Month: May 2020

• 

  The Galaxy A51, obviously. [credit: Samsung ]

Samsung's midrange smartphone lineup has been getting more and more prominent in the United States lately, and now we're seeing wider distribution for a particularly interesting device: the Galaxy A51. The phone was previously on Verizon, but as of today it's headed to Sprint, AT&T, Xfinity (but only for pre-order), Amazon, and Samsung.com. As a $400 device, this is Samsung's closest competition to the iPhone SE, Apple's recently released midrange juggernaut. In a post-iPhone SE world, it feels like every Android phone needs to justify its existence next to the cheap iPhone, so let's compare!

Of course, the iPhone SE is a $400 phone that somehow packs The World's Fastest Mobile SoC, the Apple A13 Bionic. It's not only faster than the Samsung Exynos 9611 in the Galaxy A51, but faster than any SoC, in any Android phone, even Samsung's top-of-the-line $1,400 Galaxy S20 Ultra. The Exynos 9611 is a 10nm SoC with four 2.3GHz Cortex-A73 cores and four 1.7 GHz Cortex-A53 cores. This is a rare non-Qualcomm chip to come to the US, and the rough Qualcomm equivalent would be the Snapdragon 835, the flagship SoC from 2017

The SoC situation is downright embarrassing for Team Android, but the A51 has a lot to say when it comes to the display and design of the two phones. The A51 is sporting a more modern design than the SE, with slim bezels and a hole-punch front camera. The iPhone SE recycles the iPhone 8 design and consequently looks like a phone that's a few years old. Samsung being Samsung, the A51 has a massive display, a 6.5-inch, 2400×1080 OLED with a 20:9 aspect ratio and 405 pixels per inch. The iPhone SE display is smaller than nearly every Android phone on the market and very old school, with a 4.7-inch 1334×750 LCD with a 16:9 aspect ratio and 326 PPI. Samsung also has an in-screen, optical fingerprint reader, while Apple resurrects TouchID with a front capacitive reader. I like the symmetry here: Samsung has a modern design and SoC technology that was top-of-the-line in 2017, while Apple has a design from 2017 and a modern SoC.

Enlarge / Screenshot of contact-tracing smartphone app. (credit: Apple/Google)

It may sound unsettling or even downright creepy for the device that’s generally with you 24/7 to make it possible for authorities to trace your exposure to a potentially fatal illness that’s currently consuming the world. That’s why Apple and Google have been bending over backward to provide privacy assurances about the platform-compatible programming interfaces they’re putting into iOS and Android. On Monday, they offered new details, as well as images of the push notifications users might receive should they have come into contact with someone who later tests positive for COVID-19.

Among the assurances provided is that apps that use the application programming interfaces can only be developed by or for public health authorities and that the limited amount of information they can collect may be used solely for tracing COVID-19 infections. Apps will be barred from seeking location permissions and must collect the least amount of data possible to trace the physical contacts of other opt-in app users who later find out they’re infected. None of the data collected may be used for any commercial purposes.

Besides the assurances, the companies gave a sneak peak of the permissions users must provide and the look of push exposure notifications to be delivered to a user’s phone. Here are the images:

Enlarge / President Donald Trump speaks as Vice President Mike Pence looks on during a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic at the White House on March 26, 2020. (credit: Getty Images | Drew Angerer )

The United States is expected to see about 200,000 new COVID-19 cases per day by June 1, with daily deaths hitting 3,000, a leaked Trump administration document shows.

"As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths over the next several weeks. The daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double the current number of about 1,750," the Times reported today. "The projections, based on government modeling pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases a day currently."

The Times published the document, which is titled "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Situation Update." These charts show the projections of new daily cases and deaths as well as how confirmed cases and deaths have risen since the pandemic began:

Enlarge / How'd the Half-Life: Alyx bump work out for SteamVR adoption? (credit: Sam Machkovech / Aurich Lawson)

On Friday, Valve revealed the biggest jump ever in virtual reality use on its SteamVR platform: a 0.62 percent increase of all Steam users. This jump, unsurprisingly, coincides with the first Steam Hardware Survey to include players of the megaton VR exclusive Half-Life: Alyx.

If that percentage tally sounds ridiculously low, remember that the last public announcement of all Steam users came in January 2019, at a count of 90 million. That number has likely grown quite a bit since then, owing to factors like free-to-play games attracting more users over that 15-month span. If we agree with estimates like Road to VR's count of roughly 141 million Steam users in April 2020 (as determined by an exponential trendline with an r-squared factor of 0.922), then that "0.62 percent increase" would mean a one-month jump of over 870,000 active VR users.

The previous record-holder for a one-month jump in SteamVR users came in January 2020, which saw a spike of roughly 0.22 percent. This notable jump in sales followed Valve's Half-Life: Alyx unveil in late November 2019. The April 2020 figure, on the other hand, tracks anyone who had connected a SteamVR-compatible headset to their computer at any point in the 30 days leading to the "early April" period of Steam's automatic survey-gathering process (for users who opt into the survey). So that period would include HL:A's release as a playable game on March 23. With HL:A in the mix, the one-month jump in percentage points was nearly triple the previous record-holder.

Enlarge / Travelers wearing protective face masks stand around social distancing floor markers at "Gare du Nord" railway station as the lockdown continues due to the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) on May 04, 2020 in Paris, France. (credit: Chesnot / Getty Images)

During the pandemic, Ars has done its best to keep you on top of the most important news. But there are definitely gaps in our coverage: small updates to stories we've covered, or news that we've decided wasn't worth the time to report deeply. Focusing on breaking news also limits our opportunity to provide bigger-picture perspective. To make up for this, we're going to try doing a series of Monday updates to help keep you informed.

Current counts: 3.5 million confirmed cases globally; 1.15 million of those in the United States. 250,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19; 62,000 deaths in the US.

Global trends

On Friday, the World Health Organization extended its declaration of global health emergency. SARS-CoV-2 is now being actively transmitted on every inhabited continent, and many new cases are occurring in developing nations in Africa and South America, which have more limited health care systems and far less testing capacity. Thus, it's difficult to tell just how much the virus is spreading in these countries (to be fair, it's difficult to tell how fast it's spreading in many developed nations as well).

Enlarge / SALEM, OR. - MAY 02: A nurse holds a sign at the ReOpen Oregon Rally. Demonstrators gathered at the state capitol to demand a reopening of the state and to protest Gov. Kate Brown's stay-at-home order, which was put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19. (credit: Getty | Terray Sylvester)

Prominent anti-vaccine voices have joined the din of those protesting social-distancing measures amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report by The New York Times.

The merging movements have some health experts concerned that anti-vaccination sentiments may spread among the various factions protesting the mitigation efforts. Those factions include Tea Party activists, armed militia groups, protesters carrying Confederate flags, and some business owners who merely want to be able to reopen, according to experts who spoke with the Times.

“There is a tremendous amount of cross-pollinization of ideas as these factions get to know each other,” Devin Burghart, who runs the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, told the Times.