Tech News - Mobile

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.

Earlier this year, Cloudflare launched its 1.1.1.1 DNS service as a resolver to make DNS queries faster and more secure that anyone could use free of charge. The day before yesterday, they announced the launch of 1.1.1.1 mobile app for iOS and Android. DNS services are used by internet service providers to interpret a domain name like “Google.com” into an IP address that routers and switches can understand. However, DNS servers provided by ISPs are often slow and unreliable. Cloudflare claims to combat this issue with its 1.1.1.1 service. On a public internet connection, people can see what sites a user visits. This data can also be misused by an internet service provider. The 1.1.1.1 tool makes it easy to get a faster, more private, internet experience. Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 app will redirect all user apps to send DNS requests through a local resolver on their phone to its faster 1.1.1.1 server. The server will then encrypt the data to avoid any third person from spying on user data. Features of Cloudfare 1.1.1.1 mobile app The app is open source. The app uses VPN support to push mobile traffic towards the 1.1.1.1 DNS servers and improve speed. It prevents a user’s carrier from tracking their browsing history and misusing the same. Cloudflare has promised not to track 1.1.1.1 mobile app users or sell ads. The company has retained KPMG to perform an annual audit and publish a public report.  It also says most of the limited data collected is only stored for 24 hours. Cloudflare claims that 1.1.1.1 is the fastest public server, about “28 percent faster” than other public DNS resolvers. As compared to the desktop version, the mobile app is really easy to use and navigate. Head over to the Cloudflare Blog to know more about this announcement. You can download the app on iOS or Android to test the app for yourself. Cloudflare’s Workers enable containerless cloud computing powered by V8 Isolates and WebAssembly Cloudflare Workers KV, a distributed native key-value store for Cloudflare Workers Cloudflare’s decentralized vision of the web: InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) Gateway to create distributed websites

Yesterday, Progress, announced the release of NativeScript 5.0. With this release, NativeScript framework hits a major milestone of 3.5 million downloads in under three years, since its original launch in 2015. NativeScript 5.0 has capabilities including code sharing, hot module replacement, preview enhancements and more. Brad Green, Engineering Director, Angular Framework, Google Inc, said “In 2016, NativeScript 2.0 gave developers the ability to use Angular and NativeScript to create native mobile apps, but we wanted to take it a step further by enabling them to keep their code in one place and share business logic between web, iOS, and Android. We've worked closely with the NativeScript team resulting in the NativeScript-Schematics that integrates with the Angular CLI, making the user experience for developing both web and mobile within a single project completely seamless.” What’s New in NativeScript 5.0 NativeScript-Schematics This is a joint initiative with Angular to create a schematic that enables the building of both web and mobile apps from a single project. New ‘Instant Start’ CLI workflow Using this new CLI workflow users can start working on native apps within minutes, with no up-front requirements to install iOS and Android SDKs. Hot Module Replacement This includes instantaneous, stateful application updates, avoiding full page reload, significantly accelerating the app development and debugging experience. Vue.js support This includes a core Vue.js developer experience through a single file component in the NativeScript Playground. Streamlined “Getting Started” experience This enables an easier development with Playground-compatible code samples available in the NativeScript Marketplace. Android enhancements Some Android enhancements in this version include increased animation scenarios and more material design capabilities. Vector type support for iOS The Vector type support enables a broader set of augmented reality scenarios for iOS. Todd Anglin, Vice President, Product and Developer Relations, Progress, said, “Today’s release of NativeScript 5.0 brings an unprecedented level of ease, flexibility and productivity to the mobile app dev experience. Not only have we improved the ability to kickstart a project for new NativeScript users, but we’ve also expanded key attributes important to developers more versed in our offerings.” To know more about NativeScript 5.0 in detail, visit NativeScript’s official website. How to integrate Firebase with NativeScript for cross-platform app development NativeScript: What is it, and how to set it up Nativescript 4.1 has been released

Yesterday, the React Native team shared further plans for React Native to provide a better support to its users and collaborators outside of Facebook. The team is planning to open source some of the internal tools and improve the widely used tools in the open source community. In order to ensure no breaking code is open sourced, they are also improving their testing infrastructure. The following are some of the focus areas the developers will be working on: Cleaning up for leaner core The developers are planning on reducing the surface area of React Native by removing non-core and unused components. Currently, React Native is a huge repo, so it makes sense to break it into smaller ones. This will come with many advantages, some of which are: Managing the contributions to React Native will become easier Chance to deprecate older modules Bundle size for projects that don’t use the extractable components will be reduced. This will lead to faster startup times for the apps. Enable faster reviewing of pull requests and merging. Open sourcing internals and improving popular tools They will be open-sourcing some of the tools that Facebook uses internally and provide improved support for tools that are widely used by the open source community. Some of the projects they will be working on are: Open sourcing of JavaScript Interface (JSI), an interface that facilitates the communication between JavaScript and the native language. Support for 64-bit libraries on Android. The new architecture will come with debugging enabled. Support for CocoaPods, Gradle, Maven, and new Xcode build system will be improved. Improved testing infrastructure Before publishing a code, it goes through several tests internally by the React Native engineers. But, since there are a few differences in how React Native is being used at Facebook and by the open-source community, these updates sometimes result in introducing some breaking changes to the React Native surface. To avoid such situations they will be improving internal tests and ensure that new features are tested in an environment as similar to open source as possible. Along with these infrastructure improvements, Facebook will start using React Native via the public API, as the open source community does. This will reduce the unintentional breaking changes. All these changes, along with some more, will be achieved throughout the next year as per the official announcement. They have completed some of the goals at the moment such as JSI, which has already landed in open source. Releasing React Suite 3.4.0 Meanwhile, the React developers announced the release of React Suite 3.4.0. React Suite or RSUITE consists of React component libraries for enterprise system products. This release comes with TypeScript support and few minor bug fixes. The following are some of the updates that are introduced in React Suite 3.4.0: Support is added for TypeScript. renderTooltip is added for Slider. MultiCascader, a single selection of data with hierarchical relationship structure, has been added. Customizing options in <DatePicker> shortcuts were not working properly. This is fixed. The scroll bar not resetting after the column of the <Table> has been fixed. To read React Native’s open source roadmap check out their official announcement. Also, you can read the React Suite’s release notes to know more updates in React Suite 3.4.0. React Conf 2018 highlights: Hooks, Concurrent React, and more React introduces Hooks, a JavaScript function to allow using React without classes React Native 0.57 released with major improvements in accessibility APIs, WKWebView-backed implementation, and more!

Apple maps failed horribly with incorrect data at launch in 2012. Since then they have been putting efforts to make it better. In a blog post, Justin O’Beirne, who has contributed to Apple Maps, has made a comparison of the new and old Apple maps. The following is a summary of his analysis. Greener maps with more vegetation The new Apple maps is greener, a lot more vegetation. The cities are also more noticeable, even the smaller ones, they have more detail. The vegetation is mapped from the satellite view like Google Maps. According to the blog, 25% of county seats had no vegetation or green areas whatsoever on the old map. Here is a dramatic example: Source: Justin O’Beirne Blog The vegetation coverage covers the smallest details. Small strips of grass, vegetation between roads are all covered. In some areas, Apple maps cover vegetation details where no other maps service does it. Even Google Maps does not cover some of these vegetation details. Source: Justin O’Beirne Blog More structures are covered Other than vegetation, even shapes of structures, smaller structures other than buildings are also now in Apple maps. Details are distinguished in areas like beaches, harbors, racetracks, and parking lots. Smaller details in golf courses like fairways, running tracks in schools, pools, and playgrounds in parks are also covered. The building structures are being upgraded. Since the original launch in 2012, of course, there have been redevelopments, new buildings, etc. Apple is covering all of that trying to give a comprehensive and proper update. The buildings also have great detail showing arches, stepped design, and partitions. But some of the structures showcase incorrect height. The details in some rooftops are not there which are in Google Maps. But the perimeters of the buildings are more accurate than of Google Maps. Updating road data Apple used to license road data from TomTom, it wasn’t up to date and now Apple is replacing all of it with new data. Some roads are not present even on Google Maps but are in Apple Maps now. But Apple does not have all the business areas/stores. Also, the street names are not properly displayed, there are errors and in some cases, it is difficult to find streets while zooming in to Apple Maps. Apple maps have been in the making since 2014. It has certainly improved a lot, more details than Google in some areas but still lacks the large amount of data that Google Maps has. For more in-depth details, visit Justin O’Beirne Blog. A kernel vulnerability in Apple devices gives access to remote code execution Helium proves to be less than an ‘ideal gas’ for iPhones and Apple watches Apple launches iPad Pro, updates MacBook Air and Mac mini

A heap buffer overflow vulnerability was found in Apple’s XNU OS kernels by Kevin Backhouse. An exploit can potentially cause any iOS or macOS device on the same network to reboot, without any user interaction. Apple has classified this kernel vulnerability as a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the kernel. It may be possible to exploit buffer overflow to execute arbitrary code in the kernel. The vulnerability is fixed in iOS 12 and macOS Mojave. The vulnerability is caused by a heap buffer overflow in the networking code within the XNU kernel. XNU is a kernel system developed by Apple. It is used in both iOS and macOS, hence most iPhones, iPads, and Macbooks are affected. An attacker merely needs to send a malicious IP packet the target device’s IP address to trigger this. The vulnerability is triggered only if the attacker is in the same network as the target. This becomes easy if you’re using a free WiFi network from a coffee shop. The vulnerability being in the kernel, anti-viruses cannot protect your device. The attacker can control the size and content of the heap buffer giving a potential to gain remote code execution of a device. There are two known mitigations against this kernel vulnerability: Enabling stealth mode in the macOS firewall prevents the attack from taking place. Don’t use public WiFi networks as there is a high risk of being attacked. These OS versions and devices are vulnerable: All devices with Apple iOS 11 and earlier All Apple macOS High Sierra devices up to 10.13.6. This is patched in security update 2018-001. Devices using Apple macOS Sierra up to 10.12.6. This is patched in security update 2018-005. Apple OS X El Capitan and earlier devices The kernel vulnerability was reported by Kevin Backhouse to Apple in time to be rolled out with iOS 12 and macOS Mojave. The vulnerabilities were announced on October 30. For more details visit the LGMT website. Final release for macOS Mojave is here with new features, security changes and a privacy flaw The kernel community attempting to make Linux more secure Apple has introduced Shortcuts for iOS 12 to automate your everyday tasks

On Tuesday, iFixit announced its partnership with Motorola to supply customers with repair kits for Motorola’s smartphones. Users can either send their device to Motorola for repairs or they can buy an iFixit battery or screen replacement kit (Motorola OEM Fix Kits) that includes the tools required to undertake the task themselves. iFixit is a private company that sells repair parts and publishes free online repair guides for consumer electronics and gadgets on its website. According to iFixit, this partnership is geared towards supporting the right to repair movement. Motorola is the first major smartphone manufacturer to supply repair kits to users. With this partnership, Motorola is adopting an open attitude towards repair. In the official announcement, iFixit said: “For fixers like us, this partnership is representative of a broader movement in support of our Right to Repair. It’s proof that OEM manufacturers and independent repair can co-exist. Big business and social responsibility, and innovation and sustainability don’t need to be mutually exclusive. Motorola is setting an industry-leading example of a company that’s looking forward—not just six months ahead to next quarter’s margins, but decades ahead when devices are damned for the landfill.” iFixit’s site lists 16 Motorola repair kits for devices including the Moto Z Force, Z Play, Droid Turbo 2, G5, and G4. Along with these repairing kits called Motorola OEM Fix Kits, you will also get a free step-by-step guide. These kits range from $40 to $ 200 and include key replacement parts along with many of the specialty tools you’ll need to complete the repair. What is Right to Repair? Recently, CBC reported that Apple has been overpricing the repair costs and they threaten third-party shops who fix Apple products at less price. Apple only allows authorized Apple Store technicians to repair its devices. In order to confirm this malpractice by Apple, CBC News visited one of these authorized repairing centers and recorded the entire conversation with the technician using a hidden camera. The video shows that Apple customers are often told malfunctioning computers are not worth fixing, even when minor repairs could solve the problem. The news of Apple’s malpractice has fueled the Right to Repair movement. This movement advocates that a manufacturer should practice fair repair by providing repair documentation and supply parts to consumers and independent repair shops. iFixit is one of the supporters of this movement. Earlier this month, they published an article on why support the Right to Repair. They have also teamed up with the Repair Association, an advocate for consumer’s right to repair and modify products from automobiles to IT equipment. Read the official announcement on iFixit’s website. A decade of Android: Slayer of Blackberry, challenger of iPhone, mother of the modern mobile ecosystem Is Facebook planning to spy on you through your mobile’s microphones? iPhone XS and Apple Watch details leaked hours before product launch

Mozilla has today released Firefox 63.0 for desktop and Android, just over a month since the release of Firefox 62.0. The release brings a range of changes. Some of these are cosmetic, some improve the user experience, while others should improve life for developers. There is no update for iOS, however - version 12.0 was released in June. What's new in Firefox 63.0 for desktop? According to the release notes, the update should have significant performance gains by moving the build infrastructure on Windows to the Clang toolchain. There's also been a small change, as the Firefox theme is now the same as the Windows 10 OS Dark and Light modes. For Mac users, Firefox should be a little faster. One of the reasons for this is that WebGL power preferences allow applications to request lower power GPUs in multi-GPU systems. This essentially means that the browser should be using resources in a much more efficient manner. Interestingly, Firefox also now has content blocking features for Mac users that will "offer users greater control over technology that can track them around the web." This feature will allow users to decide when to block tracking technologies and when to allow it. Read next: Is Mozilla the most progressive tech organization on the planet right now? For developers, meanwhile, Firefox has not only had a small facelift. The team have also decided to enable the accessibility inspector by default. This indicates how assistive technologies are becoming more and more important for web users. It also highlights that web accessibility is now a problem to be tackled head on - not ignored. What's new in Firefox 63.0 for Android? For Android users, Firefox has added support for picture-in-picture video and now uses notification channels. Read more about the new features and fixes on the Mozilla website.

The co-founder and former CEO of Oculus, Brendan Iribe announced yesterday on his Facebook page that he’s leaving Facebook. This is the second high profile exit from Facebook within a span of a month, as Kevin Systrom, CEO, Instagram, Mike Kriege, CTO, Instagram also resigned from Facebook on 24th September.    “So much has happened since the day we founded Oculus in July 2012. I never could have imagined how much we would accomplish and how far we would come. And now, after six incredible years, I am moving on”, mentioned Iribe. It was back in March 2014 when Facebook had acquired Oculus VR for $3 billion. “I'm deeply proud and grateful for all that we've done together. We assembled one of the greatest research and engineering teams in history, delivered the first step of true virtual presence with Oculus Rift and Touch, and inspired an entirely new industry. We started a revolution that will change the world in ways we can't even envision”, writes Iribe. Another Oculus co-founder, Palmer Luckey, left Facebook in 2017. Luckey who had not mentioned anything regarding his departure from Facebook last year mentioned that “there’s a lot of people at Facebook who have been leaving that were very happy to work at Facebook in 2012 that don’t want to work at Facebook in 2018. I can’t talk about it too much, but I’ll say that it wasn’t my choice to leave,” earlier this month to CNBC. Iribe talked about how the VR and AR industry needs to improve more, specifically the hardware and core technology. Iribe believes that Oculus is the best team in the world to enhance the AR/VR experience for everyone. He also mentioned how this is his first “real” break in over 20 years and how it's time for him to recharge, reflect and be creative. Iribe also posted on twitter regarding his decision to leave: https://twitter.com/brendaniribe/status/1054426851349688320 A report from Techcrunch indicates that Iribe’s decision to leave wasn’t entirely harmonious. It could be an outcome of Facebook canceling the company’s next-generation “Rift 2” PC-powered virtual reality headset. However, Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, VP, AR/VR at Facebook denied the TechCrunch report as he tweeted: https://twitter.com/boztank/status/1054448131465605120 Bosworth also bid goodbye to Brendan on Twitter saying, “You built an incredible team and you defined the first generation of VR. Thank you for entrusting us with this work, Brendan”. Also, Nate Mitchell, co-founder & Head of Rift at Oculus, tweeted out regarding the future of Rift: https://twitter.com/natemitchell/status/1054460295697944578 “Working alongside so many talented people at Oculus and Facebook has been the most transformative experience of my career. The success of Oculus was only possible because of such an extraordinary team effort. I'd like to sincerely thank everyone that's been a part of this amazing journey, especially Mark for believing in this team and the future of VR and AR”, mentions Iribe. Oculus Connect 5 2018: Day 1 highlights include Oculus Quest, Vader Immortal and more! Oculus Go, the first stand-alone VR headset arrives! What’s new in VR Haptics?

Mozilla has announced a collaboration with Khronos Group and developers of existing open source Blender tools, to bring GL Transmission Format (glTF) import and export add-on for Blender. This release supports the upcoming release of Blender 2.8 which will feature physically-based rendering (PBR) and improved user interface. The glTF format is the foundation for interoperable 3D tools and services. Basically, it’s the “JPEG of 3D”. It is royalty free and coordinated by the Khronos consortium. With gITF support for Blender, mixed reality developers, designers, and creators anywhere in the world, can create, edit, and remix glTF models without having to purchase the specialized software. How did the collaboration come to be? Mozilla’s Mixed Reality (WebXR) Team conducted a joint ecosystem analysis focusing on content creators, their motivations, current pain points, and the expected impact of tools that could empower them. After the joint ecosystem analysis Khronos, UX3D, and Mozilla decided to co-fund the development of the Blender importer and exporter tool. Airbus was also declared as one of the partners in the development of the Blender glTF tools. They are using the glTF format internally to visualize their Blender created mock-ups in VR and AR. They came up with an ecosystem partners model to accelerate the advancement of the glTF standard and the WebXR ecosystem. The team hopes that “the Blender tools will unleash the creativity of the global community.” The glTF Blender import and export tool will be released and ready for beta testers around the time of the Blender conference in late October. Mozilla will also be sharing a detailed analysis of the tool on Mozilla’s Hacks blog in the coming weeks. Read more about the collaboration on Medium. Building VR objects in React V2 2.0: Getting started with polygons in Blender Is Mozilla the most progressive tech organization on the planet right now? Mozilla announces $3.5 million award for ‘Responsible Computer Science Challenge’ to encourage teaching ethical coding to CS graduates

In compliance with the EU regulations set up when Google was fined $5 Million in July, for breaching EU antitrust laws, Google has made major changes to its licensing policy. Last week, Google filed its appeal against the Commission’s decision at the General Court of the European Union. While the appeal is pending, they have now informed the European Commission of the changes made in their policy. Read More: A quick look at E.U.’s antitrust case against Google’s Android Google is splitting the license for its standard apps from Chrome and the official search app. This means that if a company wants to use some of Google apps (Gmail and YouTube for instance) but also use other competing apps (Bing for search and Firefox for browsing), they can do so in the European Economic Area (EEA), albeit with an associated cost. Hiroshi Lockheimer, Senior Vice President, Platforms & Ecosystems, mentioned in the Google blog, “Since the pre-installation of Google Search and Chrome together with our other apps helped us fund the development and free distribution of Android, we will introduce a new paid licensing agreement for smartphones and tablets shipped into the EEA. He also points out that, “Android will remain free and open source.” Google will also offer separate licenses to the Google Search app and to Chrome. They will also provide commercial agreements to partners for the non-exclusive pre-installation and placement of Google Search and Chrome, although Google noted that pre-installed competition was already possible. Android vendors in the EEA are also allowed to make forked versions of Android while still distributing Google apps. All the licensing changes will be effective for devices launched after October 29th. It is also likely that companies in Europe that would have to pay for Google apps, may pass the licensing fee to consumers in the form of higher device prices. Lockheimer added that they will continue with their commitment to the Android ecosystem saying, “We’ll be working closely with our Android partners in the coming weeks and months to transition to the new agreements. And of course, we remain deeply committed to continued innovation for the Android ecosystem.” Read the official announcement on the Google blog. OK Google, why are you ok with mut(at)ing your ethos for Project DragonFly? Google takes steps towards better security, introduces new API policies for 3rd parties and a Titan Security system for mobile devices. Google reveals an undisclosed bug that left 500K Google+ accounts vulnerable in early 2018; plans to sunset Google+ consumer version

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

In the keynote of their developer conference L.E.A.P., which took place Wednesday, Magic Leap showed a demo of their new human-like AI. Dubbed, Mica, she can communicate with a viewer through the company’s augmented reality glasses, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition. Basically, Mica is a short-haired woman who can express facial expressions closely resembling a normal human. She does not speak but can still communicate in warm ways with the viewer. The project was presented at the Magic Leap L.E.A.P. event by Andrew Rabinovich, head of AI at Magic Leap, and John Monos, head of human-centered AI. According to the keynote, Mica is their prototype for developing systems to create digital human representations. The first prototype came up with a realistic eye gaze and eye movement. Artificial Intelligence components were then added to track users and look them in the eye. Additional AI elements were then added for body language and posture. According to Nick Whiting from Epic Games, Mica is powered by Unreal Engine 4. Magic Leap focused on creating natural facial expressions that can emote in believable ways. Their main goal was to create facial elements that connect users to her. Mica came out as an ideal interface to human-centered AI that evokes natural reactions from the users. Mica gets the interactions and intelligence to how people expect. User focus becomes the temperament for Mica, her personality traits, and mannerism are aligned to how the users are with her. VentureBeat’s correspondent was invited for a demo of Mica. Per his experience, “ I walked into a  physical room and sat in a chair. Mica was sitting at the table in the same room. She smiled at me and look at me. I was struck that she wasn’t just looking at me. She was looking in my eyes. She tilted her head from side to side. When I noticed how attentive she was, I moved my head forward and looked in her eyes. She did the same and looked at me. I moved my head back and she moved her head back too. She was mimicking some of the movements that she saw me make. She didn’t talk, but that is coming in the future.” Magic Leap’s Mica is a clear indication of what the virtual assistant future will look like for most people in the very near future. Read more about Magic Leap’s L.E.A.P conference to know what else was announced. You may also watch the keynote. Magic Leap teams with Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium Studios to enhance Augmented Reality. Understanding the hype behind Magic Leap’s New Augmented Reality Headsets. Magic Leap One, the first mixed reality headsets by Magic Leap, is now available at $2295.

Yesterday, Google released the first production-ready version of Oboe. It is a C++ library for building real-time audio apps. One of its main benefits includes the lowest possible audio latency across the widest range of Android devices. It is similar to AndroidX for native audio. How Oboe works The communication between apps and Oboe happens by reading and writing data to streams.  This library facilitates the movement of audio data between your app and the audio inputs and outputs on your Android device. The apps are able to pass data in and out by reading from and writing to audio streams, represented by the class AudioStream. A stream consists of the following: Audio device An audio device is a hardware interface or virtual endpoint that acts as a source or sink for a continuous stream of digital audio data. For example, a built-in mic or bluetooth headset. Sharing mode The sharing mode determines whether a stream has exclusive access to an audio device that might otherwise be shared among multiple streams. Audio format This the format of the audio data in the stream. The data that is passed through a stream has the usual digital audio attributes, which developers must specify when defining a stream. These are as follows: Sample format Samples per frame Sample rate The following sample formats are allowed by Oboe: Source: GitHub What are its benefits Oboe leverages the improved performance and features of AAudio on Orea MR1 (API 27+) and also maintains backward compatibility on API 16+. The following are some of its benefits: You write and maintain less code: It uses C++ allowing you to write clean and elegant code. With Oboe you can create an audio stream in just three lines of code whereas, when using OpenSL ES the same thing requires 50+ lines. Accelerated release process: As Oboe is supplied as a source library, bug fixes can be rolled out in few days as opposed to the Android platform release cycle. Better bug handling and less guesswork: It provides workarounds for known audio bugs and has sensible default behaviour for stream properties. Open source: It is open source and maintained by Google engineers. To get started with Oboe, check out the full documentation and the code samples available on its GitHub repository. Also, read the announcement posted on the Android Developers Blog. What role does Linux play in securing Android devices? A decade of Android: Slayer of Blackberry, challenger of iPhone, mother of the modern mobile ecosystem Google announces updates to Chrome DevTools in Chrome 71

Right now Android and iOS are the most widely used OSes on mobile phones. Both owned by giant corporates and there are no other offerings that are in line with public interest, privacy, or affordability. Android is owned by Google, can’t say it is pro user privacy with all the tracking they do. iOS by Apple is a very closed OS and not to mention that it isn’t exactly affordable to the masses. Apart from some OSes in the works, there is an OS called /e/ or eelo from the creator of Mandrake-Linux, focused on user privacy. Some OSes in the works Some of the mobile OSes include Tizen from Samsung which it had released only with entry level smartphones. There is also an OS in the making by Huawei. Google has also been working on a new OS called Fuchsia. It uses a new microkernel called Zicron created by Google, instead of Linux. It is also in the early stages and there is no clear indication behind the purpose of building Fuchsia when Android is ubiquitous in the market. Google was fined for $5B regarding Android antitrust earlier this year, maybe Fuchsia can come into picture here. In response to EU’s decision to fine Google, Sundar Pichai said 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 seems like a warning from Google to consider licensing Android to phone makers. Will curtains be closed on Android over legal disputes? That does not seem very likely considering Android smartphones and Google’s services in these smartphones are a big source of income for Google. They would not let it go that easily and I’m not sure if the world is ready to let go of the Android OS either. It has given access to apps, information, connectivity to the large masses. However, there is growing discontent among Android users, developers and handset partners. Whether that frustration will pivot enough to create a viable market for alternative mobile OS, is something only time can tell. Either way, there is one OS called /e/ or eelo intent on displacing Android. It has made some progress but is not an OS made from scratch exactly. What is eelo? The above mentioned OSes are far from complete and owned by large corporations. Here comes eelo, it is free and open-source. It is a forked LineageOS with all the Google apps and services removed. But that’s not all, it also has a select few default applications, a new user interface, and several integrated online services. The “/e/” ROM is in Beta stage and can be installed on several devices. More devices will be supported as more contributors port and maintain for different devices. The ROM uses microG instead of Google’s core apps. It uses Mozilla NLP which will make geolocation available even when GPS signal is not available. eelo project leader, Gaël Duval states: “At /e/, we want to build an alternative mobile operating system that everybody can enjoy using, one that is a lot more respectful of user’s data privacy while offering them real freedom of choice. We want to be known as the ethical mobile operating system, built in the public interest.” BlissLauncher is included with original icons and support for widgets and auto icon sizing based on screen pixel density. There are new default applications, a mail app, an SMS app (Signal), a chat application (Telegram), along with a weather app, a note app, a tasks app and a maps app. There is an /e/ account manager in which users can choose to use a single /e/ identity (user@e.email) for all services. It will also have OTA updates. The default search engine is searX with Qwant and DuckDuckGo as alternatives. They also plant to open a project in the personal assistant area. How has the market reacted to eelo? Early testers seem happy with /e/ or alternatively called as eelo. https://twitter.com/lowpunk/status/1050032760373633025 https://twitter.com/rvuong_geek/status/1048541382120525824 There are also some negative reactions where people don’t really welcome this new “mobile OS”. A comment on reddit by user JaredTheWolfy says: “This sounds like what Cyanogen tried to do, but at least Cyanogen was original and created a legacy for the community.” Another comment by user MyNDSETER on reddit reads: “Don't trust Google with your data. Trust us instead. Oh gee ok and I'll take some stickers as well.” Yet another reddit user zdakat says: “I guess that's the android version of I made my own cryptocurrency! (by changing a few strings in Bitcoin source, or the new thing: by deploying a token on Ethereum)” You can check out a detailed article about eelo on Hackernoon, and the /e/ website. A decade of Android: Slayer of Blackberry, challenger of iPhone, mother of the modern mobile ecosystem Microsoft Your Phone: Mirror your Android phone apps on Windows Android Studio 3.2 releases with Android App Bundle, Energy Profiler, and more!