Ron Amadeo Android 4.3 was released to Nexus devices a little over a month ago, but, as is usual with Android updates, it’s taking much longer to roll out the general public. Right now, a little over six percent of Android users have the latest version. And if you pay attention to the various Android forums out there, you may have noticed something: no one cares. 4.3’s headline features are a new camera UI, restricted user profiles, and support for new versions of Bluetooth and OpenGL ES. Other than the camera, these are all extremely dull, low-level enhancements. It’s not that Google is out of ideas, or the Android team is slowing down. Google has purposefully made every effort to make Android OS updates as boring as possible. Why make boring updates? Because getting Samsung and the other OEMs to actually update their devices to the latest version of Android is extremely difficult. By the time the OEMs get the new version, port their skins over, ship a build to carriers, and the carriers finally push out the OTA update, many months pass. If the device isn’t popular enough, this process doesn’t happen at all. Updating a phone is a massive project involving several companies, none of which seem to be very committed to the process or in much of a hurry to get it done. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Balky carriers and slow OEMs step aside: Google is defragging Android
dryriver writes “The new Facebook advertising policy: ‘Our goal is to deliver advertising and other commercial or sponsored content that is valuable to our users and advertisers. In order to help us do that, you agree to the following: You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.’ — Facebook also made it clear that the company can use photo recognition software to correctly identify people on the network. It said: ‘We are able to suggest that your friend tag you in a picture by scanning and comparing your friend’s pictures to information we’ve put together from your profile pictures and the other photos in which you’ve been tagged.’ — It [Facebook] said it was also clarifying that some of that information reveals details about the device itself such as an IP address, operating system or – surprisingly – a mobile phone number. The Register has asked Facebook to clarify this point as it’s not clear from the revised policy wording if a mobile number is scooped up without an individual’s knowledge or as a result of it being previously submitted by that person to access some of the company’s services. Importantly, Facebookers are not required to cough up their mobile phone number upon registering with the service. At time of writing, Facebook was yet to respond with comment.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
“To followers of technology issues, there are many days when Microsoft and Google stand apart.” Quite an understatement, but so begins a recent blog post by Microsoft’s General Counsel and Legal/Corporate Affairs EVP Brad Smith . 