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Android sends 20x more data to Google than iOS sends to Apple, study says:
Whether you have an iPhone or an Android device, it's continuously sending data including your location, phone number, and local network details to Apple or Google. Now, a researcher has provided a side-by-side comparison that suggests that, while both iOS and Android collect handset data around the clock—even when devices are idle, just out of the box, or after users have opted out—the Google mobile OS collects about 20 times as much data than its Apple competitor.
Both iOS and Android, researcher Douglas Leith from Trinity College in Ireland said, transmit telemetry data to their motherships even when a user hasn't logged in or has explicitly configured privacy settings to opt out of such collection. Both OSes also send data to Apple and Google when a user does simple things such as inserting a SIM card or browsing the handset settings screen. Even when idle, each device connects to its back-end server on average every 4.5 minutes.
It wasn't just the OSes that sent data to Apple or Google. Preinstalled apps or services also made network connections, even when they hadn't been opened or used. Whereas iOS automatically sent Apple data from Siri, Safari, and iCloud, Android collected data from Chrome, YouTube, Google Docs, Safetyhub, Google Messenger, the device clock, and the Google search bar.
[...] Where Android stands out, Leith said, is in the amount of data it collects. At startup, an Android device sends Google about 1MB of data, compared with iOS sending Apple around 42KB. When idle, Android sends roughly 1MB of data to Google every 12 hours, compared with iOS sending Apple about 52KB over the same period. In the US alone, Android collectively gathers about 1.3TB of data every 12 hours. During the same period, iOS collects about 5.8GB.
Google has contested the findings, saying that they're based on faulty methods for measuring the data that's collected by each OS. The company also contended that data collection is a core function of any Internet-connected device.
[...] An Apple spokesperson also spoke on the condition it be background. The spokesperson said that Apple provides transparency and control for personal information it collects, that the report gets things wrong, that Apple offers privacy protections that prevent Apple from tracking user locations, and that Apple informs users about the collection of location-related data.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday April 07 2021, @03:52PM (11 children)
I remember J2ME. (Java "lite" on all of the billions of mobile phones in the pre smartphone daze.)
It didn't have any floating point. I was building my own "asteroids" clone. (And did successfully build it. Gave it to a few friends. Once that accomplishment achieved, I moved on.)
I needed trig functions. I wanted to draw the ship and rocks as sprites sub classed from a common super class. Each line vector figure (ship or rock) had a series of points relative to a "center" point. It was the center point of the sprite that moved on each frame update. In my game, the rocks rotated, unlike original asteroids. These points around the center point were expressed in polar (r-theta) form. Just draw a line from the first point to the last, and then back to the first, thus drawing a closed figure. (Ship or rock)
I need to convert from polar form to x-y coords, and then offset to the x-y center of the sprite before drawing on screen.
But J2ME only had long integers and no trig functions (or log, power, etc)
There was some library that had the name "bear" in it. This used a 64-bit long, dividing it into 32-bit mantissa and fraction. Trig functions did a few taylor series terms, and that was more than good enough.
Wow, those were ye olden daze. And it was after the year 2000. Wow, I'm getting old.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday April 07 2021, @04:55PM (10 children)
Good work!
Again, good work! It sure beats the alternative.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:19PM (9 children)
Thanks.
And that wasn't for work, it was for personal amusement.
A lot of things like that. Once I accomplish it, it suddenly gets boring and I try at something else that I've never tried.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Thursday April 08 2021, @05:25PM (8 children)
Yes, me too. Science and tech have always been personal interests / passions, so I often do things for fun. And like you, and many of us, once I learn / accomplish (conquer?) something, it's on to the next thing. Wish I could capitalize on ideas more! A guy I know is quite wealthy as an "inventor". Not really sure what that means, other than "engineer / tech enthusiast who's also good at business, patenting things, selling / licensing those ideas". Sigh. I've always needed a Steve Jobs, as I'm more the Woz (and you probably even more so, having done so much Apple development...)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday April 08 2021, @06:08PM (7 children)
I think in about 2010 I converted that J2ME "asteroids" into an Android app. Basically, re-write it since app structure and UI are so different. But I was able to copy-paste some of the Java sprite code, which was amusing.
On the J2ME app, the UI was simple. A basic menu. A joke "insert coin" screen with a message suggesting that on some phones it might be possible to force a coin into the battery charger connector, or on other phones wedge a thin coin such as a US dime in between keys on the keypad. Then the game itself was based on pressing 4 keys of the flip-phone or candy-bar-phone keypad:
1 - rotate ship clockwise
4 - rotate ship counterclockwise
(these two keys under your left thumb while holding phone)
3 - fire
6 - thrust
You could rotate AND fire at the same time. I polled the key pressed states rather than looking at key-down / key-up events.
On Android, I had to create on-screen buttons which didn't work all that great. Had to use multi-touch in order to be able to rotate and fire at same time. It was more complicated to get right. And worst of all -- you couldn't feel but buttons with your eyes focused on the action on screen. An inferior experience.
While I don't do as many projects these days, there is still I would like to do soon. I want to build an app, something, maybe just a watch face for my smart watch (bought about 1 year ago). On Android, I was able to get an interactive Linux prompt into the phone, while being able to use the phone (eg, answer a call). I'm not sure if it will be possible to get a shell prompt from the watch using the tooling. Don't know yet. I haven't read enough.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 09 2021, @01:18AM (6 children)
You're doing really awesome stuff! I haven't done as much code development as I'd like to. I kind of do some of everything- mostly overall systems stuff, networking, admin, etc. In the 90s and early 2000s I did C, assy, and still do a little, various scripting, html, but not as much as I'd like. Never done java.
Now I'm actually working full-time in a food factory, doing much mechanical stuff (which I'm very good at) and hoping to get into PLC / SCADA / HMI / ???, as we have like nobody to do it. Having a terrible time getting AB PLC software to install. The few "free" versions either will only install on Win 10 (which I'd rather not use), and older versions give some useless vbscript error message. Anyway, it's all very interesting, somewhat challenging, but I'm not sure how long I'll do it. Really good people, new company, somewhat naive investors, lots of broken or half-broken stuff. Quite physical, but mostly easy mentally, so I look good to mgt.
You were mentioning about trig functions- can you build a LUT? (Look Up Table) Not sure how much storage you have, but LUTs have been very popular in systems for years. I remember (very) long ago LUT ROMs for character / font generators in CRT displays.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday April 09 2021, @03:06PM (5 children)
For trig functions, especially having 32-bit mantissa and 32-bit fraction, a half dozen or so iterations of a Taylor series gets you plenty close. As I seem to recall, that library I used to do this had hard-coded the first terms of the Taylor series expansion directly in-line as a single long expression on the return statement of, for example, the Sin function. So it was fast, and close enough.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 09 2021, @03:58PM (4 children)
Wow, super cool DannyB! It's been too many years since I've done much math, "discrete time systems", etc. I'm inspired to read up on Taylor series. Thanks!
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday April 09 2021, @04:16PM
It's really quite simple. Look here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_series#Trigonometric_functions [wikipedia.org]
See how the Sin x is just the sum (alternating add/subtract) of a series of fractions?
For a quick and dirty Sin function, just hard code the first handful of terms in a single expression. No loop required.
Sin x = x - x3 / 3! + x5 / 5! - x7 / 7! + ...
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday April 09 2021, @04:26PM
Here is my own handy-dandy Java factorial function that avoids iteration. Horribly formatted because of SN rules. On each 'case' line, I aligned the long integers such that all of the trailing letter L aligned on the right. So there are increasing amounts of space between the 'return' statements and the first digit of a result.
static public long factorial( int n ) {
switch( n ) {
case 0:
case 1: return 1L;
case 2: return 2L;
case 3: return 6L;
case 4: return 24L;
case 5: return 120L;
case 6: return 720L;
case 7: return 5_040L;
case 8: return 40_320L;
case 9: return 362_880L;
case 10: return 3_628_800L;
case 11: return 39_916_800L;
case 12: return 479_001_600L;
case 13: return 6_227_020_800L;
case 14: return 87_178_291_200L;
case 15: return 1_307_674_368_000L;
case 16: return 20_922_789_888_000L;
case 17: return 355_687_428_096_000L;
case 18: return 6_402_373_705_728_000L;
case 19: return 121_645_100_408_832_000L;
case 20: return 2_432_902_008_176_640_000L;
}
return 0L;
}
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday April 09 2021, @04:35PM (1 child)
To calculate the increasing factorials in the denominators of that Taylor series for the Sin function, the observant will note that to calculate 5! you can start from the 3! you previously calculated. Similarly to calculate 7! you can start from the 5!. But the direct constants in the factorial function I posted can be directly used in the expansion.
For the numerators in the Taylor series, you'll note that to calculate x5, you can start with the x3 you already calculated.
You don't need a loop either. (hint it may all get done in registers on the bare metal)
x3 = x * x * x;
x5 = x3 * x * x;
x7 = x5 * x * x;
etc.
Then:
Sin x = x - (x3/6) + (x5/120) - (x7/5040) + ....
And they say Java programmers write horrible, slow, bloated code. Somehow I got the title of senior software developer.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 09 2021, @04:37PM
Furthermore, those repeated x*x terms could have been in another temporary called x2.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.