Video: Google I/O 2017 impressions from the AC editors

It’s been a busy couple of days in Mountain View, with big announcements from Google around Android, VR, AR, AI and other acronyms. Google I/O is a platform for developers, enthusiasts and journalist to learn about what’s next from the company, and this year’s event continued many of the trends that Google kicked off in 2016: virtual reality, with the unveiling of Daydream 2.0 and standalone headsets from HTC and Lenovo.

Google Assistant became more capable with new regional launches for Google Home, and visual computing chops in Google Lens. And Android O became more fleshed out, with new features like notification dots and Android Go for emerging markets.

As we wrap up here at Shoreline Amphitheater, the AC editors took some time to sum up their thoughts on this year’s show. So join Alex, Flo and Jerry as they machinegun through some of the top I/O 2017 happenings in a little over 15 minutes!

• Android Central on YouTube
• Everything you need to know about Google I/O announcements!

There’s nothing fab about a phablet TV remote

What are the odds of buying a Vizio SmartCast TV but not owning a smartphone? I ask, because the last thing I need is a publicly available tablet in my living room.

Once upon a time the idea of a television relying on Google’s Chromecast for content and shipping with a 6-inch Android remote might have excited me. Because for the most part television manufacturers have tried too hard to be UX designers an ended up making TVs that send me running for a set-top box as quickly as possible.

But Chromecast and Android? I love those things.

So when Vizio said “Hey, we want to send you this TV — the M50-D1 …” my ears perked up. (For the record: This is a loaner they sent for review, review it I did, and now I’ll have to figure out what to do with it.)

But things have changed a little bit between the time the set arrived, and the time you’re watching this video and reading these words. First and foremost is that this is a 2016 model, and the 2017 sets revert to something a little more traditional.

Let’s rap.

Truth be told, I rather enjoy the idea of a dumb display. I’ve never really been a fan of built-in apps. Do they work well? Will they ever be updated? It’s a crapshoot, really. I’ll rely on set-top boxes, mostly. The NVIDIA Shield TV with Android TV is great, Apple TV is excellent, and Roku is my recommended box for anyone not locked to either of those those ecosystems. (And I just recently fell in love with HDHomerun for a TV tuner.)

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But there’s still something rather odd about relying so much on Chromecast. Or maybe it’s just that this thing’s trying to make me believe I have to rely on Chromecast. Because really it’s making me rely on having some sort of set-top box. Because for as great as Chromecast is as a streaming protocol, it’s not great if you’re the type who likes to lean back, remote in hand, and go all stick-and-throttles on your viewing experience.

That’s where the 6-inch tablet comes in, of course. On one hand it’s superfluous. There’s something like a 99 percent chance you either run Android or iOS in your house, and both of those handle Casting things just fine, and so you don’t really need another device. But you can’t just sell a TV without apps and assume the user will figure things out. And, so, Android remote.

But tablets and phones suck as in-hand remotes. You have to look down at them. You can’t navigate by feel.

And you know what? Vizio must have come to that conclusion, too. Because it’s gone back to more full-featured remote controls in its 2017 line and has ditched the Android tablet altogether. The other thing is that the newer sets have apps built in. (And this older model apparently will see them return in a software update.)

So. We now have a decent mid-range display. (By the way, the LED panel itself is about what I’d expect for something in the $800 range. It’s good, but not great, and the picture falls off a little bit as the viewing angle increases.) It’s overcomplicated by a lack of build-in apps and the inclusion of a full Android remote. (Also by the way: If you don’t want to have your full Google account laying around the living room for anyone to pick up, be sure to lock down this tablet, or don’t bother signing in in the first place.) And we have Vizio going back to something more traditional.

Can’t say I blame ’em.

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More Android phones are using encryption and lock screen security than ever before

An increasing number of people are making the right decisions.

We like to harp on security here from time to time, but it’s for good reason. Many often have a false sense of just how secure their private data is on their devices — that is, if they’re thinking about it at all. Your average smartphone user just wants to access the apps and people they care about, and not worry about security.

That’s why it was extremely encouraging to hear some of the security metrics announced at Google I/O 2017. For devices running Android Nougat, roughly 80% of users are running them fully encrypted. At the same time, about 70% of Nougat devices are using a secure lock screen of some form.

That 80% encryption number isn’t amazingly surprising when you remember that Nougat has full-device encryption turned on by default, but that number also includes devices that were upgraded from Marshmallow, which didn’t have default encryption. Devices running on Marshmallow have a device encryption rate of just 25%, though, so this is a massive improvement. And the best part about Google’s insistence on default encryption is that eventually older devices will be replaced by those running Nougat or later out of the box, meaning this encryption rate could get very close to 100%.

The default settings are immensely important.

Full-device encryption is particularly effective when paired with a secure lock screen, and Google’s metrics showing 70% adoption in this regard definitely needs some work. It’s a small increase from the roughly 60% secure lock screen rate of Marshmallow phones but a decent jump from the sub-50% rate of devices running Lollipop. The most interesting aspect of these numbers to my eyes is that having a fingerprint sensor on the device doesn’t signal a very large increase in adoption — perhaps just a five percentage point jump. On one hand it’s great to see people using secured lock screens even when they don’t have something as convenient as a fingerprint sensor, but then again I’d expect the simplicity of that sensor to help adoption more than these numbers show.

The trend is heading in the right direction in both of these metrics, and that’s a great sign despite the fact that secure lock screens show a slower growth rate. The closer we get both of these numbers to 100%, the better.

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Tech companies are trying to crush mom-and-pop repair shops

If you’ve ever wondered why nobody other than Apple is officially licensed to fix your iPhone, it’s because the device titan has locked out everyone else from accessing manuals or spare parts. This pushes small electronics shops to buy used or counterfeit parts of dubious quality. But back in January, five states introduced “right to repair” bills that would force Apple and other device manufacturers to give the public access to proper instructions and components. Surprising no one, tech titans have been lobbying to kill those bills in at least two of those states.

According to a report by New York’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics, the companies that lobbied against the state’s bill include: Apple, Verizon, Toyota, Lexmark, Caterpillar, Asurion, and Medtronic, as well as the Consumer Technology Association (which represents electronics manufacturers). But Apple has been active in Nebraska, too. State senator Lydia Brasch, who introduced her Adopt The Fair Repair Act, told Buzzfeed News that she’d had a meeting with a representative from the tech giant who warned her that passing the legislation turn Nebraska into a “Mecca for bad actors” and flood it with hackers.

It’s not just Apple keeping you from getting the parts to fix your iPhone, though Brasch does point out that there’s only one Apple store in all of Nebraska to go to for device repairs. Her bill to let folks repair their own tech is focused on agricultural machines, not consumer electronics.

“The primary impetus,” Brasch told Popular Mechanics back in February, “is that we are an agricultural state. One out of every four jobs is connected to agriculture. When you are work in farming, you are tied to weather restrictions—planting, harvesting, all have to take place when the weather is holding. When we have an equipment breakdown, sometimes there’s a waiting period to get repairs down. At the same time, you’re chasing daylight, and you’re helpless during that period of time to diagnose, to maintain, or to repair your own equipment as you had in the past. Farmers are falling behind waiting in the queue for someone to work on their equipment.”

What would likely happen, aside from making it much easier and cheaper for consumers to to get their own devices fixed, is a major loss of revenue from tech companies that currently have a repair monopoly. Apple has justified this dominance by claiming it ensures high quality of parts and services — which, in a perverse way, is true: locking out repair shops forces them to rely on potentially inferior substitute components and build their own reputation against Apple’s titanic brand.

Via: Motherboard

Source: NY State Joint Commission On Public Ethics (report)

‘Destiny 2’ tackles the original’s biggest problem: storytelling

The first time I played the original Destiny, I felt frustrated and annoyed. It was a fun online, co-op team shooter but the game’s narrative was insultingly shallow — a poorly written space opera where a vague “darkness” was out to destroy a mysterious entity called the Traveler that somehow thrust humanity into a golden age, but also might be dead. It took a year for Bungie to patch in interesting characters and emotional hooks with The Taken King expansion, but by then, I had moved on. Destiny 2, however, has my attention. Not only does it look like a good starting point for new players, but it has the one thing every epic story needs: a great villain.

It’s possible I’m jumping the gun here. Technically, we don’t know a lot about Dominus Ghaul, the antagonist of Destiny 2’s campaign, but what Bungie has shown hints at a more complex villain than the franchise has had before. He’s not a vague, undefined evil, or a meanacing warlord out for revenge, but a character who feels his people have been deeply wronged by the Traveler, the entity that bestows the game’s players with their powers. In Ghaul’s mind, the Traveler made a mistake when it chose to bless humanity alone. His race, the Cabal, should have prospered, too.

“The phrase I’ve used in the office is that Ghaul is the hero of his own story,” Destiny 2 Director Luke Smith told Engadget. Smith describes Ghaul as a character with a sense of purpose, someone who feels he’s doing the right thing for his people. It’s an idea that authors like George R. R. Martin have long championed: nobody thinks of themselves as the villain in their own story — and writing characters from this perspective gives them a sense realism and depth. It makes them relatable. “There’s a little bit of that dissonance there,” Smith said. “In some ways you’re excited to put your reticle over his head and shoot him, but in other ways, you’re like, ‘Man, from his perspective he’s not totally wrong.’”

This character-driven approach builds on what Bungie learned from the original Destiny’s expansions. Smith specifically cites, The Taken King, which heavily used Nathan Fillion’s performance as Cayde-6 to guide players through the expansion’s story. Voiceovers, cutscenes and character cameos are all used to draw the player into the narrative. “We’re spending a lot of time just trying to make sure that we’re telling a story and that we have characters that people want to meet and want to work with,” Smith said. “This is part of our general commitment to narrative in Destiny 2. Telling a story that you can follow.”

It’s something the original game failed to do, but Bungie is looking at the sequel almost as blank slate. Destiny is now less the beginning of the franchise than it is a prologue. “It’s issue zero,” Smith said — a nod to comics terminology. “We established the universe and its rules, and established some characters, but now with Destiny 2 we’re going to set things in motion.”

It may be a bit disheartening for players of the original game to learn they were only playing the backstory, but it puts the sequel in a much better position to attract a new audience. It’s the kind of soft reboot that lets Bungie reintroduce the universe without relying on the assumption that Destiny 2 players know the original game’s lore back to front. It’s an opportunity to tell the game’s story right — without relying on vague cliches of good and evil.

Smith wouldn’t give any hints to how Destiny 2 would introduce the complex idea of The Traveller and its powers to a new audience, but promises that new players wouldn’t feel left in the dark. As someone who felt abandoned by the original game’s narrative, I hope it’s a promise he can keep. With the right execution, Destiny 2 just might be able to do something the original game never could: make me care about the world of Destiny.

Federal agents used a Stingray to track an immigrant’s phone

Investigators from Immigration and Custom Enforcement as well as the FBI have been using controversial cell-spoofing devices to secretly track down undocumented immigrants, court records show. According to a report the Detroit News, which obtained an unsealed federal search warrant affidavit, FBI and ICE agents in Michigan used a Stingray device to ensnare a restaurant worker from El Salvador in March. The devices, which were originally intended for counter-terrorism use, have come under fire because there are currently no clear rules governing when law enforcement is allowed to deploy them. Even in cases where authorities have a clear target in mind, they run the risk of exposing personal information of other innocent people in range.

Until 2015, Federal investigators were free to deploy the devices without a search warrant. At that point the Justice Department laid out a policy requiring investigators get approval to use the devices first. Local law enforcement agencies, meanwhile, are not bound by the same policy. A bill currently working its way through the House called the Cell Location Privacy Act would require all law enforcement get a probable cause warrant before using one of these devices to track suspects.

While investigators in the Michigan case obtained a warrant before deploying the Stingray — and their suspect had been twice deported in past — digital rights advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation are concerned that the case hints at a pernicious new use for the devices in the wake of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and suspended travel ban.

“As far as we know, this is a novel use of that technology,” the EFF’s director of grassroots advocacy Shahid Buttar told the Detroit News. “Once you start giving agencies fancy toys, and somebody is making money off of it, they are going to use them for more things, and ultimately oppress your rights.”

Via: Brad Heath on Twitter

Source: Detroit News

Earth’s radio signals may be protecting it from space radiation

The Earth’s atmosphere bears precious little resemblance to what it looked like at the start of the Industrial Revolution. As radio technology has advanced and spread, the signals that transmitters produce — specifically the Very Low Frequency (VLF) variety — have changed the way that the upper atmosphere and the Van Allen Radiation Belts interact, according to a study recently published in the journal Space Science Reviews. In effect, these radio waves may be enveloping the globe like an electromagnetic comforter, protecting it from satellite-frying space radiation.

The Van Allen Belts are a pair of zones where high-energy particles blasted out by the Sun become entangled in the Earth’s magnetosphere, forming a pair of fluctuating bands that encircle the Earth. Should the belts fluctuate into the path of an orbiting satellite, their energetic particles can easily fry the satellite’s electronics — like a natural EMP.

“The conventional wisdom is that the inner edge of the outer belt kind of moves in and out as the atmosphere—especially ionosphere and plasmasphere—grows and shrinks,” says Phil Erickson, a space plasma physicist at MIT, told Popular Science. Well, recent observations from the Van Allen Probes, a pair of heavily shielded spacecraft that monitor the belts, suggest that these fluctuations are being diminished by what appears to be humanity’s use of VLF radio transmitters which are often employed in military communications and navigation.

Per the Space Science report, statistical data suggests that the Van Allen Belts have been getting pushed steadily back from the surface of the planet since the 1960’s, about when VLF radio technology was first introduced. More recently, even when a 2015 solar storm was strong enough to strip back the plasmasphere like a banana peel, the Van Allen belts stayed in place.

The Van Allen Probes – Image: NASA

This is likely because, the study argues, the radio signals are deflecting incoming solar radiation back into space before they can be captured by the Earth’s magnetic field. However, the VLF waves aren’t energetic enough to deflect heavier solar emissions, like protons, and can’t protect against the effects caused by significant solar storms.

Still, the effect is noticeable enough that the US Navy has made plans to launch the DSX satellite later this year, which will study whether an onboard VLF transmitter is sufficient to protect spacecraft from interstellar radiation. If it proves successful, the first crew to Mars may be able to leave their supply of Rad-X behind.

Via: Popular Science

Source: Space Science Reviews

‘Nex Machina’ brings co-op robot slaughter to the couch June 20th

Developer Housemarque’s ode to Robotron: 2048, Nex Machina, finally has a release date: June 20th on both PC and PlayStation 4. And if you were a fan of what you played in the beta but thought it was missing something, maybe that je ne sais quoi was couch-play with a buddy. “Local co-op will allow two players to play side by side, just like in the old school arcade halls, competing or helping each other out,” the developer writes on the PlayStation Blog. It’s something Housemarque has included in its previous games, sometimes as a post-launch add-on, but here it’ll be a part of the experience on day one. Want a preview of how the voxel-based madness will play out next month? Peep the trailer below.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Audeze makes $2,495 earbuds only an audiophile could love

Audeze built a reputation on really good (and more portable) planar magnetic headphones. Back in September the company debuted its first in-ear model: the iSine. Despite looking somewhat like a mini TIE fighter, those bulkier earbuds do a solid job of improving sound quality for people who prefer that fit to an on-ear or over-ear set of headphones. There’s even a separate model made specifically to pair with a VR headset. This week, Audeze took another huge step in its in-ear lineup by announcing the $2,495 LCDi4.

Nearly $2,500 for a set of earbuds? Yes, but these certainly won’t be for everyone. Audeze built a pair of in-ear headphones that feature similar technology to what is uses on the $4,000 LCD-4 over-ear model. The design of those massive audiophile-grade cans have been scaled down to a more portable package. In fact, the same ultra thin diaphragm from those pricier headphones is on display here.

Audeze says the LCDi4s feature overall distortion (THD) that’s less than 0.2 percent, even when you have music cranked all the way up. What’s more, each separate unit is matched within +/- 1dB of each other and there’s bass response that ranges flat from 900Hz down to 10Hz, helping make that overall soundstage as wide as possible. And yes, you should probably pair these with a capable headphone amp to maximize their potential.

If you’re already checking your savings account to see if you can afford a pair of the LCDi4s, they’re available for pre-order now. However, Audeze says they won’t ship until mid-June.

Source: Audeze