Modern Dad really likes the HTC U11

Another great phone from HTC, but the same question remains: Can they actually sell it?

My first smartphone was from HTC — the Treo 750. Over the years I’ve used more HTC devices than I can even remember, from the Nexus One up through today’s flagship, the U11. Not every phone has been a winner, but more often than not I (and others, of course) came to the conclusion that basically went “This is a hell of a phone. It’s a shame they never manage to sell better.”

HTC has a company has changed a lot since then. And I don’t have the slightest idea if the U11 will spark some massive turnaround in a business sense. Or if it even needs to, for that matter. But this much is clear: Look at this phone. That mirror finish is ridiculously cool, and makes me not care about fingerprints. It’s the first phone you wipe off because you want to show it off — not just because it’s gotten smudged. The cameras are VERY good. The best? I dunno — but certainly right up there with anything else you can buy today. The software is fast and nearly flawless. Yeah, it’s still full of features I might well not use — pretty much any smartphone is at this point — but none of that bogs it down or gets in the way.

The biggest hangup may be the price. It’ll fluctuate with sales, of course. But it’s $100 more than the LG G6 and nearly $200 more than the OnePlus 5 — both of which are extremely capable in their own rights. Even the excellent Galaxy S8 comes in $25 cheaper. The U11 is going to be a tough sell for folks. (It’s also right in line with a base-model iPhone 7, if that’s how you roll.)

But none of that actually change anything about the phone, of course. It’s excellent. Looks great. Feels great. Works great.

Now HTC just has to sell it.

Modern Dad

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What’s on our home screens! [Roundtable]

Be together. Not the same.

One of the things that people love about Android is how easy it is to customize and personalize. The companies that make the phones we all love have no desire to restrict us to keep the design and style they use, and nobody cares how beautiful or gaudy we make things. Some even provide a theme engine to make it easy to mix things up with one tap.

Everyone does things a little differently, and that includes the staff here at Android Central. This week we’re going around the table so each of us can show how we do it, and of course, we want to see how you do it, too!

Andrew Martonik

For me, it all starts with Google Now Launcher — or, the stock launcher when using my Pixel. I don’t necessarily mind the stock launchers on most other phones, but when it comes to keeping things visually consistent between phones I like to toss Now Launcher on them all. I also really like having the Google Now feed just a swipe away.

I use a single home screen, with a large portion dedicated to the Google Calendar widget so I can always see what’s happening at a glance. I only use a couple of folders — primarily my “tools” folder that has things like Drive and Dropbox, travel apps and banking apps. The rest are single apps arranged from bottom to top in terms of how many times I use them.

I think it’s a pretty standard roster of apps, but I really don’t end up going into the app drawer all that often. This dozen or so apps on the home screen get me through most days.

Daniel Bader

I used to be ambivalent about setting up all of my phones the same way. I’d either use the default launcher and haphazardly create folders on my main screen, or I’d just leave the home screens alone and use the app drawer. Well, old me is disgusting.

These days, I have a Nova Launcher backup on Dropbox that I use for every new phone, and it’s amazing. I have my 15 most important apps on the home screen and a number of secondary important apps in folders on the screen to the right. Then, simple Google Calendar and Todoist widgets and I’m good to go.

Nova Launcher recently got even better with a recent beta update that added native Google Feed support. I’m in love.

As for icon packs, I messed around with a bunch of them before settling on the simplest: Pixel Icon Pack. This set of icons mimics what you’d find on the Google Pixel, round icons and all, and it’s great. I have yet to find an icon that’s not perfect.

I’ve experimented with other launchers, and on devices like the OnePlus 5, Google Pixel and Moto Z2 Play I tend not to change the launcher since I’m quite happy with the stock experience. Aside from Nova, however, I’m quite fond of Evie Launcher, which is new and still growing in popularity. My next go-to icon pack is Dives, which has a great selection of icons and is perfect for when I feel like something different.

Jen Karner

I don’t tend to change what’s on my home screen very often, primarily because once I find a setup that I like, I tend to stick with it. I installed a Beauty and the Beast theme a few months ago, and haven’t really touched or adjusted anything since.

I’ve got a widget up top for my music player, the weather, and a few groups of the apps I use most often. This includes the Google Suite, all of my messenger apps, and social media. I’ve also got it set up so that Google Play and my camera can both be launched with just the press of a button.

Marc Lagace

I don’t spend too much time thinking messing with themes or tweaking the app icons on my phone because I prefer a minimalist look and like to keep things simple. If I’m going to install my own launcher, it’s typically going to be Google Now. Currently, my home screen is quite bare, with just a few widgets (Spotify, Weather, and Google Search) and my home row of the stock apps that I rely on a daily basis.

I use the second screen to store all my most-used apps, and I’ve actually been testing out a new layout on the taller Galaxy S8. By default, new apps populate from the top-left corner down, but that’s quite the stretch for my thumb when I’m using the phone with just my right hand. So I determined the natural range of motion of my thumb and mapped my go-to apps within that grid. Also props to Samsung for their Game Launcher app, which keeps all my games in one place without cluttering the home screen.

Ara Wagoner

Well, my home screens change a lot for my many, many theming articles, but they’ve been especially chaotic of late as I deviate from my modus operandi of dock folders. I’ve been using dock folders for the last five years, and while they’ve worked wonders for me, I get that not everyone is onboard with them. So I’ve ditched the dock entirely and taken to have a small array of apps scattered about the home screen in various places depending on the theme.

While the icon layouts have changed a lot in the last month, my widgets have barely changed. I’m still in love with the themeability of Material Music Komponent for KWGT, which I can easily color match to my wallpaper using the hex codes extracted by Kolorette. 1Weather’s widgets might not be quite as themeable as KWGT, but they’re a hell of a lot easier to set up, and they link to my favorite weather app when I need to see forecasting outside the newscasts I direct. I will say that Google Search widgets have been making a comeback on my recent themes, both to remind me of the Google Now pane Nova Launcher Beta added and to help add another color pop on my screens.

Check out my many home screen themes from this month on Google Photos and tell me if there are any themes here you’d like to see instructions for on Android Central. I’ve also been experimenting with themes in Action Launcher and Evie Launcher to give my beloved Nova Launcher a break, so if you want theme instructions for another launcher, give me a shout!

Florence “my home screen is plain af” Ion

This is my home screen. It’s the stock Pixel launcher, with stock fonts and stock icons and everything is stock, stock, STOCK! I want none of your fancy graphics or crazy involved theming engines. All I want out of life is a simple home screen that’s easy to navigate.

I’ve been honestly working on my perfect home screen since the first day I brought home an Android smartphone. Do you remember how limiting iOS was/is/will always be? And how you could only display your icons in a grid across various screens? Why bother with all of that when you can do what you like with the Android interface? I certainly did what I like. I kept it simple.

My home screen life is pretty tame. I’ve got the most important apps in my world all at the top, including Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter. There are also two small widgets provided by HDWidgets that help indicate when my next alarm is and when the sun will rise and set. Below that, I’ve shortcuts to all the important Google stuff; I’ve got Allo and Android Pay in the application dock, wedged right there between the stock camera app, the dialer, and Android Messages. The apps in this row are the ones I rely on most frequently and I’ll swap them out depending on where I’m at in life.

Jerry Hildenbrand

The BlackBerry KEYone and the launcher’s keyboard shortcuts mean I don’t need home screen icons.

Android 7.1.1 and its System UI Tuner means I don’t have to have a buttload of icons across my status bar. Except for that pesky VPN notification.

I put a clock and weather widget there so I know when the screen is on. The widgets are part of the Lines icon set, which is pretty close to the way old BBOS 7 themes looked.

Less is more, yo. I’m good like this.

Your turn

We all really want to check out how you do it.

Take a minute to dump a screenshot post in the AC Wallpapers, Ringtones, and Themes forum then kick us a link in the comments. We know some of y’all can do amazing stuff, so share it!

Google will stop scanning Gmail content for ad personalization

Changes coming to the way Google delivers ads within Gmail.

Google has decided to bring the consumer version of Gmail in alignment with the G Suite version of its widely popular email service, which is great news for the billion-plus users around the world. In a recent blog, after bragging about how popular its G Suite business has become amongst the enterprise community, Google announced that it would no longer scan consumer Gmail content for any ad personalization.

Currently, the free version of Gmail will scan the contents of your inbox for topics and then deliver relevant ads within Gmail. The example Google uses on its support page on the topic is if you’ve received a number of messages about photography or cameras, it might send you a targeted ad for a deal at a local camera store. Once the change happens later this year, Google will still deliver ads within the free version of Gmail, but they will be based on the ads settings associated with your Google Account, which adds topics you may like based on the things you consume or search for on other Google products — the videos you watch on YouTube, for example

This decision comes after Google saw G Suite usage more than double among large business customers over the past year, and as the total number of Gmail users continues to grow, adding over 200 million new users since Google announced it had surpassed 1 billion in 2016.

If you’re interested to see how Google has been customizing the ads it shows you, you can go into your Google Account settings and check out the section on ads. You’ll see a list of topics Google has determined you like based on your browsing habits, as well as a list of topics you don’t like, which might be completely empty if you’ve never browsed through these settings before.

Whether you love how accurate Google’s targeted ads have become and want to make them even more specific to your interests or find it creepy and want to scale things back a bit, It’s definitely worth your time to take a gander at these settings.

‘Pokémon Go’ badasses can now play Raid Battles

Some Pokémon Go players can now start working in groups to take on powerful creatures in Raid Battles, one of the long-awaited features for the popular augmented reality game. There’s a catch, though: Pokémon trainers have to be level 35 and up to access the new co-op mode, so don’t get too excited if you’re a noob. In addition to that, developer Niantic says the Raid Battles are only live at “select” Pokémon Go Gyms around the world, though it’s unclear which exactly. Those of you who do happen to be near one will have the chance to capture rare Pokémon and unlock a handful of other rewards, such as Rare Candies, Golden Razz Berries and different types of Technical Machines.

Trainers level 35 and above: You can now participate in Raid Battles at select Gyms around the world. pic.twitter.com/spg1okmpw8

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) June 23, 2017

Update: Apparently Pokémon Go lowered the bar and players with a 31 level can join the Raid Battles.

Trainers level 31 and above: You can now participate in Raid Battles at select Gyms around the world.

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) June 23, 2017

Source: Pokémon Go (Twitter)

Current theories might be wrong about how a galaxy evolves

With the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, researchers made a surprising discovery that goes against what we thought we knew about old galaxies and how they evolve. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a disk-shaped spiral galaxy. Typical of this shape of galaxy, the Milky Way’s stars move around with predictable regularity and new stars are being formed throughout. From astronomers’ observations, older galaxies that have stopped producing stars take on an elliptical shape with star motions that are unpredictable, different from the Milky Way and other younger galaxies.

However, scientists recently got a look at the MACS2129-1 galaxy, a “dead” galaxy that stopped making stars billions of years ago. But instead of being the expected elliptical shape, it was a flat disk much like the Milky Way. It’s half the size of our galaxy, but three times as massive and spinning twice as fast.

Researchers were able to see this galaxy by combining the power of the Hubble telescope with gravitational lensing — a process by which the gravity of massive celestial objects like galaxies can magnify and stretch light from objects behind them, creating a lens. A galaxy cluster lying between us and MACS2129-1 served as the gravitational lens in this case, allowing scientists to look deep inside the dead galaxy.

Now researchers have to figure out how dead disk-shaped galaxies evolve into elliptical ones, and the answer could be mergers. The merging of multiple galaxies could shuffle the star motions and plump out the shape of the resulting galaxy.

Researchers hope to use NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope to find more examples of this type of dead galaxy.

Via: NASA

Source: Nature

YouTube’s mobile app will adjust to display videos of any size

YouTube is having a pretty busy week. The Google-owned video site announced six new shows for its new Red Originals program, its YouTube TV initiative expands to ten new metropolitan markets in the US and its new VR180 technology aims to change the way you watch your videos both in and out of VR. IN addition to all that, YouTube is sprucing up its apps to try and give you a better video watching experience, with a mobile app update that will dynamically adapt to whatever size and ratio you’re watching in. The team at Vidcon also reminded us that the updated desktop app, previewed last month, has a new look on the way, as well.

The YouTube mobile app will soon change the way it presents your videos, dynamically fitting them to the screen you’re on no matter what format they were shot in: mobile phone, DSLR, square, 4:3 or 16:9 videos will now fit better on your mobile devices. The update should start to roll out in the coming weeks.

The desktop version of YouTube has a cleaner design that puts video front and center and gives you a new Dark Theme for a more cinematic look. The team is still working on the new design, but you can check out the new look in your browser by going to youtube.com/new, then get back to the current design by selecting “restore classic YouTube” from your Account menu.

Source: YouTube

Surface Pro review: Microsoft’s best hybrid notebook plays it safe

The Surface Pro is everything we’ve ever wanted from Microsoft’s Surface line. It fixes the few remaining problems from the Surface Pro 4, a machine that I adored. And yet, it’s far less exciting than its predecessors. It’s the second incremental upgrade since the Surface Pro 3, and while there’s something to be said for sticking with a solid design, in a way it feels like we’ve seen all of this before. Given that it’s been a year and a half since the launch of the Surface Pro 4, I expected more.

Hardware

The Surface Pro doesn’t look significantly different from the previous two models, even though a lot has changed under the hood. That’s not a bad thing: The slim metallic case is still pretty attractive, and Microsoft has rounded out its edges a bit so it’s more comfortable to hold. Every model of the Surface Pro weighs around 1.7 pounds, which is a bit hefty for a tablet, but incredibly light for an ultraportable notebook. Notably, the Core i5 model is a bit lighter than before, thanks to an ingenious fanless design.

The iconic kickstand is once again a key feature for the Surface Pro, and now it can be lowered even further to 165 degrees. Microsoft calls this orientation “studio mode,” as it’s ideal for digital artists to use for drawing. And, of course, it’s also reminiscent of its unique Surface Studio all-in-one PC, which also has a screen that tilts into an easel-like angle. The kickstand’s hinge looks a bit different than the Pro 4’s, but it otherwise works the same. Opening and closing the kickstand is as smooth as ever, and I grew to enjoy using the studio mode for doodles.

If you haven’t used a Surface before, the Pro’s kickstand might take some getting used to. It’s easy enough to use on a flat table — just pull it out and find the ideal angle for the screen — but it’s trickier to orient on your lap. That’s particularly true if you’re resting it against your bare legs, as the kickstand’s edge tends to dig into your skin after a while. It’s not impossible to use it on your lap, though. I had no problem writing most of this review while sitting with the Surface Pro on an uncomfortable park bench.

When it comes to ports, not much has changed. There’s only a single USB 3.0 jack, MiniDisplayport, a MicroSD card slot tucked underneath the kickstand, a headphone jack and the power connection. Just like with the Surface Laptop, it’s disappointing to see Microsoft skip on USB-C, which would make its machines more versatile and easier to charge.

You may have noticed a recurring theme so far: A distinct lack of change. While it’s nice to see more refinement in the Surface Pro line, it’s beginning to feel a bit stagnant. It’s 2017, it would be nice to see Microsoft try for thinner screen bezels, which is all the rage on Dell’s XPS line and the newer iPad Pro, or add in some completely new functionality.

Display

Once again, the Surface Pro packs in a gorgeous 12.3-inch screen with a sharp 2,736 by 1,834 pixel resolution (267 pixels per inch). That’s on-par with what Apple would call a “Retina” display, which means it’s ideal for high resolution photos, as well as for making text look extra smooth. It’s also a great screen for video, though you’ll have to live with black bars on the screen due to its 3:2 aspect ratio.

The Surface Pro’s screen manages to look bright and bold no matter what you throw at it. And while it’s a bit reflective, like most tablet screens, you can still make out what’s on the screen in direct sunlight. It’s also a reminder of why Microsoft has stuck with the 3:2 aspect ratio, whereas most other devices opt for 16:9 widescreen these days. Having much more vertical screen space is simply very useful when it comes to browsing the web and using productivity apps.

Keyboard and Pen

While the Surface Pro is technically a tablet on its own, it transforms into a full laptop with its keyboard accessories. The new cloth-like Alcantara keyboard feels slightly improved from the last model, with a satisfying amount of depth to every key press. Their touchpads are incredibly smooth and responsive, as well. Unfortunately, the keyboards are still sold separately for $130, and you’ll have to shell out $160 if you want the more premium Alcantara covering. The latter is something we also saw on the Surface Laptop, and while it might seem like a mistake to put cloth right beside your keyboard, I had no problem cleaning off mild stains with a damp cloth. It’s less clear how it’ll last in the long term, though.

While Microsoft unveiled a new Pen to go alongside the Surface Pro, it’s no longer included in the box. Even worse, it’s more expensive than the last model at $100. At least you’re getting a decent upgrade for your money. It features 4,096 levels of pressure — twice as much as before — and it’s even more useful for artists, since you can tilt it to the side to shade your drawings.

The new Pen feels a bit thicker, and it attaches to the Surface Pro with a stronger magnet. It still features an anachronistic eraser button at the top, which serves as a quick way to delete your drawings, as well as a shortcut for Windows’ Sticky Notes and OneNote. But it loses the previous model’s clip, which was great for securing it to your shirt pocket. (Perhaps even Microsoft thought that was too nerdy.)

Most importantly, the revamped Pen simply feels better to use. It’s a lot more like putting pen to paper and has just the right amount of resistance. I’m not much of an artist, so I can’t speak to its illustrative capabilities. But I grew to appreciate the Pen’s smooth writing performance for jotting down quick notes. Of course, for $100, you should make sure you’ll use it for more than just that.

Performance and battery life

The Surface Pro packs in Intel’s 7th generation CPUs, which, in addition to being faster than the last model, also adds new features like hardware 4K video decoding. And, as I mentioned before, the mid-range Core i5 model is now fanless, like the entry-level Core M3 variant. Not only does that make it a bit lighter, it’s also completely silent even when it’s being stressed. That’s a pretty big deal, since that Core i5 chip is a full-fledged dual core CPU, not an underpowered processor like some other fanless designs.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Performance-wise, the Surface Pro is on-par with most other ultraportables, including the Surface Laptop. It never felt like I was settling for a lesser experience, which is more than I can say for the iPad Pro or any Android hybrid tablets. Since it runs Windows 10 Pro, you can install any Windows application, and it’ll run just just fine. It kept up with my daily workflow, which typically involves having dozens of browser tabs open, along with photo editing apps, Spotify and Evernote. Since it’s relying on integrated graphics, don’t expect to play any heavy-duty games, though.

While the Surface Pro is a bit heavier than a typical tablet, it’s still comfortable to use for reading comics and ebooks. And it does a far better job at disappearing into your bag than most ultraportables. Versatility has always been Microsoft’s goal with the Surface Line, and this is clearly the company’s most successful entry yet.

Battery life

Surface Pro 2017
13:40
Surface Laptop
14:49
LG Gram 2017
10:42
Lenovo Yoga 910
16:13
Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, no Touch Bar)
11:42
HP Spectre x360 (13-inch, 2015)
11:34
Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (15-inch)
11:00
HP Spectre x360 15t
10:17
Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, Touch Bar)
9:55
ASUS ZenBook 3
9:45
Apple MacBook (2016)
8:45
Dell XPS 2-in-1
8:34
Microsoft Surface Pro 4
7:15
HP Spectre 13
7:07
Dell XPS 15 (2016)
5:25 (7:40 with the mobile charger)

The biggest improvement this time around is in battery life. While the Pro 4 lasted for 7 hours and 15 minutes during our battery test, which put it on the low-end for ultraportables, the Surface Pro kept going for 13 hours and 40 minutes. And when it comes to more real-world usage, it typically had around 20 percent of battery life left after a full work day. Now it’s in a class of notebooks, like the MacBook Air and Surface Laptop, that I can take anywhere without worrying about carrying a charger.

Configuration options and the competition

The Surface Pro starts at $799 with a Core M3 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. These days, that’s just downright paltry. If you were going to get one, I’d suggest saving up for the $1,299 Core i5 model with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Yes, that’s a lot of money, especially when you add $100 for the Pen and another $130 (or $160!) for a keyboard. The pricing makes a bit more sense when compared directly to laptops — but laptops also come with keyboards. You can do better, Microsoft.

I’ve long argued that Microsoft should be bundling keyboards with the Surface Pros, but this year it’s taking a step even further backwards by making the Pen an additional purchase. Simply put: this is a mistake. Other companies are quickly improving their own hybrid laptop/tablet designs, like Lenovo’s Thinkpad X1 Tablet and HP’s Spectre X2, and it won’t be long before they surpass the Surface Pro in terms of features and ingenuity.

It’s possible that Microsoft isn’t being aggressive with the Surface Pro’s pricing because it wants the wider hybrid PC market to thrive. They’re all running Windows, and still an essential part of Microsoft’s ecosystem. So with the Surface, rather than aiming to crush its competitors, Microsoft has to to balance its own success with supporting other PC makers as well.

Wrap-up

With all of its improvements, the Surface Pro sits atop the heap of hybrid laptops out there. But I can’t help but feel like Microsoft missed an opportunity to show the competition how it’s done. It’s pricier than it needs to be, and it doesn’t make any design leaps over previous generations.

As it stands, the Surface Pro is a fantastic machine, but it’s not enough of an improvement for Surface Pro 4 owners to upgrade. Perhaps Microsoft was more focused on the Surface Laptop this year, but hopefully we’ll see bigger changes with the next Surface Pro.

Google will no longer scan your Gmail for ad targeting

Gmail is the de facto standard for personal email accounts, with more than more than 1.2 billion people using the free service. One criticism, however, is that Google scans your email for keywords so it can better target ads directly to you. Not anymore, though. Just like Google did away with email scanning in the G Suite enterprise version of Gmail, it will do the same for the consumer app. The new rule will go into effect later this year. Google’s Diane Greene makes it fairly clear in a blog post: “Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after this change.”

Of course, Google will still collect data from you in many other ways, including your search history, the websites you visit, videos you watch on YouTube, ads you click on, your location on Google-connected devices and more. Facebook and Apple have similar practices as well, so don’t think you’re getting away from it if you use the internet. The new Gmail data scanning policies just bring the consumer version of Gmail more in line with the rest of Google’s products and services. You can, of course, change what you allow Google to see and use at any time within your Google account.

Source: Google

China targets livestreaming in latest censorship crackdown

China just shut down livestreaming on three major media platforms — Weibo, the news site iFeng and the video website ACFUN. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television sent notices to the companies ordering them to cease all video and audio livestreaming, saying they were, “not in line with national audiovisual regulations and propagating negative speech.”

The country has a history of censoring its media platforms and this latest move isn’t terribly surprising. Combing through and removing all of the content it deems inappropriate takes a fair amount of resources and livestreaming adds a layer of difficulty to those processes. Recently, Chinese authorities have shut down celebrity gossip accounts, made VPNs illegal and began requiring app stores to register with the government. They’ve also added restrictions on internet news outlets.

This latest move has already hurt companies like Weibo — China’s version of Twitter — which rely on livestreaming to bring in revenue. After the announcement of the ban, Weibo’s shares fell over six percent, shaving nearly a $1 billion off of the company’s market capitalization. It’s not clear if the ban is permanent.

Via: Mashable

Source: Financial Times

Oliver Stone’s unhealthy treatment of hacking in Hollywood

What’s so compelling about Oliver Stone’s recent four-part interview series with Vladimir Putin is probably not what the multi-Oscar-winning director intended. It’s the same thing that makes his Snowden biopic its own sort of cipher after the fact.

Both have inadvertently, and strangely by their own design, upset the already shaky foundations of toxic hero worship in the era of hackers, hacktivism, and cyber-espionage.

Stone’s four-part documentary The Putin Interviews premiered over the past week on Showtime. Prior to its airing, the tone was set by a tense appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in which Stone repeatedly refused to say anything bad about Putin.

When Stone went into a diatribe about how Putin refuses to bad-mouth anyone despite his having been “insulted and abused,” Colbert’s audience was outright laughing at the director. Colbert acidly joked as to whether Putin had Oliver Stone’s dog in a cage somewhere.

That fiasco took a backseat to this week’s development. In the documentary series, Putin shows Stone a phone video of the Russian Air Force kicking major ass against militants in Syria. The internet, being more into fact-checking than a Hollywood director, quickly debunked the video as 2009 footage of a US strike on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Kremlin maintains that the video is from the Russian defense ministry. When asked about the veracity of the footage at a press conference, Stone dismissed and devalued the question, characterizing the issue as “blogging bullshit.”

A similar fallout happened with Stone’s film Snowden. Setting aside all the ham-fisted dialogue and painfully dramatic shorthand for both narrative structure and character development, the film also had some not-insignificant fact-checking issues. For instance, the audience is shown that Snowden is the stereotypical hacker wunderkind with several examples that turned out not to tell the real story. We found out later that he was a sysadmin, not a genius developer, and one who only passed the NSA’s famously brutal hacker test because he got his hands on a copy of the answers.

None of this is to dismiss the power and epic explorations of films like Stone’s Platoon, Natural Born Killers, or Born on the Fourth of July. Nor is it to undermine the conversation started by Snowden’s stolen files. Though I think it’s time to argue that the kind of blind hero worship we’re seeing in Stone’s recent work typifies how conversations about hacking, surveillance, and human rights are being done a damaging disservice.

Both works are beyond sympathetic to their subjects; they pose as documentary, but instead are interpretations of reality. The main character in each is being portrayed faultlessly. Snowden is a hero who had no choice but to do the moral thing; Stone has been up front that his goal with the interview series it to exonerate Putin from what the director sees as misplaced anger about Trump. (Adamantly refusing to believe anything about Russian cyber-espionage and the election, Stone in January labeled it all hysteria writing, “I never thought I’d find myself praying for the level-headedness of a Donald Trump.”)

Until the end of May, Putin’s soundbite on Russian election hacking and interference was that it was all BS — until he made public statements suggesting a maybe-they-did scenario in which he told press that perhaps “patriotic” Russian hackers had done the dirty in supporting Trump with hacks and various manipulations last year.

For anyone who gives a shit, which ostensibly a documentary director does, this means that there’s no ground to take Putin at his word on the topic. But you wouldn’t know that by watching Stone’s documentary.

…The end result isn’t charming or heroic, or even very accurate. It’s not even a good story.

The thing about belief in Hollywood and blurred lines in pseudo-docu films is that it has a tendency to leave people thinking that what they’re watching is vetted, fact-checked, and a matter of record. That when Putin tells a very sympathetic Stone the same lines he’s been feeding access journalists like Megyn Kelley, there must be credibility established somewhere. That the Russian president cracking sexist and homophobic jokes is somehow not the same one whose country is right now rounding up gay people to torture and kill in concentration camps.

Or in Snowden’s flattering depiction, that state surveillance is little more than something that threatens to reveal our embarrassing sexual indiscretions — as if there wasn’t nearly two decades in place of people trying to call attention to domestic state surveillance abuses. Or maybe showing why the minimizing of “surveillance harms,” by those who stand to benefit from its power, from law enforcement to corporations, leads to very real set of harms that become virtual border walls and involuntary facial recognition registries

By no one questioning what a Hollywood director wanted to believe about Snowden or the context around his actual story, the end result isn’t charming or heroic, or even very accurate. It’s not even a good story.

To those of us in the know of infosec and hacking, who have quietly watched all this from the inside, there’s a far more interesting story to be told about Snowden. And it echoes Stone’s own Achilles’ heel — would anyone dare to criticize a hero like Snowden whose own problematic hero worship could explore the very questions Stone only pretends to ask of his subjects?

Hacking culture — especially its activist arms — is equally to blame for films like Snowden. Maybe Stone’s gullible and believes all the hype, or maybe he was just aping the more popular cyber-activist sycophants. Perhaps Oliver Stone simply channeled the black and white thinking of “all US government bad” and the poisonous hero worship that’s rampant in the limelight-chasing, class-conscious circles of pop culture infosec. Sound familiar? The same thread seems to run through Putin’s talking points, too. There’s no conspiracy, but for someone like Stone, it all lines up.

And as we’ve seen with almost everything coming out of Hollywood about hacking, hacktivism, and infosec in the past five years, it lacks the ability to criticize its subjects. Which is something the topic — and the people headlining on the infosec / hacktivism stages — need more than ever. Trust me: Uncritical hero worship is the very last thing anyone needs in this realm right now. Same goes for world leaders.

In the hacked Sony emails, George Clooney wisely remarked on learning of Oliver Stone winning the race to tell Snowden’s story that it would be a “hatchet job” but it would be the one everyone remembers.

The inadvertent cipher of Stone’s folly — or gullibility — becomes an undressing of how history is permanently disfigured.

Sadly it’s not an unusual narrative for Stone anymore, who has more recently tended to like conspiracy theories spun from megalomaniacal oracles over his prior affection, which was telling challenging stories about morally conflicting antiheroes.

Take for example the Stone film that forced pop culture into a sharp left turn in the early 1990s: Natural Born Killers. That film amplified our collective compulsion to be attracted to serial killers through charismatic psychopaths acid tripping hard on their own fame. It showed that Stone’s films can grab us by the ID, leave marks, and leave us asking Sir politely for more.

Except now, chasing his champions in cyber-espionage on the world stage likely won’t go down in history as the letters-of-record Stone seems to be gunning for.

Instead, it may go down in history as expensively produced propaganda.

Images: Photo by Gisela Schober/Getty Images (Snowden, Joseph Gordon-Levitt); Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images (Oliver Stone)