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The USB-C PD definitely allows you to do exactly what you suggest.
I know this is supported in this google dual-port PD charger: https://store.google.com/gb/product/usb_c_dual_port_charger
There is an explanation on how the power budget is split in this post: https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/8jmUYtJxAwX
Presumably other multi-port chargers also do similair things
If you have Android Oreo/8.x, most (all?) google apps (including Maps) allow you quite fine grained control over notification categories (so you can choose to have traffic updates and nothing else, if you wish)
Notification categories is not exclusive to google apps, of course (OS level feature as long as your app targets Oreo), but their apps tend to give you very good control over what it shows you.
So, I'd disagree strongly that this is a google "strategy". It's more a problem that their apps tend to have a lot of features crammed in.
Of course, I don't know how this works on iOS (I'd be surprised if it's not in the settings somewhere? It's in their interest that you don't disable all app notifications)
Well, to be explicit, they set the minimum timeframe. For example, the Nexus Player is still on the latest version of Android and will/should receive 'O'
(Not letting google off the hook here. What they're doing isn't great and they should do better. Just saying your statement isn't entirely correct)
Here's [1] an open source app that lets you share a link from youtube which then uses a hosted version of youtube-dl to get the direct link to the mp4 url and pass it back to the Android Download app
Windows 10 can _definitely_ do that (I do the exact same thing with bluetooth/wired headsets frequently; I'm "fairly" sure I used to do that on Windows 7 too -- I remember being quite amazed when my Ubuntu machine "finally" caught up and was able to do the same thing.)
In fact, I quite often start music playing on the laptop (chrome/Google Play Music) and then power up my bluetooth headset -- it initially uses eSCO when it routes the audio over (mono) and then switches to A2DP a few seconds later
Maybe the issue is something to do with the SW (chrome/firefox?) you use for GVoice? Or maybe there are some edge cases that I'm not triggering (in particular, a USB headset is effectively a new soundcard and not just an audio sink; I can completely believe windows is flaky with them especially with third party drivers)
The "Fortune" app? As you mention knox, I assume this is an app that Samsung force installs on your phone; so I don't really see what Google can do (without locking Android down even more, and I'd rather they didn't).
Google is mostly going in the opposite direction and allowing you to uninstall any apps you don't use [1] -- admittedly, the Youtube app is not one of them on my 6P. But, I can disable it so it's not visible in the app drawer. In fact I can disable all the google apps and have always been able to do so (the only exceptions are non-Google, "system" apps).
Doesn't help if you buy a Samsung phone though....
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=nexus+uninstall+google+apps
As I mentioned in the other [1] thread, you can use this android app [2] (which uses youtube-dl) to download directly onto your phone. If you're on iOS, sorry :(
There is also this app [1] (shameless plug, I wrote it) which uses youtube-dl to download videos off any supported sites. No real UI as it just parses the media URL (when a link is shared to it) and passes it off to the android download manager.
I threw it together (over a few hours) simply because I like watching stuff on youtube at 1.5x speed and the android app does not allow you to do it (whereas if you use VLC to play the downloaded video, you can increaseplayback speed)
It's also available on the play store [2] with youtube downloads disabled by default
[1] https://github.com/zeronickname/VideoDownloader
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.me.gman.get...
Netguard [1] is a loopback firewall (installs as a local VPN) that doubles as an adblocker if you install the version from github [2]. I installed from the play store and used the IAP to contribute to development before swapping to the github version (the version on the play store can't block ads [3] due to it being a ToS violation)
Note that one of the recent updates [4] introduces ads for the free version. But not if you buy any of the pro features. Seems a fair trade, plus it's open source (which makes me slightly happier about routing all network traffic through it)
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.faircode.ne... [2] https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases [3] https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/blob/master/ADBLOCKING.md [4] https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard/releases/tag/2.45
If you append &tbs=li to the end of the query URL, google does a literal search.
If you want it as a default, add it to your browser as a search engine plugin: http://mycroftproject.com/search-engines.html?name=google+ve...
Or: Search tools → All results → Verbatim
I'm on windows 10 with a shitty "optimus" enabled laptop. The NVidia drivers routinely crash (typically when viewing a heavy webGL enabled page) and windows 10 just flashes at me and throws up a notification saying my graphics drivers have crashed but it helpfully restarted the drivers for me.
Perhaps you have a different issue? Maybe a hardware failure? Windows 10 should not be BSODing for a graphics driver failure
Are you saying Bluetooth 4 would actually solve my problem
Make sure your headset and device (phone?) both support HFP1.6 or above (which supports wideband speech/HD voice) which makes the sound quality semi-decent
Neither Android nor iOS support [pairing ... via the Out-of-Band method].
I'm not sure this is actually true (unless you're talking about bugs with individual manufacturers implementation on Android?). Both iOS and Android support SSP with OOB key exchange via NFC.
There are lots of products that have been available that use this for pairing/connecting, eg: https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/pairing-a-device-...
all Skype calls automatically revert to HFP (extremely bad quality)
While it's true that audio quality over HFP is a lot worse than A2DP, note that A2DP is designed for cases where latency is not an issue, you want stereo audio, and there is no microphone audio to carry the other way. (i.e., designed to listen to music)
If you want low latency mono-audio to the headset + microphone audio back to the host, there is no choice except to use HFP.
Note that if your headset (and your host device) supports HFP1.6, then it should support wideband speech/HD voice and the difference should not be so drastic.
blame the OS. iOS can block apps [...]
Well, to be fair, you can disable notifications from apps since android 4.0 (which is a long time back)
And Android 6.0 and up should automatically disable background running apps (https://developer.android.com/training/monitoring-device-sta...) unless there is a good reason for them to be running
But apps can still work around these restrictions (even on iOS; for eg the facebook app was caught "accidentally" playing silent audio.) Even if that was truly a bug, the point remains that it's better to use the website unless you want something specific (offline access, push notifications, etc...)
3.5mm jacks are analogue, and they're everywhere
As soon as headphones are digital, manufacturers can start locking down headphones.
The article is unclear, but the USB3.1 spec does specifically support analog audio over USB-C explicitly for compatibility with 3.5mm audio headsets. So if Motorola don't support this mode then you may have a point. But right now it's unclear exactly what this phone supports
they'll put a 2.5mm jack on the phone, or cut the 3.5mm jack in half
If I need a passive adapter for my existing headsets, I'd rather get a USB-C port which supports analog audio. Atleast then my adapters would be standardized.
the article says that Intel is working on a standard to let those pins be used for analog audio
In that case, the article is wrong because the USB 3.1 spec already supports analog audio via the Audio Adapter Accessory Mode. Whether this phone supports this mode is unclear, but it's part of the existing spec explicitly to allow passive USB-C to 3.5mm adapters
Official spec: http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/
page 166 of the USB-C spec: http://www.those.ch/designtechnik/wp-content/uploads/2014/08...
x86 builds: http://chromium.arnoldthebat.co.uk/
You can boot from USB and give it a whirl. There are some closed source bits missing, so I'm unsure if, for eg, netflix, will work. But it'll give you a feel for the OS
On Android 5, most Nexus devices dropped all SMS apps for Hangouts.
Just install Messenger (supports Android 4.1+): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...
It's actually much nicer than hangouts for SMS and has features hangouts doesn't support (search, group messaging) and is updated regularly by Google (with no tie-in to G+ or Play Services) so it's not like it's an abandoned app.
I'm currently using the AOSP Launcher3, and it doesn't even properly align icons in a grid, because it's missing the autoscaling of Google Now Launcher.
Get a different launcher? For eg, Nova Launcher (paid, but does not have any dependancy on Play Services) is basically Launcher3 (in terms of looks/functionality) with a ton of extra features.
Is your complaint that Google is letting AOSP apps languish? In which case I'd agree, but it's not like you're short on alternatives (and as time goes on Google seem to be opening more parts of Android to be replaced by third party apps -- in fact, the main components left are just the settings app and the notifications menu that you're stuck with whatever comes with your phone. Everything else is replacable by the end user)
The AOSP built in sms client does not use G+
Google's "Messenger" client does not use G+
You can also use Google's Hangout client purely for SMS (you can sign out of hangouts)
If you don't like any of them, there are hundreds in the play store that have no G+ requirement, and any of them can be set as the default.
As for first class VoIP; again, I have no idea what you mean. Android has a full SIP stack that's built in.
Perhaps you're thinking of Vostok? I thought much the same when I saw it in the Science Museum in London (just last weekend). Some kind of heat resistant cork or something? http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ImageHandler.ashx?image={4D8...
I can heartily recommend the Cosmonaughts exhibition if you're at all interested in the birth of the Space Age. It's open till the 12th of March: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/...
May not be quite what you're looking for, but perhaps mapumental may help (depending on why you want the data)
It gives you time (not distance) between places, and it includes trains as well as buses. But perhaps you could use their API to tweak the results: https://github.com/mysociety/mapumental-scripts
Failing that, maybe try the NPTDR dataset: https://data.gov.uk/dataset/nptdr (again, times, not distances)
It could even be family who misguidedly install spyware. That's an application installed by the user; But this won't protect you against the core OS (the Dell's with a camera shutter is not meant to protect you against Microsoft).
Your original comment seemed to indicate it's was Google's privacy policies you were protecting yourself against. And Google supplies the OS -- most of which is open source.
Comparing the open-ness of the SW, both of them are equally open or closed. The Sailfish UI is closed source (but you get something close using Mer) -- As for android, just GApps is closed (which, I would argue, is better than the Sailfish situation)
So, if you are motivated to not use android due to paranoia; my recommendation is to run a AOSP build with F-Droid as an app store. There are many reasons to use a Jolla phone. Privacy alone is not a reason to switch ecosystems (as I said earlier: there are other, more compelling reasons).
And of course, you need the black tape covering your camera on both the Android and the Jolla (which was your original statement I disagreed with :)
a bit of black tape over the front-facing camera for a while since Google's Byzantine privacy practices had made me genuinely not trust the device.
I genuinely don't get this.
You don't trust the OS not to spy on you, so you covered the camera? Fine. But if you don't trust the OS, how do you stop it from, say, uploading everything you type to Google? OK, perhaps you have a highly restrictive firewall, or only use it offline (reading ebooks?)
But in that case, what's the point of the black tape over the camera? It now has no way of contacting the mothership; all you've done is restrict your ability to take pictures.
Surely the better idea would be to compile an AOSP build for the N7 (or maybe just get CyanogenMod if you're less paranoid?) and you basically have a tablet which you completely control without buying a Jolla (with an equivalent app ecosystem and less bugs)?
Note that there are definitely reasons to get a Jolla phone; for example the fact that AOSP on the N7 is unsupported by google -- just saying I don't fully understand the tape on the camera when you don't trust the OS.
(maybe it was just a figure of speech; in which case, ignore me -- it didn't come across that way in your comment)
the BeagleBone Black is [..] less prone to "power abuse", because it has a traditional power jack (people are less likely to use a random USB charger with it)
Not quite true. The BBBlack can also power itself from the mini-usb port (and mine is currently powered up in exactly this way, off a normal usb phone charger I had lying bout)
Just go to the site: http://www.google.com/ncr
(I assume it stands for "No Country Recognition" but I'm unsure of that). Visit it once and I believe it stores a permanent cookie on your computer telling google not to re-direct you to a country specific site.
Been using it for about 10yrs now as it annoys me when I get re-directed when accessing sites over a vpn.
a "delete all stored data on me and opt out" button
You mean like: http://www.google.com/settings/ads/
That's all the information the advertising network (Doubliclick) has on you (atleast, based on the cookie on your current machine). A more permanent opt-out: http://www.google.com/settings/ads/plugin
If you use other google products (GMail, Youtube etc), they let you individually delete your accounts. Or you can go here and wipe all your data: https://www.google.com/settings/datatools
Not that I'm a google apologist, but it sure helps if you do a cursory search (or click on the "Privacy" link on the homepage) before complaining about something they already give you.
It's because Youtube uses DASH[1] by default now. It's also the reason why it never buffers more than a few seconds of video anymore.
I installed YoutubeCenter[2] and disabled DASH from the options and it seems to work well every since.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Adaptive_Streaming_ove...
>it doesn't acknowledge anything not bought through Amazon as "books"
I have a Kindle and this is patently not true. I have multiple DRM-free .mobi "books" that I have sideloaded. You don't even need a cable; just add the book as an attachment and email it direct to your kindle (username@free.kindle.com) and it gets synced over WiFi.
>our country has NEVER gone and attacked anyone in the past 3000 years.
Well, our country didn't exist pre-1947, but we're arguing semantics now. Still, it's kindof bonkers to define the border of a fairly young "nation" over a period of 3000years. If you do that, then you need to consider the Mughal campaigns in Central Asia as they attacked Samarkhamd (Persia) as well as Kandahar (also persian held at the time). Or do you not consider them Indian?
OK then, consider that the Chola empire conquered sections of South East Asia. But perhaps you dismiss these conquests as exaggerations? (note that there is overwhelming evidence that atleast ports were raided even if there was no lasting presence -- it's still an "attack")
But if we are going to be pedantic, even post-Independence India declared war on Portugal and is considered the aggressor state when it "invaded" Goa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Goa