Author: batteryforpc

Google’s gotten a lot of grief for its messaging strategy, and rightly so. While Facebook and Apple have seen their messaging platforms become indispensable to users and businesses alike, Google has launched a litany of apps whose pithy names (Buzz, Wave, Allo, Hangouts, and the list goes on) couldn’t save them from the dustbin of chat history.

But lately it seems like the search giant has got its messaging groove back.

Getting to RC-yes

By now you’re probably familiar with RCS, the new telecom standard that’s supposed to rescue old fashioned text messaging from the flip-phone era. RCS stands for Rich Communication Services and it comes with modern messaging features like read receipts, typing indicators, and verified business profiles. In other words, it looks and feels like iMessage or WhatsApp, but works over your cell phone network instead of the internet, à la SMS.

For the last year or two, Google has been spearheading a campaign to get global telcos and device carriers to support RCS and stymie its messaging competitors in the process. Now it’s finally taking matters into its own hands.

Android users in France and the UK (and soon elsewhere) are now able to opt in to RCS services provided directly by Google instead of waiting for their telco to flip the switch. While this may sound like a minor development in the decade-old RCS saga, it’s actually a “huge shift in strategy,” explains The Verge: it’s not quite the Google equivalent of an iMessage service for Android users, but it’s close.

Paranoid Android

Google’s gambit solves one of the major hurdles for RCS success, which is that up until now it depended on global carriers and device makers to play nicely with each other. The other hurdle is even bigger. Unlike WhatsApp, iMessage, and other internet-based (OTT) chat apps like Telegram and Signal, RCS does not boast end-to-end encryption — a fact Amnesty International raked Google over the coals for last year.

For privacy-conscious users, end-to-end encryption has become table stakes, as Mary Meeker showed in her latest internet trends report. The good news is that Google finally seems to get it. Sanaz Ahari, the product director responsible for Android Messages assured The Verge it’s committed to finding a solution.

Place your (Alpha)bets

As I’ve argued before, here on TNW, RCS is only half of Google’s two-pronged strategy to dominate B2C messaging. The other is Google business messaging, which the company is quietly integrating into Maps and search — two areas where it’s no laggard.

Meanwhile, as VentureBeat’s Khari Johnson observes, the company’s voice messaging strategy is “ubiquitous and comprehensive,” boasting both AI (Google Assistant, Google Duplex) and hardware (Google Home) that puts it at the top of the conversational class.

In Johnson’s view: All of this adds up to one fact: By some measure, Google may have already won the chat wars.

Bose has long been a huge player in the world of portable speakers – and its latest model, the Bose Portable Home Speaker, should serve to cement that reputation even further.

The new Bluetooth speaker packs wireless connectivity, a 12-hour battery life and 360-degree audio into a super compact form, coming in at just 2.3 pounds (around 1kg).

The best portable speakers of 2019

All the best wireless speakers we’ve reviewed

Staying close to home? Check out the Bose Home Speaker 500

The Bose Portable Home Speaker, which will be available in black and silver from September 19, will cost $349 / £369.95 / AU$499.95 – ever so slightly less expensive than the pricey Bose Home Speaker 500.

No sweet-spot necessary

Measuring 7.5 inches tall, the portable speaker is wrapped in an anodized aluminum enclosure. Inside, there are three passive radiators, a high-excursion driver and a proprietary deflector that Bose says deflects “clear, lifelike sound evenly in every direction”.

Despite it’s small size, Bose says its latest speaker delivers powerful bass, and, “unlike conventional speakers, there’s no sweet-spot for placement or listening” – that means you can sit wherever you like in relation to the speaker, and it should still sound fantastic.

With 12 hours of battery and an IPX4 rating, it’s suitable for listening to outside and on-the-go (although you probably shouldn’t take it to the pool), and its rugged design means it should survive slight knocks and bumps.

If you like to listen with your hands full, you can use your voice to control the Bose Portable Home Speaker, with both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa built-in to access “playlists, podcasts, news, weather, smart home devices, and more,” according to Bose.

iPhone and iPad owners will be able to stream their music via Apple AirPlay 2, while Spotify users can stream via Spotify Connect.

With all those features packed in to such a small package, Bose will surely be looking to fend off competition from the yet-to-be-released Sonos portable speaker – we’ll have to wait a little while to find out which brand will win in the next battle of the Bluetooth speakers, but we’re excited to find out. 

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ 5G will be available online and in stores tomorrow. Just in time, the folks at iFixit are sharing a peek inside the new device. Most notably, the phone borrows one major design queue from the iPhone, and it won’t be super easy to repair.

Like the iPhone X, the Note 10+ positions the motherboard at the top half of the phone. While this allows the battery to be wider, it requires cables between mother and daughterboard. Those block access to the battery. They can be moved to the side, but they’ll add a challenge to repairs.

Speaking of repairs, iFixit points out that every repair requires un-gluing the fragile glass rear cover. Replacing the glued-down battery is difficult, and common display repairs “require either a complete teardown or replacing half the phone.” Overall, iFixit gives the Note 10+ a repairability score of 3 out of ten.

The device also has a new vibration motor, which breaks Samsung’s trend of using the same circular motor in all of its phone buzzers. As iFixit says, that could mean Samsung is taking haptic feedback more seriously — or not. And of course, there’s no headphone jack or Bixby button. You can take a look at the full teardown here and read our first take on the phone here.

Google just announced Android Q will be called Android 10, and that we should expect its official release in a few weeks. Software and operating system updates like Android 10 add new features and capabilities and can be refreshing if you’re growing tired of your phone. Google released the first beta of Android Q in March, and more recently, released the sixth — and final — beta before the official launch.

With each beta release, Google has added new features to Android 10 beyond what the company announced and previewed at Google I/O in May. There’s a Bubbles notification feature, full-on gesture navigation, improved privacy settings and a slick Live Caption feature.

If you’re interested in helping Google test Android 10, you can sign up right now. Just keep in mind that this is still a beta release, and there are issues. Some apps simply won’t work, and battery life has taken a hit. In the meantime, here are some exciting new features in Android 10.

Bubbles

Do you still use Facebook Messenger’s Chat Heads feature? If so, then you’re going to love Android 10’s new Bubbles feature. Bubbles work just like Chat Heads, with a circular notification floating above whatever is on your screen. Google wants developers to be mindful of what types of apps use Bubbles simply because a stream of notifications showing up on your screen, regardless of what you’re doing, would get real annoying real fast.

As you can see in the screenshots above, Bubbles is working with the Google Phone app. I triggered Bubbles by leaving an active call, after which a small circle showed up with the contact’s picture. While dragging the Bubble around, two options showed up at the bottom of the screen: Hide and End Call. Dragging the icon to either option caused that action. A single tap on the Bubble revealed a few more options, such as enabling the speaker or muting the call.

Wi-Fi and QR codes

Sharing your Wi-Fi network password with friends or asking for theirs can be awkward. Android 10 has a new feature that lets you create a QR code for your Wi-Fi network or scan a QR code to join a Wi-Fi network, directly in the device’s Wi-Fi settings. To use this new feature, go to Wi-Fi settings and then select your home network, followed by the Share button with a small QR code just above it.

Undo app removal

Ever accidentally remove an app from your home screen, and then realize you can’t remember which app was there? I have.

With Android 10, you have a few seconds after an app has been removed to undo the change. You’ll find the undo button along the bottom of the screen. Press it and bam, the app is back where it belongs.

Location control

Android is finally getting more granular control over how an app can use location information. Currently, you can give an app access to your location either all the time or not all. With Android 10, you will gain the option of letting an app access your location information only while you’re actively using the app. Not only is this a privacymatter, but it’s sure to help save on battery life.

Privacy settings

With Android 10, there’s now a dedicated Privacy section in the settings app. Opening it will reveal the various permissions apps can request for things like calendar, location, camera, contacts and microphone.

Android has lacked a clear-cut way to view what apps have access to what data on your device. The new section makes it easy to discover and revoke permissions for specific apps. Take a few minutes to learn exactly what can be done in the new Android 10 Privacy settings page. Trust us, it’s worth it.

Better notification controls

When you long-press an alert, you’re now given two different options: Alerting and Silent. Selecting Alerting will allow the app to make sound with each new alert. Silent will not make a sound or cause your phone to vibrate. You can further tailor how notifications behave by going into Settings > Apps & notifications > Notifications.

This is a small but important feature because you no longer have to dig into the Settings app to figure out how to customize an app’s alerts. You simply long-press, pick an option and you’re done.

Live Caption

As a way to make Android more accessible, Google developed Live Caption. The feature will live-caption any video that’s being played, without a data connection. We cannot wait to try this feature when Android 10 launches. 

Wait, no, don’t close the tab! Don’t you do it! Yes, it’s enterprise. I know. But, just hold on a hot damn second. These new features for iOS 13, iPadOS, and macOS Catalina in enterprise are cool. Mostly because I kinda love what they just might be hinting at for the future of all of Apple’s operating systems… and for all of us.

Security

I’m going to break this into three parts. Well, two parts actually since the first part, security, I covered already in my hour-long macOS Catalina video.

That includes read-only system volumes, kernel extensions, DriverKit, Gatekeeper that doesn’t just check for malware on first launch but every launch, notarization, and a bunch of new privacy permissions.

I won’t waste your time repeating it, so just check out the link in the description for all the details.

Management

The second part, management, is where it starts to get cool. Now, Apple’s offered device enrollment for a while. That’s where a company uses a mobile device management or MDM system to basically control a device, decide what you can and can’t do with it, and own it from passcode creation to full deletion.

Previously, Apple added automated device enrollment. The idea was zero-touch. For example, a company purchased iPhone could be shipped to an employee, still all wrapped up, and that employee could open it up, and it’d be ready to go, no IT worker with cable, or hands-on config needed. And from there, the company could manage it as needed.

And it’s great, for company-owned iPhones. Apple will now even let automated enrollment deliver custom branding, content, and consent text, and authentication tied into cloud identify providers.

But, BYOD — bring your own device — has been a thing for over a decade now. That’s where a company either allows employees the freedom to buy any device they want to use, or just saves money by making them buy their own devices, or both.

The thing is, if you buy it, you own it, and your company shouldn’t have complete control over it anymore.

At least, that’s where Apple is drawing the line when it comes to control — whoever bought it, gets it.

And that brings us to the latest feature: User enrollment.

The best way to describe it is that it’s your device and your stuff is your stuff, but it allows your company to give you some of their stuff and manage just their stuff that they give you.

You download an enrollment profile, launch settings, tap Enroll, and then sign in with the managed Apple ID your company gives you. More on that in a bit.

Once it’s enrolled, the company gets its own, unique identifier for the device that persists only as long as the enrollment. They can configure accounts, per-app VPN, and apps that the company installs. They can require a passcode and set up some restrictions.

What they can’t do is get any other identifiers for the device, like the serial number, UDID, or IMEI, require a complex, alphanumeric passcode, take offer the management of any app the user installed, remotely wipe the device, access any cellular features, add anything that collects log information, or add any supervised restrictions.

Again, Apple is drawing the line on who owns the device. If the company makes you buy it or bring it, it’s yours, not theirs, and they can’t take complete control over it. That rests with you.

To make this work, User enrollment creates a separate APS volume for the managed accounts, apps, and data. It’s cryptographically separated from the rest of the device and its not backed up to the user’s iCloud account.

Notes, Files, third-party apps, and Keychain, are completely separated. Mail and calendar are partially separated. For mail, previews and metadata remain on the user volume, as do events for the calendar.

When and if you unenroll it, the separate volume and its encryption keys are destroyed, and any apps, accounts, and configurations pushed down by the company are removed.

Identity

The third part of all this is Identity. User enrollment is integrated with Managed Apple IDs, which can be created by Apple School Manager for education and, Apple Business Manager for enterprise. They can also be federated with Microsoft Azure Active Directory.

Managed Apple IDs provide access to iCloud Notes, iCloud Drive, iCloud Contacts and Calendar, and other services.

And, for user enrollment, the personal Apple ID is associated with all your personal content and the managed Apple ID, with anything and everything pushed down by the company.

What’s more, there’ s a new single sign-on extension for native apps and the web so you don’t have to create, manage, and remember separate, unique, long, strong passwords for every app and service.

It’s used by identify providers and configured by the MDM, so once you log in, that log in just works for all your company apps and services, iCloud Keychain, per-app VPN, multi-factor authentication, and notifications.

There’s even a Kerberos extension to authenticate for web sites and Active Directory services.

Taken together, it should let everything co-exist peacefully, privately, and securely, all on one device, without the overhead of having to deal with separate environments.

It’s a clever implementation but I’ll leave it to all you IT pros out there to let me know how it works for you in the comments.

Microsoft is continuing its broad ongoing push to contribute with open sourceprojects, joining the newly created Confidential Computing Consortium, an initiative launched by The Linux Foundation which aims to provide better security for data which is actually in use by apps on a computer, or in the cloud (as opposed to at rest, or not being used).

Microsoft is far from alone in this endeavor, and is joined by Intel in the consortium, along with ARM, Baidu, Google Cloud, IBM, Red Hat and other tech giants.

The overarching aim is the adoption of ‘confidential computing’ and the use of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to secure data which is actively being used.

The Linux Foundation explains: “Current approaches in cloud computing address data at rest and in transit but encrypting data in use is considered the third and possibly most challenging step to providing a fully encrypted lifecycle for sensitive data.

“Confidential computing will enable encrypted data to be processed in memory without exposing it to the rest of the system and reduce exposure for sensitive data and provide greater control and transparency for users.”

In other words, the operating system could be compromised by some kind of malware, but the data being used in a program would still be encrypted, and therefore safe from an attacker.

Open Enclave

There are a number of central elements going towards achieving this, and Microsoft’s contribution is its Open Enclave SDK, an open source framework that facilitates the building (and verifying) of hardware-protected trusted apps. These TEE-toting apps will be able to run across multiple hardware architectures, currently including Intel SGX and ARM TrustZone (and Linux and Windows on the software front).

The SGX (Software Guard Extensions) SDK is a big part of the puzzle which Intel is open sourcing here, along with Red Hat Enarx, which provides hardware independence when it comes to securing apps via TEEs. The latter is similar to Open Enclave, but unsurprisingly with more of a Linux focus.

The ultimate end goal here should be better security for important data across the board, broadly speaking, and while this consortium and its aims obviously have a business focus, remember it’s often your personal data that these big organizations are processing and crunching. So, in a very real way when it comes to data breaches and the like, it’s often your security that is at stake.

Mark Russinovich, chief technical officer at Microsoft, enthused: “The Open Enclave SDK is already a popular tool for developers working on Trusted Execution Environments, one of the most promising areas for protecting data in use.

“We hope this contribution to the Consortium can put the tools in even more developers’ hands and accelerate the development and adoption of applications that will improve trust and security across cloud and edge computing.”