Technology - Google News

Android P should be about privacy
Forget Windows; Microsoft is now all about the cloud
Nintendo Switch Online Service Offers Cloud Saves, 20 Free NES Games For Subscribers

Posted: 08 May 2018 05:00 AM PDT

Now that iOS and Android are approaching technical maturity, new updates to these operating systems no longer feel revolutionary. The new stuff we get every year is boiling down to smarter notification handling, under-the-hood upgrades, screen notch adaptations, and "borrowing" good ideas from one another. As Google prepares to take the wraps off its next big iteration, Android P, at Google I/O 2018, I have an idea for an alliterative theme: make it Android P for Privacy.

Facebook's data breach scandal has been the biggest tech story so far this year, forcing the company's CEO to answer questions before Congress and the rest of us to consider the full extent of what we share with online services and the security of that personal information once it's in their hands. This increased concern with privacy isn't going to abate anytime soon, and Facebook won't be alone in having to answer tough questions. Google, the world's premier vendor of web services subsidized by user data, should be scrutinized just as closely as Facebook, because it endeavors to collect just as much, probably more, minutiae about its users' lives in order to sell more valuable ads.

There's a direct link between the Facebook scandal and Google's failings on the privacy front. As people started poring over what data Facebook held about them, it was quickly discovered that Facebook collected the call records and SMS data of its Android users but not of its iPhone users. Why the disparity? Facebook's app could ask for permission to access that info on Android, whereas Apple's iOS refuses to entertain the idea.

Anyone at risk: do not use an Android phone. You can literally cough in the direction of one to get access. Android security is a nightmare. On the other hand, iPhones and iPads are stellar, *stellar* security wise. Get the cheapest one you can afford (past 5s). Just do it.
— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) December 20, 2017

Then there's the complementary matter of data security and protection against malicious attacks, something that Android has been infamously poor at defending against. Google has an internal team called Project Zero, whose task is to identify and weed out vulnerabilities in Android, but those seem to continuously outnumber and outpace Google's efforts. That problem is compounded by the slowness and inconsistency of Android phone makers in implementing Google's latest security patches. When I was reviewing the Galaxy S9 in March, for instance, it was still stuck on the January 1st security update. And if that wasn't enough, a two-year study of Android security updates showed that Android OEMs just flat out lie about the security of their devices.

I don't wish for this to be read as some sort of one-dimensional screed against Android. Ever since the introduction of Google's first Pixel, my primary device has always been an Android phone, and I'm confident that iPhone loyalists are missing out on the best cameras, best battery life, and best notification system in mobile devices today. I point out the foregoing shortcomings, however, to urge Google's attention to the one area where Android truly lags the iPhone.

Apple likes to boast that user privacy is built into its products from the ground up, and while we may question how true that is in China, there's no debate to be had about whether the iPhone is more secure and private than its Android rivals. It just is.

In the wake of the Facebook revelations, Apple CEO Tim Cook didn't miss the chance to restate Apple's privacy credentials, while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has just gone on the record saying that "privacy is a human right." For my purposes, it's sufficient for Google to recognize that privacy, or the lack of it, will be an increasingly important strategic factor in its future operations. Apple, Microsoft, and smaller outfits like Mozilla, whose Firefox competes with Google's Chrome, will always be on hand to provide helpful reminders, in any case.

Getting back to the specifics of Android itself, my strongest and most immediate suggestion is for Google to stop overreaching for data to feed its own services. In order to enable Google Assistant, for example, Google wants me to turn on location history tracking. I've had this setting on and it's an extremely precise, minute-by-minute account of everywhere I've been. Even in Bulgaria, where Google doesn't have every single area indexed as well as in the US or the UK, location history can keep perfect track of the venue and duration of each one of my dinners, including the ones I'd rather forget. The thing is, the Google Assistant can be perfectly useful even without that history — the workaround is to manually disable location history after turning it on just to enable the Assistant.

When setting up Google Photos for the first time, it also prompts me to turn on location history, with a dialog that implies that I need to do so in order to add location data to my photos. That's false. You can enable location info for your photos without giving Google a detailed timeline of your precise location.

Location data is just the thing I'm most sensitive to, but I imagine many other Android users would take issue with Google's web and app activity tracking (which Google Assistant also demands be turned on), provided they actually knew how intrusive that data collection is. If I use Chrome for my browser and Android on my phone, everything in my life becomes known to Google: what games I play and for how long, which chat apps I use, and even the things I type in non-Google apps, courtesy of Gboard, Google's software keyboard. That's the thing with Google's services and apps: they're usually the best we can get, but we tend to pay a higher price in terms of everyday privacy than we care to know.

Google would go a long way toward demonstrating a commitment to privacy by simply not trying to sneak more data collection past us. Some of the company's problems might be intractable, such as the unreliability of its Android hardware partners, but Google still has room for improvement. The new Android Chat app, for example, lacks end-to-end encryption, just as its predecessor, Google Allo, did. Edward Snowden warned people off using Allo due to its complete lack of privacy, but Google doesn't seem to have heeded his concerns with its latest attempt at piecing together a messaging service. In fact, Google made encrypted messaging harder for others recently by disabling domain-fronting on its cloud services, a technique used by secure messaging apps like Signal to circumvent state-level blocks.

Google I/O, much like Facebook's F8 develop conference, has always been a bit of a creep show for me. At the beginning of this decade, Mark Zuckerberg was promise-threatening to put the entire web on Facebook, and for large swathes of the world's population, he has actually succeeded. Google's ominous vision has consistently been one where it knows ever more about our daily lives: learning our commutes, our meetings, our romantic dates, our pet walking routes, and even our TV watching habits. At some point, the creep factor of all these added conveniences will just outweigh the convenience itself.

Android has grown to be an incredibly sophisticated and multifunctional operating system, one that has helped make humanity more connected and productive than ever before. But Android is also Google's foremost data vampire, leeching personal information at a rate that would be alarming to its users, if only they were fully aware. As users, it's time for us to shift our expectations away from performance improvements and feature additions and toward the protection of something we ourselves have neglected: our privacy.

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Forget Windows; Microsoft is now all about the cloud

Posted: 08 May 2018 07:15 AM PDT

In the space of less than a week in late April, two events made one thing very clear about Microsoft: The company is now pursuing a cloud-first strategy, with Windows taking a back seat. And that will continue as far into the future as the eye can see.

The first event was the April 26 release of Microsoft’s earnings report for its third fiscal quarter, which ended March 31. A close look shows that cloud revenue has become the company’s driving force, outpacing money the company gets from its onetime cash cow, Windows.

Precise figures on total cloud revenue versus total Windows revenue don’t exist, because Microsoft doesn’t break things out that way. But the earnings report nonetheless shows the direction in which the company is moving. Microsoft divides itself into three major segments: More Personal Computing, which encompasses Windows, devices, gaming and ads; Productivity and Business Processes, which includes Office, LinkedIn and Dynamics; and Intelligent Cloud, which is composed of servers and cloud services. More Personal Computing revenue clocked in at $9.25 billion, Productivity and Business at $9.01 billion, and Intelligent Cloud at $7.9 billion.

Windows resides in the More Personal Computing segment, the revenue leader, but don’t let that deceive you. A closer look tells the real story.

As I said, there’s no breakdown of Windows versus cloud, but Microsoft did say the Azure public cloud’s revenue boomed 93% year over year. The previous quarter it grew 98% year over year. And Microsoft also said that what it calls its “commercial cloud,” made up of Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and other cloud services, brought in $6 billion in revenue in the third quarter, which was up 58% year over year. The More Personal Computing segment was up far less — only 13% year over year.

Also notable in the third quarter: Windows and Devices chief Terry Myerson left the company. You can be sure he didn’t depart because Microsoft was going to devote more attention to Windows.

Keep in mind, also, that a lot of Microsoft products are now essentially cloud-based, so there’s even more cloud revenue at the company than first meets the eye. Microsoft Office, for example, is increasingly a cloud service, with the company pushing Office 365 heavily over the client version of the Office suite.

The second event of note came four days after Microsoft released its earnings report, when it rolled out the next major update to Windows, the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. But this event was most notable for being a non-event. Windows updates used to be big, publicity-heavy affairs, with Microsoft spending plenty of money and lavishing lots of love on new features for the operating system. But as this latest update shows, those days are over. The update itself was underwhelming, with only one new feature of any note. It’s called Timeline and it lets you review files and apps you’ve been using over the last month and resume activities you had earlier undertaken. But Timeline is half-baked, because it only works with Microsoft applications. As for publicity, there was practically none, apart from a low-key blog post by Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of the Windows and Devices Group.

Beyond that, Windows has essentially become a cloud service. Gone are the days of big-bang releases that need to be installed from physical media. Now when you get Windows 10 on a new PC, it auto-updates over the cloud. Think of it as cloud-based Windows as a service.

There’s plenty more evidence that Windows is taking a back seat to the cloud across the company. In mid-April, Microsoft announced its Azure Sphere platform for connecting internet of things (IoT) devices to the cloud. That platform isn’t based on Windows, but instead on — take a deep breath, old-school Microsoft true believers — the open-source Linux operating system. Azure Sphere, Microsoft says, is available for free to any company that makes IoT controllers. And, Microsoft added in a blog post, it is also “open to additional software innovation by the open source community and open to work with any cloud. In short, it represents a critical new step for Microsoft by integrating innovation across every aspect of technology and by working with every part of the technology ecosystem, including our competitors.”

That would have been heresy in the far-off days when Bill Gates ran the company, and even in the more recent times when Steve Ballmer was at the helm. Under both leaders, Windows was the blunt-force hammer used to smash competition. But those days are gone. Competitors no longer fear Windows. And so Microsoft is rebuilding the company to be cloud-first, turning Windows into just another cloud-based service. It’s the right thing to do, not just for customers, but for the company to thrive as well.

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Nintendo Switch Online Service Offers Cloud Saves, 20 Free NES Games For Subscribers

Posted: 08 May 2018 06:37 AM PDT

As promised, Nintendo has shared more details on the Nintendo Switch online subscription service, which is due to roll out in September. A post on Nintendo's website explains that the service will offer "Save Data Cloud" backup, which sounds a lot like cloud saves.

This is great news, as it means you don't have to worry about losing progress. Cloud saves are available with Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus as well, along with Steam and others.

Additionally, you'll get access to a library of 20 NES games at launch, and more will be added "regularly," Nintendo says. This service is called "NES - Nintendo Switch Online," and the launch titles include the 10 listed below--including Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda--and 10 more to be announced later.

Soccer
Tennis
Donkey Kong
Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros.
Balloon Fight
Ice Climber
Dr. Mario
The Legend of Zelda
Super Mario Bros. 3

According to Nintendo, "every classic game" in the NES catalog will have some form of online functionality. "You can compete (or cooperate) online with friends, share your screen, or pass the controller, depending on the game," Nintendo said. Additionally, using a dedicated app for the Switch online service, you can use voice chat.

The Switch's paid membership program was originally supposed to launch in late 2017 before Nintendo delayed it to 2018. Subscriptions will be available for 1 month (US $4 / £3.49 / AU $6), 3 months (US $8 / £7 / AU $12), and 12 months (US $20 / £18 / AU $30). Additionally, a Family Membership will be available for US $35 / £31.49 / AU $55. The family plan allows a Nintendo Account holder to "invite up to seven others to join a family group," and every member of the group will have access to the online membership benefits.

By comparison, Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus cost US $60 / £50 (£40 for Xbox Live Gold) / AU $80 for a year.

Since launch, online play for all Switch games has been free. That will change in September when the paid service rolls out. At that time, you will need a membership to play Splatoon 2, Arms, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Tennis Aces, and Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido online. Other games may or may not require a membership, Nintendo said. Nintendo will share more details at a later date about how you will know if a game requires a paid membership or not.

Here are some other important details about the Nintendo Switch online membership, as pulled from a FAQ on Nintendo's website:

If you own multiple Switch consoles, you do not need a separate paid online subscription. "Nintendo Switch Online can be used on any device by signing in with the Nintendo Account that purchased the membership," Nintendo said.
Individual memberships are only available on the basis of one per Nintendo Account. But as mentioned, you can buy the $35 family plan to get a subscription for up to seven other Nintendo Accounts.
You can create a Nintendo Account Family Group starting on May 15. As mentioned, a family group can support up to eight Nintendo Accounts.
The Switch online membership only pertains to Switch; not Wii U or 3DS.
You don't necessarily need a Switch online membership, as things like access to the eShop, friend registration and management, and screenshot-sharing on Twitter and Facebook will remain available without a membership.

In other Nintendo news, the company has announced the date and time of its E3 2018 briefing, while it's also confirmed that the new Smash Bros. for Switch is playable on the show floor.

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