Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo Reportedly Working on Global Developer Service Alliance

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Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo Reportedly Working on Global Developer Service Alliance
Number 1042
Broadcast Date FEBRUARY 6, 2020
Episode Length 6:09
Hosts Rich Stroffolino

Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo are reportedly working together on the Global Developer Service Alliance, designed to allow developers to market apps overseas, iOS 13.4 beta shows CarKey API, and Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube send image scraping cease-and-desist letters to Clearview AI.

Headlines

Reuters reports that, according to sources, Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo are working together on the Global Developer Service Alliance, designed to allow developers to market apps overseas. A prototype website seen by Reuters claims the GDSA will cover nine "regions" including India, Indonesia and Russia. It is unclear if the GDSA will offer monetary incentives for developers. The alliance was reportedly set to launch in March, but may be pushed back due to the coronavirus outbreak in China. Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo represent a combined 40% of all smartphone shipments in 2019.
The beta release of iOS 13.4 references a "CarKey" API. According to the system’s internal files, CarKey will allow iPhone and Apple Watch users to unlock, lock, and start a vehicle, having the device nearby to serve as the key. The feature will work automatically and not require Face ID authentication, meaning a dead device could still work with CarKey. Devices are paired through the wallet app, and requires the car makers app installed. Devices are placed on the car's NFC reader, for pairing. The Wallet app can also be used to share a CarKey with other people on their devices.
Last month, The New York Times reported on the company Clearview AI, which offered image recognition to a claimed 600 law enforcement agencies based on a database of 3 billion images scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo, Twitter, and other online platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube confirmed they sent cease and desist letters to Clearview, stating the scraping of images violated policies, and demand it stop accessing and using the images. In an interview with CBS, Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That argued it had a "First Amendment" right to access data in the public domain. Facebook argues that its terms forbid any scraping, and YouTube stated its terms explicitly forbid collecting data that can be used to identify a person.
A WhatsApp flaw, discovered by researcher Gal Weizman at PerimeterX, showed how an attacker could use cross-site scripting attacks to read the files on the MacOS or Windows versions of the app by using a specially crafted text message, and then get contents of files on the computer. WhatsApp's desktop app was implemented using the Electron software framework, which allows developers to create cross-platform applications based on Web and browser technologies but relies on developers to deploy secure Electron apps.
Software engineer Robert Heaton published a blog post looking at the privacy policy for Wacom tablets. A provision in the policy asked for permission to send aggregate usage data, technical session information and information about hardware devices to Google Analytics. Digging into the traffic, Heaton found that Wacom sends Google analytics what application is being opened, the time it was opened, and what appeared to be a unique identifier. Heaton notes that it appears data collection can be opted out of by disabling the Wacom Experience Program on the desktop app.
Google announced that based on research from 45,000 worldwide consumers, ad-blocking changes in Chrome, set to be applied later this year, will include blocking long, non-skippable pre-roll ads or groups of ads longer than 31 seconds appearing before a video that can't be skipped within the first 5 seconds. Mid-roll ads of any length are included as well. Image or text ads that appear on top of a playing video and are in the middle 1/3 of the video player window or cover more than 20 percent of the video content are also included. Chrome enforcement begins August 5, 2020, and will see the browser “stop showing all ads on sites in any country that repeatedly show these disruptive ads.”
Google updated its Maps app to mark the 15th anniversary of the service. The app now features two additional tabs at the bottom, "contribute" lets users add information to maps, and "updates" which shows recommendations from locals or other Google Maps users you follow. The "For You" tab has been renamed to "Saved" as well. Coming in March, the app improves crowd sourced information for public transit, allowing users to submit details like temperature, wheelchair accessibility, and if there is onboard security. The AR Live View mode will also get a new lightweight mode that focuses on the destination rather than showing a full 3D turn by turn mode. Google Maps will also get an updated app icon, replacing the familiar map with a Google-colored location pin.
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner announced he's stepping down after 11 years and will become executive chairman in June. His replacement will be Ryan Roslansky, a senior vice president of product at the company and the first person Weiner hired. Tomer Cohen, another VP of product, will move into Roslansky’s role.
Twitter reported it earned $0.15 per share on revenue of $1.01 billion in Q4, a new quarterly high. Analysts expected revenue of $997 million on earnings of $0.29 per share. The company reported monetizable daily active users increased 21% on the year to 152 million, citing improvements to the algorithmic timeline surfacing relevant content and better notifications. Advertising revenue increased 12% on the year to $885 million, with total ad engagement up 29%.
Netflix began rolling out support for the AV1 video codec on Android. The company claims the royalty free codec compresses content 20% more efficiently than the VP9 codec. The codec is only available on select titles when users enable the "Save Data" option in the app. Netflix plans to roll out the codec to all platforms eventually.

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Preceded by:
"LG, ZTE Pull out of MWC"
Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo Reportedly Working on Global Developer Service Alliance
Followed by:
"Instagram Prototyping Instagram Partner Program"