Chrome OS may allow for running Linux apps via Containers

While the average Chromebook user tends to stick with Chrome OS, Chromebooks are really just lightweight Linux machines capable of a lot more. For years, crafty Chromebook owners have been using Crouton (Chromium OS Universal Chroot Environment) to run Ubuntu, Debian, and Kali Linux systems within Chrome OS. When set up properly with an extension called Xiwi, you can use a keyboard shortcut to switch between Chrome OS and a standard Linux desktop environment. It's a hack, but it looks a future version of Chrome OS will add native support for Linux applications via containers.

The first hint about containers in Chrome OS was discovered in October of last year in a Chromium Gerrit commit for the Google Pixelbook. A more recent commit spotted by Chrome Unboxed points to field trial testing for "Project Crostini", a UI for adding a Linux Virtual Machine to Chrome OS installations. Importantly, unlike the unofficial solution, it doesn't require hacking your Chromebook to get Ubuntu, Debian, and Kali Linux images up and running in Chrome OS.

Source: Chrome Unboxed

It's available to some users in the latest Developer build of Chrome OS. After Project Crostini has been downloaded (it's about 200MB in size) and initiated, you get a new option in the Chrome OS Settings menu. From there, once you finish the installation, you can run Linux apps and command-line tools seamlessly and easily from the Project Crostini interface. Not only does Project Crostini allow you to run Linux applications without sacrificing security, but it also gives you access to the Linux terminal, as well.

Google added support for Android applications on Chrome OS a while back, and bringing Linux programs to the operating system is yet another value add for Chromebooks. Depending on how the container feature is implemented, developers and fans of Linux alike could have a brand new device category to choose from.

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Source: Chrome Unboxed Source: Chrome Unboxed

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Qualcomm confirms that High-end Chromebooks with Snapdragon chips are coming

The majority of Chromebooks on the market are mostly low-end or mid-range devices. Their affordability is a big reason why Chromebooks became as popular as they are now. However, back in December, we learned that Chromebooks using Qualcomm's high-end Snapdragon 845 were reportedly in the works. That rumor was corroborated this week by Monte Giles, Qualcomm's new director of product management for mobile computing, who told members of the press that Qualcomm will take an interest in the Chromebook when the average selling price climbs above $500.

Mr. Giles said that if the purchase price stays at the current sub-$300 mark, the market is of no interest to Qualcomm. The company wants to be part of the high-end premium Chromebook market, and it's watching how things are evolving right now.

As we pointed out, Chromebook devices that sell in volume are relatively cheap. This is in part thanks to Chrome OS's open source nature — it doesn't have expensive licensing fees like Microsoft's Windows. (OEMs factor in those extra fees when they're deciding how to price devices.) Another reason is that the operating system is lightweight and can run on low-end hardware, which contributes to lower device price tags.

Lately, we've seen some high-end Chromebooks hit store shelves, like the Google Pixelbook and Samsung's Chromebook Pro. They have better specifications (RAM, CPU, iGPU) than many of the Chromebooks on the market, but are also made of higher-quality materials and have better build quality, which is especially evident in components such as the keyboard, trackpad, and hinges. Some people are willing to pay more money for a Chromebook that is higher quality than most of the devices out there, but the market remains niche.

So while Qualcomm's SoCs will ship in Windows laptop and 2-in-1s, the company says to "stay tuned" for more information about Qualcomm-powered Chromebooks.

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Source: PCMag

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Samsung Galaxy Note 9 may launch with Bixby 2.0, according to Samsung mobile chief

The Samsung Galaxy S9 and the Samsung Galaxy S9+ were announced at the Mobile World Congress 2018, but that wasn't all Samsung had in store for the world's largest telecom convention. DJ Koh, Samsung's mobile chief, told members of the press that Bixby 2.0 will launch as soon as August — around the time the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is expected to be released. Samsung's virtual assistant on the Samsung Galaxy S9 can already recognize food and serve up nutritional information, apply lipstick with augmented reality, and provide fully voice-guided setup instructions, but soon it will be able to do much more.

"For Bixby 1.0, we focused on a fast rollout to the market. Expanding the ecosystem was difficult. So Bixby 2.0 will strengthen this aspect and we are working intensely," he said. "In December last year, we began taking applications for the public beta version. So far over 800 companies have applied and are testing it."

He then added, "at this speed, I think we will be able to unveil Bixby 2.0 when we launch the Galaxy Note 9."

Version 2.0 of Samsung's virtual assistant focuses on integration with other connected household devices. Samsung plans to roll out Bixby on its smart TVs, starting with its next generation of OLED TVs set to be unveiled next month. There are also plans to upgrade the assistant's speech recognition — it'll be able to pick out multiple people at a time based on the tones of their voices, according to Eui-Suk Chung, the executive vice president and head of software and AI, which could come in handy for the recently announced Bixby-enabled Samsung smart speaker.

"Bixby won't be tied to a specific device. The ultimate goal is to make it ubiquitous," said Chung at MWC 2018. "Samsung is unique in that it has TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, phones, PCs, and almost every consumer electronics. We also make the module chips that goes in them needed in IoT (Internet of Things). AI speaker will also be one among them."

It's clear the amount of faith the company has in its virtual assistant, along with the level of seriousness that the company is pursuing its expansion. While there have been some missteps along the way, the future looks bright for Bixby 2.0.

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Via: ZDNet

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Google Launches Flutter Framework Beta for Native App Design

Today at Mobile World Congress, Google is announcing a major update in their attempts to simplify UI development across platforms. With the launch of the first beta build of Flutter, Google hopes to signal that their new mobile UI framework is stable enough for use in mainstream apps.

While Flutter was unveiled in its current form as an Alpha build at Google I/O 2017, some of you may remember Flutter from the original Sky demo at the Dart developer summit in 2015. Flutter has come quite a ways since then, however it is still focusing heavily on responsiveness and ease of development, with the goal of enabling the eventual development of apps designed for 120 Hz displays from the ground up.

It is of course one thing to talk about ease of development, and another entirely to actually achieve it, and Google seems to be on the right track. With support for features like Hot Reload, integrated tooling, a reactive framework design, and a substantial selection of widgets, Flutter seems to have all the appropriate pieces coming into place. Flutter couples those features with native ARM compilation on all supported platforms, simple GPU acceleration for rendering, and clean inline video integration to make for a smooth development experience that lets you achieve fantastic performance. Google has also brought direct integration with Android Studio and Visual Studio Code, as well as clear instructions for XCode support, in order to ensure a seamless transition on all mobile platforms.

Flutter's alpha builds have already proven to be extremely stable, to the point where Google felt comfortable to integrate it into their AdWords platform as a key tool for their development team.

The update to Google's Dart programming language is fully integrated with the beta, bringing support for new tools that help remove boilerplate and speed up the development process. With Flutter's package library reaching over 1000 packages, many commonly required tools are available, and more are being added frequently. From SQLite, to Firebase, to GraphQL Flutter is quickly gaining the widespread support from package maintainers that is needed for this type of tool to be useful.

Google is following the rapid release cycle that Chromium has been highly successful with, aiming for a new beta release every month, with a heavy focus on fulfilling the feature requests that the community expresses their desire for on the issue tracker. Feature requests on that tracker have led to some of the current primary roadmap features such as easier integration with existing apps, inline WebView, improved routing and navigation APIs, additional Firebase support, inline maps, and a smaller core engine. The Flutter community doesn't stop at the issue tracker though; Google has put together a Gitter chat room for developers to help each other out, and the community has built multiple sites for discussion and learning such as the Flutter Institute, Start Flutter, and Flutter Rocks.

Check out the Getting Started Guide to start designing apps with Flutter today!

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Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 700 Mobile Platform Series with On-Device AI for more Affordable Smartphones

Qualcomm is indisputably the leader in the Android smartphone system-on-chip space. Although the company faces tough competition from the likes of Samsung's Exynos SoCs and Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin SoCs in the high-end space, they are essentially unparalleled in the mid-range and budget price segments of the smartphone market. The Snapdragon 600 series has consistently distinguished itself by offering higher performance and power efficiency when compared to competing solutions from the likes of MediaTek.

In particular, chips like the Snapdragon 636 (found in the newly launched Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro) redefine the user experience and performance which consumers can expect at prices going as relatively low as $220. At the higher-end of the mid-range segment, Qualcomm has the Snapdragon 660, which was announced last year as a downgraded variant of the Snapdragon 835. Despite featuring excellent CPU performance and power efficiency, we didn't see many smartphones featuring the chip as OEMs preferred to use the lower-end Snapdragon 600 series for their mid-range smartphones and the Snapdragon 835 for their flagship smartphones.

Therefore, it's clear that a gap exists between the capabilities of the Snapdragon 660 and the Snapdragon 835 (or even the cutting-edge Snapdragon 845). In terms of GPU performance, the Snapdragon 835 was still much better than the 660, and the Snapdragon 660 also featured a lower-end DSP (the Hexagon 642 vs. the Hexagon 682).

In order to fill that gap, Qualcomm has announced the new Snapdragon 700 mobile platform series at Mobile World Congress. The "Platform" nomenclature exists because of Qualcomm's view that its SoCs are more than just a CPU paired with a GPU. The Snapdragon 700 series fits between the Snapdragon 660 and the Snapdragon 800 series, and is thus intended for more affordable smartphones. According to Qualcomm, the new series will have features and performance that were previously only found on the premium Snapdragon 800 series. They will have a focus for on-device AI, supported by the Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence Engine.

It's important to note that today's announcement is not for any specific SoC in the Snapdragon 700 series. This explains the lack of technical details being provided.

According to Qualcomm, the new series also features improvements to camera and device performance, as well as device power. It's supported by the heterogeneous compute capabilities of features which include the Qualcomm Spectra ISP, the Kryo CPU, the Hexagon DSP, and the Adreno Visual Processing subsystem. Let's take a look at these advancements one-by-one:

On-device AI. The Snapdragon 700 series will come with the multi-core Qualcomm AI Engine, which is said to deliver up to 2x improvements for on-device AI applications compared to the Snapdragon 660 SoC. (Qualcomm didn't give any comparison figures for on-device AI performance relative to the Snapdragon 835 and the Snapdragon 845.)

Heterogeneous computing. According to Qualcomm, the new architectures of the Snapdragon 700 series, which include the Hexagon Vector Processor, Adreno Visual Processing subsystem, and Kryo CPU, work in cooperation to "learn voice and speech", improve the ease of taking photos and videos, and enhance battery life without changing applications or settings.

Camera improvements. The Snapdragon 700 series has the Qualcomm Spectra ISP, but the company didn't specify which version of the ISP would be included in the new series. For reference, the Snapdragon 835 has the Spectra 180 ISP, while the Snapdragon 845 has the next-generation Spectra 280 ISP. The company stated that consumers should expect "professional grade camera features" supported by "high-quality specs", but once again, no specifics were provided.

The Snapdragon 700 series will also debut new architectures across the SoC, including the Spectra ISP, the Kryo CPU, and the Adreno Visual Processing subsystem. The new architectures are said to offer 30% improvement in power efficiency, and they will offer better performance and battery life across various applications when compared to the Snapdragon 660 SoC.

For some background, the Kryo CPU is a semi-custom CPU core based on ARM's cores (since 2017) using the "Built for Cortex" license. However, it's unknown which Kryo CPU will be included in the Snapdragon 700 series. For reference, the Snapdragon 835 features Kryo 280 "Performance" and Kryo 280 "Efficiency" cores, which are semi-custom versions of the ARM Cortex-A73 and the Cortex-A53 respectively. The newer Snapdragon 845, on the other hand, has Kryo 385 "Performance" and Kryo 385 "Efficiency" cores, which are semi-custom versions of the Cortex-A75 and the Cortex-A55 respectively.

Charging. In terms of features, the Snapdragon 700 series will feature support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+, which is "engineered to get up to 50% charge in only 15 minutes," according to Qualcomm. This is a potentially important inclusion, as we have seen only a few smartphones support QC4+ up until now.

Connectivity. With respect to connectivity, the new SoCs will feature "an advanced set of wireless technologies" with "ultra-fast LTE," carrier Wi-Fi features, enhanced Bluetooth 5 multicast audio and ultra-low power wireless earbud support.

"The Snapdragon 700 Mobile Platform Series will bring premium tier technologies and features into more affordable devices, something our global OEM customers and consumers are demanding," Alex Katouzian (Senior Vice President and general manager, mobile, Qualcomm Technologies) said. "From our cutting-edge Qualcomm AI Engine, to superior camera, device performance and power, the Snapdragon 700 Series is optimized to support the experiences consumers have come to expect from the most advanced mobile devices at a lower price point."

Our view: We are optimistic for the Snapdragon 700 series, even though Qualcomm hasn't yet announced a particular SoC in the series, which means that many of the details are currently unknown. If the new series has the right balance of features and pricing, it has the potential to take the user experience of mid-range smartphones to the next level.

The other side of the equation is that there are still substantial issues with chipset adoption (for example, the Snapdragon 636 has only been used by a single smartphone so far, while there are very few smartphones with the Snapdragon 660). If Qualcomm solves this problem and ensures adoption of its newer, more powerful chipsets, then consumers of future mid-range smartphones have something to look forward to.

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The Huawei Y5 Lite (2018) will be the company’s first Android Oreo Go Edition phone

While tech media tends to disproportionately focus on mid-range and flagship devices, device makers are always looking for new ways to get their smartphones in the hands of budget-conscious consumers and/or consumers in emerging markets. To aid with that effort, Google announced a version of Android 8.1 Oreo optimized for low-end hardware—Android Go. Though Android Go was launched back in December, it wasn't until Mobile World Congress this week that the first smartphones running Android 8.1 Oreo Go Edition were announced. Currently, the TCL Alcatel 1X, ZTE Tempo Go, and the Nokia 1 are the only known devices running on this special version of Oreo, but we have obtained evidence that Huawei will launch the Y5 Lite (2018) as the company's first Go Edition smartphone.

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Huawei Y5 Lite (2018) running Android 8.1 Oreo Go Edition

Since Android Go consists of a set of build configurations and special Go optimized apps, it's actually fairly easy for us to determine if a particular smartphone is going to be running Android Go. That's because we have access to the device's firmware files, which indeed show that the Huawei Y5 Lite 2018 model is real and that it will likely be the company's first Android Oreo Go Edition smartphone—excluding the possibility that there's another Huawei Android Go Edition smartphone in the works that we haven't yet found evidence for.

The following information is based on firmware files obtained by @FunkyHuawei, the man behind the FunkyHuawei.club service, which allows users to update, unbrick, or rebrand Huawei and Honor phones for a fee. He has provided access to these firmware files exclusively to XDA-Developers.

First of all, how do we know that this device is the Y5 Lite 2018? Well, that's easy, because it says so right in the firmware! This is a rare sight for us as usually such mentions are obfuscated behind code-names, but in this instance it was not. This means that perhaps the device is close to launch, or Huawei just didn't bother making an effort to hide information about this device. Either way, thanks Huawei!

Next up, how do we know for sure this is an Android Go device? That one is also easy! Within the system partition, the following apps are pre-installed:

• Assistant Go
• Gmail Go
• LatinIMEGoogle Go (Gboard Go)
• Maps Go
• Search Go
• YouTube Go

Finally, some of the basic specifications about the device. It's a low-end device, so there's nothing too surprising here. According to its platform configuration file, it will have the MediaTek MT6737m SoC (the same as in the Nokia 3 and the Allview Viper V3), a screen with a resolution of 854×480, no NFC support, and dual SIM support. There is some information about image sensors with the hi843 and the ov8856 listed as main sensors and the gc2365 and the hi259 listed as sub sensors, but I'm not 100% certain on the exact camera configuration here.

Overall, this smartphone isn't something most of our readers will probably get excited about. If that describes you, then consider that you may not be its target audience. Personally, I would probably pick one up as a cheap burner phone—depending on its price. Unfortunately, I don't have any information to share on the Huawei Y5 Lite 2018's pricing or availability, so we'll have to wait for the official announcement to learn more.

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Xiaomi Redmi 4X Kernel Sources are now available

Some of us within the Android community have a love/hate relationship with Xiaomi. They create affordable smartphones with impressive build quality and specifications for the price, but sadly they have a poor history of releasing the source code for their kernels. The result of this is that sadly it makes the lives of developers rather difficult when trying to develop a custom AOSP-based ROM such as LineageOS. For those who own the Xiaomi Redmi 4X though, you'll be happy to hear that the company has finally uploaded the kernel source code for the Android Nougat release to their GitHub page.

Fortunately, there's no shortage of custom ROMs available for the Redmi 4X already thanks to the fact that many similar devices like it already exist, but with official kernel sources available it should be easier to iron out some remaining kinks in existing ROMs. For the future, a small consolation is that we won't necessarily need to wait for months for kernel source release to enjoy an AOSP-based Android Oreo ROM. Devices such as the upcoming Mi Mix 2S and Mi Max 3 which we expect to launch with Android Oreo should be able to boot a generic build of AOSP thanks to Project Treble.

Still, this doesn't excuse the fact that it has taken Xiaomi many months to release official kernel sources. The GPL requires releasing the kernel source of any binary that ships on a device, after all.

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