Tech News - Mobile

What do they mean for the developers Facebook is having a rough year to say the least. The Cambridge Analytica scandal seems to have impacted it in a way that’s yet to unfold in it’s full form. Having the annual F8 conference during this tumultuous period can have different types of repercussions. More scrutiny of the announcements is among one of them. Today we are going to ask some questions about the recent AR related announcements made in the Facebook F8 conference, how important they are to the user as well as the developers, and what do they really imply for facebook’s future development plans. AR in Messenger Facebook has introduced AR services to its messenger platform. This will enable the developers to build bots on the messenger platform and make it a much more interactive and informative platform that it currently is, potentially. As and when these features are implemented, the question on everyone’s mind is: will our data be safe? Additionally, Facebook is also planning to implement payment gateways on their messenger platform. This opens up a new avenue for developers since now they can create third party bots for messenger. But can we really trust the security and privacy features keeping in mind that they will be majorly third party? AR in Facebook lite Facebook lite had arrived with the promise of a limited version of the social networking site for smaller and older android phones and also for the ones which have slow data connection. In the latest F8 conference, Facebook has promised to bring AR to its lite version. How does that impact the goal of the lite platform of being lightweight and being easy on system resources? Will the introduction of AR to Facebook lite make it bloated? Or it might just make it unfit for older phones since their processors and system configurations might not  also support the AR features. AR Camera effects in Instagram Last year, Facebook had announced the AR camera platform, and this time around they plan to bring it to Instagram. Using an updated version of AR Studio, creators will be able to design unique, interactive camera experiences, including face filters and world effects, for their followers on Instagram. There have been these rumors that some of these features and filters have been heavily inspired by the Snapchat features which are hugely popular. The real question is whether Facebook and Instagram together can add something more to their AR camera features which would enable them to compete with Snapchat in this particular category. Update to AR Studio Facebook has updated their inhouse AR development platform, AR Studio and the new features are the following: Filtering of image textures can now be set to none or bilinear (default: bilinear). Wrapping modes of image textures can now be set to repeat, clamp or mirror (default: clamp). Tiling scale and offset for material textures can now be specified. When using the plane tracker, you can choose to target specific textures in the world from the Inspector panel. Improved Adds some more tooltips to the texture inspector. Facebook has also signalled at the upgrading of their underlying AR technology. For instance adding advanced target tracking, which includes hand tracking as well as high-fidelity body tracking. This should make for a lot more precise filters, improving their real time object and face detection capabilities etc. But since AR Studio was introduced in last year’s F8 conference, are these changes really breaking ones or are they just a means to stay alive in the competitive AR development market? With the renewed presence of Google with its recently updated AR core and Apple’s AR Kit, how much share can AR Studio maintain is a question that can only be answered in time. AR and its implications in real life can be very interesting but AR on mobile seems to have been suffering for some time due to the lack of system resources, the non-uniformity of the mobile platforms and location based data connection related issues. How these new announcements are going to change the current mobile AR landscape is something that we will have to wait and watch. Understanding the hype behind Magic Leap’s New Augmented Reality Headsets Leap Motion open sources its $100 augmented reality headset, North Star Unity plugins for augmented reality application development  

Chrome 72 for Android now comes with the Trusted Web Activity feature. This means that PWAs can now be distributed in the Google Play Store. The Trusted Web Activity feature is a way to open Chrome in standalone mode (without any toolbar or Chrome UI) within the scope of our Google’s native Android package. This will allow publishing your PWA in the Google Play store, and from the browser. PWA in Google Play Store offers the following features: Home Screen Widget Wear OS companion app or Android Auto extension Background services accessing native features Limited monetization of the App The possibility of having some native screens mixed with PWA content Distribute more than one PWA icon in the Launcher and/or home screen pointing to different URLs (within the same host) Better internationalization support However, PWA in the store is an opt-in operation. The PWA won’t be listed in the store if users don’t compile their own APK, and publish it. Maximiliano Firtman, a mobile and web developer has written a tutorial showing how users can create an Android Package using TWA, the limitations of using this platform, and how to create a PWApk. He talks about the publishing process saying that it is not straightforward. For publishing, you use a Java API that communicates through services with Chrome which requires manual work. He has shared his experiences trying to make it work in his blog post. Overall he says that “The idea that we can now publish PWAs in the Google Play Store is really a game changer. It seems we are in the early stages of the API right now and we definitely need a higher level solution for this. I really want to see a tool to enter our PWA’s URL and get an APK from it.” Top frameworks for building your Progressive Web Apps (PWA) 5 reasons why your next app should be a PWA (progressive web app) Build powerful progressive web apps with Firebase

Update: Five days after the release of iOS 13, Apple has released its first update, iOS 13.1 on September 24th. It contains many features that were announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) but were not part of the iOS 13 release. The major updates include sharing ETA (estimated time of arrival) with contacts while using Maps, new tweaked colors, and designs for dynamic wallpapers and its availability on more devices. iOS 13.1 also has a new volume slider which shows icons of the type of devices connected, such as AirPods, or HomePod. It also brings many bug fixes to the iOS 13 release.  https://twitter.com/jaylyne0821/status/1176786286771724290   Update: More than three months after previewing iOS 13 at the WWDC, Apple finally released iOS 13, on September 19th. Users can check out the many features of iOS 13 below. Many Apple users are excited about the release of iOS 13. https://twitter.com/popootel/status/1174910893076836353   https://twitter.com/zerobbh/status/1174929742958477312 Update: On 30th July, 2019, Apple released public betas of iOS13 and macOS catalina. However, these betas are extremely buggy. Users may incur severely reduced battery life and many broken apps, particularly on the iOS beta. On the upside, this is an invaluable preview particularly for an app developer or Apple enthusiast. At the ongoing Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2019, Apple has previewed iOS 13. It has distinct features like Sign In with Apple, Dark Mode, Advanced Photo and Camera Features, and an All-New Maps Experience. iOS 13 will also support Xbox One and PS4 controllers. A framework for iOS 13, BackgroundTasks has also been released. Sign In with Apple This is a simple, fast, and more private way to sign into Apple apps and websites. Instead of going through the lengthy process of using a social account or filling out forms, verifying email addresses or choosing passwords, users can now use their Apple ID for authentication. Apple has also maintained that it will protect users’ privacy by providing developers with a unique random ID. If in a particular case, developers are asking for name and email address details, users will still have the option to keep their email addresses private and share a unique random email address instead. Sign In with Apple will make it easy for users to authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID. It will have a two-factor authentication built in, for an added layer of security. Also, Apple will not use Sign In with Apple to monitor users or their activity in apps. Dark Mode Providing a dramatic look, iOS 13 will have a Dark Mode which is a new dark color scheme that will work system-wide and across all native apps. This will provide users’ with a great viewing experience, especially in low light environments. It will also be available to third-party app developers for integrating it into their own apps. This mode can also be scheduled to turn on automatically at a particular time or at sunset. Advanced Photo and Camera Features In iOS 13, photos and videos are arranged in a systematic way. This will make browsing, and discovering and reliving favorite memories much easier. iOS 13 is also enabled with auto play videos. New tools have been introduced in photo editing which will make it easier to apply, adjust and review photos at a glance. Most of the photo editing tools will also be available for video editing, making it possible to rotate, crop or apply filters within the photos app. In the camera app of iOS 13, portrait lighting adjustments can be made. This will enable to virtually move the light closer to sharpen eyes and brighten and smooth facial features or push the light farther away to create a subtle, refined look. A new High-Key Mono effect has also been introduced to create a beautiful, and monochromatic look for Portrait mode photos. All -Nnew Maps Experience Apple Maps in iOS 13, will provide a broader road coverage, better pedestrian data, more precise addresses, and more detailed land cover. This new map is available in select cities and states presently. It will rollout across the US by the end of 2019 and to more countries in 2020. A new Look Around feature, using the new base-map and high-resolution 3D photography, has been introduced. It delivers a beautiful street-level imagery of a city with smooth and seamless transitions. iOS 13 also brings additional new features to the Maps app, including collections to easily share favorite restaurants, travel destinations or places to shop with friends and more. Support to Xbox One and PS4 controllers iOS 13 and Apple TV will support Xbox One and PS4 controllers. This controller support has arrived, after Apple had planned to launch the Apple Arcade game subscription service, for iOS, Mac, and Apple TV. Background Tasks Apple has released a framework for background tasks. This will support iOS 13, along with UIKit for Mac 13.0 and tvOS 13.0, all in beta. This framework will enable the app content to remain up to date and run tasks, while the app is in the background. Additional Features in iOS 13 AirPods Siri will be able to read incoming messages as soon as they arrive from Messages or any SiriKit-enabled messaging app. HomePod This can distinguish voices from anyone in the home to deliver personal requests, including messages, music and more. Handoff will enable users to easily move music, podcasts or a phone call to HomePod when they arrive home. Health It offers ways to monitor hearing health and has new ways to track, visualize and predict a woman’s menstrual cycle. Siri Siri will have a new and more natural voice. Siri shortcuts will now support suggested automation that will provide personalized routines, like heading to work or going to the gym. Messages It can automatically share a user’s name and photo or customized Memoji or Animoji, so that the user can be easily identified, in the message thread. These distinct features of iOS 13 have made users’ very excited for its release. https://twitter.com/gregbarbosa/status/1135668685882974210 https://twitter.com/SuperSaf/status/1135606599362514947 https://twitter.com/sascha_p/status/1135600265741053952 https://twitter.com/ijustine/status/1135605052742152198 These are some of the features of iOS 13. For more details, head over to the Apple press release Check out WWDC 2019 highlights, for all releases and updates announced during the conference. Apple releases native SwiftUI framework with declarative syntax, live editing, and support of Xcode 11 beta Apple promotes app store principles & practices as good for developers and consumers following rising antitrust worthy allegations Apple proposes a “privacy-focused” ad click attribution model for counting conversions without tracking users

Since its launch Magic Leap has always been in the limelight for its unique AR experiences. To take it one step further, Magic Leap has announced a tie-up with motion capture actor Andy Serkis and his UK-based The Imaginarium Studios. Source: Twitter Andy Serkis and his Imaginarium Studios are best known for innovative motion capture and performance capture roles such as Gollum, King Kong, Caesar, Captain Haddock and Supreme Leader Snoke. Magic Leap and Serkis’ The Imaginarium plan to create additional content for the Magic Leap platform, and support third-party developers with its production resources, including the motion capture stage at its London studio. Matthew Brown, CEO of The Imaginarium Studios, quotes, “In using performance capture, we have the opportunity to authentically portray the intent of the actor. With Magic Leap’s technology, that performance is pulled off the screen and into the world of the viewer. This is storytelling as it should be: immersive, personal, and integrated into our world.” As the first product of this partnership, Andy has created a performance-captured character for the Magic Leap One Creator Edition mixed reality headset. This character named Grishneck, is the first Magic Leap character played by Serkis. Grishneck is described as a 3D Orc-like creature that interacts with the viewer when wearing the Magic Leap One Goggles in their controlled environment. In the story, Grishneck is a character who was rejected from a project because he wasn't scary enough. Andy has expressed enthusiasm for the potential of augmented reality. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said, “We now have a new way of experiencing story. What is thrilling is that with Magic Leap, the relationship of the performances to the real world can change hugely and they can be placed and manifested in countless ways.” Magic Leap’s executive creative director Andy Lanning confirmed that Imaginarium and Magic Leap have been in conversations for at least five years. Imaginarium is currently working on several Magic Leap projects. Magic Leap One, the first mixed reality headsets by Magic Leap, is now available at $2295. Magic Leap’s first augmented reality headset, powered by Nvidia Tegra X2, is coming this Summer. Understanding the hype behind Magic Leap’s New Augmented Reality Headsets.

Yesterday, Lyft released the initial OSS preview release of Envoy Mobile. This is an iOS and Android client network library that brings Lyft’s Envoy Proxy to mobile platforms. https://twitter.com/mattklein123/status/1140998175722835974 Envoy proxy was initially built at Lyft to solve the networking and observability issues inherent in large polyglot server-side microservice architectures. It soon gained large scale public appreciation and was used by major public cloud providers, end user companies, and infrastructure startups. Now, Envoy Proxy is brought to iOS and Android platforms, providing an API and abstraction for mobile application networking. Envoy Mobile is currently in a very early stage of development. The initial release brings the following features: Ability to compile Envoy on both Android and iOS: Envoy Mobile uses an intelligent protobuf code generation and an abstract transport to help both iOS and Android provide similar interfaces and ergonomics for consuming APIs. Ability to run Envoy on a thread within an application, utilizing it effectively as an in-process proxy server. Swift/Obj-C/Kotlin demo applications that utilize exposed Swift/Obj-C/Kotlin “raw” APIs to interact with Envoy and make network calls, Long term goals Envoy Mobile provides support for Swift APIs for iOS and Kotlin APIs for Android initially, but depending on community interest they will consider adding support for additional languages in the future. In the long term, they are also planning to include the gRPC Server Reflection Protocol into a streaming reflection service API. This API will allow both Envoy and Envoy Mobile to fetch generic protobuf definitions from a central IDL service, which can then be used to implement annotation driven networking via reflection. They also plan to bring Envoy Mobile to xDS configuration to mobile clients, in the form of routing, authentication, failover, load balancing, and other policies driven by a global load balancing system. Envoy Mobile can also add cross-platform functionality when using strongly typed IDL APIs. Some examples of annotations that are planned in their roadmap are Caching, Priority, Streaming, Marking an API as offline/deferred capable and more. Envoy Mobile is getting loads of appreciation from developers with many happy they have open sourced its development. A comment on Hacker news reads, “I really like how they're releasing this as effectively the first working proof of concept and committing to developing the rest entirely in the open - it's a great opportunity to see how a project of this scale plays out in real-time on GitHub.” https://twitter.com/omerlh/status/1141225499139682305 https://twitter.com/dinodaizovi/status/1141157828247347200   Currently the project is in a pre-release stage. Not all features are implemented, and it is not ready for production use. However, you can get started here. Also see the demo release and their roadmap where they plan to develop Envoy Mobile entirely in the open. Related News Uber and Lyft drivers go on strike a day before Uber IPO roll-out Lyft introduces Amundsen;  a data discovery and metadata engine for its researchers and data scientists Lyft acquires computer vision startup Blue Vision Labs, in a bid to win the self driving car race

Google Flutter hits another release milestone on the way to version 1.0. Google Flutter, the cross-platform SDK is moving out of beta with Flutter Release Preview 1. Flutter is one of the most ambitious projects of Google in the field of cross-platform app development. Flutter apps run on the Flutter rendering engine (written in C++) and Flutter framework (written in Google's Dart language, just like Flutter apps). Google Flutter reached beta as announced at Google I/O last month. It also featured various technical sessions, on topics like UI design with Flutter and Material, mobile development with Flutter and Firebase, and architectural practices for complex Flutter apps. The shift from beta to release preview announcement was made during the keynote of the GMTC Global Front-End Conference in Beijing, China, a gathering of around a thousand front-end and mobile developers. It focuses on scenario completeness, bug fixing, and stabilization. Release preview 1 features improvements to the video player package, adding broader format support and reliability improvements. Firebase support is further extended to include Firebase Dynamic Links, an app solution for creating and handling links across multiple platforms. 32-bit iOS devices with ARMv7 chips are also added, enabling apps written with Flutter to run on older devices. Flutter release preview 1 also adds experimental instructions on adding Flutter widgets to an existing Android or iOS app. It also brings improvements to Flutter Tools. Flutter tools have a new update in the form of Flutter extension for Visual Studio Code. This extension adds a new outline view, statement completion, and the ability to launch emulators directly from Visual Studio Code. The latest Release Preview 1 SDK will be available on Flutter's site. Also, check out the Flutter app showcase. Top 5 Google I/O 2018 conference Day 1 Highlights: Android P, Android Things, ARCore, ML kit and Lighthouse 9 Most Important features in Android Studio 3.2 Google’s Android Things, developer preview 8: First look

Yesterday, Mozilla announced that they will be releasing a new version of Firefox Focus for Android next week. This version will be powered by Gecko, which is a browser engine developed by Mozilla and is also used in Firefox Quantum. Firefox Focus enables you to stay “focused” by automatically blocking ads and trackers. Once you are done browsing, you can delete your search history completely using its erase button. It provides a faster browsing experience and you do not have to worry about the retargeted ads. Why Firefox Focus needs Gecko? Since the beginning, Focus has been using Android’s built-in WebView, but it has some limitations. WebView is not designed for building browsers. It only supports a subset of web standards, as Google expects developers to use native Android APIs, and not the Web, for advanced standards. To add next-generation privacy features to Focus, its developers require deep access to the browser internals. This is why, they decided to use their own engine, Gecko. Firefox for Android already uses Gecko, but not in a way that’s easy to reuse in other applications. To make Gecko reusable they built GeckoView. To allow the use of GeckoView in other applications, the developers have decoupled the engine from its user interface and packaged it as a reusable Android library. In a nutshell, GeckoView will help them leverage all of their Firefox expertise in building more compelling, safe, and robust online experiences. They are also planning to use GeckoView in entirely new products like Firefox Reality, a browser designed for virtual and augmented reality headsets. You will hear more about Firefox Reality later this year promises the Mozilla blog. You can currently download Focus Beta and report issues, if any. If you are an Android developer, you can give this library a try or directly contribute on GitHub. To read more about GeckoView, check out the announcement on Mozilla’s official website. Mozilla releases Firefox 62.0 with better scrolling on Android, a dark theme on macOS, and more Upcoming Firefox update will, by default, protect users privacy by blocking ad tracking Firefox Nightly’s Secure DNS Experimental Results out

One of the major highlights at the ongoing Microsoft Inspire 2019 at Las Vegas, was the demonstration of Holoportation by Azure Corporate Vice President Julia White. Holoportation is a type of 3D capture technology that allows high-quality 3D models of people to be reconstructed, compressed and transmitted anywhere in the world in real-time. Microsoft Researchers have been working on this technology for several years by utilizing Mixed Reality (MR) devices with HoloLens, which is a pair of mixed reality smart glasses. Individuals owning these devices will be able to see each other virtually, thus giving the impression that they are in the same room at the same time. Yesterday, on Day 3 of the conference, White demonstrated this technology using Mixed Reality and Azure AI. White wore a HoloLens 2 headset which generated a ‘mini-me’ version of herself, which she could almost hold in her hand. After a little sparkling of green special effects, the miniature version got transformed into a full-size hologram of White. The hologram of White spoke in Japanese, even though the real White doesn’t know the language personally. The hologram White’s voice was the exact replica of the real White’s “unique voice signature”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=169&v=auJJrHgG9Mc White said this “mind blowing” technology was made possible by using Mixed Real technology to create her hologram and to render it live. Next, it used Azure speech to text capability in English transcription to get the speech and then used Azure translate to translate her language in Japanese. Finally, the neural text to speech technology was applied to make it sound exactly like White, just speaking in Japanese. This is not the first time that Microsoft has demonstrated its holographic technology. Last year, during the Microsoft Inspire 2018 event, the Microsoft team had remotely collaborated in real-time with a 3D hologram. The demo participants had used advanced hand gestures and voice commands to collectively assess and dissect a 3D hologram of the Rigado Cascade IoT gateway. The Azure text-to-speech allows users to convert their custom voice into natural human-like synthesized speech. Thus, this technology gives the ability to converse with anybody, anywhere in the world in real-time, without any language barrier and in their own voice texture. The audience present expressed their amazement during the demo. The seamless technology has also impressed many Twitterati. https://twitter.com/tendaidongo/status/1151567203428384773 https://twitter.com/KamaraSwaby/status/1151528144198705158 https://twitter.com/bobbyschang/status/1151526620362002432 https://twitter.com/_dimpy_/status/1151526775404429312 With Microsoft showcasing its prowess in the field of virtual and augmented reality, it can be expected that devices like 3D cameras, HoloLens headsets might become the new norm in smartphones, video games, and many other applications. Microsoft adds Telemetry files in a “security-only update” without prior notice to users Microsoft introduces passwordless feature in its Windows 10 devices, replaces it with Windows Hello face authentication, fingerprints, or a PIN Microsoft will not support Windows registry backup by default, to reduce disk footprint size from Windows 10 onwards

Yesterday, reports from 9to5 Google says that as per the updated Google Mobile Services (GMS) agreement. Per the new terms, OEMs who utilize their own gesture navigation systems cannot have those available in the device's initial setup if it ships with Android 10. Google has struggled to devise a new navigation system for Android over the last few releases. The two-button design from Pie is not liked much in the market, and the new full-gesture setup in Android 10 also has its critics. However, with the new agreement, you will see a lot of Google's gestures in the upcoming new Android 10 devices. At this year’s Google I/O 2019, the company announced that it would support the new gestures and the three-button navbar going forward. It didn't rule out OEMs having their own custom gesture navigation and will indeed let them keep those, but there will be some restrictions. Notably, devices shipping with Android 10 will need to have either classic three-button nav or Google's gesture navigation enabled out of the box. This makes it sound like the two-button "pill" setup will be effectively dead. Android 10 devices will not offer custom navigation in the initial setup Phones often let users choose their navigation options during setup, but Android 10 will not offer custom gesture navigation as an option in the setup wizard at all. So, you'll probably be able to turn on Google's gestures, but something like Samsung's swipe-up targets (see below image) will only be available if you dig into the settings. Source: 9to5 Google Hence, the updated Google Mobile Services agreement puts into perspective what Google really wants for Android users. Manufacturers can still include their own navigation solutions, but those solutions aren’t to be immediately available to the users during the setup wizard. Users must go into the device settings to toggle alternative navigation systems after the initial setup. Not only are OEM-specific navigation systems not allowed during setup, but manufacturers can’t even prompt users to use them in any way. No notifications. No pop-ups or any other way. Also, Google also requires OEMs to hide their custom navigation systems deeper into the settings. Manufacturers can put these settings under new sections like “advanced” or something similar, not easily accessible to the user. This isn’t necessarily a bad call by Google. More uniformity throughout the Android ecosystem can only be a good thing. The gestures will mature quicker, apps will be forced to adhere to the new navigation systems, and users will get used to it more easily. Google Mobile Services requires new Android devices compatible with Type-C ports The new Google Mobile Services agreement also outlines the technical requirements that smartphone device makers must meet in order to preload Google Mobile Services. Nearly every Android smartphone or tablet sold internationally have met these requirements because having access to Google apps is critical for sales outside of China. A subsection 13.6 of this document is titled “USB Type-C Compatibility” which states: “New DEVICES launching from 2019 onwards, with a USB Type-C port MUST ensure full interoperability with chargers that are compliant with the USB specifications and have the USB Type-C plug.” On Reddit, this news has got significant traction and Android users are discussing that this move by Google is good only if the gesture usage works well. Here are some of the comments, “Im sure people will hate this, but im for easier usage for the general public.” Another user responds, “Sure. As long as the gesture usage works really, really well. If it doesn't, this is a bad move.” Google Project Zero discloses a zero-day Android exploit in Pixel, Huawei, Xiaomi and Samsung devices Google’s DNS over HTTPS encryption plan faces scrutiny from ISPs and the Congress Google Chrome Keystone update can render your Mac system unbootable Google’s V8 JavaScript engine adds support for top-level await Google announces two new attribute links, Sponsored and UGC and updates “nofollow”

Facebook Reality Labs have launched the Scene Understanding and Modeling SUMO Challenge. The challenge is designed by a group of computer vision researchers at Facebook with collaborators from Stanford, Princeton and Virginia Tech. The goal of the challenge is to aid the development of comprehensive 3D scene understanding and modeling algorithms. For the SUMO challenge, participants are required to generate an instance-based 3D representation of an indoor scene given only a 360-degree RGB-D image taken from a single viewpoint. The generated scene is modeled by a collection of elements, each of which represents one object, such as a wall, the floor, or a chair. Source: Facebook Blog What are the three types of tasks? The SUMO Challenge is organized into three performance tracks based on the output representation of the scene. Participants can join in any of the three increasingly detailed and difficult performance tracks. Bounding Boxes Track: The scene is represented by a collection of oriented bounding boxes. This is similar to the SUN RGB-D Object Detection Challenge. The bounding box is the coordinates of the rectangular border that fully encloses a digital image when it is placed over a page, a canvas, or a screen. Voxels Track: The scene is represented by a collection of oriented voxel grids. A voxel represents a value on a regular grid in three-dimensional space. Meshes Track: The scene is represented by a collection of textured surface meshes.  A mesh is a collection of vertices, edges and faces that defines the shape of a polyhedral object in 3D computer graphics and solid modeling. How are the tasks evaluated? The SUMO evaluation metrics focus on four aspects of the representation: geometry, appearance, semantics, and perception (GASP). Participants will be evaluated on their ability to consistently infer the correct geometry, pose, appearance and semantics of the elements in each scene. The challenge runs from August 29th until November 16th, 2018. The top winners in each track will receive prizes, including cash rewards and NVIDIA Titan X GPUs. 1st prize - winner of mesh track: $2,500 in cash + Titan X GPU 2nd prize - winner of voxel track: $2,000 in cash + Titan X GPU 3rd prize - winner of bounding box track: $1,500 in cash + Titan X GPU Winners will be announced at the SUMO Challenge Workshop on December 2nd at ACCV 2018, where they will present their results. How to Participate Familiarize yourself with the input and output formats. Download the SUMO software and the data set. See the data set page for details. Develop your algorithm. Submit your results using EvalAI. For more information, visit the SUMO Challenge website. Facebook Watch is now available world-wide challenging video streaming rivals, YouTube, Twitch, and more. Facebook launched new multiplayer AR games in Messenger. Facebook to launch AR ads on its news feed to let you try on products virtually.

Google got fined with €4.34 billion yesterday for breaching EU antitrust laws. According to EU, Google has been found guilty of imposing illegal restrictions on Android device manufacturers and network operators, since 2011, in an attempt to get all the traffic from these devices to the Google search engine. Here’s a tweet from Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager confirming the penalty. https://twitter.com/vestager/status/1019537297925197824 Google will now have to end this illegal conduct within 90 days of the decision, says the press release from the regulator. The Commission wants Google to completely stop its engagement in the following types of practices: Illegal tying of Google's apps such as Google Play Store, Google search app and the Google Chrome browser with the device manufacturers. Illegal financial incentives conditional on exclusive pre-installation of the Google Search app. Illegal blocking of development and distribution of the competing Android operating systems, thereby, preventing device manufacturers from using its alternative version, which is not approved by Google (Android forks).  For instance, Amazon’s Android fork, Fire OS, a rival Android platform has suffered greatly from Google’s restrictive contracts with the phone makers. Here’s a quick look at E.U.’s antitrust case against Google’s Android. Apart from engaging in the aforementioned practices, Google is also required to refrain from any measure that has the same effect as these practices. Google's activities will be watched closely by the commission and Google is under an obligation to comply with EU’s decision. If Google fails to comply with the decision made by EU, it will further face penalty payments of up to 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover of Alphabet (Google’s parent company). Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, has challenged the decision made by the commission in the official press release. Google is now preparing to appeal the decision. According to Pichai, the decision ignores the fact that Android phones pose tough competition to the iOS phones. He argues that Android has provided a wide scope of choices to a huge number of phone manufacturers, mobile network operators, app developers and billions of users (who are able to easily afford these Android smartphones). This fact has been completely missed by the commission. He also raises a point saying how history has proved that without the rules set for compatibility, open-source platforms tend to fragment which causes extreme discomfort to the users, developers as well as the phone makers. Google Android’s compatibility rules help avoid this situation and make the platform more reliable for everyone. “Web browsers such as Opera Mini and Firefox have been downloaded more than 100 million times, UC Browser more than 500 million times” states Pichai. He mentions that “the Commission’s Android decision — ignores clear evidence about how people use their phones today.” He insists that preventing Google from bundling its apps would “upset the balance of the Android ecosystem” and that the Android business model guaranteed zero charges for the phone makers. This now seems like a warning from Google’s side that its Android business model may consider licensing the popular operating system to phone makers. Mozilla, on its official blog, openly supported the European Commission’s decision against Google saying that EU’s decision “drives home the importance of true openness in the mobile ecosystem”. It also hopes that the result will “level the playing field for mobile browsers like Firefox, and foster openness to creates and sustain the competition and innovation”. Many Experts are comparing this case to a previous EU investigation into Microsoft and its desktop web browser. But, Google claims that the two cases are quite different as Android is free, while Microsoft charged for Windows. At the press conference with the commissioner on the antitrust decision, Vestager was asked about breaking up Google as a better remedy than the current decision made by the Commission. To which Vestager replied “here we have a decision which is very clear, which will allow mobile device producers to have a choice. That will allow us as consumers to have a choice as well. That's what competition is about. And I think that is much more important than a discussion of whether or not breaking up a company would do that." Public opinion about EU’s decision against Google is varied. https://twitter.com/gchampeau/status/1019550037888716801 https://twitter.com/BenVanRompuy/status/1019563725085343744 https://twitter.com/Visualfy/status/1019845990185144320 https://twitter.com/axa1981/status/1019543107971502080 Google begs to differ. “Today’s decision rejects the business model that supports Android, which has created more choice for everyone, not less. We intend to appeal” says Pichai. Google releases Android Things library for Google Cloud IoT Core Top 5 Google I/O 2018 conference Day 1 Highlights: Android P, Android Things, ARCore, ML kit and Lighthouse  

Yesterday, Mike McQuaid, Homebrew’s lead maintainer announced the release of Homebrew 1.9.0. The release has major updates like Linux support, (optional) automatic brew cleanup, providing bottles (binary packages) to more Homebrew users and much more. Homebrew is an open-source software package management system that simplifies the installation of software on Apple's macOS operating system. Homebrew automatically handles all dependencies and installs requested software into one common location thus providing users with easy access and quick updates. Features of Homebrew 1.9.0 Beta support for Linux and Windows 10; with the Windows Subystem for Linux. Linuxbrew (Homebrew on Linux) does not require root access. If the HOMEBREW_INSTALL_CLEANUP environment variable is set, brew cleanup runs periodically on the system. On re-install, install or upgrade; the HOMEBREW_INSTALL_CLEANUP environment variable will also trigger individual formula cleanup on reinstall, install or upgrade. brew prune has been replaced by brew cleanup and is now run as part of brew cleanup. Homebrew 1.9.0 will not run on 32-bit Intel CPUs. Incomplete downloads can now be resumed when the server rejects HEAD requests. This is particularly useful since some HTTP servers apparently don't support HEAD. brew bottle will allow relocation of more bottles. This will be done by ignoring source code and skipping matches to build dependencies. macOS Mojave bottles are optimized for the newer CPUs required by Mojave. ..and much more! What to expect in Homebrew 2.0.0? Official support for Linux, Windows10; with the Windows Subsystem for Linux Homebrew 2.0.0 will stop running on macOS versions 10.8 and below. Homebrew 2.0.0 will stop the migration of old installations from the legacy Homebrew/homebrew repository. While most users are excited about the news, some of them are not satisfied with Homebrew’s documentation. Source: Hacker News You can head over to Homebrews’ official blog to know more about the additional features introduced in Homebrew 1.9.0. Homebrew’s Github repo got hacked in 30 mins. How can open source projects fight supply chain attacks? An update on Bcachefs- the “next generation Linux filesystem” The Linux and RISC-V foundations team up to drive open source development and adoption of RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA)

Update: On Wednesday, according to a leaked memo received by BBC, UK-based chip designer ARM has told staff it must suspend business with Huawei. Also, BT Group Plc won’t offer phones from Huawei when it starts Britain’s first 5G mobile network next week. A number of wireless operators are ditching Huawei’s handsets. On Monday, The U.S. Commerce Department granted a 90-day license for mobile phone companies and internet broadband providers to work with Huawei allowing Google to send software updates to Huawei phones which use its Android operating system till August 19. As of 20th May, the U.S. government temporarily minimized some trade restrictions on Huawei, to help the company’s customers around the world. The U.S. Commerce Department will allow Huawei Technologies to purchase American-made goods in order to maintain existing networks and provide software updates to existing Huawei handsets. According to a report by Reuters, Google has suspended all business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware, software and technical services. Huawei will also be limited from getting updates to Google’s Android operating system. They will only be able to use the public version of Android (known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Huawei will have to create their own update mechanism for security patches. Future versions of Huawei smartphones that run on Android will also lose access to popular services, including the Google Play Store and Gmail and YouTube apps said Reuters. However, the impact is expected to be minimal in the Chinese market, considering most Google mobile apps are already banned in China. This also means that alternatives offered by domestic competitors such as Tencent and Baidu may see a rise in popularity. https://twitter.com/asymco/status/1130397070181916672 Holders of current Huawei smartphones with Google apps, however, will continue to be able to use and download app updates provided by Google, a Google spokesperson told Reuters. They further added, “We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications. For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices." https://twitter.com/Android/status/1130313848332988421 Per a Bloomberg report, chipmakers including Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx, and Broadcom have told their employees they will not supply Huawei till further notice. This can also disrupt the businesses of American chip giants and slow down the rollout of critical 5G wireless networks worldwide -- including in China. Last week the FCC voted unanimously to deny China Mobile’s bid to provide US telecommunications services. Huawei suspension from Google comes after The Trump administration added the Chinese telecom giant to trade blacklist, last week. The Commerce Department said by adding Huawei Technologies and its 70 affiliates under this list means it will ban the company from acquiring components and technology from US firms without government approval. President Donald Trump has taken this decision to “prevent American technology from being used by foreign-owned entities in ways that potentially undermine US national security or foreign policy interests”, said US Secretary Wilbur Ross in a statement. The order signed by the President did not specify any country or company but, US officials have previously labeled Huawei a “threat” and actively lobbied allies not to use Huawei network equipment in next-generation 5G networks. Huawei’s ban was not received well by the public especially those with Huawei devices. This is a lose-lose situation for both companies, short term, this hurts Huawei, long term this hurts Android. The news of the US ban did not sit well with Chinese citizens as well.  Per a report by Buzzfeed, people in China are calling for a boycott of Apple products. In February, Huawei was accused of stealing Apple’s trade secrets. Per Buzzfeed, many people took to Weibo, China’s popular social media platform to speak against Apple. “The functions in Huawei are comparable to Apple iPhones or even better. We have such a good smartphone alternative, why are we still using Apple?” commented one user.” “I think Huawei’s branding is amazing, it chops an apple into eight pieces,” said another post, describing the company's spliced, red logo. On Twitter, people openly criticized Google’s move as well as the US ban. https://twitter.com/FearbySoftware/status/1130234526137966592 https://twitter.com/iainthomson/status/1130232015276535808 The U.S. China cold war has escalated to become a messy trade war. Now, China faces incremental pressure to build its own smartphone operating system, design its own chips, develop its own semiconductor technology, and implement its own technology standards. https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1130229043272531968 US blacklist China’s telecom giant Huawei over threat to national security Elite US universities including MIT and Stanford break off partnerships with Huawei. China’s Huawei technologies accused of stealing Apple’s trade secrets, reports The Information

In an updated developer documentation released yesterday, Apple has announced its plans to make notarization a default requirement for all software in the future. Now, starting from macOS 10.14.5, all new software distributed with a new Developer ID must be notarized in order to run. “Beginning in macOS 10.14.5, all new or updated kernel extensions and all software from developers new to distributing with Developer ID must be notarized in order to run. In a future version of macOS, notarization will be required by default for all software.” writes Apple in a blog post. What is notarization? First introduced in macOS Mojave for apps distributed outside of the Mac App Store, Apple’s notary service is an automated system that scans software for malicious content and checks for code-signing issues. Based on these checks, notarization generates a ticket and publishes that ticket online where Gatekeeper (Apple’s flagship security feature) can find it and deem it as notarized. The Gatekeeper then places descriptive information in the initial launch dialog to help the user make an informed choice about whether to launch the app. macOS 10.14.5 requires new developers to notarize Apple has encouraged Mac app developers to submit their apps to Apple to be notarized. The Gatekeeper dialog has also been streamlined to reassure users that an app is not known malware. For non-Mac App Store developers, Apple provides a Developer ID that is required to allow the Gatekeeper function on macOS to install non-Mac App Store apps without extra warnings. However, from macOS 10.14.5 onwards, all new software distributed with a new Developer ID will need to go through the notarization process for their apps to work on the Mac. Apple notes that some preexisting software might not run properly after being successfully notarized. For example, “Gatekeeper might find code signing issues that a relaxed notarization process didn’t enforce.” They recommend developers to always review the notary log for any warnings, and test the software before distribution. Developers will not need to rebuild or re-sign their software before submitting it for notarization, but they must use Xcode 10 to perform the notarization steps. More information on notarization can be found on Apple's developer site. Some Hacker News users were unsure of what Apple means by “by default”. “kind of makes it sound like all software will have to be notarized, which implies that you have to be an Apple Developer to distribute at all. But saying "by default" makes it seems like there's some kind of option given to the user, so maybe it just means that software that's distributed by a registered Apple Developer but isn't notarized just moves down into the third tier of software that has to be explicitly allowed to run by the user.” “I interpret the "by default" as meaning the exact same thing as "Developer ID is required by default for Mac apps" today. Or in other words, I would assume that getting around a non-notarized app in the future would have the exact same sequence of steps as getting around a non-Developer ID-signed app today.” “I'd read the 'by default' as it being turned on system-wide and up to the user to override on a per case basis. Of course, Apple's ideal model is that they want everything going through them. They're going to enable it 'by default' and if customers don't scream too much, they'll likely make it mandatory a release or two later.” Final release for macOS Mojave is here with new features, security changes and a privacy flaw. macOS gets RPCS3 and Dolphin using Gfx-portability, the Vulkan portability implementation for non-Rust apps Swift 5 for Xcode 10.2 is here!

Barring the Google+ security incident, Google has had an excellent track record for providing exceptional security services to protect different levels of users’ data with ease. Android 9, now aims to provide users with more options to protect user data. To enhance user data security, Android will now be combining Android’s Backup Service and Google Could’s Titan technology to protect data backups while also maintaining the required privacy. Complete backed-up users’ data is essential for rich user experience A lot of time and efforts may be required to create an identity, adding new data, and customizing the users’ settings based on their preferences for an individual app. Whenever the user upgrades to a new device or re-installs the applications, preserving the user data is a must for smooth user experience. A huge chunk of data is generated when using mobile apps, thus adopting proper techniques is necessary to backup the required data. Backing up a small amount of data can be frustrating for users especially when they open the app on a new device. Android Backup service + Titan technology = Secured data backups With Android Pie, devices can now take advantage of a new technique where backed-up application data can only be decrypted using a key. This key is randomly generated at the client. You can encrypt the key using the user’s lock screen PIN/Pattern/passcode, which isn’t known to Google. The password-protected key is encrypted to a Titan security chip on Google Cloud’s datacenter floor. The titan chip is configured in such a way that it will release the backup encryption key only when it is presented with a correct claim derived from the user’s passcode. The titan chip must authorize every access to the decryption key, thus it can permanently block access after too many incorrect attempts at guessing the user’s password. This will mitigate brute force attacks. The number of legal attempts is strictly set by a custom Titan firmware. The number cannot be updated or changed without erasing the contents of the chip. This implies that no one can access the user’s backed-up data without knowing the passcode. Android team hired an external agency for security audit The Android Security & Privacy team hired global cybersecurity and risk mitigation expert NCC Group to complete a security audit, in order to ensure this new technique prevents anyone (including Google) from accessing users application data. The result received positive outcomes around Google’s security design processes, code quality validations, and easing known attack vectors. All these aspects were taken into account prior to launching the service. The engineers corrected some issues quickly which were discovered during the audit. In order to get complete details on how the service fared, you can check the detailed report of NCC Group findings. These external reviews allow Google and Android to maintain transparency and openness which allows users to feel safe about their data, says the Android team. For a complete list of details, you can refer the official Google blog. Read more Google takes steps towards better security, introduces new API policies for 3rd parties and a Titan Security system for mobile devices Facebook says only 29 million and not 50 million users were affected by last month’s security breach Facebook finds ‘no evidence that hackers accessed third party Apps via user logins’, from last week’s security breach