Daily Archives: February 22, 2021

Updates are one of the biggest problems facing the Android ecosystem, as some devices are abandoned far before their time, and others are delayed for months. Samsung has done an excellent job in improving both the speed and frequency of its updates, and over the past year it has also been expanding the length of support. Today, Samsung is announcing a full additional year of security updates for every Galaxy device released since 2019.

In a blog post today, Samsung revealed that all Galaxy smartphones and tablets will receive security updates for a minimum of four years after their release, and the policy extends to devices as far back as 2019. This change of policy guarantees that more Samsung devices will get security updates in the fourth year of their life. Samsung previously announced three years worth of major system updates for all of its phones and tablets last year.

Over the past decade, Samsung has made significant progress in streamlining and speeding up its regular security updates. Samsung worked closely with its OS and chipset partners, as well as over 200 carriers around the world to ensure that billions of Galaxy devices receive timely security patches. Samsung remains committed to offering security updates as quickly as possible to always stay one step ahead and keep its users safe.

For the first two years, Samsung provides devices with monthly security updates (pending delays by carrier partners and may vary by device), and then devices are dropped down to quarterly updates. Samsung publicly lists this information on a website. During this added fourth year, Samsung will be providing regular security updates, meaning they could only occur once or twice during that year.

Still, thats better than nothing. Google, for instance, cuts off support for Pixels entirely after three years, leaving those devices without any promised security or system updates. Most other Android OEMs promise only two years, and often dont live up to that. Notably, Samsung has had this four-year policy in place for Enterprise devices for over a year.

This updated policy for Samsung applies to over 40 devices going back to the Galaxy S10 and Note 10, as well as Galaxy A, Z, XCover, and Note devices. The full list includes:

Galaxy S:

Galaxy Note:

Galaxy Foldable:

Galaxy A:

Galaxy Tab:

Galaxy XCover:

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Samsung now offers four years of security updates to Galaxy phones and tablets - 9to5Google

One of the most intriguing aspects of the history of the human quest to discover whether or not there is other life in the universe, and whether any of it is recognizably intelligent in the way that we are, is just how much our philosophical mood has changed back and forth across the centuries.

Today were witnessing a bit of a "golden age" in terms of active work towards answers. Much of that work stems from the overlapping revolutions in exoplanetary science and solar system exploration, and our ongoing revelations about the sheer diversity and tenacity of life here on Earth. Together these areas of study have given us places to look, phenomena to look for, and increased confidence that were quick approaching the point where our technical prowess may cross the necessary threshold for finding some answers about life elsewhere.

Into that mix goes the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI); as weve become more comfortable with the notion that the technological restructuring and repurposing of matter is something we can, and should, be actively looking for. If for no other reason than our own repurposing of matter, here on Earth, has become ever more vivid and fraught, and therefore critical to appreciate and modify in aid of long-term survival. But this search, labeled as both SETI and the quest for technosignatures, still faces some daunting challenges not least the catch-up required after decades of receiving a less-than-stellar allocation of scientific resources.

What is so fascinating is that in many respects we have already been here and done all of this before, just not recently, and not with the same set of tools that we now have to hand.

In western Europe, during the period from some four hundred years ago until last century, the question of life beyond the Earth seems to have been less of if and more of what. Famous scientists like Christiaan Huygens wrote in his Cosmotheoros of So many Suns, so many Earths, and every one of them stockd with so many Herbs, Trees and Animalseven the little Gentlemen round Jupiter and Saturn And this sense of cosmic plurality wasnt uncommon. It was in almost all respects far simpler and more reasonable to assume that the wealth of life on Earth was simply repeated elsewhere. That is once one let go of a sense of earthly uniqueness.

In other words, in many quarters there was no are we alone? question being asked, instead the debate was already onto the details of how the life elsewhere in the cosmos went about its business.

In the 1700s and 1800s we had astronomers like William Herschel, or the more amateur Thomas Dick, not only proposing that our solar system, from the Moon to the outer planets, was overrun with lifeforms (Dick holding the record by suggesting that Saturns rings held around 8 trillion individuals) but convincing themselves that they could see the evidence. Herschel, with his good telescopes, becoming convinced that there were forests on the Moon, in the Mare humorum, and speculating that the Suns dark spots were actually holes in a glowing hot atmosphere, beneath which, a cool surface supported large alien beings.

Even though we might question some of their scientific standards, people like Herschel and Dick were indeed following the philosophy of life being everywhere, and elevating it to the level of any other observable phenomenon. Herschel was also applying the best scientific instruments he could at the time.

All the way into the 20th century, prior to the data obtained by the Mariner 4 flyby in 1965, the possibility that Mars had a more clement surface environment, and therefore life, still carried significant weight. Although there had been extreme claims like Percival Lowells canals on Mars in the late 1800s and very early 1900s, astronomers of the time largely disagreed with these specific interpretations. Interestingly, that was because they simply couldnt reproduce the observations, finding the markings he associated with canals and civilizations to be largely non-existent (an example of how better data can discount pet theories). But aside from Lowells distractions, the existence of a temperate climate of sorts on Mars was not easy to discount, nor was life on its surface. For example, Carl Sagan and Paul Swan published a paper just ahead of Mariner 4s arrival at Mars in which they wrote:

The present body of scientific evidence suggests, but does not unambiguously demonstrate, the existence of life on Mars. In particular, the photometrically observed waves of darkening which proceed from the vaporizing polar caps through the dark areas of the Martian surface have been interpreted in terms of seasonal biological activity.

Suffice to say, this proposal went the way of many other overly optimistic ideas about finding life on the red planet. Although it is fascinating how well the periodic darkening phenomenon they discussed could indeed fit into a picture of a surface biosphere on Mars and remains perhaps a rather sobering lesson in overinterpreting limited data.

But the key point is that we have actually more often than not been of a mindset that life is out there, and could explain certain cosmic observations. The problem has been that, as data has improved, and scrutiny has intensified, the presence of life has not revealed itself from planetary exploration or from the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And because of that weve swung to the other extreme, where the question has gone from "what" all the way back to if.

Of course, we have also likely systematically underestimated the challenge across the centuries. Even today it is apparent that the search for structured radio emissions from technological life has thus far only scratched the surface of a complex parameter space; a fact beautifully quantified and articulated by Jason Wright and colleagues in 2018, as being much like looking in a hot tub of water to draw conclusions about the contents of Earths oceans.

In that sense, perhaps the more fundamental question is whether or not we are, this time, technologically equipped to crack the puzzle once and for all. There is little doubt that our capacity to sense the most ethereal, fleeting phenomena in the cosmos is at an all time high. But there seems to be a fine line between acknowledging that exciting possibility and falling prey to the kind of hubris that some of our precursors fell prey to. Naturally, we say, this is the most special time in human existence, if we can only expand our minds and our efforts then all may be revealed!

Of course, none of us can know for sure which way this will all go. We might do better being very explicit about the uncertainty inherent in all of this, because its actually incredibly exciting to have to face the unknown, and unknowable. What we shouldnt do is allow the unpredictable nature of this particular pendulum, swinging between possibilities, to dissuade us from trying.

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Until Recently, People Accepted the 'Fact' of Aliens in the Solar System - Scientific American

Jodie Boucher, manager of Carr Croft Care Home in Meanwood said its time that the guidance took a step forward to allow families the long-awaited closer contact with their loved ones.

I think its a fantastic idea and I think it really needs to happen now.

We need to move forward and reunite people. Even just holding a hand, that touch and the emotion - it will just enhance the wellbeing of people.

Jodie, who is also chairwoman of Leeds registered managers network, acknowledged there will still be risks involved but said care homes now needed to start taking that risk, as safely as possible.

I cant wait. This has got to happen. These people may otherwise pass away without seeing their loved ones and thats just awful.

She added: People have missed their loved ones. Weve supported them to communicate in other ways - phone calls, outside visits, writing letters. But theres nothing that beats that human touch.

Under the plans, the nominated regular indoor visitor will be required to take a coronavirus lateral flow test before entry and personal protective equipment (PPE) must be worn.

Residents will be asked not to hug or kiss their relatives, though hand holding will be permitted.

Guidance for care homes is expected to be published in the next fortnight.

As the Yorkshire Evening Post reported last week, the charity issued a rallying cry to its supporters in Leeds and Yorkshire to sign a letter calling on the Government to set out a clear timetable for the re-introduction of meaningful visits from loved ones in care homes, where at least 70 per cent of residents have dementia.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was "pleased" that it would soon be possible for people to be "carefully and safely reunited with loved ones who live in care homes".

Outdoor visits - as well as those inside pods or behind screens - will be able to continue, giving residents the chance to see more than just their nominated visitor.

The Government met its target to offer all care home residents - along with social care and NHS staff, all those aged over 70 and the most clinically vulnerable - a vaccine by February 15.

Scientists believe the vaccines become effective after three weeks, meaning by March 8 all those who accepted a vaccine should have a good level of protection from Covid-19.

However, vaccination will not be a condition of visiting. Visits will also be suspended during local outbreaks in individual homes.

The Department of Health said the relaxation of the restrictions represented a balance between the risk of infection and the importance of visiting for the mental and physical wellbeing of care home residents and their families.

Mr Hancock said: "I know how important visiting a loved one is and I'm pleased we will soon be in a position for people to be carefully and safely reunited with loved ones who live in care homes.

"This is just the first step to getting back to where we want to be. We need to make sure we keep the infection rate down, to allow greater visiting in a step by step way in the future."

Care Minister Helen Whately added: "One of the hardest things during this pandemic has been seeing families desperate to be reunited with their loved ones kept apart and I absolutely want to bring them back together.

"Throughout this pandemic we have sought clinical guidance on how visits can be conducted safely.

"We had to restrict the majority of visiting when the new variant was discovered but we have done all we can to enable visits to continue in some form. That includes providing funding towards costs of screens and PPE.

"As we begin to open up we will move step by step to increase visits while remembering we are still in the grip of a global pandemic."

Professor Deborah Sturdy, chief nurse for adult social care, said: "I know how much people want to visit, hug and kiss their loved ones but doing so can put lives at risk so we would ask people to continue to follow the rules.

"This is a first step towards resuming indoor visits and we all hope to be able to take further steps in the future.

"I am pleased as a result of so many people following the rules we are in a position to increase visits and hope this is just the start."

It comes as the Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares his "road map" out of the national lockdown, the details of which he is expected to announce on Monday.

The relaxation was welcomed by charity Age UK, whose director Caroline Abrahams said: "Hundreds of thousands of older people in care homes and their loved ones will sleep a little easier tonight, now they know the journey towards fully reopening care homes to visiting is to begin soon.

"It makes sense for the first step to be to allow 'essential care giving visitors' back into care homes because these individuals are so crucial to the health and wellbeing of the residents they support.

"In their absence we know that some older people have stopped eating and drinking, despite the best efforts of staff to take their place. Sometimes, only the person you love most in the world will do and it's to the Government's credit that they have recognised this.

"However, there are relatively few of these very special people so most care home residents and their families will have to wait a little longer for permission to meet up in person again.

"Still, now they can realistically hope that their nightmarish, prolonged separation will be coming to an end soon - something that would have been inconceivable before the pandemic and that we must do everything possible to prevent from ever happening again."

However, Independent Care Group chairman Mike Padgham said: "We must sound a note of caution because Covid-19 hasn't gone away and we are caring for the most vulnerable and most susceptible to it.

"We need some clarification - for example, the announcement says holding hands will be allowed but warns against 'close contact'. How is that going to be possible? There is going to have to be some very close but compassionate supervision of these visits.

"In truth, we might have preferred a more phased return to visiting with maybe a period of no contact visits followed by some careful contact."

Shadow health and social care minister Liz Kendall said: "For the last seven months, backed by Labour and charities, families have been calling for care home visits to start again and to be treated as key workers with access to all the PPE and testing they need.

"Over this period ministers have repeatedly failed to grasp how important families are for the physical and mental health of care home residents and the appalling impact preventing visits has caused.

"Never again must families be denied the right to visit their loved ones in care homes. To have any confidence that things will really change, we need legislation to enshrine residents' rights to visits and end the scandal of blanket visiting bans."

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'Nothing beats that human touch': Leeds care home boss welcomes move to allow relatives to hold hands - Yorkshire Evening Post

The nascent market for these items reflects a notable, technologically savvy move by creators of digital content to connect financially with their audience and eliminate middlemen.

Some NFT buyers are collectors and fans who show off what they have bought on social media or screens around their homes. Others are trying to make a quick buck as cryptocurrency prices surge. Many see it as a form of entertainment that mixes gambling, sports card collecting, investing and day trading.

Eye-popping NFT sale prices have attracted some of the same confusion and derision that have long haunted the cryptocurrency world, which has struggled to find a good use for its technology beyond currency trading. And there is uncertainty over the stability of values, since many of the transactions are using cryptocurrencies, which have fluctuated wildly in worth over the last two years.

But true believers remind people that most big things in tech from Facebook and Airbnb to the internet itself and mobile phones often start out looking like toys.

A lot of people are cynical about this kind of thing, said Marc Andreessen, a venture capital investor at Andreessen Horowitz, in a discussion on the social media app Clubhouse this month. But people dont buy things like sneakers, art or baseball cards for the value of their materials, he and his partner, Ben Horowitz, explained. They buy them for their aesthetics and design.

A $200 pair of sneakers is, like, $5 in plastic, Mr. Andreessen said.

Youre buying a feeling, Mr. Horowitz added.

The market for NFTs began to pick up last year, with more than 222,000 people participating in $250 million worth of sales, quadrupling the volume in 2019, according to Nonfungible.com, which tracks the market. As day trading has risen alongside the stock market in the pandemic, investors have looked for riskier and more esoteric places to make money, from sneakers and streetwear to wine and art.

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Why an Animated Flying Cat With a Pop-Tart Body Sold for Almost $600,000 - The New York Times

Vertical marketplaces continue to be a key lynchpin in the digital economy, a centralized place where people providing certain goods or services can connect with those specifically looking to buy them, a position that has, it seems, become even more prominent and in-demand in our pandemic economy. In line with that trend, today a startup out of Denmark called Ageras Group, which has built a dual-purpose platform, providing both accountancy software and a marketplace for small and medium businesses to find accountants, is announcing a round of growth funding to expand its business.

The Copenhagen-based company has closed a round of $73 million from a single investor, Lugard Road Capital.

Ageras is not disclosing its valuation, but this report in Danish publication Borsen pegs it at 1.5 billion Danish krone, or around $244 million at todays rates. Weve asked an Ageras spokesperson to confirm the figure and will update this post as we learn more.

Were also asking how much it has raised in the past. Founded in 2012, the startup was bootstrapped for its first five years, and PitchBook discloses only around $220,000 before this round. Previous investors include Investcorp which took a majority stake in the company in 2017 and more recently Rabo Bank.

The new investment comes on the heels of good growth for the company, with plans to capitalize on that. Ageras has now passed 340,000 users across Denmark, the U.S., Sweden, Norway, Holland and Germany. It says that the plan will be to use the funding to expand into what it generally describes as growth markets new countries, new customer segments and also adding more services to its software stack both through organic growth and acquisitions.

Ageras has established a market leading and best-in-class product offering that is optimally positioned for international expansion and the rising demand for automated business tools, said Rico Andersen, Ageras CEO who co-founded the company with Martin Hegelund, himself a serial investor who has backed the likes of Slack. This latest financing round will support our ongoing commitment to scaling the Ageras brand and bringing our software offering to new customers across the globe. We look forward to continuing the Ageras story in the years to come.

Ageras today follows a fairly typical labor marketplace model: SMEs seeking accountancy services submit their requirements in three areas accounting, bookkeeping or auditing and in return they receive three leads to contact. That model is one that Andersen and Hegelund know well, having previously built an online marketplace for home service professionals called Fa det Gjort (which translates to Get it done!).

Alongside this and to further diversify the business model the company has expanded into building accounting software, starting first with its own in-house Meneto suite, and then adding to it with two acquisitions, Billy in Denmark and Tellow in The Netherlands.

The investment underscores the persistent popularity of the marketplace model for online business, made popular in e-commerce by the likes of Amazon and Alibaba but extended to a range of services as well.

The labor marketplace model has been a perennial one in the world of startups Uber helped pioneer it to connect those needing a ride with mobility options for getting somewhere, the likes of Deliveroo lets people sign up to deliver food and other goods to people, there are a number of platforms out there providing a way for tradespeople to connect with those needing a home or other job done, and so on.

And the evolution of that to expand to more knowledge worker jobs is not especially new, either. Upwork, Bark, Paro and others are among those offering a way for accountants to connect with would-be customers.

What is perhaps more notable is how the space seems to be growing right now: the pandemic has reduced a lot of foot traffic for business districts, changing what offices look like these days. That has opened the door to a wider range of people providing services to others, while at the same time possibly made it harder for them to be discoverable.

Marketplaces are one way to solve that challenge, and in that regard, its no surprise to see the reports that LinkedIn is eyeing up building its own marketplace for skilled workers.

That is not the only area where Ageras faces competition, though: in the area of online accounting services, meanwhile, there are a number of players, including established companies like Intuit as well as newer entrants like Pennylane, TaxScouts, Zeitgold and Stripe-backed Pilot.

Lugard appears to be a VC affiliated with U.S. hedge fund Luxor Capital Group and it has also backed the delivery platform Glovo, inRiver and others. Investcorp, meanwhile, continues to hold a significant stake in the startup as part of its bigger tech investment strategy, which has included acquiring and then selling security firm Avira, and recently taking a stake in Indias logistics startup Xpressbees.

The combination of Ageras mission critical software, backed by a reputation for dependability, insights into the professional service market, an outstanding management team, paired with its cutting-edge research & development has ensured it has continued to grow its market position and deliver an accountancy ecosystem based on high quality recurring revenue, said Gilbert Kamieniecky, MD and head of Investcorps technology vertical, in a statement. The additional financing secured by Ageras will help to drive international expansion and support the continued innovation of its customer offering.

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Ageras nabs $73M at a $244M valuation for its accountancy marketplace and bookkeeping tech stack - TechCrunch

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Google unveiled the latest version of its Android operating system this week, Android 12. Available now as a developer preview, Android 12 appears to be pretty similar to Android 11, with a few new features and some performance fixes aimed at helping your phone run more smoothly.

If you're eager to try out the new OS, you can download and install the Android 12 developer preview now. But be warned that as the first developer preview, it is likely full of bugs, and isn't meant for the average person to try out at this point -- especially not on your primary device. We expect Google to launch a public beta in May, and the final version around August or September.

Here are three of the biggest new features we've seen in Android 12 so far, compared to Android 11.

Now playing: Watch this: Our first look at Android 12

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Google is adding several new privacy features to apps to give users more transparency and control, according to an Android Developers blog post. One update gives you more information about how cookies can be used across sites, while another changes how apps export information to prevent them from accidentally exporting activities, services and receivers.

It's worth noting that these policies are less strict than those in Apple's recent iOS software release, which includes new app "nutrition labels" that tell people what personal data their apps are collecting, and an upcoming change that requires developers to ask people for permission to gather data and track them across apps and websites.

Discover the latest news and best reviews in smartphones and carriers from CNET's mobile experts.

With Android 12, Google is changing up the design of notifications to make them more modern and functional. When you tap on a notification, it will take you directly to the app or action you want to take, instead of going through an intermediary service to start that action. This should make everything run faster, according to the blog post.

As noted by tech site XDA Developers, Android 12 also gets a new button that lets you snooze unimportant notifications, and choose how long to do so. You can also turn on adaptive notifications ranking to let Android rearrange your notifications based on how you work with different apps, and reset it the ranking if you don't like it.

Android 12 appears to include a few design changes that make it easier to operate Android phones with one hand and your thumb. XDA Developers noted that the updated settings UI moves the Search bar to the bottom of the display for easier one-handed access. It also uncovered a new feature called "silky home" that makes the entire interface more suitable for one-handed use.

For more, check out how to download the Android 12 developer preview, and the best Android phones to buy for 2021.

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3 things Android 12 can do that Android 11 can't - CNET

Early in the coronavirus outbreak, Dr. Sharfstein urged public health officials to focus on protecting racial and ethnic minorities, poor people and others who face social inequities. He has called for expanding housing to hold people with mild symptoms in quarantine; protecting tenants from eviction and offering incentives to food providers to deliver food to low-income neighborhoods for free or at a discount. He also proposed a federal coronavirus insurance program.

The last time his name was seriously floated for the top post, back in 2008, Dr. Sharfstein drew opposition from the pharmaceutical industry, which protested his criticism of off-label drug marketing and gifts from pharmaceutical companies to physicians.

Since 2015, Dr. Sharfstein has worked at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement. He was also a former health commissioner for Baltimore.

I think Josh would be a good choice, said David Nexon, a former executive at the Advanced Medical Technology Association, known as AdvaMed. Hes a very smart guy, very committed to public health and he has a broad public health background, which would be an asset because of F.D.A.s wide-ranging responsibilities.

Dr. Woodcock, 72, also commands deep support, especially within the vast network of cancer-related patient advocacy groups, researchers and the drug companies that help finance them. But Dr. Woodcock, who has spent over 36 years working for the agency, has also generated much stiffer opposition in this round than Dr. Sharfstein.

In the past, even when the F.D.A. review of the drug was scathing, quite often Janet Woodcock or another high level F.D.A. official would be at the meeting, clearly pushing the advisory committee to recommend approval, said Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, a think tank and advocacy group. But by law, these advisory committees are supposed to make recommendations independent of any F.D.A. pressure.

But the loudest objections to Dr. Woodcock focus on the F.D.A.s role in the opioid epidemic during her two stints as chief of its drug division, from 1994 to 2004 and then again from 2007 until she moved to Operation Warp Speed last May. (Between those two postings, she held other roles at the agency.)

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Who Will Be the Next F.D.A. Chief? - The New York Times