Category Archives: News

Article note: From the platform who lemming-removed "Tactile" and "Consistent" from interfaces comes "our competitor removed Discoverability, so we feel compelled to do the same."

Google I/O 2019 wrapped up on May 9th, but we're still picking through the incredible flood of information that came out of the show. In addition to the slew of announcements on keynote day, there are dozens of hours of sessions and documentation, plus a whole new Android release to pick though. Here are a few highlights from the show.

Android’s gesture navigation is actually good now

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  The new gesture navigation settings. On the right is what each navigation bar looks like. The "Full gesture nav" option actually saves space! [credit: Ron Amadeo ]

Every Google I/O presents a new release of Android, and paired with Google I/O 2019 is Android Q Beta 3. There really aren't a ton of changes in this beta release, but there is a new navigation system. There are three versions of system navigation in Android Q Beta 3, actually. The traditional three-button navigation is an option, even on devices like the Pixel 3, which originally did not ship with it. Apparently, the three-button mode will be returning to all phones for accessibility considerations, since the gesture system requires a significant amount of fine motor control. The existing Android Pie gesture system has been renamed "two-button navigation." The third option, called "Fully gestural navigation, "is new for Android Q Beta 3, and it's the best version of Android gesture navigation yet.

In Android P, the "two-button" gesture navigation was a bit of a mess. Google only replaced the Recent Apps button with a gesture, and Home and Back were still buttons. The bar didn't save any space, so there wasn't a huge benefit to using it. Beta three solves a lot of these problems. Every button is now a gesture. The navigation bar has been minimized to a slim strip about a third of the height of the usual bar. Some apps will even give you a fully transparent gesture navigation area. The new setup is very reminiscent of iOS, and that's what everyone has been asking for since the launch of gesture navigation with Android P.

Article note: Voter guide is up. Go get informed. I haven't been following much on this cycle so it's taking some reading, and in several of the down-ticket primaries there seems to be a lot of same positions different face.

Article note: 0. Most of computing's complexity has become a security risk 1. Bluetooth has always been a disaster

Article note: I knew it was bad, and I knew it was especially bad for virtualized workloads, but _damn_. AMD needs to get their Zen2/7nm production up to volume so they can steal some large customers.

Article note: Woop. Looks like last Cray is going into the HPE maw (With the remnants of DEC, and SGI, and Apollo and...). Interesting. First theory: Maneuver to have network tech that isn't Infiniband (due to Mellanox buyout), and access to Cray's existing contracts/market.

Article note: Well shit. They are still taking corrugated cardboard, but nothing else.

Article note: If Microsoft released an XP patch, they are trying to get out ahead of a _major_ clusterfuck.

Article note: Another day, another microarchitectural side-channel data exfiltration attack. These things are getting ludicrously complicated, but the fact that the environment they work in has enough moving parts for that kind of complication is always the root cause.

Article note: Why the hell aren't they signed in a "Signature valid at timestamp" system with revocation (like app signing in several major commercial OSes), which while obnoxious, at least is not set up so things will break via inaction? Users' working binaries should never just stop working because an out-of-mind third party did something, and even moreso because they did not do something.