Apple plans to launch a hardware subscription service; Linux 5.17 is released; Firefox will support AV1 hardware acceleration | Think Weekly

40s Newsletter

• Rust code accounts for nearly a tenth of Firefox projects
• Apple responded to two outages in two days: some services were affected, which has now been resolved
• Android SMS and Phone apps both quietly send data to Google
• Apple plans to launch a hardware subscription service: rent iPhones on a monthly basis, and change to new ones at any time
• SoftBank seeks $60 billion valuation higher than Nvidia acquisition for ARM listing
• 7 teens arrested in connection with Lapsus$
• Google employees complain about low pay, CEO Pichai promises to adjust performance appraisals
• AMD FSR 2.0 is coming
• Linux 5.17 released
• .NET 5.0 will end of support on May 8, 2022
• Firefox will support AV1 hardware acceleration
• As of Ubuntu 22.04, Firefox will only provide snap packages

Industry information

Rust code accounts for nearly a tenth of Firefox projects

Statistics on the code used in Firefox projects show that Rust code accounts for nearly a tenth of Firefox projects. Rust is a language created by Mozilla. Mozilla used it to develop the experimental rendering engine Servo and gradually integrate some components into Firefox, but in the 2020 layoffs, Mozilla laid off many of the core developers of the Rust project. The Rust project declared independence, while the Servo project became a Linux Foundation-hosted project. In Firefox, Rust currently accounts for 9.9%, C language accounts for 13.4%, C++ language accounts for 26.8%, JavaScript accounts for 27.5%, HTML accounts for 16%, and Python accounts for 4.8%.

Apple responded to two outages in two days: some services were affected, which has now been resolved

On Tuesday, U.S. time, a large number of users reported that Apple's services were experiencing problems again, and the previous day, Apple's servers were completely down for several hours. Just a day later, services such as Apple Music were having problems in multiple markets around the world. It's unclear what caused the outage, but Apple's system status page shows that the issues have been resolved after nearly two hours. Apple said they are investigating the outage (downtime).

Android SMS and Phone apps both quietly send data to Google

According to a study by Douglas Leith, professor of computer science at Trinity College Dublin, Android texting and calling apps have been collecting and sending data to Google without special notice or user consent, or an opt-out mechanism. The move may violate European data protection laws.

The pre-installed SMS app Google Messages and the phone app Google Dialer on Android phones send data to the Google Play Services Clearcut log service and the Google Firebase Analytics service. The data sent by Google Messages includes a hash of the text message and the sender's phone number. , the data sent by Google Dialer includes the phone number, call time, and duration. The time and duration of user interactions on these apps are also sent to Google. Google Messages and Google Dialer are both counted in billions of installs. Google does not provide a way for users to opt out of collection.

Apple plans to launch a hardware subscription service: rent iPhones on a monthly basis, and change to new ones at any time

According to the latest reports from overseas websites, Apple is planning to develop a subscription service for the iPhone and other hardware products, which will allow users to “rent” the device directly by paying a monthly fee. Some analysts believe that this service will be Apple's biggest push to achieve automatic repeat sales, allowing users to subscribe to hardware for the first time instead of just digital services. For a monthly fee, users can use iPhone and iPad hardware directly.

SoftBank seeks $60 billion valuation higher than Nvidia acquisition for ARM listing

SoftBank Group Corp. is seeking a valuation of at least $60 billion for ARM when it goes public, people familiar with the matter said, hoping to get a higher valuation than when it failed to sell the chip design company to Nvidia. SoftBank is preparing to appoint Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Mizuho Financial Group to lead a loan deal ahead of ARM's planned initial public offering.

It is understood that companies that process loans may also play a major role in the IPO, but the lineup of investment banks has not been finalized and more banks may join. According to another report, Goldman Sachs will serve as the lead underwriter for the ARM IPO. Valuing ARM at more than $60 billion is a risky move by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Son bought ARM in 2016 for about $32 billion. That means he wants to convince investors that ARM deserves a higher valuation than its semiconductor peers and what the business gets from Nvidia's $40 billion deal.

7 teens arrested in connection with Lapsus$

City of London police have arrested seven teenagers suspected of being linked to the hacking group Lapsus$. Lapsus$ has been very active recently, and has successively invaded large companies such as NVIDIA, Samsung, and Microsoft. In a statement, Inspector Michael O'sullivan of the Metropolitan Police said: "The Metropolitan Police have been working with partners to investigate members of a hacking group. Seven men aged 16 to 21 Teenagers between the ages of 30 and 100 were arrested for this investigation, all of whom have been released during the investigation. Our inquiries continue.” Lapsus$ has claimed recent allegations against tech companies including Nvidia, Samsung, Ubisoft, Okta and Microsoft Responsible for major security breaches.

Google employees complain about low pay, CEO Pichai promises to adjust performance appraisals

It comes after an internal survey found that a growing number of Google employees believe their compensation package is unfair or uncompetitive compared to other companies. A Google spokesperson said that current employees are already well paid, but Google takes this feedback from employees very seriously. These companies are where Google looks for new employees and where Google employees go when they leave.

Latest technical developments

AMD FSR 2.0 is coming

AMD will reveal more details at its Game Developers Conference next week. AMD released FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) last year, which uses a spatial boost algorithm to achieve ultra-high-quality edges and details, helping to improve the frame rate of some games. Unlike NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), FSR does not use AI to train models, but uses traditional image processing algorithms. The advantage is that it is easy to integrate into games and supports old graphics cards, even those of competitors. FSR 2.0 is expected to be officially launched in the second quarter, and AMD has not disclosed more technical details.

Linux 5.17 released

Major updates

• arm64 architecture supports KCSAN
• Support recursive ID-mapped filesystem mounts
• New AMD P-State Driver
• Improved random number generator
• Rewrite the network filesystem cache backend
• Real-Time Linux Analysis (RTLA) Tools
• Mitigate straight-line prediction attacks
• bpf_loop() helper
• Reference count tracking facility, etc.

.NET 5.0 will end of support on May 8, 2022

After the May 8 update, Microsoft will no longer provide servicing updates for .NET 5.0, including security fixes or technical support, and users will need to update their .NET version to a supported version (.NET 6.0) to continue receiving updates.

.NET 5.0 is not an LTS release, so support will end 18 months after the release or 6 months after the next release. When .NET 5.0 support ends, applications using this version will continue to work, but the related vulnerabilities may not be fixed as Microsoft only provides support for the supported versions of .NET (ie. .NET Core 3.1 and .NET 6.0) Release a security update. Therefore users are strongly advised to migrate their applications to .NET 6.0.

Firefox will support AV1 hardware acceleration

According to a post on Bugzilla, Mozilla is preparing to officially add hardware acceleration support for the AV1 video format to Firefox. AV1 is an open-source royalty-free codec released by AOMedia in 2018, and its 4K UHD video compression rate is higher than competing encoders. Mozilla developers plan to implement AV1 hardware decoding support in Firefox 100, which is scheduled to be released on May 3, 2022. Google and Microsoft are supporting AV1 hardware acceleration in their respective browsers Chrome and Edge by the end of 2020. Mozilla didn't rush to follow, as AV1 hardware acceleration support requires the availability of the corresponding hardware.

As of Ubuntu 22.04, Firefox will only provide snap packages

Starting with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Firefox will only provide snap packages to users, and the traditional way of installing deb packages will also fail, and all users will be forced to use the officially recommended snap version of Firefox. For users who are currently using deb packages, you can transition to snap by updating, and the updated Firefox will get the settings of the original version from the user's home directory.