It’s been a pretty quiet few weeks for the Samsung Galaxy Fold, as the company investigates several defects reported by reviewers. The Korean company has reportedly issued an update this week though.
In an email sent to pre-order customers (obtained by Droid-Life), Samsung noted that it was “making progress in enhancing” the foldable phone.
“This means that we cannot confirm the anticipated ship date yet,” the Korean firm explains. The lack of a shipping date suggests the company simply needs more time to carry out required changes, or that it’s still investigating defects.
The email also calls for customers to tap a button to ensure they keep their Galaxy Fold pre-order. “If we do not hear from you and we have not shipped by May 31st your order will be cancelled automatically,” reads an excerpt of the message.
We’re glad to see the firm providing an update of sorts to consumers, although the automatic pre-order opt-out is a little strange. After all, what if you don’t have access to your email for whatever reason? Samsung will simply assume you don’t want a device you’ve pre-ordered anyway. Users have roughly four weeks to respond to the email though, so that should be plenty of time to make a decision.
The delay comes after several reviewers reported issues with Galaxy Fold sample units. Several users accidentally peeled off an integral screen layer on the foldable phone, while a few others reported completely broken main screens.
Hopefully Samsung’s changes are enough to prevent any more serious issues with the Galaxy Fold. Are you still interested in the device? Let us know in the comments.
The suddenly-cozy relationship between Linux and Windows is taking another step forward, as Microsoft announced in a blog post that it's going to ship a full Linux kernel in Windows 10. It will arrive first with Insider preview builds by the end of Jun, underpinning the new Windows Subsystem for Linux 2. The first release will be based on version 4.19, the latest stable Linux release, and will keep up with each stable release going forward. According to Microsoft this isn't its first release of a Linux kernel -- that came last year on Azure Sphere -- but it is the first time on Windows.
By making this switch as a "drop-in replacement" for the current emulator, it should speed up performance significantly, with faster bootup and more efficient use of memory. Users can interface with it either by installing a distribution from the Microsoft Store or sideloading.
Also, the kernel itself will be open source, with instructions available to create your own, and Microsoft has pledged to contribute changes it makes open for others to use. All of this news also came after Microsoft earlier announced a new version of its Windows Terminal command line app.
Catch up on all the latest news from Build 2019 here!
Microsoft’s annual Build developer conference is where the company discusses what’s ahead for its cloud and consumer services, including Azure, Windows 10, Office 365, and Cortana. CEO Satya Nadella kicked off the 2019 conference with a keynote that touched on Microsoft’s revamped Chromium-powered Edge web browser, an augmented reality Minecraft game for mobile, and more.
Android Auto is getting a little refresh, as Google announced a new version of its smartphone-powered infotainment system ahead of the company’s I/O developer conference this week. Due out this summer, it’s supposed to be more intuitive, actionable, and should require fewer taps to get things done — and it’s also going to sport a new default dark mode theme.
The highlight of the Android Auto design refresh is a new, more dynamic persistent navigation bar at the bottom of the user interface. Instead of just static white buttons on a black background, the new version allows some apps to essentially take over a section of the navigation bar, allowing for more granular control without requiring the driver to switch to the full app in question.
For example, if you’re using Google Maps to navigate to a destination, but don’t have the full app open on the screen, the new navigation bar will show the next step in the turn-by-turn directions. Or if you have the full map view open, but there’s music playing in the background, the navigation bar will surface play / pause / skip controls for apps like Spotify. (Google says “all media apps” will be able to take advantage of this out of the gate as long as they’re already approved for Android Auto.)
The newer navigation bar also features one-tap access to Google Assistant, and it moves the home button all the way to the left (instead of in the middle) so it’s a little less of a reach. Notifications in the notification center now have more available actions, and the app launcher’s design has been tidied up as well.
The point of this refresh, according to Android Auto product manager Rod Lopez, is to “help you get on the road faster, show more useful information at a glance and simplify common tasks while driving.” So in addition to the design changes noted above, Google says the updated Android Auto can now automatically continue to play media and will also open up “your navigation app of choice” as soon as you plug your phone into the car.
Microsoft is unveiling a number of new features for its upcoming Edge Chromium browser today. The first big addition is a new “IE Mode” for Edge that will allow businesses to load old sites directly in the new Edge Chromium browser, using the Internet Explorer rendering engine. Microsoft is building IE directly into Edge for this purpose, so businesses aren’t forced to directly use IE for ancient internal sites.
“What we’re going to do is make this totally seamless,” explains Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore, in an interview with The Verge. Currently, the existing version of Edge will open Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10, which has a separate interface, favorites, and doesn’t work well on modern websites. This new IE mode literally loads the content within Edge, so you’d never be able to tell the difference, apart from a small IE logo on the tab that indicates that this mode has been enabled.
This new IE mode is designed exclusively for businesses, and Belfiore admits it’s a big pitch to get them to use Edge Chromium instead of a combination of Chrome and Internet Explorer. “We’ve got a browser for you that updates regularly that will go on Windows 7 and the Mac that handles things like IT customization of the New Tab page and Microsoft Search, and IE built-in,” says Belfiore.
Microsoft is also allowing businesses to customize the New Tab page for Edge Chromium. This will involve a custom company logo, the option to load some sites into the top tabs, and integration with Microsoft Search and Office 365.
While these features will be mainly targeted at businesses, Microsoft is also building an entirely new Collections feature for Edge Chromium. This is perhaps the most interesting feature addition to Edge so far, and it’s designed for web users to be able to more easily collect text, images, and information from the internet into a note. It goes beyond simple notes, though. Microsoft is linking the images you drag and drop into these collections, and even text into references back to the original websites where you found them.
You’ll then be able to share this with friends or family via email or instantly export it to Word or Excel. This seems super useful if you’re collecting information about a big purchase, as you’ll be able to export to a list in Excel that can be sorted by price. If you’re a teacher or student collecting information from the web, then these collections will all have citations. It’s even useful if you’re just researching vacation locations and you want to easily share your collection of information.
Microsoft is also focusing on privacy enhancements to Edge, specifically on blocking web trackers that follow you on the web. Microsoft has been on a privacy mission in recent years, and it’s something CEO Satya Nadella constantly talks about focusing on. “We’re going to give you, the user, control over your privacy and try to explain in a way that’s clear,” explains Belfiore.
Microsoft is planning to create a single privacy page in Edge that will allow users to choose from three different levels: unrestricted, balanced, and strict. All three are designed to block malicious trackers on the web, but the level of ad tracking will vary a lot across each mode. Unrestricted is designed to allow trackers from all sites, with personalized ads. Balanced mode, which should be the default, blocks trackers from sites you haven’t visited yet, meaning you’ll see fewer ads based on sites you’ve visited. The most aggressive tracking prevention will be found under the strict control, which blocks all trackers, meaning you won’t see ads tracking you around the web at all.
The strict mode is aggressive, which does mean some websites might break because of these trackers being blocked. Microsoft’s implementation is “specific to ad trackers” and not designed to block all ad content, explains Belfiore. That means that it’s similar to third-party extensions like Ghostery, but it won’t block all of the ad elements you see on a page.
Microsoft is even adding strict tracking prevention to its incognito mode, so it’s clear that if you use that mode, then nothing will be tracked. The software giant still hasn’t figured out all of the exact details on its tracking prevention. “We have some initial ideas that we think are pretty good,” admits Belfiore. “We like this general approach, but there’s a lot of detail.”
It’s not clear when all of these new Edge features will be available, but Microsoft is announcing them today as work has begun on all of these new features, and parts of them could show up in Chromium commits and trigger questions for the company. If you’re testing Edge Canary, then you’ll be among the first to try out any of these new features, even if Microsoft hides them behind a settings flag.
Google’s Chrome browser is set to offer a dashboard-like function that will give users more information about what cookies are tracking them.
Photo:
Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
Google is set to launch new tools to limit the use of tracking cookies, a move that could strengthen the search giant’s advertising dominance and deal a blow to other digital-marketing companies, according to people familiar with the matter.
After years of internal debate, Google could as soon as this week roll out a dashboard-like function in its Chrome browser that will give internet users more information about what cookies are tracking them and offer options to fend them off, the people said.
This is a more incremental approach than less-popular browsers, such as
Apple Inc.’s
Safari and Mozilla Corp.’s Firefox, which introduced updates to restrict by default the majority of tracking cookies in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Google’s move, which could be announced at its developer conference in Mountain View, Calif., starting Tuesday, is expected to be touted as part of the company’s commitment to privacy—a complicated sell, given the torrent of data it continues to store on users—and press its sizable advantage over online-advertising rivals.
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The unit of
Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL -0.02%
is the world’s largest digital ad seller. The coming changes aren’t expected to significantly curtail Google’s ability to collect data.
A cookie is a small text file stored in an internet browser that lets companies silently follow users around the internet, gathering information such as which sites they have visited and what ads they have viewed or clicked. Initially developed in 1994 to help e-commerce sites remember when a user had placed an item in a shopping cart, cookies have since become ubiquitous across the web—and reviled by privacy advocates and many users.
Yet cookies also boost competition in the advertising landscape by allowing hundreds of digital firms—large and small—to collect their own user data and sell higher-priced ads based on it. Any restriction on them is a boon to the biggest tech companies, including Google, which can target ads based on the slew of other information it collects on users through its many products.
Google, like its browser rivals, isn’t planning to end the use of cookies that websites use to make their own users’ experience smoother, such as those that store login information so users don’t have to enter it every time. Instead, it is mostly targeting cookies installed by profit-seeking third parties, separate from the owner of the website a user is actively visiting.
If the new Google tools prompt users to broadly reject tracking cookies, some people in the industry think it could mean the long-predicted demise of a technology that is both widely criticized and used.
“It really strikes at the Achilles’ heel of the ad tech ecosystem,” said Ratko Vidakovic, a Toronto-based consultant in the digital ad industry.
Google has been working on the cookies plan for its Chrome browser—which commands almost two-thirds of the desktop-browser market share—for at least six years, in stops and starts. Work accelerated in the past year, after the personal data of tens of millions of
Facebook
users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked on President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Google handles 90% of the world's internet searches, and it increasingly is promoting a single answer for many questions. Even subjective or unanswerable queries sometimes get seemingly definitive answers. Here's how the algorithms are -- and aren't -- working. Video/Photo Illustration: Heather Seidel/The Wall Street Journal
The delay by Google was partly due to the technological complexity of the project. Google had considered creating a so-called browser identifier—linked to everything a user does, which advertisers could see—that could be easily toggled on or off by users. However, they trashed the plan because it required changing millions of lines of codes and potentially renegotiating thousands of outside agreements, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The importance of cookies has been waning as users move their web activity to smartphones, as they only work within browsers and cannot be used within apps.
Google in recent months invited advertising executives to its offices in Mountain View and New York to sound them out on the shift—on the condition they sign nondisclosure agreements. People who attended the meetings said the company was tight-lipped on the details of its cookies project, instead floating hypothetical scenarios and asking for opinions.
The changes could be damaging to Google competitors that use cookies or resell data collected via cookies to companies hoping to better target ads. Shares in one such company, Paris-based
Criteo SA,
which helps sites tag cookies on their visitors, are down 27% since Adweek reported in late March that Google was considering new restrictions.
Criteo’s chief executive during its recent quarterly earnings call flagged risks due to coming restrictions on cookies, and said the company was working to become less reliant on cookies.
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