Month: December 2017

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Google bans Android developers from adding lock screen ads

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Examples of some lockscreen ads, which totally replace the stock lockscreen.

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Google is cracking down on one of the most annoying ad types on Android. As first spotted by Android Police, the Google Play Developer monetization rules have been updated to ban lock screen ads. Here’s the new section:

Lockscreen Monetization

Unless the exclusive purpose of the app is that of a lockscreen, apps may not introduce ads or features that monetize the locked display of a device.

It’s not really possible to show an ad on the existing lock screen, unless you’re counting a notification (which is pretty easy to block). So what some of the shadier developers on Google Play have been doing is replacing the existing lock screen, without asking, and showing a screen that can have a big ad slapped onto the lower half. This can be very confusing for users since nothing indicates why their lock screen is different, what app made the changes, or how it can be fixed. Do a search and you’ll find tons of help threads of users asking why their lock screen is suddenly different, and others guessing at which app could be the culprit.

Now, developers that continue to do this will be tossed from the Play Store. Of course, this is only a Play Store rule and won’t affect devices that are sold with lock screen ads built-in. Amazon, for instance, sells “Prime Exclusive Phones” with “special offers” built-in. These phones show ads full screen lock screen ads, notification ads, and pack the phone with some non-removable Amazon apps, in exchange for a discount of around $50 to $80.

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After 37 years, Voyager 1 has fired up its trajectory thrusters

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The Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980. They are located on the back side of the spacecraft in this orientation.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

At present, the Voyager 1 spacecraft is 21 billion kilometers from Earth, or about 141 times the distance between the Earth and Sun. It has, in fact, moved beyond our Solar System into interstellar space. However, we can still communicate with Voyager across that distance.

This week, the scientists and engineers on the Voyager team did something very special. They commanded the spacecraft to fire a set of four trajectory thrusters for the first time in 37 years to determine their ability to orient the spacecraft using 10-millisecond pulses.

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Tesla’s giant battery farm is now live in South Australia

With a little lot of help from Tesla, Australia is now home to the world’s largest lithium-ion battery. Back in March, Elon Musk told Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes that he could create a 100MWh battery storage farm within 100 days — otherwise, his company would do the job for free. The Twitter pledge was in response to ongoing power shortages in South Australia, which were causing blackouts and political uncertainty about the country’s push toward renewable energy sources. The batteries were delivered and installed before the summer — well ahead of Musk’s self-imposed deadline — and Friday, they were switched on for the first time.

Tesla’s Powerpacks are connected to a wind farm in Hornsdale, owned by French renewable energy company Neoen. Jay Weatherill, a politician and current Premier of South Australia, says it’s the first time the state has been able to reliably dispatch wind energy to the grid 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was possible, of course, to capture this energy resource before — the problem has been controlling when, and how much of the resulting electricity is fed back into the grid. With a 100MWV battery farm, the state can now power more than 30,000 homes, regardless of the weather.

“The completion of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in record time shows that a sustainable, effective energy solution is possible,” a Tesla spokesperson said. “We are proud to be part of South Australia’s renewable energy future, and hope this project provides a model for future deployments around the world.” Tesla has built similar battery farms before; a year ago, the company completed a 20 MW system in Ontario, California that can store up to 80 MWh of electricity. It took just 90 days for the company — that hopes to commoditize electric cars, semi-trucks and home energy storage — to install the necessary 396 Powerpacks.

Jay Weatherill

Written by Nick Summers for Engadget.

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