Category: Linkblog

Matt Burns on TechCrunch about Android 5.0 possibly launching in fall of 2012:

Speaking to Computerworld, Hiroshi Lockheimer, vice president of engineering for mobile at Google, suggested Android 5.0 will launch in the fall. He stated “In general, the Android release cadence is one major release a year with some maintenance releases that are substantial still.” Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, launched in November 2011 and it seems that Google is set to release the next version around the same time this year. Fragmentation much?

Eva Galperin for the EFF:

On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google’s other products. This protection was especially important because search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more. If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.

Requires just a few simple steps to remove the search history. Just in case you were living under a rock for the past few weeks.

Rich Mogull taking a closer look into Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper:

As you can tell from my TidBITS review of Gatekeeper, I think this is an important advancement in consumer security. There are a lot of in-depth technical aspects that didn’t fit in that article, so here’s an additional Q&A for those of you with a security background who care about these sorts of things. I’m skipping the content from the TidBITS article, so you might want to read that first.

Good tip, have a look at the TidBITS article about Gatekeeper.

Kevin Fox, former User Experience Design Lead at Google, about Google’s recent UX decisions:

Chrome’s new-tab button losing the plus? Doesn’t feel right to me, but data could easily prove me wrong.
Gmail’s new flat conversation view? I’m pretty sure it’s not as friendly for new users struggling with threaded conversations for the first time, but maybe I’m an old fogey.
Clicks on logos no longer taking you to the top page of that site and/or refreshing content? That’s just batshit crazy.

There’s a bigger discussion going on about it on Google+, trying to explain some of the decisions. Be sure to check it out.

Is it just me or is the application from within the new Google Search actually better than that buggy Gmail app Google re-released some days ago? (Yes, I know it’s just the website.)

I got the feeling they could turn this whole Google Search app into a fully fledged browser. If they’d use the actual Chrome engine, aka. not that Android crap thing, it might actually be used by some people.

Acer’s EMEA president Walter Deppeler about Googorola (English):

We’ll have to wait and see if that deal doesn’t turn out as a gift for Microsoft.

He’s apparently worried about the possibility that Motorola might get priority handling when it comes to Android updates. Remember: Don’t be evil.

John Lilly

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got, back when I was 23 and newly out of school, is this: look around and figure out who you want to be on your team. Figure out the people around you that you want to work with for the rest of your life. Figure out the people who are smart & awesome, who share your values, who get things done — and maybe most important, who you like to be with and who you want to help win. And treat them right, always. Look for ways to help, to work together, to learn. Because in 20 years you’ll all be in amazing places doing amazing things.