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Huawei Unveils Harmony, Its Answer to Android, in Survival Bid
Huawei, the Chinese technology giant, on Friday unveiled its own mobile operating system, Harmony, in an effort to ensure that its fast-growing smartphone business can survive the United States government's clampdown on the firm.
Huawei has been at the mercy of the Trump administration for the past three months, ever since the Commerce Department began requiring that American companies apply for special permission to sell parts and technology to the Chinese firm, which Washington officials accuse of being a potential conduit for cyberspying by Beijing. The move effectively choked off Huawei's access to Google's Android software and American-made microchips and other hardware components, and put a big question mark over Huawei's future.
Although President Trump said in June that he would loosen some of the restrictions to allow American companies to continue working with Huawei, economic ties between the United States and China have grown more tense since then, and the prospect of immediate relief for Huawei seems more distant.
Unveiling Harmony at a Huawei developer conference in the southern city of Dongguan on Friday, Richard Yu, the head of the company's consumer business, said that the new operating system was designed to work not only on mobile phones, but on smart watches and other connected home devices as well. Indeed, the first Huawei products to run on Harmony will not be smartphones, but "smart screens" that the company plans to release later this year. Mr. Yu said that Harmony would gradually be incorporated into the company's other smart devices over the next three years. But there is no immediate plan, he said, to release Harmony-based phones.
Also at Bloomberg, XDA Developers, The Verge, TechCrunch, CNBC, CNN.
See also: Huawei's cross-platform HarmonyOS will ship in China in 2019, globally in 2020
Previously:
Google Pulls Huawei's Android License
The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google's Iron Grip On Android
Google Doesn't Want Huawei Ban Because It Would Result in an Android Competitor
Trump Administration Will Loosen Restrictions Against Huawei
Huawei's Android Alternative Lives on... for IoT
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 09 2019, @05:51PM (1 child)
So, Huawei's first products using Harmony will be IoT devices? Devices that traditionally have had insufficient (if any) security built in? This from a company who has been banned in the US because they feed user data to the Chinese government (among other privacy violations).
What could possibly go wrong?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 09 2019, @07:05PM
There is a "demand" for these devices, and they were already planning on using HongMeng/Harmony as a lightweight OS for IoT devices even if they didn't go all the way and use it on smartphones.
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(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday August 09 2019, @07:36PM (2 children)
Translated from Black Speech of Marketing and Diplomacy to English it says "We don't have to keep using Android, so don't push the issue."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @01:08AM (1 child)
It may be time to get a Huawei phone and avoid the USA's TLA-invaded Android "system". Oh wait...
:( can someone OTHER than China make an alternative phone OS? Please?!
(Score: 1) by xenu on Saturday August 10 2019, @05:20AM
tbh I'm not a big fan of it, but Sailfish OS is a thing.
(Score: 1) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday August 09 2019, @08:08PM (6 children)
It is odd when two vast systems of control agree on one thing, your cell phone(and just about everything else) must spy on you and contribute to someone else's top down control of you in a panopticon. All technological and ethical hurdles have been lept at record pace to accomplish this. 20 layers of tech and 50 layers of bureaucracy and 1 layer will always sneak in there to turn the device into part of the panopticon. Which will be denied, later admitted, memory hole, rinse repeat...
That both chinese and american systems converge on this behavior pattern despite their many other apparent differences is of historical and evolutionary significance.
So we know what types of structures build technology that has no ethical value, the question I will keep asking is what type of human organization will deliver tech that has ethical value? And don't say mozilla or canonical unless you want to be roundly mocked for naivete.
Your organization is either committed to creating personal devices for persons to use for the persons use, or you are building a prison. Get it through your head. And will anyone join me in rejection of the word 'smart' for devices? I think we should preserve use of that word for things that are actually smart.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday August 09 2019, @09:57PM (5 children)
So, does that mean tech that simply does what it's supposed to without spying, pushing ads, nagging, copy protection, no "cloud" dependencies...
Or does it mean tech that does something, say, aggressively positive, like outing companies that do things such as the above?
Or must it do both?
Or something else?
--
Frankly, autocorrect, I'm getting a bit tired of your shirt.
(Score: 1) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday August 15 2019, @04:26PM (4 children)
I'm primarily talking about software that does what the user wants it to and nothing else. That gives the user and the user alone control of whatever it is they paid for and own.
But in the big picture, secondarily, tertiarily, the crisis or end of trust affects every human organization(except the extremely rich and nationalistic or fanatical religious interest responsible for the massive damage to society caused by things like facegag/cambridgeaanalytica.
We have seen, haven't we, how CNN, NYT, WSG, Washpo, NBC, etc etc let the miami herald hang out to dry for about a decade on a story that is so obviously critical to understanding of the political situation in the united states, that no one in their right mind should trust these institutions to investigate their way out of a paper bag.
So yes, a republic, democracy or whatever, cannot long exist if investigative journalism is not capable of discovering treachery and the true intentions of the actors who have access to mass media propaganda.
Small groups of people like Whowhatwhy.org and muckrock are examples of types of organizations that we need more of. Whowhatwhy is one of the only set of actual journalists who will go on record and defend the obvious assertion that JFK was assasinated by LBJ and a variety of interests, which is likely why Israel has nuclear weapons today and can't be challenged when they assasinate civilians in broad daylight with shots to the head.
Like really think, what establishes trust? What is trust actually made of? Totalitarian forces are at work destroying all trust outside of their network, that much is clear.
Trust amongst our closest friends and childhood friends and families and long term coworkers who we know *for sure* don't haave muckymuck backgrounds, is our greatest asset against what the forces of the free world and western civiliation are facing.
I do not believe as of this time that anyone from the nations of israel, russia or china, at least, can be trusted AT ALL to develop software that does not betray the user. Nor do I believe that anyone with a background in u.s. law enforcement or military can be trusted to do this.
This is a full spectrum society wide war being waged on civilian culture and governance by totalitarian forces, and now that this is obvious, the people who don't want to live in a nightmare world, like myself, need to step up.
I am trying to do my part.
The military is there to protect civilians, not infiltrate them and ruin them, which it seems many highly paid police and military officers seem to have either forgotten or are not wise enough to comprehend.
Without wisdom and ethics, or course, intelligence can often be dangerous to its owner.
Thank you for the good question, it means a lot to me that at least one person confirmed gets what i'm saying, so thanks for that.
And yeah #findyourchildhoodfriends, it's a good thing to do anyway even if it weren't critical to the survival of the species and secure operation of computer hardware and software.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday August 15 2019, @05:09PM (3 children)
That's what my software does. Other than the pay for part - I give it away.
Couldn't agree more.
Yes, but that's not saying much — for the most part, that's not where we get our software, operating systems, and integrated hardware+software systems from. So they do very little to alleviate the trust issue WRT our tools.
IMO, the war is over, and the public lost. Sad to say. There's no avenue remaining to solve the problem; big money and powerful interests (although I am probably simply repeating myself there) have a stranglehold on these issues, both by de facto control of the means of production, and via tailored agitprop that keeps the majority in ineffective, largely unaware, turmoil.
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Stupidity is actually a superpower. We learn this when
we repeatedly fail to defeat it with intelligence.
(Score: 1) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday August 15 2019, @05:58PM (2 children)
I respect your opinion but I don't think fatalism is helpful, nor is there any way out of this for someone like me who has been working in the light for a long time, under threat.
Please check the post I just made to the 'site got taken down' thread, it might change your mind.
I believe now is the time to start a global anticorruption movement because now everyone knows, and at this specific moment, all the propaganda in the world cannot distract from the real secret of victoria, that victoria got to be a supermodel because she let herself be abused and/or worse by elderly rich men before she turned 15.
The nightmare world where we lose is not worth living in and as for me and mine, we have not yet begun to fight.
The question is if the entire united states military and police are going to bend over and take it, and let these predators assasinate freely in civilian society.
I ask you, if anything, at least help me not get killed for acting according to my conscience.
But if you can't take a stand against what is going on right now, what would you ever take a stand against?
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday August 16 2019, @12:31AM (1 child)
Oh no.
I spent my entire life until I was 60 "taking stands", and our society just kept getting worse. Much worse. This isn't fatalism; it's the voice of long, hard experience.
The politics are dirtier, the constitution is a laughing stock among the judiciary and the legislators, we actually have an intentional permanent lower class that is forced there and held there, privacy has become a myth, debt is everywhere, immigrants have been magicked from the actual boost to our economic engine that they truly represent into the very worst sort of false but effective boogyman, the sexes are at each other's throats, the environment is teetering on the verge of a sudden collapse (pick your poison: insect die-off blowing out the food chain, CO2 borking the ocean acidity which will in turn blow the food chain, warming crushing whole bunches of crops which will... yeah... that freaking reality-show has-been Trump doing something really stupid... you get the idea.) We are so fucked. I just can't figure out what's going to get us first.
I'm done. Retired now, and going to pass on soon anyway, very little time left, which I intend to spend enjoying, not marching, etc. Because I truly believe this is about all there is left. For everyone, not just me.
Ball's in your court. Have fun. I'll watch. I have survivalist levels of popcorn stashed.
--
A day without pizza is like...
Just kidding. I have no idea.
(Score: 1) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday August 16 2019, @03:35PM
you severely underestimate your capacity, it is sad when men think they are mice, but im not here to boss anyone around.
(Score: 3, Touché) by darkfeline on Friday August 09 2019, @10:33PM (3 children)
HarmonyOS, really? Harmony in China is Tiananmen Square and Hong Kong. Nothing to see here comrade, just national harmony being instilled upon the populace.
Smart screens? Where have I heard of those before? Smart screen, smartphone, telephone, tele screen.
This OS installed on IoT monitoring devices will be spreading a lot of harmony throughout China, you can count on that (as long as you count 2 + 2 = 5).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:17AM
It makes sense, doesn't it?
Harmony is having your phone run you over if you don't step aside, citizen.
Harmony as having your phone reporting you to the authorities for being near a protest.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:42PM
Hey! Hong Kong hasn't felt the full harmony yet!
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @03:01PM
the beatings will continue until morale improves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:06AM (1 child)
oh please please dear god make all hongmeng speed tests beat google miserably!
the sole purpose for android would be revealed and it's not about making a good OS (lol java chip).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @12:17AM
android already lost if harmony OS comes with a ethernet driver/interface... a network access port NOT treated like a 2nd class citizen.