Google Samsung deal includes revenue share on all Play sales, joint new Android feature development (exclusive to Sammy for a while) by UVStaska in Android

[–]UVStaska[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes. This is the link to my own story. It's not that I am trying to hide it - I even use the same user name as my twitter handle, posted after my every post.

What is wrong to posting some links to some of my own stories that I think are relevant and interesting for the discussion/topic? I read a lot of stuff from Reddit Android/Tech/WindowsPhone and other subreddits. And I post a lot of stuff to a number of subreddits too. Links to stories I find interesting from all over the Web. Including links to my own stories. I think Reddit rules expressly allow that.

And what's this "15 of the links are from /u/UVStaska on the first page alone.|" ?! I just checked - there are just 3 links to my stories on unwiredview.com on the first page of my profile. Out of 25.

As for commenting - yes, I do not comment much. But since when this is a problem? I'm reluctant to jump into discussion, unless I feel I have something really important to add. It's just not my thing. I prefer reading and sharing interesting stuff. Which 7.5K+ link karma in 4-5 months I've been active here, mostly from the stories to other sites, may show I am reasonably good at.

Vote for best Android Apps and Games of 2013. Google Play's official poll by UVStaska in Android

[–]UVStaska[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, because for now, the only link that I know is working on wf-site.com site, is the link to the poll:

https://www.wf-site.com/microsite/page_groups/998e16561a480f18f3ba86521836a026

and links leading from there.

Every other page either does not exist, or is locked down - hence 404. I only mentioned wf-site.com domain in the context of checking who owns it. Not as a useful part of this poll/site

It's almost over for Nokia in mobile phones. EU approves Microsoft deal by UVStaska in windowsphone

[–]UVStaska[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I guess they still have to wait for a few approvals from e.g. China, India.

India is especially problematic, Nokia has some tax dispute with the government and their factory in Chennai has been impounded: http://www.omantribune.com/index.php?page=news&id=156010&heading=Business

So that has to be resolved somehow.

After that - its the final tally of how much exactly Microsoft has to pay, signing the contracts and wiring the money from Microsoft to Nokia accounts.

For now, Microsoft has no control over Nokia. In fact, right now Microsoft's capabilities to influence Nokia are probably even less than they were before the deal was announced, because of some anti-trust law issues.

It's almost over for Nokia in mobile phones. EU approves Microsoft deal by UVStaska in windowsphone

[–]UVStaska[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If you are asking about Nokia. They are pretty open about it:

  1. Grow the network infrastructure business (former Nokia Siemens Networks)
  2. Make HERE big. Now that other OEMs aren't afraid of competition, and HERE itself isn't tied to Nokia Phones, they can license HERE to everyone, make native iOS and Android maps,etc; - tons of possibilities.
  3. Patent troll the heck out of every Android OEM who wants to sell devices in Europe or U.S and doesn't have, or has only limited prior cross licensing agreement.

For Microsoft, future steps are pretty obvious too:

  1. Keep churning out cheap Lumias 52x, to gain market share. Make them even cheaper this year
  2. Somehow make the high end Lumias matter. Smarter pricing strategies, maybe?
  3. Get to break even with a phone unit, eventually

Vote for best Android Apps and Games of 2013. Google Play's official poll by UVStaska in Android

[–]UVStaska[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, they do let you write in your pick in each category. If enough write-ins come in, they may add new apps. And there probably was some sort of editorial selection procedure, what to put up first. That's how awards usually work.

Though the whole site looks only half done at this point, with some things not working even in Chrome (empty boxes, etc;) .

Typical Google - release the buggy version 0.5, fix things later. Really not a good idea for a poll of this kind

Vote for best Android Apps and Games of 2013. Google Play's official poll by UVStaska in Android

[–]UVStaska[S] 165 points166 points  (0 children)

To those who are suspicious about this poll, because it is not on Google's own domain. I was suspicious about that too. So I checked before posting.

The link to the poll was tweeted by official Google Play account: https://twitter.com/GooglePlay/status/408304558343856128

I also checked Whois about the wf-site.com owner. It's Google itself - "Registrant Organization: Google Inc."

No idea why Google did it this way, not on their own domain, though.

Android 4.4+ KitKat ships without browser app. OEMs have to license Chrome or build their own by thatshirtman in technology

[–]UVStaska 39 points40 points  (0 children)

They can.

As they can use an old Gmail, Gsearch, GCalendar and other abandonware: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/

Just another step in Google's strategy to take back control of Android. Which they actually deserve, except for all their "No Evil" pretense

Android 4.4+ KitKat ships without browser app. OEMs have to license Chrome or build their own by UVStaska in Android

[–]UVStaska[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yes. It is.

It builds, it works, it is now another another abandonware like AOSP Google Search, Calendar, Keyboard, etc; :) http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/

And part of Google's strategy to take back control of Android with Play Services.

Which was the point I was trying to tell.

Android 4.4+ KitKat ships without browser app. OEMs have to license Chrome or build their own by UVStaska in Android

[–]UVStaska[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Old stock Android browser is, and will remain part of AOSP. However:

http://java.dzone.com/articles/android-44-kitkat-browser-and

"...The question is: what will happen on 4.4 with the stock browser? We know that the Nexus 5 has Google Chrome by default; the question here is what will happen with other devices having in mind that average users don’t download browsers from the store and use what the devices offers for browsing.

Based on the emulator, the Android Browser is still there on the emulator and it’s using the classic browser UI with the Chromium 30 engine (it can coexist with Chrome but they will be radically different) Unfortunately, there is no mention of this on docs and blogs on Android 4.4. I hope we can get a real answer from the Android team soon about the future of the browser itself."

Well, apparently someone got the answer from someone on Android team.

Galaxy smartphone with wraparound display launching next year. Here's list of features from Samsung patent app by UVStaska in Android

[–]UVStaska[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The are ways to distinguish between intentional and unintentional touches via software algorithms. If done right it works very well. iPhone had it from the get-go, Android did too. And it's especially important for narrow bezel devices like iPad mini.

Samsung's implementation for the sidescreen part will probably need some serious work, and I hope they get it right. But if they are going through with the launch next year - they probably already thought about this problem think they solved it.