
On{X}: The Coolest Thing to Happen to Android. Courtesy of… Microsoft Israel? - cenanozen
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/05/onx/
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grayrest
I'd like an easy interface to events around the phone being at rest (no
accelerometer input).

For the rest state: I assume that most people have their phone by their beds
at night. I have a locale rule that puts my phone into airplane mode during
the hours I'm normally asleep. This is much more easily/accurately expressed
as "phone at rest for 15m". Similarly, I'd like to sync news when I pick up
the phone to leave in the morning (I don't always unlock the phone when I do)
so it can sync over wifi.

I'd also like to monitor signal strength. I do so in Locale and shut down the
3g data connection if the signal strength is under 25%. This combined with the
airplane mode at night and an undervolted kernel gets my (old, otherwise
stock) Droid Incredible up to 3 days of battery life through normal use.

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trentmb
"up to 3 days of battery life through normal use."

I use to be able to get weeks of use from a single charge of my old Motorola
Razr.

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petitmiam
it's a shame we had to give up battery life for our phones to become 'smart'

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batiudrami
And truly surprising that when you add faster components, bigger screens and
many, many more functions, phones require additional battery power. At this
point, my phone can make it from my wake up at 7am easily until 3am if I'm out
late, and that's enough that I don't have to worry about it (though obviously
I won't say no to battery improvements).

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psychotik
They likely did this on Android because it's the easiest platform to developer
such a product. On iOS and WP, background apps are severely limited so it
makes sense why Android is only platform that gets this.

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dfc
There is no reason to say "likely," the article comes out and says that
android was the easy platform:

 _"Shira Weinberg, the team’s Program Manager, explained that the less strict
security model of the Android platform is well suited for deploying early
stage technology previews."_

I am not a mobile developer so when I read the statement I was not sure if it
was an underhanded slap at andriod or a valid assessment of mobile platforms.
Can anyone comment?

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abraham
_less strict_ does not mean insecure. iOS for example has very strict rules
about when apps can run, how long they can run, and the resources they use.
Everything is a tradeoff and in general Android leans in the direction of
power and freedom.

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dfc
How does a less strict security model not imply less security?

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bztzt
A strictly less strict model implies ≤ security (someone might try to argue
there are some paradoxical cases where it's >).

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agravier
That's assuming the security models being compared are strict about the things
that matter.

For instance, I can be very strict about PDFs on your computer: no PDF
allowed. If you have addressed the risks posed by other more vulnerable attack
vectors, OK, then my rule reduces the uncertainty of less strict but more
complicated rules that would address the vulnerabilities of PDF readers.
Otherwise, for example if I'm allowing the auto-execution of apps on removable
devices, my strict PDF rules don't increase security.

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fpgeek
And might even decrease security in practice if people end up working around
your strict rules via an even less secure path (e.g. sending around Word
documents instead of PDF, perhaps).

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darklajid
I thought that stuff was well covered already, with the leader being Locale
(iirc).

Did anyone try a couple of these and can provide a comparison? The article is
light on details, the biggest difference that I noticed is the configuration
via a website. Well, and the Facebook login downer.

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saary
The main difference is that you can write a JavaScript snippet that is pushed
to your phone and executes.

The JavaScript can register on device triggers and you can control the logic
to do whatever you like. You can code it to be very specific in contrast to
other rule based platform which have to be broad to cover main scenarios.

You still have pre-coded recipes which you can choose and quickly configure
and install, and one of the coolest things is that you can actual see the
recipe's code and hack it to your own profit :)

~~~
darklajid
Thanks for the rundown and explanation. And I'm glad that you're planning to
make FB optional.

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MitziMoto
This is really cool. Just set up a message to my wife when I leave work. "I'm
heading home from work. Based on traffic data, it should take me XX minutes to
travel XX miles". Took about 10 minutes to write thanks to some good examples
in the documentation.

Looking forward to watching this evolve. Should be extremely powerful with the
right set of triggers and hardware integration.

~~~
exhilaration
That's a pretty useful example, can you share the code?

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tomjen3
There is an already existing program that allows you to do pretty much the
same thing, I have had it forever.

The app is called Tasker
([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm))
works like a charm and can be programmed right on the phone.

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exhilaration
The Android Reddit community loves tasker - I'm always impressed by the
examples
([http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/s2hrj/randroid_what...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/s2hrj/randroid_what_are_you_doing_with_tasker_ill_go/))
and there's a whole Tasker community on Reddit:
<http://www.reddit.com/r/tasker>

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dfxm12
Unfortunately, the app requires that you login with Facebook.

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saary
Facebook was chosen for the beta. What other authentication schemes would you
expect?

(besides creating a dedicated account)

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vibrunazo
Are you familiar with the Android Account Manager? [1] You can let users log
in to your app with pretty much one click of an existing account. Since
virtually every android user already have a google account signed in on their
phones. It seems that using a google account would be the most obvious route
for ideal user experience (no need to type in a new account you haven't
before).

[1]
[http://developer.android.com/reference/android/accounts/Acco...](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/accounts/AccountManager.html)

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saary
Thanks. We are familiar with it. FB was chosen for the beta, we use it on both
the device and the website.

Upvoting GoogleID.

~~~
gbog
Fb login is blocking all Chinese users from using your beta, sad.

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supernooneo
This article is bizarre. Why is written in such a strange way? "your favorite
Redmond techno-giant is sitting on a horse" What the fuck does that mean?

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jonnymkramer
It is a reference to the Old Spice adverts which where a viral marketing
sensation a few months ago.

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alanh
> _a few months ago_

February 2012, actually. Wow.

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shadesandcolour
IFTTT meets Tasker. Cool

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tbeseda
Even the verbiage ("recipe" etc.) and iconography seems uncannily similar to
IFTTT.

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styluss
isn't this like <http://ifttt.com/>

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ricardobeat
Yes, plus all the events/data available in a smartphone. I wonder if IFTTT has
something alike in the works.

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bad_alloc
In some cases this might backfire horribly. Imagine some guy sets his phone up
to send an SMS to his spouse when he is held up at work. Imagine he also lets
the phone send his location, because he travels a lot at work. Result: "X will
be late today, he is currently at [coordinates of his secretary's house]".
Don't get me wrong, this feature is awesome but when combined with naivity the
device can do things that are equally naive.

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JoshMock
I'll be 100% behind this project when it has as much control over a device as
Tasker does. Recipes in JavaScript and not having to "program" on the device
itself are exactly the kinds of things I wish Tasker could do. The
modeOfTransport monitor is pretty attractive too.

Beyond all that, I'm curious about on{X}'s battery usage. That's a huge
selling point for always-on processes like this.

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nicholassmith
This looks really interesting. And yes, there's other options on Android to do
it, but Microsoft looks like they've taken a different focus on it.

I do wonder at the 'less strict security model' part though. I'd think more
'less strict process model' would be a bit more accurate as it's a processing
issue, not so much security issue.

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WickyNilliams
I've yet to sign up to the service (until an alternative means of
authentication is available), so I'm not sure if it's an obvious question but
I'm curious about the metadata required to render a script as a recipe. Is
this inferred from the script itself or is it manually input at some stage in
the script's creation? I'm referring to this type of thing, where the
bracketed words are treated as parameters:

    
    
      "Launch the [music] app when I am [walking]"
    

Also, are these parameters bound to the script at runtime or is a new script
generated for each variant?

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__alexs
Llama does some of this sort of thing already.
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llam...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llama&hl=en)

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eminkel
This looks very promising. Like others have noted, even on the Play Store they
are getting battered with negative reviews because of Facebook only
authentication.

+1 for another authentication type.

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mark_l_watson
Great irony but it makes sense that a small agile Microsoft development team
could experiment faster on the nicely hack able Android platform.

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spinchange
I would love to be able to log things to a calendar like arrival and departure
from a given location.

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jff
Is anyone else able to access the blog or forums? I'm getting a database
error.

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fidz
What's different with tasker for android?

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ch0wn
You can script it with JavaScript from the browser.

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papalalu
no bluetooth..

also "back" doesn't seem to work, i have to go home/close manually

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webwanderings
That was one cool looking video!

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confickerrrrrrr
Wow! Thank you, MicroSoft Israel!

I can't wait to see the Stuxnet/Flame/Duqu plug-in that ties into this
incredibly useful app!

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seclorum
Your sarcasm is warranted, in my opinion. I trust this on my phone about as
much as I .. well .. trust .. my Android-controlled .. Googleplex'ing .. info-
companion reporting agent ..

Point is: yeah, your phone is spying on you. Of course "Microsoft Israel"
wants you to automatically data-enter your daily activities into their massive
connected network.

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Wrap
Stuff that has to do with Israel, Microsoft and vulnerable internet systems
doesn't really go well with titles like "Coolest Thing to Happen"

