Technology Android

[dilla]

Yeah, I don't really get that. I can see some places using the old school card machines, but even getting a NFC/Paypass add-on costs literally 59$ for any retailer: https://squareup.com/ca/contactless-chip-reader

A retail store spends 59$ once and is suddenly able to service everyone using cardless transactions. Not getting that is bonkers to me even from the pure business perspective.

Having overcomplicated payment apps is also crazy. It's enough to just see how others are doing it, and doing something similar. Digital IDs are super convenient - you can have a physical card, but also a system accepting digital IDs. It really works well, if anyone needs to keep your ID (if that's legal in the states) there's an option to transfer its basic info through NFC in a secure system, through a government app, which is also more secure than giving someone your whole ID card.

Same with papers - e-documents are really as good as printed papers for all intents and purposes. Most businesses use scans anyway, which also come with the big detriment of not being easily search-able and having to store the original papers somewhere. Digital documents are simply better, not only greener. They can be signed across the world within seconds with digital signatures, no need for storage space, and they can be easily found in the system repository's search function that also works for their contents.

It just bugs me when we have the means to do cool things but we choose not to.

Oh and by the way.. my Canadian bank still doesn't work with Google/Android/Apple pay, not to mention me having a debit card I can't buy stuff online with Apparently I would have to get a credit card for the online shopping part (no Google/Android/Apple pay either) but being European, I REALLY don't want a credit card. Then apparently credit score is a thing here too, which I wouldn't build without one. That's sort of upside down from the European system, as having a credit card there lowers your chance to get the desired mortgage, showing that you can't live on what you make.
I don't mean to criticize on the system here so much, as I really like it in Canada, but some things are just really crazy to me and make me wonder why nobody's changed it yet.

I'm sure other countries have immigration problems but I think the US would be the last place to see the switch to digital IDs. I feel like it would easy to counterfeit on a phone and that's a big fear for some people here that are worried about illegal/undocumented immigrants. But I don't know the political and security scene like that, so this is just a hunch.

As for your Canadian bank, you can't shop online at all with a debit card? Is it a bank-specific policy or does it have something to do with you not being Canadian as yet? That's such an odd policy. I do all my online shopping with my debit card and I couldn't imagine having that restriction on me.

 

[ARon]

This reminds me, we haven't had an update on what sources we use for tech/Android news.

I made a Twitter list of a lot of tech blogs but I realized I never manually go and check that list. Compared to the lists I made for the news and car news, which I check multiple times daily.

I get most of my news from the Android subreddit and it looks like I don't miss a whole lot of news as far as hyped phones and flagships. The smaller, mid-range phones I never paid attention to to begin with.

But I saw those leaked screen covers as well but just glanced at the pics and that was it. Didn't read the comments about it. Even the biggest Google/Nexus phone Stans will be upset about something when it's revealed so I'll just wait until there's more info on it and decide on it.

BTW, my friend upgraded from an S5 to an S9 last weekend. He lives across the country so I'll have to ask him how he's liking it. Get that Samsung Pay referral too

I get all my info from reddit too.
S5 to S9 is quite the jump. That'd actually feel like a new phone. I feel like most people only wait 2 generations before switching and with that it's not that different

 

[dilla]

I get all my info from reddit too.
S5 to S9 is quite the jump. That'd actually feel like a new phone. I feel like most people only wait 2 generations before switching and with that it's not that different

Yeah, two generations is roughly two years which is what the standard length of a contract was in the US, before they were all taken away.

I guess they're still there with the "monthly installment" or "lease" plans, but you're only bound to the phone and not the carrier if you pay off the phone at once.

 

[masta247]

I'm sure other countries have immigration problems but I think the US would be the last place to see the switch to digital IDs. I feel like it would easy to counterfeit on a phone and that's a big fear for some people here that are worried about illegal/undocumented immigrants. But I don't know the political and security scene like that, so this is just a hunch.

As for your Canadian bank, you can't shop online at all with a debit card? Is it a bank-specific policy or does it have something to do with you not being Canadian as yet? That's such an odd policy. I do all my online shopping with my debit card and I couldn't imagine having that restriction on me.

The digital ID is on an app, with a unique ID and security. It's nothing like just a photo of an ID or anything. They scan the ID with the government app, which has a validator. The app can tell whether the other ID's identification numbers and some additional security codes (which are hidden) are genuine. The app itself is encrypted and it has not been breached in any of the countries that implemented them yet, as opposed to physical cards that are easy to make into a fake id and can't be validated on the spot. I believe a given ID can only be active on one device at a time too.

As for the debit card, banks here issue MasterCard debit, which comes without the 3-digit CVV number that you need for online/distance shopping. Only credit cards and Visa debit have them, but the Visa debit card is only provided by a few rare banks as an additional option, and it is not as widely accepted due to it operating on its own, less-supported network here in Canada. Basically, Canada is run on Mastercard which has a online-ready credit card, but their debit card is just for ATMs and shopping. It's rather ridiculous, the banking system here is quite horrible too! I just use my European debit cards for online shopping.

 

[dilla]

The digital ID is on an app, with a unique ID and security. It's nothing like just a photo of an ID or anything. They scan the ID with the government app, which has a validator. The app can tell whether the other ID's identification numbers and some additional security codes (which are hidden) are genuine. The app itself is encrypted and it has not been breached in any of the countries that implemented them yet, as opposed to physical cards that are easy to make into a fake id and can't be validated on the spot. I believe a given ID can only be active on one device at a time too.

As for the debit card, banks here issue MasterCard debit, which comes without the 3-digit CVV number that you need for online/distance shopping. Only credit cards and Visa debit have them, but the Visa debit card is only provided by a few rare banks as an additional option, and it is not as widely accepted due to it operating on its own, less-supported network here in Canada. Basically, Canada is run on Mastercard which has a online-ready credit card, but their debit card is just for ATMs and shopping. It's rather ridiculous, the banking system here is quite horrible too! I just use my European debit cards for online shopping.

That is so weird. I never have to think about what type of card is accepted, MC or Visa or whatever. My parents have an AmEx card for the business and the only place I can think of that it isn't accepted that we shop at is Costco. That's a big one, but that is also somewhat recent. MC, Visa, AmEx, and even Discover is pretty much accepted at any medium-sized location and up.

 

[masta247]

That is so weird. I never have to think about what type of card is accepted, MC or Visa or whatever. My parents have an AmEx card for the business and the only place I can think of that it isn't accepted that we shop at is Costco. That's a big one, but that is also somewhat recent. MC, Visa, AmEx, and even Discover is pretty much accepted at any medium-sized location and up.

Here it's Mastercard, Visa is a little risky at times (due to it being less popular and running on two different networks) and AmEx is rare - when someone accepts it, they usually brag about it. Canada has its own system for funds processing called Interac, and I believe that might be the problem - I think the Mastercard cards here use it exclusively, while Visa falls back to it while using its own global network as its primary choice, which is more sketchy here due to Interac being the leading one. The most retarded thing though is that Mastercard debit comes with no CVV for online purchases.

I feel like Canada is kind of like the US in terms of the systems they use, except slightly more limited - there is somewhat less choice, especially in banking and telecom. Well, at least they use the metric system.. except when the old folk speak I need to convert stuff, as they all still measure stuff in miles, feet and inches.

 

[dilla]

Here it's Mastercard, Visa is a little risky at times (due to it being less popular and running on two different networks) and AmEx is rare - when someone accepts it, they usually brag about it. Canada has its own system for funds processing called Interac, and I believe that might be the problem - I think the Mastercard cards here use it exclusively, while Visa falls back to it while using its own global network as its primary choice, which is more sketchy here due to Interac being the leading one. The most retarded thing though is that Mastercard debit comes with no CVV for online purchases.

I feel like Canada is kind of like the US in terms of the systems they use, except slightly more limited - there is somewhat less choice, especially in banking and telecom. Well, at least they use the metric system.. except when the old folk speak I need to convert stuff, as they all still measure stuff in miles, feet and inches.

Yeah, I can see Canada being worse on some things. They basically are the US, but with a small population so they things they do well is usually because of that smaller population. And if something is done poorly, like widespread use of different card services, it's probably because there's not enough people. Gift and a curse.

I can't speak for all Americans but I don't think the card services issue is really a big one for most people. But I think Americans typically have a lot of credit cards, too, so that might help them diversify what they use. My parents have a personal MC, a business MC which isn't used that often, and a business AmEx card which is used pretty often. They've given me a MC but I don't use it as often the past few years. And I use a Visa debit card for all my purchases.

So I carry a MC and a Visa but my parents carry 2 MCs and an AmEx. They might still have their Discover card from a few years back but that seriously hasn't been used in 5+ years, if it's still active at all.

I think most US families are like this, albeit for different reasons, and have several cards between Mc and Visa, so they have a choice of which one to use, and because so many people have various different cards, merchants probably just accept all of them because they're so common.

I thought the chips in the cards would ruin Samsung Pay, but all our cards have chips, save for the AmEx, and SP works just fine and often doesn't even require a signature. One big Chicagoland grocery store just straight up stopped asking for signatures and it surprised people when they made a $100+ purchase on groceries and didn't have to sign. Previously, it was $50+ required a signature, but now it's no signature at all.

So I don't know what companies in the US are hoping to do in regards to payment options. Apple and Google Pay are usually accepted together at places that have NFC modules, but those are still not as commonplace as it might be in Europe or Asia. They're taking away signatures and are going full force with the chips in the cards. Which actually slows down the checkout process in stores because you have to insert the card in and wait from 3-15 seconds, depending on the place. That can't be better than mobile payments. At all.

 

[masta247]

Apparently, ARM just announced their next big thing:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12785/arm-cortex-a76-cpu-unveiled-7nm-powerhouse
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cortex-76-high-laptop-performance,37158.html

That is the biggest YoY gain for ARM yet in terms of performance and brings their new core's performance per clock within 10% of Intel's Skylake/Kaby Lake/Coffee Lake for simple processing tasks. While it will be clocked lower, at ~3Ghz, it will apparently use half the power of Intel's cores at the same frequency, and a third of the area. I find it very interesting how ARM manages to pump out 20-35% performance improvements every year, while Intel barely manages 3-4% every few years. At this pace, we might indeed really start seeing ARM cores outperform Intel cores, and it is also VERY interesting as ARM went on about how it would be perfect for laptops, and they seem to be serious about it this time.

Regardless of how this develops for laptops, this chip is mobile first, with a smartphone power envelope in mind. Its 35% performance improvement over last year and double the performance compared to 3 year old chips, while maintaining 40% higher power efficiency, is really great. We will probably see this in next year's flagships.

 

[dilla]

Apparently, ARM just announced their next big thing:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12785/arm-cortex-a76-cpu-unveiled-7nm-powerhouse
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cortex-76-high-laptop-performance,37158.html

That is the biggest YoY gain for ARM yet in terms of performance and brings their new core's performance per clock within 10% of Intel's Skylake/Kaby Lake/Coffee Lake for simple processing tasks. While it will be clocked lower, at ~3Ghz, it will apparently use half the power of Intel's cores at the same frequency, and a third of the area. I find it very interesting how ARM manages to pump out 20-35% performance improvements every year, while Intel barely manages 3-4% every few years. At this pace, we might indeed really start seeing ARM cores outperform Intel cores, and it is also VERY interesting as ARM went on about how it would be perfect for laptops, and they seem to be serious about it this time.

Regardless of how this develops for laptops, this chip is mobile first, with a smartphone power envelope in mind. Its 35% performance improvement over last year and double the performance compared to 3 year old chips, while maintaining 40% higher power efficiency, is really great. We will probably see this in next year's flagships.

I know the rumors have been there for well over a decade that Apple would start using ARM In their Macs. And now there are new rumors that the MacBook or the MacBook air could see them in the next year or so. It’s already used in the pro models for the Touch Bar.

 

[ARon]

I sold my Bose QC 35's to some guy on Craigslist and he went to test the aux it comes with and his iPhone didn't have it of course, gave me a chuckle. Afterwards I felt bad because I'm pretty sure my next phone won't have one either

 

[ARon]

Apparently, ARM just announced their next big thing:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12785/arm-cortex-a76-cpu-unveiled-7nm-powerhouse
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cortex-76-high-laptop-performance,37158.html

That is the biggest YoY gain for ARM yet in terms of performance and brings their new core's performance per clock within 10% of Intel's Skylake/Kaby Lake/Coffee Lake for simple processing tasks. While it will be clocked lower, at ~3Ghz, it will apparently use half the power of Intel's cores at the same frequency, and a third of the area. I find it very interesting how ARM manages to pump out 20-35% performance improvements every year, while Intel barely manages 3-4% every few years. At this pace, we might indeed really start seeing ARM cores outperform Intel cores, and it is also VERY interesting as ARM went on about how it would be perfect for laptops, and they seem to be serious about it this time.

Regardless of how this develops for laptops, this chip is mobile first, with a smartphone power envelope in mind. Its 35% performance improvement over last year and double the performance compared to 3 year old chips, while maintaining 40% higher power efficiency, is really great. We will probably see this in next year's flagships.

I'll continue to root for Intel's competition, it's good for the consumer even if Intel has that sector on lock

 

[masta247]

I'll continue to root for Intel's competition, it's good for the consumer even if Intel has that sector on lock

So far the biggest competitor to Intel is still AMD. For new processor sales, AMD now has 40% of the market share. In Europe most CPUs sold at the moment are AMD thanks to Ryzen, and now Ryzen 2. Next year AMD will have a Zen 2 core on 7nm on the market, which should tilt the scale even further. It's a well-deserved gain in market share, as Intel hadn't done a thing, so now they have competition doing right things instead, and with much less money. You'd expect Intel at least kept something up their sleeve for such times, but nope. They are also still on a 5-year-old 14nm process node.

 

[dilla]

https://www.droid-life.com/2018/06/06/samsung-is-failing-to-update-the-galaxy-s9-and-s9-in-the-us/

I hats that the alternative is to buy a featureless Pixel Phone to get updates.

 

[masta247]

https://www.droid-life.com/2018/06/06/samsung-is-failing-to-update-the-galaxy-s9-and-s9-in-the-us/

I hats that the alternative is to buy a featureless Pixel Phone to get updates.

I think updates at this point are really much less important if the phone runs well on its current software. The S9 will still be supported for at least the next 2 years, even if the updates are late, just as usual in the Android world. In this regard I really do have major respect for Apple - my 5-year-old iPad Air will get updated to the newest iOS, which is insane. Arguably, the last iOS ruined the experience on it, so I hope iOS 12 fixes that, but still, I will have the up-to-date, newest OS after over 5 years, immediately after launch. That made me grow new-found respect for how Apple treats their mobile devices, as opposed to the Android ecosystem.

I'm sort of still considering the S9, mainly because my S6 is quite old at this point, and I don't know if it'll survive for another 10 months, which is when the next Galaxy probably hits the stores, but I would like to upgrade to something more meaningful. I'm used to hopping on more revolutionary phones, but the last phone I had that felt like it was the S4, with the S6 being something half-way there. The S8 or S9 just feel like too small of an upgrade, yet there's nothing better. The S4 was over twice as fast as the S3. The S9, after 3 generations, is only 40-50% faster than the S6. With how the S6 performs, only 40% more than that just doesn't feel like enough performance for a brand new flagship.

 

[dilla]

I think updates at this point are really much less important if the phone runs well on its current software. The S9 will still be supported for at least the next 2 years, even if the updates are late, just as usual in the Android world. In this regard I really do have major respect for Apple - my 5-year-old iPad Air will get updated to the newest iOS, which is insane. Arguably, the last iOS ruined the experience on it, so I hope iOS 12 fixes that, but still, I will have the up-to-date, newest OS after over 5 years, immediately after launch. That made me grow new-found respect for how Apple treats their mobile devices, as opposed to the Android ecosystem.

I'm sort of still considering the S9, mainly because my S6 is quite old at this point, and I don't know if it'll survive for another 10 months, which is when the next Galaxy probably hits the stores, but I would like to upgrade to something more meaningful. I'm used to hopping on more revolutionary phones, but the last phone I had that felt like it was the S4, with the S6 being something half-way there. The S8 or S9 just feel like too small of an upgrade, yet there's nothing better. The S4 was over twice as fast as the S3. The S9, after 3 generations, is only 40-50% faster than the S6. With how the S6 performs, only 40% more than that just doesn't feel like enough performance for a brand new flagship.

Yeah, there needs to be a big feature breakthrough that is hardware-limited to more modern phones to get me to upgrade from my S7. A mildly better screen or camera isn't going to make me make the jump. Same with minor boosts in the chipset performance either.

There's nothing I know about Oreo that makes me want to upgrade ASAP, but not everyone is like me and those with Samsung devices, flagship devices barely two years old, deserve to have the latest OS and security updates.

This is the consequence of having Samsung=Android to most people and having Samsung have a chokehold on device updates. Really, it's the carriers, at least in the US, but Samsung still has enough influence to not warrant the competition to step up to them and challenge them on their weaknesses. LG is bootlooping itself out of the phone game, I haven't heard Moto making a new flagship and instead seems to be making solid mid-tier phones, and HTC is just straight up gone now.

With what little I know about VoLTE, I think I've read that once all major US carriers go to VoLTE, it should expand the base of phones Us folks are able to use on their networks. They would just need to verify LTE band compatibility and not have to worry about the voice bands that are so different from the rest of the world. That might make bringing in phones not normally sold in the US to US carriers without worrying about compatibility.

I think VZW is ahead of everyone else here in the US for VoLTE but I know even Sprint is making strides to eventually get there.

 

[masta247]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-processors-lazyfp-speculative-execution,37302.html

Only 2 out of 8 spectre variants went public and were ghetto-patched so far. So far each of the patches has slowed down the Intel CPUs. Skylake at this point was degraded to below pre-patched Sandy Bridge performance per clock. Yet most patches were not even applied yet, and most bugs were not yet announced due to Intel's pleads for time to patch them before that happens.

I'm surprised it's only popped up now, considering those vulnerabilities have been there since 2011, and I wonder when will Intel finally release a more secure architecture that actually isn't vulnerable to those things, as Coffee Lake is still just Sandy Bridge with tweaks and toothpaste as a coolant, instead of liquid metal.

 

[dilla]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-processors-lazyfp-speculative-execution,37302.html

Only 2 out of 8 spectre variants went public and were ghetto-patched so far. So far each of the patches has slowed down the Intel CPUs. Skylake at this point was degraded to below pre-patched Sandy Bridge performance per clock. Yet most patches were not even applied yet, and most bugs were not yet announced due to Intel's pleads for time to patch them before that happens.

I'm surprised it's only popped up now, considering those vulnerabilities have been there since 2011, and I wonder when will Intel finally release a more secure architecture that actually isn't vulnerable to those things, as Coffee Lake is still just Sandy Bridge with tweaks and toothpaste as a coolant, instead of liquid metal.

I bet the issues are fully fixed by the time it’s time for me to upgrade my current laptop in a few year. No one care or even knows. People don’t pay attention to this shit unless it pops up on Facebook news feeds.

That VPNFilter malware on routers? Turns out a few more models were quietly added to the list in recent weeks. Including the Linksys E4200 model, which is what we use at home right now.

One many other people using new models added to the updated list know this? They probably tune out after their model didn’t appear on the original list almost two months ago.

But in my experience, fewer people I know are buying new laptops. Most still have their machines from around 2013 or 2014 and use their phones for browsing. If they have to use a computer, it is usually the one provided to them at work. Or their job employers supply an iPad or tablet of some sort to use on the go. So their companies might be worried about the Intel exploit on their machine but for personal use, it seem like the devices used are all using mobile processors anyway.

 

[masta247]

I bet the issues are fully fixed by the time it’s time for me to upgrade my current laptop in a few year. No one care or even knows. People don’t pay attention to this shit unless it pops up on Facebook news feeds.

That VPNFilter malware on routers? Turns out a few more models were quietly added to the list in recent weeks. Including the Linksys E4200 model, which is what we use at home right now.

One many other people using new models added to the updated list know this? They probably tune out after their model didn’t appear on the original list almost two months ago.

But in my experience, fewer people I know are buying new laptops. Most still have their machines from around 2013 or 2014 and use their phones for browsing. If they have to use a computer, it is usually the one provided to them at work. Or their job employers supply an iPad or tablet of some sort to use on the go. So their companies might be worried about the Intel exploit on their machine but for personal use, it seem like the devices used are all using mobile processors anyway.

I think that depends on the industry, as the tech clients are enough of whistleblowers, and that's also where big money is for the chip makers. The regular customers who don't pay attention are bringing those onto themselves. The router vulnerability is really severe too.

 

[k69atie]

Anyone heard of a Doogee?

Just got one as a work phone - android based

 

[Casey]

Anyone heard of a Doogee?

Just got one as a work phone - android based

One of my co-workers has an insane Doogee phone with like an 8000mAH battery or something nuts like that. It's pretty thick, but it literally goes 4 full days without needing a charge.