Oracle has released Java 20, the latest Feature Release on the company’s six-month update cycle.
Java 20 is not a a long-term support (LTS) release, so it will only provide updates until version 21 comes out in six months. Nonetheless, this version provides a number of bug fixes and improvements.
“Instead of making tens of thousands of fixes and delivering close to one hundred JEPs (JDK Enhancement Proposals) every few years, as we did with yesteryear Major Releases, enhancements are delivered in leaner Feature Releases on a more manageable, predictable, six-month schedule,” writes Sharat Chander Director, Java SE Product Management. “The changes range from significant new features to small enhancements to routine maintenance, bug fixes, and documentation improvements. Each change is represented in a single commit for a single issue in the JDK Bug System.
“Of the 21,604 JIRA issues marked as fixed in Java 11 through Java 20 at the time of their GA, 15,420 were completed by people working for Oracle while 6,184 were contributed by individual developers and developers working for other organizations.”
Java 20 also includes a number of significant new features and improvements, including:
(D)TLS Key Exchange Named Groups
Add GarbageCollectorMXBean for Remark and Cleanup Pause Time in G1
Unicode 15.0 Support
Improved Control of G1 Concurrent Refinement Threads
Microsoft is going to make it much easier for users to change their default apps, adopting a “principled approach.”
Microsoft’s latest versions of Windows have disappointed and angered users by making it unnecessarily difficult to change the default web browser and other apps. In fact, when Windows 11 first dropped, changing the default browser required changing the default handler for each and every file type web browsers normally handle.
While Microsoft eventually changed its stance and made it easier to change the default web browser, the company is taking it a step further.
“Today we’re reaffirming our long-standing approach to put people in control of their Windows PC experience and to empower developers to take advantage of our open platform,” write Tali Roth & Aaron Grady.
“We want to ensure that people are in control of what gets pinned to their Desktop, their Start menu and their Taskbar as well as to be able to control their default applications such as their default browser through consistent, clear and trustworthy Windows provided system dialogs and settings.”
The company is adding a new option in the Settings app that will allow users to set their preferred apps.
Microsoft App Preference Settings – Credit Microsoft
“For defaults, we will soon introduce a new Settings deep link URI for applications to take their users directly to the appropriate location in Settings for the user to change their defaults,” Roth and Grady add. “This is an extension to our existing ms-settings: URI scheme. Learn more about ms-settings: URI schemes.”
It’s nice to see Microsoft listening to user feedback and making it easier for people to use the apps of their choice.
Microsoft may launch a mobile game store next year in one of its most ambitious attempts to take on Apple and Google.
In an interview with Financial Times, via CNET, CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer said the decision is contingent on the company’s Activision Blizzard acquisition being approved.
“We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” Spencer told said. “Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices but we want to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up.”
Microsoft plans appear to line up with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) that will require Apple and Google to allow third-party app stores on their platforms. Once the legislation goes into effect in March 2024, Microsoft will be able to compete on far more level ground.
Gizmodo got a hold of a copy of the survey, and the questions include asking what features people value and what features would convince them to try a new web browser. AI integration is one of the feature choices.
While the web browser market is fairly crowded, it’s dominated by Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari. Firefox brings up a distant third, with everything else fighting for scraps.
Amazon has the brand-name recognition and integration with established services to possibly be the most disruptive entry since Google Chrome.
Users relying on Samsung’s Max VPN should look for other options to keep their data private and safe.
Samsung includes and/or promotes its Max VPN service on its phones. As sharp-eyed Reddit user soboi12345 has pointed out, however, users’ data is not at all private when using Samsung’s VPN. In fact, the company collects unique identifying data and sells it to third parties.
The company describes its practices in its Max Service Description and Privacy Policy:
The Max Service app may log how you use your device, including unique identifiers, information about the software you’ve installed, device characteristics, information about your location and mobile carrier, the type of network you use to access web content, how much data you use, and the URLs you visit. We use this data to debug the Max Service app and to improve the user experience. We anonymize and/or aggregate this data and may allow our business partners access to it.
To be clear, Samsung’s VPN is collecting unique identifiers, location data, the apps users have installed, and the websites they visit — and then selling that data rather than protecting users’ privacy.
This is an appalling breach of trust for any VPN provider, especially since many VPN users are specifically looking to avoid exactly the kind of data collection Samsung is engaging in.
Samsung’s behavior is even more egregious when considering that the company called out people’s data being used as a commodity when it launched Max VPN:
“All over the world, data has become a commodity, but many plans are simply still too expensive for consumers that want to get the most out of the latest technology built into their devices,” said Seounghoon Oh, Vice President Samsung R&D Institute India, at the time. “With Samsung Max, our users in every corner of the globe now have increased autonomy and control over their data usage and privacy in an era of rising security threats, fraudulent apps and user profiling.”
With such a strong statement, Samsung’s users could be forgiven for thinking the company would actually protect their privacy and not use their data as “a commodity.”
As we have stated on WPN, and as The New York Times Wirecutter has recommended, Mullvad is the best VPN for users that truly care about their privacy. The company has a zero-logs policy and doesn’t save identifying information. In fact, users are given a random numeric account number for login purposes rather than using an email address or username.
The company has also had extensive third-party security audits, is transparent about its ownership, has a clear privacy policy, good performance, and is reasonably priced.
Jay from the Learn Linux TV YouTube channel has released an Ubuntu-based distro built around Flatpaks.
Flatpaks and Snaps are two universal packaging formats for Linux, giving developers the ability to build an app that can be run on any distro that has Flatpak support. The format accomplishes this by bundling all necessary dependencies within the package, although Flatpaks can share dependencies between them.
As the maker of the far less popular Snap format and the Ubuntu distro, Canonical recently made the decision to prohibit official Ubuntu flavors from shipping with Flatpak installed and enabled out of the box. Despite the decision, Ubuntu is still a solid distro, one with wide hardware and app support.
Jay has taken Ubuntu and replaced Snap with Flatpak while leaving everything else that makes Ubuntu the world’s leading Linux distro:
The Flatpak Remix of Ubuntu features the awesome GNOME desktop, with Canonical’s attention to detail – unchanged from the standard release.
While the standard release of Ubuntu features support for Snap Packages built-in, with this distribution the focus is on Flatpak instead.
Google has discovered 0-day vulnerabilities in Samsung’s Exynos modems that impact the most recent Pixel and Samsung devices.
Samsung’s Exynos modem chipsets are used in a variety of devices, including Google’s Pixel 6 and 7 line, as well as a wide range of Samsung’s devices. Unfortunately, Google’s Project Zero has discovered 18 0-day vulnerabilities in the chipset, four which can be executed remotely with no user interaction.
Tests conducted by Project Zero confirm that those four vulnerabilities allow an attacker to remotely compromise a phone at the baseband level with no user interaction, and require only that the attacker know the victim’s phone number. With limited additional research and development, we believe that skilled attackers would be able to quickly create an operational exploit to compromise affected devices silently and remotely.
While still serious, the remaining 14 vulnerabilities are not as severe, since they require physical access to the device or a malicious network operator.
Google recommends turning off Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE on all impacted devices, including the list below:
Mobile devices from Samsung, including those in the S22, M33, M13, M12, A71, A53, A33, A21, A13, A12 and A04 series;
Mobile devices from Vivo, including those in the S16, S15, S6, X70, X60 and X30 series;
The Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series of devices from Google;
any wearables that use the Exynos W920 chipset; and
any vehicles that use the Exynos Auto T5123 chipset.
Google says patches should be issued to address the vulnerabilities permanently, with the March 2023 update for Pixels already including at least one fix:
We expect that patch timelines will vary per manufacturer (for example, affected Pixel devices have already received a fix for CVE-2023-24033 in the March 2023 security update). In the meantime, users with affected devices can protect themselves from the baseband remote code execution vulnerabilities mentioned in this post by turning off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) in their device settings. As always, we encourage end users to update their devices as soon as possible, to ensure that they are running the latest builds that fix both disclosed and undisclosed security vulnerabilities.
To be clear, this is about as bad as it gets, in terms of mobile vulnerabilities, and users should take the necessary steps to protect themselves.
openSUSE Tumbleweed is a rolling release Linux distro, one that is something of a two-edged sword in terms of its features and usability.
In Part 1 of this review, we looked at openSUSE’s background, its openQA-provided stability, outstanding installer, choice of desktop environments, and its security. All of these are significant advantages of the distro. Unfortunately, security is also where openSUSE’s disadvantages begin to shine through.
Disclaimer: Some will say the following points are too critical of openSUSE since it’s a more technical distro and not necessarily aimed at desktop users. Nonetheless, openSUSE’s own website says it is: “The makers’ choice for sysadmins, developers and desktop users.” Therefore, my final rating will reflect the distro’s ability to meet the needs of all three of those categories.
Too Much Security?
Security is only a good thing if it’s not so restrictive that people begin disabling features for the sake of convenience, and this is where openSUSE’s disadvantages begin to shine through.
Of all the distros that I have tried to date (Fedora, Manjaro, openSUSE, KDE Neon, Pop!_OS, Kubuntu, and Zorin OS), openSUSE’s security policies are by far the most restrictive. Want to adjust your network settings? You’ll need to enter your password. Want to install a Flatpak app? You’ll need to enter your password. Change your timezone? Enter your password.
What’s more, the default firewall settings are so strict that printer discovery doesn’t work out of the box. To be clear, every single other distro I’ve tried automatically discovers my HP printer on my network and lets me print without installing any additional drivers.
In contrast, openSUSE cannot even discover the printer without changing the firewall profile from the default ‘Public’ to ‘Home,’ or adding the mDNS service to the ‘Public’ profile. Even when making sure mDNS is enabled, openSUSE still requires “hplip” software/driver package installed.
Is it possible to overcome these issues? Yes. But many people, especially less technical users, give up before figuring out how to jump through all these hoops. In fact, a quick look at openSUSE’s Reddit will reveal that two common solutions to printing on openSUSE are a) disable the firewall altogether or b) “don’t print on openSUSE.” Seriously…I have seen that advice multiple times…”don’t print on openSUSE.”
The issues with printing on openSUSE are irritating enough that Linux creator Linus Torvalds famously dumped openSUSE and switched to Fedora because printing was just too hard to bother with. Fans of the distro will point out that it has gotten better since that day…but it’s still not good enough for the average desktop user.
Yast
Yast stands for Yet Another Setup Tool and is one of the defining characteristics of openSUSE. The tool is a throwback to the earlier days of Linux when such setup and configuration tools were more common.
There’s no denying that Yast is a powerful tool, one that is available as both a graphical and command-line package. For system admins, Yast provides a powerful way to administer openSUSE instances. There is almost nothing you can configure via the terminal that can’t be configured via Yast’s GUI, and it’s a tool I miss on other distros.
At the same time, however, like openSUSE’s other hallmark features, Yast is something of a two-edged sword. While it’s undeniably useful — and this is purely subjective — I’m not a fan of how it takes over functions normally handled by a distro’s built-in tools. For example, I run the KDE Plasma desktop, which has excellent built-in tools for printing and firewall management. Yast takes these tasks over, however. Gnome has similarly useful tools as part of the system settings.
As I said, I realize this is very subjective. Some users prefer to have one tool to manage such tasks, regardless of the desktop environment they use. Many users prefer to have one desktop-agnostic tool that never changes. I am not one of those users. I would prefer to use Plasma’s tools when they’re available and fall back to Yast when they’re not.
Btrfs and Snapper
One of openSUSE’s greatest features is its use of the btrfs filesystem and built-in Snapper support. Btrfs is a relatively new filesystem that provides automated system snapshots. This gives users the option to rollback to a previous snapshot from the boot menu in the event something goes wrong.
Tinkering with your system and mess something up? Not a problem, just rollback and it never happened. The same goes for an update that borks something. Just rollback and wait for the issue to be addressed. This is truly a must-have setup for a rolling release distro.
There are two downsides to keep in mind with btrfs (there’s that two-edged sword again):
Btrfs is one of the slower filesystems in use by Linux distros. The excellent DJ Ware, on YouTube, has done extensive benchmarks showing how much slower the filesystem is. While I’ve not done such extensive benchmarks myself, I do have an everyday data point.
When setting up the digiKam photo organizing software for the first time, the app scans your Pictures folder. On any distro using the older ext4 filesystem, it takes digikam anywhere from 4:57 to 5:17 to scan my 49GB of photos. In contrast, digiKam on openSUSE takes more than 7:50 to complete. This result, which I have been able to consistently reproduce, jives with DJ Ware’s benchmarks.
The other potential downside is in regard to data integrity. Given that it’s still a young filesystem, there are still an uncomfortable number of reports about btrfs filesystems becoming hopelessly corrupted. Without a doubt, openSUSE has the most mature implementation of btrfs, but your mileage may vary.
Patterns and Recommendations
One of the things that makes openSUSE so successful at providing stability with a rolling release is its use of Patterns and recommendations.
Patterns are collections of software that are related and share dependencies. For example, there’s a KDE Plasma Pattern, KDE Apps Pattern, Office Suite Pattern, Mobile Pattern, and more.
The power of patterns is that it allows openSUSE developers to update an entire collection of software rather than try to determine what is or is not installed on a machine. Similarly, openSUSE defaults to installing any and all recommended dependencies when installing an application, unlike almost every other distro, in the interest of making sure no app is installed with any missing features.
On paper, both of these seem like good ideas, and, to be clear, they are…to a point. Both of these features contribute greatly to openSUSE Tumbleweed being one of the most stable rolling-release distros.
Unfortunately, Patterns and recommendations also result in some unfortunate side effects. For example, if you delete an application that is included in one of the default Patterns, it will be reinstalled on the next update. You will need to manually block the package, or the entire Pattern, in order to prevent its reinstallation.
Random Papercuts
Slack Issues
In addition to the major things highlighted above, openSUSE running KDE has a bug that makes it almost impossible to add the workspaces I’m subscribed to. I can easily add three of them with no problem, but the fourth one always fails.
The only way I can get it added to the Slack client is to try importing that workspace along with three or four defunct workspaces. After trying this one or three dozen times, the troublesome workspace will finally get imported. From what I’ve been able to tell via research, the workspace string that gets passed from browser to Slack clients gets mangled.
At one point, I thought this was a KDE Plasma bug since it doesn’t happen on Gnome or Xfce. However, this only happens on openSUSE. It doesn’t happen on Manjaro KDE, Kubuntu, or KDE Neon. I have no idea what the problem is but, at least in my experience, it is a uniquely openSUSE issue.
Network Login
On multiple installs of openSUSE, I’ve had issues where I was constantly prompted to enter my root password and network password in order to stay connected. Wake the computer from sleep…enter my passwords. Needless to say, this got old quick.
Conclusion
openSUSE Tumbleweed is one of the most well-engineered distros on the market and offers a tremendous amount of features and abilities. Unfortunately, some of those features are a two-edged sword that cause as many problems as they solve.
openSUSE Tumbleweed is a distro I love to play with and would love to use as my daily driver. Unfortunately, the inconveniences quickly wears on my nerves in daily use, and I end up moving on.
That being said, for the right person, openSUSE is hands-down the best distro available.
Rating
For System Admins: 5 out of 5 stars
The combination of Yast and its enterprise connections makes openSUSE quite possibly the best distro for system admins.
For Developers: 4 out of 5 stars
On the one hand, having the latest and greatest packages can be a big help to developers. On the other hand, the papercuts and irritations may take unnecessary time away from development.
For Desktop Users: 3 out of 5 stars
Before writing about tech, I was a software developer for over a decade. I’ve created software for major universities, companies, and the commercial market. In spite of that high-tech background, openSUSE was just too irritating and difficult for me to use on a daily basis, and I would never recommend it to most everyday users. It would have to be a special breed of desktop user, one that wants to spend as much time managing their computer as using it before I could recommend it to them.
The US Marines are launching the all-new Marine Corps Software Factory (MCSWF) to develop software for the Corps’ use.
Software development is at the heart of countless industries, and the Marine Corps sees potential benefit for the battlefield as well. The program will begin as a three-year pilot program to investigate potential applications.
MCSWF is a three-year pilot to demonstrate a scalable, Marine-led software development capability. The three-year pilot will evaluate the demand from the fleet to better understand overall requirements.
In particular, the Corps wants to ensure future marines have the ability to operate and utilize software-based solutions even in environments where they may be cut off from connectivity and access to traditional support.
“Our Marines have an amazing capacity for understanding complex technologies. We must empower our Marines to use that technological know-how to create a more lethal force,” stated Gen. David H. Berger, 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps. “The Marine Corps is fielding more complex systems and platforms right now, and we must invest in our Marines’ and Civilian Marines’ capacity to advance in parallel.”
“The Marine Corps Software Factory is about outcomes, creating advantage for Marines at the tactical edge, today”, stated Marine Corps’ Chief Information Officer, Lt. Gen. Matthew Glavy, Deputy Commandant for Information (DC I). “The MCSWF will provide viable capabilities to enhance mission readiness through the power of information.”
Google’s recent changes to the Pixel line of phones, beginning with the Pixel 6, have helped the company make major headway in the smartphone market. Foldable phones are the next big thing in smartphone design, with Samsung being the current leader in the space.
If Google is able to successfully break into the foldable market, the company’s upward momentum could be just beginning.
Google has released the first Feature Drop of 2023, bringing a slew of updates and features to its Pixel line of phones and watches.
Google Pixel users are in for some nice upgrades, with the company expanding features to more devices and improving existing ones. One of the biggest features is expanded Night Sight support:
With the latest Feature Drop, Night Sight can now capture low-light photos faster on your Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, too, thanks to new algorithms powered by Google Tensor.
The company has also expanded Magic Eraser to the entire line of Pixel phones, making it easier for users to eliminate unwanted elements from their photos.
Direct My Call is now available on all devices from the Pixel 4a and up:
Skip the headache of sitting through long menu options when you call a business. Now with Direct My Call on Pixel 4a and newer phones, you’ll see the menu options ahead of time so you get to the right extension even faster when you call many of the most popular toll-free numbers in the U.S.
Google has also brought improvements to Health Connect and added the ability to see timers across all connected devices, without unlocking your phone.
The Pixel Watch has received a major update, with fall detection added to its repertoire of features.
Your Pixel Watch now has fall detection which can detect if you’ve taken a hard fall and connect you to emergency services. Once connected to emergency services, your Pixel Watch will play an automated message to request help to wherever you are. You can also speak to the emergency operator yourself, if possible, to let them know whether or not you need help. Thanks to built-in motion sensors and on-device machine learning, your Pixel Watch can accurately differentiate a hard fall from things like performing vigorous physical activity or recovering from a small stumble to minimize accidental emergency calls.
Samsung is once again in the spotlight over the authenticity of photos taken with its smartphone cameras.
Samsung’s flagship phones include a feature called “Space Zoom,” designed for taking pictures of the moon. According to a user on Reddit, the feature appears to be using AI to artificially alter and enhance photos. In the post, ibreakphotos took photos of the moon and compared that with what Samsung displayed. The results were surprising.
Interestingly, Samsung does admit to using AI to enhance photos. On the company’s CamCyclopedia site, a moderator explained the process:
The moon recognition engine was created by learning various moon shapes from full moon to crescent moon based on images that people actually see with their eyes on Earth.
It uses an AI deep learning model to show the presence and absence of the moon in the image and the area (square box) as a result. AI models that have been trained can detect lunar areas even if other lunar images that have not been used for training are inserted.
The end result is a more complete picture of the moon:
To overcome this, the Galaxy Camera applies a deep learning-based AI detail enhancement engine (Detail Enhancement technology) at the final stage to effectively remove noise and maximize the details of the moon to complete a bright and clear picture of the moon.
While it’s nice to see a Samsung rep clearly explain what is going on, it still raises questions about the authenticity of photography using a Samsung phone. It’s also disappointing that this revelation is on the company’s community site rather than more openly revealed in the company’s marketing.
Users looking forward to a notch-less iPhone are in for a disappointment, with the feature postponed till 2025.
Apple has been rumored to be working on an under-display version of Face ID that would eliminate the need for the much-maligned notch. Unfortunately, according to well-known leaker Ross Young, Apple is experiencing issues with the necessary sensors:
Under panel Face ID is now expected to be pushed at least a year to 2025 or later due to sensor issues.
Facebook is integrating Messenger features with its mobile Facebook app, potentially reducing the need to have Messenger installed.
Until now, users have needed to have Messenger installed on their mobile devices to chat with their Facebook friends and family. The company is looking to unify the experience, incorporating some of Messenger’s functionality within the core Facebook app.
Tom Alison, Head of Facebook, made the announcement in a blog post:
We’re also seeing more people turning to messaging as a way to build community. We started introducing community chats to some Facebook Groups last year as a way for people to connect more deeply with their online communities in real time around the topics they care about. And, the early results are promising. Across Facebook and Messenger, we saw the number of people trying community chats increase by 50% in December 2022.
Over the coming year, we’ll build more ways to integrate messaging features in Facebook. Ultimately, we want it to be easy and convenient for people to connect and share, whether in the Messenger app or directly within Facebook.
The news will likely be welcome by most users, especially if it saves the trouble of switching back and forth between apps.
Especially in the fast-paced digital world that we’re now living in, project managers and team leaders are always looking for opportunities to improve their approach to the software development process. End users can no longer afford to wait years for a critical application to be delivered – in order to remain competitive in their own industries, they need it as quickly as possible.
This is part of the reason why most teams have eschewed the monolithic development structure that was popular in the past in favor of more flexible and agile methodologies. In recent years, ephemeral environments have become a major part of that for a wide range of different reasons, all of which are more than worth exploring.
What is an Ephemeral Environment?
An ephemeral environment is a type of dedicated, temporary development environment that allows team members to test out new features and changes in a controlled place before officially deploying them to a live production environment.
Instead of deploying a new feature that may not be quite ready, which in turn ends up causing issues for the critical work that other people are doing, developers can work in total isolation without worrying about these types of potential problems. Features can be honed and refined as-needed and, when they’re ready, they can be compiled into the larger project so that others are able to build upon this progress.
The Major Benefits of Ephemeral Environments
By far, the biggest advantage of ephemeral environments comes by way of how they allow developers to both create and destroy these previous environments quickly.
You don’t have to spend time creating a long-term infrastructure and doing all the (lengthy but temporary) work that comes with it. Ephemeral environments can be employed easily and exist only as long as they absolutely need to. If something needs to be tested immediately, it can be.
Ephemeral environments also go a long way towards helping to control many of the costs associated with the software development as well. In a more “traditional” approach to development, many organizations end up paying money for cloud-based resources that eventually are no longer being actively used for the purposes of things like testing. Rather than paying for something that you’re not utilizing 100% of the time, you can instead utilize ephemeral environments and deploy them (and eliminate them) as frequently as you need to. That way, you’re generating the highest amount of value from your investment at a lower price than you would otherwise be paying.
This also has the added advantage of increasing productivity significantly – both in terms of individual developers and with regard to the work the team is doing as a collective. Developer B doesn’t have to wait around for Developer A to finish their work, at which point they get to start on theirs. Both developers can work simultaneously, albeit in isolation, without impacting each other. That way, you’d get two feature sets completed and properly tested in the same amount of time it would have taken you to arrive at one under previous development techniques.
Along the same lines, this has the added benefit of reducing the risk of many issues that commonly arise during software development. When everything is connected and different developers are working on various aspects of the same product at the same time, any issue can potentially impact the collective depending on the scope. This has historically been one of the major reasons why software development tends to take so long – after a certain point as things become more complex, there is no such thing as a “small problem” any longer.
With ephemeral environments, this is no longer the case. If Developer A encounters an issue, it only impacts the work they’re doing. It happens in isolation, and it can be addressed in much the same way, all before anything is rolled out to the rest of the team and certainly before the product makes its way into the hands of end users.
Finally, ephemeral environments are also an invaluable collaboration tool for development teams. Individual members can share their work and collaborate prior to a feature being merged into the collective, allowing them to get actionable feedback more often than they would have in the past.
Overall, investing in an ephemeral environment isn’t just a “best practice” for software development any longer. If yours is a development team that is always looking for ways to maintain the highest standards of both quality and efficiency (and it absolutely should be), it’s no longer a recommendation – it’s practically become a requirement.
Empowering a Better Software Development Process
In the end, ephemeral environments are more than just another “tool” to be used to assist with the software development process. Once deployed, these temporary environments have an almost immediate boost on a team’s productivity because nobody has to wait around for someone else to finish their work. They have access to all the resources they would have in a live production environment, but in a silo that they can use to refine their own process.
Not only does this make it easier to deploy features, but it makes it easier to test as early and as often in the process as possible. This leads to better, more reliable software being delivered far faster than ever before, which in and of itself is the most important benefit of all.
‘Untitled Goose Game,’ the popular macOS game by Panic, was rejected by Apple’s Mac App Store reviewers — twice.
Panic is well-known in the Mac community for making incredibly high-quality apps, some of which have even won Apple Design Awards. Unfortunately, when the company tried to submit its ‘Untitled Goose Game,’ App Store reviewers rejected it twice, according to co-founder Cabel Sasser.
A short story. We once submitted Untitled Goose Game to the Mac App Store. It was rejected by the reviewer because they thought you couldn’t skip the credits. (?!?) We explained that you could skip the credits by holding space. It was then rejected for something else and at that point we just gave up and never bothered to resubmit. Fin
Panic went on to release the game via Steam and the Epic Game Store.
Unfortunately, this example is just the latest that illustrates Apple’s overall lack of commitment to the Mac gaming market. For example, former App Store Editor Neil Long recently made the case that Apple doesn’t care about the gaming market and views game developers much as a “contemptuous landlord” would.
The woefully understaffed team of app reviewers couldn’t handle the volume of games coming through – and seemingly still can’t today. Ask any staffer at a mobile game studio and they’re guaranteed to have an app review horror story involving their game being repeatedly rejected for an arbitrary reason, or removed from sale entirely. Developers are being treated with contempt.
Given the success of Panic’s software in the market, and how much they have supported and contributed to the success of the Mac platform, Sasser would probably agree with Long’s sentiment.
Fitbit is angering users, announcing it will kill off a number of community-focused features toward the end of March.
According to XDA, Challenges and open groups are both being removed, effective March 27. Both features were aimed at bolstering community engagement and were massively popular with users.
Challenges allowed users to compete and compare progress with friends who also had a Fitbit. Open groups were a way to connect with people around the world who had similar interests. Fortunately, closed groups will continue, but open groups’ days are numbered.
According to XDA, Fitbit says the changes are to “enhance the Fitbit app with Google technology” and “develop new features, deliver faster load times, and improve your experience.”
The move is not necessarily surprising, given the fact that Google now owns Fitbit. Unfortunately, Fitbit is swapping out social and community features that work, to integrate technology from a company with one of the worst social and community engagement track records in the industry.
Nvidia’s latest GeForce driver is the culprit in CPU spikes users have been experiencing after playing 3D games.
Users began experiencing issues after the February 28th update that brought version 531.18 of the driver. In a company forum post, a member of Nvidia’s staff acknowledged the issue in the release notes:
Higher CPU usage from NVIDIA Container might be observed after exiting a game [4007208]
Despite the fairly benign description, the issue appears to be having significantly worse effects in real-life.
One user wrote the following:
It causes the “Nvidia container” process to load on CPU by 20-30% after games, randomly, which leads to stutters in the operating system until you reboot it. (Windows 11 latest, RTX 3090)
The company is promising a fix Tuesday, March 7.
FYI – we'll be posting a hotfix driver tomorrow with a fix
Now consumers can use Outlook for free on macOS, no Microsoft 365 subscription or license necessary.
Whether at home, work or school, Mac users everywhere can easily add Outlook.com, Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo! or IMAP accounts in Outlook and experience the best mail and calendar app on macOS. The Outlook for Mac app complements Outlook for iOS – giving people a consistent, reliable, and powerful experience that brings the best-in-class experience of Outlook into the Apple ecosystem that so many love.
There’s no denying that Outlook is the leading email client, especially in the business world. Mac users have long enjoyed using the app on their platform of choice, but it has always required purchasing a license or a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Perdue teases upcoming new features in a future release:
There is more to do and many more features we are excited to bring to the Outlook Mac experience. We are rebuilding Outlook for Mac from the ground up to be faster, more reliable, and to be an Outlook for everyone.
It’s interesting that Perdue mentions “rebuilding Outlook.” Microsoft revealed at the beginning of 2021 that it was rebuilding Outlook to be a web-based universal version that would work across both Windows and Mac. It’s certainly likely the upcoming rebuild is a reference to the web-based version. If so, it makes sense that the company would be willing to make its legacy version free.
Microsoft Edge users are getting a useful new feature that will allow them to upscale old, low-quality videos
According to Microsoft, one of out of three internet videos played in Edge are 480p or less. There are a number of possible reasons, including a media provider serving a low-quality version of the video or the original being shot in low-resolution. The company wants to change this and is leveraging the power of AI and machine learning to enhance video quality during playback.
We are excited to introduce an experimental video enhancement experience, powered by AI technology from Microsoft research called Video Super Resolution. It is a technology that uses machine learning to enhance the quality of any video watched in a browser. It accomplishes this by removing blocky compression artifacts and upscaling video resolution so you can enjoy crisp and clear videos on YouTube, and other streaming platforms that play video content without sacrificing bandwidth no matter the original video resolution.
Because of the computational requirements, the feature is only available on computers with either an Nvidia RTX 20/30/40 series GPU or an AMD RX5700-RX7800 series.
The video being upscaled should also be played at less than 720p, should not be taller or wider than 192 pixels, and it cannot be protected by DRM.
The experimental feature is available to 50% of users in the Canary channel.
Samsung is reportedly developing its own custom CPU core in an effort to better compete in the mobile space.
Samsung is one of the world’s leading chipmakers, but its own Exynos chips have lagged far behind Apple’s offerings. According to a report in South Korea’s Pulse News, the company is stepping up its efforts to develop its own CPU core, the central component of the application processor (AP) that powers a mobile device. Samsung even recruited a senior CPU developer from AMD to further its goals.
Samsung’s current Exynos AP has an Arm CPU core, but the company wants to reduce its reliance on the British chip designer. Using its own CPU core will also give it more opportunity to customize and optimize performance, much as Apple has done with its chips.
Pulse News believes the first of these new chips, dubbed the ‘Galaxy Chip,’ could be available as early as 2025. Because Samsung’s CPU core development has just started, the first generation of the Galaxy Chip would likely still have an Arm CPU core. This would be replaced in later generations by Samsung’s own core.
“Samsung Electronics will be able to boost completion level of its Galaxy Chip if it successfully develops a CPU core,” an unnamed industry official told the outlet. “It will be able to load its own CPU in 2027 if development is carried out as planned.”
Interestingly, the 2025 release data coincides with earlier reports that Samsung was assembling a semiconductor design ‘dream team’ to tackle Apple’s dominance. Dubbed “Dream Platform One,” the team’s goal was to surpass Apple’s M1 by 2025.
While Pulse News doesn’t specifically mention Dream Platform One, it’s a safe bet the team is responsible for the upcoming Galaxy Chip.
