Month: June 2021

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  The Huawei iPad Pro. [credit: Huawei ]

This morning in a livestream, Huawei officially kicked off the launch of Harmony OS, its in-house operating system and (among other things) its replacement for Android. The company announced a new watch, a new tablet, and a new phone powered by HarmonyOS. The company also said it would be updating a massive list of 100 different Huawei Android phone models to Harmony OS over the next year.

With today's announcement, Huawei looks like it has two completely different operating systems that it calls "HarmonyOS." First is the IoT and smartwatch version of HarmonyOS, which is based on Huawei's LiteOS and is open source. The second version of Harmony OS is for phones and tablets and is a fork of Android and uses the Linux kernel (Huawei is very reluctant to admit this). Having what seems like two totally different operating systems share the same brand name leads to a lot of confusion, and you can make a lot of claims about the IoT version of HarmonyOS that don't apply to the phone version.

For instance, TechCrunch spoke to Huawei and reported "Huawei denied speculations that HarmonyOS is a derivative of Android and said no single line of code is identical to that of Android. A spokesperson for Huawei declined to say whether the operating system is based on Linux, the kernel that powers Android." This statement is true of the IoT version but untrue of the phone version. Meanwhile, the company said the complete opposite thing to the German site ComputerBase, which quotes Huawei's software president as saying "To make sure our existing users can still enjoy the experiences that they are familiar with in our phones and tablets, Huawei uses the open source code from AOSP in HarmonyOS on the condition of complying with open source license rules and fulfilling related responsibilities and obligations."

Enlarge / A Verizon FiOS truck in Manhattan on September 15, 2017. (credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection | Gado)

Verizon is defending its practice of forcing customers to switch plans to get a government-funded $50-per-month discount, telling the Federal Communications Commission that this is not the same thing as "upselling." Verizon has partially backtracked from this restrictive policy but told the FCC it will take "about a month" to deploy a billing-software update that will let more home-Internet customers get the discounts without changing plans.

As we wrote on May 18, Verizon is preventing some customers from getting the new government subsidies unless they switch to different plans that are sometimes more expensive. AT&T, Charter, and T-Mobile also limit the plans eligible for the subsidies, while Comcast says it will honor the discounts even on grandfathered plans that are no longer offered to new customers.

Verizon is mad that its policy was criticized.

Enlarge / Elon Musk isn't sure. (credit: VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

The Securities and Exchange Commission is having a hard time reining in Elon Musk’s social media use, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.

The regulator sent Tesla three sternly worded letters between August 2019 and June 2020, asking Tesla’s attorney’s to enforce a 2018 settlement that demanded greater oversight of Musk’s social media posts. “Tesla has abdicated the duties required of it by the court’s order,” said the SEC in a letter from May of last year.

The three letters, including the SEC’s records of its correspondence with Tesla’s attorneys, were obtained by the Journal through a Freedom of Information Act request. They show a regulator struggling to enforce a settlement that, from the outset, seemed challenging to implement.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

The Dunning-Kruger effect is one of the most famous—and predictable—biases in human behavior. It posits that people who don't understand a topic also lack sufficient knowledge to recognize that they don't understand it. Instead, these people know just enough to convince themselves that they completely grasp the topic, with results ranging from hilarious to painful.

Inspired by the widespread sharing of blatantly false news articles, a team of US-based researchers looked into whether Dunning-Kruger might be operating in the field of media literacy. Not surprisingly, people do overestimate their ability to identify misleading news. But the details are complicated, and there's no obvious route to overcoming this bias.

Evaluating the news

Media literacy has the potential to limit the rapid spread of misinformation. Assuming people care about the accuracy of the things they like or share—something far from guaranteed—a stronger media literacy would help people evaluate if something is likely to be accurate before pressing that share button. Assessing the credibility of sources is an essential part of that process.

Enlarge / Apple's discontinued HomePod. (credit: Jeff Dunn)

A reference to "homeOS" was recently found in an Apple job listing, suggesting that Apple may have plans to change how it classifies and presents the software running on devices like the HomePod mini in the future.

Twitter user Javier Lacort discovered the terminology in an Apple Music-related job listing and posted a screenshot to Twitter. "You'll get to work with system engineers across Apple, learning the inner-workings of iOS, watchOS, tvOS, and homeOS," the posting reads. "The Apple Music Frameworks team owns the technology stack that enables the system-integrated Apple Music experience on all of our mobile platforms: iOS, watchOS, and homeOS," it adds shortly afterwards.

The job listing appeared to later be updated to say "HomePod" instead of "homeOS" in the first case and "tvOS" instead of "homeOS" in the second case.

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Today's Dealmaster is headlined by a nifty deal on PlayStation Plus, while 12-month subscriptions to Sony's online gaming service are currently available for $45 at various retailers. We've seen year-long memberships go for less on multiple occasions over the years, but this discount is still $15 off the service's usual going rate. The discount comes as part of Sony's official Days of Play sale, and the company says it will be valid until June 10.

As a refresher, PlayStation Plus is still required to play online multiplayer in most PS4 and PS5 games, nets users access to a few free games each month, and hosts a few extra discounts on PlayStation's digital storefront. If you mostly stick to single-player games, it isn't as vital, but a recent Sony investor report said the service had almost 48 million subscribers in the 2020 fiscal year.

Beyond that, Sony has also discounted its PlayStation Now service, with 12- and 3-month subscriptions currently marked down to $45 and $20. While not a direct competitor, this is the closest thing Sony has to an Xbox Game Pass alternative, as it bundles together various PlayStation games for one monthly fee. Its selection isn't as stocked with as many high-profile brand new games as Game Pass, but it does include several worthwhile titles from across the PS4, PS3, and PS2 libraries, including a number of older exclusives.

Enlarge / The Garmin 945 LTE family. (credit: Garmin)

Garmin just announced the new Forerunner 945 LTE and Forerunner 55 running smartwatches, and I know what you’re thinking: “Garmin finally caved and made a full-blown, cellular-connected smartwatch!”

Not quite. The new device does have LTE connectivity, which requires a monthly subscription of either $5.99 (with an annual contract) or $6.99 (with no annual contract), but the feature is exclusively for enhanced safety tracking and activity sharing.

These enhanced functions enable you to receive audio and text messages from chosen contacts via a shared link during activities, as well as two-way text communication with Garmin’s 24/7 emergency services, in case of an event. But beyond that, you cannot send or receive calls or texts without your phone.