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On Monday, Google released a new -- and also the final -- version of the Android N Developer Preview. Android Nougat, which is the latest version of Google's mobile operating system comes with a range of new features and improvements, including a notification panel redesign and additions to Doze power saving. The fifth preview, which is releasing today offers a "near-final" look at Android 7. Interestingly, Apple also released the public beta versions of iOS 10, and macOS Sierra to users earlier this month. Microsoft continues to offer preview builds of Windows 10 OS to enthusiasts.

We were wondering how many of you choose to live on beta version of an operating system on your primary devices. Does anyone here wait for the final version of an operating system to release before making the switch? Also, what does the setup of your office/work computer look like? Anyone who is still on an older version of an operating system because of reliability and compatibility concerns?

An anonymous reader writes: Google first implemented Full Disk Encryption in Android by default with Android 5.0 Lollipop in an effort to prevent criminals or government agencies from gaining unauthorized access to one's data. What it does is it encodes all the data on a user's Android device before it's ever written to disk using a user's authentication code. Once it is encrypted, it can only be decrypted if the user enters his/her password. However, security researcher Gal Beniamini has discovered issues with the full disk encryption. He published a step-by-step guide on how one can break down the encryption protections on Android devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. The source of the exploit is posted on GitHub. Android's disk encryption on devices with Qualcomm chips is based only on your password. However, Android uses your password to create a 2048-bit RSA key (KeyMaster) derived from it instead. Qualcomm specifically runs in the Snapdragon TrustZone to protect critical functions like encryption and biometric scanning, but Beniamini discovered that it's possible to exploit a security flaw and retrieve the keys from TrustZone. Qualcomm runs a small kernel in TrustZone to offer a Trusted Execution Environment known as Qualcomm Secure Execution Environment (QSEE), which allows small apps to run inside of QSEE away from the main Android OS. Beniamini has detailed a way for attackers to exploit an Android kernel security flaw to load their own QSEE app inside this secure environment, thereby exploiting privilege escalation flaw and hijacking of the complete QSEE space, including the keys generated for full disk encryption. The researcher also said Qualcomm or OEMs can comply with government or law enforcement agencies to break the FDE: "Since the key is available to TrustZone, Qualcomm and OEMs [Original Equipment Manufacturers] could simply create and sign a TrustZone image which extracts the KeyMaster keys and flash it to the target device," Beniamini wrote. "This would allow law enforcement to easily brute force the FDE password off the device using the leaked keys."

An anonymous reader writes: The chance to squeeze some extra advertising dollars is something rarely missed by Google. This week the company quietly announced changes to two of its most widely used services, offering businesses the chance to pay for featured advertisements in Google.com and Google Maps. In a blog post, Google senior ads vice president Sridhar Ramaswamy outlined the likely changes to Google Maps that will see users met with pop-up ads for local businesses when they use the GPS-based app. The announcement has been facetiously described online as "the Ad-pocalypse" but Google has shown more tact in their use of language, referring to the ads as "promoted pins".

sfcrazy writes "Apart from being involved in open source through software, Google promotes the open source model through its various media channels and participation in open source events across the globe. One such initiative has been their affiliation with the Open Invention Network patent pool (OIN). 'Linux now powers nearly all the world's supercomputers, runs the International Space Station, and forms the core of Android. But as open source has proliferated, so have the threats against it, particularly using patents. That's why we're expanding our participation in Open Invention Network, becoming the organization's first new full board member since 2007."

New submitter simula67 writes "Oracle wins back some karma from the open source community by releasing MySQL cluster 7.2 with ambitious claims of 70x performance gains. The new release is GPL and claims to have processed over 1 billion queries per minute. Readers may remember the story about Oracle adding commercial extensions to MySQL."