Tech News - Mobile

Recently, four commits were made in Android’s Gerrit source code management, under the title “Carrier restriction enhancements for Android Q.” These new commits specify that Android Q (the next in line Android OS) powered devices will give more control to network carriers to specify which networks devices will and will not work on. What this means is that Android Q will consist of blacklist and whitelist carriers called “allowed” and “excluded” to specify carriers, what will and won’t work on a particular phone. According to a report by 9to5 Google, “this can be done with a fine-grained detail to even allow blocking virtual carrier networks that run on the same towers as your main carrier.” This will also eliminate allowing carriers to set individual restrictions for each SIM slot. WIth Android Q, writes 9to5 Google, “carriers will be able to lock out the second slot unless there’s an approved SIM card in the first slot. This SIM lock restriction is applied immediately and will persist through restarting the phone and even doing a factory reset.” Emergency phone calls will still work the same. Last week, XDA confirmed that Android Q will feature a system-level “Dark mode” that can be enabled in Display settings and features an “Automatic (based on time of day)” option. 7 Android Predictions for 2019 Implementing a home screen widget and search bar on Android [Tutorial] Android Studio 3.3 released with support for Navigation Editor, C++ code lint inspections, and more.

There are a huge range of Twitter clients out there offering alternative ways to access Twitter. For many users, these provide a better experience. They provide a level of functionality that Twitter's own suite of applications don't. However, Twitter has revealed that this August it will be bringing in new restrictions and limitations on how these applications are built. Of course, for Twitter these restrictions aren't restrictions as such; it's actually a new developer API called 'Account Activity API'. The reason for the change is that it will give Twitter more power and control over what developers build - it also allows them to monetize the developer API in a different way too. [caption id="attachment_19298" align="aligncenter" width="300"] From blog.twitter.com[/caption] This is undoubtedly going to make applications like Twitterific significantly worse.  For Twitter, that might make some sense. It goes without saying that the platform would prefer users to use its own applications to access the service. But for developers and users of these applications, it might make life a little more difficult. What restrictions will third party Twitter clients face? Twitter will be changing the way developers of third party Twitter clients access Twitter. Back in April, Twitter explained the changes it planned to make to it's developer API in a Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/982346370882461696 Because of the delay, the date that this change will come into effect is now August 16 2018. Essentially, on that date Twitter will turn off a number of legacy services including Site Streams and User Streams. Developers will then have to migrate to the new Account Activity API. Learn more about migrating to Account Activity API here. What impact will Twitter's change have? As already mentioned, this is going to have a big impact on the way developers build third party Twitter clients. The knock-on effect on users will be substantial. Essentially the 'real-time' experience of Twitter that you get in Twitter's own applications will be missing. Users will have to refresh their Twitter feed; push notifications are unlikely to work, and Direct Messages may be hampered too, especially on mobile. A lot of people are very unhappy about the changes Twitter is making. On Twitter the response was incredibly negative: https://twitter.com/objectivechad/status/982353715708362752 https://twitter.com/merrickluo/status/983001459078742021 https://twitter.com/DanDuivel/status/982806945772912641 However, there was some support, or awareness for the change when it was announced... https://twitter.com/trisweb/status/984005164372779010 Of course, this is one step in Twitter trying to give itself a boost - the company has been struggling for some time. However, you do wonder how successful this change will be for Twitter. Although the premium Account Activity API costs around $11.60 a month, this is only open to applications with less than 250 users. Clearly, this isn't going to be feasible for many of the leading Twitter clients with thousands of users. Read next: Facebook’s F8 Conference – 5 key announcements The Cambridge Analytica scandal and ethics in data science Sentiment Analysis of the 2017 US elections on Twitter

Yesterday, Malte Ubl, tech leader in the AMP project at Google, announced that the AMP Project team is planning to set up an open governance model for the AMP Project. Following this, the team released a proposal for a new, open governance model. The AMP Project team along with the rest of the AMP community plan to refine the governance proposal. They also plan to carry on this process at the AMP Contributor Summit that will be held next week from September 25th to 26th at Google, Mountain View, United States. The review period for the proposal will end on October 25, 2018 with a goal of implementing the new governance model shortly thereafter. Why an open governance model for AMP? Malte Ubl, describes in his post that, “When choosing a governance model (a system that describes how decisions are made) for AMP,  we initially focused on agility. AMP has always been powered by the voices and feedback of the developers and organizations that use it; however, governance was centered around the tech lead, who ultimately decided what got executed and how. While this works great for smaller projects, we’ve found that it doesn’t scale to the size of the AMP Project today.” The AMP Project team wanted to move to a model that could explicitly give a voice to all constituents of the community, including those who cannot contribute code themselves, such as end-users. Thus, the team decided to move on to a consensus-seeking governance model following the footsteps of the Node.js project, which has a similar implementation. AMP currently has an overall 710 contributors which includes only 22% from Google employees, and 78% coming from other companies such as Twitter, Pinterest, Yahoo, and eBay. Interestingly, in the last 30 days alone over 350 contributions landed in AMP! Significant changes in the new open governance model for AMP Power to make decisions now moves to Technical Steering Committee (TSC) The power to make significant decisions in the AMP Project will move from a single Tech Lead to a Technical Steering Committee (TSC). This will include representatives from companies that have committed resources to building AMP, with the end goal of not having any company sit on more than a third of the seats. Plans to set up an Advisory Committee to advise the TSC An Advisory Committee with representation from many of AMP’s constituencies will advise the TSC. Representatives from publishers (El País, Washington Post and Terra), e-commerce sites (AliExpress and eBay) and platforms (Cloudflare and Automattic) as well as advocates for an open web (Léonie Watson of The Paciello Group, Nicole Sullivan of Google/Chrome, and Terence Eden) have agreed to join the Advisory Committee. Working groups will replace informal teams Working Groups with ownership over certain aspects of AMP (such as the UI, infrastructure and documentation) will replace the informal teams that exist today. These Working Groups will have a clear mechanism for input and a well-defined decision-making process. To know more about the goals of the open governance model in detail, head over to Malte Ubl’s post on AMP blog. Google wants web developers to embrace AMP. Great news for users, more work for developers Microsoft Azure’s new governance DApp: An enterprise blockchain without mining Progressive Web AMPs: Combining Progressive Wep Apps and AMP

Apple announced yesterday that they will be conducting an event named, Apple Special Event, on September 12, 2018. It will be held at the Steve Jobs Theater. You can also watch the live-streaming of the event on its official website. Source: Apple What can we expect? In Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) held in June this year, it announced upgraded operating systems for iPhone and iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Currently, the beta versions of iOS 12, macOS Mojave, watchOS 5, tvOS 12 is available through Apple Developer Program. The Apple Developer Program allows developers to try out beta versions of Apple software for a few months before it is released in public. Speculations are Apple might share the final release dates of the operating systems at this event. Based on the keynote, following are some of the new features that we can expect in the new OS releases: iOS 12 An all-round faster and more responsive experience. Can FaceTime 32 people at once. A new kind of Animoji, called Memoji is introduced, to match your personality and mood. ARKit 2 enables you to share AR objects through messages and mail and view them in the real world. Screen Time will give you insight into how you use your devices. Read also: Apple releases iOS 12 beta 2 with screen time and battery usage updates among others macOS Mojave Comes with a Dark Mode that will help you focus on your work. The Stacks feature automatically organizes your files into related sets. Finder will help you locate a file by how it looks. Metadata provides you the key details of any file. Continuity camera helps you shoot a nearby object or scan a document and have it automatically appear on your Mac. Read also: macOS Mojave: Updates to the Mac experience for 2018 watchOS 5 Activity Competitions allows you to challenge a friend for a seven-day competition. Workout Updates senses when you are moving and alerts you to start the Workout app. Advanced running features are added like Pace alerts, Rolling pace, and Cadence. With Apple Podcasts you can stay connected to the stories, personalities and news you love. Using Walkie-Talkie you can have one-on-one conversation with anyone who has compatible iWatch. tvOS 12 Added support for Dolby Atmos audio. Compatible movie purchases upgraded for free in iTunes. Zero sign-on feature to simplify the cable authentication process. New aerial screensavers created in partnership with the International Space Station have been added. Siri integration will allow users to search for specific content via voice for quicker content access. With many rumours around, it is expected that Apple might introduce a new iPhone named, iPhone XS in 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch variants. It is also speculated that a new Apple Watch Series 4 will be unveiled with its design focused mainly on increasing the screen size. The new watch may also have solid state buttons and improved heart rate detection. We also expect to see two iPad Pro upgrades with Face ID and no Home button. To know more on this Special Event, check out their official website and also follow the regular updates by 9TO5Mac. Could Apple’s latest acquisition yesterday of an AR lens maker signal its big plans for its secret car? Apple bans Facebook’s VPN app from the App Store for violating its data collection rules 16 year old hacked into Apple’s servers, accessed ‘extremely secure’ customer accounts for over a year undetected

Today, Samsung Electronics announced a multi-year strategic partnership with AMD. The strategic alliance is for ultra low power, high performance mobile graphics IP based on AMD Radeon graphics technologies. As part of the partnership, Samsung will license AMD graphics IP and will focus on advanced graphics technologies and solutions that are critical for enhancing innovation across mobile applications, including smartphones. “As we prepare for disruptive changes in technology and discover new opportunities, our partnership with AMD will allow us to bring groundbreaking graphics products and solutions to market for tomorrow’s mobile applications," said Inyup Kang, president of Samsung Electronics. "We look forward to working with AMD to accelerate innovations in mobile graphics technologies that will help take future mobile computing to the next level,'' he said “Adoption of our Radeon graphics technologies across the PC, game console, cloud and HPC markets has grown significantly and we are thrilled to now partner with industry leader Samsung to accelerate graphics innovation in the mobile market,” said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. “This strategic partnership will extend the reach of our high-performance Radeon graphics into the mobile market, significantly expanding the Radeon user base and development ecosystem.” Key terms of the partnership include: AMD will license custom graphics IP based on the recently announced, highly-scalable RDNA graphics architecture to Samsung for use in mobile devices, including smartphones, and other products that complement AMD product offerings. Samsung will pay AMD technology license fees and royalties. Read more on this news from the Samsung official announcement. Microsoft introduces Service Mesh Interface (SMI) for interoperability across different service mesh technologies Samsung AI lab researchers present a system that can animate heads with one-shot learning Samsung opens its AI based Bixby voice assistant to third-party developers

RxAndroid 2.1.0, the latest version of RxAndroid, has an option to post async messages. The async parameter affects Android APIs 16 and newer. It allows one to avoid VSYNC locking that pushes every post to the next frame. RxAndroid adds minimum classes to RxJava to make reactive programming in Android applications easy and hassle-free. Why this change is introduced? The main thread has historically used Handler#post() to schedule new Messages. This follows the VSYNC locking and results in waiting until the next frame to run. Use of Handler#post() causes a delay of up to 16ms for every emission to go through the post(). This delay happens even if you’re already on the main thread. The Async API aims to bypass VSYNC locking while still letting the framework handle all the scheduling safely in its looper. How you can install the Async API? With the help of RxAndroidPlugins you can set async as the custom scheduler. In Kotlin: val asyncMainThreadScheduler = AndroidSchedulers.from(Looper.getMainLooper(), true) RxAndroidPlugins.setInitMainThreadSchedulerHandler { asyncMainThreadScheduler } // Or if the default scheduler is already initialiazedRxAndroidPlugins.setMainThreadSchedulerHandler { asyncMainThreadScheduler } In Java: Scheduler asyncMainThreadScheduler = AndroidSchedulers.from(Looper.getMainLooper(), true); RxAndroidPlugins.setInitMainThreadSchedulerHandler(callable -> asyncMainThreadScheduler); // Or if the default scheduler is already initialiazed RxAndroidPlugins.setMainThreadSchedulerHandler(scheduler -> asyncMainThreadScheduler); How asynchronous is enabled in the different Android APIs? The Async API works by relying on the new Handler.createAsync factory in API 28, and on pre-28 it will reflectively fall back to a private constructor of Handler to enable this. API 28: The Handler.createAsync() factory API is used. It sets all Messages it handles to be asynchronous by default. API 22+: The public setAsynchronous() method is used. API [16–21]: The setAsynchronous() method is still used but the lint error that says it’s only 22+ is suppressed. To avoid any OEM situations of deleted/changed internal APIs, the Message#setAsynchronous() method call is handled using try/catch in the from() Scheduler factory to ensure it’s there at runtime. This catches the NoSuchMethodError if it is missing and falls back to the standard non-async messaging. API <16: There is no behavior change and the standard non-async messaging is used since the asynchronous APIs didn’t exist. To know more about the Async API head over to Zac Sweers announcement on Medium. Entry level phones to taste the Go edition of the Android 9.0 Pie version Android 9 pie’s Smart Linkify: How Android’s new machine learning based feature works Dagger 2.17, a dependency injection framework for Java and Android, is now out!

Last week, Google announced that they have made some enhancements in the Wear OS design to provide users a quicker access to information and notifications, proactive help from Google Assistant, and smarter health coaching. Following are some of the improvements they have added to make the user experience better. Notifications on a single scrollable pane To check your notifications at once, you simply need to swipe up. A major improvement is, all notifications are displayed on a single scrollable pane as opposed to having them fill the entire screen one by one. If you receive a message and want to quickly reply to it, you can use a built-in smart reply. Shortcuts and handy features To view shortcuts and handy features you simply have to swipe down. The Quick Settings pane is slightly revamped with two buttons, one for finding your phone and another for Google Pay. Smart suggestions from your Google Assistant Users will now receive a proactive and personalized feed of information from Google Assistant. To view this feed you need to swipe right. Based on your plan, it will give you predictive information about your day. You can plan your day, get answers, and manage your tasks with the help of Google Assistant. To invoke Google Assistant, long press the power button or say “Hey Google”. Start and track your workout goals Recently Google released Google Fit with two new activity goals, namely, Heart Points and Move Minutes. These are based on the activity recommendations by American Heart Association and the World Health Organization, which are shown to have health benefits for your heart and mind. You can swipe left to start and track your workout goals. To stay motivated you can also download or stream your favourite music. The smartwatches are available in various brands such as, Fossil, Huawei, Emporio Armani, and Casio, leaving behind the old boring design. To read the official announcement, head over to the blog posted by Google. Google, Harvard researchers build a deep learning model to forecast earthquake aftershocks location with over 80% accuracy BBC experiments with speed reading on smart watches Google CEO Sundar Pichai won’t be testifying to Senate on election interference

Recently, Google imposed background limitations on the Android 8.0 (API level 26) for what apps can do while running in the background. Per this new update, Android 8 forces developers to use Firebase for their push notifications, or otherwise tell the user that the app has misbehaved. Push notifications are needed by all messaging apps such as Telegram-FOSS, riot.im, and other FOSS apps The problem here is that the Firebase Android client library is not open source. FOSS apps now cannot keep push notification features in Android 8 while also remaining 100% open source and not being stigmatized as misbehaved.. Google official reason for putting this limitation is to improve the user experience. They state that when many Android apps and services are run simultaneously, it places a load on the system. Further if additional apps or services, run in the background, it places an additional load on the system, which could result in a poor user experience. For example, when a user is playing a game in one window while browsing the web in another window, and using a third app to play music, this could result in abrupt shut down of one of the apps, due to immense load on the system. What are the Background Service limitations? Google has mentioned that under certain circumstances, a background app is placed on a temporary whitelist for several minutes. While an app is on the whitelist, it can launch services without limitation, and its background services are permitted to run. An app is placed on the whitelist when it handles a task that's visible to the user, such as: Handling a high-priority Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) message. Receiving a broadcast, such as an SMS/MMS message. Executing a PendingIntent from a notification. Starting a VpnService before the VPN app promotes itself to the foreground. Prior to Android 8.0, the usual way to create a foreground service was to create a background service, then promote that service to the foreground. From Android 8.0, the system will not allow a background app to create a background service. This means that all apps on Android will now be forced to use its use Google’s proprietary service, Firebase for push notifications. Since apps like Telegram-FOSS, riot.im, and other Free and Open source software  apps cannot use the service, these apps are being reported to the user as ‘using too much battery’. Telegram-FOSS team has notified its users The Telegram-FOSS team has now notified its users that since they cant use “Google's push messaging in a FOSS app”, it  will show a notification to users, to keep the background service running, else the users will not be notified about new messages. If the app would set the notification to lower priority (such as hiding it in the lower part of the notification screen), users would immediately get a system notification about Telegram "using battery", which is confusing and is the reason for this not being the default. The Telegram-FOSS team has also claimed that “Despite Google's misleading warnings, there is no difference in battery usage between v4.6 in "true background" and v4.9+ with notification.” This news has received varied reaction from users. Some are being extremely critical about Google. A user on Reddit says that “Google is probably regretting that they made Android open source. They will fight tooth and nail to undo that.” Another user on Hacker News adds, “Google is one of the most evil companies out there for a company that started out with don't be evil. The have some very smart people, some amazing tech, but unfortunately they have some very evil people working for them help bent on maintaining their advantage by any means necessary. Without using Google's push notifications, you are going to end up with something that works about 75% of the time. When this first started happening to me, I lost tons of time thinking it was a bug only to finally realize I needed to use Google's library to get reliability for what once worked.” Some users have pointed out that Apple has been restricting push notifications from a long time allowing apps to use nothing but APNS, run nothing in background or even include GPL source code. Another user comments, “The difference is Apple has been the same from the beginning. There was no bait and switch. People who bought Apple products knew what Apple was and will be and what the terms were. With Google there is a bait and switch. They came to market defining themselves as the open alternative to Apple to get market share and developer interest, and now that they've achieved dominance the terms are changing. There's no surprise that there's going to be massive pushback (and probably antitrust implications)” Another user suggested that it’s better to opt for non-Android phones. https://twitter.com/datenteiler/status/1137743892009406466 Few believe that Google is taking this measure clearly to counter iOS phones in the market. A user on Hacker News says that, “The competition in this case is Apples iOS, for which even HackerNews users love to harp over and over and over again how amazing it is and how little battery it uses because it doesn't allow apps to use anything but APNS, run anything in background or even include GPL source code. This is what's Android competing against - a completely locked down operating system which cannot deliver any kind of GPL code. And every time it allows more freedom to developers it's punished in the market by losing against iOS and mocked on this very website about how it allows their app developers to drain battery and access data. What exactly do you expect Google to do here?” Seeing the backlash, Google may relax its Firebase licensing or change the rules about background apps in the future. For now though, the FOSS apps will have to resort to guiding users to lower the priority of the resulting notification and the battery warning. SENSORID attack: Calibration fingerprinting that can easily trace your iOS and Android phones, study reveals Tor Browser 8.5, the first stable version for Android, is now available on Google Play Store! Introducing Minecraft Earth, Minecraft’s AR-based game for Android and iOS users

Yesterday, KDE announced that it is officially adopting Matrix as a primary chat platform and the kde.org has an official Matrix homeserver. According to KDE, Matrix will provide the correct footing for an improved way of chatting and live-sharing information and provide features that users expect from more modern IM services. This will include infinite scrollback, file transfer, typing notifications, read receipts, presence, search, conferencing, end-to-end encryption and much more. Other alternatives like Telegram, Slack and Discord, although feature-rich, did not make the cut as “they are centralized and built around closed-source technologies and offer even less control than IRC”, which was used by the team as a solution for a long time. Matrix supports decentralized communication through its open protocol and network and is making its mark in instant messaging as well as other fields such as IoT communication. It supports end-to-end encryption while being self-hosted and open sourced. KDE will be adopting Matrix as an open protocol, open network, and FOSS project. Matrix blog states that “There’s now a shiny new homeserver (powered by Modular.im) on which KDE folk are welcome to grab an account if they want, rather than sharing the rather overloaded public matrix.org homeserver. The rooms have been set up on the server to match their equivalent IRC channels. The rooms continue to retain their other aliases (#kde:matrix.org, #freenode_#kde:matrix.org etc) as before.” Head over to KDE’s official blog to know more about this announcement. How to create a native mobile app with React Native [Tutorial] 250 bounty hunters had access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint customer location data, Motherboard reports Wells Fargo’s online and mobile banking operations suffer a major outage  

Last year in November, Magic Leap introduced an Independent Creator Program. Yesterday, they named their selections for this program. The Magic Leap team reviewed over 6,500 entries, and selected projects in a wide range of categories, including education, entertainment, gaming, enterprise and more. Magic Leap Independent Creator Program is a development fund to help individual developers and teams to kick-start their Magic Leap One projects. They are offering grants between $20,000 and $500,000 per project along with the developer, hardware, and marketing support. The teams selected include: Source: MagicLeap The selected teams will now be paired with Magic Leap’s Developer Relations team for guidance and support. Once the teams have built, submitted, and launched their projects, the best experiences will be showcased at L.E.A.P. Conference in 2019. Teams will receive dedicated marketing support, including planning, promotion, and social media amplification. The Developer Relations team consisting of Magic Leap’s subject matter experts and QA testers will give developers one on one guidance. Magic Leap acquires Computes Inc to enhance spatial computing Magic Leap unveils Mica, a human-like AI in augmented reality Magic Leap teams with Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium Studios to enhance Augmented Reality

Mike Fikes, the creator of Replete, a ClojureScript REPL for iOS and Android, announced last month that Replete 2.0 has been updated with ClojureScript 1.10.516. https://twitter.com/mfikes/status/1096224601124806656 Replete 2.0 offers a full-featured REPL environment, ideal for ClojureScript language learning.  Replete 2.0 is a new flagship version that includes an Android application along with a handful of other functions. Replete 2.0 introduces file & network IO via replete.core, replete.io and replete.http namespaces. Replete depends on the ability of ClojureScript to self-host, and thus always essentially carry its compiler with it. Replete iOS was one of the first applications that used self-hosted ClojureScript. Replete was then ported to Android, just recently, states Fikes on Hacker Rank. Fikes had also tweeted earlier in January this year, stating that he wanted help from people who can test the beta version of Replete 2.0. https://twitter.com/mfikes/status/1086743669825261569 Moreover, with Replete 2.0, users can now send text to Replete via a URL from other apps for evaluation as the ‘generic hooks’ still exist. In fact, there used to be an iOS app called Lisping earlier that allowed you to edit text and then send it to Replete for evaluation. Fikes further stated that he only uses Lisping and Replete for ‘quick checks of things’ (observing what a particular form might evaluate to, checking a docstring, etc). “I've never really used Replete for any heavy development”, states Fikes.   Clojure 1.10 released with Prepl, improved error reporting and Java compatibility ClojureCUDA 0.6.0 now supports CUDA 10 Clojure 1.10.0-beta1 is out!

The AndroidHardening project team announced yesterday that they’ve changed the Project name to GrapheneOS. Daniel Micay, a security researcher, shared the details about GrapheneOS on Twitter yesterday. Micay states that the name-change has been done to reflect significant progress of the AndroidHardening Project and how it is becoming a broader and more sustainable project as more developers will be joining the project soon. GrapheneOS is a security and privacy-focused mobile operating system which will now be focused more on developing privacy and security improvements for the Android Open Source Project. In addition to that, it will also include more standalone sub-projects with hardened malloc implementation that can be easily ported to other operating systems, states Micay. Examples of standalone sub-projects within GrapheneOS include the Auditor app and attestation service. Auditor is currently released for only a few selected Android Devices. It is capable of performing local verification with another Android device using a QR code or via a scheduled server-based verification. These standalone projects will be MIT licensed, similar to hardened malloc implementation. Attestation work will also be made MIT licensed soon. Moreover, changes to the other existing projects will make use of upstream licenses (eg; Apache 2). Micay states that although GrapheneOS is currently being supported by some companies, there would still be a strong focus on maintaining distance from other corporations, governments, etc.    “Lots of care will be taken to avoid dependence / coercion. There's already much more diverse sources of support and collaboration”, states Micay. After the project has successfully expanded, support for more devices will be added with the help of Treble. Support for QubesOS as a first-class target will also be added in the future and is currently under work. HTTP-over-QUIC will be officially renamed to HTTP/3 NIPS finally sheds its ‘sexist’ name for NeurIPS Alibaba launches an AI chip company named ‘Ping-Tou-Ge’ to boost China’s semiconductor industry

Yesterday, Facebook posted a detailed report of their research in brain-computer interface (BCI) with an aim to build a non-invasive device that would type what a person is imagining. This device is expected to be an input solution for future augmented reality (AR) glasses. Facebook first proposed its plan to build this technology at the F8 2017 conference. https://twitter.com/boztank/status/1156228719129665539 Two weeks ago, Elon’s Musk presented ‘Neuralink’ based on a brain-computer interface technology. It is a sewing machine-like robot that can implant ultrathin threads deep into the human brain. It uses four sensors which will be placed in a wearable device, under the scalp to an inductive coil behind the ear. It will contain a Bluetooth radio and a battery and will be controlled through an iPhone app. Neuralink aims to give people the ability to read computers and smartphones using their thoughts, while Facebook aims to explore human brain to write an input solution for AR glasses. Unlike Neuralink, Facebook plans to take a non-invasive route to reading minds. One part of the vision of Facebook’s research coincides with a paper titled “Real-time decoding of question-and-answer speech dialogue using human cortical activity”. The paper is published by a team of researchers from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and are supported by Facebook. The paper demonstrates real-time decoding of perceived and produced speech from high-density electrocorticography (ECoG) activity in humans to detect when they heard or said an utterance and then decode the utterance’s identity. The researchers were able to perceive and produce utterances with 76% and 61% accuracy rates respectively. The paper aims to help patients, who are unable to speak or move due to locked-in syndrome, paralysis or epilepsy, to interact on a rapid timescale similar to human conversations. How does real-time decoding of question-and-answer speech work? Three human epilepsy patients undergoing treatment at the UCSF Medical Center gave his or her written informed consent to participate in this research. ECoG arrays were surgically implanted on their cortical surface i.e., outer layer of the cerebrum of each participant. Image Source: Real-time decoding approach For each trial, each participant was made to hear a question with a possible set of answer choices on a screen. The participants were asked to choose any one of the answers and verbally say it when a green response cue appears on the screen. At that same time, participant’s cortical activity was acquired from the ECoG electrodes, implanted on the participants temporal and frontal cortex surface. The cortical activity is then filtered in real-time to extract high gamma activity. Next, a speech detection model uses the spatiotemporal pattern of a high gamma activity to predict if a question is being heard or an answer is being produced (or neither) at each time point. If a question event is detected, the time window of high gamma activity is passed to a question classifier which uses Viterbi decoding to compute question utterance probability. The question with the highest probability is considered the output of the decoded question. A stimulus set is designed such that each answer is only likely for a particular set of questions called context priors. These context priors are then combined with the predicted question probabilities to obtain answer priors. When the speech detection model detects an answer event, the same procedure is followed with an answer classifier. Finally, the context integration model combines all the answer probabilities with the answer priors to yield answer posterior probabilities. The answer with the highest number of posterior probability is considered as the output i.e., the decoded answer. Thus by integrating what the participants hear and say, the researchers are using “an interactive question-and-answer behavioral paradigm” to present a real-world assistive communication setting for patients. Although the researchers were unable to “make quantitative and definitive claims about the relationship between decoder performance and functional-anatomical coverage” with three participants, they are satisfied that this is a promising step towards the goal of “demonstrating that produced speech can be detected and decoded from neural activity in real-time while integrating dynamic information from the surrounding context.” Many people have found it fascinating and consider this research as an important implication for patients who are unable to communicate. https://twitter.com/drjkwan/status/1156251608260534272 https://twitter.com/SaberaTalukder/status/1156450592274956288 How is Facebook using brain-computer interface for AR? The UCSF researchers have maintained that their algorithm is capable of recognizing only a small set of words and phrases, and are working towards translating much larger vocabulary. Facebook say that Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) researchers have limited access to de-identified data, as it remain onsite at UCSF and under its control at all times. In the post, Facebook states that FRL has built a research kit of a wearable brain-computer interface device. They have been testing the ability of the system to decode single imagined words like “home,” “select,” and “delete,” with non-invasive technologies, using near-infrared light. It also says that though the system is currently bulky, slow, and unreliable, it’s potential is significant. “We don’t expect this system to solve the problem of input for AR anytime soon. It could take a decade, but we think we can close the gap,” Facebook writes in the post. Facebook is building towards a bigger goal of implementing systems that can “interact with today's VR systems — and tomorrow's AR glasses.” Users are highly skeptical of Facebook’s vision as many doubt Facebook’s intention of exploring human brain control in the name of AR wearables. https://twitter.com/HuxleysRazor/status/1156243187251470337 https://twitter.com/Croftt/status/1156256571569033216 While many have raised ethical questions that exploring human membranes in the name of research is risky and disturbing. https://twitter.com/gjergjdollani/status/1156320052943228935 https://twitter.com/MichaelCholod/status/1156303132315402240 https://twitter.com/hubertpaulo/status/1156320970778533888 Many have also raised concerns that Facebook, a company who has been in the wrong books lately, (read data breaches, GDPR violation, tracking users data), cannot be trusted. https://twitter.com/sterlingcrispin/status/1156360116557344768 https://twitter.com/sterlingcrispin/status/1156399668403691521 Facebook did manage to find few supporters who were excited about this technology. https://twitter.com/FKSportsBlog/status/1156436559173955584 https://twitter.com/DrewRoberts/status/1156255780548616192 Along with platforms like Facebook, now websites using embedded ‘Like’ buttons are jointly responsible for what happens to the collected user data, rules EU court The US Justice Department opens a broad antitrust review case against tech giants Microsoft Azure VP demonstrates Holoportation, a reconstructed transmittable 3D technology

Following an announcement to developers through App Store Connect last night, Apple now requires all new apps and updates to include a link to their developer’s privacy policy in the app metadata. The new rules will come into effect from October 3rd. Even if the app is a basic utility application that doesn’t connect to the internet, it must still host a website with a privacy policy page. The App Store app listings have had a privacy policy URL metadata field for a long time. They have been mandatory for apps that have subscriptions, but this rule now applies to all apps in the store. Apple will not pull existing apps from sale, but any future update must ensure it has the privacy policy URL set. On iPhone or iPad, customers will be able to tap on the link to the privacy policy and read it in Safari. tvOS does not have a web browser, so developers will have to copy and paste their privacy into a text box when they submit their apps, so the Apple TV can display it. Apple says “The privacy policies must identify what data the app collects, in what manner, and how it is used. It is also the responsibility of the app developer to confirm that the behavior of any embedded third-party frameworks complies with the parent app’s privacy policy. Apple also says that apps must clearly explain data retention policies and detail how a user can revoke consent and request deletion of any personal data stored.” It remains to be seen whether Apple will pull apps that are found to be in violation of their privacy policies. Data-sharing practices in ‘apps’ has come under scrutiny in recent months, in the wake of scandals like Cambridge Analytica. Apple instated informational onboarding screens that describe how it uses personal data earlier this year, as part of European GDPR regulation. The new App Store requirements are likely related to GDPR compliance at some level. A privacy policy is required for App Store distribution, as well as external TestFlight beta testing stages. To read the full story visit the Apple blog page. Apple announces a Special Event to reportedly launch new products including “iPhone XS” and OS updates Could Apple’s latest acquisition yesterday of an AR lens maker signal its big plans for its secret Apple car? Did you know your idle Android device sends data to Google 10 times more often than an iOS device does to Apple?

The Magic Leap Independent Creator Program is a development fund to help individual developers and teams to kick-start their Magic Leap One projects. They are offering grants between $20,000 and $500,000 per project along with the developer, hardware, and marketing support. The company highlights that the program is a grant and not an exclusivity deal. “You own your IP and publishing is not exclusive to Magic Leap, You’ll be expected to publish on Magic Leap World, but participation in our program does not exclude you from supporting other platforms. Go forth, and share what you make however you wish.” the company writes. Applications are evaluated on originality, use case, and the team’s technical capability and diversity, project scope and feasibility, and to what extent their concept encourages user engagement. How will the process work? Developers are invited to apply and showcase their projects by December 15th, 2018. Applications will be reviewed by the Magic Leap team and funding will be offered on a rolling basis through February 15, 2019. If developers receive a grant, they will be paired with Magic Leap’s Developer Relations team for guidance and support. Once, teams have built, submitted, and launched their projects, the best experiences will be showcased at L.E.A.P. Conference in 2019. Teams will receive dedicated marketing support, including planning, promotion, and social media amplification. The Developer Relations team consisting of Magic Leap's subject matter experts and QA testers will give developers one on one guidance. You can start applying from Magic Leap’s website. Magic Leap unveils Mica, a human-like AI in augmented reality. Magic Leap teams with Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium Studios to enhance Augmented Reality. Magic Leap One, the first mixed reality headsets by Magic Leap, is now available at $2295.