Monthly Archive:: March 2015

Google confirms plans to launch its own mobile service

Thom Holwerda 2015-03-02 Google 11 Comments

Google's Sundar Pichai has essentially confirmed reports that the company will become a wireless provider of sorts in "the coming months." During his appearance at Mobile World Congress today, Pichai acknowledged that Google is working with "existing partners" to create its own MVNO, but stopped short of confirming that Sprint and T-Mobile are those partnering networks, as has been rumored. But he did reveal that Google has been in contact with Verizon Wireless and AT&T about its plans - likely to head off any potential ugly conflict between Mountain View and the largest, most powerful providers in the United States. "Carriers in the US are what powers most of our Android phones, and that model works really well for us," he said.

Additionally, The Verge has an interesting article about just how far along Google's Project Loon is.

Guest post by robertson 2015-03-02 Ubuntu 15 Comments

As of the release of Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet Beta 1, Ubuntu MATE is now officially a Canonical project, alongside the likes of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and friends. MATE is the continuation of GNOME 2.

Jolla shows Sailfish OS 2.0

Thom Holwerda 2015-03-02 Wireless 6 Comments

Jolla has "introduced" Sailfish OS 2.0. It didn't really introduce it though as it's not available to anyone right now - it's only potentially available to OEMs.

The independent Sailfish OS is soon reaching a major milestone as it is scaling from smartphones to tablets with the introduction of the Jolla Tablet. The first shipments of Jolla’s second Sailfish OS product are expected to start in Q2/2015. At this point, Sailfish OS is maturing to the next generation, 'Sailfish OS 2.0', and is introducing e.g. a new enhanced user interface, support for Intel architecture, and previously unseen software integration capabilities for partners.

The new interface is interesting - it greatly simplifies all the gestures and seems to function much more like Harmattan on the N9. As awesome as all this sounds, this still doesn't address the biggest concern: applications. Some may be content running Android applications (poorly) on Sailfish, but I want the real deal. However, without - still - any word on paid applications, it doesn't seem like this issue will be addressed any time soon.

That being said - I'm an early backer for the tablet, and can't wait for it to arrive this May. I hope Sailfish OS 2.0 will find its way to my Jolla phone at around the same time.

New Lollipop devices not encrypted by default

Thom Holwerda 2015-03-02 Android 21 Comments

Big news a few months ago: Google announced that all new devices which ship with Lollipop would have encryption enabled by default. Fast forward to today, and aside from Google's own Nexus devices, none of the new Lollipop devices actually seem to have encryption enabled by default. It turns out that Google has quietly relaxed this requirement in the Android Compatibility Definition, from 'MUST' to 'very strongly RECOMMENDED'.

Why? Performance, supposedly.

Our best guess at this point is that the encrypted-by-default requirement was relaxed to give OEMs more time to prepare their hardware for the transition. The performance problems can be offset by using faster flash memory, faster file systems like F2FS, and chips that are better at encrypting and decrypting data quickly, but phones and tablets take long enough to design that OEMs will need time to make these changes. Whether the change in policy was prompted by external pressure or an internal decision isn't clear, but the performance explanation makes the most logical sense.

Ouch. It's pretty clear Google wanted to quickly gain some positive press, especially after Apple announced it would turn encryption on by default in iOS, but failed to look at any possible performance repercussions. Sleazy move.

Chip makers will merge in deal worth $11.8 billion

Thom Holwerda 2015-03-02 Hardware 16 Comments

NXP Semiconductors said on Sunday that it would buy a smaller peer, Freescale Semiconductor, in an $11.8 billion deal that would create a big maker of chips for industries as varied as automobiles and mobile payments.

The merger will also offer some relief to the private equity firms that bought Freescale at the height of the leveraged buyout boom, only to see the financial crisis bring the company low.

NXP is Dutch, and I have to admit, seeing a Dutch chip maker acquire Freescale makes me feel a little bit proud. Together with ASML, my little swamp does contribute at least something to the world of computing.

Samsung unveils Galasy S6, S6 Edge

Thom Holwerda 2015-03-01 Android 27 Comments

Samsung, naturally, is hoping to put the Galaxy S series back on people's radar as a top device, and it's doing so by starting afresh with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. Though it numerically follows the GS5, the Galaxy S6 bears little resemblance to the previous model, and marks a pretty significant change in the way Samsung designs phones. At the same time, the S6 edge picks up the fun parts of the Galaxy Note Edge and leaves behind the poor software experience.

There's a brand new design philosophy in play with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, starting with the radical hardware change and flowing into a more considered software experience. These are the phones that Samsung's hoping will change the perception of its devices in 2015 - let us show you what they're all about.

After HTC, Samsung was up. Most of the information regarding the new Galasy S6 and Galasy S6 Edge were leaked before their official unveiling, so we already knew what to expect. I'm particularly pleased with Samsung greatly simplifying TouchWiz, and the simplified camera interface and performance are very welcome too. The all-metal construction is nice, and I personally really like the Edge's curved display - not because of any software functionality, but because it just looks really nice and ergonomic.

During the unveiling event, one thing really stood out: confidence. Rarely have I seen Samsung personnel being this genuinely enthousiastic and confident about their new phones. They didn't resort to crazy antics or heavy buzzword dropping - they showed the device, its strengths, and that was it. For the first time, it felt as if Samsung truly believes the S6 and S6 Edge can stand on their own merit, instead of being held up by marketing and similar tricks.

My contract renewal is up later this year, and the S6 looks quite intriguing, and I haven't found any Samsung phone even remotely intriguing since the SII.

HTC unveils One M9

Thom Holwerda 2015-03-01 Android 10 Comments

It's hard not to have high hopes for the HTC One M9. Its immediate predecessor and the first phone in this rebirth of the HTC's flagship line - that'd be 2014's HTC One M8 and 2013's M7 - were fan favorites, and highly regarded by those of us who critique phones for a living.

But those phones were not without their flaws. And as we've seen HTC slowly address its devices' shortcomings (while growing and innovating in other areas), it's been difficult to not expect it to finally get things - all the things - right.

At least that's what we've been hoping, especially when it comes to its one tragic feature: The inconsistent performance of its UltraPixel camera.

And that brings us to this. The HTC One M9. We've spent a little time with HTC's latest, and this is what we've found thus far.

The HTC One M9 - the new one, announced today - looks very similar to the M8, but of course with better specifications and updated software. As much as I think the One series might be the best Android phones out there in terms of build quality, I just can't get myself to like its overall design. I do hope, though, that the M9 sells in large enough numbers, because HTC is going to need it.

Submitted by motang 2015-03-01 Xfce 10 Comments

Today, after 2 years and 10 months of work, we are pleased to announce the release of the Xfce desktop 4.12, a new stable version that supersedes Xfce 4.10.

This long period can only be explained by how awesome Xfce 4.10 was. But as all things, it needed some refreshing - and for that we saw lots of new contributors providing valuable feedback, features and bugfixes. As always, Xfce follows its steady pace of evolution without revolution that seems to match our users' needs.

In this 4.12 cycle, we mainly focused on polishing our user experience on the desktop and window manager, and on updating some components to take advantage of newly available technologies.