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Daily Archives: January 12, 2025

Google Pixel 4a’s update kills its battery life on purpose

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Google’s Pixel 4a has long been considered a great smartphone for those on a budget, but it just received a software update that calls that into question. The update lowers the reported battery life. This isn’t a side-effect of some new software. This is the actual intent of the refresh.

Wait, what? Google says the automatic software update to Android 13 will “reduce your battery’s runtime and charging performance” but that it’s necessary to “improve the stability” of each device. That’s the only explanation the company offered.

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While every Pixel 4a will receive the automatic update, only certain devices will see a reduction in battery life and charging performance. There’s no information as to what designates which handsets will suffer as a result of the update, but owners of so-called “impacted devices” will have a few “appeasement options” to choose from.

Folks can send the phone in for a free battery replacement, but that will require the owner to go without a handset while Google performs the replacement. If that’s not viable, the company will send impacted owners $50 or give them a $100 credit toward a new Pixel phone from the Google Store. Pixel 4a owners have one year to choose one of these options.

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This whole thing sounds suspiciously similar to when Apple started slowing down older iPhones in 2017. However, Apple wasn’t forthright with consumers during that whole fiasco, leading to court cases and the like. At least Google seems to be getting ahead of things here, even if it could stand to be a bit more transparent.

Source: Google Pixel 4a’s update kills its battery life on purpose

Brelyon’s immersive display is a monitor that is much bigger on the inside than the outside

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Billed as the world’s first commercial multi-focal monitor, the Ultra Reality Extend merges the ease-of-use and simplicity of a traditional desktop display with the kind of spatial depth you can normally only get from VR headset. Granted, the max simulated depth the Extend delivers is only 2.5 meters, which isn’t nearly as far as you’d get from devices like a Meta Quest 3S or an Apple Vision Pro, but considering that Brelyon’s monitor doesn’t require any additional equipment (aside from a connected PC), the effect is truly impressive. And it’s much easier to use too, all you have to do is set yourself in front and the monitor will do the rest, which results in much less eye strain or the potential nausea that many people experience with modern VR goggles.

A diagram of how Brelyon's immersive monitor creates virtual layers with various depths.
Brelyon

This allows the monitor to defy its dimensions, because even though it’s much chunkier than a typical display, the view inside is absolutely monstrous. From a 30-inch frame, the Ultra Reality Extend provides a virtual display that’s equivalent to a curved 122-inch screen. Meanwhile, its 4K/60Hz resolution uses 1-bit of monocular to deliver spatial content that looks closer to 8K with elements of the scene capable of looking closer or further away depending on the situation.

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underpinning the monitor is Brelyon’s Visual Engine, which allows the display to automatically assign different depths to elements in games and videos on the fly without additional programming. That said, developers can further optimize their content for Brelyon’s tech, allowing them to add even more depth and immersion.

Unfortunately, the downside is that the Ultra Reality Extend’s unique approach to spatial content is quite expensive. That’s because while the monitor is available now, the company is targeting pricing between $5,000 to $8,000 per unit, with the exact numbers depending on the customer and any partnerships with Brelyon. Sadly, this means the display will be limited to enterprise buyers who will use it for things like making ultra-realistic flight simulators with depth-enabled UI instead of normal folk who might want a fancy monitor for movies and games. But if Brelyon’s tech takes off, one day, maybe…

Source: Brelyon’s immersive display is the TARDIS of monitors

Japan’s wooden satellite leaves International Space Station • The Register

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LignoSat was sent to the ISS in November 2024 on a mission to demonstrate that wood could be a viable material from which to build spacecraft. The goal of the satellite includes studying how the selected wood reacts when exposed to the environment of space and its resistance to cosmic radiation.

Researchers will also monitor geomagnetic levels to determine whether the geomagnetic field can penetrate the satellite and interfere with the electronics.

According to NASA, three wood species had previously been exposed to space before honoki magnolia was selected to construct the cubesat. The 10cm long wood panels used in the constructions were assembled using a Japanese wood joinery method called “Blind Miter Dovetail Joint.” This method means that glue and nails are not required.

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LignoSat was part of the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Small Satellite Orbital Deployer-30 (J-SSOD-30) CubeSat deployment mission, handled by the JEM Remote Manipulator System (JEMRMS). It is expected to spend a few months in low Earth orbit before eventually reentering the Earth’s atmosphere and burning up.

Considering the rate at which satellites are being launched into orbit – SpaceX sent a batch of 24 Starlink satellites into space earlier this week – the prospect of building the spacecraft out of materials with less of an environmental impact is appealing, although LignoSat does incorporate components made from more conventional materials.

According to a J-Stories report, researchers hope that more of the aluminum parts used to attach electronic components to the wooden box could be replaced by wood in the future.

In the report, Koji Murata of the Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, said, “If the launch of the wooden satellite proves that timber can be used in space, it should change how we look at timber on Earth and lead to new uses and a reevaluation of the material.”

Source: Japan’s wooden satellite leaves International Space Station • The Register

Telegram hands over data on 2253 users last year (up from 108 in 2023) to US law enforcement alone after arrest of boss

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Telegram reveals that the communications platform has fulfilled 900 U.S. government requests, sharing the phone number or IP address information of 2,253 users with law enforcement.

This number is a steep increase from previous years, with most requests processed after the platform’s policy shift on sharing user data, announced in September 2024.

While Telegram has long been a platform used to communicate with friends and family, talk with like-minded peers, and as a way to bypass government censorship, it is also heavily used for cybercrime.

Threat actors commonly utilize the platform to sell illegal services, conduct attacks, sell stolen data, or as a command and control server for their malware.

As first reported by 404 Media, the new information on fulfilled law enforcement requests comes from the Telegram Transparency Report for the period between 1/1/24 and 12/13/24.

Previously, Telegram would only share users’ IP addresses and phone numbers in cases of terrorism and had only fulfilled 14 requests affecting 108 users until September 30, 2024.

Current numbers (left) and previous period figures (right)
Current numbers (left) and previous period figures (right)
Source: BleepingComputer

Following the change in its privacy policy, Telegram will now share user data with law enforcement in other cases of crime, including cybercrime, the selling of illegal goods, and online fraud.

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This change came in response to pressure from the authorities, culminating in the arrest of Telegram’s founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, in late August in France.

Durov subsequently faced a long list of charges, including complicity in cybercrime, organized fraud, and distribution of illegal material, as well as refusal to facilitate lawful interceptions aimed at aiding crime investigations.

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To access Telegram transparency reports for your country, use the platform’s dedicated bot from here.

Source: Telegram hands over data on thousands of users to US law enforcement

That’s one way to get what you want – make up spurious charges, arrest someone and hold them for as long as it takes for you to get what you want without having to actually prove you can legally get at it. If it wasn’t the government doing it this would be called kidnapping and extortion.

Google goes to court for collecting data on users who opted out… again…

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A federal judge this week rejected Google’s motion to throw out a class-action lawsuit alleging that it invaded the privacy of users who opted out of functionality that records a users’ web and app activities. A jury trial is scheduled for August 2025 in US District Court in San Francisco.

The lawsuit concerns Google’s Web & App Activity (WAA) settings, with the lead plaintiff representing two subclasses of people with Android and non-Android phones who opted out of tracking. “The WAA button is a Google account setting that purports to give users privacy control of Google’s data logging of the user’s web app and activity, such as a user’s searches and activity from other Google services, information associated with the user’s activity, and information about the user’s location and device,” wrote US District Judge Richard Seeborg, the chief judge in the Northern District Of California.

Google says that Web & App Activity “saves your activity on Google sites and apps, including associated info like location, to give you faster searches, better recommendations, and more personalized experiences in Maps, Search, and other Google services.” Google also has a supplemental Web App and Activity setting that the judge’s ruling refers to as “(s)WAA.”

“The (s)WAA button, which can only be switched on if WAA is also switched on, governs information regarding a user’s ‘[Google] Chrome history and activity from sites, apps, and devices that use Google services.’ Disabling WAA also disables the (s)WAA button,” Seeborg wrote.

Google sends data to developers

But data is still sent to third-party app developers through the Google Analytics for Firebase (GA4F), “a free analytical tool that takes user data from the Firebase kit and provides app developers with insight on app usage and user engagement,” the ruling said. GA4F “is integrated in 60 percent of the top apps” and “works by automatically sending to Google a user’s ad interactions and certain identifiers regardless of a user’s (s)WAA settings, and Google will, in turn, provide analysis of that data back to the app developer.”

Plaintiffs have brought claims of privacy invasion under California law. Plaintiffs “present evidence that their data has economic value,” and “a reasonable juror could find that Plaintiffs suffered damage or loss because Google profited from the misappropriation of their data,” Seeborg wrote.

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In a proposed settlement of a different lawsuit, Google last year agreed to delete records reflecting users’ private browsing activities in Chrome’s Incognito mode.

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Google contends that its system is harmless to users. “Google argues that its sole purpose for collecting (s)WAA-off data is to provide these analytic services to app developers. This data, per Google, consists only of non-personally identifiable information and is unrelated (or, at least, not directly related) to any profit-making objectives,” Seeborg wrote.

On the other side, plaintiffs say that Google’s tracking contradicts its “representations to users because it gathers exactly the data Google denies saving and collecting about (s)WAA-off users,” Seeborg wrote. “Moreover, Plaintiffs insist that Google’s practices allow it to personalize ads by linking user ad interactions to any later related behavior—information advertisers are likely to find valuable—leading to Google’s lucrative advertising enterprise built, in part, on (s)WAA-off data unlawfully retrieved.”

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Google, as the judge writes, purports to treat user data as pseudonymous by creating a randomly generated identifier that “permits Google to recognize the particular device and its later ad-related behavior… Google insists that it has created technical barriers to ensure, for (s)WAA-off users, that pseudonymous data is delinked to a user’s identity by first performing a ‘consent check’ to determine a user’s (s)WAA settings.”

Whether this counts as personal information under the law is a question for a jury, the judge wrote. Seeborg pointed to California law that defines personal information to include data that “is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household.” Given the legal definition, “a reasonable juror could view the (s)WAA-off data Google collected via GA4F, including a user’s unique device identifiers, as comprising a user’s personal information,” he wrote.

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Source: Google loses in court, faces trial for collecting data on users who opted out – Ars Technica