Four months after the first release of Android 5.0 Lollipop , Google has followed up with a second version: Android 5.1. The speedy turnaround time compared to Android 5.0 (which appeared a year after 4.4) means that there aren’t many large-scale changes to look at—but the release does feature numerous little improvements and tweaks. It’s faster! (on the Nexus 6, at least) Ron Amadeo 5.1 brings much faster random read and write speeds to the Nexus 6, and the Nexus 5 improves a little, too. 3 more images in gallery 5.1 seems to have eliminated many of the performance issues with the Nexus 6. When we initially reviewed the device, the Nexus 6 was slower at loading apps and switching tasks than the older Nexus 5 had been. With 5.1, the newer phone feels much snappier; with non-game apps, it can now keep pace with the Nexus 5. On benchmarks, we’re seeing much higher random read and write scores on the Nexus 6 with 5.1; random read gets a 2x speed boost, while random write is a whopping 9x faster. The same dramatic speed boosts aren’t present on the Nexus 5, and we suspect the difference is that the Nexus 6 is encrypted while the Nexus 5 is not. According to Francisco Franco , a longtime third-party Android kernel developer, Google is now using NEON instructions on the Nexus 6 to speed up encryption performance. Performance could be further improved by enabling hardware-accelerated encryption, which the Nexus 6 still doesn’t use, but Google has been experimenting with the feature in the Android Open Source Project. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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HughPickens.com writes Joe Pinsker writes at The Atlantic that Finish businessman Reima Kuisla was recently caught going 65 miles per hour in a 50 zone in his home country and ended up paying a fine of $56, 000. The fine was so extreme because in Finland, some traffic fines, as well as fines for shoplifting and violating securities-exchange laws, are assessed based on earnings—and Kuisla’s declared income was €6.5 million per year. Several years ago another executive was fined the equivalent of $103, 000 for going 45 in a 30 zone on his motorcycle. Finland’s system for calculating fines is relatively simple: It starts with an estimate of the amount of spending money a Finn has for one day, and then divides that by two—the resulting number is considered a reasonable amount of spending money to deprive the offender of. Then, based on the severity of the crime, the system has rules for how many days the offender must go without that money. Going about 15 mph over the speed limit gets you a multiplier of 12 days, and going 25 mph over carries a 22-day multiplier. Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, France, and Switzerland also have some sliding-scale fines, or “day-fines, ” in place, but in America, flat-rate fines are the norm. Since the late 80s, when day-fines were first seriously tested in the U.S., they have remained unusual and even exotic. Should such a system be used in the United States? After all, wealthier people have been shown to drive more recklessly than those who make less money. For example Steve Jobs was known to park in handicapped spots and drive around without license plates. But more importantly, day-fines could introduce some fairness to a legal system that many have convincingly shown to be biased against the poor. Last week, the Department of Justice released a comprehensive report on how fines have been doled out in Ferguson, Missouri. “Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs, ” it concluded. The first day-fine ever in the U.S. was given in 1988, and about 70 percent of Staten Island’s fines in the following year were day-fines. A similar program was started in Milwaukee, and a few other cities implemented the day-fine idea and according to Judith Greene, who founded Justice Strategies, a nonprofit research organization, all of these initiatives were effective in making the justice system fairer for poor people. “When considering a proportion of their income, people are at least constantly risk-averse. This means that the worst that would happen is that the deterrent effect of fines would be the same across wealth or income levels, ” says Casey Mulligan. “We should start small—say, only speeding tickets—and see what happens.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Rarely a week passes without the report of a new battery technology , but most appear destined to remain within the lab for years. Now, though, a start-up called Sakti3 has a li-on battery that lasts twice as long as most—and $15 million of support from Dyson to make it a reality. Read more… 
iOS/Android: It happens to the best of us: you forget your phone when you go out, or it runs out of juice. Hotel My Phone lets you use a friend’s phone, but still use your phone number. Read more…