The Antares rocket safely delivered all three of NASA’s PhoneSats into their intended orbit, and according to amateur radio operators all over the world, the three micro-satellites are performing as expected.

NASA’s PhoneSat

Global Effort

As the PhoneSat satellites have rather limited transmission capability, NASA is relying on a global network of amateur (AKA ham) radio operators to keep an ear out for these tiny little craft.

By openly documenting the spacecraft’s packet protocols, listing the frequencies they will be transmitting on, and even displaying an animated map to show where each PhoneSat is in the sky, NASA has given the public everything they need to receive regular downlinks.

Once a radio operator has received one of these broadcasts, he or she can upload it to the PhoneSat.org site, where it will be cataloged. When enough data has been collected, NASA will (hopefully) be able to piece together information spanning the entire mission, including the sensor data and images the PhoneSats are constantly sending out.

Listen Up

Interested in trying your hand at receiving signals from these Android-powered spacecraft?

It’s not nearly as complex as you probably think, as there are now multiple low-cost USB radios which can be used to receive satellite transmissions. All you need is a decent antenna, and some patience.

Take a look at our guide on RTL-SDR for some ideas on how you can get started in the fascinating world of amateur radio for around $30 USD.

The team behind the MG had obviously done their homework and targeted the product to a very specific market which was otherwise being ignored. Rather than throwing out a half-realized device that didn’t resonate with any particular use case, the team engineered the hardware and software experience to their target audience to great effect.

Taylor Cavanah

To learn more about the focus and vision which made the device a reality, we got in touch with MG’s physicist turned meta-gamer Taylor Cavanah.

Creating the MG

The Powerbase: Taylor, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Can you start by telling our readers a bit about yourself and your background?

Taylor: I’m a physicist and started my career in Nanotechnology at Zyvex.  After finding some success in developing the nanoprobing market for the semiconductor industry I decided to strike out on my own.  My buddies and I started our own software company – Locai – and a year ago we combined forces with the hardware and business guys from ACTScom to launch PlayMG.

The Powerbase: What exactly is your role at PlayMG? What are your day to day responsibilities like?

Taylor: My specific role involves game/app design, platformsoftware design, business development, innovation, and as is the case with all start ups – many more roles.  Day to day I was either talking with game houses, working with the hardware guys to design the user experience, writing the story behind our game within the gaming device app Origins, looking for interesting apps to work with, working with marketing to craft the messaging behind these features we were building, and testing devices in every possible way.

The Powerbase: PlayMG has no qualms about the fact it has targeted the MG to younger gamers. Why do you think the younger gamer is so important? What makes the MG a better option than, say, mom’s old smartphone?

Taylor: Every one has a slightly different opinion on this but for me the younger gamers make the most sense because they can’t have phones.  Whether their parents don’t want them or can’t afford the data plans, there are a lor of younger gamers who love apps but can’t get access to them.  The “hand me down” argument is definitely valid.  I can hand down my phone and just remove the plan and then they have a smart device.  That’s where our added benefits factor in to the equation.  You can’t get Family Collaboration, SpendSmart, or the Origins game in a hand me down.  And sometimes more importantly, you can’t get that “awe” moment when your son or daughter opens up your repackaged device from 2 years ago.

Android and the MG

The Powerbase: Its differences aside, the majority of the MG’s software is straight Android. Would it be safe to say that, if it wasn’t for the open nature of Android, the MG wouldn’t exist in its current form? Would have putting this same hardware out with a proprietary operating system have gotten you as far as Android has?

Taylor: There is no way we would exist without Android.  The barrier of entry previously was just too high.  We got a solid and awe inspiring product to market in 9 months.  Core to that was not having to build an entire OS.  Not just in terms of getting something to market but that greatly helped us focus our time and money where it mattered – on the added benefits like Family Collaboration and Origins.  This is what I love about open source – you get to make products with extremely well designed experiences where it matters.

The Powerbase: One of the biggest selling points early on was that the MG would be a vanilla Android device, meaning it would be as close to AOSP as possible. In the end the MG delivered on that promise, and is one of the few non-Nexus devices available running stock Android. Why was running stock Android so important for the MG?

Taylor: Part of that answer has to do with my previous answer – it’s just easier to not build stuff you don’t need.  I think everyone can point to some larger companies that have large engineering staffs that have to build stuff because those salaries are being spent no matter what.  Then you get a lot of customization away from stock.  But most of that is useless and provides no value to the customer experience.  A lot of engineers also like the job security that building all of this custom stuff gives them.  They will always be needed because only they know how this version of flavored Android operates.  For us it was exactly that overhead that we didn’t want.  If we build our own flavor of Android then every new app or platform we create down the road has to take that into account.  We had to keep our focus on what mattered for the end user.

The Powerbase: From a development perspective, stock Android is generally preferable to manufacturer modified builds, but what about the end user? It’s no secret that the most popular Android devices (such as Samsung’s Galaxy line) make use of manufacturer modifications to their interface and applications, so the public doesn’t seem to mind. Do you ever worry that shipping with stock Android rather than a build with more visual flair and streamlined functionality pleases the developers at the expense of the end users?

Taylor: I have never believed that popularity of a device has anything to do with how well it is designed or received by customers.  The large software guys have proven time and again that being big in a space and having a ton of money can make up for a lot of deficiencies.  I say this because I don’t believe customers buy the Galaxy line because of the manufacturer improvements – most customers have never seen stock Android so they don’t know any better.  My guess is the commercial bashing the iPhone (hilariously with the parents in line) did a lot more than the user experience.  From what I’ve seen all of the added modifications make little difference to the real end users (not us tech types who are too deep in the space).  We found you could do an amazing amount of things just using the widget system in Android to change the user experience – without huge teams to build and then manage modifications.

The Powerbase:  Some would say that shipping the device with vanilla Android only makes sense if it’s kept up to date with AOSP (such as the Nexus line), but the MG is still on 4.0.4. Why hold the MG back? Are there plans on updating to Jelly Bean (and beyond)?

Taylor: We will update to Jelly Bean.  But with such a low saturation of Jelly Bean and many apps still not upgraded for the experience it doesn’t make sense to expend the effort.  Again we’ve got to focus on that end user experience and the only people ever asking for Jelly Bean are analysts or the random parent who just saw some article that mentioned the new Jelly Bean thingy for Android.

Expanding Android Gaming

The Powerbase: One of the best features of the MG, at least for parents, is unquestionably the Family Collaboration System. While it currently sets the MG apart from the competition, would PlayMG consider bringing it to generic Android devices? Perhaps charging a monthly subscription fee when used on non-MG hardware?

Taylor: We are always weighing the pros and cons of releasing some of the proprietary apps to the Play Store.  Right now we only have to manage one device, we get to ignore fragmentation, and we have a competitive advantage.  I don’t see us releasing the apps until we are much more established.

The Powerbase: An advantage of putting out an Android based gaming system is, of course, that you aren’t responsible for developing or publishing games for it (unlike traditional game consoles). That said, are there plans to talk to developers about MG optimized games? Is that already happening?

Taylor: Nothing that I can talk about but we definitely have plans and some preliminary talks about using our PlayMG IP to create games.  Any game developers interested (especially if they want to do something outside of the normal bounds of gaming) should get in touch with us.

The Powerbase: You can’t talk about Android gaming anymore without mentioning the OUYA; while it’s aiming for a completely different market than the MG, are there any parallels you draw between them? Do you see families owning both devices in the future?

Taylor: Mine arrives in 3 weeks (if I had more time and money I would have gotten a developer version).  I would love to work with OUYA in the future and I do believe that console gaming and portable gaming will always be with us.  Where the hardware, software, and interfaces end up who knows but for now there are many opportunities that could be explored between the two companies.  For the next year though I’m guessing both of us will be too busy to pursue them.

Looking Ahead

The Powerbase: A common criticism of the MG is that it lacks physical controls. This was a design decision based on the intended userbase for the MG, but it’s also undeniable that there are hardcore gamers out there that would appreciate an MG-like device with physical input. Is this a challenge PlayMG might take up in the future? Perhaps a device like the Sony Xperia Play, but in a non-contract form like the MG?

Taylor: I don’t see that happening.  Our target user is not hardcore and in fact probably did not grow up with a game system that had controllers.  But at an even deeper philosophical level (get ready for the fan boy to come out) I think the portable gaming systems with controls aren’t just missing the mark but don’t really have a mark to hit.  Portable gaming is about the casual experience on the go or that little block of entertainment that you carry around in your pocket.  I have so many different serious game devices where I can have mind blowingly immersive experiences – but that’s not what you want in a portable gaming device.  At the end of the day we talked to a bunch of “gamers” in our demographic and they wanted a device they could put in their pocket versus a device that let them play games designed for pre-touch devices.

The Powerbase: If it’s not giving too much away, what can you say about the future of PlayMG and the MG itself? Anything current or future owners should be looking out for?

Taylor: We have some great plans for the Family Collaboration System – making it much more collaborative.  A lot of parents and even kids have asked for expanded features here.  I’m most excited about expanding the portable fun in the device.  The entire industry as a whole is barely scratching the surface of what you can do with portable gaming.  We have some very interesting things planned for making shared portable gaming experiences like no one has seen before.  Unfortunately I can’t say much more than that.

Thanks to Taylor and the entire PlayMG team for their assistance and professionalism while we worked on the original hardware review and this interview. We’re very interested in seeing where the future takes PlayMG, keep an eye out here on The Powerbase for future coverage of this unique company and its products.

Open Source Prevails

As we’ve covered earlier, Superuser is a fully open source application to manage root-level permissions on an Android device. Developed by Koushik Dutta, Superuser was released specifically to address the fact that the current favorite permissions management tool, Chainfire’s SuperSU is completely closed source, and in the past has lagged behind discovered vulnerabilities as there was only one developer able to address problems.

With Superuser, we are finally rid of this closed source scar on Android’s otherwise fairly transparent operation (aside from the Google Apps, anyway). Users who chose to use only free and open source software on their Android devices now have a modern and (hopefully) constantly maintained application to control root permissions on their devices, as the previously available open source alternatives were considerably stagnated.

Changelog

There’s more in this update than just the open source transplant, and anyone running the previous version of AOKP will probably want to check out this release. Other notable fixes and additions for this build (full Changelog available via the project’s gerrit page):

• New device
  • vibrantmtd (Samsung Vibrant)

• New features
  • Fully revamped NavBar and Lockscreen UI in ROMControl
  • Themeable lockscreen
  • Scrollable toggles are back
  • WebGL on the Nexus 10
  • Option to daydream on wireless charger
  • Volume adjust sound preference
  • Open source Superuser thanks to Koush
  • StatusBar hide toggle
  • Sleep toggle

AOKP Blog

Hidden Message

Keen-eyed readers will note on the original AOKP Blog post that certain letters of the announcement text were capitalized. When taken separately they spell out “MILESTONE”. So it looks like, even though the team isn’t ready to come right out and say it, this is considered a fairly stable build.

It’s also worth mentioning the announcement hints that “Big announcements and changes are coming in April”, so it looks like this may be a very exciting time for unicorn aficionados everywhere.

Source | AOKP Blog

First it was their Pwn Plug, which combined an off the shelf SheevaPlug with a feature packed open source firmware that turned it into an incredibly capable security tool. Then came the absolutely diabolical Power Pwn, which hid the same type of functionality into what looked like a standard power strip.

Today they’ve launched their latest product, continuing along the same line of hiding cutting edge open source security tools in plain sight: the Pwn Pad.

Pwn Pad

Security tools on Pwn Pad

The Pwn Pad is based around the wildly popular Nexus 7 tablet from Google, with a custom firmware that combines Android 4.2 and Ubuntu 12.04 to get the absolute best of both worlds. It doesn’t matter if you are looking to use Android-native security tools, or the latest Linux tool, you’ll be able to do it right on one device by virtue of the Pwn Pad’s operating system.

In addition to the Nexus 7, the Pwn Pad kit includes a number of high performance external hardware devices which let you connect to networks the Nexus otherwise couldn’t reach. A TP-Link TL-WN722N gives you high performance WiFi that is out of the box compatible with the most popular Linux wireless tools, and the Sena UD100 is a long-range Class 1 Bluetooth adapter that will let you connect to devices at hundreds of meters. The Pwn Pad kit also includes a USB to Ethernet adapter, so even wired networks will be within your grasp.

Pwnie Engineering

The Nexus 7 hardware is of course something anyone can grab from Google, and since we know what additional devices are included with the Pwn Pad, you could even grab those and you’d have your own Pwn Pad. Right?

Not exactly. The Pwn Pad is running a custom ROM developed by Pwnie Express that combines an up-to-date Linux kernel (for maximum hardware compatibility) and an Ubuntu chroot environment that gives it the capability to run Linux software without having to emulate a PC environment.

Combining open source software to create new uses for existing devices is clearly what Pwnie Express does best, and the Pwn Pad is no exception. While the combination of custom firmware and off the shelf hardware isn’t in itself ground breaking, it’s the combined experience and knowledge of the Pwnie Express team that makes it into a cohesive product.

Availability

Originally the Pwn Pad wasn’t set to launch until April, but as a bit of a surprise via the Pwnie Express newsletter, it was officially made available for purchase today. You can get a Pwn Pad directly from Pwnie Express for $795.00

As Pwnie Express CEO Dave Porcello said in our 2012 interview, open source is the backbone of the Pwnie Express product line. It’s good to see a company that not only has managed to capitalize on open source software, but also has the respect for it to make sure its done right.

STRaND-1 was successfully launched on February 25th from Sriharikota, India; and baring any unforeseen problems, could be switching on its integrated Nexus One phone in as little as a few days.

[youtube id="D3-iPso6Zy4" width="600" height="350"]

STRaND-1

The STRaND-1 satellite is a very interesting spacecraft in its own right, even if you ignore the fact it is the first satellite to ever carry a smartphone into space (though not the first smartphone to fly in space, as some sources erroneously have been reporting).

It’s carrying cutting edge propulsion systems such as WARP DRiVE (Water-Alcohol Resistojet Propulsion Deorbit Re-entry Velocity Experiment), and 8 pulsed plasma thrusters. These systems are designed to help maneuver the craft while in orbit and eventually push it back into Earth’s atmosphere at the end of its mission, so as not to add to the growing problem of “space junk“. The satellite also makes use of some 3D printed components, which the team believes makes STRaND-1 the first spacecraft to actually rely on 3D printed hardware.

In addition to the Nexus One, the STRaND-1 is also carrying a space-hardened Linux computer. This Linux computer is what the satellite is currently running on, until such time that the team is prepared to begin moving the craft’s functions over to the Nexus.

Nexus One and Android

The STRaND-1 is carrying a now fairly antiquated Nexus One device, which is due to the fact that construction and planning of the satellite started a number of years ago. Even so, raw power is rarely a concern when dealing with space-fairing vehicles, as designers tend to favor more reliable and better understood components than those on the cutting edge (consider that NASA’s now retired fleet of Space Shuttles ran on the 386 processor).

What’s even more impressive than the fact that there is a Nexus One onboard the STRaND-1 is the fact that it’s completely unmodified. Rather than stripping the phone down to the bare board like NASA plans to do with PhoneSat, the Nexus One currently in orbit is in the same state it would be if you bought it from Google (well…if they still sold them, anyway).

So STRaND-1 represents as much of a test of how well a stock phone can survive the rigors of spaceflight as it is of Android’s inherent reliability and flexibility. The team made every effort to utilize the stock hardware and software configuration of the Nexus One to solve the unique challenges of orbit, such as keeping the hardware from freezing:

How are you stopping the phone battery from getting too cold?

The onboard computer will monitor the temperature of the phone battery. If it sees it is getting too cold, it will trigger a processor intensive program to run on the mobile phone, which will warm it up.

STRaND-1 FAQ

Once the team has had enough time to analyze all the craft’s systems and verify the traditional hardware is functioning properly, they will begin transferring key spacecraft systems over to the Nexus One for direct control. Once the Nexus has control of the craft, it will utilize a number of Android applications to take images of the Earth below, measure sound and magnetic data, and relay telemetry information.

Looking Ahead

STRaND-1 is breaking a lot of new ground, and if everything goes according to plan, it could go a long way towards widening civilian and commercial access to space. If it can prove that a stock Android smartphone can do useful scientific work in orbit, then the sky is literally the limit. We’ve already covered the kind of work the open source and hacker communities want to do in space with their own satellites, and STRaND-1 is bringing that dream one step closer to reality.

But it won’t be alone. NASA will be launching three PhoneSats on the April’s test flight of the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket, the latest entry into the world of commercial space vehicles, and prime competitor of the SpaceX Falcon 9. These PhoneSats will further qualify the Nexus One and Nexus S hardware for space flight.

With the skill and dedication of the open source community pushing the innovation, and commercial entities like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences driving the cost down, we could be seeing the dawn of a completely different space race than what the world went through during the Cold War. Rather than competing with each other as thinly veiled demonstrations of their capabilities to make war, the participants in this new space race will be competing to bring space down to a level we can all benefit from.

To learn more about STRaND-1, check out its official page on the Surrey Satellite Technology site.

Of course, anyone running a custom Android ROM will know that there are already applications in place to do just that, Chainfire’s SuperSU and ChainsDD’s Superuser. So why a new one?

Unfortunately, ChainsDD’s Superuser, while originally one of the tools that made rooted Android possible, has stagnated considerably. New Android features, such as the multi-user mode added in 4.2, are not supported in Superuser, and updates in general have been spotty at best (the last update to Superuser in the Play Store was July 2012).

Chainfire’s SuperSU on the other hand has developed very quickly, and has a number of excellent features. But there is a very big problem with SuperSU…it isn’t open source. It seems few people in the community are aware of this, but while SuperSU’s license allows it to be distributed in custom Android ROMs, the source is not available, and ROM maintainers are stuck with binary builds.

Entrusting your device’s security to a closed source application, especially when the majority of the operating system is open source software, is completely asinine. Koush had the following to say:

Superuser should be open source. It’s the gateway to root on your device. It must be open for independent security analysis. Obscurity (closed source) is not security.

Google+

[youtube id="d_zDB2B-Wa8" width="600" height="350"]

Features

• Multiuser support
• Free
• Leverages Android’s permission model
• Logging (and per app logging)
• Pretty UI
• PIN Protection
• Request Timeout
• Customize notifications
• x86 and ARM support.
• Handle concurrent su requests properly
• NDK clean

Downloading

Users can install this beta from ROM Manager, or download the installer manually. Note that this is not an APK package, it has to be installed through recovery mode.

Finally, the whole goal of this project in the first place, the source code, is available now on GitHub. Noticeably absent from the GitHub repository is any information on licensing, so it looks like that might still be up in the air at this point.

PCAP Capture Logo

Putting a WiFi device into monitor mode allows it to capture all sorts of interesting data about the wireless network that would otherwise be invisible. Monitor mode captures are extremely useful for network diagnostics and penetration testing, and getting that ability on Android devices should open up a lot of very interesting possibilities.

PCAP Capture

The new tool, simply called “Android PCAP Capture“, does things a little differently than you might expect. For starters, it doesn’t use root or require a custom ROM to work, which is rather unusual for an advanced tool like this. Kershaw is generally against requiring root access in Android applications, as he feels the current way it’s handled is simply not secure enough considering how much damage a root-enabled application can do:

Giving android apps root terrifies me – it places 100% trust in the developer to not be malicious, and the market to have not presented you with a cloned project that IS malicious, and in the developers systems to make sure no-one can ever push an update using their keys that becomes malicious… it’s bad news all around.

Kismet Blog

Kershaw has a point about the way root access is currently being handled, and despite some efforts to change what we consider the norm, you certainly run a risk every time you allow root access for an application.

But anyone who has worked with WiFi under standard GNU/Linux knows that doing anything advanced with the hardware requires root access. So how did Kershaw manage to put the hardware into Monitor mode without requiring root access or a custom kernel?

RTL8187 Hardware

Controlling the built-in WiFi hardware under Android would have certainly required root access, and more than likely modifications to the ROM itself. That assumes that your particular device’s WiFi hardware even had support for Monitor mode in its driver to begin with, which isn’t guaranteed.

So for PCAP Capture, Kershaw decided not to support the internal WiFi hardware at all, and instead only support devices using the RTL8187 chipset connected over USB. By implementing the RTL8187′s driver in userspace, the application doesn’t require root, it only needs to be running on an Android device which supports USB host mode.

USB host mode on Android is something of a mixed bag, unfortunately. While technically anything running Android Honeycomb or better should support USB host, hardware variations between manufacturers means that your particular Android device may or may not support USB host even if it has a new enough build of Android.

Generally speaking, Nexus devices such as the Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 7 should work, but devices from other manufacturers will need to be tested on a case-by-case basis.

Demonstration Setup

To perform our capture test with PCAP Capture, we’ll be using the Nexus 7 tablet and the RTL8187 based Alfa AWUS036H WiFi adapter.

Both these pieces of hardware are exceptionally popular in their respective communities; the Nexus 7 being one of the best selling and best supported Android tablets ever released, and the AWUS036H being a common choice for advanced WiFi work under Linux.

While some will certainly bemoan PCAP Capture’s requirement for an RTL8187 WiFi adapter and USB host capable Android device, you can’t really claim either of those requirements are that hard to accommodate.

We’ll also need a USB On-The-Go (OTG) adapter cable, which lets you connect a standard USB device to the Micro-USB port found on most Android tablets and smartphones (such as the Nexus line). These can be had for as little as $1 USD on sites like Amazon.com or eBay.

PCAP Capture Test Setup

As clearly stated by POORCOLLEGEGUY on XDA, it is much more common to see developers working towards bringing use-able roms to devices like the Kindle Fire as opposed to bringing useless ones to old devices.  Either way, it’s cool that this exists and to know that it’s possible.  Heck, I’d even give it a shot if I still had my trusty old Nexus S. The port was managed by XDA senior member GalaxyUser.

He writes in the original thread:

It seems to me that the rom of Kindle Fire has never been ported to any other device!
But this rom is very unstable. For me it was more a challenge to get something booted on the Nexus S. That is why this rom is only for porters / developers but not for daily use.

The port is not perfect however.  Here is a quick list of things that are not yet working — and may never work –.

Camera (there is no camera app and camera from CM does not work
Bluetooth (not present in settings)
SDCard
Sound
Some option in settings
Call
Others things
Reboot because of libaudioflinger

 Source | XDA

While Ingress manages to stand on its own as a well put together and genuinely intriguing game concept, that’s only half the story. The real brilliance behind Ingress is the game’s true purpose, and how Google will leverage its players to do real world research without even realizing it.

Playing Ingress

Ingress is a rather complex game, operating at scale which is difficult to appreciate until you actually get your hands on it.

Current global score in Ingress

But to put it in the most basic terms, there are “Portals” scattered all over the world which need to be captured and defended by one of two factions. Once captured, the Portals are linked to other faction-held points to create a perimeter called a “Field”. The Fields, or more accurately the area they cover, are really the end goal of Ingress; as the only real scoring the game does is calculate how many people on the planet are covered by each faction’s Fields. Essentially, the more surface area of the Earth your faction covers, the higher their score.

Linking together distant Portals to create ever larger Fields is a necessity, which will more than likely require you to ally yourself with other faction members. To that end, Ingress includes a simplistic chat mechanism (something along the lines of IRC) which lets you talk with other faction members at varying distances; you can chose to only speak with allies that are in a 20 kilometer radius, or open yourself up to everyone on the planet.

Planning your strategy when literally the entire planet is your battleground is a bit much to handle on your mobile device, so Google has provided a web-based counterpart to Ingress that allows you to search for and analyze Portals all over the world. With the web tool, you can locate Portals, figure out where the enemy faction is concentrating their efforts, and locate your allies.

These are all functions which, currently, are not possible in the Android application. When playing Ingress on Android, you are only able to see portals which are within a few hundred meters of your current position, which makes finding them fairly frustrating if you aren’t in a metropolitan area.

Portals viewed on the web-only Ingress map

Conversely, you can only search for a few Portals on the web; to actually interact with them you’ll need to pack up your Android device and venture out into the real world. Playing Ingress effectively really requires you to use both your mobile device and a computer, which may be a bit too much of a time investment for some people.

Form Over Function

Ingress In-Game Menu

From a technical standpoint, Ingress is a simple but very visually appealing game. Its user interface and eerie ambient audio are very reminiscent of Introversion Software’s excellent DEFCON, where the game UI manages to be simultaneously simplistic and undeniably high-tech. Think of the way computer hacking is portrayed in Hollywood films, and you should have a pretty good idea of how Ingress looks and feels.

Unfortunately, while the sleek and futuristic look of Ingress is certainly captivating and impressive the first time you play, it quickly looses its luster. Ingress uses things like superfluous loading animations which clearly do nothing more than make the software appear more complex than it actually is. It’s the kind of thing that instantly gets your friends interested when they look over your shoulder, but becomes infuriating when you sit through it every time the game starts.

After a few days of playing, you’ll likely find yourself wishing for a more conventional user experience that was focused on usability rather than something so stylistic. Not to say it’s impossible for the current user interface to become more natural, but there is certainly some work to be done.

Audio is pretty minimal, just some bleeps and bloops when you select items in the menus, though there is a fairly significant amount of high quality voice acting that introduces the game and walks you through a series of training missions.

MIUI’s Logo

A thorn in the side of many free software loving Android users, the Chinese MIUI ROM has long been accused of riding on the success of Android without fully complying with the free and open source licenses which it’s based on. MIUI’s developer, Xiaomi, has managed to cultivate a considerable fanbase for their ROM, adding insult to injury for many opponents. Xioami has even been so bold as to put their own phone into production, running (naturally) their license-violating software.

The idea that an Android spin-off doesn’t comply with the free and open source licenses that made Android possible in the first place, and further, that it is widely used and supported, has upset a sizable portion of the Android community.  As a first step, a petition has recently been started to try and build enough momentum to force Xioami to comply with all appropriate licenses.

License Confusion

One of Android’s biggest draws, at least for the tech savvy crowd, is that it’s released as free and open source software.

Of course, the idea of “open” is thrown around a lot these days, and its getting to the point that the actual meaning seems to be diluted a bit. So it may come as a surprise to many that not all of Android is actually open source, indeed, some components are completely closed. What’s more, the specific licensing of Android means that it doesn’t  necessarily grant you the same freedoms as other FOSS projects.

The core of the issue is that Android is released under the Apache 2.0 License, not the more familiar GNU General Public License. While both are “free software” licenses, the Apache license is what is known as a “permissive” license, which essentially means it doesn’t place as stringent requirements on how the software is distributed going forward.

The GPL requires that all software derived from GPL licensed software also be licensed under the GPL. In other words, if you use free and open source software to make your software, you need to keep the software open going forward. This particular clause in the GPL was intended to help free software grow, and keep anyone from developing proprietary functions and features which couldn’t be replicated by other developers.

But the Apache license is different. It does not require that software based on Apache licensed software actually keep the same license. In fact, you can absolutely take an Apache licensed project, modify it, and then release it as completely closed software.

Essentially, this is exactly what Xioami has done with MIUI. They took the Apache licensed Android, branched it into their own custom mobile operating system, and decided to keep the source closed. Unfortunately, this is completely allowed with the Apache license.

So what’s the problem? The primary issue is that, while Android itself is licensed under Apache, the Linux kernel which it uses is not. Linux is GPL software, so unless Xioami wants to develop a replacement for the Linux side of Android, they need to make their kernel modifications public. While the kernel modifications are only a small part of the modifications Xioami has done to create MIUI, it does include the low-level work Xioami has done to push things like performance and energy efficiency.

OpenMIUI

The petition, currently hosted on the aptly named OpenMIUI.com, is pretty straightforward:

Show your support for the project by signing our petition against Xiaomi for ignoring GPL licensing Kernel and also other elements of MIUI.

Users are then asked for their email address, name, and an optional comment which they want to leave. Once signed up, you’ll be added to a mailing list which will (hopefully) communicate some good news in the future as to OpenMIUI’s progress with the petition.

While this author has never had much faith in online petitions, it’s a good first step in getting the community at large to recognize that Xiaomi hasn’t been playing by the rules with their development of MIUI. With a little luck, it might just get the ball rolling in the right direction.