Technology - Google News

Google's iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary
Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat lights fuse in brand's first behind-the-scenes holiday video
Destiny 2's New Whisper Mission Is Hiding One More Exotic Secret

Google's iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

Posted: 21 Jul 2018 06:56 AM PDT

In light of the $5 billion EU antitrust ruling against Google this week, we started noticing a certain classic Ars story circulating around social media. Google's methods of controlling the open source Android code and discouraging Android forks is exactly the kind of behavior the EU has a problem with, and many of the techniques outlined in this 2013 article are still in use today.

The idea of a sequel to this piece has come up a few times, but Google's Android strategy of an open source base paired with key proprietary apps and services hasn't really changed in the last five or so years. There have been updates to Google's proprietary apps so that they look different from the screenshots in this article, but the base strategy outlined here is still very relevant. So in light of the latest EU development, we're resurfacing this story for the weekend. It first ran on October 20, 2013 and appears largely unchanged—but we did toss in a few "In 2018" updates anywhere they felt particularly relevant.

Six years ago, in November 2007, the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) was announced. The original iPhone came out just a few months earlier, capturing people's imaginations and ushering in the modern smartphone era. While Google was an app partner for the original iPhone, it could see what a future of unchecked iPhone competition would be like. Vic Gundotra, recalling Andy Rubin's initial pitch for Android, stated:

He argued that if Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice.

Google was terrified that Apple would end up ruling the mobile space. So, to help in the fight against the iPhone at a time when Google had no mobile foothold whatsoever, Android was launched as an open source project.

In that era, Google had nothing, so any adoption—any shred of market share—was welcome. Google decided to give Android away for free and use it as a trojan horse for Google services. The thinking went that if Google Search was one day locked out of the iPhone, people would stop using Google Search on the desktop. Android was the "moat" around the Google Search "castle"—it would exist to protect Google's online properties in the mobile world.

Enlarge / Android's rocketing market share
Smartmo / Ron Amadeo

Today, things are a little different. Android went from zero percent of the smartphone market to owning nearly 80 percent of it. Android has arguably won the smartphone wars, but "Android winning" and "Google winning" are not necessarily the same thing. Since Android is open source, it doesn't really "belong" to Google. Anyone is free to take it, clone the source, and create their own fork or alternate version.

As we've seen with the struggles of Windows Phone and Blackberry 10, app selection is everything in the mobile market, and Android's massive install base means it has a ton of apps. If a company forks Android, the OS will already be compatible with millions of apps; a company just needs to build its own app store and get everything uploaded. In theory, you'd have a non-Google OS with a ton of apps, virtually overnight. If a company other than Google can come up with a way to make Android better than it is now, it would be able to build a serious competitor and possibly threaten Google's smartphone dominance. This is the biggest danger to Google's current position: a successful, alternative Android distribution.

And a few companies are taking a swing at separating Google from Android. The most successful, high-profile alternative version of Android is Amazon's Kindle Fire. Amazon takes AOSP, skips all the usual Google add-ons, and provides its own app store, content stores, browser, cloud storage, and e-mail. The entire country of China skips the Google part of Android, too. Most Google services are banned, so the only option there is an alternate version. In both of these cases, Google's Android code is used, and it gets nothing for it.

It's easy to give something away when you're in last place with zero market share, precisely where Android started. When you're in first place though, it's a little harder to be so open and welcoming. Android has gone from being the thing that protects Google to being something worth protecting in its own right. Mobile is the future of the Internet, and controlling the world's largest mobile platform has tons of benefits. At this point, it's too difficult to stuff the open source genie back into the bottle, which begs the question: how do you control an open source project?

Google has always given itself some protection against alternative versions of Android. What many people think of as "Android" actually falls into two categories: the open parts from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which are the foundation of Android, and the closed source parts, which are all the Google-branded apps. While Google will never go the entire way and completely close Android, the company seems to be doing everything it can to give itself leverage over the existing open source project. And the company's main method here is to bring more and more apps under the closed source "Google" umbrella.

Closed source creep

There have always been closed source Google apps. Originally, the group consisted mostly of clients for Google's online services, like Gmail, Maps, Talk, and YouTube. When Android had no market share, Google was comfortable keeping just these apps and building the rest of Android as an open source project. Since Android has become a mobile powerhouse though, Google has decided it needs more control over the public source code.

For some of these apps, there might still be an AOSP equivalent, but when the proprietary Google version was launched, the AOSP version is usually deprecated. Less open source code means more work for Google's competitors. While you can't kill an open source app, you can turn it into abandonware by moving future development to a closed source app. When Google rebrands an app or releases a new piece of Android onto the Play Store, it's often a sign that the source has been closed and the AOSP version is dead.

Search

We'll start with the Search app, which is an excellent example of what happens when Google duplicates AOSP functionality.

In August 2010, Google launched Voice Actions. With it, the company introduced "Google Search" into the (then) Android Market. These were the days of Froyo. The above picture shows the latest version of AOSP Search and Google Search running on Android 4.3. As you can see, AOSP Search is still stuck in the days of Froyo (Android 2.2). Once Google had its closed source app up and running, it immediately abandoned the open source version. The Google version has search by voice, audio search, text-to-speech, an answer service, and it contains Google Now, the company's predictive assistant feature. The AOSP version can do Web and local searches and... that's it.

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Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat lights fuse in brand's first behind-the-scenes holiday video

Posted: 21 Jul 2018 03:00 AM PDT

Dalvin Brown USA Today

Published 10:00 p.m. UTC Jul 21, 2018

Pick any holiday, big or small, and you'll find car enthusiasts swarming online to watch videos of their favorite Dodge revving up and rooster tailing down the road.

From the “Sprinkles Optional” short film for National Donut Day to the “Cupid’s Arrow” web commercial in celebration of Valentine’s Day, each of the Fiat Chrysler brand's social videos are filled with enough noise and exhaust to turn your living room into Daytona International Speedway.

And for the first time, car aficionados can get a glimpse into how those videos are made.

On Friday, Dodge gave fans a behind-the-scenes look at the making of its most recent “Light the Fuse” July Fourth video featuring the Charger SRT Hellcat. The brand released a two-minute docu-style video.

To create the film, Dodge partnered with The Racing Cowboys production company, which has also produced videos for Lamborghini and Toyota, to create movie magic.

The video seems to show the Hellcat spewing flames from the exhaust, igniting a string of Independence Day fireworks in the process. But the company revealed that the stunt was achieved by attaching small remote-control flamethrowers to the top of the vehicle’s exhaust system.

"There were (social media) inquiries asking, 'How do you guys pull this off?' So we thought it would be engaging to share the behind-the-scenes," said Steve Beahm, head of passenger car brands for Dodge.

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That type of combustion setup is not exactly advised for everyday driving. The video's director, Nicolai Iuul, said that there were pyrotechnics and fire department personnel on set to make sure everything was safe.

A team of roughly 40 people, including cops and safety personnel, worked overnight on the downtown Los Angeles video set, and it wasn't all easy.

“Part of it was pretty tricky to do actually,” said Samuel Hubinette, a professional stunt car driver with 25 years of experience. “I had to whip around the rear-end of the vehicle several times to get close enough to ignite the firework fuse.

“Thankfully, we walked away with the car still intact, but it was lots of pressure, of course.”

The Dodge brand creates these videos almost exclusively for their loyal social media followers.

“We ...want to give fans reasons to keep coming back to our social channels to see what is next,” Dodge said in an statement.

It seems to be working.

Overall, nearly 3 million people have viewed the holiday videos so far. The July Fourth edition was by far the fan favorite, with the St. Patrick's Day and Valentines Day videos tying for second, according to the company.

“I feel like I have the best job in the world,” Iuul said.

So, what’s next in the lineup?

Dodge is set to film in the coming weeks and is releasing a video Aug. 17 for Black Cat Appreciation Day, a holiday created to encourage pet adoption.

Follow Dalvin Brown on Twitter @Dalvin_Brown

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Destiny 2's New Whisper Mission Is Hiding One More Exotic Secret

Posted: 21 Jul 2018 05:57 AM PDT

The blueprintTeawrex

Players said they wanted mysteries back in Destiny 2. Well, they sure as hell got them.

Yesterday, the Destiny community went as wild as I’ve ever seen it as it was discovered that in the recent July patch, a massive secret area was added to the game on Io, one that is used in a new mission called “The Whisper,” where players have to solve an elaborate jump puzzle and take down a million Taken enemies on a timer in order to receive a new exotic, The Whisper of the Worm, the sequel to both the Black Spindle and Black Hammer.

That was thrilling enough, as it brought the Destiny community together like nothing else I’ve seen since D1, but it turns out that wasn’t all that was buried in this new, secret zone.

There’s another mystery within the mystery zone. A Vex gate that looks like it’s peering into the Vault of Glass. And players have solved its puzzle already, with Teawrex, I believe, being the first to unlock its secret.

There are five chests hidden in The Whisper mission. You can find them all here, and once you get them all, you can head to the Vex gate where Oracles will spawn. After this happens, you have to shoot them in a specific sequence. The Destiny community banded together to finish this sequence almost immediately, and it’s as follows, with 1 left and 7 right.

1-3-5

4-6-7-3-1

7-3-1-6-4-2-5

The momentTeawrex

The result? A chest will appear (the missing 7th chest from the Vault of Glass?) and give you an exotic ship blueprint called an “Enigmatic Blueprint.” Players will remember the Black Spindle mission also had a chance of giving you a ship way back when, so I suppose this is an extension of that.

The requirements to get the ship are to beat The Whisper Heroic with Arc, Solar and Void singles, which will tick all the boxes and presumably either get you the ship, or take you to a new step. This week is Arc singe, so it will take two more weeks before anyone gets their hands on this thing. The mission is so full of every enemy type with every type of weapon the single almost doesn’t even matter, but it makes Riskrunner a solid choice for mob clearing this week, I’ll say that.

Additional points of interest here include the fact that the hidden chests give you Blighted Essence, which is required to upgrade the Whisper of the Worm catalyst. Also, completing either heroic or this Oracles thing, I’m not sure, will help you make progress in your Sleeper Simulant catalyst somehow.

So yeah, this is just plain awesome. Much respect to Bungie for creating something truly impressive and elaborate, and exactly what fans were asking for. This has been arguably the best night of Destiny 2 to date, and congrats to all the firsts out there, gelatosquid for the Whisper of the Worm, Teawrex for the Oracle mystery.

Hopefully this is a sign of more awesome things to come in Forsaken, and an indication that Destiny 2 is now blazing a path in the right direction.

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Pre-order my new sci-fi novel Herokiller, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.

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