Taskbar 6.0 enables a Samsung DeX-like desktop mode experience on some Android 10+ devices

Android 10 has been out for nearly 9 months now, but one of its best features, desktop mode, is still widely unknown. That’s because it’s technically hidden in Android 10, requiring a development flag to be enabled as well as support built-in to the stock launcher app. Thankfully, the developer of Taskbar has figured out a way to make Android 10’s desktop mode far more useful, bringing a Samsung DeX-like experience to some devices.

For some background, Android 10 added a “Secondary Launcher” activity to Launcher3, the AOSP launcher app that Google’s Pixel Launcher and many other OEM launcher apps are derived from. When an Android device with support for display output is hooked up to an external display, this Secondary Launcher activity is shown on the external display. However, because this Secondary Launcher is extremely barebones, it’s not useful to use as a productivity tool. Third-party app developers figured out that it’s possible for their own launcher apps to replace the stock launcher on the external display, and that’s exactly what XDA Senior Member farmerbb has implemented in Taskbar 6.0.

Taskbar is an open-source Android app that puts a floating start menu and recent apps tray on top of any screen. Since it supports launching Android apps in freeform multi-window, it even comes pre-installed on Bliss OS, a popular Android port for x86 PCs. Back in early November, farmerbb released a fork of the open-source Lawnchair launcher with Taskbar integrated into it. This gave us an early look at what Android 10’s hidden desktop mode could look like with some development effort, but there were some glaring issues that needed fixing. The desktop mode user experience needed fixing so that freeform multi-window behavior worked as you would expect, the setup process needed to be cleaned up so you could control the DPI/UI without needing another app, and a better solution had to be found so that you wouldn’t have to change your default launcher. Now, farmerbb has updated Taskbar to version 6.0 to address all of these issues.

Desktop Mode with Taskbar 6.0

Setting up Taskbar’s desktop mode is quite easy:

1. In Developer Options, turn on “enable freeform windows” and “force desktop mode” and then reboot your device. (The latter may be unavailable on some OEM software like ZenUI/ROG UI, but don’t worry if it’s not there.)
2. Install Taskbar 6.0 (older versions won’t work) from Google Play.
3. Open Taskbar’s settings and go to “Desktop Mode.” Enable it and grant the app permission to “display over other apps” as this is required for the app’s floating start menu to appear. Then, set the app as your default home app. Don’t worry, though, as the next prompt will ask you to set your preferred/primary launcher app, so Taskbar won’t be hijacking your home screen. (Note that on some devices, changing the default launcher will disable Android 10’s full-screen navigation gestures.)
4. Next, I highly recommend you follow the instructions to “enable additional settings” for desktop mode. This will allow you to lower the DPI so UI elements aren’t enormous on the external display, to hide the navigation bar, and to even dim the phone’s screen to save battery life while it’s connected to the external display. You’ll have to set up ADB access on your PC and run the following command:

   adb shell pm grant com.farmerbb.taskbar android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS

   (If you are using Taskbar’s “Donate” version, replace “com.farmerbb.taskbar” with “com.farmerbb.taskbar.paid” in the above command.)

5. Finally, check to make sure that “usage access” has been enabled for Taskbar. Doing so will allow the app to show a row of your recently used applications in the start menu.
6. Now, simply connect your phone to your external display using a USB Type-C to Type-C cable (if your external display supports Type-C input) or via a USB Type-C to HDMI adapter.

Once connected, you can use the start menu to launch apps, search for apps, add app icons to the home screen, open some system menus, and more. You can tap the icon next to the start menu to add/show widgets. You can launch multiple instances of windows, and in some cases like Google Chrome, have multiple tabs.

There are loads of other options and changes in Taskbar 6.0, so I recommend you read the full changelog available here.

Display Output on Android – Sadly Still Limited

Who might this be useful for? Samsung, Huawei/Honor, and LG offer their own desktop mode experiences, so there’s you won’t find much use out of Taskbar’s desktop mode if you own a smartphone from one of those brands. ASUS, OnePlus, Essential, Google, and Xiaomi don’t offer their own desktop mode experiences, so if you’re on at least Android 10 on a device from one of these brands, then you may find Taskbar’s desktop mode feature to be useful. If you want a desktop mode experience to be more productive, then I recommend you use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. If you have a portable external monitor/laptop chassis like the NexDock 2, then you’ll have an even better experience with Taskbar.

Keep in mind that in order to actually make use of this feature, your smartphone must support display output. Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 800 and 700 series chipsets natively support DisplayPort Alternate Mode over a USB 3.1 Type-C port, but some vendors (like Google) have disabled this functionality on their smartphones. If your device doesn’t support DisplayPort Alternate Mode, then you may have luck using a DisplayLink-certified adapter and the DisplayLink Presenter app to mirror the phone’s display. Screen mirroring using a DisplayLink adapter isn’t as ideal as native desktop mode through a standard connector, but it’s better than not having any display output at all! Fortunately, Taskbar can still be used if you’re just mirroring your phone’s display so long as the app is set as the default launcher, but you’ll have to use the developer’s SecondScreen app to change the resolution and density.

The biggest downside to desktop mode on Android right now is the limited app support. Even though Samsung and Huawei have both offered desktop mode experiences for years and sell millions of smartphones a year, there’s not a lot of demand from users to support desktop mode. That means that a lot of Android apps out there aren’t optimized for larger screens. Google wants to change that because broader Android app support for larger screens will benefit Chromebooks as well, but sadly, there’s still a long way to go before most Android apps support larger screens. Thus, while using Taskbar, you may notice that some apps refuse to run or just look terrible, and there’s not much you can do to fix that.

Download Taskbar 6.0

If you have one of the following smartphones, I recommend giving this app a try:

• ASUS ROG Phone II
• Essential Phone
• OnePlus 7
• OnePlus 7 Pro
• OnePlus 7T
• OnePlus 7T Pro
• OnePlus 8
• OnePlus 8 Pro
• OPPO Reno 10X Zoom

You can download Taskbar 6.0 from the Google Play Store link below or compile the app from its source code on GitHub. The app is totally free to use, but there’s a $1.99 donate version in case you want to support farmerbb’s development efforts.

Taskbar Forum Thread on XDA ||| Taskbar Source Code on GitHub

Taskbar - PC-style productivity for Android (Free, Google Play) →

Taskbar (Donate Version) ($1.99, Google Play) →

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LineageOS 17.1 adds support for new OnePlus, Samsung, Xiaomi, and other devices following server hack

LineageOS is the most popular AOSP-based custom ROM out there. Its origin can be traced back to CyanogenMod, which was itself not only the most well-known custom ROM many years ago but also the reason the OnePlus One was so well-received by the community. Over the years, the team behind LineageOS has kept the project updated with new versions of Android for dozens of Android devices. The latest version, LineageOS 17.1, is based on Android 10 and supports a long list of devices. Now, the custom ROM team has added official support for their latest release for a lot of devices from OnePlus, Samsung, Xiaomi, and more. Newly added devices include the Essential Phone, Moto X (2014), Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016), Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro, and more.

The LineageOS team recently decided to cease the development of LineageOS 15.1 and jump to version 17.1 rather than 17.0 after they decided to rebase on top of the updated AOSP release corresponding to the Pixel 4/4 XL launch. With the update, the team also announced Lineage Recovery as the default option to install LineageOS on officially supported phones. 17.1 also added a new ThemePicker, a partial screenshot feature, and a lot more.

You can find the new LineageOS nightly builds for each of the following devices by tapping on “Get the builds here” on their respective Wiki pages. All of the devices listed here except for the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 Duos are supported by LineageOS 17.1. The newly added Grand 2 Duos is supported by LineageOS 16 based on Android 9 Pie.

Device + XDA Forum Link	Code-name + Wiki Page	Maintainer(s)
Essential Phone	mata	haggertk, intervigil, npjohnson, rashed
Motorola Moto X (2014)	victara	jro1979, linckandrea, npjohnson
OnePlus 2	oneplus2	OzzysCmAcc, aviraxp
OnePlus 7	guacamoleb (mirror)*	AshwinRC
Samsung Galaxy A3 (2016)	a3xelte	danwood76, Stricted
Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)	a5xelte	danwood76, Stricted
Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 Duos	ms013g (mirror)*	djchittoor
Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo	s5neolte	danwood76, Stricted
Wileyfox Swift	crackling	115ek
Xiaomi Mi A2	jasmine_sprout (mirror)*	mikeioannina
Xiaomi Mi 6X	wayne (mirror)*	Isaac Chen
Xiaomi Mi Note 3	jason	dianlujitao
Xiaomi Redmi 2	wt88047	nicknitewolf
Xiaomi Redmi 7	onclite (mirror)*	Dhina17
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro	whyred (mirror)*	srfarias, SebaUbuntu
Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro	twolip (mirror)*	DD3Boh
Xiaomi Redmi Note 7	lavender (mirror)*	erfanoabdi

*Some of the download pages for newly added devices return a code 500 “Internal Server Error.” Until this bug is fixed, you can download the official builds from the official LineageOS download mirror. For those devices that require it, the download mirror for LineageOS Recovery can be found here.

Be sure to read the installation instructions for each of the devices as well as the other documentation linked such as for Lineage Recovery. Also, be sure to take a backup of your data before you start with the installation process.

Why the delay?

If you’re wondering why LineageOS has had a delay in getting new builds up, the answer is because LineageOS suffered a hack in early May. According to a statement published by the team on May 3rd, an attacker “used a CVE in our saltstack master to gain access to our infrastructure.” Salt is an open-source framework to manage servers that is used by loads of open-source projects like LineageOS. On April 30th, Cybersecurity firm F-Secure publicly disclosed a vulnerability in Salt that could be used to bypass authorization. Attackers quickly targeted Salt installations that were unpatched, resulting in dozens of servers being hacked.

The LineageOS team identified the attack and then quickly took down its servers. The team confirms that their build signing keys are unaffected (so third-parties can’t sign and distribute official LineageOS builds), the currently uploaded builds themselves are unaffected, and the project’s source code is unaffected.

Around 8PM PST on May 2nd, 2020 an attacker used a CVE in our saltstack master to gain access to our infrastructure.

We are able to verify that:
– Signing keys are unaffected.
– Builds are unaffected.
– Source code is unaffected.

See https://t.co/85fvp6Gj2h for more info.

— LineageOS (@LineageAndroid) May 3, 2020

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Night Vision uses the ToF camera on the Samsung Galaxy S20+, Note 10+, and S10 5G to let you see in the dark

Hardware-backed facial recognition in the Android smartphone world often relies on Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors. Samsung, for example, utilizes the ToF module on the 5G variant of the Galaxy S10 to power their 3D face unlock mechanism. The ToF camera tracks the distance between two objects based on the constant speed of light. Developers have also used data from this camera to create virtual 3D models with depth data to render the surroundings as a pseudo-night vision mode. We first saw this work on certain Huawei and Honor phones in the past with the help of an app named Night Vision / ToF Viewer, and the same app can help you to turn your Samsung Galaxy S20+, Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, or Samsung Galaxy S10 5G into a somewhat functional, but mostly gimmicky, night vision camera.

Galaxy S20+ Forums ||| Galaxy Note 10+ Forums ||| Galaxy S10 5G Forums

When we first tinkered with the app back in 2019, it wasn’t made to detect the Galaxy S10 5G’s ToF sensor. The developer, Luboš Vonásek, worked hard to gradually expand the list of supported devices with ToF cameras. The Android 10/One UI 2.0 update for the Galaxy S10 5G apparently made it easy to handle the ToF module, albeit the output is still limited to a low resolution of 240×180. On newer Samsung devices, such as the Galaxy Note 10+ and Galaxy S20+, the app can render the surroundings in night vision mode with a better resolution of 320×240.

Night Vision/TOF Viewer on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+. Image credits: Reddit user /u/toelingus

According to our own Max Weinbach, using Night Vision on Samsung provides better quality, while you can get a better range on Huawei devices. The VR mode in this app is no longer accessible since the last update, though, as the developer removed it completely. There is no complicated prerequisite – owners of the aforementioned phones can straight away download it from the Google Play Store without messing with ADB and/or any kind of system file modding.

Night Vision / ToF Viewer (Free, Google Play) →

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Credits to Reddit user toelingus for the screenshot!

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Samsung Galaxy Book S announced with Intel Lakefield chipset and LTE

Last summer, Samsung launched the Galaxy Book S, its first laptop powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx processor. Samsung is back with the Galaxy Book S, only this time it’s powered by the Intel Lakefield chipset. This is essentially the same laptop as before, but now it has the shiny “Intel Inside” sticker. The Galaxy Book S is also the first laptop to use Intel’s Lakefield generation.

Lakefield is the first “hybrid” CPU from Intel. That means it combines the company’s Atom and Core CPU cores into a single unit. This is something we commonly see in ARM chips on smartphones, which offers high-performance and low-power cores to maximize efficiency. There’s a lot more going on, but the gist is this should help the new Galaxy Book S compete with the Snapdragon model in terms of battery life.

Samsung doesn’t give a ton of details about the CPU, other than “Intel Core processor with Intel Hybrid Technology.” The other big detail is LTE connectivity, which is also something the ARM model has. Other specifications include Intel UHD Graphics, 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and 256GB or 512GB of eUFS storage. There is also a microSD card slot for up to 1TB of extra storage.

The Galaxy Book S has a 13.3-inch FHD LCD display with touchscreen capabilities. There are 2 USB-C ports, a headphone jack, fingerprint scanner, quad stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos, and a 1MP camera. The battery is 42Wh and it has WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. Samsung ships the device with Windows 10 Home or Pro.

We don’t know how much the Intel Galaxy Book S will cost or when it will launch, but it will be available in Mercury Gray and Earthy Gold colors.

	Galaxy Book S
OS	Windows 10 Home / Pro
Display	13.3″ FHD TFT LCD Display with Touch Screen Panel
Dimension	305.2 x 203.2 x 6.2 ~ 11.8 mm
Weight	950g
CPU	Intel Core processor with Intel Hybrid Technology
Graphic	Intel UHD Graphics
Memory	8GB RAM (LPDDR4x)
Storage	256/512GB eUFS, MicroSD slot (up to 1TB)
Camera	1MP
Battery	42Wh (typical)
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) 802.11 ax 2×2, LTE (Cat 16), Bluetooth v 5.0
Ports	2 USB-C, 1 Headphone out/Mic-in Combo, MicroSD Multi-media Card Reader
Sensors	Fingerprint Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor (Keyboard Backlit on/off), Hall Sensor
Authentication	Windows Hello sign in with fingerprint
Audio	Quad Stereo Speakers: Sound by AKG Immersive sound with Dolby Atmos technology

Source: Samsung | Via: SamMobile

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Samsung’s Exynos 850 is an 8nm chip for budget Android smartphones

Samsung has been designing its own Exynos chipsets for several years now. The Korean smartphone maker normally uses both Qualcomm Snapdragon and Exynos processors for their flagship and upper mid-range devices, but they usually use their own in-house Exynos chips for their budget smartphones. Samsung has recently (and quietly) published a product page for a new entry in their Exynos lineup of processors: the Exynos 850.

This Exynos 850 processor can already be found in the recently-announced Samsung Galaxy A21s, a smartphone on the lower-end of Samsung’s Galaxy A lineup. Thus, we already expected this processor to be geared towards decidedly-budget smartphones. According to the specifications listed on the product page, the Exynos 850 has an octa-core CPU comprised of two clusters of ARM Cortex-A55 cores which are clocked at up to 2.0GHz. The SoC also features ARM’s Mali-G52 GPU. It also supports LPDDR4X RAM, eMMC 5.1 storage, Cat.7 LTE, Full HD+ (1080p) display panels, and more. The chipset is fabricated using Samsung’s fairly modern 8nm LPP process.

For imaging, the Exynos 850 apparently supports up to 1080p60 video recording, 21.7MP image processing from a single camera or 16MP + 5MP from dual cameras (presumably with ZSL), and encoding in HEVC/h.265.

As we said before, the Galaxy A21s is the first smartphone to sport this processor, and we know it has a 48MP quad rear camera setup, an HD+ Infinity-O panel, up to 6GB of RAM, and up to 64GB of storage, so we already knew those are things this processor supports. It is possible that we’ll see this SoC on other Samsung budget Android smartphones soon. Budget smartphones are improving at a surprising rate, and we can thank the incredible competition in markets like India and China for that.

h/t @kuma_sleepy

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StrandHogg 2.0 Exploit Explained – Why Users and Android App Developers should care

It’s 10:00 PM. Do you know where your Activities are? There’s a new vulnerability that can be exploited on millions of Android devices, and it’s a pretty nasty one, too. In a nutshell, this design flaw allows an attacker to present their own Activity (page) on top of another app’s, potentially confusing the user into giving away their private data. The vulnerability has been dubbed StrandHogg 2.0 and was recently disclosed by Promon, a Norwegian security firm.

The StrandHogg 2.0 vulnerability theoretically affects all Android devices running Android versions as old as Honeycomb (3.0) and up to Android 9 Pie (9.0). Based on the latest Android version distribution statistics, that means that approximately 91.8% of all Android devices are vulnerable to StrandHogg 2.0. The vulnerability was assigned CVE-2020-0096 and was given a severity level of “critical.” It doesn’t require any special permissions to work and can function almost entirely without user interaction. All a user has to do is open an app with malicious code hidden away in it, and then they’re vulnerable to exploitation.

Promon was kind enough to send us their proof of concept app and its source code so we could best explain how the exploit works, why it matters to users, and how developers can protect their apps against it.

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How It Works

Say you’re using Gmail and you click a web link. If you go to your recent apps screen, you may notice that the web page appears to be “inside” Gmail. The preview shows the website, but the app icon and name are still from Gmail. This is something that happens when an app/Activity launches another app/Activity in the same task. Now imagine that you didn’t purposely open that link. To you, it looks like it’s just part of the Gmail app. This is the behavior that StrandHogg 2.0 exploits.

We’re going to have to leave out some details here, but here’s roughly how this exploit works. For the following, let’s assume the attacker wants to get the user’s Gmail login.

1. The user downloads a malicious app (of course, without knowing it’s malicious) and opens it.
2. In the background, the app opens Gmail, puts a look-alike login Activity on top of it, and then launches another Activity.
3. The user opens Gmail and sees what looks like Gmail’s login screen but is actually the attacker’s phishing Activity.

The final Activity launched in step 2 can be anything that avoids suspicion. The app could fake a crash and go back to the home screen, or it could just open to its main Activity as if nothing happened. The only suspicious thing the user might see is a bunch of opening animations as all the Activities launch. The worst part: It won’t even look like Gmail was opened.

Source: Promon

Of course, an attacker can do more than just showing a fake login screen. A malicious app could present a permissions prompt instead, tricking the user into granting unwanted permissions. While requesting any special permissions like Accessibility might make the user suspicious, it’s possible to do a lot of damage with something like Storage Access.

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The Technical Bits

This next section is a high-level overview of how StrandHogg 2.0 works. Promon won’t release the full details for another few months, so we can’t share exactly how this exploit is implemented. There are some technical details that we can talk about, though.

In a nutshell, StrandHogg 2.0 hijacks Android’s Context.startActivities() API method, using three Intents.

• The first Intent is the one that launches, in our example’s case, Gmail. It’s flagged with Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK.
• The second Intent is the malicious one. In our example, it’s for the look-alike login Activity. This Intent has no flags.
• The third Intent is the distraction. It makes sure the user isn’t suspicious of Gmail just randomly opening instead of the app they tapped (i.e. the one launching the attack). It’s flagged with Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK.

All of these Intents are then passed in an array to the startActivities() method.

The second Intent’s lack of flags is the key here. By doing so, we’ve basically just replicated the Gmail example from above. The task is technically Gmail’s, but the topmost Activity is the attacker’s. When the user then clicks Gmail’s home screen icon, the attacker’s Activity displays instead of Gmail’s.

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Proof of Concept

With the information that Promon sent us, we were able to replicate their proof of concept. Here’s a screen recording from a Samsung Galaxy Note8 running Android 9 Pie showing it in action.

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Mitigation Techniques and Issues

Now, simply replicating the above in code won’t actually work. It’s not a complete example, and there are a few other things that an attacker has to do to make it work, which we can’t share. But they’re not particularly hard to guess on your own, and that’s part of what makes this attack so dangerous. StrandHogg 2.0 is a relatively easy exploit to implement, and difficult to mitigate.

Mitigation can’t just involve blacklisting all apps that use startActivities(), since there are plenty of legitimate uses for it. It’s also really difficult to automate a detection algorithm for it. Malicious developers can employ all sorts of tricks to make their implementation of StrandHogg 2.0 effectively invisible to services like Google Play Protect. StrandHogg 1.0 required the attacker to add an attribute in the malicious app’s AndroidManifest.xml, which was relatively easy to detect. StrandHogg 2.0, on the other hand, functions entirely in Java/Kotlin.

Taking into account obfuscation, reflection, and even just different coding styles, it seems impractical to automatically properly detect an app making use of this exploit. What’s more is that if a user is the subject of a StrandHogg 2.0 attack, they may not even know. If you open Gmail and you see its login screen, you might just think your session expired and enter your login details without a second thought.

When we contacted Google for a response, a spokesperson offered the following statement:

“We appreciate the work of the researchers, and have released a fix for the issue they identified. Additionally, Google Play Protect detects and blocks malicious apps, including ones using this technique.”

This sounds good, and hopefully it has at least some effect against StrandHogg 2.0 attacks. It’s worth noting, though, that Google Play Protect did not detect our proof of concept app as malicious, even after performing a manual scan.

Promon says that they “have not observed any real-life malware utilizing the StrandHogg 2.0 vulnerability,” but there’s no guarantee that this is the first time the exploit has been discovered. For that reason, Promon recommends that developers go ahead and protect their apps by setting their launcher Activity’s launchMode flag to either singleTask or singleInstance. Either of these flags will prevent task injection, which is what StrandHogg 2.0 relies on. However, having your Activity use one of these flags can cause issues with certain app flows, so it’s not always desirable.

Promon is also promoting its own “In-App Protection by Promon SHIELD” product which sounds like a library that app developers can implement to monitor the tasks in your app’s process to check for irregular insertions. Because there’s no truly effective developer or user mitigation strategy, it’s pretty important that manufacturers implement the patch to fix this ASAP.

Thankfully, Promon followed responsible disclosure guidelines before making this exploit public (and it’s still not fully public—Promon is waiting 90 days before fully disclosing how StrandHogg 2.0 works). Google has since backported patches for this exploit to Android 8.0 Oreo, Android 8.1 Oreo, and Android 9 Pie with the May 2020 Android Security Patch Level (SPL). Users on Android 10 and above aren’t vulnerable, though we’re not entirely sure why that’s the case. It likely has something to do with Android 10’s new restrictions concerning launching Activities and how Google integrated that into the task stack. Promon says that “on Android 10 the attack is entirely ineffective, and the activities are split into different tasks and into separate task stacks according to adb shell dumpsys activity activities.”

If your device manufacturer is still providing security updates (you can read more about how the security patch process works here), you should pester them for an update as soon as possible. Otherwise, you’ll just need to be careful about which apps you download and run (although you should be doing that anyway).

For more details and use-cases of StrandHogg 2.0, check out the official announcement on Promon’s website. For custom ROM developers, you can find the relevant AOSP commits for preventing StrandHogg 2.0 attacks here and here.

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Disclosure Timeline

Here is the disclosure timeline that Promon shared in its StandHogg 2.0 document:

• Dec 4, 2019 – Reported issue to Google
• Dec 4, 2019 – Shared a PoC «malicious app» and video with Google
• Dec 4, 2019 – Google confirmed receiving the report
• Dec 9, 2019 – Google set the severity of the finding as «Critical»
• Dec 9, 2019 – Google confirms that they are able to reproduce the issue
• Feb 14, 2020 – We inform Google the 90-day disclosure is nearing in the beginning of March, and ask for status on their side
• Feb 14, 2020 – Google responds that April is the soonest they can roll out a fix
• Feb 14, 2020 – We inform Google we are working on mitigations
• Feb 14, 2020 – Google responds. They are working on remediations, and ask if we can share what mitigations we are recommending
• Feb 17, 2020 – We inform Google that we can hold back the disclosure until April. We request the CVE number
• Feb 17, 2020 – We share our mitigation strategies, as well as how we envisage a platform mitigation
• Mar 23, 2020 – Google responds with the CVE ID (CVE-2020-0096)
• Mar 23, 2020 – Google responds that general availability of the fix for Android will be available in May
• Mar 23, 2020 – Google asks if we will consider delaying disclosure to May
• Mar 27, 2020 – We respond that we will delay disclosure until May
• Apr 22, 2020 – Google informs us that the May Security Bulletin is scheduled to contain a patch for the vulnerability

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Nintendo 3DS emulation: Official Citra for Android performance testing on the Snapdragon 865, 855, and 845

Citra, the most popular Nintendo 3DS emulator, was officially released for Android onto the Google Play Store last week, and its performance has been at the forefront of the conversation. I’m sure anybody who saw its release wondered whether they could play their favorite Nintendo 3DS games on their Android smartphone or tablet, so I’ve spent the past few days playing games on various different devices powered by multiple different SoCs to see what kind of performance you can expect to get from your device.

I tested the following popular Nintendo 3DS games:

• Animal Crossing: New Leaf
• Mario Kart 8
• Pokemon X/Y
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
• Fire Emblem: Fates
• Super Mario 3D Land

…on the following Android smartphones:

• Realme X50 Pro (our review) – Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
• OPPO Find X2 Pro – Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
• OnePlus 8 Pro (our review) – Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
• OPPO Reno 10x Zoom (our review) – Qualcomm Snapdragon 855
• OnePlus 6 – Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
• Realme 6 Pro (our review) – Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G
• Honor 20 Pro (our review) – HiSilicon Kirin 980

…and the results were rather mixed. I tested each of these 3DS games with the unofficial Citra MMJ version as well as the official Citra 3DS emulator that was just released on the Google Play Store. Some of the results were surprising. Note that all of these tests were done with audio stretching disabled as I found that it had a pretty significant performance hit for little benefit when enabled. Keep in mind that different GPU driver versions may also affect performance, and so one device with a particular chipset may not perform the same as another device with the same chipset.

Nintendo 3DS emulation using the official Citra for Android port. Left to right: OnePlus 8 Pro, OnePlus 6, Realme 6 Pro.

Note: You can legally acquire 3DS ROMs for your smartphone by dumping and decrypting your own Nintendo 3DS games. For this, you will need a hacked Nintendo 3DS and a legally purchased copy of the 3DS game that you want to play.

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Current performance issues with Nintendo 3DS emulation via Citra for Android (and potential fixes)

Before going into detail of the performance of the aforementioned Nintendo 3DS games on various Android smartphones, it’s worth mentioning that currently, the Citra 3DS emulator port for Android does not support a shader cache. A shader cache is simply a cache of files that keeps track of compiled shaders that are shown in-game, and having one greatly reduces CPU and GPU load. When new shaders are encountered in Citra, they are then compiled and aren’t saved to the storage. This means that they can’t be cached, and instead must be recompiled once encountered every time. This is why currently, Citra on Android can be quite stuttery when playing some 3DS games. Citra on PC supports a shader cache, and it’s quite common for users to want to download a precompiled shader cache to avoid slowly and painstakingly generating their own. Also, I found that disabling audio stretching helped performance a little bit.

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Nintendo 3DS Emulation Performance – Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, 855, 845, 720G, and Kirin 980

Qualcomm Snapdragon 865

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – OnePlus 8 Pro

Official Citra

• Mostly 60 FPS
• Drops frames frequently, particularly when shaking trees to drop fruit
• Audio hangs for a second or so often, and when audio hangs, the game hangs for a second too

MMJ/Unofficial Citra

• 30 FPS to 45 FPS with occasional spikes to 60 FPS
• No audio hangs
• More consistent experience overall, though slower
• Attempting to sell items will freeze the game, which does not happen on the official Citra build

Mario Kart 7 – OnePlus 8 Pro

• Runs perfectly at 60 FPS
• Occasional audio cues cause slight stuttering
• No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

Pokemon X/Y – OnePlus 8 Pro

• Not a very intensive game, runs perfectly at 30 FPS (this game runs at 30 FPS in the overworld)
• Battles run perfectly
• Audio sounds great, music is in AAC format and can now be decoded
• No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

Note: The flickering as seen in the above video only occurred when I was screen recording.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds – OPPO Find X2 Pro/OnePlus 8 Pro

• Runs perfectly, no slowdowns
• Audio is great
• Occasional stutters in combat
• Cutscenes work
• No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

Fire Emblem Fates – OPPO Find X2 Pro

• Some slowdowns when entering combat
• Some audio stuttering in battles
• Audio works great
• Cutscenes work
• The game mostly runs at full speed, which it didn’t on the MMJ build

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Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – OPPO Reno 10x Zoom

Official Citra

• Runs nearly flawlessly
• Very few stutters
• Virtually no audio lag

MMJ/Unofficial Citra

• Anywhere from 30 to 60 FPS, though mostly towards the higher-end
• Very few stutters
• Virtually no audio lag
• Attempting to sell items will freeze the game, which does not happen on the official Citra build

Mario Kart 7 – OPPO Reno 10x Zoom/OnePlus 7 Pro

• Runs nearly flawlessly
• Pretty much no audio lag
• Pretty much no stutters
• No performance difference between Official and MMJ build

Pokemon X/Y – OPPO Reno 10x Zoom

• Not a very intensive game, runs perfectly at 30 FPS (this game runs at 30 FPS in the overworld)
• Battles run perfectly
• Audio sounds great, music is in AAC format and can now be decoded
• No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds – OPPO Reno 10x Zoom

• Runs nearly flawlessly
• Pretty much no audio lag
• Occasional stutters in combat
• No performance difference between Official and MMJ build

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Qualcomm Snapdragon 845

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – OnePlus 6

Official Citra

• Mostly 50-60 FPS
• Drops frames very frequently, particularly when shaking trees to drop fruit, but also in many other situations too
• Audio hangs for a second or so often, and when audio hangs, the game hangs for a second too

MMJ/Unofficial Citra

• Around 30-60 FPS, sticking somewhere around 45 FPS for most of the time
• Drops frames less frequently
• Audio stutters occasionally

Mario Kart 7 – OnePlus 6

• Stuttering when navigating menus
• 50-60 FPS in races, though fluctuates wildly and sometimes dips as low as 30 FPS
• Occasional audio stutters

Pokemon X/Y – OnePlus 6

• Not a very intensive game, runs perfectly at 30 FPS (this game runs at 30 FPS in the overworld)
• Battles run perfectly
• Audio sounds great, music is in AAC format and can now be decoded
• No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds – OnePlus 6

• Consistent in the 40-60 FPS range
• Lots of stutters in combat
• Marginally better performance in the MMJ build over the Official build

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Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G

Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Realme 6 Pro

Official Citra

• Mostly 50-60 FPS
• Drops frames occasionally, particularly when shaking trees to drop fruit, but also in many other situations too
• Audio hangs for a second or so often, and when audio hangs, the game hangs for a second too
• MMJ and Official build more or less perform the same here

Pokemon X/Y – Realme 6 Pro

• Runs mostly perfectly at 30 FPS, though occasionally dips in performance
• Battles run perfectly
• Audio sounds great, music is in AAC format and can now be decoded, minimal stuttering
• No difference in performance between Official and MMJ build

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds – OnePlus 6

• Consistent in the 40-60 FPS range
• Lots of stutters in combat
• Marginally better performance in the MMJ build over the Official build

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Kirin 980

The Honor 20 Pro with its HiSilicon Kirin 980 was unable to run any of the Nintendo 3DS games that I tested at any playable framerate. The official and unofficial Citra 3DS emulators don’t really support devices with non-Snapdragon chipsets due to driver issues, and as such, this means that Samsung smartphones with Exynos processors will also likely face issues playing any of the 3DS games listed here.

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Conclusion – Nintendo 3DS Emulation is very viable (for most flagships)

Oddly enough, I found the best performance to be not with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 but rather with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855. It’s possible that Citra was developed primarily on Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 devices as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 is a relatively recent release, but this is only speculation on my part. The Snapdragon 855 found in both the OnePlus 7T Pro and the OPPO Reno 10x Zoom handled pretty much all Nintendo 3DS games I threw at it perfectly, which greatly impressed me, and the games themselves were very much playable. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G also fared incredibly well, with more or less identical results to the Snapdragon 845.

Citra (Nintendo 3DS emulator) website

Citra Emulator (Free⁺, Google Play) →

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Prepare for 9 Top IT Certification Exams With This $39 Training Bundle

In the current financial climate, finding a secure job has become the top priority for many of us. While some industries are struggling, there are still many vacancies in IT. If you would like to break into this lucrative sector, make The Complete 2020 IT Certification Exam Prep Mega Bundle your starting point. This learning library includes all the prep you need to ace nine top exams, with insight from top instructors. You can get it now for just $1,800 at the XDA Developers Depot. 

You don’t need an amazing academic record to land a good job in IT. However, recruiters do look for certifications. If you can pass the exams, the rewards are pretty great — AWS-certified IT professionals earn $129,868 on average.

This bundle helps you prep for nine top exams, with extensive video training. Through concise lessons, you learn about cloud computing with AWS and Microsoft Azure, and work towards Cisco networking exams. In addition the training helps you earn the all-important CompTIA Security+ certification. With lifetime access to all the courses, you can study at your own pace.

You learn from a roster of top instructors, including Scott Duffy. This certified Enterprise Architect has helped over 343,000 students, earning a rating of 4.4/5 stars on Udemy. 

They’re worth $1,800 in total, but you can get these courses now for just $39.

 

The Complete 2020 IT Certification Exam Prep Mega Bundle – $39

See Deal

Prices subject to change 

More from the XDA Developers Depot

• Work-from-home accessories to keep you productive
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• New skills you can learn without leaving home

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Back cover shows off what the cancelled Pixel 4a XL could have been

The Pixel 4a has been on our radar since late last year. At first, we were operating under the assumption that there would be a Pixel 4a XL. After all, every Pixel generation has included two sizes, including the Pixel 3a series. Eventually, it became clear that Google would not be launching an XL model this time around. However, that doesn’t mean they weren’t working on one.

It’s perhaps no surprise that Google started the development of the Pixel 4a series with the intention of releasing an XL model. There was a leak last month of a Pixel 4a XL replacement back cover on eBay. The part doesn’t have the typical Google “G” logo, however, indicating it’s actually from a prototype device. Now, new images of the Pixel 4a XL back panel have surfaced.

There’s nothing super notable about these images. The back cover includes the camera Pixel 4-like camera module we’ve seen on the smaller Pixel 4a. One clear difference is the number of cameras. It looks like the XL model may have actually sported dual rear cameras, compared to the single camera on the smaller model. The white cover also has an orange power button, which is typical for the Google Pixel line.

It’s interesting to think about a larger Pixel 4a XL with dual rear cameras at a slightly higher price point. Google could have positioned the 4a as the super-budget option and the 4a XL as a slightly more premium mid-range device. In the end, though, Google decided to ride with just one model.

Pixel 4a XDA Forums

As for the Pixel 4a that we will be getting, the launch has reportedly been delayed until July. The rumored specifications are below.

Rumored Pixel 4a Specifications

• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 730
• GPU: Adreno 618
• RAM: 6GB
• Internal storage: 64GB(?), 128GB UFS 2.1
• Display: Single hole-punch 5.81-inch display, 2,340 x 1,080 resolution, 443 dpi, 60Hz refresh rate
• Rear camera: 12.2 MP Sony IMX363, f/1.73 aperture, 1.4µm pixels, OIS, EIS, LED flash, 4K video recording, Autofocus
• Front camera: 8.0 MP Sony IMX355, f/2.0 aperture, 1.14µm pixels, EIS, Fixed focus
• Connectivity: 4G, Dual SIM, GPS, WiFi 5, Bluetooth, GLONASS
• Ports: USB Type-C, 3.5mm headphone jack
• Security: Rear fingerprint sensor
• Battery: 3,080 mAh
• Software: Android 10

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Source: 9to5Google

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[Update: Partnership Concluded] OnePlus removed from McLaren’s partners page, hinting there won’t be another McLaren Edition

Update 1 (05/29/2020 @ 09:40 AM ET): McLaren has clarified that the partnership with OnePlus has been concluded as per schedule. Scroll to the bottom for more information. The article as published on May 20, 2020, is preserved below.

OnePlus has been doing special editions of its phones for a few years now. The OnePlus 5T was available in the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Edition and the OnePlus 6 was available in a Marvel Avengers Edition. Both of these phones were available in limited quantities and in select regions only. The company expanded the scope of these special editions with the launch of the OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition. This variant not only came with a new and distinct CMF (color-material-finish), but it also bumped up the RAM to 10GB and the charging technology to Warp Charge 30. The McLaren Edition made a return with the OnePlus 7T Pro, once again bumping up the RAM and opting for the signature CMF. However, this run appears to have come to an end, as recent developments indicate that there may not be another McLaren edition in the works.

A keen-eyed Redditor noticed that OnePlus was no longer listed as a Formula 1 partner for McLaren for the 2020 F1 season. We checked through Wayback machine (internet archive) and can spot that OnePlus continued to remain listed until March 29, 2020, at least. So, it is safe to presume that the company was delisted as a partner within the last month or so.

What does this mean? This means that there is unlikely to be another McLaren Edition phone coming from OnePlus. The next McLaren iteration was expected to be on the presumed OnePlus 8T, but we can rule this out from happening based on how things stand right now.

That’s not to say that there won’t be a special edition for the OnePlus 8T series, at all. OnePlus could always collaborate with a new partner and market a different CMF with different features as a special edition. Some have taken this news to also mean that there won’t be a “T” version at all this year — we do not have any evidence of this statement being true or false, either way.

We’ve reached out to OnePlus for comment on this delisting. We’ll update our article when we get more information.

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Update: McLaren confirms that its partnership with OnePlus has concluded

While OnePlus has not responded with any comment, McLaren has responded to AndroidAuthority with a statement:

Our partnership with OnePlus, which came to its scheduled conclusion recently, has been a highly successful collaboration between two iconic and innovative brands. Since the start of this partnership in 2018, OnePlus has been a supportive, valued partner and we wish them well and hope to see them in the future.

This means that OnePlus and McLaren had a fixed duration contract for the collaboration, and that contract has been honored and completed. This means that we are unlikely to see another McLaren smartphone in H2 2020, unless the companies renew their partnership. Keep in mind that OnePlus could collaborate with another partner too, for the presumed T-release of 2020.

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OPPO Find X2 Neo and Find X2 Lite forums are open as both go on pre-order in Europe

OPPO recently brought back its Find flagship smartphone line with the launch of the Find X2 and Find X2 Pro. Unlike the original Find X series, though, the Find X2 series also comes in mid-range variants for those who want to get a taste of the flagship experience but can’t pay the high-end devices’ steep prices. The OPPO Find X2 Neo and the OPPO Find X2 Lite are both upper mid-range smartphones in the Find X2 series, and after launching in Germany last week, the two phones are now available in the UK, France, Spain, Italy, and other countries in Europe.

Both the Find X2 Lite and the Find X2 Neo are powered by the Snapdragon 765G, Qualcomm’s upper mid-range mobile processor with integrated 5G, but their specification sheets differ in other areas. The OPPO Find X2 Neo is basically a rebranded version of the Chinese OPPO Reno3 Pro, which was a completely different device than what OPPO launched globally as the Reno3 Pro. The Find X2 Neo features a quad rear camera setup (with a 48MP primary sensor), a 44MP front-facing camera, a 6.5-inch AMOLED display with a single hole-punch cutout and a 90Hz refresh rate, a 4,025 mAh battery, 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and more.

The OPPO Find X2 Lite, on the other hand, is a rebrand of the little known OPPO Reno3 Vitality Edition that was only released in China. It also features a quad rear camera setup, though it has a 2MP depth sensor instead of a 13MP 2X telephoto camera. It also has a lower resolution 32MP front-facing camera, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a waterdrop notch cutout at a standard 60Hz refresh rate. On the plus side, the Find X2 Lite has a 3.5mm headphone jack while the Find X2 Neo does not, though both devices sadly lack expandable storage.

Product pages for both the OPPO Find X2 Neo and the OPPO Find X2 Lite are now available on OPPO.com in Germany, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, and other European countries. The Find X2 Lite retails for €499/£399 while the Find X2 Neo retails for €699/£599, though there are various pre-order offers and carrier deals that can bring down the price and/or net you a free Bluetooth audio accessory. The Neo is available in “Moonlight Black” and “Starry Blue” colors while the Lite is available in simply “White” or “Black.”

If you’re interested in purchasing one of these two devices, then check out our newly opened XDA forums to discuss them with fellow owners.

OPPO Find X2 Neo Forums ||| OPPO Find X2 Lite Forums

Specification	OPPO Find X2 Neo	OPPO Find X2 Lite
Dimensions and Weight	159.4 x 72.4 x 7.7mm 171g	160.3 x 74.3 x 7.96 mm 180g
Display	6.5″ FHD+ (2400×1080) AMOLED; Hole-punch display cutout Corning Gorilla Glass 5 90Hz refresh rate	6.4″ FHD+ (2400 x 1080) AMOLED; Waterdrop-style notch Corning Gorilla Glass 5
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G Adreno 620	Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G Adreno 620
RAM and Storage	12GB LPDDR4X RAM 256GB UFS 2.1	8GB LPDDR4x RAM 128GB UFS 2.1
Battery & Charging	4,025mAh battery 30W VOOC Flash 4.0 fast charging Fast charger included within the box	4,025mAh battery 30W VOOC Flash 4.0 fast charging Fast charger included within the box
Rear Cameras	Photo: Primary: 48MP, f/1.7 Secondary: 13MP 2X Telephoto Camera, f/2.4 Tertiary: 8MP Wide-Angle Camera, f/2.2 Quaternary: 2MP, f/2.4 monochrome sensor Video: 4K @ 30fps 1080p @ 60fps/30fps 720p @ 60fps/30fps	Photo: Primary: 48MP, f/1.7 Secondary: 8MP Wide-Angle Camera, f/2.2 Tertiary: 2MP, f/2.4 monochrome sensor Quaternary: 2MP, f/2.4 Depth Sensor Video: 4K @ 30fps 1080p @ 60fps/30fps 720p @ 60fps/30fps
Front Camera	44MP, f/2.0	32MP, f/2.0
Other Features	No 3.5mm headphone jack In-display fingerprint scanner	3.5mm headphone jack In-display fingerprint scanner
Android Version	ColorOS 7 based on Android 10	ColorOS 7 based on Android 10

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Raspberry Pi 4 now comes with up to 8GB of RAM for $75

The Raspberry Pi 4 was announced close to a year ago. It provided amazing specs in the all-familiar credit card-sized presentation and proved to be a well-received successor to the Raspberry Pi 3. Among some of the improvements that were included with this device were a more powerful ARM SoC, a USB-C power supply, and several RAM options including 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB. Let’s go back to the RAM for a bit, though: The Raspberry Pi Foundation is now adding a new 8GB RAM tier for the Pi 4, priced at just $75.

According to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, an 8GB version of the Raspberry Pi 4 was always part of their plans, and it even seemingly accidentally showed up on documents such as the Beginner’s Guide. The Raspberry Pi 4’s BCM2711 chip can actually handle up to 16GB of LPDDR4 SDRAM, but according to the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s official blog post, a suitable 8GB RAM module didn’t exist until late last year after the device was released. Now that the part exists, though, this version can be released. There are also a couple of changes made to the design of the board itself, including new switchers and inductors, in order to accommodate the higher power demands that 8GB of RAM requires. Apparently, the COVID-19 pandemic also set back the release date of this model as the inductor supply from Asia was interrupted.

8GB of RAM also requires a 64-bit OS on board, but Raspberry Pi’s default OS doesn’t support that yet. At least it didn’t until now, as the team has released an early 64-bit beta of its own OS, which will probably have its fair share of bugs initially (that will be eventually ironed out). The team is now calling its Debian-based OS “Raspberry Pi OS,” by the way, but users can choose to install other GNU/Linux distributions ported for ARM64 such as Ubuntu or Gentoo.

Speaking of software, the Raspberry team has done “enormous amounts of work to reduce the idle and loaded power consumption of the device, passed OpenGL ES 3.1 conformance, started work on a Vulkan driver, and shipped PXE network boot mode and a prototype of USB mass storage boot mode” since initially shipping the Pi 4.

Oh, and as a fun fact, the 1GB RAM version is no longer available for purchase as the official site lists only 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB versions. The 2GB version now costs $35, which is the same price that the 1GB version originally had. It’s probably safe to assume that this 1GB RAM version was completely discontinued. Oddly enough, this wasn’t mentioned in the blog post at all, but it also means you’re getting twice the RAM for the same price, so I don’t think anyone will miss it.

You can purchase an 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 for $75 right now on their website.

Raspberry Pi Forums

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Download: Xiaomi rolls out the stable Android 10 update for the Mi Note 10

The Mi Note 10 was the first phone from Xiaomi to launch with the Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX 108MP camera sensor. Instead of designing a new device from scratch as a successor to 2017’s Mi Note 3, the Chinese OEM decided to rebrand the China-exclusive Mi CC9 Pro as the Mi Note 10 for the international market. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G-powered phone was originally shipped with MIUI 11 on top of Android 9 Pie, and Xiaomi is now rolling out the stable Android 10 update for it across the globe.

Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Forums

The global variant of the Mi Note 10 is receiving software version V11.1.2.0.QFDMIXM that contains all the goodness of Android 10 as well as the April 2020 security patches. Being a major update, the size of the OTA package is around 2.6GB. The company also offers a Fastboot firmware bundle so that experienced users can manually flash the new build on their phones. Interestingly, the update for the European and the Russian Mi Note 10 variants are still considered “stable beta”, which means no Fastboot ROMs are available for them as of yet.

Note that there is virtually no difference between the Mi Note 10 and the Mi Note 10 Pro (except their lens setup – 7P on the regular versus 8P on the Pro model), thus they share a common firmware. You can directly download the ZIP package for the global variant from the index below and perform a “Local Update“, but the two aforementioned regional builds might require Mi Account authorization. If your phone has an unlocked bootloader, you can bypass that restriction by flashing the builds via TWRP.

Device and Device Codename	Region	Build Number	Recovery ROM	Fastboot ROM
Mi Note 10 / Mi Note 10 Pro (tucana)	Global	V11.1.2.0.QFDMIXM	Download Recovery ROM	Download Fastboot ROM
	Europe	V11.1.1.0.QFDEUXM	Download Recovery ROM	–
	Russia	V11.1.1.0.QFDRUXM	Download Recovery ROM	–

While the current Android 10 build is based on MIUI 11, owners of this phone can get an early glimpse of MIUI 12 by flashing the Chinese closed beta and/or the Xiaomi.EU ROM. Aftermarket developers may have to wait a bit, though, as Xiaomi has yet to update the existing kernel source code for the device.

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Source: Mi Community (1, 2, 3)

 

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