ZTE’s impressive new all metal Axon is available to buy for $449.98. You can purchase the Axon from ZTE themselves or eBay, Amazon, and Newegg. The Axon comes with a two year warranty and a “free” set of $49 headphones if you buy now. It’s a lot of phone for a few hundred less than the competition.
Disturbed by the difficulties of preserving user default app preferences when upgrading to Windows 10, CEO of Mozilla Chris Beard has written to Microsoft urging them to reconsider their business tactics. He has requested that Microsoft respects people’s right to choice if they wish to use a product not provided by them.
The Note 4 never had the fastest Recents Menu, and despite its 3GB of RAM, its app-holding capabilities only got worse on Lollipop. The infamous RAM bug that plagued the S6 is indeed an annoyance on the Note 4’s 5.0.X ROMs. Rumors of an update to fix all of this were confirmed with the first reports of the 5.1.1 update for the Russian Note 4, which seemingly improved the Recents Menu and RAM.
But it’ll be a long time before every region and every carrier variant receives this version, and until then, we are left with few ways to fix this. The Galaxy S6 saw its RAM fixed with a simple build.prop edit. It turns out that the fix can be ported to the Note 4 as well, practically line-by-line, to achieve a very similar effect plus extra optimization. You can find a guide on how to do it on this XDA thread, which took after this Reddit thread. I suggest you read both threads before jumping in, but you will see that applying the fix is rather easy:
All you need is a build.prop editor, such as the one found on ROM Toolbox Lite. Alternatively, you can use other text editors. This fix has been confirmed to work on both the Snapdragon and Exynos variants (although with slightly different results) and on multiple ROMs, but nevertheless make sure to make a backup. Also, make sure to read both threads. After that, you should go into the editing mode of your build.prop editor and scroll down to the #DHA Properties section. There, you must edit this line like this:
ro.config.dha_empty_max=36
And then add the following:
ro.config.dha_cached_max=12
ro.config.dha_th_rate=2.3
ro.config.dha_lmk_scale=0.545
ro.config.sdha_apps_bg_max=70
ro.config.sdha_apps_bg_min=8
ro.config.oomminfree_high=7628,9768,11909,14515,16655,20469
If you do not have #DHA Properties nor any of the lines featured above, you can add all of the lines at the bottom of the file. Once you are done, hit the save button and reboot. Alternatively, XDA Senior Member Near_07 provided users with a flashable zip to make the process easier. I have tried both methods and they both worked flawlessly on my SM-910T running TEKodus ROM.
Users report two main benefits: 1. The Recents Menu opens up much, much faster. and 2. The phone feels smoother overall. Now, we all know that there are many “placebo” build.prop edits out there, but I can vouch for this one: my Note 4’s Recents Menu opens up significantly faster and practically instantly, and the phone does seem a little smoother and faster than before. I can’t guarantee you the latter claim will be absolutely true for your device, but my experience matches those of the many users in the previously mentioned threads.
Finally, RAM management is claimed to be improved, but user reports suggest that it works better on the Exynos variants, and the SM-N910C seems to be the poster-boy of this fix. That being said, the tweak made my T-Mobile (Snapdragon) Note 4 slightly better, but I did not see significant benefits as far as keeping apps in memory goes (it still seems to only hold around 8 applications).
Did you know about this fix? Did it work for you? Let us know below!
Apps are at the front and center of any smartphone experience, and with over a million apps on the Google Play Store and new apps being submitted to our forums every day, staying up to date on the latest apps and games can be a hassle. At XDA we don’t discriminate apps – if it’s interesting, innovative, original or useful, we mention them. The XDA Portal Team loves apps too, and here are our top picks for this week.
Notable Updates:
That is it for this week. We hope that you might have found some of these apps as interesting, useful or entertaining as we did. Whether you are a student, a developer, a designer or a gamer, Android has you covered. We will try to reflect that each week with a variety of picks to spark your interest, and if you see (or publish!) any new apps that you think are worthy of a feature, be sure to send us a tip and we’ll give it a look. Until next time!
Notable leaker @evleaks has released render images of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 as well as Galaxy S6 Edge Plus. Along with these, he also gave us specifications of the Note 5, which includes an Exynos 7420 octa core SoC, 5.66″ QHD display, 4GB of RAM with 32GB Internal storage but no micro sd card support.
Editor’s note: This week’s feature has been written by forum member RowHanSolo and takes a look at the exciting prospect of launching satellites fitted with little more than an Android phone as an onboard computer. From a university to NASA, multiple projects like this have launched!
Technology is an ever-growing industry, regardless of which corner you look at. However, each area of technology has its limitations on what it can do and how far it can expand. For satellite technology, that limitation is space. Now when I say space I don’t mean the vast void of the universe, I mean the orbital space around our planet.
We rely on the array of satellites shooting around our planet for much of what we do. No doubt, every one of you has a mobile phone or tablet that requires these satellites; whether it be for GPS navigation, messaging or even internet. There are 6 billion mobile phones currently active in the world; that’s certainly a lot of satellite coverage for mobile phones alone, never mind the satellites we use for other purposes. This leads to about 1100 active satellites, both private and public, and over 2500 decommissioned satellites all orbiting the Earth. Now that is a lot of space. So how do we fix this? The answer may come from one of the causes of satellite crowding and, as I’ve said, you all most likely own one: mobile phones.
You see, as the mobile phone industry has grown, the hardware and software incorporated into each device has expanded. Current mobiles all now contain magnetometers, accelerometers, gyroscopes, cameras, a power supply and, of course, a processor; all the equipment necessary for a basic satellite.
A couple of teams of researchers in the scientific community took advantage of this and started two projects; NASA’s PhoneSat and The University of Surrey space research centre’s (SSC), in association with SSTL (Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.), STRaND-1.
STRanD-1 is a 3U CubeSat that launched in 2013. Despite being launched two years ago it is still functioning, despite only being powered by a Google Nexus One and still running Android OS.
Not only was STRaND-1 the first nano-satellite to be run by an off-the-shelf smartphone, it also picked up a number of other firsts in the process. Alongside the equipment provided by the smartphone, such as a camera, accelerometers and radio links, the satellite also has two different types of experimental propulsion systems; a WARP DRIVE (Water Alcohol Resistojet Propulsion Deorbit Reentry Velocity Experiment)* and electric Pulsed Plasma Thrusters (PPTs). Both of these propulsion systems are the first to be used on a nano-satellite. The satellite is also flying with amateur radion 9600 bps AX.25 packet radio downlink on 437.568 MHz to allow for effective communication and tracking of the satellite and a 3D printed part, believed to be the first used in space. The telemetry information and tracking is monitored by AMSAT-UK.
At this point in time the project is in Phase 2. This means that now all control of the satellite is being run by the Nexus One at its heart. Furthermore, the phone is also running four additional apps designed and made by the public. While still under construction, the team at SSC ran a FaceBook competition to find these apps, and these were the four winning apps:
iTESA – This app utilizes the phone’s magnetometer, usually used to determine the orientation of the phone, to measure and record the magnetic field around the phone. This data could be used as proof of principle for principles such as Alfven waves (Magnetic oscillations in the upper atmosphere).
The STRaND Data app – Installed on the satellite is a second camera, external to the phone, that faces the screen. The app displays the telemetry information of the satellite on the phone’s screen in graphical representations. Not only will this prove that a standard smartphone screen is durable enough to withstand the harshness of space, but will also allow us to interpret trends from new graphical telemetry.
The 360 app – Using a combination of the smartphone camera and the other equipment on the satellite, this app determines the position of the satellite over Earth. Images can also be requested to be taken from the satellite via an online site and then shown on a map of where they were taken (http://ift.tt/11rVuhj).
Scream in Space – This app is set to test the popular theory from the Sci-Fi film Alien (1979) that in space, no one can hear you scream. The public are encouraged to record themselves screaming in many different ways and upload it to a website, where the most popular videos will then be uploaded to the satellite and played through the phone’s speakers. The phone’s mic will then attempt to re-record the scream.
Unlike STRaND-1, PhoneSat was not equipped with any propulsion systems and as such, the mission was much shorter. However, the PhoneSat mission was comprised of three satellites. The orbits of the satellites decayed after about one week, but this was enough time to achieve NASA’s mission objectives. The main objective of the PhoneSat mission was simply to prove that a satellite built from Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products could survive and operate in the harshness of space. Of the three satellites that were launched, there were two different models, Graham and Bell. Two Graham models and one Bell were launched into orbit on the maiden voyage of the Antares launch vehicle on April 21st 2013.
Graham is the PhoneSat 1.0 base model. Like STRaND-1, it is powered by a Nexus One running Google’s Android 2.3.3. As well as the phone, the satellite contains an accelerometer, magnetometer and a StenSat radio at 437.425 MHz. The radio transmissions sent small data packets containing images taken from the smartphone camera to amature radio operaters and tracking stations around the world, where they were then sent to the NASA Ames Research Centre. Here they stitched the data packets back into complete images.
Bell is the PhoneSat 1.0 (Graham) model but with one addition, an Iridium transceiver mounted on one end. The purpose of the Iridium experiment was to send data packet to the Iridium satellite constellation** which were then sent via email to NASA.
NASA are currently working on a new beta model of the PhoneSat. Alexander is the beta PhoneSat 2.0. On top of the suite of equipment carried on Graham, Alexander has some additions and improvements. Firstly, Alexander carries a Nexus S, as opposed to the Nexus One, running Android 2.3.3. It also comes with a router, solar panels to charge the phone battery and magnetic torquers*** to reduce the spin rate of the satellite to no less than 5dps (degrees per second). The mission objectives of Alexander, when launched, will be to turn on, charge its batteries and send sensor data.
Now, both of these projects were made with, now outdated, Android phones. There have been many advancements in Android technology over just a couple of years; improved magnetometers, more efficient batteries and more powerful processors, higher resolution cameras and much more. The satellites we could build out of these more advanced devices can be incredible. And if you’re thinking ‘but what about the price tag?’ bear in mind that the PhoneSat 1.0 cost just $3,500 to make by being built out of COTS. Now this is a quite bit of money but compared to the average cost of a normal satellite, around 200 million US dollars, it’s mere pennies and something that could easily be financed by a few like-minded enthusiasts.
In a world where technology appears to be getting bigger and better, maybe the answer to some of the problems this causes is to utilize the smaller ‘commercial’ advances.
For more information on the STRaND-1 project head over to here,
For telemetry information about the STRaND-1 visit this site,
Online live tracking of STRaND-1 is available here,
More information on the PhoneSat project can be found here.
This article was part of our series “Voices of XDA”. The new articles you will start to see under “Voices” are entirely thought of and written by you, the members of XDA. If you have an idea for an article you would like to write, you can find more information here and apply here.
The incredibly affordable Alcatel Onetouch Idol 3 is even more affordable right now, provided you’re interested in the Alcatel Onetouch watch. Currently you can buy both in a bundle for $299.99. The phone is already a great device at a great price, and regularly will set you back $249, so for just $50 more you can have the watch too!
