Android Co-Founder Andy Rubin Leaving Google 82
An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal reports that Andy Rubin is leaving Google. Rubin co-founded Android in 2003 and stayed on when the company was acquired by Google in 2005. Rubin led Android through the acquisition of over a billion users, until 2013 when he moved to Google's robotics division. He was replaced in the Android division by Sundar Pichai, who continues in charge of that, Chrome, Google+, and many other products. Rubin's robotics role will be filled by James Kuffner. "Mr. Rubin's departure is a blow to Google's robotics efforts. However, Mr. Kuffner is experienced in the sector, having worked on human-like robot technology for over two decades, including seven years at Carnegie Mellon University and five years on Google's self-driving car project."
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Apparently he will NOT be missed by anyone in the robotics division...
Favoritism! (Score:3)
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How come when I update my monster.com profile it's not news?
Because nobody uses your crappy software.
Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I can plug in an iOS device into the USB port of computer and navigate its directory structure then I'll consider iOS as advanced as Android.
Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? (Score:5, Informative)
What was the first version that didn't?
No, seriously ... my up-to-date Nexus 7 allows this.
So, either you know something I don't, or you're making an unfounded accusation.
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He's probably thinking of when it switched to MTP. There were a few glitches when that happened, some linux boxes could not mount it without fiddling, but it's pretty universally supported now. Except on OSX, I think?
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OSX doesn't allow it as far as I can tell ... I think in no small part because of a concession Apple made to the music labels.
I understand the point, just never found myself needing it ... in all honesty, I've never used it more than once or twice on my Android devices either.
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Yes, annoyingly, OSX doesn't support MTP [wikipedia.org]. You'll have to use something like Android File Transfer [android.com].
Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? (Score:4, Informative)
kio-mtp
make sure usb debugging is disabled under developer options, that stumped me for a while
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What was the last version of Android that actually let you do that?
Lollipop.
Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? (Score:4, Funny)
Ooooh, files and directory browsing. That's what I enjoy doing with my computer! Fun fun fun!
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What I enjoy is having folders like Documents, Videos and Music, and being able to copy documents, videos and music into them, rather than having everything stored in app-centric folders which are hidden from me. What I like is not having to use a horror story like iTunes to copy video files, ePubs and music.
I bought a Nexus 5 and 7 last year, handed my iPhone to my daughter, and have never looked back. The Nexus 5, in particular, is just a little over half the price of a a comparable iPhone and is a helluv
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What I enjoy is having folders like Documents, Videos and Music, and being able to copy documents, videos and music into them
I bet the long winter evenings just fly by.
Lets hope in 100 years time people aren't still using filing cabinet metaphors on communications devices.
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special software on the computer
What, cryptsetup?
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Next release of android will remove that feature by default because it will enable encryption by default. You will need special software on the computer and a key (which is buried in the phone somehow) to view the files.
This is incorrect.
It would be correct if Android still supported USB Mass Storage, but thanks to the switch from UMS to MTP back in JellyBean days (IIRC), you're now relying on the operating system to read the file system, and it knows how to transparently decrypt things.
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Yeah well with Android you don't have to use a hacking tool like this "Lunix" thing, it just works with ALL platforms, including 7, XP, and 98.
Re: Did he leave or was he invited to leave? (Score:1)
Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? (Score:5, Informative)
Wait, what?
I have two Android devices, and an iOS device ... and I've only recently retired my iPad 1.
In what way is Android playing catch up with iOS? Are they features people actually use or even know about?
Because, I would say pound for pound, feature for feature, my Android devices do as much as my iOS devices.
I don't pick up my Android phone or tablet and think "boy, if it only had this feature that iOS has, it would be a complete device".
In fact, I'm not aware of a single feature I ever use or care about that iOS has which Android doesn't.
For that matter, I'd be hard pressed to tell you a feature that either has that the other doesn't that I've ever wished was there.
Re:Did he leave or was he invited to leave? (Score:4, Informative)
In what way is Android playing catch up with iOS? Are they features people actually use or even know about?
Well, let's see: how about not letting Facetwitterlinkbook have access to absolutely everything on your device because their app demands so many permissions and you can't deniy specific ones?
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Hmmm ... can you tell me where on my iOS device I have granular control over permissions for individual apps? Because I've never found that. I've got it in my hand, and there is no granular control and the ability to enable/disable specific permissions. If I can, I want to know where thehell it is.
In my opinion, both Android an iOS suck for that.
Which is why my Nexus 7 tablet and my iPod touch both run in airplane mode most of the time.
Re: Did he leave or was he invited to leave? (Score:5, Insightful)
Settings->Privacy->AppName
Your just stupid if you didn't know this already since its regularly brought up as a shitty thing that android lacks.
And you've never used an iOS device either ... Since the OS asks you before allowing the app to do things. It's a system that requires you to opt in, and the app has to work if you opt-out or it gets rejected from the App Store unless the functionality is central to the app.
A camera app will not get approved if it won't work when denied access to your contacts, as an example.
Android is designed to pretend you have options when you don't. It's all or nothing and the permissions aren't even fine grained anymore, they are broken into large groups so updates can do all sorts of stuff that they didn't originally.
Android is decidedly anti-owner in this respect where as iOS is the opposite, decidedly pro-owner
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So which are you then, an asshole, a douchebag, or just some useless sack of shit with a big mouth?
Yes, there are the settings which Apple has placed under there for what they list as privacy. But what there isn't is a "show be a given app, show me all the permissions for that app, and let me selectively disable them". Android doesn't have that either.
My problem, is I have no idea if there
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What permissions means to Android and iOS are different.
On Android, permissions are more broadly defined. Access to if you're on WiFi, Access to the status bar, access to the current time zone, etc.
Some of these things are taken for granted on iOS. Like detecting if you're on WiFi or not. I know Overcast does this to prevent downloading over mobile data by default. I don't think apps have permissions period to read the entire current wifi state.
iOS doesn't allow some of these permissions too. Like sending S
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Nice hostility and poor spelling you have going there. Are you drinking?
cyanogenmod privacy guard (Score:2)
These [cyanogenmod.org] are the settings that you are looking for.
Just buy a phone with this installed.
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I don't pick up my Android phone or tablet and think "boy, if it only had this feature that iOS has, it would be a complete device".
Whenever I use an iOS app I always wonder how do I go back to the previous screen.
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Copy and paste. Copy and paste is utter pain in the arse to perform on Android. Try it. Works sporadically and only partially on apps. e.g. Try copying and pasting to/from Android Chrome browser for Google Translate.
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That's ironic, since people totally made fun of how iOS didn't have copy/paste for a while.
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Please tell me where I can prioritize between different wifi SSIDs in iOS. Also, please tell me where I can see which 802.11 standard a given network is running, which frequency it's on and which type of encryption it's using. And please tell me how to access a proper file system on an iOS device, so I can choose for myself which files I am "allowed" to download and where to put them.
IOS is way too simplistic for any kind of serious usage.
More money to be made working for yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can genuinely create good, patentable products, it's moronic to work for a large company and hand them the rights. Create and patent them yourself, and get all the financial windfall from doing so.
Human-like robot technology?! (Score:2)