Posted by Sumit Chatterjee, Program Manager, Google Apps Mobile Management
Working on the move has gotten pretty easy. With just your phone, you can set up your next meeting in Calendar, keep track of your expenses in Concur and follow up with a new client in Gmail. And as the IT admin, it’s now easier than ever to get your team up and running on their own devices with Google Apps Mobile Management. Starting today, with the new Device Policy app on iOS, employees can easily see which apps are company approved, install them, and keep getting things done. On Android, admins can already use the Device Policy app and Google Play for Work to manage devices and apps (MDM and MAM for alphabet soup lovers), while on iOS, admins can also already manage device policies like requiring passwords and removing company information with account wipe (MDM) directly from the Admin console.
As the admin, you can quickly whitelist any work app from the iOS device management section in the Admin console.
Because security has always been a top priority for Google, were continuously working to stay ahead of those with bad intentions. But the latest security is only as good as the number of people who use it, and that’s why mobile management — including MDM and MAM — is simply a part of Google Apps for Work, so you can just start using it, nothing to buy. We spend a lot of time on those devices in our pocket, so take advantage of everything included with Google Apps for Work, and let us know what’s working and what could be better in the Google for Work Community.
Google I/O, our annual developer conference, is wrapping up this afternoon. I always love this event because it’s our chance to shine the spotlight on our amazing global developer community – the creative coders who are building what’s next. As we think about developers, along with our own products and tools, we’re focused on the big opportunities of the future: provide the best-in-class mobile platform, help the next billion users by putting the power of the Internet in their hands and solving big problems to make people’s lives better through machine learning and access to great products. There were lots of exciting announcements this year, from Now on Tap to a completely new Photos experience. If you haven’t already, be sure to watch the keynote given by Sundar Pichai, SVP of Products and read the official blog post. For cool scenes and coverage from the floor, check out our Google for Work at I/O Collection on Google+.
I’m particularly excited that many of the announcements we made will impact the world of Google for Work and Google for Education. To highlight a few:
Android M. Android’s latest release packs hundreds of performance improvements, including better battery life, easier app linking and streamlined permissions. And with our recent launch of Android for Work, the momentum for Android in the workplace is growing.
Firebase. One of the key themes of this year’s I/O is empowering developers with the tools they need to thrive. To that end, Firebase makes building great mobile and web apps easier than ever. It manages the infrastructure on the backend on behalf of mobile developers so they can focus on the high-value stuff: delivering an awesome user experience on the front end. Firebase addresses key mobile use cases, including native support for offline usage when a network connection is unavailable, and automatic data synchronization in real time to the cloud and across diverse client devices. Nearly 200,000 developers rely on Firebase already, and I’m confident it will help accelerate development of mobile apps, including enterprise apps. Check out the team’s I/O Session to learn more.
Inbox. Back in October, we introduced a new kind of inbox—one that works for you. In March we announced the Inbox early adopter program, to bring Inbox by Gmail to Google Apps customers. And while we’re still in the early stages, at Google I/O we announced that we’re expanding the early adopter program so any Google Apps for Work customer who wants to use Inbox can. We also announced new ways Inbox can help save you time and stay organized, with Undo Send to take back emails you realize are a mistake, even from your mobile phone, and something many of you requested: custom signatures.
Places API for iOS. We launched the Places API for Android in April, along with an iOS beta. Now the Places API for iOS is officially available for all developers with all the same features as the Android version. This means you can integrate Google’s database of 100 million places worldwide into your app experience. Check out the announcement post to learn more and read customer experiences.
Google Expeditions. Expeditions is a new educational tool that lets teachers take their classes on virtual field trips to anywhere using Google Cardboard. It’s a great, inexpensive way for the next generation of creators to experience their world.
We know that technology works best when it gets out of the way and helps people get stuff done from anywhere. These announcements are a step in that direction: new approaches to managing email, powerful tools for developers to build great apps and an updated version of Android. The future of work is bright, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
After attending the London Launch on 25th March I switched from my 2013 HTC One M7 to a new, 2014 HTC One M8. Ive been using it as a regular phone now for a week, and although I am not a technical reviewer, I wanted to share my first impressions.
From all the leaks and gossip circulating before the launch I was expecting a natural progression from the One to the new One, and in many ways that is what I now have in my hand. The HTC One M8 is not a complete reinvention in the way that its predecessor was. It is a carefully planned evolution of the already iconic M7, and the beginning of a progression which I hope will continue for some time.
Look and Feel
I may have (only) been expecting an incremental step-change in the design, but nothing really prepared me for that first feel of it in my hand. HTC have gone beyond themselves with the new design. The casing is 90% metal not the metal/plastic/metal sandwich of the M7 and the sides wrap around and close with the glass of the screen. It truly is a unibody, and the shape puts me in mind of a smoother, all metal, HTC One X (which had one of the best shaped casings of all the HTC phones in my opinion).
The M8 is so good to hold that I find myself taking it out and playing with it even when I dont need to use it.
One welcome addition to the package contents, along with the mandatory charger, headphones and USB cable, is a simple bumper case which can be used to protect the back of the phone when in use. I thought that was quite a good idea on HTCs part...
...and I do try to use it, but in truth, the feel of the phone in my hand is so good I keep taking the bumper off!
The Display
The screen is the same resolution as the previous HTC One, but stretched to a 5 inch diagonal from the previous 4.7 inch of the M7. Even though the pixels are wider spaced than the M7, they are still so dense that there is no noticeable difference between the two.The same superb screen in an even better hardware package.
This next point may only be subjective, but I do feel that the touch screen response is more accurate, and requires only the lightest of touches. I dont have access to any way of proving or disproving this observation so it must remain just my opinion. However, two other people who have tried it have said the same thing, so Im happy to report it as such.
(Later edit - According to the French language tech site, Les Numeriques, this is now a proven fact - the M8 has the fastest touch screen response of any smartphone at 46ms.)
Operating System/UI
The software has been upgraded in ways I wouldnt have imagined. Again most changes have been evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but this is not a bad thing when you intend to take the best and make it even better. I have always been a big fan of HTC Sense, and on my previous (M7) HTC One, Sense 5.5 seemed like the best there was, but Sense 6 on the M8 is a big improvement in terms of performance, memory footprint and usability.
Its an accepted fact that modern flagship phone processors are enormously powerful, and this is the case with the M8, but rather than just go for flat out performance (which it also has in shedloads) HTC has used some of the Snapdragon 801s mighty power to make the user experience more luxurious. In several places I found tiny animation touches which are almost subliminal, but which give the user a distinct feel of smoothness, elegance and luxury without sacrificing performance. For the work I do on my phone, it has proven to be tireless. It hasnt lagged or stuttered at all, and the luxury touches just make it feel smoother and faster still. All in all, Android 4.4.2/Sense 6 inside such a stylish body must be the current state of the art.
Camera/Image Software
Im not a pro photographer (not even a decent hobby one) but I used to do a lot of Photoshop work so I know my way around a photo and how to manipulate it. All I can say is that the new camera and gallery software on the M8 are excellent. Again, the difference between the M7 and the M8 implementation of the Ultrapixel concept is an impressive improvement. I do think that the camera and photo software needs someone to run a dedicated review. There is too much to cover in a first impression.
The original Ultrapixel camera and software tended to polarize the tekkie crowd into the "fors" and the "againsts" based on their need to enlarge and crop, and their opinion of the over processed images created by the default auto settings in the software. I could understand it, but I could never see why HTC needed to cater for less than 1% of the buying public when the rest of the world used their phones to make Instagrams and Facebook selfies ... but there again ... even I felt that there was scope for improvement.
The front-facing "selfie" camera is good enough to challenge a lot of rear-facing cams. At 5 megapixels it is the highest resolution front-facing camera on the market. It picks up great detail, and with the wider angle of the lens it can get everyone (or everything) into the photo.
I took a selfie as a test and I hated it .. it showed every wrinkle and blemish perfectly .. my nose looks like orange peel !!!
And to go with it, heres a group selfie taken during a drunken evening in a London night club !!! Its certainly not a demonstration of photographic skills, but it does show the low light capability of the front-facing camera.
Photos taken by the single Ultrapixel camera are sharper, clearer and less plagued by artifacts than those taken with the same sensor on the M7. In addition, one of the biggest criticisms I heard about the M7 was that it over exposed so badly that any bright light in duller surroundings washed out the picture ... OK ... My friend did a little welding for me today and I used my M8 to catch him at it.
Well... I think the M8 has nailed that little issue well enough...
In my opinion, the basic image processing software has taken a quantum leap in terms of performance. In fully automatic mode the colour reproduction is more lifelike (even though it was already good on the M7), the jpeg tiling artifacts are dramatically reduced, and gone is the nasty edge effect caused by the aggressive over-sharpening on the M7.
This is only the beginning of the story though. HTC have added manual controls to the mix to give a photographer complete control over exposure, shutter speed, white balance etc. and even in auto mode there are controls for the user to set auto-max values. In effect this keeps the convenience of the auto setting, but effectively limits any over-enthusiastic tendencies in the automatic algorithm. For the more enthusiastic users of manual settings, regularly used settings can be saved as new presets which will come up on the camera selection menu once saved.
The result is to my mind extremely effective. I took these photos specifically to avoid the distraction of any interesting content :) ... They are all in auto mode. The first of each pair is taken with the camera zoomed out, the second zoomed in to the max setting. Zooming is now done using pinch gestures rather than an on-screen slider.
Flash was turned off, and the ambient light conditions were what you would expect in a geeks home office... not wonderful.
In addition to the camera performance itself, the rear-facing camera is now a twin-lens arrangement comprising the latest version of the M7s Ultrapixel camera for the image capture, married to a lower resolution module which acts as a depth sensor.
My guess is that being such a low resolution (2mpxl) sensor, the second module is able to take one or several photos at different focusing distances from the the main camera whilst the main image is being captured. This then provides a rudimentary depth map which could be used to provide distance information for use by a range of duo-camera effects.
To take advantace of this arrangement, HTC have improved the post-processing and manipulation, and have added a set of special duo-camera effects which make use of the additional data (which is actually stored in a special hidden area of the jpeg file).
As a walk-in demo, I took a photo of a sales assistant in Mediamarkt to show him what it could do... Ill let the effects speak for themselves.
Original untouched - Normal Shop lighting - Auto setting
U-Focus - the "Bokeh" effect
Foregrounder - Sketch Mode
Foregrounder - Zoom Blur Mode
Foregrounder - Colorize Mode featuring foreground
Foregrounder Colorize Mode featuring background
Each of these effects can be centered on a certain object by tapping the screen on the object, and the software uses the depth of field data as the information to select out the focal point of the effect. Unfortunately, I cannot show you the strange Parallax/3D effect. Viewing that effect is linked to camera motion, but I can assure you that its fun and certainly gets some interesting reactions in the pub :)
Everyone who has seen me show off the effects is won over by how easy, and how clever they are. The more serious photographers are equally impressed by the manual controls and the facility to save setups as presets. Overall, the photo quality is everything I need from a phone camera.
The video sound recording/reproduction is also excellent. I dont know if there is a noise-cancelling mic system, but it certainly seems to be able to differentiate the foreground sounds extremely well. I took this video in Leicester Square tube station with no preparation. I just whipped out the M8, selected video camera mode and started shooting. It was all hand-held, shaky and taken in a tube station at 6pm on a weekday, but despite that... please play it in full HD mode.
I havent yet had time to play with the improved versions of Zoe mode and highlight videos but I have noticed that gallery previews (which are like mini-highlight videos) actually make use of the duo-camera effects when a photo contains the depth data, so Im expecting to see some fun results from these modes too.
Finally deserving a mention is a full spherical panorama camera mode. Again, I havent tried it out yet, but I have tried apps which can do the same thing, and from what I have seen of the HTC interface, the actual act of taking the photos should be a breeze.
Sound
Being a musician, sound is important to me, both on headphones and through speakers. Boomsound on the M7 was good, but I always felt that both the internal speakers and the headphone sound was deformed by the Beats equalizer setting, and the sound from the speakers was a little narrow/weak without Beats. I dont use either Beats or Beats products. I still prefer my trusty little Sennheiser ear buds for a quality sound and the M7 was pretty good with those.
On the M8, the sound from the Boomsound speakers and amplifiers is just plain bigger in every way. Not only is it a fair bit louder (HTC says 25%) but more importantly, the dynamic range is broader, the overall sound is clearer and the sound stage feels wider as a result. Going from the M7 to the M8 was like going from a regular smartphone to the M7, and the same can be said for the headphone sound driving the Sennheisers. Overall the sound quality of the M8 has improved in every way against the M7, and the M7 was the sound yardstick by which all other phones were judged in 2013.
Its very hard to talk about sound .. and unlike photography its not possible to provide examples on a web page ... so as soon as you get the chance please ... go out and try it. You wont be disappointed. In my opinion the M8 addresses and overcomes the M7s few weaknesses exceptionally well. If Boomsound on the M7 redefined smartphone speakers, the M8 redefined Boomsound itself.
Blinkfeed and Sense TV
The rest of Sense 6 is equally impressive. I love Blinkfeed and Sense TV and whilst HTC have improved the interface and their internals and made them even easier to use, they will still feel familiar to any sense 5 user.
Developer and User Support
One of the biggest changes which have arrives with the M8 and Sense 6 is not to do with the device at all, but lies in the software organization. Sense 6 module upgrades and even core service packs are now provided via the Google Play Store and delivered just like any other app. This should drastically reduce the lead time for delivering improvements and add-ins and will decouple the software upgrade process from the operating system upgrades. If it is successful this may well result in HTC being able to deliver even bigger improvements in the timeliness of Android updates than it has already achieved in 2013.
Parallel to this major change, HTC have announced that they are publishing the APIs for the camera, Blinkfeed and other modules, so we should all be able to look forward to seeing a range of third party add-ons, apps, plug-in camera effects and tools appearing on the market. This can only be a good thing and I am waiting to see what some of the great developers out there will have to offer over the next year or so.
One Sentence
I would find it very hard to identify even a single weakness in this device which would make me regret upgrading from an M7 to an M8, and I can recommend it to anyone looking to upgrade their phone this year.
Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!
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Posted by Drew Hintz, Security Engineer and Justin Kosslyn, Google Ideas
(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog.)
Would you enter your email address and password on this page?
This looks like a fairly standard login page, but it’s not. It’s what we call a “phishing” page, a site run by people looking to receive and steal your password. If you type your password here, attackers could steal it and gain access to your Google Account—and you may not even know it. This is a common and dangerous trap: the most effective phishing attacks can succeed 45 percent of the time, nearly 2% of messages to Gmail are designed to trick people into giving up their passwords, and various services across the web send millions upon millions of phishing emails, every day.
To help keep your account safe, today we’re launching Password Alert, a free, open-source Chrome extension that protects your Google and Google Apps for Work Accounts. Once you’ve installed it, Password Alert will show you a warning if you type your Google password into a site that isn’t a Google sign-in page. This protects you from phishing attacks and also encourages you to use different passwords for different sites, a security best practice.
Heres how it works for consumer accounts. Once you’ve installed and initialized Password Alert, Chrome will remember a “scrambled” version of your Google Account password. It only remembers this information for security purposes and doesn’t share it with anyone. Next, if you type your password into a site that isnt a Google sign-in page, Password Alert will show you a notice like the one below. This alert will tell you that you’re at risk of being phished so you can update your password and protect yourself.
Password Alert is also available to Google for Work customers, including Google Apps and Drive for Work. Your administrator can install Password Alert for everyone in the domains they manage, and receive alerts when Password Alert detects a possible problem. This can help spot malicious attackers trying to break into employee accounts and also reduce password reuse. Administrators can find more information in the Help Center.
We work to protect users from phishing attacks in a variety of ways. We’re constantly improving our Safe Browsing technology, which protects more than 1 billion people on Chrome, Safari and Firefox from phishing and other dangerous sites via bright, red warnings. We also offer tools like 2-Step Verification and Security Key that people can use to protect their Google Accounts and stay safe online. And of course, you can also take a Security Checkup at any time to make sure the safety and security information associated with your account is current.
To get started with Password Alert, visit the Chrome Web Store or the FAQ.
(Cross-posted on the Google and Your Business Blog.)
Last year we introduced Google Domains in the U.S. to make it easy for your business to get online with a domain name and website. We wanted to make finding, buying and managing domains for your business simple, and we partnered with best-in-class website builders like Blogger, Shopify, Squarespace, Weebly and Wix to help you create your site – no technical experience required.
Since then, weve helped people register hundreds of thousands of domain names and create tens of thousands of websites, many of whom are businesses like yours looking to build and expand their online presence. Through your continued feedback, today we’re introducing upgrades to improve the Google Domains experience by adding:
Custom email addresses – create an email address like, you@yourdomain or sales@yourdomain via Google Apps for Work.
Over 90 new domain name endings– purchase domains with new endings like, .life, .world, .business, .cool, .pizza, .gifts, and .football (here’s the new full list).
Domain ownership transfer – allows you to always make sure the right person is managing the right domains (learn more here).
Custom email addresses are a key part of building your online identity. Email addresses such as you@yourdomain help you establish credibility when you communicate with customers. Setting up a custom email address with Google Domains is an optional service for $5/month/user, and with that you’ll also get the full Google Apps for Work productivity suite. Google Apps for Work includes helpful business tools like video meetings, shared calendars, online document editing and 30 GB of file storage.
New domain name endings offer more choice and flexibility as you pick a memorable address for your business website. New endings are continuously opening up to the web, like .legal, .accountant and .services, and can help you create a name that matches who you are and what you do. Check out some of the people on Google Domains already using these new domain name endings: sublimation.kitchen, smilesnap.social, thecooler.ninja, and marcblair.photography.
It’s our mission to help your business easily get online and succeed with a domain name, and we want to make sure we continue to offer you the best tools and experience possible in our beta. So, if you have any input, questions or feedback, please don’t be shy! See you online at www.google.com/domains.
Since the HTC One was released, Ive had a few users asking me to help them fix their broken device. They couldnt boot their system or access anything on the DATA partition from inside custom recovery. Why this happens so often on the HTC One I have no idea... Here is a short guide explaining how to fix this problem without sending the device for repair under warranty.
Short Explanation
This method can be used to fix any other partition too, just remember about changing the mount point number - from "mmcblk0p37" to the relevant one. For example, the SYSTEM on the HTC One is "mmcblk0p35". In some rare cases the mkfs.ext4 attributes (like dir_nlink or resize_inode) might change too! To get a list of all eMMC mount points on HTC devices use the command cat /proc/emmc. Never format RAW partitions! This method can be used only to format EXT4 partitions. Not following the guide properly might end in permanent damage to your device. I do not take any responsibility for that.
Some people might also find this helpful in case of need to remove the entire contents of the virtual SD-card. As long as the virtual SD-card is not a separate partition, (i.e. it is emulated space on the DATA partition [/data/media]) it cant be formatted - only wiped clean. I wrote an in-depth explanation of how the virtual SD-card works on Android here - Virtual SD card on Android.
How Do I Recognise The Problem?
When trying to mount the DATA partition from inside the custom recovery using the mount /data command you will most likely see this output: mount: mounting /dev/block/mmcblk0p37 on /data failed: Invalid argument
To be 100% sure you can check filesystem structure with the following command: /sbin/e2fsck -n -f /dev/block/mmcblk0p37
Repair Process
Note: the content of your DATA partition will be lost, including the contents of your virtual SD-card! I also assume you already have custom recovery flashed and you are a Windows user - LINUX people please amend as needed.
Download this mini-sdk package and extract it to c:mini-sdk
Download this mkfs.ext4 binary and put it into c:mini-sdk
Connect your device to the PC
Boot your device in recovery mode
Open a command prompt on the PC (cmd.exe), type and confirm each command with ENTER:
Image of the whole command in one line to avoid mistakes:
Now your DATA partition will be formatted. It is not the same as "wiping", which is only removing all or just some files from particular partition. Formatting means that the entire partition will be re-created with the above attributes. You should see the following output: mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010) Filesystem label= OS type: Linux Block size=4096 (log=2) Fragment size=4096 (log=2) Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks 1703936 inodes, 6815744 blocks 0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user First data block=0 208 block groups 32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group 8192 inodes per group Superblock backups stored on blocks: 32768,98304,163840,229376,294912,819200,884736,1605632,2654208,4096000 Writing inode tables: done Creating journal (32768 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 25 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
Your DATA partition is now completely empty, so we need to copy our particular ROM zip file there:
Copy ROM zip file to c:mini-sdk and rename it to "rom.zip"
In the same command prompt window type and confirm each command with ENTER:
mount /data
mkdir -p /data/media/0
exit
adb push rom.zip /data/media/0
Copying rom.zip to the device will take a few minutes. Wait until its done. The output should be: xxxx KB/s (xxxxxxxxxx bytes in xxx.xxxs). Now you can flash rom.zip from inside custom recovery. Done!
Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!
Karspersky Mobile melindungi smartphone kamu secara berkala ibarat antivirus di komputer. Aplikasi ini melindungi dari Antivirus, spam, program jahat, telepon dan SMS yang tidak diinginkan, pesan/chat spam dan paket download yang mengandung malware. Kaspersky Mobile juga berguna untuk mengotrol akses ke nomor kontak dan semua komunikasi, anti-pencurian (mendisable HP secara online dan memonitor melalui Google Maps, meskipun SIM sudah diganti).
This is in continuation from my previous post. Samsung’s latest devices (Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition) tablet) are unique with the introduction of the S Pen. The focus of the Samsung SmartApp Challenge that is currently open expects developers to use the pen and the look packages that are part of the Samsung Mobile SDK briefed in my earlier two posts.
In this post I would like to dive a bit deeper on the pen package and in a subsequent post on the look package. We will see what are they, as we go along.
S Pen is opening up a new horizon to Smartphones that support it. In fact I would not be surprised if Samsung soon open sources this project for encouraging wider adoption.
First, what is an S Pen?
Note that S Pen is an innovative stylus-type input device that comes with the Galaxy Note range of devices. It seems to have started off with the idea of making drawing or writing easy on smartphone where a finger touch doesn’t provide a great experience. It is not a capacitive stylus that typically phones came with but uses the Wacom’s EMR (Electro-Magnetic Resonance) patented Technology. For more on the technology behind the S Pen, you can read this article on the XDA Developers Forum or the ‘Android Authority’ post.
The tip of an S Pen allows for its usage in apps that need sensitivity to pressure applied and precision. The side buttons provide for press and release events based on which actions can be initiated.
In order to support developers to build apps for the S Pen, a pen package has been introduced as part of the Samsung Mobile SDK.
Next, what is the Pen package?
It is a package that allows developers to write applications that can take hand-written inputs. It allows the use of a pen, finger or any other kind of input tools or virtual pens to aid precise user input in the most natural way possible. It feels like you are actually writing or drawing on the device and would you call that a luxury? I am sure it is an understatement for thos who use their devices extensively for all day to day activities. J
The pen packageenables to
·Draw using a pen/finger
·Change user preferences for pens, erasers and text
·Edit and save the inputs
·Undo or redo thus managing history of inputs
·Support both touch and hover events
A few words about the architecture of the pen package before we look at snippets of program using the package:
