Month: October 2015

Compelling story, until you read the actual warrant

+Boing Boing​​​​​​'s article tells this story where Apple protects the user's data by providing a solution that prevents anyone including themselves to decrypt it.
The author even frames it as a malicious attack against software that's licensed instead of sold, which would make a terrible precedent if Apple lost.

But then if you read the warrant itself, you realize Apple indeed has the ability to bypass the locking mechanism because it's running iOS 7, which they did it multiple times previously – although increasingly reluctantly.
This time however they argue that helping the DoJ would be bad PR for their brand, changed their mind, now refuse and somehow we get a press article depicting them as a hero protector.

Warrant:
https://ia801501.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.nyed.376325/gov.uscourts.nyed.376325.15.0.pdf

Apple describing how they can extract data from passcode-locked pre-iOS 8 iPhones:
http://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/legal-process-guidelines-us.pdf

Did I interpret the whole thing wrong or missed something here?

#supercurioBlog #Apple #encryption



DoJ to Apple: your software is licensed, not sold, so we can force you to decrypt
The DoJ is currently trying to force Apple to decrypt data stored on a defendant’s Iphone, and Apple, to its great credit, is fighting back, arguing that on the one hand, it doesn’t have the techni…

Source post on Google+

Ubuntu 15.10 launched!

I'm still using 14.04 on my desktop, laptop, home server and dedicated server, as 14.04 is a long term release, benefitting of years of support.
5 years of support, to be precise!

It helps focusing on working instead of adjusting little things that can break or change with a new distro version.

But it's time to evaluate this new release ☺
A Virtual Machine is always convenient for that.

What's new:
https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/10/22/whats-new-in-ubuntu-15-10-cloud-and-server/

#supercurioBlog #Linux

Originally shared by +Ubuntu

We've launched! Here's what's new in Ubuntu 15.10 for desktop and devices: http://ubunt.eu/15.10



What’s new in Ubuntu 15.10: desktop and devices
The desktop edition of Ubuntu 15.10 will be available for download from today – 22nd October – with the latest developer tools and freshest desktop interface, with a preview of the converged phone, desktop and tablet experience that has been making waves in the tech community. Over-the-air updates to Ubuntu Phone Users of the Ubuntu Phone will automatically receive all features of Ubuntu 15.10, demonstrating for the first time the integration of…

Source post on Google+

Interesting video by +Russell Holly​​​​​​ for +Android Central​​​​​​

His initial approach in the video is to comfort people wondering if the +Nexus​​​​​ 5X, they might have just ordered is actually slow.
What I got from the video however is that a difference in performance between the 5X and the 6P is much larger than I expected.
Like 1-generation gap difference of real-world performance.

In the attached article's comments, there's a link to this other video made by +Android Headlines​​​​​​ which doesn't show as much gap apparently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WS01o-1zl0
It's interesting as second take.

Watching this new type of videos becoming popular, evaluating the amount of time you wait when using your phone and multitasking capabilities makes me wonder about the possibility to replicate those in an automated way.
It might be possible to script all that, and get some quite valuable metrics allowing to compare phones quickly.

Maybe a few Android publications could team up and fund the development of such evaluation tool.

#supercurioBlog #press #Nexus #video

Source post on Google+

A few notes about +Ars Technica comments on +HTC One A9 Audio

There's also a 24-bit DSP on-board, which upscales audio to 24-bit, as well as 24-bit DAC.

Fact is you'll be hard pressed finding a DAC installed in a phone during at least the past 5 years that are not accepting 24-bit wording on their bus, with at least 24-bit fixed-point DSP & oversampling, then converting to analog in 24-bit as well (some in 32-bit now as well)

There's no such thing as 24-bit "upscaling"
Or if you wish, everything audio out here already does that with a simple integer multiplication, you just didn't know about it.
But it's just an arithmetic operation, it doesn't improve the quality in any way.

However, does the system preserves this resolution from the audio player API, through the software mixing and processing and eventually to the Linux audio driver, that's something else.

iPhones benefit in dynamic range from 24-bit audio, when playing 24-bit files or even with 16-bit at lower volumes thanks to the volume mixer, but not many Android devices do even since Lollipop that adds 32-bit floating point audio.

Concerning what the marketing material and PR people say, I learned to not trust any of it regarding audio, you can only rely on measurements, they'll say whatever buzzword – sometime in good faith with no correlation whatsoever with reality.

My advice, as usual: measurements 🙂
If you want to know how to do that for your next article: let me know, I'll show you.

#supercurioBlog #audio #quality #press #critic



HTC One A9 hands-on: A midrange smartphone that feels like a flagship | Ars Technica
A solid, aluminum unibody paired with decent internals and a nice display.

Source post on Google+

Professional audio definition requirements for Android 6

In order for a device to advertise itself as professional audio capable in a way that the +Google Play​ Store or an application can be aware of, it will have to perform with an analog round-trip latency of 20 ms maximum.
A target of below 10 ms is recommended.

To give you a comparison point, iPhone and iPad are in between 6 and 10ms (for years)
A target of below 10 ms is what's commonly described as a requirement for real-time instrument sound processing as well as virtual instrument synthesis.

This is a new effort at encouraging the development of a music and pro audio ecosystem around the Android platform:

Nothing Google tried worked so far and Apple devices enjoy a quasi exclusivity on this segment as a result.
The thing is: Google doesn't tell manufacturers how to reach those low latencies. Qualcomm, the leading SoC provider doesn't know either.

Samsung tried something with a dedicated SDK implementing a JACK Linux audio based solution – bypassing AudioFlinger apparently but with mixed results: devs reported buffer underruns.
In consequence, we've seen no progress.

That's why while this new definition is a laudable initiative, it might not make any difference.

PS: Anyone with a +Nexus​ 5X or 6P wants to try to measure their round-trip audio latency?

Excellent find in the latest CDD, thanks to +Android Police​.

#supercurioBlog #audio #latency #API



Google Explains Requirements For ‘Professional Audio’ Devices In Android 6.0
Android has long had trouble with audio latency, which has made most music creation tools unworkable on the platform. Things were vastly improved in Androi… by Ryan Whitwam in Marshmallow 6.0, News

Source post on Google+

More ARM Mali-4xx GPUs

Maybe you remember of the Mali 400 GPU debuting on the Galaxy SII.
Apparently, this old design is here to stay thanks to how small it is, its power efficiency – and I suppose its costs as well, with the announcement of the Mali 470 tailored to TVs wearable and IoT.

The gorgeous Elephone ELE smartwatch, build from MediaTek's MT2601 SoC is one of the devices illustrating that the Mali 400 is still very much in use and current.
Well, even the Samsung Gear S2 uses the same GPU architecture, with its Exynos 3250.

The 470 is said to be twice as power efficient as the Mali-400
(not sure if it's with the same process)

#supercurioBlog #SoC #GPU



ARM Announces Mali-470 GPU: Low Power For Wearables & More

Source post on Google+

Both +Nexus​ 5X and 6P have interesting slow motion capabilities!

With sound, not suffering from obvious aliasing artifacts, offering good detail instead.
While I'm looking forward to direct comparisons with iPhones 6 and 6s, they appear to be by far the best Android phones in this department to date.

Thanks +High Speed Cams​ for the early samples round-up.

#supercurioBlog #camera #Nexus



Nexus 6P Slow Motion Quality is Great! – Hi Speed Cameras
Now that the Nexus 6P has been getting into the hands of reviewers you can clearly see that the slow motion mode has great quality. It has audio same as the iPhone and the resolution in 240fps mode is on Par or might be better than the iPhone 6s.

Source post on Google+

The early #Nexus 5X and 6P camera samples popping up are really not that good

Most of them are overexposed with large parts of the photo burned out, automatic white balance doesn't seem too consistent with some pics too blue and others too yellow.
At least they're in focus.
Low-light seem to be a winner however.

Most reviewers don't say if the pics were taking with or without HDR+. Maybe only HDR+ is alright and standard mode just poor.

Google has a lot of work to fix this camera.
I mean, getting the exposure right is the very first thing. You'll see this illustrated in comparison with Galaxy S6 or iPhone.

(early opinion based on the very first samples published)
#supercurioBlog #camera

Source post on Google+

+Android #Marshmallow #Doze experience:

On my #Nexus5 , it does the job just as promised and since I flashed Android 6.0 the battery life has been predictable again.

All that despite the unit is paired via Bluetooth LE with an Android Wear Smartwatch, and tracks my exercise with Google Fit with activity detection enabled.
The later relies on and activates location history.

On #Lollipop , unexpected and hard to trace battery drain were happening often; most of the time I was unable to identify their sources.
Even complete airplane mode was not sufficient to prevent battery drain during the night so yeah, the Nexus 5 was not behaving correctly under 5.x.
Many other non- #Nexus devices were just fine in the same configuration however.

So far I've noticed only one drawback of #Doze with my current usage pattern:

If the phone stays on the desk for a while and I go out of Bluetooth reach shortly – like a few minutes ago while taking out the trash: the Android Wear watch can't reconnect to the smartphone for a few minutes once I come back.
But it connects again as soon as I pick-up and turn on the phone.

I'll try to reproduce that once more and disable power optimizations for Android Wear app after that to see if it solves this particular issue.

Currently there's no notification that I have to receive urgently so I'm not worrying about the rest like +Andrew Martonik mentioned.

Via +Andrew Martonik

#supercurioBlog



Inside Marshmallow: What is Doze, how do I use it and what does it do?
Android Marshmallow has changes deep in the operating system that can allow your phone (or tablet) to get better battery life. We see this mentioned with every operating system update from every company that makes smart devices, but this time they mean it. Enter Doze. If the name reminds you of a pleasant nap while nothing pressing is going on, you’ve figured out what it is. It’s a set…

Source post on Google+