Tech News - Mobile

Mozilla announced a major update to Firefox Focus, a free and open-source privacy-focused browser by Mozilla for Android, iOS smartphones and tablets, yesterday. Firefox Focus allows you to stay “focused” by automatically blocking ads and trackers. The new updates explore new features, revamped design, and GeckoView Technology behind Firefox Focus for Android. New Features There are three new features added in Firefox Focus, namely, home screen tips, search suggestions, and Siri shortcut for iOS users. Home Screen tips It’s good news for people who like to keep tabs on feature releases. Now, you can see the core functionalities of Firefox Focus on the start screen. This will provide an overview of the whole range of possibilities that your privacy browser needs to offer. More than that, this new addition will not interrupt the usage at all and will get automatically refreshed after every click on the Erase button. All you need to do is just open the browser and a bunch of helpful feature recommendations will be presented in your preferred language on the start screen (Android). However, for iOS users, this feature is currently available only in the English language. Search Suggestions Search suggestions make the entire searching process more convenient. You can activate the feature by opening the app and select settings > “Search” > select the checkbox “Get search suggestions”. Now, keeping in mind the privacy of the Firefox Focus users, you don’t have to share what you’re typing in the address bar with your search provider. The search suggestions feature has been turned “off” by default, so you can choose whether or not you want to turn it on. Siri shortcuts for iOS users Siri shortcuts have been added to the updated Firefox Focus. You can now set and open a favorite website, erase and open Firefox, as well as erase in the background using Siri shortcuts. Mozilla’s aim with this was to improve the Firefox Focus experience for iOS users. Revamped Design Visual design for Firefox Focus browser has been completely optimized for the recently released Android Pie. New icons, a customized URL bar, and a simplified settings menu make Firefox Focus easier to use. It also offers a consistent user experience. New engine for Firefox Android users Focus has been using Android’s built-in WebView all this time, but it has some limitations. WebView is not designed for building browsers. To add next-generation privacy features to Focus, Focus developers require deep access to the browser internals. This is why, they have opted for their own engine, Gecko. Firefox Focus is now based on GeckoView, Mozilla’s own mobile engine, making it perfect for use in Android apps. GeckoView will help them leverage all of their Firefox expertise to build more compelling, safe, and robust online experiences. GeckoView will enable Mozilla to implement unique privacy-enhancing features in the future, such as reducing the potential of a third-party collection. For more information, check out the official Mozilla website. Mozilla releases Firefox 62.0 with better scrolling on Android, a dark theme on macOS, and more Firefox Nightly browser: Debugging your app is now fun with Mozilla’s new ‘time travel’ feature Firefox Nightly’s Secure DNS Experimental Results out

Yesterday, Apple Inc. announced the acquisition of Akonia Holographics, a startup focused on making lenses for augmented reality glasses, which may launch sometime in the year 2020. Akonia Holographics was founded in 2012 by a group of holography scientists and had originally focused on holographic data storage before shifting its efforts to creating displays for augmented reality glasses. Why did Apple acquire Akonia Holographics? With this acquisition, Apple aims to create a wearable device that has the potential to superimpose digital information in the real world via a thin lens. Akonia’s display technology allows for thin, transparent smart glass lenses that display vibrant, full-color, wide field-of-view images. This can help Apple in reaching its ambition of superimposing digital information. Akonia has a portfolio of more than 200 patents related to holographic systems and materials, according to its website. As reported by Reuters, The Akonia acquisition is a clear indication of how Apple might handle one of the most daunting challenges in augmented reality hardware, which is producing crystal clear optical displays that are thin and light enough to fit into glasses similar to everyday frames with images bright enough for outdoor use and suited to mass manufacturing at a relatively low price. In 2013, Apple acquired a small Israeli firm called PrimeSense that made three-dimensional sensors. The iPhone X, launched last year, uses a similar sensor to power facial recognition features. Similarly, Akonia’s acquisition might also result in a new AR lens update in one of its upcoming releases in its devices. Ming-Chi Kuo, a former Apple Inc. analyst said that the Apple Car will launch sometime in 2023-2025. The iCar project is codenamed as 'Titan', according to The Wall Street Journal. Kuo said, “Apple’s leading technology advantages (e.g. AR) would redefine cars and differentiate Apple Car from peers’ products”. Apple acquiring Akino could also be part of including the latest AR tech within the iCar initiative and scale forward the timelines. Apple bans Facebook’s VPN app from the App Store for violating its data collection rules Stack skills, not degrees: Industry-leading companies, Google, IBM, Apple no longer require degrees 16 year old hacked into Apple’s servers, accessed ‘extremely secure’ customer accounts for over a year undetected

Yesterday, the team at Microsoft announced that Office 365 is available on the Mac App Store for the first time. Mac users can now download Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote and the whole suite of Microsoft’s popular apps. It is also possible to purchase a subscription for Office 365 from within the apps. With Office 365 on the Mac App Store, these apps can be easily distributed to the employees using Apple Business Manager, a central dashboard where IT can deploy devices, apps and licenses. Users can now work with their Office tools across Mac, iPad and iPhone. Also, few new features are designed specifically for Apple devices. Jared Spataro, corporate vice president at Microsoft, said, “We are excited to announce that today Office 365 is arriving in the Mac App Store. We have worked closely with Apple to provide Mac users with the very best productivity experience — one that offers everything they know and love about Office through an experience uniquely designed for the Mac.” Office 365 for Mac has been designed for supporting features such as Dark Mode and Continuity Camera in macOS and MacBook Pro Touch Bar and Mac’s industry-leading Trackpad. Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple, said, “We are excited to welcome Microsoft Office 365 to the all-new Mac App Store in macOS Mojave. Apple and Microsoft have worked together to bring great Office productivity to Mac users from the very beginning. Now, with Office 365 on the Mac App Store, it's easier than ever to get the latest and best version of Office 365 for Mac, iPad and, iPhone.” Users have given mixed reactions to this news. Some of the users are happy with this news. One of the users commented on HackerNews, “I use both Office for Mac and Windows all the time and Office for Mac is pretty reliable IMO.” This also looks like a big move for both the companies. Users are now looking at this bigger picture where both Mac and iOS app stores will be integrated together. This could possibly be a step closer to a better UX (for Microsoft). Another comment reads, “Have you tried to download Office from their website? It's a horrible, braindead experience. You have to log in to your Live account, then go to a particular page to manage your existing Office installs that is super confusing.” There is also a discussion going on with regards to App store updates and Microsoft autoupdate. A comment on HackerNews reads, “If it uses the App Store update mechanism instead of Microsoft Autoupdate I would prefer it.”  Another comment reads, “Right now Microsoft's autoupdate UX is pretty terrible at keeping things up to date.  They have automated updates but it's hard to trust that process won't result in issues when documents are open, and it presents a lot of cognitive load to users on top of the OS & App Store updates.” Few of the users are wondering if Apple will get its share from the subscription fee of the Office 365. But on the whole, users are on the go that there is some mechanism via which both the companies will benefit. One of the users commented, “But this is a massive deal between two of the ecosystem's biggest fish, and I'm sure an arrangement has been made to give Apple a piece of the pie somehow.” Users’ biggest question is if Microsoft has changed Office 365 in order to get in the Mac App Store rules or has Apple changed its rules to get Office in? Or is it very well sandboxed? Well, only time will answer these questions! To know more about this news, check out the official announcement on Apple’s newsroom. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook calls for new federal privacy law while attacking the ‘shadow economy’ in an interview with TIME China blocks Microsoft’s Bing search engine Microsoft Edge mobile browser now shows warnings against fake news using NewsGuard

Yesterday, the Defense and Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that they are developing a new and highly secure communication platform. This program will be called as ‘Resilient Anonymous Communication for Everyone (RACE)’ and will be similar to WhatsApp. The RACE program plans on building a distributed messaging system which can exist completely within a network; provide confidentiality, integrity, and availability of messaging; and also preserve privacy to any participant in the system. DARPA in the program description mention that "compromised system data and associated networked communications should not be helpful for comprising any additional parts of the system." RACE also mentions that the program will further seek to explore approaches to preserving privacy, such as secure multiparty computation and obfuscated communication protocols. According to the program description on DARPA’s official website, “The goal of the RACE program is to create a system capable of avoiding large-scale compromise.” “RACE research efforts will explore: 1) preventing compromised information from being useful for identifying any of the system nodes because all such information is encrypted on the nodes at all times, even during computation; and 2) preventing communications compromise by virtue of obfuscating communication protocols”, the description reads. For now, the team has not revealed complete details of the project. However, they’ll update the users on any new changes made. Visit DARPA’s official website for more. DARPA’s $2 Billion ‘AI Next’ campaign includes a Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program Katie Bouman unveils the first ever black hole image with her brilliant algorithm Obfuscating Command and Control (C2) servers securely with Redirectors [Tutorial]

Yesterday, Facebook open-sourced Spectrum 1.0.0, a cross-platform image transcoding library for Android and iOS that makes uploading larger images easier. Spectrum has also improved the reliability and quality of image uploads across all Facebook apps. With Spectrum now open source, users can fully debug it and add support for new codecs using its plugin architecture. Facebook uses Spectrum in-house across all of its mobile apps. It is an all in one package for performing image-manipulation tasks for lowering file-sizes and improving resizing, cropping, and transcoding. Features of Spectrum 1.0.0 High-quality output Spectrum uses Mozjpeg to achieve higher quality file size ratio. Spectrum makes image operations easier by cropping and rotating lossless. It focuses on increasing the quality for graphical content with operations like disabling chroma sampling. Prevents common missteps Since Spectrum's API is declarative, it helps in preventing common missteps such as incomplete handling of EXIF metadata. Written in C/C++ It is written in portable C/C++ so users can adopt it to their environment. Java and Objective-C APIs are thin wrappers around the C++ core that makes development easier. C++ core allows higher execution speed for computational operations and provides control over allocations. This core allows sharing between apps on Android and iOS which makes outputs more consistent. Automatic behavior definition using Recipes Spectrum is unique because it does not require developers to manually, step-by-step define all behaviors. Instead, the developers just state what the desired outcome is, and the library takes it from there. Spectrum makes this possible by using ‘recipes’, that are bundled with the plugins used by the library and sorted by Facebook. Recipes help developers in choosing the optimal execution sequence for individual requests. For example, the JPEG plugin will provide recipes for the lossless cropping and rotation of JPEG images. Integration with Mozilla JPEG Integration with MozJpeg, a native library, helps Spectrum to control encoding parameters beyond the general purpose platform APIs. It helps developers to utilize intensive encoding, which requires more time for processing but significantly reduces the file size. Other minor features Spectrum 1.0.0 can write interlaced PNG files. This release supports consuming JPEG images with 4:1:1 and 4:4:0 chroma subsampling. For iOS bitmaps, Spectrum 1.0.0 will default to 4:2:0 chroma subsampling. This release is built with proper SIMD support for mozjpeg on Android ARMv7. It optimizes the interplay between pixel-perfect resizing and decoder sampling. Hacker news users are excited about this news and are relieved that they don’t have to recreate a bunch of scaffolding around image encoders. Users are also comparing this library with other apps like ImageOptim, a free Mac app that can handle JPEG, GIF and PNG and Google's Guetlzi that can reach 20-40% compression without any loss of quality. All is not bright, however. Users have also expressed concerns with using Spectrum saying that Facebook provides the worst image compression. One user commented on HackerNews, “Facebook photos are compressed to a point where they look horrible. Why would anyone want to use this? I do not see what this benefits any developer over just using mozjpeg with better settings.” Some users are unhappy with Messenger videos too. Another user commented, “If any Facebook compression engineer reads this, please fix the sound in Messenger videos! The sound bitrate is absolutely terrible, only for ridiculous bandwidth savings.” Also, there are issues with the name as there are other products with the same name. A comment reads, “I like how there are 2 products called Spectrum on the front page and they are completely unrelated. Anyway, this lib looks pretty ok for its purpose.” Another comment reads, “There's also the article that wants to sell you a spectrum analyzer to search your hotel room for bugs.” 3 out of 4 users don’t know Facebook categorizes them for ad targeting; with political and racial affinity being some labels: Pew Research A new privacy bill was introduced for creating federal standards for privacy protection aimed at big tech firms like Facebook, Google and Amazon Facebook plans to invest $300 million to support local journalism

The OpenID foundation has written an open letter to Apple arguing that the upcoming ‘Sign in with Apple’ feature bears similarities to OpenID Connect,  but lacks privacy and security. ‘Sign in with Apple’ was launched at WWDC 2019 earlier this month. Users can simply use their Apple ID for authentication purpose instead of using a social account, or their email addresses, etc. Apple will be protecting users’ privacy by providing developers with a unique random ID. However, the OpenID Foundation is questioning some of the decisions Apple made for Sign In with Apple. The OpenID Foundation is a non-profit organization with members such as PayPal, Google, Microsoft, and more. The OpenID Foundation controls numerous universal sign-in platforms using its OpenID Connect platform. The letter states, “It appears Apple has largely adopted OpenID Connect for their Sign In with Apple implementation offering, or at least has intended to. However, there are differences between the two are tracked in a document managed by the OIDF certification team. The current set of differences between OpenID Connect and Sign In with Apple reduces the places where users can use Sign In with Apple and exposes them to greater security and privacy risks. It also places an unnecessary burden on developers of both OpenID Connect and Sign In with Apple.” Issues with Sign in with Apple and differences with OpenID The OpenID team has listed down the differences between Apple’s Sign in and OpenID Connect. The differences were identified by the OpenID Foundation’s Certification team and the identity community at large. In Apple’s No Discovery document, developers have to read through the Apple docs to find out about endpoints, scopes, signing algorithms, authentication methods, etc. No UserInfo endpoint is provided, which means all of the claims about users have to be included in the (expiring and potentially large) id_token. Does not include different claims in the id_token based on requested scopes. The token endpoint does not accept client_secret_basic as a client authentication method. Using unsupported or wrong parameters always results in the same message in the browser that says “Your request could not be completed because of an error. Please try again later.” without any explanation about what happened, why this is an error, or how to fix it. Absence of PKCE [Proof Key for Code Exchange] in the Authorization Code grant type, which could nominally leave people exposed to code injection and replay attacks. When using the sample app, adding openid as a scope leads to an error message and it works just with name and email as scope values. The letter asks for Apple to "address the gaps," use the OpenID Connect Self Certification Test Suite, state that Sign in with Apple is compatible with Relying Party software, and finally join the OpenID Foundation. You can read the full open letter here. Testing of Sign in with Apple will start later this summer ahead of iOS 13's fall launch window. Apple showcases privacy innovations at WWDC 2019: Sign in with Apple, AdGuard Pro, and more. WWDC 2019 highlights: Apple introduces SwiftUI, new privacy-focused sign in, updates to iOS, macOS, and more. Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer departs after 27 years at Apple to form an independent design company.

Facebook Oculus' annual virtual reality developer conference, ‘The Oculus Connect 5 2018’ started yesterday on the 26th of September, in San Jose, California. It is a two-day event that ends today. This conference brings together VR developers from all around the world having an expertise in a variety of platforms and mediums. This is to push collaboration and share ideas that can bring the VR industry forward. Day 1 of Oculus Connect 5 was full of exciting news and announcements including the launch of Oculus Quest VR headset, Oculus platform updates, Oculus Go getting youtube VR, a three-part Vader Immortal Star Wars VR experience, and much more! Let’s have a look at some of these exciting announcements from Oculus Connect 5 2018. Oculus Quest VR headset revealed Oculus Quest is the first all-in-one VR gaming system by Oculus. It will be launched in Spring 2019. It comes with six degrees of freedom (6DOF), and touch controllers. The best thing is that it doesn’t come with an additional baggage of a PC, wires, and external sensors.  Oculus Quest The Oculus team also presented ‘Oculus Insight’ that uses four ultra wide-angle sensors along with computer vision algorithms. This helps track your exact position in real time without requiring any external sensors. Oculus Quest includes similar optics as Oculus Go along with a display resolution of 1600x1440 per eye. It also incorporates a lens spacing adjustment for enhanced visual comfort. The built-in audio system has been improved with bass up for higher quality sound effects. After its launch in Spring 2019, Oculus Quest will also launch a library with 50 VR apps including popular games like Robo Recall, The Climb, and Moss. Oculus Go getting YouTube VR Another exciting announcement made at the Oculus Connect 5 event was Oculus bringing YouTube VR to its Oculus Go VR headset. Oculus Go VR headset will now have access to more than 800,000 360-degree videos as a result of a partnership with Google’s YouTube service. This YouTube VR service will launch on the headset soon, as announced by Oculus Go product manager, Sean Liu at the Oculus Connect 5 conference. Oculus Venues adding NBA pro basketball games Now Oculus Venue, a concert and sports events app by Oculus has added the world’s most popular sports to the platform, NBA pro basketball games. As per the announcement at the Oculus Connect 5 conference,  NBA games will be available in Oculus Venues later this year. Also, viewers accessing NBA game in VR will be getting a custom virtual jersey of their favorite team which their avatar will be able to wear for the rest of the game season. Apart from that, Oculus Venues is planning on adding a lot more live music, movie marathons, and stand up comedy. Also, everyone who will be attending an NBA game in VR will get a special jersey for their avatar. Oculus Go cast support Another announcement made at the Oculus Connect 5 conference was cast support being added to Oculus Go. This will enable the Go users with the capability to stream their gameplay experience to other screens. As of now, the main focus is on enabling the users to cast Go screen to mobile devices. However, casting Go screen will be available for TV screens too in the near future, as mentioned by Sean Liu, Oculus Go product manager. A three-part Star Wars series - Vader Immortal Another super exciting announcement made at Oculus Connect 5 was the arrival of the first episode of a three-part VR series, called VR immortal. The series is based on Darth Vader and would be premiering with the upcoming Oculus Quest headsets. Vader Immortal  Vader Immortal is being created with David S. Goyer, who is the screenwriter behind films like The Dark Knight trilogy. Vader Immortal explores the events that take place in Secrets of the Empire and between the Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. It will also explore the Darth Vader's castle as seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Gaming Announcements Apart from 50 titles for the Oculus Quest at the launch, there are a bunch of other Game Announcements that were made at Oculus Connect 5 2018. Insomniac Games’ Stormland, an action-adventure game which lets you play as a robot, will be launched in 2019. First look at Ready At Dawn’s Lone Echo II, the sequel to Lone Echo I, one of the most critically acclaimed games. Vox Machinae out, the mech simulator game had a surprise launch yesterday for Oculus Rift at the Oculus Connect 5 2018 conference. Fans of giant robots and elaborate cockpits would love this game! Other Oculus platform Announcements Work in ongoing on Avatars. Expressive Avatars with better eye and mouth movements expected later this year. The Oculus mobile app has now added support for Rift. This will enable you to have access to events, friends, and the Oculus store directly from your phone. For more information on Oculus Quest, visit the official Oculus Quest website. What’s new in VR Haptics? Game developers say Virtual Reality is here to stay Why mobile VR sucks

LEGO, the Danish Toy Maker, came out with a new and free Augmented reality Android app named “ BrickHeadz Builder AR ” last week. Android users with the latest version of Google LLC’s ARCore can now download the newly launched AR app on their phones. With the magic of Augmented Reality, users can interact virtually with tiny toy figures and building blocks of BrickHeadz toys as it brings the kids’ BrickHeadz toys to life. The BrickHeadz line, launched in March 2017, includes the classic LEGO bricks along with an instruction manual for fans which directs them to build characters with big heads and little bodies. It features characters from the very popular Marvel (such as Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, etc), DC (Batman, Robin, Batgirl, The Joker) and Disney (Belle, The Beast, Captain Jack Sparrow) franchises. The company is also planning to expand the line by including more characters. LEGO has always been on the look-out for ways to make the physical play experience even more fun by blending it with virtual play, according to Sean McEvoy, VP of digital games and apps at the Lego Group. Let’s have a look at what the new BrickHeadz Builder AR app is all about. Key Features In the BrickHeadz Builder app, different lego related creations such as characters and objects can be easily accessed. It also enables these characters and objects to interact with each other in interesting ways. The app directs kids through the steps of construction from beginner to free builder. It enables them to discover new characters and objects by solving play formulas in a “magic book”. The “magic book” comes with tutorials and information on challenges that can provide you with rewards. You can also personalize characters by playing with their behavior and outfits. They can also build their own objects with the building blocks despite the prebuilt characters and objects. Unlocking new characters and items is also possible by playing with your creations. More industries are catching interest in AR apps these days, especially after the launch of Pokemon Go in 2016 which managed to exceed $1.8 billion in revenue in the past two years. It is by far the most popular AR game ever to be released. There is also a VR version of the BrickHeadz Builder android app that Lego launched back in October last year. That product also allows children, and adults, to build and play with virtual Lego blocks and characters. For iOS users, the company released LEGO AR-Studio last year in December. The Brickheadz Builder android app is free with no in-app purchases. All you need is the most recent version of ARCore running on Android 8.0 or later. It can The app can also run on few of the qualified phones ( such as Asus Zenfone AR and LG V30 ) running Android 7.0 or later. For more coverage on the BrickHeadz Builder AR app, check out the official LEGO blog. Niantic, of the Pokemon Go fame, releases a preview of its AR platform Adobe glides into Augmented Reality with Adobe Aero Qualcomm announces a new chipset for standalone AR/VR headsets at Augmented World Expo  

Last week, Google released the latest Android Q security release notes published to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) security bulletin update. Per this update, there are 193 Android security vulnerabilities in the latest version of Android. These include elevation of privilege, remote code execution, information disclosure and denial of service categories. Two are in the Android runtime, two in the library and 24 in the framework. The Android media framework has 68 vulnerabilities and the Android system has 97. All have been defined with "moderate" severity. These issues Google says are fixed in the default Android 10 patch level of 2019-09-01 on the release of the new OS. “Android Q, as released on AOSP, has a default security patch level of 2019-09-01. Android devices running Android Q and with a security patch level of 2019-09-01 or later address all issues contained in these security release notes,” reads the update. The update specifies that "Google has had no reports of active customer exploitation or abuse of these newly reported issues." At the Google I/O in May, Google had released Android Q beta 3. With this new release, Google announced that Android Q will double down on security and privacy features, such as a Maps incognito mode, reminders for location usage and sharing (such as only when a delivery app is in use), and TLSV3 encryption for low-end devices. Security updates will also roll out faster, updating over the air without a reboot needed for the device. The last Beta update for Android Q was rolled out in August as Beta 6. Other privacy announcements announced for Android Q so far by Google include: Scoped storage: There are new limits on access to files in shared external storage. Device Location: Android Q has a new user option to allow access to device location only while using your app in the foreground Background App Starts: There are new restrictions on launching activities from the background without user interaction Hardware Identifiers: Restrictions on access to device hardware identifiers such as IMEI, serial number, MAC, and similar data Camera And Connectivity: Android 10 has restrictions on access to full camera metadata, and FINE location permission now required for many connectivity workflows. Android has been the target of hackers for a long time. Recently, in July, Check Point researchers reported a new mobile malware attack called ‘Agent Smith’ which infected around 25 million Android devices. This malware is being used for financial gains through the use of malicious advertisements. The malware, concealed under the identity of a Google-related app, exploited known Android vulnerabilities and automatically replaced installed apps with their malicious versions, without any consent of the user. Android Studio 3.4 releases with Android Q Beta emulator, a new resource manager and more. Android Q Beta is now available for developers on all Google Pixel devices Android Q will reportedly give network carriers more control over network devices

If you thought everyone loved cryptocurrency, think again: Apple has banned cryptocurrency mining on iOS devices. In a change that has coincided with WWDC, Apple has quietly updated the terms on the app store. Guidelines now state that "Apps, including any third party advertisements displayed within them, may not run unrelated background processes, such as cryptocurrency mining." First spotted by Apple Insider, this move by Apple actually follows a series of actions by tech companies to tackle a number of issues in the cryptocurrency world. Earlier this year both Google and Facebook banned cryptocurrency ads too - all of which suggests the cryptocurrency bubble might be slowly bursting. There is a slight loophole - Apple's guidelines allow you to mine cryptocurrency provided it's done externally to the device. Cloud mining would be fine. Of course, why you'd want to mine, say, Bitcoim, with your IPhone does seema bit strange. Given users complain about battery life now, the processing power required to mine cryptocurrency will sap your device's life incredibly quickly. Here is the main section of cryptocurrencies in the app store guidelines: 3.1.5 (b) Cryptocurrencies: (i) Wallets: Apps may facilitate virtual currency storage, provided they are offered by developers enrolled as an organization. (ii) Mining: Apps may not mine for cryptocurrencies unless the processing is performed off device (e.g. cloud-based mining). (iii) Exchanges: Apps may facilitate transactions or transmissions of cryptocurrency on an approved exchange, provided they are offered by the exchange itself. (iv) Initial Coin Offerings: Apps facilitating Initial Coin Offerings (“ICOs”), cryptocurrency futures trading, and other crypto-securities or quasi-securities trading must come from established banks, securities firms, futures commission merchants (“FCM”), or other approved financial institutions and must comply with all applicable law. (v) Cryptocurrency apps may not offer currency for completing tasks, such as downloading other apps, encouraging other users to download, posting to social networks, etc.

Google is adding support for two controllers to its popular VR operating system Daydream, which until now, only supported a single controller. The reveal came to light as XDA developers noted mentions of multiple controller support in the latest Google Daydream VR SDK for Unity. Google partnered with Lenovo to launch the first standalone Mirage solo headset back in May. Now, with support for multiple controllers added in Google Daydream SDK will allow for far more applications with Google-powered headsets. As per the official release notes, the headset will be able to prompt the users about devices that support “one controller” and those supporting “two controllers”. The prefab is capable of automatically tracking the Daydream controller on devices supporting only one controller. To get automatic tracking of Daydream Controller on devices supporting two controllers, a second prefab instance should be added. One of these controllers on will play the role of a “dominant” controller and depending on your preferences, you can set either right hand or left-hand controller as the dominant. Support for multiple controllers does not necessarily mean that multiplayer gaming will be possible on the handset. It is just additional controllers added to the device. Having a controller in each hand that does different things can make your gameplay experience way more immersive. As for now, Google hasn’t provided any clear indication regarding how the two controllers will work in conjunction with each other. Whether it is going to use a standalone headset or a Bluetooth 5.0 compatible device to establish the connection between two controllers haven’t been specified. With the new support, Google’s Daydream will pose competition to popular VR headsets such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, etc which already come equipped with multiple controllers. There aren’t a lot of games supporting Daydream at the moment but the new update might pave the way for new games being run on these headsets in the future. It’ll be a while before we see anything in action. Although, the new addition will take these headsets a step ahead when it comes to bridging the gap between mobile games and console-level gaming on VR. For more information on the new update, check out the official Google VR SDK. Magic Leap’s first AR headset, powered by Nvidia Tegra X2, is coming this Summer Qualcomm announces a new chipset for standalone AR/VR headsets HTC Vive Focus 2.0 update promises long battery life, among other things for the VR headset

A former Apple software development manager, Bob Burrough has developed an environmentally-lit user interface. He demonstrated this unique UI concept named Project Erasmus on Tuesday in a YouTube video. This UI design basically changes the light, shade, and reflect on the UI elements based on the lighting of the surroundings. With this project, Burrough tries to bring back skeuomorphic design in UIs, which Apple got rid of since iOS 7. In the demonstration, he explained how this concept works. Basically, an Olloclip lens is attached to an iPhone’s front camera to capture a wide-angle shot of the room. This captured data is then used to create a lighting map, which includes data about the reflections and shadows across the environment. According to this map, the lighting effects on the graphic elements of the screen changes. For instance, based on the lighting in the room the toggle buttons and menu bars drop shadows and highlights. This UI design makes elements on the screen appear as real-life objects below the display. “It looks like the user-interface elements are physical objects that reside just beneath the surface of the screen, like you could reach in and touch them,” said Burrough in the demo. The project is still work-in-progress but looks very promising. Though this environmentally-lit UI concept wouldn’t make any performance upgrades, it would surely make the user experience even more immersive and open more possibilities for further inventions. Burrough said that developers can create a backlight effect for the UI elements when the device is in a dark room, similar to the keyboards that can light up in the dark. This UI design will make user interfaces more interactive, but developers have to ensure that it is not eating up the battery when implementing in an app. One of the YouTube users also pointed out an interesting benefit of this UI design, “As someone with color-deficient vision, I haven't been impressed by Apple's choice of colors to differentiate user interface elements. The presence of shadows would do a lot to define elements. This isn't useless at all. It's incredibly useful for people with issues like mine.” Watch the demo by Burrough here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIUMgiQ7rQs Thunderbird welcomes the new year with better UI, Gmail support and more Ionic v4 RC released with improved performance, UI Library distribution and more HashiCorp Vault 1.0 released with batch tokens, updated UI and more

Earlier this week, Facebook announced to test augmented reality (AR) ads onto the news feed to attract more advertisers. Ty Ahmad-Taylor, Vice President Product Marketing at Facebook made the announcement at the marketers' event hosted by The Social Network. The event highlighted how Facebook plans on advertising for the Christmas holiday season. Demo ads were presented by Ahmad, one where his face was incorporated into Candy Crush gameplay footage and the other, where shoppers could virtually test out makeup and sunglasses on their face, thereby, converting the ads into virtual fitting rooms. At 2017’s F8 developer conference Keynote, Mark Zuckerberg confessed that he thought of Augmented Reality in the context of AR glasses only. But, that’s clearly not the case anymore as Facebook changed its course by bringing AR to their messenger platform for developers as well as to their camera platform. Now, it is bringing the same AR experience into its news feed by giving chance to advertisers to test out the new AR ads. Facebook is looking forward to introducing AR ads to more industries in the future but as of now, it is working with companies that have physical ads. It is working with companies like ASUS, Nike, Sephora, and Kia to create AR experiences on its Messenger app. In fact, ASUS noticed 10 times higher user engagement on the app that used AR experience than those who did not. AR Ads appear like regular ads on news feed but there is a “tap to try it on” option with AR capabilities. You click the button, try the product virtually and if you like it, go ahead and make the purchase. Initially, it was tested by Michael Kors. It let users try on the sunglasses using the AR effects. Now, brands like NYX Professional Makeup, Pottery Barn, Sephora, Wayfair, Bobbi Brown, and King are also planning to test their ads later this summer. This feature will allow users to interact with the virtual version of fashion accessories, cosmetics, and furniture before actually buying them. Facebook is also bringing Shopping on Instagram to Stories. Shopping on Instagram was launched last year and allowed brands to tag their products on News Feed posts. Now, they will be able to do the same with Stories. This feature will be made available globally to all brands that have enabled shopping on Instagram before the Christmas holidays. Lastly, Facebook announced a new Video Creation Kit consisting of tools for advertisers to incorporate images into templates of mobile video ads. This will help them set up video ads easily to step into the advertising game more effectively. For more information on Facebook AR ads, check out the Facebook’s official blog page. CTA announces its first AR/VR Standard terminology Game developers say Virtual Reality is here to stay Adobe glides into Augmented Reality with Adobe Aero

Yesterday, the Android team announced the official release of Android 10 for its Pixel users. It explores many new features like gesture navigation, dark theme, smart reply, live captioning, new emojis and more. Android 10 also focuses on privacy improvements and security updates. https://twitter.com/Android/status/1168935724655218691 In a blog post, the senior director of product management for Android, Stephanie Cuthbertson says, “Android 10 is built around three important themes. First, Android 10 is shaping the leading edge of mobile innovation with advanced machine-learning and support for emerging devices. Next, Android 10 has a central focus on privacy and security, with almost 50 features that give users greater protection, transparency, and control. Finally, Android 10 expands users' digital wellbeing controls so individuals and families can find a better balance with technology.” Android 10 will be rolled out in all the three generations of Pixel phones (Pixel 3, Pixel 3a, Pixel 2, and the original Pixel) immediately, while other Pixel devices will get an update over the next week. Many partner devices, including those involved in Android’s Beta program, are expected to receive an update by the end of 2019. The Android team has also released the source code for Android 10 to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which is a repository that offers all the necessary information to create a custom variant of an Android OS, and accessories for the Android platform. Prior to this stable release, Android 10, previously nicknamed as Android Q had six beta releases. The Android Q Beta 6 was released last month. Read Also: Google confirms and fixes 193 security vulnerabilities in Android Q Let’s have a look at some of the new features in Android 10. Gesture navigation Android 10 presents a full gesture navigation mode which showcases an ‘edge to edge’ display. This feature enables users to navigate back (left/right edge swipe), to the home screen (swipe up from the bottom), and trigger the device assistant (swipe in from the bottom corners) with only gestures, rather than buttons. “By moving to a gesture model for system navigation, we can provide more of the screen to apps to enable a more immersive experience,” says Android UI product managers Allen Huang and Rohan Shah. The Android team has provided proof that their users rely on the Black button, 50% more than the Home button. In a statement to WIRED, Google vice president of Android engineering Dave Burke said that he believes the new gesture control will make it easier for users to use a smartphone with just one hand. Dark theme Following Apple’s footsteps, Android has also introduced a Dark theme in Android 10. The system-wide dark theme will reduce power usage by a significant amount. It aims to improve visibility for users with low vision and those who are sensitive to bright light. Google applications like YouTube, Google Fit, Google Keep, and Google Calendar will be available in dark mode right away. However, Gmail and Chrome will be able to support the dark theme only by the end of this month. Android 10 also provides a Force Dark feature which will implement the dark mode, without explicitly setting a DayNight theme. It analyzes each view of a light-themed app to convert it into a dark theme, even before it is drawn to the screen. Read Also: Apple previews iOS 13: Sign in with Apple, dark mode, advanced photo and camera features, and an all-new Maps experience Smart Reply in notifications Android 10 uses on-device machine learning to suggest actions, called ‘smart reply’ based on the content of the notification. It may include suggestions to open applications like Maps, Chrome or Youtube depending on the context of the message received. The Android team says, “We’ve built this feature with user privacy in mind, keeping the ML processing completely on the device.” The smart reply feature is expected to work across all popular messaging apps. Users can also opt-out of this feature, if not interested. Live captioning for audios and videos in mobiles The live caption feature will caption real time videos, podcasts, audio messages, and even manual recordings, without any wifi or cell phone data. It uses a local speech analyzer technique to identify the voices on the device. Unlike other features, live caption is not ready yet, and will be launched later this year, particularly for Pixel devices only.. https://youtu.be/YL-8Xfx6S5o Foldables to extend multitasking Android 10 supports foldable devices with different folding patterns. The blog post states, “Android 10 extends multitasking across app windows and provides screen continuity to maintain your app state as the device folds or unfolds.” Android developers believe that unfolding the device to provide a larger screen will provide users with “a more immersive experience.” Unfortunately, there are no foldable phones in the market currently. https://youtu.be/4dIULf4ma_I New privacy features in Android 10 Giving users more control over location data: Users have more control over location data in Android 10. They can choose from the following three options to decide about location access to an app. All the time: The app can access location at any time While in use: The app can access location only while the app is being used/ present in the foreground Deny: The app cannot access location at all Protecting location data in network scans: Android 10 increases the protection around scanning network APIs. Some telephony, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi APIs will now need the fine location permission (ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION) in order to use several methods within the Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Aware, or Bluetooth APIs. Preventing device tracking: Android 10 will not allow applications to access the non-resettable device identifiers which could have been used for tracking previously. Security updates in Android 10 Storage encryption: All compatible devices launching with Android 10 will have to encrypt user data. This stable version of Android presents a new encryption mode called Adiantum which provides encryption with very little performance overhead. TLS 1.3 by default: TLS 1.3 is a major revision to the TLS standard with performance benefits and enhanced security. Platform hardening:  Android 10 includes hardening for several security-critical areas of the platform, and updates to the BiometricPrompt framework which manages system-provided biometric dialog. Read Also: 25 million Android devices infected with ‘Agent Smith’, a new mobile malware Users love the new features in Android 10, especially the dark mode and live captioning. https://twitter.com/CourtMejias/status/1169073325513105408 https://twitter.com/rongbin99/status/1169087701032808448 https://twitter.com/Nooshith4/status/1169075545012756480 Few users found the new gesture navigation feature of Android 10 similar to iPhones. https://twitter.com/r3dash/status/1169095752271876097 Interested readers can check out the Android 10 website and the Android Developers blog for more information about Android 10. Other news in Tech Laravel 6.0 releases with Laravel vapor compatibility, LazyCollection, improved authorization response and more Over 47K Supermicro servers’ BMCs are prone to USBAnywhere, a remote virtual media vulnerability Microsoft introduces Static TypeScript, as an alternative to embedded interpreters, for programming MCU-based devices

A week before its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple released iOS 11.4 for iPhones, iPads, and iPods. The new update got released just a month after the release of 11.3.1. The new release includes features such as AirPlay 2 multi-room audio, HomePod stereo pairing support, and storing messages in iCloud. Let’s have a look at the key features and upgrades in this new iOS 11.4 release: Major updates and highlights AirPlay 2 AirPlay 2 was announced by Apple last year at the Worldwide Developers Conference. It is Apple’s proprietary system that enables users to stream audio and videos from Apple devices to any other device with the help of wifi or other wired networks. It comes with following features: AirPlay 2 lets you play a particular song on different speakers situated throughout the house. It allows you to play music in a room from another room using an iOS device, HomePod, Apple TV, or Siri voice commands. After AirPlay 2’s integration with HomeKit, you can find the AirPlay 2 devices now displayed in the Apple Home app. AirPlay 2 allows you to control where music plays with the help of control center, lock screen or within apps on an iOS device. You can ask Siri to play music for you in any or multiple rooms with a device compatible with AirPlay 2 such as iPhone, iPad, HomePod, or Apple TV. Picking a call or playing a game on your iPhone or iPad is possible with AirPlay 2 without interrupting the playback on speakers. HomePod Stereo pairing HomePod which is Apple’s powerful speaker has also been updated in iOS 11.4 and has gained support for stereo pairing which allows you to group two HomePod speakers within a room as one. Updates to the HomePod Stereo are as follows: You can set up the HomePod stereo pair using iPhone or iPad. HomePod pair senses the location automatically and balances the sound on the speakers depending on its location. Messages in iCloud First promised as an iOS 11 feature, you’ll now be able to synchronize and store the Messages app history across all of your iOS and macOS devices in iOS 11.4. You can store all your messages, videos, photos, etc for free on iCloud. This helps free up space on your Apple device. On signing into a new device with the same iMessage account, all the messages appear. On deletion, conversations and messages are instantly removed from all your devices. All conversations are end-to-end encrypted. Apart from these key features and upgrades, there have also been certain improvements and fixes which can be found on the official iOS 11.4 update release notes by Apple. WWDC 2018 Preview: 5 Things to expect from Apple’s Developer Conference MariaDB 10.3.7 releases TensorFlow.js 0.11.1 releases!