Tech News - Mobile

Magic Leap, a million dollar augmented reality company, released its first mixed reality headset, earlier this month, called the “Magic Leap One - Creator Edition”. Magic Leap One is a three-part system which includes a "Lightwear" headset, a handheld controller, and a “lightpack” i.e. a wearable computer that goes in your pocket. The headset system is now available for purchase at $2295, and you can add a professional developer package for an extra $495. This Professional Developer Package provides a hub that enables you to connect the headset to a computer. The company also offers a 24-hour replacement for Magic Leap One in case of breakage. Magic Leap One features three components: Lightwear Headset Magic Leap One comes with a “lightwear” headset that includes cameras, sensors, speakers and optical relay that work in conjunction with the processor in the Lightpack. It has a spatial audio system which includes onboard speakers and 3.5 mm jack. This audio system blends and co-ordinates with the virtual objects. It also maintains the balance between the distance and intensity of the sound with great accuracy and control. One more feature that will be available soon in Magic Leap One headsets is an option for inserting a lens based on your personalized eyeglasses. Superpowered Lightpack processor What’s different in this new headset system is that the processor of this system resides in a small, wearable and portable Lightpack, which can be clipped onto your pocket. The processor consists of an integrated GPU and CPU with an 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage capacity. It has a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery which can be used for upto 3 hours. It also comes with a 45-watt USB-C Power Delivery (PD) charger. Handheld Controller Magic Leap One does not require additional external sensors to deliver six degrees of freedom, also known as 6DoF. It consists of a touch-sensitive trackpad, 8-bit resolution Trigger button, Digital Bumper button, and a digital home button. For more information on Magic Leap One, check out its official website. Magic Leap’s first augmented reality headset, powered by Nvidia Tegra X2, is coming this Summer Google’s Daydream VR SDK finally adds support for two controllers Unreal Engine 4.20 released with focus on mobile and immersive (AR/VR/MR) devices  

WebView is used to display web content in your iOS applications.Yesterday, React Native announced a new native iOS backend to the WebView component that uses WKWebView. This WebView component will be available in the upcoming React Native 0.57 release. Apple has discouraged the use of UIWebViews for a long time. This is due to its being formally deprecated in the upcoming months. It is advised that you use the WKWebView class instead of using UIWebView for the apps that run in iOS 8 and above. You can use the useWebKit property to opt into this implementation: What problems does WKWebView solve? Earlier, to embed web content in our applications we had two options, UIWebView and WKWebView. UIWebView is the original WebView introduced in 2.0. It is known to have some pitfalls and problems. The main drawback is that it has no legitimate way to facilitate communication between the JavaScript running in the WebView and React Native. The newly introduced WKWebView aims to solve this problem. Other benefits of WKWebView over UIWebView include faster JavaScript execution and a multi-process architecture. What to consider when switching to WKWebView? You must avoid using the following properties, for the time being: Using automaticallyAdjustContentInsets and contentInsets may result in inconsistent behavior. When we add contentInsets to UIWebView, the viewport size changes (gets smaller, if the content insets are positive). In case of WKWebView, the viewport size remain unchanged. If you use the backgroundColor property there is a chance that WKWebView may render transparent backgrounds differently from UIWebView and can also flicker into view. Per React Native community, WKWebView doesn't support the scalesPageToFit property. Hence, they couldn't implement this on the WebView React Native component. To know more about the new WebViews, check out their announcement on React Native’s official website and their GitHub repository. Apple releases iOS 12 beta 2 with screen time and battery usage updates among others React Native 0.56 is now available Apple releases iOS 11.4 update with features including AirPlay 2, and HomePod among others

Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney has accused Google of being “irresponsible” for disclosing a major security flaw in the Fortnite Android Installer to the public eye before patch of this game was widely available. After the Fortnite installer went live, Google security engineers pointed out a security bug. This showed that installing the file (with .apk extension) shared by Epic Games, enabled the hackers to push malicious apps that could take over a user’s device. To make things even worse, the .apk file shared by Epic Games is the first step to follow while installing the Fortnite game. As mentioned in the Google thread, “Any app with the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission can substitute the APK immediately after the download is completed and the fingerprint is verified. This is easily done using a FileObserver. The Fortnite Installer will proceed to install the substituted (fake) APK”. Epic was quick to respond to this and took appropriate action to secure the newer Android devices from being vulnerable to the attacks. Additionally, Epic had asked Google for 90 days before making the security issue public as it would provide users with enough time to update the installers. However, last Friday, Google released a thread titled “Fortnite Installer downloads are vulnerable to hijacking” that talks about the vulnerability issues in the installer, clearly not granting Epic the requested 90 days. Google proceeded to “unrestrict the issue in line with Google’s standard disclosure practices”. Google spokesperson said that “User security is our top priority, and as part of our proactive monitoring for malware we identified a vulnerability in the Fortnite installer. We immediately notified Epic Games and they fixed the issue”. Epic games didn’t appreciate the move, and its CEO Tim Sweeney released a statement saying how “Epic genuinely appreciated Google’s effort to perform an in-depth security audit of Fortnite immediately following our release on Android, and share the results with Epic so we could speedily issue an update to fix the flaw they discovered. However, it was irresponsible of Google to publicly disclose the technical details of the flaw so quickly, while many installations had not yet been updated and were still vulnerable.” Sweeney also took to Twitter to express his disapproval regarding the situation. https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1033225118405804032 https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1034117758332661760 He even went ahead to say that this was Google’s attempt to “score cheap PR points” against Epic as they decided to release Fortnite via their own website instead of Google Play Store. This would have left Google out of the 30% cut it would’ve received with in-app purchases made on Fortnite Android. “Google’s security analysis efforts are appreciated and benefit the Android platform, however a company as powerful as Google should practice more responsible disclosure timing than this, and not endanger users in the course of its counter-PR efforts against Epic’s distribution of Fortnite outside of Google Play” as mentioned on the Fortnite blog. https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1033226094357504000 This is not the first time that Google has been criticized, Microsoft also accused it of disclosing its vulnerabilities before patches were made widely available. Now, whether this was really a PR move by Google against Epic cannot be verified. Epic games have now come out with a 2FA or two-factor authentication to “ help protect user accounts from unauthorized access by requiring them to enter an additional code when they sign in”. Google’s incognito location tracking scandal could be the first real test of GDPR 1k+ Google employees frustrated with continued betrayal, protest against Censored Search engine project for China Google gives Artificial Intelligence full control over cooling its data centers  

Apple has asked Facebook to take down its app, Onavo Protect from App Store as it violates Apple’s new rules on data collection. Onavo is an Israeli analytics company, which was founded in 2010 and then acquired by Facebook in 2013. Apple revised their data collection policies in May this year to prevent app developers from engaging in certain app data collection activities in the future. One of their spokesperson told CNBC: "We work hard to protect user privacy and data security throughout the Apple ecosystem. With the latest update to our guidelines, we made it explicitly clear that apps should not collect information about which other apps are installed on a user's device for the purposes of analytics or advertising/marketing and must make it clear what user data will be collected and how it will be used." What Onavo Protect does? Onavo Protect is a VPN and data manager, which provides security and data encryption.  It comes with functionalities like: Limiting apps from using data in the background Setting data alerts when apps use too much data A report on how much data is consumed by each app on your phone A VPN network that helps in keeping your personal info protected, Onavo in their app description have mentioned that they may collect your mobile data traffic to analyze your use of websites, apps, and data. They have further mentioned that, being a part of Facebook, they also use this info to gain insights in order to improve Facebook products and services. A Facebook spokesperson said,  "We've always been clear when people download Onavo about the information that is collected and how it is used. As a developer on Apple's platform we follow the rules they've put in place." Though, it is mentioned in the app’s description that the information will be used by Facebook, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom to see that disclosure; something not every new user may do. This story was first reported on the Wall Street Journal. Earlier, they had also reported that the app has helped Facebook by monitoring usage of competing apps like Snapchat. After this Facebook added the Stories feature in their Instagram app, which is similar to that of Snapchat. The VPN app is now removed from App Store but is currently available on Google Play Store for the Android device users. 16 year old hacked into Apple’s servers, accessed ‘extremely secure’ customer accounts for over a year undetected Apple joins the Thread Group, signaling its Smart Home ambitions with HomeKit, Siri and other IoT products ‘Think different’ makes Apple the world’s most valuable company, crossing $1 Trillion market cap

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!

For a powerful, high quality mobile device experience, Google recently rolled out the Go edition of its AI packed Android 9.0 Pie version. The Go edition comes with additional storage of upto 500 MB, faster boot time, better security and more improvements for entry level phones. Source: Google Blog page Added Google Go features: A first time smartphone user will be able to experience a fully redesigned set of Google apps with the Go edition. Let us look at each in detail: Google Go will read aloud your webpages and highlight each word so you can follow along. YouTube Go will let you download videos and save it as in the Gallery mode using less data. Maps Go features navigation, making it possible for people with Go edition devices or unstable connections to use turn-by-turn directions whether you’re traveling by car, by bus, or on foot. Files Go, which has saved users ~90TB of space since launch, is now capable of transferring data peer-to-peer, without using mobile data, at speeds up to ~490Mbips. Assistant Go supports additional languages including Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Indonesian. It has expanded support for device actions like controlling Bluetooth, camera, flashlight and added reminders. Android Messages App for Android (Go edition) is now ~50 percent smaller in size and the Phone App includes caller ID and spam detection. "We welcomed our first wave of Android (Go edition) phones this April, and now there are more than 200 devices available in 120+ countries including India, South Africa, US, Nigeria and Brazil." says Sagar Kamdar, Director of Product Management, Google. Devices that participated in the P Beta programme include Sony Mobile, Xiaomi, HMD Global, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus and all other qualifying Android One devices. To read the full coverage of the Go edition, visit the official Google blog page. Introducing Android 9 Pie, filled with machine learning and baked-in UI features Android 9 pie’s Smart Linkify: How Android’s new machine learning based feature works All new Android apps on Google Play must target API Level 26 (Android Oreo) or higher, to publish

Microsoft has added new features in Microsoft Edge Beta, which is the testing version of Microsoft Edge. Microsoft Edge is a browser for all your devices, giving you a continuous browsing experience across all the devices. Microsoft is constantly adding new features to Edge giving readers an organized, secure, and fast user experience. Recently they rolled out features like, intelligent visual search, support for paste and go option in the search bar, along with some performance improvements in Microsoft Edge for iOS. What are the new updates in Microsoft Edge Beta? To continue in the “best browser race”, they have added more features in Microsoft Edge Beta on iOS: You can now access both personal and work/school accounts simultaneously. This is enabled by a toggle to keep the respective browsing histories separate. A new option is added to receive breaking news alerts A new developer options menu Now iPad users can use the Command key on their attached keyboard to see shortcuts A What's new and tips link is added in settings Icons for the Favorites, Reading List, Books, and History in the Hub is now moved to the bottom You can now reorganize the Favorites folder Users can view the book annotations except for PDF free-form inking Performance improvements and bug fixes! You can get these features on your iOS device if you have signed up for Apple’s TestFlight, a service that makes it easy to invite users to test your apps and collect valuable feedback before you release them on the App Store. You can find the regular version of Microsoft Edge and follow the “What’s New” section to know if these features are rolled out! Microsoft Edge introduces Web Authentication for passwordless web security Microsoft Azure’s new governance DApp: An enterprise blockchain without mining Microsoft launches Quantum Katas, a programming project to learn Q#, its Quantum programming language

The launch of Fortnite Android Beta was announced on Epic Games website on August 9, stating that players with Samsung Galaxy devices are the first to be invited. It will open for other devices over the next few days. The game is directly available on their official website for Android users bypassing the Google Play Store. Players will get access to Fortnite Battle Royale in waves. You need to sign-up at Fortnite.com/Android and the download instructions will be shared with you via email. Why did Fortnite bypass Google Play Store? One reason could be that they have already made a audience base and do not need any other app distribution store to make them more popular. Though there are ways to bypass the Apple’s App Store, it is a bit tricky. You can use methods like sideloading to download an app which is not available in the App Store. Unlike Apple, Android is much more flexible and users can easily download the application from other websites. This loophole could be used to save the 30% of the revenue Fortnite will need to share with Google. How does Fornite’s decision impact users and Google? This move could result in more than just missing out the 30% shares in revenue for Google, if other big game developers also decide to distribute their games independently. For customers the risks lies in terms of security. We can adjust an Android device’s settings to download apps and games from anywhere on the web. This makes the devices more prone to security risks, malware infections, and other malicious attacks. Secondly, those users who are not aware that Fortnite in not available on Play Store could be fooled into downloading apps masquerading as Fortnite. To know more about Fortnite bypassing Google Play store, refer to the TechCrunch’s report. Google buys GraphicsFuzz, bringing fuzzy logic and metamorphic testing to Android graphics drivers Google’s second innings in China: Exploring cloud partnerships with Tencent and others Google open sources Filament – a physically based rendering engine for Android, Windows, Linux and macOS

After the consecutive release of Dagger 2.15 and 2.16 in May earlier this year, Dagger 2.17 was released with enhanced performance and bug fixes. This dependency injection framework for Java and Android allows developers to focus on the interesting classes (the classes that actually do stuff!). You just need to declare the dependencies, specify how to satisfy them, and ship your app. What’s new in Dagger 2.17? Bug fixes and error improvements: Previously, when a @Binds method in a parent was used only from a child, whose dependency was missing in the parent but present in the child, it used to result in a valid graph. Dagger now reports an error in such cases. An error is reported for binding methods that have more than one scope annotation, instead of throwing an exception. If two entry point methods with different keys are inherited from different supertypes of a component type, Dagger reports an error. Dagger reports an error for scope annotations on @BindsOptionalOf methods. Apply scope to the non-optional binding that satisfies the optional binding, instead of the @BindsOptionalOf method. You should install AndroidInjectionModule or AndroidSupportInjectionModule when using dagger.android, otherwise Dagger 2.17 will throw a missing binding error. Bug fixed to report cycles if some components have no entry points that depend on the cycle. Bug fixed where scope annotations in error messages were missing annotation attributes. Additions and deprecations: An option is added to use string keys for dagger.android and allow the keys to be obfuscated. You can enable this mode with the -Adagger.android.experimentalUseStringKeys flag. experimentalAndroidMode is renamed to fastInit. dagger.android.DaggerFragment is deprecated, use dagger.android.support.DaggerFragment instead. This is done to match Android Pie’s deprecation of framework fragments. Checkout Dagger’s Github page for more on the 2.17 release. Introducing Android 9 Pie, filled with machine learning and baked-in UI features All new Android apps on Google Play must target API Level 26 (Android Oreo) or higher, to publish Android Studio 3.2 Beta 5 out, with updated Protobuf Gradle plugin

Facebook announced a new “multiplayer AR games” feature for its popular messaging platform,”Messenger”, today. This feature makes your chatting experience even more fun as it lets you challenge your friends to games while video chatting.      Facebook Messenger AR games Facebook seems inspired by Snapchat, as the new feature is quite similar to Snapchat’s multiplayer AR video chat games, called Snappables, launched in April 2018. The only difference is that Snapchat transforms your whole screen using AR, taking you into space or a disco dance hall. On the other hand, Facebook AR games only overlay a few graphics on the world around you. Snapchat Snappables The new feature powered by AR Studio, a platform that was released last year at Facebook F8 which allows developers to build AR experiences for Facebook Camera. It lets you challenge up to six people at a time. There are currently two games rolled out namely, “Don’t Smile” and “Asteroids Attack”. “Don’t smile” is a game where the person making the serious face for the longest time wins. In “Asteroids attack”, the person who is able to navigate their spaceship better, wins”. Facebook is planning to release more games in the future, such as Beach Bump and Kitten Craze. You need to have the latest version of Messenger updated on your phones to be able to play these games. You can either open an existing conversation or find the person to chat with, then tap the video icon on the upper right corner of your phone screen. After this, you just need to tap the star button and select one of the AR games. This will notify the person you are chatting with to join you in the game. Video chats in Messenger have been on the rise with over 17 billion video chats last year and twice as many as the year before. Also, Facebook seems to be quite invested in incorporating Augmented Reality into different aspects of its business. Last month, Facebook announced that it’s planning to launch AR ads on its news feed to let you try on products virtually. Messenger is doing a good job of connecting people in real-time, and now, AR games are like the cherry on top which will help people create memories and have fun. Facebook launches a 6-part Machine Learning video series Facebook plans to use Bloomsbury AI to fight fake news Is Facebook planning to spy on you through your mobile’s microphones?  

Source code for what is believed to be a small part of Snapchat's iOS application was posted on GitHub after being leaked back in May. After being notified, Snap Inc., Snapchat's parent company, immediately filed a DMCA request to GitHub to get the code removed. A copy of the request was found by a 'security researcher' tweeting from the handle @x0rz, who shared a link to a copy of the request on GitHub: https://twitter.com/x0rz/status/1026735377955086337 You can read the DMCA request in full here. [caption id="attachment_21477" align="aligncenter" width="916"] Part of the Snap Inc. DMCA request to GitHub[/caption] The initial leak back in May was caused by an update to the Snapchat iOS application. A spokesperson for Snap Inc. explained to CNET: "An iOS update in May exposed a small amount of our source code and we were able to identify the mistake and rectify it immediately... We discovered that some of this code had been posted online and it has been subsequently removed. This did not compromise our application and had no impact on our community." This code was then published by a someone using the name Khaled Alshehri, believed to be based in Pakistan, on GitHub. The repository created - called Source-SnapChat - has now been taken down. A number of posts linked to the GitHub account suggests that the leaker had tried to contact Snapchat but had been ignored. "I will post it again until I get a reply" they said. https://twitter.com/i5aaaald/status/1025639490696691712 Leaked Snapchat code is still being traded privately Although GitHub has taken the repo down, it's not hard to find people claiming they have a copy of the code that they're willing to trade: https://twitter.com/iSn0we/status/1026738393353465858 Now the code is out in the wild it will take more than a DMCA request to get things under control. Although it would appear the leaked code isn't substantial enough to give much away to potential cybercriminals, it's likely that Snapchat is now working hard to make the changes required to tighten its security.  Read next Snapchat is losing users – but revenue is up 15 year old uncovers Snapchat’s secret visual search function

The latest addition to the list of companies acquired by Google is a startup called GraphicsFuzz. The team at GraphicsFuzz consisting of Alastair Donaldson, Hugues Evrard and Paul Thomson, will be joining Google’s Android Graphics Team to integrate their graphics driver testing technology within the Android ecosystem. What does GraphicsFuzz do? GraphicsFuzz is an automated testing technology, which uses fuzzy logic and metamorphic testing to find the reliability and security-related issues in the graphics driver. The following is an overview of the logic it uses: Reference shader: It starts with a reference shader program, which basically is a program defined by the user to be run on some stage of a graphics processor. Source: GraphicsFuzz Variant shaders: To obtain variant shaders with significantly different source code that still has the same effect, GraphicsFuzz applies semantics-preserving source code transformations. These variant shaders will have the same image as the reference. Source: GraphicsFuzz Bug finding: If a variant shader leads to different image then this indicates that we have detected a graphics driver bug. Source: GraphicsFuzz Intelligent Reducer: The variant shader is of thousands of lines coming from the semantics-preserving transformations. Intelligent Reducer removes irrelevant codes to the bug and then we obtain a small difference which is enough to expose the driver issue. Source: GraphicsFuzz What does GraphicsFuzz bring to the Android testing ecosystem? They have proven their capabilities by exposing bugs in large number of graphics drivers across mobile and desktop platforms. For instance, they were awarded a bug bounty by Google for discovering a security issue in the ARM driver for the Samsung Galaxy S6. While testing of the Snapdragon Samsung Galaxy S9, GraphicsFuzz found an error in the Adreno 630’s graphics driver. This error could cause a whole-phone reboot via a valid WebGL Internet page when using the stock Samsung Internet browser. This acquisition will surely prove helpful to Google in developing secure and reliable graphics drivers for Android systems to provide a better user experience. Head over to GraphicsFuzz’s official website to know more about this announcement. Google’s exploring cloud partnerships with Tencent and others All new Android apps on Google Play must target API Level 26 (Android Oreo) or higher Google to launch a censored search engine in China, codenamed Dragonfly

Chances are that you have already noticed the changes in your everyday Google apps like Gmail, Google News, Google Chrome. This change is a part of the bigger overhaul in Google’s design strategy. They are calling it the material redesign. This video shows in great detail the fluidic design implemented by Google in its latest update. The real question is where is it leading us? Is it just a superficial update or is there a larger motive behind it? Material design was first launched by Google back in 2014. The basic principle was based on two factors: Unification: A Visual language which works across the platform. Intuition: Core principle of Material Design is how “Material / Surface” behaves. This makes it almost obvious to the user what will happen on the interaction. Although Google aimed at removing design inconsistencies across different devices and manufacturers, the material design became more of a constraint rather than a guiding light. The apps which failed to imbibe the material design principles in them, seemed messy. There was a lot of flack aimed at Google for this high handed behavior. The main complaint was that the apps looked bland, and that they all looked similar with similar buttons and themes. Google have been since then trying to create a better version of its flagship project. The motivation for this is however something bigger. It’s almost impossible to bring Android under one common umbrella because there has been so many other instances of it running on different devices. This experiment on material design is their way of trying out the new display and UI system before they launch their new project Fuchsia which has been under development for some time. The reason why Google has given a new look to all its current apps is to change the way GUIs (Graphical User Interface) work and function. We are somewhat still using the same GUI based systems developed almost a decade ago. Google is trying to bring a change in that aspect. With the new material design update, Google has given the developers the freedom to choose from designs and themes without messing up their app. So you can now customize your app and the way it looks, have a brighter color palette and yet have it follow the Material Design paradigm. This also tries is to make interacting with apps much easier, without having a full app launch. That’s how, you can use the new Gmail from the notification window and even add pictures in it from there. All of these changes, point towards a movement away from the traditional GUI based system. At the heart of it is the Google Assistant and the Google AI. The vision is really interesting. You won’t have to look at your phone and manually navigate between apps. Your voice command will do it for you, smart assistant will find out the answers of your queries from the web. The Google AI system will filter the best results curated for you and won’t just aggregate them and dump it at your screen. All of this will be done from a UI that will be something similar to the present day material design UI. Google’s Smart Display – A push towards the new OS, Fuchsia Google Fuchsia: What’s all the fuss about? Introducing Android 9 Pie, filled with machine learning and baked-in UI features Android P new features: artificial intelligence, digital wellbeing, and simplicity

Google has launched Android 9, the next in line Android Operating system. Named Android Pie, after Android’s convention of naming their OS on sweet treats, Android 9 comes with machine learning based interactive UI, security and privacy features, updates to connectivity and location, and more. With the filling of Machine Learning With Machine learning as its core, Android 9 helps a phone learn, by picking up on user preferences and adjusting automatically. Source: Android Developers Blog Google has partnered with DeepMind for Adaptive Battery that uses machine learning to prioritize system resources for the apps the user frequents the most. Android 9 Pie uses Slices, which are basically UI templates to display interactive content from an app from within other sources such as Google Search app or Google Assistant. It helps users perform tasks faster by engaging users outside of the fullscreen app experience. App Actions takes advantage of machine learning to bring an app to the user at just the right time. It is based on the app's semantic intents and the user's context. Another feature, the Smart Linkify lets users take advantage of the TextClassifier models through the Linkify API, providing options for quick follow-on user actions. Android 9 adds an updated version of the Neural networks API, to extend Android's support for accelerated on-device machine learning. Neural Networks 1.1 adds support for nine new ops. You can take advantage of the APIs through TensorFlow Lite. Baked in UI features Android 9 uses simpler and more approachable UI to help users find, use, and manage their apps. Source: Android Developers Blog There is a brand new system navigation for easily discoverable apps and to make Android's multitasking more approachable. Android 9 also has a display cutout support to take full advantage of the latest edge-to-edge screens. For immersive content, users can use the display cutout APIs to check the position and shape of the cutout and request full-screen layout around it. Messaging apps can take advantage of the new MessagingStyle APIs to show conversations, attach photos and stickers, and suggest smart replies. Android 9 will soon get the support of ML Kit to generate smart reply suggestions. Android 9 uses a Magnifier widget to improve the user experience of selecting text. The Magnifier widget can also provide a zoomed-in version of any view or surface. With the sprinkling of Security and privacy Major updates of Android 9 have been based on preserving the privacy and security of users’ data. Source: Android Developers Blog Android 9 uses the BiometricPrompt API to show the standard system dialog instead of building their own dialog. In addition to Fingerprint (including in-display sensors), the API supports Face and Iris authentication. The Android Protected Confirmation uses the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to guarantee that a given prompt string is shown and confirmed by the user. Only after successful user confirmation will the TEE then sign the prompt string, which the app can verify. StrongBox is added as a new KeyStore type, providing API support for devices that provide key storage in tamper-resistant hardware with isolated CPU, RAM, and secure flash. Android 9 adds built-in support for DNS over TLS, automatically upgrading DNS queries to TLS if a network's DNS server supports it. Android 9 restricts access to mic, camera, and all SensorManager sensors from apps that are idle. These are just a select few updates for the Android 9 operating system. The full list of features is available on the Android Developer Blog. Starting today, Android 9 Pie is rolling out to all Pixel users worldwide, and then to many other devices in the coming months. Android P Beta 4 is here, stable Android P expected in the coming weeks! Google updates biometric authentication for Android P, introduces BiometricPrompt API Android P new features: artificial intelligence, digital wellbeing, and simplicity

Google has just open-sourced Filament, their physically based rendering (PBR) engine for Android. It can also be used in Windows, Linux, and macOS. Filament provides a set of tools and APIs for Android developers to help them easily create high-quality 2D and 3D rendering. Filament is currently being used in the Sceneform library both at runtime on Android devices and as the renderer inside the Android Studio plugin. Apart from Filament, Google has also open sourced Materials, the full reference documentation for their material system. They have also made available Material Properties which is a reference sheet for the standard material model. Google’s Filament comes packed with the following features: The rendering system is able to perform efficiently on mobile platforms. The primary target is OpenGL ES 3.x class GPUs. The rendering system emphasizes overall picture quality. Artists are able to iterate often and quickly on their assets and the rendering system allows them to do so instinctively. The physically based approach of the system also allows developers to create visually believable materials even if they don’t understand the theory behind the implementation. The system relies on as few parameters as possible to reduce trial and error and allows users to quickly master the material model. The system uses physical units everywhere possible: distances in meters or centimeters, color temperatures in Kelvin, light units in lumens or candelas, etc. The rendering library is as small as possible so any application can bundle it without increasing the binary to unwanted sizes. Filament APIs There are two major APIs used. Native C++ API for Android, Linux, macOS, and Windows Java/JNI API for Android, Linux, macOS, and Windows Backends OpenGL 4.1+ for Linux, macOS, and Windows OpenGL ES 3.0+ for Android Vulkan 1.0 for Android, Linux, macOS (with MoltenVk) and Windows A sample material rendered with Filament. Source: Github You can check out the Filament Documentation, for an in-depth explanation of real-time PBR, the graphics capabilities and implementation of Filament. Google open sources Seurat to bring high precision graphics to Mobile VR Google releases Android Things library for Google Cloud IoT Core Google updates biometric authentication for Android P, introduces BiometricPrompt API