OSnews

Updates are easily the biggest problem facing the Android ecosystem, and Google is working hard to fix that. Project Treble has proven that it's capable of making updates easier, and now Google is stepping up requirements for OEMs when it comes to security patches.Every little step in this department is a welcome one. It's not yet clear what, exactly, the requirements entail, but hopefully, it's a strict and hard requirement to publish every monthly security update.

There's another Haiku monthly activity report, for April, and as always, there's some interesting changes, bugfixes, and improvements in there. The biggest improvement?Let's start with the most exciting developments this month: Korli started work on a 32/64 bit hybrid. The idea is to run a 64bit system, but allow 32bit applications to run on it. While we are just at the very first steps, it is a good thing that this is being worked on, as it will allow us to move more smoothly towards 64bit support.In addition, the first three Google Summer of Code progress reports have been posted, for the SDHCI MMC driver, the TrackGit project, and XFS support.

Continuing our past work, Firefox 60 brings further important improvements to security sandboxing on Linux, making it harder for attackers that find security bugs in the browser to escalate those into attacks against the rest of the system.The most important change is that content processes - which render Web pages and execute JavaScript - are no longer allowed to directly connect to the Internet, or connect to most local services accessed with Unix-domain sockets (for example, PulseAudio).This means that content processes have to follow any network access restrictions Firefox imposes - for example, if the browser has been set up to use a proxy server, connecting directly to the internet is no longer possible. But more important are the restrictions on connections to local services: they often assume that anything connecting to them has the full authority of the user running it, and either allow it to ask for arbitrary code to run, or aren't careful about preventing that. Normally that's not a security problem because the client could just run that code itself, but if it's a sandboxed Firefox process, that could have meant a sandbox escape.

Last year, we outlined Google's commitment to comply with Europe's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), across all of the services we provide in the European Union. We've been working on our compliance efforts for over eighteen months, and ahead of the new law coming into effect, here's an update on some of the key steps we've taken.A few insights into how Google will handle the data of EU citizens.

Duarte, along with seven other designers at Google, was speaking to about a dozen reporters about what's next for Material Design, Google's system for creating software design. Maybe it's the (lapsed) Lutheran in me, but calling the original Material Design a "gospel" struck a chord. It was religiously adhered to by the Android faithful ever since it launched. Apps that followed Material Design were holy; apps that didn't were anathema. I can't count the number of times I saw an app get dismissed by the Android community because it wasn't updated for Material Design.And to extend the metaphor (yes, please grant me an indulgence on this), it was also a very restrictive doctrine. The tools it offered helped make many Android apps feel consistent, but it also stripped away too much differentiation between them. They all ended up feeling the same. More importantly, many app makers didn't want to give up their brand to Material Design. It made too many apps look and feel identical.Simply put, people were being too dogmatic about how Material Design apps should look.I have a long posting history at OSNews talking about how I value consistency in GUI design, because the more consistent my UI, the less I have to think about using said UI. To me, the strictness of Material Design is a feature, not a bug - and seeing its designers consider it the other way around has me shaking my head. I don't give a rat's butt about "brands" and "differentiation" - I just want to use my damn software with as little effort as possible.Less auteur app design, more standard controls and views.I've been using an iPhone X since it came out, and the utter lack of consistency between iOS applications remains a stumbling block to me to this day. It'd be a shame if Material Design went down the same dark path.

After decades of mangling text files coming from other operating systems. Microsoft's venerable Notepad.exe, which has been included in every version of Windows since the first, is finally getting support for Unix and macOS line endings.Notepad, being a Windows application, has always demanded the CRLF pair. When faced with Unix files - quite common for source code and similar things - it sees the bare-naked LFs and prints them as black squares. Because it doesn't start a new line when faced with a naked LF, it shows the entire contents of the file as a single lengthy line, which makes it hard to read, much less edit.But in the next update to Windows (likely to arrive in October or thereabouts), Notepad will handle Unix and classic MacOS line endings in addition to the Windows kind. This will make the editor much more useful than it currently is.Support is somewhat limited - while it will correctly open files with alternate line endings, and will save the files correctly in their original format, you cannot create new text files and save them with Unix or MacOS line endings - Notepad will always save new files with the CRLF style used in Windows.And, in true Microsoft function, Notepad provides a registry switch if you want to disable the new functionality for compatibility reasons, which only confirms the idea that there is an XKCD comic for everything.

Over the last few days, Apple has seemingly started cracking down on applications that share location data with third-parties. In such cases, Apple has been removing the application in question and informing developers that their app violates two parts of the App Store Review Guidelines.Good.

At its Build developer conference yesterday, Microsoft showcased what's coming for its Fluent Design overhaul of Windows and its applications, and there's definitely a lot of good news for people who like Fluent Design, developers, and yes, even power users.Microsoft will be adding Z-depth, dynamic shadows, and more to Fluent Design to further reduce the flatness of the user interface, using these to create a visual hierarchy inside applications. Developers will also get access to a new and improved way of managing colours inside their applications; instead of having to manually colour each control, developers now have access to more global colour control. Microsoft is also adding blurry transparency, shadows, and Z-depth to context menus.A new contextual command bar flyout - similar to how Office applications will show various formatting options after selecting text - can be populated by developers with various contextual controls that make sense for the content in questions. Microsoft claims that it has designed this contextual bar so that it will work with either a few options, or lots and lots, making it useful even for very complex applications.The biggest new feature, however, is one that will be welcomed by many. As it currently stands, Fluent Design is clearly a very touch-oriented interface, with large controls and lots of whitespace, making it challenging to build and design very complex applications with lots of options, buttons, and controls. Therefore, Microsoft is adding two denser layouts to Fluent Design - medium and compact. With the compact layout you can design applications that are just as dense as classic Win32 applications. You can already try the new, denser layouts in Windows Mail, which was updated today to add these new options.The whole Fluent Design talk at Build is an interesting watch, as it also hints at the further Fluent Design-ification of Windows, including showing off file manager context menus.

Ubuntu 18.04 is a huge update, but I say that mostly in the best sense of big updates. It brings a ton of new stuff, both under the hood and on the desktop, without creating too much disruption to your workflows. The one exception to that is HUD users, who may want to stick with the version of Unity still in the Ubuntu repos.The amount of time and effort wasted by switching to Unity and now switching back to GNOME shows - even this latest release looks and feels so dated to me.

Microsoft's had a variety of weird and wonderful consumer devices over the years that haven't gone so well. Jon Friedman, now chief designer of Office 365, has been at the center of Microsoft's notorious product failures, including the SPOT watches from 2004, ultra mobile PCs, the KIN phone, and the unreleased Courier device. At Microsoft's Build developer conference this week, Friedman reflected on his personal career at the software giant and why some of these products weren't successful.The Courier always seemed like a fascinating device to me, even though I wouldn't really know what to do with it.

Today, we are pleased to announce that Visual Studio 15.8 Preview 1 contains an early preview of the SDK and tools to allow you to create your own 64-bit ARM (ARM64) apps. These tools answer the requests of many eager developers, and the development made possible with these tools represents the next step in the evolution of the Always Connected PC running Windows 10 on ARM.

Support for Linux will enable you to create, test and run Android and web app for phones, tablets and laptops all on one Chromebook. Run popular editors, code in your favorite language and launch projects to Google Cloud with the command-line. Everything works directly on a Chromebook.Linux runs inside a virtual machine that was designed from scratch for Chromebooks. That means it starts in seconds and integrates completely with Chromebook features. Linux apps can start with a click of an icon, windows can be moved around, and files can be opened directly from apps.It's official now.

After the previous post honing in specifically on the Google Duplex feature, it's time to take a look at all the other features coming to the Google Assistant.We announced our vision for the Google Assistant just two years ago at I/O, and since then, we've been making fast progress in bringing the Assistant to more people around the world to help them get things done. As of today, the Google Assistant is available on more than 500 million devices, it works with over 5,000 connected home devices, it's available in cars from more than 40 brands, and it's built right into the latest devices, from the Active Edge in the Pixel 2 to a dedicated Assistant key in the LG G7 ThinQ. Plus, it'll be available in more than 30 languages and 80 countries by the end of the year.Today at I/O, we're sharing our vision for the next phase of the Google Assistant, as we make it more naturally conversational, visually assistive, and helpful in getting things done.The new features will roll out over the coming months.

This is both the scariest and the most amazing technology Google demoed on stage during I/O today.Today we announce Google Duplex, a new technology for conducting natural conversations to carry out âreal worldâ tasks over the phone. The technology is directed towards completing specific tasks, such as scheduling certain types of appointments. For such tasks, the system makes the conversational experience as natural as possible, allowing people to speak normally, like they would to another person, without having to adapt to a machine.You must listen to the recorded conversations where a computer is making appointments with a hair salon and restaurant. The computer-generated half of the conversation sounds incredibly natural, with interruptions, "uhs", and so on. It even managed to fully understand the heavy accent of the restaurant worker, which even I had a hard time understanding at times. I am absolutely stunned this is even possible.This is downright amazing, and will be built into the Google Assistant - so it can make appointments for you. While I doubt I'd ever even want to use something like this, there's no denying the technology is incredibly advanced. I am wondering, though, about the possible negative consequences of this technology, especially combined with advanced video editing tools.

Ten years ago, when we launched the first Android phone - the T-Mobile G1 - it was with a simple but bold idea: to build a mobile platform that's free and open to everyone. Today, that idea is thriving - billions of people around the world rely on their Android phone every day.To make Android smarter and easier to use than ever, today we're unveiling a beta version of Android P, the next release of Android.There's tons of new features, mostly about Android trying to anticipate what you want to do next. Android P takes Android's already pretty good inter-application communication a step further, by exposing actions and even parts of applications outside of the applications themselves, with App Actions and Slices.App Actions, for instance, help you get to your next task more quickly by predicting what you want to do next. Say you connect your headphones to your device, Android will surface an action to resume your favorite Spotify playlist. Actions show up throughout Android in places like the Launcher, Smart Text Selection, the Play Store, the Google Search app and the Assistant. Actions are a simple but powerful way for helping you get what you need quickly; but what if we could surface part of the app itself, right when you need it most? Slices do just that, giving you an even deeper look into your favorite apps. If you search for "Lyft" in Google Search, you can see an interactive Slice that gives you the price and time for a trip to work, and itâs interactive so you can quickly order the ride.Other than that, Android P also brings gesture navigation to Android, to deal with phones with smaller bezels. Furthermore, Google put a lot of emphasis on what it calls "digital wellbeing", which aims to make you more aware of how and how often you use your phone. For instance, a feature called Wind Down will make the screen go black and white at a chosen time, encouraging you to put the phone down and go to sleep, and Dashboard gives you detailed information about how you use your phone.The beta version of Android P is available starting today, for Pixel phones and a variety of other phones.

Now that iOS and Android are approaching technical maturity, new updates to these operating systems no longer feel revolutionary. The new stuff we get every year is boiling down to smarter notification handling, under-the-hood upgrades, screen notch adaptations, and âborrowingâ good ideas from one another. As Google prepares to take the wraps off its next big iteration, Android P, at Google I/O 2018, I have an idea for an alliterative theme: make it Android P for Privacy.Fully agreed with Vlad Savov. Sadly, the lack of encryption in Google's new chat feature doesn't bode well.

Interesting little tidbit from Microsoft's Build developer conference:Updates helping you support the Fluent Design System, so you can create immersive, deeply engaging experiences with Microsoft's updated design language. Now every organization can make beautiful solutions that empower your customers to do more. With UWP XAML Islands, you can access the more capable, flexible, powerful XAML controls regardless which UI stack you use - whether it's Windows Forms, WPF, or native Win32.It seems like Microsoft is giving developers of Win32 applications the option to add Fluent Design to their applications.

We're taking this leak with a grain of salt: it's either a perfectly executed set of Photoshopped images (along with very accurate timestamps) or the real deal. Supposing that it's real, Gabriel Bryne, whom I can't find anything tangible about, has somehow managed to get his hands on the Android P DP2 beta and installed it on his Pixel. He then did what any sensible man with a super secret Android release would do and took a bunch of screenshots and images of the interface.Some interesting possibilities for Android P, which will probably be demoed later today during the Google I/O keynote.

But I do believe that the old Mac makes for a timely reminder that the digital age hasn't always felt so frantic, or urgent, or overwhelming. And maybe, even if an old Mac interface isn't the solution, we can view it as a subtle north star for its sensibilities, and how much it was able to accomplish with so little.This story is far too light on details and quite fluffy, and the final sentence quoted above is far too simplistic - "how much it was able to accomplish" was, in fact, quite little compared to today's machines - but it's interesting to see people discovering the classic Macintosh operating system for the first time, and recognizing its many fun little affordances that made using it so pleasant.Personally, I consider Mac OS 9 to have one of the most pleasant and usable graphical user interfaces ever designed. Sure, the underlying operating system was a grossly outdated technical mess by that point, but the many subtle animations, the spatial Finder, the consistent and elegantly understated Platinum looks made the UI a pleasure to use, to this very day. And considering I never used the classic Mac OS back when it was current, this isn't a case of rose-tinted nostalgia; I didn't get to try out OS 9 until 2005 or so.I wish Apple's current software designers were forced to use the classic Platinum UI for a month or two, just to experience what it was like. Maybe they'd step up their game, because as it stands today, macOS' UI is mere shadow of OS 9.

I was at Microsoft's campus in Redmond a week before the Build developer conference, and I wanted to know what was going on with Windows after a reorg split the team into different divisions. Was Microsoft really preparing itself for a world without Windows? Nadella was ready to tell me that Windows isn't going away - of course Windows isn't going away - but he also wanted to explain his latest buzzwordy vision for the future of the Microsoft: AI, Intelligent Cloud, and Intelligent Edge.Windows might still be here, but after talking to Nadella, I did get the sense that Windows is no longer as central to the company's future plans as it once was. Instead of trying to make everything run on Windows (as his predecessor Steve Ballmer was trying to do), Nadella wants to ensure that everything can work with Windows.The decline of Windows is definitely overblown in the media, but Microsoft did miss the next big thing by a thousand miles, and mindshare-wise, this has had enormous consequences. It hasn't hurt Microsoft much financially though, and you can be sure Windows isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Tomorrow at Google I/Oâs developers keynote, we will see the official launch of Flutter Beta 3. This beta is an important step towards the 1.0 build for Flutter, with a heavy focus on solidifying the improvements that Google has been working since they launched the initial Flutter Beta.First and foremost among those improvements is the implementation of the Dart 2 programming language. The second version of Dart was designed specifically with the challenges that early Flutter builds ran into in mind, and brings some substantial changes, including strong typing, cleaner syntax, and an updated developer tool chain.Flutter and Dart are also important parts of Fuchsia. And on that note, might I point out that Fuchsia is getting support for ART, the Android Runtime?

Android Things is Google's managed OS that enables you to build and maintain Internet of Things devices at scale. We provide a robust platform that does the heavy lifting with certified hardware, rich developer APIs, and secure managed software updates using Google's back-end infrastructure, so you can focus on building your product.After a developer preview with over 100,000 SDK downloads, we're releasing Android Things 1.0 to developers today with long-term support for production devices. Developer feedback and engagement has been critical in our journey towards 1.0, and we are grateful to the over 10,000 developers who have provided us feedback through the issue tracker, at workshop events, and through our Google+ community.Google is promising three years of security updates, straight from Google itself.

This has been bugging me for a while - definitely since iOS 11 was unveiled last June and probably before then. I have no clue what Apple's strategy is with their iOS app icon sets, other than to resign myself to the truth that there isn't one. For simplicity, I'm focusing on just the share icon in this post (what Apple formally calls the 'action' button) but these criticisms apply much more widely.iOS is, indeed, an inconsistent mess when it comes to user interface design. Every application looks and feels different, which trips me up all the time. Android is a little bit better in this regard thanks to Material Design, but that's really not saying much.And you know what? I'd rather have misaligned ports I never see at the bottom of my phone than inconsistent UI design I look at multiple times a day.

A years-old privacy flaw will finally be coming to an end on Android. It's an issue you've probably never heard of, but one that you should absolutely be concerned about. Currently, apps on Android can gain full access to the network activity on your device - even without asking for any sensitive permissions. These apps can't detect the content of your network calls, but they can sniff any outgoing or incoming connection via TCP/UDP to determine if you are connecting to a certain server. For instance, an app can detect when another app on your device connects to a financial institutionâs server. Donât believe me? Just download one of the many netstat apps on the Play Store and see for yourself.I had no idea this was an issue at all. Good to see it fixed, and since it'll probably be part of a monthly security update, it'll propagate to most Android devices.

So the objective here was to take a C64 breadbin case and keyboard and put a Raspberry Pi 3 into it; keeping the keyboard and joystick ports working, but also giving me HDMI, USB controller support, and modem emulation. While I still have 2 real Commodore 64s (and an Ultimate64 on the way!), I like using the RPi and Vice to play 64 games.These mounts do not require you to drill or cut your C64 case! The 3D files are provisioned under the creative commons license so they are FREE to use, distribute, modify, or even sell.Just a fun project.

Sharing from one app to another has been a mainstay of Android for years and years. It was one of the features that first drew me to Android: no more copying and pasting, no more having to open Twitter or WhatsApp to send a picture I just saw in my Gallery. Apps could talk to each other and the experience felt more cohesive and seamless.But with time, the Share UI in Android has languished, stuck with the same features and same problems. It switched from a vertical list to a horizontal one, it added direct share in Android 6.0 and app pinning in Android 7.0, yet these felt like putting lipstick on a pig: the Share UI remains slow, bloated, convoluted, and if you pay close attention to it, one of the most inconsistent experiences on Android to date. Android P, like Oreo before it, appears to bring no improvements to the Share interface, but that's a big oversight in our opinion. It's high time Google gave it the attention it deserved and fixed its many issues.The share sheet on Android is, indeed, a mess. It's odd how such an important aspect of one of Android's major strong points - inter-application communication - is being left to rot.

RISC OS 5.24 has been released.The headline features see previously neglected areas of RISC OS dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, with JPEG support, monitor EDID support, handling of larger hard drives, and the network stack being upgraded. The bounty system is delivering some really worthwhile enhancements into the software. USB and network stack improvements are a massive undertaking, and ROOL broke each into several stages to make them more manageable.There are also some genuine improvements to user features such as clipboard improvements and new features in Paint. Lots of applications have received little tweaks such as unicode and fancy fonts in Chars, improved dialogs in Printers, tweaks to HForm, DosFS, Maestro, more secure LanmanFS which can connect to Windows 8 and 10, etc.RISC OS 5.24 is freely available for Raspberry Pi machines.

By far, the worst part of working on beets is dealing with filenames. And since our job is to keep track of your files in the database, we have to deal with them all the time. This post describes the filename problems we discovered in the project's early days, how we address them now, and some alternatives for the future.

Following Facebook's acknowledgement that it had let a political ad targeting firm scrape the personal data of 87 million users, I rushed to see what kind of personal data the social network and Google had gathered on me. Both had more information, reaching back longer, than I had envisioned. So Apple was next. I use an iPhone, iPad and two Mac computers, and Apple also offers data downloads in the privacy section of its website. It's hard to find, and once you do make the connection, you can expect a hefty wait to get the results.But don't expect to stay up all night reading what Apple has on you.Hint: it ain't much.

Iâve been a professional Free Software developer in the GNU/Linux area for 14 years now, and a hobbyist developer and user for much longer. For some reason that never extended much to the smartphone world, beyond running LineageOS on my older phones (my current Sony Xperia is still under warranty and Iâm fine with the officially supported Android), and various stabs at using the Ubuntu phone (RIP!).On a few long weekends this year it got a hold of me, and I had a look over the Google fence to see how Free Software is doing on Android and how to reduce my dependency on Google Play Services and Google apps. Less because I would actually severely distrust Google, as they have a lot of business and goodwill to lose if they ever majorly screw up; but more because of simple curiosity and for learning new things. I want to note down my experience here for sharing and discussing.I started experimenting on my old Nexus 4 by completely blanking it and installing current LineageOS 14.1 without the Google apps. This provides a nice testing ground that is completely free of any proprietary Google stuff. From that I can apply good solutions on my "production" Xperia.One of those topics not particularly suited for most smartphone users, but among OSNews readers, there are sure to be quite a few people who are interested in this.

But if we can't change our behaviors, maybe we can change our devices. Enter the minimalist phone: a phone that does less. Over the course of a few weeks, I tried out four different phones - the Unihertz Jelly, the Nokia 3310 3G, the Punkt MP01, and the Light Phone - in an effort to curb how much time I spend needlessly scrolling and refreshing. Not every one of these phones is intentionally minimalist, but each came with unique limitations, built-in throttles that would effectively discourage anyone from wallowing in the stupor of infinite feeds. I was looking for a change. I was looking for salvation.But when it was all over, I came crawling back to my iPhone.It shouldn't be this hard to find a good feature phone. I'm pretty sure we have more readers longing for a good feature phone than most websites, and those of you who have that longing should be able to pick up a good feature phone - not some crappy fashion statement that is frustrating to use.

A 20th anniversary is a milestone worthy of celebration in its own right, but even more so when describing a computer. Few technology products boast such a feat in an industry where changing customer preference and exponential technical advancement can quickly obsolete even the most well-considered plans.This Sunday, Apple's iMac line joins the 20-year club. Its ticket to entry is two decades of valuable lessons and ideas that tell the recent history of the personal computer industry and reveal Apple's priorities and values. The iMac's timeline tells many stories - some of reinvention and business strategy, others of software and hardware.Perhaps none are more significant than the iMac's design story. Explorations of color, form, material, and miniaturization have marked significant breakthroughs throughout the years. On this anniversary week, we'll take a look at the design evolution of the iMac.The iMac G4 is definitely my favourite iMac. I've owned all types of iMac - the G3, G4, G5, and various Intel models - and the latest incarnation, the iMac Pro, is definitely on my list of things I'd love to buy if I win the lottery.

When you set a password for your Twitter account, we use technology that masks it so no one at the company can see it. We recently identified a bug that stored passwords unmasked in an internal log. We have fixed the bug, and our investigation shows no indication of breach or misuse by anyone.Out of an abundance of caution, we ask that you consider changing your password on all services where you've used this password. You can change your Twitter password anytime by going to the password settings page.I like how the story is titled "Keeping your account secure".

Your devices are tracking you all the time. You just donât know it yet.When you consent to sharing your data with many popular apps, youâre also allowing app developers to collect your data and sell it to third parties through trackers that supply advertisers with detailed information about where you live, work, and shop.In November 2017, Yale Privacy Lab detected trackers in over 75% of the 300 Android apps it analyzed. A March 2018 study of 160,000 free Android apps found that more than 55% of trackers tried to extract user location, while 30% accessed the deviceâs contact list. And a 2015 analysis of 110 popular free mobile apps revealed that 47% of iOS apps shared geo-coordinates and other location data with third parties, and personally identifiable information, like names of users (provided by 18% of iOS apps), was also provided.These are particularly nasty trackers, since it's generally more difficult to block them.

Given all of these changes, we wanted to explore how the T2 coprocessor was being used by Apple and how it currently fits into the larger system security model, as well as how this may evolve in the future. What follows is the first part of this exploration where we describe how the T2 coprocessor is used to implement Secure Boot on the iMac Pro, as well as comparing and contrasting this Secure Boot approach to those that have been present in Appleâs iDevices for a number of years.Detailed exploration of the T2 coprocessor in the new iMac Pro.

A coalition of Silicon Valley tech giants has doubled down on its criticism of encryption backdoors following a proposal that would give law enforcement access to locked and encrypted devices.The group, which focuses on efforts to reform government surveillance, said in a statement that it continues to advocate for strong encryption, and decried attempts to undermine the technology.The coalition consists of, among others, Google, Microsoft, and Apple.

In an exclusive piece of research, Check Point Researchers have carried out a revealing investigation into North Korea's home-grown anti-virus software, SiliVaccine. One of several interesting factors is that a key component of SiliVaccine's code is a 10-year-old copy of one of Trend Micro's, a Japanese company, software components.It also contained a piece of malware, so not much different from western anti-virus.

I've decided to write up a little history of ispc, the compiler I wrote when I was at Intel. There's a lot to say, so it'll come out in a series of posts over the next few weeks. While I've tried to get all the details right and properly credit people, this is all from my memory. For anyone who was around at the time, please send an email if you see any factual errors.The above links to the first part in the series - there's a table of contents for the entire series.

Regulation (EU) 2016/6791, the European Union's new General Data Protection Regulation ('GDPR'), regulates the processing by an individual, a company or an organisation of personal data relating to individuals in the EU.It doesn't apply to the processing of personal data of deceased persons or of legal entities.The rules don't apply to data processed by an individual for purely personal reasons or for activities carried out in one's home, provided there is no connection to a professional or commercial activity. When an individual uses personal data outside the personal sphere, for socio-cultural or financial activities, for example, then the data protection law has to be respected.A complete guide and overview of the new GDPR going into effect in the EU later this month. It's a very comprehensive set of privacy regulations that virtually all technology - and others - will have to comply with.

Mozilla's Nate Weiner:Content on the web is powerful. It enables us to learn new things, discover different perspectives, stay in touch with what's happening in the world, or just make us laugh. Making sure that stories like these - stories that are worth your time and attention - are discoverable and supported is central to what we care about at Pocket.It's important for quality content like this to thrive - and a critical way it's funded is through advertising. But unfortunately, today, this advertising model is broken. It doesn't respect user privacy, it's not transparent, and it lacks control, all the while starting to move us toward low quality, clickbait content.We believe the Internet can do better. So earlier this year, we started to explore a new model and showed an occasional sponsored story in Pocket's recommendation section on Firefox New Tab. Starting today, we're expanding this work further - now Firefox Nightly and Beta users may also see these sponsored stories. We're preparing for this feature to go fully live in May to Firefox users in the US with the Firefox 60 release.Luckily, you can turn this off.

All those little features add up: The phone is fun and easy to use. And so far, there's no serious downside. I mentioned it above; the experience is simultaneously high-end luxury yet while staying informed and in control of the device. I believe this is a very difficult mix to get right. IMO, Apple's been drifting away from the keep-the-user-in-control value.Maybe this sounds naive, but I'm completely surprised by how the product stands on its own. It's not in the shadow of iOS, not playing catch-up with Apple. I'm continuously seeing common problems solved in new ways.I'm sure we can have a civil, informed, and respectful discussion about this. To facilitate such, I'm going for a walk. With my iPhone 10, AirPods, and Apple Watch.

Today, Microsoft released the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, which adds a number of interesting new features to Windows, and adds even more Fluent Design to the user interface. The Verge lists the 10 biggest new features and changes, while WindowsCentral has a longer, more detailed review of the update.I've been running the final version of this update for a while now on my workstation and my Surface Pro 4, and this is one of those updates that adds nothing but welcome changes and new features. There are two 'features' that really make a huge difference to me, and which have me mildly excited about Windows for the first time in ages.The tentpole feature - Timeline - is really nice, and allows you to easily scroll back in time to look at applications, documents, websites, and more that you opened in the past. It's like the history feature of your browser, but instead of just websites, it also covers apps and documents, while also combining the histories of other Windows machines you own. Timeline will clearly raise a number of privacy concerns, so luckily, it's optional, and you can turn it off.The second 'feature' isn't really a feature per se, but more a clean-up of the Windows UI that's clearly an ongoing process. Microsoft is adding Fluent Design to all of its applications, and it's slowly adding it to core parts of the operating system as well, such as the Start menu and the various applets. Fluent Design adds some much-needed depth and distinctiveness to the otherwise flat user interface, and has nice, unobtrusive animations and highlighting effects that make using such a flat UI a lot less... Cold?It feels like the next big step in the "Fluent Design-ification" of Windows is a big one: Explorer. While Microsoft is replacing more and more old Win32 parts of the operating system with new, modern Fluent Design counterparts, Explorer is the one big holdout that's still fully Win32, looking horribly out of place among all the fast, new, and responsive Fluent Design parts of the operating system. I can't wait for a modern replacement.All in all, this is a no-brainer update that makes Windows better, so unless you have some specific reason to hold out on updates, go ahead and install it.

The billionaire chief executive of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, is planning to leave the company after clashing with its parent, Facebook, over the popular messaging serviceâs strategy and Facebook's attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption, according to people familiar with internal discussions.As the most popular messaging application in the world, WhatsApp is one of the largest treasure troves of user data not yet exploited for targeted advertising thanks to its end-to-end encryption. Facebook must be itching to start injecting ads into WhatsApp and to scan messages for optimal targeting.

This build is a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm replica of the NeXT Computer to house a Raspberry Pi computer. I designed and built this specifically with the aim of having it run some basic server tasks on my home network, such as storing revision control repositories etc.The necessary files to make your own are available. What a neat-looking case - I'd love a similar one, but slightly larger so it can house a mini-ITX board. I would love to build a Ryzen II machine in a case like this.

It's that time of year again - Haiku is going to participate in Google's Summer of Code, and this means interesting projects to follow. One of the three projects has the goal to bring XFS support to Haiku, while another wants to implement "an addon for Tracker to support the Git version control system". The last of the three projects aims to develop an SDHCI MMC for Haiku, which, from the description of the project, seems like a massive undertaking to me.Three fascinating projects to follow over the coming months.

As a follow-up to the story about Eric Lundgren being sentenced to prison, Microsoft published a blog post with "the facts" about the case.In the last few days there have been several stories about the sentencing of Eric Lundgren in a case that began in 2012, and we have received a number of questions about this case and our role in it. Although the case was not one that we brought, the questions raised recently have caused us to carefully review the publicly available court documents. All of the information we are sharing in this blog is drawn from those documents. We are sharing this information now and responding publicly because we believe both Microsoftâs role in the case and the facts themselves are being misrepresented.As a counterpoint to Microsoft's blog post, Techcrunch's Devin Coldewey claims Microsoft is trying to spin "the facts".Earlier this week Eric Lundgren was sentenced to 15 months in prison for selling what Microsoft claimed was "counterfeit software", but which was in fact only recovery CDs loaded with data anyone can download for free. The company has now put up a blog post setting "the facts" straight, though it's something of a limited set of those facts."We are sharing this information now and responding publicly because we believe both Microsoft's role in the case and the facts themselves are being misrepresented," the company wrote. But it carefully avoids the deliberate misconception about software that it promulgated in court.At this point, we've covered all the possible angles on this story.

Eric Lundgren is resigned to doing prison time. After spending his life working on e-waste recycling programs, Lundgren was arrested and charged with "counterfeiting" Microsoft restore discs, part of a controversial, years-long legal fight that ended this week when an appeals court declined to overturn a lower court's decision.This is one of those cases where it's very easy to hide behind the letter of the law, but anybody with more than two independent braincells to rub together should realise this man should not be in prison. Laws exist to serve man; man does not exist to serve laws. Nothing is more dangerous to a society and civilization than people believing law rules over man.

Intel has announced that, once again, mass production of its 10-nanometer "Cannon Lake" chips will be delayed. The company is already shipping the chips in low volumes (though no one knows to whom at this point), but said it "now expects 10-nanometer volume production to shift to 2019 [rather than the end of 2018]." It announced the move in its first quarter earnings report, which saw it collect a record $16.1 billion in revenue and $4.5 billion in profit, a 50 percent jump over last year.Ryzen 2 is kicking butt, and Intel is delaying chips. Must be fun to work at Intel these days.

After the recent news about Linux applications coming to Chrome OS, we now also know what they will look like.The Chrome OS developers have been working out the stylistic elements of what you'll see once you open your first native Linux apps in Chrome OS, and they've opted for Adapta, a popular Material Design-inspired Gtk theme that can be used on many of your favorite GNU/Linux distributions.This project may finally make Linux on the desktop happen.

Apple has officially ended development on its AirPort line of products, which includes the AirPort Express ($99), the AirPort Extreme ($199), and the AirPort Time Capsule ($299).This makes me sad. I have the latest AirPort Extreme, and it's one of those products I have absolutely zero complaints about. It's easy to use, works like a charm, has far better performance than any other router I've ever had, and looks unassuming. If it ever fails. I'll probably take a look at something like Eero.