Showing posts with label o. Show all posts
Showing posts with label o. Show all posts

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Is Android 8 0 O public roll out nearing Google Pixel devices may get it first

Is Android 8 0 O public roll out nearing Google Pixel devices may get it first


Is Android 8.0 O public roll out nearing? Google Pixel devices may get it first
Top 7 biggest features of Android O
It is obvious that Google will roll out its recently announced operating system Android 8.0 O (yet to get a name) one of these days but nobody knows the exact date. The only wild guess so far is that the OS could be released in the first half of August, and it has emerged that it could happen next week.
The search giant has already released Developer Preview 4 of Android 8.0 O ahead of the public roll out.
"This is the final preview before we launch the official Android O platform to consumers later this summer. Take this opportunity to wrap up your testing and publish your updates soon, to give users a smooth transition to Android O," said Google on Android Developers Blog.
Now, tech pundit David Ruddock has claimed in a tweet that the firmware update could come in a weeks time.
However, Google is yet to officially announce the release date of its latest OS.
When will your smartphone receive Android 8.0 O update?
It is almost certain that the Google Pixel and its bigger sibling Pixel XL will get the Android 8.0 O update first, as that the search giant has the tradition of seeding its new OS to its flagships before expanding to other devices and OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers). The handsets that could be line to taste the firmware include the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Pixel C and Nexus Player.
OnePlus has confirmed that it would seed the latest firmware to its OnePlus 3, OnePlus 3T and OnePlus 5, and HMD Global too has announced that its new smartphones Nokia 3, Nokia 5, and Nokia 6 would get the OS. However, it is not known when these devices will get the new firmware.
Other OEMs, including Samsung to Lenovo (Motorola), LG, Sony HTC, Sony, Blackberry, Lenovo (Motorola), Huawei, Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO and others will surely make the new firmware available to their popular handsets, especially the flagships but they have chosen to keep mum.

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Friday, September 15, 2017

Android O officially launching on August 21

Android O officially launching on August 21



The highly anticipated release of Android O will happen on August 21 at an event in New York, the same day as the Solar Eclipse. The event will also be live-streamed at 2:40pm ET (12:10am IST), to coincide with the solar eclipse. At the event we can expect Google to finally reveal what O stands for, and unveil the statue.

Theres also a special site live at Android.com/eclipse, that counts down the time left for the event. Google says "Android O is touching down to Earth with the total solar eclipse, bringing some super (sweet) new powers!". The site will feature live video streams from NASAs 2017 Total Eclipse Live Stream as well as Android O reveal by Google in New York.

Google released Android O back in March, but as usual, what O stands for is a mystery, but we do know that it will be named after a snack or sweet. And most of the hints dropped point, out to "Oreo". (filename for video posted on Google+ by Google (GoogleOreo_Teaser_0817_noDroids.mp4)

Android O which is version 8.0 is currently in the fourth developer preview stage. It brings new features like PIP mode (picture-in-picture), revamped notification panel with new layout, color, improved battery life, new settings app, security enhancements, and Google Play Protect, and more.

Once the announcement is made, it is most likely the Google will start pushing OTA  update for the Pixel and Pixel XL phones first. 

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Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Changes to Device Identifiers in Android O

Changes to Device Identifiers in Android O



Posted by Giles Hogben, Privacy Engineer




Android O introduces some improvements to help provide user control over the use
of identifiers. These improvements include:





  • limiting the use of device-scoped identifiers that are not resettable

  • updating the Android O Wi-Fi stack in conjunction with changes to the Wi-Fi
    chipset firmware used by Pixel, Pixel XL and Nexus 5x phones to randomize MAC
    addresses in probe requests

  • updating the way that applications request account information and providing
    more user-facing control






Device identifier changes





Here are some of the device identifier changes for Android O:






Android ID






In O, Android ID (Settings.Secure.ANDROID_ID or SSAID) has a different value for
each app and each user on the device. Developers requiring a device-scoped
identifier, should instead use a resettable identifier, such as Advertising
ID, giving users more control. Advertising ID also provides a user-facing
setting to limit ad tracking.




Additionally in Android O:





  • The ANDROID_ID value wont change on package uninstall/reinstall, as long as
    the package name and signing key are the same. Apps can rely on this value to
    maintain state across reinstalls.

  • If an app was installed on a device running an earlier version of Android,
    the Android ID remains the same when the device is updated to Android O, unless
    the app is uninstalled and reinstalled.

  • The Android ID value only changes if the device is factory reset or if the
    signing key rotates between uninstall and reinstall events.

  • This change is only required for device manufacturers shipping with Google
    Play services and Advertising ID. Other device manufacturers may provide an
    alternative resettable ID or continue to provide ANDROID ID.






Build.SERIAL





To be consistent with runtime permissions required for access to IMEI, use of
android.os.Build.SERIAL is deprecated for apps that target Android O or newer.
Instead, they can use a new Android O API, Build.getSerial(), which
returns the actual serial number, as long as the caller holds the PHONE
permission. In a future version of Android, apps targeting Android O will see
Build.SERIAL as "UNKNOWN". To avoid breaking legacy app functionality, apps
targeting prior versions of Android will continue see the devices serial
number, as before.





Net.Hostname





Net.Hostname provides the network hostname of the device. In previous versions
of Android, the default value of the network hostname and the value of the DHCP
hostname option contained Settings.Secure.ANDROID_ID. In Android O, net.hostname
is empty and the DHCP client no longer sends a hostname, following IETF RFC 7844
(anonymity profile).






Widevine ID






For new devices shipping with O, the Widevine Client ID returns a different
value for each app package name and web origin (for web browser apps).






Unique system and settings properties






In addition to Build.SERIAL, there are other settings and system properties that
arent available in Android O. These include:





  • ro.runtime.firstboot: Millisecond-precise timestamp of
    first boot after last wipe or most recent boot

  • htc.camera.sensor.front_SN: Camera serial number (available
    on some HTC devices)

  • persist.service.bdroid.bdaddr: Bluetooth MAC address
    property

  • Settings.Secure.bluetooth_address: Device Bluetooth MAC
    address. In O, this is only available to apps holding the LOCAL_MAC_ADDRESS
    permission.






MAC address randomization in Wi-Fi probe requests





We collaborated with security researchers1 to design robust MAC address randomization for Wi-Fi
scan traffic produced by the chipset firmware in Google Pixel and Nexus 5X
devices. The Android Connectivity team then worked with manufacturers to update
the Wi-Fi chipset firmware used by these devices.




Android O integrates these firmware changes into the Android Wi-Fi stack, so
that devices using these chipsets with updated firmware and running Android O or
above can take advantage of them.




Here are some of the changes that weve made to Pixel, Pixel XL and Nexus 5x
firmware when running O+:





  • For each Wi-Fi scan while it is disconnected from an access point, the phone uses a new random MAC address (whether or not the device is in standby).

  • The initial packet sequence number for each scan is also randomized.

  • Unnecessary Probe Request Information Elements have been removed:
    Information Elements are limited to the SSID and DS parameter sets.






Changes in the getAccounts API





In Android O and above, the GET_ACCOUNTS permission is no longer sufficient to
gain access to the list of accounts registered on the device. Applications must
use an API provided by the app managing the specific account type or the user
must grant permission to access the account via an account chooser activity. For
example, Gmail can access Google accounts registered on the device because
Google owns the Gmail application, but the user would need to grant Gmail access
to information about other accounts registered on the device.




Apps targeting Android O or later should either use
AccountManager#newChooseAccountIntent() or an authenticator-specific method to
gain access to an account. Applications with a lower target SDK can still use
the current flow.




In Android O, apps can also use the AccountManager.setAccountVisibility()/
getVisibility() methods to manage visibility policies of accounts owned by those
apps.




In addition, the LOGIN_ACCOUNTS_CHANGED_ACTION broadcast is deprecated, but
still works in Android O. Applications should use
addOnAccountsUpdatedListener() to get updates about accounts at runtime for a
list of account types that they specify.




Check out Best
Practices for Unique Identifiers for more information.









Notes







  1. Glenn Wilkinson and team at Sensepost, UK, C�lestin Matte, Mathieu Cunche:
    University of Lyon, INSA-Lyon, CITI Lab, Inria Privatics, Mathy Vanhoef, KU Leuven ?




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Friday, August 11, 2017

Asus confirms Android O for ZenFone 3 series

Asus confirms Android O for ZenFone 3 series



Asus today finally announced the dual-camera toting ZenFone 4 up. The phones ship with Android Nougat based ZenUI 4.0, and to no surprise, the company has confirmed that they will get Anroid O when it is ready.

In addition, the company had good news for ZenFone 3 owners. Asus promised that ZenFone 3 line up will also be upgraded to Android O, which is most likely to be the last major software upgrade for the devices.



Asus says, the ZenFone 4 line up will get Android O update first, and once the roll out phase is complete, the ZenFone 3 line up will start receiving Android O. As usual, an exact time frame was not revealed, but Asus plans to roll out the update gradually by the second half of 2018.

The Android O will also be based on ZenUI 4.0. According to Asus, ZenFone 4.0 UI has the lightest Android UI skin to date and offers increased performance when using popular apps. The company also got rid out bloatwares, trimming down the 35 pre-installed apps on ZenUI 3.5 to just 13 apps. 

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Monday, August 7, 2017

Android O to drop insecure TLS version fallback in HttpsURLConnection

Android O to drop insecure TLS version fallback in HttpsURLConnection




Posted by Tobias Thierer, Software Engineer




To improve security, insecure TLS version fallback has been removed from HttpsURLConnection
in Android O.





What is changing and why?





TLS version fallback is a compatibility workaround in the HTTPS stack to connect
to servers that do not implement TLS protocol version negotiation correctly. In
previous versions of Android, if the initial TLS handshake fails in a particular
way, HttpsURLConnection retries the handshake with newer TLS protocol versions
disabled. In Android O, it will no longer attempt those retries. Connections to
servers that correctly implement TLS protocol version negotiation are not
affected.




We are removing this workaround because it weakens TLS by disabling TLS protocol
version downgrade protections. The workaround is no longer needed, because fewer
than 0.01% of web servers relied on it as of late 2015.





Will my app be affected?





Most apps will not be affected by this change. The easiest way to be sure is to
build and test your app with the Android O Developer
Preview. Your apps HTTPS connections in Android O will not be affected if
they:





  • Target web servers that work with recent versions of Chrome or Firefox,
    because those servers have correctly implemented TLS protocol version
    negotiation. Support for TLS version fallback was removed in Firefox 37 (Mar
    2015) and Chrome 50 (Apr 2016).

  • Use a third-party HTTP library not built on top of HttpsURLConnection. We
    suggest you disable protocol fallback if youre using a third-party library. For
    example, in OkHttp versions up to 3.6, you may want to configure your
    OkHttpClient to only use ConnectionSpec.MODERN_TLS.






My app is affected. What now?





If your app relies on TLS version fallback, its HTTPS connections are vulnerable
to downgrade attacks. To fix this, you should contact whoever operates the
server. If this is not possible right away, then as a workaround you could use a
third-party HTTP library that offers TLS version fallback. Be aware that using
this method weakens your apps TLS security. To discover any compatibility
issues, please test your app against the Android O Developer Preview.

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