The Guardian reported on Samsung TVs appearing less energy efficient in real life than in tests.
Independent lab tests have found that some Samsung TVs in Europe appear to use less energy during official testing conditions than they do during real-world use, raising questions about whether they are set up to game energy efficiency tests.
Computing reported on Google ‘Customer Match’.
Google is close to rolling out a tool named “Customer Match” which, it appears, will combine a logged-in Google account with any email address handed by a customer to a retailer to create lists of addresses to target specific users with marketing material.
The search giant can sit comfortably with this arrangement, as the lists of emails are anonymised through the service, meaning Google keeps hold of the specific details and the retailer doesn’t get them, but can use them to blind dump advertising into Google-based sessions in services such as YouTube, Gmail or basic search functions on the Google homepage.
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It appears Customer Match is another response from Google to dwindling display advertising revenue, as companies attempt to find new ways to push adverts to users without depending on simple clicks of randomised ad banners.
While Apple is pushing for greater privacy by not tracking you, Google goes the opposite way.
Kyle Wiens wrote about why the iFixit app was pulled from the App Store.
Not too long ago, we tore down the Apple TV and Siri Remote. The developer unit we disassembled was sent to us by Apple. Evidently, they didn’t intend for us to take it apart. But we’re a teardown and repair company; teardowns are in our DNA—and nothing makes us happier than figuring out what makes these gadgets tick. We weighed the risks, blithely tossed those risks over our shoulder, and tore down the Apple TV anyway.
The device was provided to developers for them to create apps, not to tear it down show it to the public weeks before the product is launched. They probably should read the non-disclosure agreement again.
People who are whining about Apple pulling the app as a punishment for the violation of a device NDA have comprehension problems. The developer account was banned for violating the NDA, and since the app is tied to that account, it was subsequently removed from the App Store. So put down those pitchforks and stop yelling about unfair punishment and censorship.
It is disappointing to see iFixit behave so recklessly and, instead of realising their mistake, they continue to thump their chests in defiance.
CEO John Chen fumbling through the product and making vague remarks on a product he should be very familiar with. And “obviously it runs Google”.
Jeff Atwood wrote about The state of Javascript on Android in 2015.
It seems the Android manufacturers are more interested in slapping n slow CPU cores on a die than they are in producing very fast CPU cores. And this is quite punishing when it comes to JavaScript.
This is becoming more and more of a systemic problem in the Android ecosystem, one that will not go away in the next few years, and it may affect the future of Discourse, since we bet heavily on near-desktop JavaScript performance on mobile devices. That is clearly happening on iOS but it is quite disastrously the opposite on Android.
The iPhone 5S from two generations ago outperforms the latest Samsung Galaxy devices.
MG Sigler wrote about Live Photos.
It’s no accident that people with children immediately realize the value in this feature. With each passing day they see their children growing up in front of their eyes in ways that those of us without children can’t quite comprehend. To you and I, time passes slowly and people age slowly. Children morph from day to day. And so having a live look-back at your child even a few days removed is immensely valuable and meaningful.
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Yes, anyone could just take a video of their loved ones and it would be an actual live look back into their lives. But most people aren’t very good at taking video. They take footage that’s way too long. Or it’s staged. Or they miss things. With Live Photos, Apple figured out a rather ingenious solution to all of those things in a nice, tight picture package. It’s brilliant.