Android 12 could use a new trick to free up space on your phone

Posted on by Prakhar Khanna

Android is hailed to be a ‘mature’ OS when compared to its iOS counterpart. However, even the most mature have space to grow and improve. And, it looks like Google will enable a new trick to free up space on your smartphone. There is rumored to be a new feature ‘app hibernation’ that will free up storage space by deleting temporary files from unused apps. However, the feature hasn’t made an appearance in either of the two publicly available Developer Previews.

According to the folks over at XDA-Developers app hibernation feature is present in a leaked build that they obtained. It will free up storage space on your phone by deleting temporary files from unused apps. Notably, an APK teardown can predict upcoming features but it does not confirm their existence. These features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

Google introduced “auto revoke permissions” with the release of Android 11 Developer Preview 3 that revokes an app’s permission if the app hasn’t been used for a couple of months. App hibernation is said to be building on that feature. The company seems to be expanding the “unused apps” concept with the new feature. It will not only be revoking permissions for unused apps but will also clear up temporary files to free up storage space.

The publication says it activated a new “Unused apps” section on the “App info” page for every application, and it contains a new “remove permissions and free up space” toggle. After hibernating a few apps, the “unused apps” page appeared under Settings > Apps. This page will show apps that haven’t been opened in a few months with a description that will say permissions are revoked, notifications are stopped, and temporary files are removed if an app hasn’t been used for a few months.

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Google and Facebook take important steps to subdue online fake news circulation

Posted on by Adrian Diaconescu

While Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg still strongly believes the idea that fake news shared on the world’s most popular social network influenced the surprising result of the recent US presidential election is outright “crazy”, both he and Google’s powers that be are cracking down on misleading publishers.

Better late than never, although Hillary Clinton supporters may be left forever wondering if perhaps many of those undecided voters who ultimately picked Donald Trump were manipulated in their last-minute choice by hoax political stories going viral just when the President-elect needed them the most.

Of course, it remains virtually impossible to altogether ban bogus reports from the web, but at least Google parent company Alphabet and Facebook now target the explicit discouraging of their creation and distribution.

No more integrating or displaying ads in “apps or sites containing content that is illegal, misleading or deceptive, including fake news” as far as Facebook’s monetization policies are concerned. Meanwhile, Google vows to “restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose of the web property.”

In a nutshell, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for fake news “reporters” to get their B.S. in front of a big enough e-audience to impact momentous occasions ever again, and especially to make money off people’s gullibility. But rest assured, they’ll find workarounds. That’s just how the internet works these days. All you can really do is double, triple, quadruple-check your online facts.

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