Android Shenanigans

They’re (almost) all dirty: The state of cheating in Android benchmarks

We started piecing this data together back in July, and even had conversations with both silicon vendors and OEMs about getting it to stop. With the exception of Apple and Motorola, literally every single OEM we’ve worked with ships (or has shipped) at least one device that runs this silly CPU optimization. It’s possible that older Motorola devices might’ve done the same thing, but none of the newer devices we have on hand exhibited the behavior. It’s a systemic problem that seems to have surfaced over the last two years, and one that extends far beyond Samsung.

Pretty sad.

Note 3’s benchmarking “adjustments” inflate scores by up to 20%

After a good bit of sleuthing, we can confidently say Samsung appears to be artificially boosting the US Note 3’s benchmark scores with a special, high-power CPU mode that kicks in when the device runs a large number of popular benchmarking apps. Samsung did something similar with the international Galaxy S 4’s GPU, but this is the first time we’ve seen the boost on a US device.

It’s not surprising to see Samsung pulling a Samsung again. Even Phil Schiller outed them call this stunt shenanigans.

shenanigans http://t.co/30FoQDfNw0

— Philip Schiller (@pschiller) October 1, 2013

The Galaxy Note 3 comes with a “tiny screen” mode that enables one hand usages

When you enable a buried option in the one-hand operating menu, you can enable a “tiny screen” mode with a simple swipe gesture. Like Alice in Wonderland, what you see on your Note 3?s display suddenly becomes smaller and you’re effectively using Android as if it were a windowed application on your desktop computer.

So, this is innovation by Samsung eh? Great. Make gigantic devices that don’t fit in anyones pocket. And then lets make it have a one-handed mode.

Internet can be “100x more affordable” 

Zuckerberg explains a few of the methods that the tech companies involved are looking into. For instance, by extending the range of antennas and relays, infrastructure builders can reach distant areas with fewer towers (and less cost). And by using compression algorithms on everyday data, the amount of bits and bytes needed to watch a video or download an article can be reduced

And Zuck can make Internet even more affordable if we give him all of our personal data as well?