Headline is bullshit. This is an archiving feature for sectors where the law requires employers to retain records of certain kinds of communications. It only applies to phones set up with mobile device management, and it displays a clear notification to the user that the conversation is being logged.
Here’s Google’s announcement.
It’s a good charger if you’re not in a hurry - fast is just a user experience benefit.
Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm.
Yes, this looks like a dual-chemistry slot charger that handles both NiMH and 3.6/3.7V Li-ion, which would charge each battery independently.
The battery in the third slot looks to be an Energizer L91 lithium-iron-disulfide primary battery. Those are not rechargeable, and attempting to charge one may cause it to explode.
Are you trying to charge a lithium primary? That seems… unwise.
Lithium disposables beat alkaline in longevity, but lose in cost and are only 1.2V.
They’re about 1.6V open-circuit, and maintain 1.5V under light load for a large portion of their discharge cycle. They maintain 1.5V much longer than alkaline.
They’re terribly expensive for regular use compared to pretty much any other option though.
You can’t just mix and match battery chemistry and call one superior.
Superior is a value judgment I wasn’t making there. You made a claim about cost and capacity between different chemistries (unless you meant something else by “rechargeable equivalents”), and I said it only holds up for cheap (alkaline) primaries under light loads.
you absolutely have to be pedantic about it
I’m trying to share additional information, not win an argument on a technical point.
And you can’t just allow for different voltage ranges without all the electronics also being adjusted for that.
That’s true. The broader topic of long-term obsolescence ought to include device design though. Someone designing a device today that could potentially use AA batteries should think about whether they’re obsolete for the use case.
Google has partly backed away from this plan, and it was only announced for “certified” Android devices, which yours isn’t after rooting.
It does affect you indirectly though. If open source on Android gets harder, fewer people will do it.
That does raise another issue: some of the retail-grade chargers are pretty terrible and may have led some people to a bad impression of how rechargeable batteries perform.
A charger should charge cells individually, at a reasonably fast rate, and terminate correctly to prevent overcharging. Yours hits two points out of three: it’s individual and correct, but slow.
I had NiMH batteries in mind since we’re talking about types that come in alkaline, and low-self-discharge NiMH batteries (e.g. white Eneloops) are generally fine to fully charge before storage.
You might end up with a bit shorter runtimes storing charged batteries for years than charging them right before use, but it doesn’t matter much when your runtimes are measured in years.
There’s one potential snag with certain low-power devices though: a few only work in the 1.3-1.5V range. That’s terrible design since it doesn’t use most of the power in an alkaline, but some of those won’t work at all with NiMH.
Wait until you hear about 21700s.
As for rechargeable it’s twice the effort to find the charger every two years instead of just using the one time batteries.
I recommend keeping some charged spares and the charger in the same place.
I’d much rather see modern rechargeable batteries (Li-ion, maybe Na-ion in the future) in standardized, field-replaceable form factors.
This is already common in flashlights. In my pocket today is a flashlight running on an AA-size 14500 Li-ion. There’s a magnetic pad to recharge the battery with a proprietary cable, but I can also unscrew the tailcap and replace it with a spare, as most people expect from a flashlight. I can use AA in a pinch with reduced performance, though I’ll note supporting both voltage ranges takes extra work on the manufacturer’s part.
Being complex and energy-intensive doesn’t preclude batteries being standardized or field-replaceable. The issue with smartphones is that they have a highly optimized form factor.
Primary cells are easy and cheap to manufacture, and hold much more charge than rechargeable equivalents.
This is half-true at best. Consider these tests of an alkaline primary, lithium primary, and NiMH rechargeable AA battery.
The alkaline has more energy than the NiMH at 0.1A load, but not above that. It will last longer in something like a TV remote or wall clock, but not in something like a flashlight with even moderate output or anything with a motor. Low-self-discharge NiMH, which has better shelf life beats alkaline once the load reaches 0.5A, which represents a device that will drain the battery in 4 hours of continuous use. Lithium primaries win the benchmark here until reaching a very heavy 3A load, but they cost as much as NiMH and only work once.
Allow a different voltage range in the same form factor and lithium-ion rechargeable 14500 cells now equal or slightly exceed the 5Wh capacity of lithium primary AA.
Yes, the Kel-Tec KSG bullpup shotgun has two magazines and a manual control to choose between them. In addition to twice the capacity of a single tube magazine of the same length, it offers the user the option to switch between two types of ammunition - a more significant advantage for a shotgun than most firearms due to the variety of ammunition available.
media.wmf.zero-copy-nv12-textures-force-enabled
This option is Windows-specific.
I’m old enough to remember the web being primarily text, and turning off automatic image loading being a good way to see fewer ads. I’m old enough to remember popup windows and popup blocking.
I suppose the underlying issue is that if something I don’t like happens on my computer, my first thought is to look for a way to change it, and most people don’t think about computers that way. I’m sad that most people don’t think about computers that way.
Right, I do understand that’s a limitation. I think I’m more puzzled that many people find the presence of ads in a device they paid for to be a minor issue rather than intolerable.
I haven’t moved to a privacy OS on Android yet because of money.
That’s entirely reasonable. You can still block most ads if you want to:
The fact that casting to older devices is allowed on the expensive plan but not the ad-supported one offers a clue.