Random Dumber Generator

Motorola has been batting off claims that it's X and Z phones; as well as the Moto Mods line, are dead in the water, following layoffs at its Chicago offices. 

The rumours weren't quitened by the failure of the company to launch any new devices at MWC,  especially given its large present last year. 

The Moto X4, G5 and Z2 all received a warm welcome when they arrived in 2017, however Lenovo is still reporting that it's mobile handset division is struggling.

Whether the answer to that is a rationalisation of its range is open to question. Motorola does a good job of building mid-range handsets but doesn't really have a high end phone after the X4 moved to the Snapdragon 6xx CPU. The X needs to be the high end phone it used to be. 

Then there are Moto Mods. They are good in concept and could very much boost customer loyalty,  but the Mods which exist are either very niche,  very expensive, perform less well than a standalone solution and often all three at the same time. 

Mot…

What do you know, HTC is going to be the first OEM to launch an Android One phone in Australia. Following the return of HTC to New Zealand last year it seems likely the U11 Life will make it here too. 

A mid ranger with all of the visual and technical niceties of the U11 flagship, the U11 Life will undoubtedly see its biggest market opportunity being those customers who previously bought Nexus phones, but have been left with nowhere to go following Google's move upmarket. 

The promise of Android One - regular and timely updates - should be sufficient to see a decent uptick in HTC sales, although the imminent arrival of Nokia's Android One range may limit that on they looking run.

A survey of US smartphone owners finds that Android owners are more loyal than iPhone owners. That sounds like it shouldn't be the case,  but it does make a funny sort of sense. 

If an iPhone owner gets bored with their device, or it no longer works the way they want it to, there's nowhere else to go but Android. By the same token, if an Android owner wants to switch to something different there's a whole plethora of options and choices to accommodate them on their chosen platform. 

That's true of the software too. By preventing users from changing default applications,  Apple risks turning those users to the dark side. Meanwhile an Android owner can change or customise their phone to work exactly the way they want it to. 

More interesting is the very high levels of loyalty shown to each platform - 88% for iOS and 91% for Android. Clear signs that platform lock-in is beginning to bite more deeply.

Updating Android on older phones is difficult for OEMs, unless you're HTC of course, which has managed to hit completion of its Oreo update program with the release of the U Ultra upgrade today. 

That's one of the advantages of having a phone from a smaller player in the market. 

Bizarrely, it's also a benefit of having next to no carrier deals. HTC phones are sold unbranded, rather than through carriers, which means the process for signing off a release is much simpler. 

For other OEMs we usually see unlocked phones recieve firmware updates first, with carrier branded phones waiting months before receiving the same update. 

A good reason for avoiding a carrier branded phone? I would say so.

It's always dangerous to draw direct comparisons from pre-season testing times, however it is possible to look at overall performance to get some guidance on where teams stand. 

For example, it seems likely that Mercedes will start the season with a bigger advantage over Ferrari and Red Bull than last season. 

It's the following pack where the interest is going to be for the real enthusiast. 

There seems to be a gaggle of teams whose performance is incredibly close in the battle for midfield dominance. 

Renault seem to be at the head of the bunch and Williams at the back. In between sit Haas, McLaren, Force India and Toro Rosso.

And it's the latter who interest me most. Paired with a Honda engine which McLaren could get neither performance or reliability, Toro Rosso have been quick and reliable. 

Yesterday's performance from Brandon Hartley suggested the team were neck and neck with McLaren, today's from Pierre Gasly suggests they are tapping on the shoulder of Renault a…

At this point I've gone beyond caring about what new features Microsoft is adding to Cortana. By continuing to ignore the world outside of the US it has rendered its digital assistant completely irrelevant. 

What used to be a sector leader had fallen so far behind Google and Amazon it goes beyond ridiculous. Even Siri - a disappointment in itself - is ahead of Cortana now. 

Having killed the Kinect on Xbox, taking Cortana with it for all intents and purposes, having lost Windows Mobile and having restricted to the US most features on PC and even availability on Android, Microsoft is digging a grave for Cortana from which she will never escape. 

At this point this is clearly Microsoft's strategy for all non-core technology (anything but Azure and Office 365) so I don't know why I'm even surprised any more.

Windows 10 S was very briefly a thing and will soon die. In the next few months Microsoft will replace it with a new S Mode which can live on top of any version of Windows 10, including Enterprise.
You will be able to upgrade from Windows 10 Home or Pro S Mode to full Home or Pro for free. Although there's no indication that you can go the other way.
It's almost as if Microsoft doesn't really know what it's trying to achieve here.
For home and small business users there is no reason for S Mode to exist. If you're buying your own device it should be a simple matter of exercising some self-control and not deploying apps from outside the Store.
S Mode itself will be just a configuration change to enable or disable - probably as simple as a single Registry Key change. So creating an interface which allows customers to enable and disable S Mode on their own PCs seems to me to be the most logical thing in the world. As long as only local system admins (i.e the PC owner)…

Some Echo owners have been woken by the sound of creepy laughing over the last twenty-four hours, as their smart assistants showed every sign of being possessed.
Turns out it was just a false trigger for the command 'Alexa, laugh'. That it hasn't happened before now suggests there was a change implemented recently which set a very low threshold for hearing the trigger phrase.
Given some Echoes fired off in the, otherwise peaceful, middle of the night suggests that was only part of the cause too.
Amazon have responded quickly and the problem has been fixed. Alexa will no longer respond to the request 'Alexa, laugh' and to get her to do this particular party trick you'll need to say 'Alexa, can you laugh?'
The response won't be a simple laugh either, but will be prefixed with a statement.
Should this put you off having a voice assistant in your home? Depends on your paranoia level. Seems entirely reasonable that if you believe the government would us…

Super-leaker Evan Blass has been at it again, this time getting the full Huawei P20 family photo to examine.The regular and Lite versions of the P20 are much as expected, iPhone aping notch screen and all.The third version is the interesting one. Pro not Plus this time around, it apes its smaller siblings but around the back packs a third camera. The purpose of this camera us almost certainly to bring some form of intelligence to photo capture. Whether that’s by some form of Google Lens competitor or another scene recognition engine remains to be seen. The other alternative would be to use the third camera to give a different focal length, allowing for some additional creativity in smartphone photography. Thus far Huawei has managed to deliver some impressive shooters on its phones. Now it needs to take the final step and compete with Google and Apple. The P20 Pro might just be equipped with the right camera to do that.

Oculus Rift users are finding that they arent able to use their headsets today a security certificate was allowed to lapse and prevented them from making a secure connection back to Oculus.The issue only came to light in a Reddit thread and the first response from Oculus appears to have been made on the same forum. There’s certainly no mention of the issue on the Oculus website.So a double whammy here for Oculus - poor process management allowing the certificate to expire in the first place - and then poor communication when it transpired sonething had gone wrong.

Rumours today have Apple removing the notch from its next generation of iPhones, due later this year.

The detail suggests this will be achieved whilst retaining all of the Face ID functionality of the current iPhone X and delivering an all screen front panel. 

Now I'm doubtful that Apple will have found a way to do this elegantly or even at all. I don't believe Apple is expecting to be able to do this either. 

Firstly it's going to be an immense technical challenge to squeeze down the size of the Face ID sensor pack sufficiently to do away with the notch and still claim an all screen display. Never mind do that and retain the performance of the current generation of Face ID. 

And secondly, Apple has made something of a feature of the notch - giving the iPhone X its iconic looks, which clueless Android OEMs are slavishly copying already. 

Having invested the time and trouble to work iOS around the notch I just can't see Apple rushing to get rid of it, especially if that mean…

A weakness in the way Microsoft has implemented Cortana over the Windows 10 lock screen allows hackers to compromise the security of Windows 10 PCs, according to a report on Motherboard. 
Whilst Microsoft has a limited degree of voice authentication built into Cortana - which is far from foolproof - and has tried to mitigate this attack vector, so long as someone has physical access to your PC, Cortana remains a weakness in your PCs security setup.
I'm not sure that many people talk to their PCs in the way that they might talk to their phones, so disabling Cortana at the lock screen, or disabling the "Hey Cortana" trigger completely are two options worth considering to keep your PC safe.

Futuresource is reporting that Microsoft managed to make significant inroads in the US Education market at the tail end of 2017, but losses in the rest of the world tempered any celebrations.
The difference between US and global education markets is stark. Stateside, Chromebooks have a massive 60% share, whilst Windows PCs only account for 25% of sales. iOS and MacOS bring up the rear.
Outside of the US it is Windows which commands the education market, again with around 60%, but the second place OS, with 20% of the market, is Android - which doesn't even feature in the US report. Microsoft market share was down significantly compared to the previous quarter, whilst Android's was up.
That's probably a result of the wide range of cheap but serviceable Android tablets which can see duty as an education device - especially when paired with a keyboard and mouse. Adding global sales together, it turns out more education customers chose Android than chose iOS. That's the fi…

Remember how McLaren was blighted by a poorly performing and unreliable Honda engine over the last three seasons? Perhaps all the blame didn't lie with Honda after all. Halfway through the second week of pre-season testing and the new Toro Rosso - Honda has been solid as a rock as far as reliability goes.
The new McLaren - Renault? Not so much.
There doesn't seem to be a big jump forward in performance either.
In fact as this point in the proceedings there doesn't seem to be a huge gap between McLaren and Toro Rosso when their best times are corrected for tyre compounds. That's without considering the relative speeds of double World Champion Fernando Alonso and rookie Brendon Hartley. Which I'm sure has the whole team in purgatory.
Testing is notoriously unreliable as a gauge of in season performance. However if we get to Melbourne in a few weeks and find the McLaren is no quicker (never mind slower) than the Toro Rosso, the team might as well pack up and head ho…

Carmen Jorda is a member of the FIA Commission for Women and if the goal of that body is to promote the participation of women at the highest levels of motorsport, then she's doing a particularly bad job of it. 
There was already uproar at her appointment, based on her singular lack of success at any level of motorsport and her support for a separate Championship for female drivers - on the basis that they can't compete physically with men.
That uproar became a storm when she was further reported to have claimed that women should target Formula E rather than F1 because of their physical limitations.
What credentials does Jorda have for making those claims? Well she's never driven any of the cars discussed, her knowledge of them extends to simulator runs for Lotus back in 2015, where she was twelve seconds off the pace of Marco Sorenson, the team's previous test driver. 
There are a number of women drivers giving the lie to Jorda's comments, but I will go back in h…

Huawei plans to bring an all new voice assistant to the Chinese market when it launched the P20 at the end of this month. 

HiAssistant will compete with Amazon and Google on phones and eventually other hardware, as Huawei seeks to dominate it's home market by being first to the table. 

This localisation may not be permanent though and we might soon have a plethora of different voice assistants fighting for Android market share. Already there are phones with Alexa, Bixby and Cortana on the market, alongside or instead of Google Assistant. 

And whilst HiAssistant might flourish in China, it seems unlikely that Huawei could do any better than Samsung on the global stage. Both companies are hamstrung by Google Assistant's quality and number of integrated products.

More than that though, I believe that Android One and Android Go are going to decimate sales of OEM skinned devices.

There will be a clear hierarchy with Pixel devices on top and Android Go phones at the bottom.

In between w…

A group of technology companies headed by Sony, Nikon and Foxconn are looking to improve the ownership experience of smart security cameras through a new alliance called NICE. The alliance is seeking to find a common ground and common platform for security cameras which would allow customers to mix and match compliant devices.
The answer appears to be the Android-ification of industry. With a common platform and shared standards, allowing OEMs to deliver hardware and feature differentiation and common connectivity.
The biggest sticking point seems to come from who isn't in the alliance: Google and Amazon. Given the way the smart device and smart assistant markets are shaping up, any alliance without these two heavyweights seems doomed to failure.
Still, a set of specifications is expected by the end of this year and products bearing the compliance logo sometime next year, so there's plenty of time to make a compelling case for Google and Amazon to join.

Long before there were messaging products from Facebook, Google and Apple there was Blackberry Messenger, which all social based messaging systems have grown from in some way. 

Now it looks like Blackberry is seeking to monetise it's IP for the service and Facebook - along with its Instagram and Whatsapp services - is first in the firing line. 

This could be a long running saga. Victory in court would be a particularly profitable exercise for Blackberry and would surely lead to further cases against other messaging services. Apple and Google included. 

Much will depend on how much of the messaging stack Blackberry believes it has patented and whether it applies generically or just to Facebook's specific implementation of messaging. That much we won't know until the court documents are released, sometime in the near future.

SMS is not an end to end encrypted service, which is something you should bear in mind as reports of weakness in the SS7 common channel mechanism start to fly this week.
Known vulnerabilities in the system have existed for at least a decade, and last year at least one hack against O2 in Germany exposed customers bank accounts to cyber criminals.
This does not mean that the use of SMS as a method of second factor authentication is compromised. it still remains secure enough for most day to day use. However it does mean that, combined with other hacks, a determined hacker can compromise your security. 
In the case of the German heist, user's computers had been infected with malware which allowed them to intercept bank account numbers, user names and mobile phone numbers. The SS7 vulnerability was just the final part of the puzzle to make this work.
So the news from Positive Technologies that SS7 is compromised on the majority of mobile networks is concerning, but ultimately not sur…

An excellent video by Bennett Sorbo, demonstrating both individual app slowdowns and the cumulative reduction in performance resulting from Apple's ethically questionable battery slowdown hack.
Whilst the likelihood of you continually opening apps like this is vanishingly small, the difference in runtime before and after the battery replacement fix is illuminating.

Recently Israeli company Cellebrite claimed that it was able to unlock all iPhone models on any iOS release, advertising its service to governments and law enforcement officials around the world. Now a second company has thrown its hat into the ringing, claiming it to can unlock any iPhone.
Grayshift's backs its product up by claiming the team responsible for it include an ex-Apple Security engineer as well as US Intelligence contractors. Whether that's just window dressing or an actual requirement for them to build their service isn't clear.
What is clear is the company's pricing - $15k to unlock one phone using an internet tool, or $30k for an offline version of the tool which can unlock unlimited numbers of iPhones.
Both Cellebrite and Grayshift products are at the mercy of Apple's regular security updates though. If Apple closes whatever exploit each is using their tools become ineffective. Keeping the knowledge of how they work from Apple will no doubt be a k…

Microsoft is testing versions of Outlook for Android and iOS which come with a built-in Cortana client, to allow you to have your emails read to you. Winning strategy or the last desperate struggles of a dying brand?
Cortana is technically very good as a digital assistant, even if it has fallen behind Google in the last eighteen months. But right now, if you own an iPhone or Android device, you're probably going to want to stick to Siri or Google Assistant. Because they are built-in and, particularly in Google's case, are gaining skill sets which make them infinitely more useful. Plus you can use them completely hands free.
If you were going to switch to anything else, you'd probably choose Alexa, with all of the features that its superior skills integration can bring.
Right now Microsoft is trying to embed Cortana into everything - launchers, apps, standalone clients and on both platforms. It's the old 'throw mud at the wall and see what sticks' routine. Unfo…

Piper Jaffray surveyed iPhone owners to see why they hadn't upgraded to the iPhone X yet. Turns out that more than 40% were happy with their current iPhone, which still did everything they needed it to.

Now I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most - if not all - of those owners have an iPhone 7 or later, in which case their reticence is more than understandable. 

I'll also say that this number would probably be somewhere around 40% for each iPhone model. Not everybody needs to have the latest model every year. 

There was also a large group of users - almost one third of those surveyed - who felt the iPhone X was too expensive. 

That's interesting, given the premium nature of Apple's products in general and the iPhone in particular.

It suggests that Apple's skyrocketing prices will only marginally impact sales and the extra per device profit will be ample compensation for the lower sales.

HTC will launch the U12 next month and it's new flagship will load up on 2018's best features whilst eschewing the current trend for Android OEMs to add a notch to their phones. 

If the rumours are to be believed, the U12 will mark a return to dual cameras for HTC, the company which originally pioneered them, as well as seeing the introduction of an 18:9 screen, and a bezel light design. 

There's also rumoured to be a new HTC face unlock feature, utilising the front facing camera. 

Lastly, the U12 will have full Project Treble support, making for pain free Android updates in the future. 

Like the U11 last year, this promises to be the sleeper handset of the year - quietly beating out the more popular handsets.

What's the biggest problem for Acute Healthcare globally? Would it surprise you to know that it's probably DNAs, appointments where the patient did not show up. 

It's a double whammy that hurts the NHS in particular, leaving a clinician kicking their heels and requiring the rebooking of a later appointment to the detriment of somebody further down the queue. 

The NHS has seen some success with messaging apps that tie into appointments systems and send reminders at ever decreasing gaps before the appointment itself. 

It hasn't been a complete success though, because often it's the ability to make it to an appointment which is the issue, not forgetfulness on the part of the patient. 

So Uber's new service, Uber Health, which allows US hospitals to make sure an outpatient can get to and from an appointment, with minimum effort on the part of the hospital or the patient is going to close another gap. 

Extending this further into the future, I can see an opportunity for …

In the last few weeks two stories from credible sources have appeared claiming that Apple building its own wireless, noise-cancelling, over the ear headphones, seemingly in direct competition with its own Beats brand.
Why would it be doing this?
At a guess I'd say it's for the same reason that Apple makes the AirPods, which compete with Beats wireless earbuds. Choice.
Beats has a signature sound profile which may not suit many audiophiles -which is the reason why you see so many iPhone users listening to either Bose's QC35 or Sony's MDX-1000 when commuting. Every comparative test selects one of these two headphones as the best performing in their class. And of course being see wearing a pair of Beats headphones marks you out as being less selective when it comes to audio performance
By creating and branding a pair of Apple headphones, the resistance to the Beats brand and the bass heavy audio profile goes away. Apple can deliver a much truer audio signature and levera…

At MWC Nokia announced that all of its phones will come with Android One in future - ensuring that its already excellent record on Android updates will continue to be a feature.

Of course announcing it at a technology show and getting the message out to the buying public are two different things. Which is why Nokia has started to push the message in its new advertising.

It's a clever ad - harking back to a Nokia heritage that exists only in name for the new HMD Global version of Nokia. Still, it's exactly the sort of thing which is going to keep customers coming back to the Nokia brand they previously loved.

This image, sourced from a Microsoft patent application, suggests that whatever the incoming Microsoft Andromeda might be, it won't be a phone. The image and patent describe a tablet with a foldable display which can be connected to a Surface-like keyboard dock.
This suggests three modes of use - as a traditional tablet, a Surface-like hybrid and a clamshell standalone device with a soft keyboard for input.
What it doesn't necessarily describe, technology curiosity aside, is a particularly desirable device. 
For the tablet to be usable the screen would need to be around 10" in diagonal as a minimum, making the folded device about as pocketable as your average 8" table - i.e. not at all. So a highly portable device it isn't. Then if it's planned to be used with the keyboard dock you're required to carry a bag large enough to fit a Surface into anyway - so why bother with all the folding nonsense?
It's possible that the keyboard dock is something of a …

Rich Energy is apparently an energy drink manufacturer from the UK which wants to compete with Red Bull in Formula One and is reported to be heading a $200m consortium looking to purchase Force India from troubled businessman Vijay Mallya.
Which sounds very exciting, but for one thing - the most recent accounts filed for Rich Energy show assets of just £0.5m and liabilities comfortably exceeding that.
So who exactly is Rich Energy a front for? Or is this just a play for some publicity before the story gets shredded to pieces on the details like, for example, having no money?
Stranger things have happened (Michael Knighton buying Manchester United anyone?) but something tells me there's more to this story than meets the eye.

The PC market has started to stabilise, but continues to trend downwards as longer duty cycles in the enterprise and tablet adoption rates in consumer markets reduce the numbers of new PCs sold each year. 

For Apple this represents an opportunity, one which it may be seeking to grab with both hands if stories of a cheaper MacBook Air arriving later this year are true. 

The MBA is already Apple's cheapest portable offering. Introducing an added value model could help it grab market share. 

More so if the Mac Mini finally gets refreshed at the same time. 

Customers may be reluctant to replace that aging PC with another, but upgrading to a Mac will have a certain appeal, especially for those already in the iOS camp. 

Now this isn't going to take Apple into the mass market by any stretch of the imagination. But bumping overall market share more than a couple of points would be a significant psychological blow to the Windows world.

How much of a difference is the new Halo going to make to a driver's sight lines and visibility this season? You can judge for yourself in this video, with Robert Kubica taking the Martini Williams for a quick ride around the Aragorn circuit in Spain.
The helmet cam definitely shows that the Halo is intrusive to a driver's eye line, however the continuous movement of a driver's head should prevent the creation of a blind spot.
There does still seem to be a worry that something unexpected could happen behind that front pillar and the driver's view will be blocked for sufficient time for something catastrophic to occur, but the chances of that happening are hopefully remote enough to make it of minimum concern.

It isn't unusual to lose a pair of spectacles, it's rather more unusual to lose $40m on a pair of Spectacles, but that what Snap managed to do last year. What's even more unusual is going back for more after taking a beating. Again, that's what Snap intends to do, but I believe it has solid reasons for doing so.
Snap's Spectacles were not actually a product, sure they were sold and were apparently 'in' if you lived in the wrong sort of place. Their main purpose was neither to sell nor to be cool, rather they were a shop window for Snap and Snap's technology.
Snap wants to license the technology behind the Spectacles to mainstream eyewear manufacturers, firstly in order to create an income stream and secondly to get Snap onto people's faces, in turn prompting them to start using the service on their phones.
Snap is at risk from Facebook's management of Instagram, which promises to drive it into the ground. A ground swell in the number of active …

Following the unveiling of the Vivo Apex Concept phone last week, Essential boss Andy Rubin has already claimed bragging rights for the popup camera tech which enables its true full screen arrangement. Apparently Essential picked up a patent for this last year.
Old news I'm afraid. This Huawei phones, known by different names in different territories, but most commonly the Honor 7i, did the 'now you see it, now you don't' trick with its selfie camera three years ago - and it's a better concept than either Vivo's or Essential's.
The 7i used a then leading edge Sony 13mp sensor for its rear facing camera, which could then be flipped around to be used as a selfie camera too. All the quality, none of the compromise.
Now imagine a modern, 2018 smartphone, using the same concept to popup its fancy rear facing dual camera pack, to create an even better selfie experience. Whilst retaining the slim bezels that customers are apparently going to be demanding this yea…

Dx0Mark - which throws an impressive array of tests at new smartphone cameras in order to establish which performs best - has identified the new Galaxy S9 as the current cream of the crop. It's probably a fair assessment, knowing that Samsung does a good job with its camera performance makes it a safe bet that the S9 will be another forward step.
However, I'm at the point where I think we can safely say that, for 95% of users and 99% of their photos, any modern flagship smartphone will do the job. 
Let's be honest, in the last twelve months Dx0Mark has flagged the HTC U11, Galaxy Note 8, iPhone X and Pixel 2 as new  high watermarks. In fact after testing the U11 the had to change the scale of the scoring because they were running out of superlatives - and marks to hand out.
Take a look at phone based photo groups on Flickr or Instagram, you'll see that your phone is capable of photos which are breathtaking in their quality. If the photos you are taking aren't as g…

Audi Sport driver Daniel Abt won his second race of the 2018 season in Mexico City - and this time it looks like he'll be allowed to keep it. Having had his previous win in Hong Kong erased after the team made a mistake with paperwork - on his birthday as well - Abt's first ever race win ends a losing streak for the Audi team that stretches back to last season.
In a further fillip for the team, reigning Champion Lucas di Grassi finally made it to the chequered flag - albeit in ninth place, after starting from the back of the grid.
The Mexico City race was the first this season to use a permanent race circuit, rather than being held on the streets of the city, which meant a rather different feel from the tight, incident packed races we've become used to. Still there was plenty of excitement to keep the crowd on their feet.
This was the first race where a minimum pitstop time was not mandated - and the result was a hectic pit sequence which saw Abt take the lead from Oliver…