Google's Linux Revolution: New Gains for Android, Chrome OS (GNU/Linux)
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-13 09:53:05 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-13 09:53:05 UTC
Swisscom
FireTV
It’s interesting to note that, according to Koush, the APK is the “regular Android APK,” and can be used to mirror your Android phone with any other suitable Android device. As we all know, the Fire TV does run on Android and although, on the surface, it may not be immediately familiar to most Android users, its roots are the same and have allowed the app to work seamlessly.
Android TV
Rumors of the impending sunsetting of Google TV have been around at least since September when Sony, Google’s most stalwart partner for its struggling, Android-based Google TV, announced a Bravia Smart Stick media player. Sony noted “Google services” but never mentioned Google TV. The trend was confirmed by several unnamed Google TV partners in an October report by GigaOM that cited the “Android TV” name. In December, when Marvell announced an Android 4.2.2-ready, Armada 1500 Plus SoC update to the official SoC of Google TV — the Armada 1500 — the Android TV term was used again.
Leaked images of Google’s new Android TV user interface show a more streamlined and intuitive approach to the big screen than Google TV.
The Verge reports that Google is getting ready to launch Android TV, a set top box based on Android that comes complete with apps and games. The new device is said to have an entertainment-focused interface, and it will be geared toward getting content in front of the user with three clicks or less. Such a product could prove to be a very tough competitor for Amazon’s Fire TV and the Apple TV. It looks like Google is declaring war on Apple and Amazon for control of the living room.
Android in Home-centric Form Factors
Photographs serve as our best memories. Through good times and some great times, photographs stay with us etching our emotions deftly onto a little piece of paper. Over the years, photographs have gone a major transformation. Few years ago, taking a photo meant that you had some memory that you thought would be worth sharing. You took a picture and then kept it with you for the rest of your life. These days, taking a picture is all about getting the maximum likes on Facebook or Instagram. Oh, and there's the bizarre trend of "selfies" that well, isn't that cool as you might think.
Laptops
So the question is, what would Android need to do to make it a great laptop operating system? The biggest thing missing, in my opinion, is bringing great desktop apps to this OS through the same Play Store. Just like you install Chrome for smartphones, there should be an option to install Chrome Desktop for the same touchscreen devices—this app, however, would need to be made for keyboard usage.
Tablets
If you want to be totally up-to-date, HP has the answer for you -- though it will cost you a little bit. The company has stealthily launched the Slate 8 Pro Business edition, which is similar to the non-Business version save for one key difference: It runs the latest version of Android -- 4.4, or KitKat.
Nikon (Microsoft-taxed)
Nikon has launched the Coolpix S810, which packs in all the technology Nikon is famous for along with the most popular operating for smart devices – Android. It is a simple point and shoot camera powered by Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.
Samsung (Microsoft-taxed)
Samsung Electronics will add two safeguards to its latest smartphone in an effort to deter rampant theft of the mobile devices nationwide, the company said Friday.
Samsung Galaxy S5 is the fastest smartphone available in the market right now. Galaxy S5 has top of the line Qualcomm 2.5 GHz quad core Snapdragon 800 chipset along with 2GB of RAM. The internal storage include options for 16GB or 32GB expandable up to 64GB using microSD. It features a 5.1 inch Super AMOLED display with FULL HD resolution of 1920Ãâ1080. The smartphone is running the latest Android KitKat 4.4. Special features include fingerprint sensor, heart-rate monitor, health-centric apps and water- as well as dust-resistant body. The device is powered by a 3,000 mAh battery.
The Gear Fit is the first wearable device from a major manufacturer to truly look like it's come from the future, though its warm reception was colored by one universal complaint: the orientation of the screen. Displaying the time, messages, and all your health data horizontally makes the wrist-worn device somewhat awkward to read, but Samsung hasn't been deaf to the criticism. The company's issued a patch to enable vertical display orientation, making for a more familiar reading experience when consulting the fitness band. This could be a great boon in Korea — where the updated UI first appeared on Samsung's official store blog — but the narrowness of the screen may pose a challenge when displaying longer pieces of text in the Latin alphabet.
Project Ara
Just days before its first Project Ara Developer Conference is scheduled to begin, Google has released the device's Module Developers Kit (MDK), a set of plans and documentation designed to get hardware hackers started building modules for the componentized, mix-and-match experimental smartphone.
Google’s Project Ara is an effort to create a modular smartphone that’s cheap and ridiculously customizable. Want a new processor? Just pop out the old one and pop in a module with a new chip. Need long battery life but don’t care about removable storage? Just replace the microSD card module with an extra battery module.
Security
Disturbing reports about fake Android apps are nothing new, but the latest one involves an app called Virus Shield. It sold for $3.99 and promised to improve the security of Android devices. Unfortunately, as Android Police discovered, it actually did nothing at all except to fleece users of their hard earned money. The app has since been pulled from the Google Play store, but the damage has already been done.
Misc.
Android 4.4.3, also known as KitKat MR2 (Android 4.4.1 and 4.4.2 are known as KitKat MR1), has entered the dogfooding stage and has started rolling out to 1% of Google employees outside of the Android team. Currently, the dogfooding rollout is limited to the supported Nexus line (Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 2012, Nexus 7 2013, and Nexus 10), with GPE and Moto X updates to follow.
It isn't easy being an Android smartphone maker these days. Your flagship handsets are scrutinised for cutting-edge features, yet they're criticised if these features seem to be unnecessary, or are unnecessarily complicated.
Ever faster multicore processors are sometimes deemed by reviewers to be faster than needed, with the trade-off between power consumption and responsiveness often cited. Higher-resolution screens can be dismissed, as there comes a point where pixel count goes beyond being a factor in smooth text and graphics rendition. What's a manufacturer to do in the face of such criticism?
Chrome OS
Chromebooks are also getting support for folders in launcher. What it means is that now, like Android, you can create folders and club your apps in a much organzied manner. Google has also implemented the “OK Google” search feature with the launcher and the voice search can be triggered with hotword “Ok Google”. Google has also implemented support for ‘Captive Portal’ which makes it easier for users when they try to connect to the wireless of cafes, hotels, airports, and other locations which requiers them to go to an authentication page.
As Chromebooks--portable computers based on Google's Chrome OS platform--continue to carve out a healthy niche for themselves, there are strong signs that we are soon going to see Chrome OS tablets. This, of course, has been in the rumor mill for some time. Last October, I reported on a developer-focused version of Chrome OS that included an on-screen keyboard, which of course would be ideal for use on a tablet. Now, the Chrome OS team has confirmed that the latest Stable Channel version of Chrome OS has such a keyboard, and it's likely we'll see tablets based on Google's operating system soon.
What I am trying to highlight from this post is that if you use a Chromebook you have given yourself a great chance to remain safe from viruses but it doesn't mean you should go gung-ho and believe that you are invincible online.
Chrome
It is unclear what they mean by 'technical issue' and how come Google has blocked the website. At the time of the writing, visitors are still presented with the malware warning message. Wired says it is waiting for Google chrome to remove the warning.
Today’s Chrome Beta channel release includes a slew of new developer features to help you make richer, more compelling web content and apps, especially for mobile devices. Unless otherwise noted, changes described below apply to Chrome for Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS.
Google Chrome, a browser built on the Blink layout engine that aims to be minimalistic and versatile at the same time, has been upgraded yet again, has just received a new update, promoting the 35 development branch to Beta.
Google today released Chrome version 34 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The new version includes support for responsive images, an unprefixed version of the Web Audio API, and importing supervised users. You can update to the latest release now using the browser’s built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome.
According to a lucky reader of ours, Google opened up a beta test for its Chrome Remote Desktop app on Android within the last few days. The beta is invite only at this time, with invites rolling out to those who “expressed interest” in helping Chrome improve their remote desktop client. Like the Chrome extension, this app does indeed give you remote access to your desktop computers, only this time through Android devices (both phones and tablets).
Google officially released the Chrome 34 web-browser this afternoon and with it comes new features.
The Google Chrome 35 development branch, a browser built on the Blink layout engine that aims to be minimalistic and versatile at the same time, has been upgraded yet again, but this time it's only a very small update.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Can We Finally All Agree That UEFI 'Secure Boot' is a Sham That Harms Security and Gives Microsoft Remote Control Over All PCs and Servers (Even Those That Don't Run Any Microsoft Software)?
- Cui bono?
- Daniel Pocock as Independent Candidate, Now in The London Standard
- "Daniel Pocock is an independent candidate."
-
- This Bubble is Bursting, Piecewise
- It's nice to see Wall Street getting some reality checks
- It's Not About XBox, Microsoft is Already Firing Hundreds of People Who Do "Security [sic] Engineering" [sic]
- The official reason/excuse/lie told is something about slop, but no sane person would buy it (not even insiders who are impacted)
- Bolivian People Adopt GNU/Linux (They Have a Domestic Distro Too, PluriOS)
- Notice Windows falling to an all-time low
- No Technical People Write About UK Parliamentary Elections
- Almost none of them work in the media, which seems to favour parrots, slop, or parrots that use slop
- "But Stallman is Scaring Away Women..."
- Such dishonest projections (projection tactics) needs to be called out and refuted
- First Female Debian Project Leader (DPL) Affirms Low Profile and Inferior Status of Women in GAFAM
- 3 months ago Sruthi Chandran was elected as Debian Project Leader (DPL) for a period of 12 months
- After 5 Years Vista 11 Still Adopted Less Than Its Predecessor (Orphaned, End of Life Since Last Year)
- Notice Windows going down to 40%
- We Don't Depend on Google (or Search Engines in General)
- there's a lesson here and it extends beyond sites
- Only "Torvaldos" (Linus Torvalds) Can Use the F-Word, CoC Does Not Apply to the Enforcer, and Richard Stallman Punished for Using the Other F-Word ("Freedom")
- "Linus Torvalds tells AI haters to fork off"
- Explaining the Culture of Bulletin Board-Style Chat
- Only desperate detractors would try to present something (cherry-picked) from IRC as some sort of official statement for Techrights
- Independent, But Not Fringe
- "Daniel Pocock is an Independent Candidate."
- In Free Software, Nobody Gets Fired
- Way to own one's code and project
- PIP-Styled Mass Layoffs Allegedly Coming to Microsoft by 12 August 2026
- Microsoft has been doing "silent layoffs" (PIPs and more) for quite some time
- Daniel Pocock's Candidacy (Election of Member of Parliament) Mentioned in BBC and Over a Dozen News Sites Since Yesterday
- Funnily enough, albeit not surprisingly, the same people who attack Pocock also attack us
- Links 18/07/2026: Spotify Uses Slop Song Descriptions, "San Francisco Demands Removal of Nudify Apps"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 17, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, July 17, 2026
- Gemini Links 18/07/2026: A Manifesto by The Dissident, Shokz Headphones, and Gemini Tinylog Reader (GTL)
- Links for the day
- IBM Already Tentatively Down for Next Week (Monday) After Its Worst-Ever Week
- What a week for IBM!
- Links 17/07/2026: Protests Erupt Throughout Ukraine and Anthropic Caught Secretly Spying on Users
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 17/07/2026: "Silence Doesn't Mean Abandoned", Revisiting PalmOS in 2026
- Links for the day
- Andy Burnham as National Leader Would be Excellent for Techrights
- Burnham has envisioned a British "centre of power" (or gravity) that moves northwards, isn't concentrated in the southeast anymore
- Farage Out, Daniel Pocock in?
- Can Pocock beat his previous voting record?
- Layoffs at Microsoft Are Massive, Go Under the Radar for the Most Part
- Microsoft is in a really bad shape
- One Heck of a Week for IBM, the 'Grandpa' of 'High-Tech', International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) Under Investigation by Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC
- If IBM gets busted or might be busted, will the CEO jump, get pushed, or be arrested?
- In Defence of Courts' Privacy Policies
- If you want friends, go offline. Meet real people and share real experiences.
- Why I Quit Academic Career (or Academia) Nearly 15 Years Ago
- I am told by people who stayed that it has only gotten worse
- “Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software”
- As Dr. Richard Stallman once put it
- GNU/Linux Grows at the Expense of Microsoft Windows in Croatia, Now Close to 8%
- Croatia has been mentioned a lot lately in relation to EPO "lobbying" (vote-rigging)
- 27-Year IBM Veteran on IBM: "Worse than the Titanic and Perhaps Just Like Madoff, Enron, etc."
- several comments we saw today envisioned the CEO of IBM in an orange suit (in US prison)
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part XV - Nazi-Like Thinking at the European Patent Office (EPO) Not a Thing of the Past
- antisemitism inside the EPO
- Daniel Pocock Running for Office Again, Clacton-on-Sea By-election
- By-election - code name "Pocock-on-Sea"
- ServiceNow/ServiceLine and Slop at the EPO is Becoming a Health Risk to Staff
- PD44 has historically been the oppressor at the EPO
- IBM Can Burn Pensioners to Appease Wall Street and Protect the Billionaire CEO With His Humongous Bonuses
- Its stock it set to open 2.82% in the red
- IBM SHAREHOLDER INVESTIGATION: Potential Securities Claims Involving International Business Machines (IBM)
- there's a risk of criminal action against executives
- Tux Machines Moving Onwards and Upwards
- "...tasks expand to fill the time available"
- The Register MS is Publishing Spam for Gartner Group to Spread Hype About "AI", Mentioned 30 Times in the Paid (Fake) Article
- One sure thing is, the so-called 'tech media' is profoundly compromised by American corporations
- "Market Share" of GNU/Linux Nearly Trebled in Cambodia This Month
- GNU/Linux is still measured at 8% by statCounter
- GitHub is Dying (Traffic Down Despite Bots and Slop), Microsoft Will Eventually Cull it - Just Like XBox - to Limit the Losses
- Do not stay on GitHub (Microsoft) under the false assumption that it is "free hosting" or will always be around
- Teaser: Daniel Pocock is About to Go Mainstream Again
- Stay tuned, Pocock has something in store
- Microsoft Has Just Been Sued Over Layoffs
- If the rumours are true, there is yet another wave of layoffs at Microsoft
- Richard Stallman Always Cautioned, Upfront, That His Political Views Were Wholly Separate From His Scientific Work or GNU
- Notice that he already spoke a lot about politics
- Links 17/07/2026: Microsoft is Cutting OneDrive Coverage, Larry Ellison Sued by Paramount Investor
- Links for the day
- Nichirei and Asahi Beer Need to Take Cyberattacks as Hint of Opportunity to Move to Free Software
- Windows TCO
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 16, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 16, 2026
- Gemini Links 17/07/2026: Sunlight in the Clouds, Techno-Therapy, and Sloppifying Original Text
- Links for the day
- Links 16/07/2026: Slop Recognised as a Waste of Energy, Hong Kong Cracking Down on Dissent/Opposition Some More
- Links for the day
- GNU/Linux Approaching 5% "Market Share" in Oceania, Almost Trebling in 12 Months
- It is difficult to ignore the gains made by GNU/Linux this month
- Microsoft Whistleblowers Explain How Brutal the Latest Cull is (Layoffs in Seconds-Long Calls, Mass Elimination of Whole Studios and High-Level Officials)
- we see anonymous leakers or whistleblowers in the media today
- Gemini Links 16/07/2026: esp32-gemserv, Slop-Contaminated Free Software, and Moving Systems
- Links for the day
- Last Summer Microsoft Mass Layoffs Came in Two Large Waves, Rumours Say Next Week Another Large Wave is Coming
- If many more Microsoft layoffs are formally admitted next week we will not be surprised
- Tomorrow is Another Strike Day at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, the Media is Still Deliberately Ignoring It
- Fridays are now recommended “anchor days" for EPO strikes
- Public Interest News Foundation Shows News Drought or News Deserts in the United Kingdom
- Public Interest News Foundation shows that we should be deeply concerned
- Illusions of Choice
- Choices can be differently bad or equally bad
- Windows Down to 10% in India
- Windows is a "burning platform"
- One Year Has Passed
- Our aim is to repair an injured system wherein "abuse of process" can be turned into a weapon, leveraged even by foreigners who are funded by affluent third parties
- Techrights is Annoying People Who Work for (and Serve) People Who Annoy (and Abuse) Society
- Working against us (instead of with us) has historically been a bad strategy
- No Skinnerboxes, No Slop, No False Idols or Corporate Prophets
- Torvalds does not understand the everyday struggles of tech workers and tech users because he is a millionaire
- IBM's Next Stop: $199 (Market Cap Already Under 2.5 Times IBM's Debt)
- Don't rush to call us "sensationalist" over it
- Links 16/07/2026: Solar Greenwashing by Energy-Wasting GAFAM and Growing Concerns About Harm by Social Control Media
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 16/07/2026: Photography, Agility, and "Today I have Truly Become a Linux User."
- Links for the day
- Rebellion Brewing at Microsoft
- As always, we welcome Microsoft whistleblowers
- Technology Against Human Nature
- Losing a sense of what it means to be alive
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 15, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, July 15, 2026