consumentenbond, the largest consumer protection advocacy agency in The Netherlands, today filed a lawsuit against Samsung demanding the company starts properly updating its Android phones. The Consumentenbond had been in talks with Samsung about this issue for a while now, but no positive outcome was reached, and as such, they saw no other option but to file suit.The Consumentenbond is demanding that Samsung provides two years of updates for all its Android devices, with the two-year period starting not at the date of market introduction of the device, but at the date of sale. This means that devices introduced one or even more years ago that are still being sold should still get two years' worth of updates starting today.There's actually an official English version of the press release (as a translator, I am genuinely surprised about that).Bart Combée, director of the Consumentenbond: "On buying a Samsung Android device, consumers are given inadequate information about how long they will continue to receive software updates. The Consumentenbond is demanding that Samsung provide its customers with clear and unambiguous information about this. Samsung moreover provides insufficient information about critical security vulnerabilities, such as Stagefright, in its Android phones. Finally, the Consumentenbond is demanding that Samsung actually provide its smartphones with updates."The Consumentenbond's own research has shown that 82% of the Samsung phones sold in The Netherlands did not get updates to the most recent version of Android in the two-year period, which leads to all kinds of security issues and other problems. While Samsung, which has a smartphone market share in The Netherlands of about 80% (yeah... Sorry about that), is the focus of this particular lawsuit, the Consumentenbond notes that other manufacturers are guilty of the same problems.It will not come as a surprise to any of you that I sincerely applaud this effort. The Android update clusterfrick is by far the biggest problem in the Android world, and OEMs should be, if possible, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for their negligent practices regarding updating their software. There is an extremely strong mandatory EU warranty policy on all products sold in the EU of at least two years, and Samsung and other Android OEMs are clearly failing to follow this law.That being said, the minutiae of any possible outcome of this lawsuit are extremely crucial. Not only should Samsung and other OEMs be legally forced to release updates for their smartphones for at least two years (I would personally prefer three or four years, actually, but let's start somewhere), the updates ought to be timely. Every Android smartphone should be updated to the latest version of Android for two years after sale of said smartphone, with each update being released no later than four weeks after code availability from Google.If this means they have to spend more resources on their development team - so be it. If this means they can no longer sell outdated, crappy hardware because newer Android versions would be too slow - so be it. If this means they have to work more closely with Google to prepare for new releases - so be it. None of that should be the concern of any consumer.

The goal of this project is to preserve and present primary and secondary source materials (including specifications, source code, manuals, and papers discussing design and implementation) from Mesa, the system programming language designed at Xerox PARC in the 1970s and used to implement the Xerox Star office automation system and its follow-ons. The editor greatly appreciates comments, suggestions, and donations of additional materials.Wikipedia has a short overview of Mesa, and here's the 1979 Mesa Language Manual, which is obviously a lot more in-depth.

Microsoft has detailed its support plans for new and upcoming processor generations. The general gist: all upcoming processor generations from Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm will require Windows 10. Windows 8.x and Windows 7 will not be supported on these new platforms.Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon. For example, Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel's upcoming "Kaby Lake" silicon, Qualcomm's upcoming "8996" silicon, and AMD's upcoming "Bristol Ridge" silicon.Through July 17, 2017, Skylake devices on the supported list will also be supported with Windows 7 and 8.1. During the 18-month support period, these systems should be upgraded to Windows 10 to continue receiving support after the period ends. After July 2017, the most critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates will be addressed for these configurations, and will be released if the update does not risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7/8.1 platform on other devices.You better be prepared for this when shopping for new hardware in the coming years.

In an email to some Windows Insider testers, obtained by The Verge, Microsoft is looking for iPhone users to trial the Word Flow keyboard. It's not clear when Word Flow will be released publicly on iOS, but Microsoft is already ready to test it more broadly so it will likely arrive in the coming months. Microsoft's Windows Phone version of Word Flow includes autocorrect, suggestions, gestures, and the ability to swipe letters (like Swype) to type out words.I'm actually excited about this. I can't stand the iOS keyboard, but I consider the Windows Phone keyboard to be the best one around.

Apple Inc. may be facing a hefty tax bill in Europe.The world's largest company could owe more than $8 billion in back taxes as a result of a European Commission investigation into its tax policies, according to an analysis by Matt Larson of Bloomberg Intelligence. Apple, which has said it will appeal an adverse ruling, is being scrutinized by regulators who have accused the iPhone maker of using subsidiaries in Ireland to avoid paying taxes on revenue generated outside the U.S.The EC is investigating a whole slew of companies for tax avoidance, and that is, of course, nothing but a good thing. These shady constructions that only benefit the extremely wealthy have no place in any modern society.

Some members use proxies or "unblockers" to access titles available outside their territory. To address this, we employ the same or similar measures other firms do. This technology continues to evolve and we are evolving with it. That means in coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are. We are confident this change won't impact members not using proxies.Good luck with that.

If you long for the days of 2011, when 5.3-inch smartphones were enormous outliers rather than the norm, Sony has some news that may interest you: its flagship Xperia Z5 smartphone and its smaller-but-still-high-end sibling the Xperia Z5 Compact are coming to the US on February 7, 2016.Sony smartphones are the only non-Nexus Android phones I'd even remotely consider buying. Even though they, too, suffer from the ridiculous update situation, they are at least trying to sell a nice, compact, high-end Android phone. In fact, I find it kind of remarkable that some version of the Z5 Compact isn't available in a Nexus configuration.

So long as basebands are not audited, and smartphones do not possess IOMMUs and have their operating systems configure them in a way that effectively mitigates the threat, no smartphone can be trusted for the integrity or confidentiality of any data it processes.This being the case, the quest for "secure" phones and "secure" communications applications is rather bizarre. There are only two possible roads to a secure phone: auditing baseband or using an IOMMU. There can't even begin to be a discussion on secure communications applications until the security of the hardware is established.I've written about this a long time ago, and it remains true today. Your phone is not secure, by definition, regardless of platform. Governments should legally demand phone manufacturers to fully publish all source code to the baseband chips they use, or be barred from sales. Mobile phone networks have become a crucial pillar of our society, and as citizens, we have the right to know what's going on in baseband chips.Of course, that's not going to happen - governments benefit from the inherent lack of any form of security in our mobile phone network - but one can dream.

Apple has released a public beta of iOS 9.3. Its major new features:iOS 9.3 is a major update to the iOS 9 operating system, introducing a long list of new features and improvements. iOS 9.3's biggest new feature is Night Shift mode, which is designed to automatically cut down on the amount of blue light an iOS user is exposed to at night by shifting to more yellow tones for the iPhone or iPad's display. With iOS 9.3, there's a number of changes for educational users, and the iPhone is now able to pair with multiple Apple Watches.Of course, "Night Shift", as Apple calls it, is a wholesale copy of f.lux.In any event, Apple also released a public beta of OS X 10.11.4.

Enter the message bots. As 2016 dawns, there's a sense in Silicon Valley that the decades-old fantasy of a true digital assistant is due to roar back into the mainstream. If the trend in past years has been assistants powered by voice - Siri, Alexa, Cortana - in 2016 the focus is shifting to text. And if the bots come, as industry insiders are betting they will, there will be casualties: with artificial intelligence doing the searching for us, Google may see fewer queries. Our AI-powered assistants will manage more and more of our digital activities, eventually diminishing the importance of individual, siloed apps, and the app stores that sell them. Many websites could come to feel as outdated as GeoCities pages - and some companies might ditch them entirely. Nearly all of the information they provide can be fed into a bot and delivered via messaging apps.This seems a bit... Overblown. Bots are going to revolutionise a lot over the coming decades, but messaging bots replacing the point and click interface we've been using ever since Xerox invented it?Much like the death of the PC or Apple, the end of our current HUI metaphor has been predicted more times than I can remember - I don't see how this one is any different.

The first alpha release of Remix OS 2.0 - which we talked about a few days ago - is now officially released. It's clearly an alpha, though, so don't try to use this on any important machines. I have been unable to get it to work - I just get "checking media fail" upon boot - but others are reporting it works, so I guess your mileage may vary.That being said - I'd be a little weary of the EULA. It seems like it contains some regular Chinese boilerplate stuff (other Chinese companies are using the same boilerplate stuff, such as Xiaomi), which sounds incredibly heavy-handed to us. Not sure what to make of this just yet - maybe the company will clarify this one.

The solve for this has been smartwatches designed specifically for women, to varying degrees of offense. Resizing is the first step: a thinner strap, a smaller face, more delicate styling (though, of course, not all women have tiny wrists, the same way that not all men have big wrists). Colorways come next, trading "masculine" black, gray, or brown for "feminine" white, tan, and now-ubiquitous rose gold (seriously, ever since Apple added rose gold to their lineup in September, every damn tech company has followed suit). The final step in making wearable tech for ladies? Throw some jewels on it. Sigh.Technology companies and designing products for women don't go well together, and never have - smartwatches and fitness trackers just highlight this problem like never before.

By now, simply taking over a game and replacing it with a brand new app was beginning to feel a little predictable. So this year, TASBot decided to show off a new skill. At the AGDQ marathon, the bot set out to edit new features onto a game that's still running in active memory. TASBot wanted to be magnanimous with its new capabilities, too, allowing human players (and livestream viewers) the opportunity to edit the game on the fly.But just how did TASBot - and the team of coders behind it - intend to turn an old game of Super Mario World, running on a standard SNES, into a heavily editable game of Super Mario Maker? Luckily, we had a behind-the-scenes invite to the event and the opportunity to find out.I spent most of last week watching AGDQ (and donating, of course), and this particular segment blew my mind.

For the past few weeks, Forbes.com has been forcing visitors to disable ad blockers if they want to read its content. Visitors to the site with Adblock or uBlock enabled are told they must disable it if they wish to see any Forbes content. Thanks to Forbes' interstitial ad and quote of the day, Google caching doesn't capture data properly, either.What sets Forbes apart, in this case, is that it didn't just force visitors to disable ad blocking - it actively served them malware as soon as they did. Details were captured by security researcher Brian Baskin, who screenshotted the process.There are no words for this level of stupidity.

Linux 4.4 has been released This release adds support for 3D support in virtual GPU driver, which allows 3D hardware-accelerated graphics in virtualization guests; loop device support for Direct I/O and Asynchronous I/O, which saves memory and increases performance; support for Open-channel SSDs, which are devices that share the responsibility of the Flash Translation Layer with the operating system; the TCP listener handling is completely lockless and allows for faster and more scalable TCP servers; journalled RAID5 in the MD layer which fixes the RAID write hole; eBPF programs can now be run by unprivileged users, and perf has added support for eBPF programs aswell; a new mlock2() syscall that allows users to request memory to be locked on page fault; and block polling support.There are also new drivers and many other small improvements. Here is the full list of changes.

It's bittersweet news for die-hard BlackBerry fans, a shrinking, but fiercely loyal group. Yes, BlackBerry will continue to exist, but won't offer any phones running on its own BlackBerry 10 software. Still, future Android BlackBerry devices means more choice besides the usual mix of Samsung, LG or HTC Android phones.Something about a tree falling in a forest, but that might be a bit cruel.

There are several acknowledged rules on the Internet. Rule Zero, translated into more appropriate language,of course, is don't commit violence against a cat. Rule One ought to be don't mess with the EFF.The EFF is one of those few organisations you can just always trust to have your best interests at heart. Their track record is impeccable, and their causes always just.Don't mess with the EFF.

Speaking of Cyanogen OS:Following the Cyanogen OS 12.11 update for the OnePlus One, you may have noticed something worse than the automatic inclusion of Cortana. Now upon selecting a file without a set default application, you will see adverts for Microsoft apps and services on the "open with" menu.I feel like a broken record player at this point, but don't trust these guys. Selling out to Microsoft has never done anyone any good.

As promised, Cyanogen has released an update to Cyanogen OS (which is not CyanogenMod) that integrates Cortana into their Android offering.In the Cyanogen OS 12.1.1 update, we are excited to introduce Microsoft Cortana. What makes this such an exciting partnership is that by having Cortana's voice command capability deeply integrated into the Cyanogen ecosystem, we're opening the door to future capabilities that don't currently exist.So, they're going to "take Android away from Google", and then give it to Microsoft? This Microsoft?OK.Look - like Microsoft, Google collects data. A lot of it. We all know it, and at least all of us, OSNews readers, make a conscious choice to use Android anyway. While I don't trust Google in any way, there's at least the comfort that they are probably the most closely monitored company when it comes to privacy, and there's little to no risk of the company folding and being up for grabs - meaning, your data will remain within Google, and won't end up in somebody else's, less trustworthy hands just because they happened to buy Google.Cyanogen Inc., however, is a whole different ballgame. This is a start-up funded by venture capitalists who are clearly looking for a quick buck. They're making a lot of grandiose claims and a ton of ruckus, and as I've said before, I give them a few years before they're acquired by someone else - at which point your data could end up anywhere, completely beyond your control, with little to no oversight.Venture capitalists - and by extension, those who depend on them - have no interest in you. You are irrelevant. All they care about is cashing in on their investments as soon as possible, everything else be damned.Don't buy into Cyanogen. Just don't.

Jide Technology has released Remix OS 2.0 as a free download available on January 12th designed to run on the majority of Intel and AMD devices such as PC and Mac. The company which was founded by three ex-Google employees has developed the OS thanks to a partnership with the Android-x86 project enabling it to run on almost any PC.This is pretty much what Android on desktop and laptops - what Google itself is currently working on - is going to look like. It's designed first and foremost for Jide's own devices, but starting 12 January it'll also be available for select generic x86 devices, including some Macs. There's no proper up-to-date compatibility list as far as I can tell, so we'll have to wait and see just how useful it can be.It looks quite interesting, and the fact that it's run by former Google employees gives some hope regarding its longevity and legitimacy. That being said, with Google itself working on bringing Android to desktops and laptops, you have to wonder how much longer Jide can maintain itself.

So, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of my favourite games of all time, and it's also generally considered to be one of the best games ever made. And, as with all games, people 'speedrun' this game, which means trying to beat the game as fast as is humanly possible. There are several categories, each with certain rules and things that are and are not allowed.This particular speedrun of Symphony Of The Night by Cosmo takes this concept to a whole new level. The end time of 7 minutes and 52 seconds is mind-blowing enough, but how he actually gets there is just utterly insane. Basically, he procures a very specific set of items in his inventory, and then proceeds to manipulate the items in his inventory in a extremely specific way, within very specific fractions of seconds of game-time, to use the sorting mechanism of the inventory to manipulate the assembly code in memory to make the game finish itself. All this, on the actual console itself, without tools, without additional software, without emulators, without anything.The actual science or coding behind this technique was discovered and developed by a person named Sockfolder, and he put up a 40-minute stream to explain in detail what's going on, with the contents of memory on the side of the screen so you can see exactly what's happening. It's mesmerising (even though I don't fully understand what's going on).While the actual coding part of it can be discovered and explored in relative comfort of an emulator and other tools, actually pulling this off 'live', with just the tools at the disposal of any regular player, is absolutely amazing. This kind of stuff sits at the very fringes of programming, and I find it incredibly impressive.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is going on right now, but unless you're interested in Samsung or LG smart fridges, generic smartphones from generic vendors, or smartwatches nobody will remember or care about two weeks from now, it's kind of hard to find decent news among the cavalcade of irrelevance.Well, there's this - an official statement from Hyperion, the developer of AmigaOS 4, regarding the source code leak late last year.The days between last Christmas and New Year were actually clouded by the sad fact that the source code of AmigaOS 3.1 and additional content dating back to 1994 was published and widely spread without permission of the rights-holder. Note that no code of AmigaOS 4.x was released or distributed.[...]While this would be already more than enough of a reason to care about the unauthorised disclosure and distribution, it is also the very same settlement agreement which made all of this possible in the first place, which contractually requires Hyperion to enforce and protect any intellectual property rights associated with AmigaOS including the AmigaOS 3.1 source-code.So yeah, Hyperion is obligated to combat this source code leak, but as we all know - this is the internet. It's out there now, and it's not going anywhere any time soon.

The Dutch government has formally opposed the introduction of backdoors in encryption products.A government position paper, published by the Ministry of Security and Justice on Monday and signed by the security and business ministers, concludes that "the government believes that it is currently not appropriate to adopt restrictive legal measures against the development, availability and use of encryption within the Netherlands."The conclusion comes at the end of a five-page run-through of the arguments for greater encryption and the counter-arguments for allowing the authorities access to the information.The word "currently" worries me, but this is good news.

Microkernel hatred is a peculiar phenomenon. Sheltered users who have never had any background in much beyond Windows and some flavor of free monolithic Unix, will, despite a general apathy or ignorance in the relevant subjects, have strong opinions on the allegedly dreadful performance and impracticality of "icrokernels", however they define the term (and we shall see that a lot of people have some baffling impressions of what a microkernel is supposed to be). Quite often, these negative views will be a result of various remarks made by Linus Torvalds and a general hero worship of his character, a misrepresentation of an old Usenet flame war between AST and Torvalds that was somehow "won" and which supposedly proved that microkernels are nothing but a toy of ivory tower academics, or a rehash of quarter century-old benchmarks on CMU's Mach that were unfavorable. The presence of Linus' character in many of this is no coincidence. It strikes me that anti-microkernel sentiment most vocally originates as a sort of tribal affiliation mechanism by Linux users to ward off insecurity.In any event, this article will be a concise tour of microkernel myths and misconceptions throughout the ages.I wouldn't exactly call this article "concise", but it's definitely filled with valuable technical information.

Let me start by saying that beautiful websites come in all sizes and page weights. I love big websites packed with images. I love high-resolution video. I love sprawling Javascript experiments or well-designed web apps.This talk isn't about any of those. It's about mostly-text sites that, for unfathomable reasons, are growing bigger with every passing year.While I'll be using examples to keep the talk from getting too abstract, I'm not here to shame anyone, except some companies (Medium) that should know better and are intentionally breaking the web.This is an amazing and hilarious read we can all agree with it. I doubt there's going to be any pointless bickering over this one.

The general plan for the OS is to create a micro-kernel based design with sufficient drivers that a basic user-mode interface can be created. The user-mode interface will include a basic tablet or laptop user interface with the ability to start user mode applications. The final goal is to develop a web-browser application to demonstrate the power of the OS.FlingOS is an educational operating system designed to aid in teaching and learning low-level operating system programming.

With a heavy heart Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock, stalwart proponent of Free Open Source Software, Father, Son, and the 'ian' in Debian.Ian started the Debian project in August of 1993, releasing the first versions of Debian later that same year. Debian would go on to become the world's Universal Operating System, running on everything from embedded devices to the space station.Ian's sharp focus was on creating a Distribution and community culture that did the right thing, be it ethically, or technically. Releases went out when they were ready, and the project's staunch stance on Software Freedom are the gold standards in the Free and Open Source world.Debian - or anything Debian-based - is my distribution of choice, and there's no denying just how much Debian has contributed to the Linux world.My thoughts are with his family and friends.

Google is replacing the Java application programming interfaces (APIs) in Android with OpenJDK, the open source version of Oracle's Java Development Kit (JDK). The news first came by a "mysterious Android codebase commit" from last month submitted to Hacker News. Google confirmed to VentureBeat that Android N will rely solely on OpenJDK, rather Androidâs own version of the Java APIs."As an open-source platform, Android is built upon the collaboration of the open-source community," a Google spokesperson told VentureBeat. "In our upcoming release of Android, we plan to move Androidâs Java language libraries to an OpenJDK-based approach, creating a common code base for developers to build apps and services. Google has long worked with and contributed to the OpenJDK community, and we look forward to making even more contributions to the OpenJDK project in the future."If this is what it takes to get those Oracle slimebags off Android's back, so be it.