Author: batteryforpc

Not once during Samsung’s Unpacked event for the new Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plusdid anyone on stage say the word “Bixby.” Samsung’s virtual assistant — positioned as an alternative to Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri — was never directly brought up over the course of the Note’s introduction and several other product sequences featuring the Galaxy Watch Active 2, Galaxy Tab S6, and other devices. Bixby wasn’t included in any demonstrations of the Note 10’s many new software tricks, productivity enhancements, and features designed with convenience in mind.

It was a remarkable exclusion from Samsung after years of trying to establish Bixby as central to Samsung’s in-house software efforts and AI advancements. The absence was particularly noticeable since at this time last year, Samsung was showcasing Bixby 2.0 on stage in the very same room, listing off all the improvements it had made to the assistant’s smarts and voice command processing. Surely a “Hey Bixby” voice command could’ve been squeezed into the presentation somewhere, right? It never came.

There are other signs that Bixby might be less of a priority for Samsung in 2019. Unlike its last several flagship phones, the Galaxy Note 10 does not include a dedicated Bixby button. Instead, users will be able to trigger Bixby with the power button. But you wouldn’t know it, because this was never shown on stage.

By default, pressing and holding the power button will bring up Bixby — no matter how long you hold it down for. If you thought a standalone Bixby button was annoying before, this out-of-box behavior could be considered even worse. If you want to use the power button to, you know, turn the phone off, you’ll have to disable Bixby altogether. There might be a power/volume button combo that lets you turn off the phone more easily (Apple does this on the iPhone X and later), but Samsung’s default is going to result in more unwanted Bixby interactions and customer frustration.

So Bixby is still alive and well on phones. It’s also on Samsung smartwatches, TVs, and refrigerators. But the Galaxy Home (a Bixby-powered smart speaker similar to the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod) remained absent from the keynote a year after being introduced at Barclays Center in 2018. Samsung missed the Home’s April release target, and most recently the company has claimed it will ship sometime in the third quarterof this year. Maybe so, but this product is taking a long time to the point that it risks turning into Samsung’s AirPower. Having remained a no-show at the Note event, it’s possible we’ll finally hear more about the Galaxy Home at next month’s IFA conference in Berlin. If nothing more is known by then, well…

Bixby was featured during the pre-event videos that were running in the arena even if it didn’t earn a keynote mention. And in fairness, Samsung had a lot of ground to cover: in addition to hardware and buzzy industry topics like 5G, the company discussed a number of partnerships with Microsoft, Under Armour, Discord, and even the UN.

Does a lack of stage time mean Bixby is going anywhere? No, not at all. But it might indicate that Samsung’s assistant is taking a back seat and will become something that’s just sort of there — once you free your Note 10’s power button from it, that is. The people who actually enjoy using Bixby for its deep integration with phone settings and multi-step actions will still have it at their disposal. But for everyone else, Bixby has always felt disposable. Today, it felt like Samsung got the message.

Other things Samsung didn’t mention on stage today:

Why it got rid of the headphone jack on the Note 10. Apple’s “courage” explanation didn’t go over very well, so maybe it’s best to just avoid the subject under the stage lights.

The aforementioned Galaxy Home.

An exact release date for the Galaxy Fold.

“Android.”

Every year, Apple needs to whip up something exciting if it wants to get people hyped about the next iPhone. The same holds true especially for this year. With iPhone sales falling 12% in the fiscal third quarter, profits expected to dip to $9.6 billion and more people trading in their iPhones for Androids, the company needs to make sure its iPhone 11, 11R and 11 Max (or whatever they’ll be called) will be compelling enough to draw new customers or keep current customers updating.

So when will Apple officially announce the 2019 iPhones? The company hasn’t sent out invitations to any iPhone events yet, but based on previous years, I predict Apple will unveil the next iPhones on Tuesday, Sept. 10. Keep in mind this is just an educated guess, and we have no confirmation from Apple itself if this date is correct (Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request to comment.) However, there are a few reasons why this is the likeliest date.

For the past seven years Apple has announced iPhones either in the same week as Labor Day, which is on the first Monday in September, or the following week. In the past, if the US holiday occurred on Sept. 3 or earlier, Apple announced its iPhone the following week. When Labor Day landed on the Sept. 5 or later, as it did in 2015 and 2016, Apple announced the iPhone the following Wednesday (two days after Labor Day).

This year, Labor Day is on Monday, Sept. 2. Keeping with the pattern, Apple would announce its new iPhones the following Tuesday or Wednesday: Sept. 10 or Sept. 11. Either date fits the pattern, but since the news cycle on Sept. 11 is best avoided for obvious reasons, I’d go with Sept. 10 as the safer bet. I also predict preorders will kick off that Friday, Sept. 13.

The date also aligns with the expected in-store release and shipping dates too, which I expect to both fall on Friday, Sept. 20. For the last seven years, you could purchase the regular flagship iPhones on a Friday, around the third week of September, about a week and a half after Apple makes its announcements. Specialty iPhones, like the iPhone XR, iPhone X and iPhone SE shipped out on their own timelines. Because the iPhone XR was available in October, there’s a chance the iPhone 11R will be in users’ hands in October too.

There you have it. I believe Apple will announce the new iPhone 11s on Sept. 10, with preorders on Sept. 13 and shipping starting Sept. 20. Again, without Apple’s confirmation these are just predictions, but we’ll find out soon enough if I’m correct. Last year I wagered a can of Coke if I turned out to be right, which I was. (I’m still waiting for that soda BTW.) If I’m correct this year I shall wager… a box of Pocky.

CVE-2019-1125 was made public today or also referred to as the “SWAPGS” vulnerability as a new variant of Spectre V1 affecting Windows and Linux with Intel (and according to mixed information, AMD – though the current Linux kernel patches at least seem to only apply to Intel) x86_64 processors.

The SWAPGS vulnerability allows attackers to gain read access to privileged memory and builds off existing Spectre fixes. Red Hat has a great write-up on the technical side of this new vulnerability. There is also the CVE text.

Microsoft has already patched Windows 10 quietly for this vulnerability while Linux kernel patches already landed in Git. Linux distribution vendors are working on relevant kernel updates to push out for existing distribution kernels. No CPU microcode updates are required.

Fortunately it looks quite difficult to be able to exploit the SWAPGS vulnerability in practice but upgrading to a patched kernel is certainly recommended.

And, yes, it does look like it will impact performance… Benchmarks being worked on.

Although the Google Pixel 3 camera is one of the best you can get in a smartphone, it appears there could be a substantial issue plaguing the handset at the moment. According to numerous reports on the internet, the camera gets shaky when capturing photos or video.

You can read the complaints on places such as Reddit and Google’s own product support forums (as spotted by Android Police). The general consensus seems to be that the Google Pixel 3 camera issue is a hardware problem which could be related to either the optical image stabilization (OIS) or autofocus hardware. It does not appear to be a software issue.

The problem also seems to be mostly plaguing the vanilla Pixel 3 and not the Google Pixel 3 XL (or Pixel 3a or 3a XL). However, it might be worth testing those devices out as well just in case.

To test your handset for the problem, prop up your phone using a stand or dock of some kind and open up the camera. If your viewfinder image looks stable in both photo and video capturing mode while the phone is completely motionless, you don’t have the problem!

However, if your viewfinder looks erratic you are one of the unlucky ones.

Unfortunately, if your Google Pixel 3 camera has the problem as shown above, there doesn’t appear to be much you can do about it outside of hardware replacement. As of now, Google has been silent on the issue, so it’s not clear if the company will replace or repair your phone if you can prove this problem is happening on your device.

Let us know in the comments below if you have (or don’t have) this camera issue!

If you’re browsing Google Image search results today, you might notice a new interface element: A sticky side panel that displays any images you click on, providing a closer look at the specific image you want to see, including related images, additional info like ratings, price and in-stock status, ingredients and cooking times, depending on whether you’re searching for products, recipes or something else.

The new sidebar replaces a full-width, in-column interface element, with the advantage that the new interface allows you to continue to browse the image result thumbnails returned on the left. Clicking on any other images will replace the one in the sidebar, but you can easily navigate back and forth with your browser’s built-in navigation features, or you can page through the results in sequence using the right and left arrow keys.

These work already for a lot of existing results and products, but developers who want to ensure their product image results likewise provide this info in a way that means Google’s search engine will pick them up can reference this developer documentation to find out how.

Overall, even though this is not a massive change from what came before, it feels directionally like a big deal: Google has been iterating in a very Pinterest-like direction with image search in general, but this feels functionally like a mature product aimed squarely at comparison shopping, hobbyist cooks, decorators and designers. It’s a very different product from what Images used to be, and that probably affords Google a lot more opportunity in terms of how it monetizes image search in the future.