Month: September 2020

Top 10 tech companies in 2020

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During this tough 2020, some old giants are already bellied up, while the tech companies are developing immunity to COVID-19.

The Tech sector is the driver of the global economy now. 

Let’s see the top 10 tech companies that are ruling the world this 2020. Here you will see e-commerce, media, software, hardware, with massive market capitalization! 

1. Apple Inc.

Apple started the year with a bit more than 1 trillion USD value. By the end of August, it raised to 2.22 trillion USD! 

Co-founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, Apple became a public company (IPO) in 1980.

A strategic vision drove it first to manufacturing desktop computers, and later to mobile devices, tablets, and wearables. Producing popular products with big margins led the brand to success. Currently, ‘services’ is another key to its value.

2. Amazon Inc.

1.74 trillion USD made Amazon the second colossus on this ranking.

Founded by Jeff Bezos (1994) to sell books online, it grew as an e-commerce leader selling pretty much everything. In 1997, it became a public company. 

Diversification has been vital for Amazon, which nowadays is much more than e-commerce. Cloud computing, digital video and music streaming, publishing, film and TV studios, and artificial intelligence (AI) are significant branches.

3. Microsoft Corporation

1.70 trillion USD sent Microsoft to the third position in the top 10 tech companies in 2020.

Created by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975, Microsoft developed user-friendly software for PC. Products such as the MS-DOS operating system and later, Windows, boosted the company, becoming public in 1986. 

Innovation but mostly adaptation, have been its keys to keep expanding through the time, no matter the large number of competitors.

Now Microsoft also means hardware, smart devices, mobiles, apps, games, servers, cloud services, machine learning, and AI. 

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4. Alphabet Inc.

1.11trillion USD placed Alphabet in the fourth spot. It is obvious, because we are talking about Google. Created in 2015, Alphabet became the head on top of Google and many more sub-companies.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded this conglomerate in 1993. Now it is far more than a little search engine. It changed “search for it” to “google it,” and that’s a great success!  

Develop innovative, excellent services, and big acquisitions are the company’s strength that today owns YouTube, GMaps, GApps, GCloud, GVenture, GCapital, and much more.

5. Facebook Inc.

The fifth place in the top 10 tech companies goes for Facebook and its 0.84 trillion USD value.

The social networking company was born in 2004 when officially, Mark Zuckerberg launched it as a website from his university dorm. The site got very popular, and in 2012, Facebook had its IPO.

Daily, an average of 1.79 billion users log into the platform. Its growth, both in terms of users and value, has been massive. To fuel the expansion, Facebook made some significant acquisitions like Instagram, Whatsapp, and Oculus VR.

6. Alibaba Group

A 0.76 trillion USD Asian giant comes on the stage. 

In 1999, Jack Ma and 17 more partners created a website to sell internationally, goods from small Chinese exporters and manufacturers. 

Alibaba arose as an international leader in online and mobile commerce, becoming public in 2014. It was the largest IPO ever! 

Now, Alibaba Group leads online retail, electronic paymentS, shopping search engine services, cloud computing, digital media, entertainment, etc.

7. Tencent Holdings Ltd.

7th place with 0.65 trillion USD goes to another Chinese company.

It was founded in 1998 and rapidly grown as the most used Internet service portal. In 2004, Tencent Holdings Limited went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The conglomerate involves e-commerce, payment systems, social networks, and games. Titles like “League of Legends” and “Fortnite” are globally popular.

8. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC)

A 0.38 trillion USD value leads TSMC to the eighth spot.

Established by Morris Chang (1987) as a foundry business, TSMC became the largest worldwide company dedicated to semiconductors. 

Its chips are present in automotive, electronics, and various industrial equipment. Nvidia, Qualcomm, Intel, and Apple are just a few of its clients.

9. Samsung

0.36 trillion USD is the value of the South Korean Samsung.

Lee Byung-Chull created Samsung (1938) as a grocery trading store. From trading noodles, local goods, later textiles, it jumped to producing the textiles and investing in petrochemical industries.

In 1969, Samsung got into the electronics industry. 

Televisions, home appliances, semiconductors, genetic engineering tools, aerospace, shipbuilding, memory chips, integrated systems, nanotech, smartphones, life insurance… Evolution and expansion, the keys to Samsung’s success.

10. Nvidia Corporation

Closing the top 10 tech companies with Nvidia (0.32 trillion USD).

Jen-Hsun Huang, Christopher Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem founded it in 1993 to create microprocessors for PC’s to empower full-motion video and stereo sound. The computer gaming sector got so interested in its products.

The global graphic processor producer is present in gaming and video edition, apps, data centers, AI, robotics, cryptocurrency mining, self-driving cars, and more.

An intro to PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) in Linux

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PAM is Pluggable Authentication Modules. It is a crucial framework for app and service authorization and authentication. Many Linux distros rely on it. This the reason that it is essential to understand it. 

About PAM for Linux

PAM for Linux is available since 1996. First in Red Hat Linux and later in AIX OS, FreeBSD, Solaris, NetBSD, and macOS. Now you can find in almost any Linux distro.  

It is a centralized mechanism with the purpose of authentication. Use it as an API that facilitates adding new authentication method later on, with an installation of a new PAM module. 

How can PAM help? Programs that need access to a system must be authenticated. As a dev, you can configure them with PAM, for that purpose. There is also a lot of settings for fine-tuning the policies regarding the system. Devs can use it and focus on creating their software and have one less worry.   

Advantages of PAM

Common frame – It is a complete framework that a variety of applications can use easily. 

Adjustability – Both app developers and system administrators have enough control and adjustability. 

Single library – There is a single, very well documented library for the developers. They can use it to write applications and forget the need to develop own authentication method. 

Take a minute to check this article – Why Apple is moving to ARM chips is a huge deal?

Configure PAM in Linux

You can find the configuration file in /etc/pam.conf. There is a directory- /etc/pam.d/ which contains the config. files for every one of the PAM-aware applications or services. If the directory exists, PAM will ignore the file.

What is the syntax of PAM? PAM syntax is this one:

service type control-flag module module-arguments

service: the actual name of application or service.

type: module type/context/interface.

control-flag: Shows what to do if PAM-API module fails with the authentication.

module: the exact filename or pathname of the PAM.

module-arguments: List of tokens for administrating the behavior of each module.

Suntax of each file in /etc/pam.d/:

type control-flag module module-arguments

PAM Management Groups and Control-flags

There are 4 separate management groups for the PAM authentication tasks. They administrate various parts of a users’ requests for restricted services.

A module is related to one of these PAM management group types:

account: Used for account verification: It checks if the user’s password is still valid; if the user has access allowed for the service.

authentication: authenticate the user and check credentials.

password: Works with authentication modules, and it is responsible for the update of users’ passwords.

session: Administrates tasks for the beginning and end of a session.

The modules (PAM loadable object files) are located in one of these directories: /lib/security/ or /lib64/security, depending on if the OS is 32bit or 64bit.

The Control-flags are:

requisite: If it fails, it returns to the application and showing the nature of the module fail.

required: all of the modules must succeed for libpam to return success to the application.

sufficient: if all previous modules have succeeded, then the success of the current module will return successfully to the application (failure of this module is ignored).

optional: the fail or success of the particular module will not be recorded.

If you are interested in PAM, I recommend you to check these two links:

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/system-level_authentication_guide/pluggable_authentication_modules

https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-pam.html

First is from Red Hat, the second from NetBsd. Both have a lot of useful infromation.

Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluggable_authentication_module

https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/pluggable-authentication-modules-pam

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/system-level_authentication_guide/pluggable_authentication_modules

https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-pam.html

http://web.mit.edu/rhel-doc/5/RHEL-5-manual/Deployment_Guide-en-US/ch-pam.html

What’s new in Android 11?

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It’s been a year since Android 10, and it is time for Google to show us the latest version – Android 11. It should be released in Q3 of 2020, probably around mid-September 2020. Let’s not waste time and just right into the new features and updates of Android 11. 

What’s new in Android 11? 

Android is already very feature-rich, but you will see some slight improvements that are worth mentioning. This is the list of new features and changes that we are going to see very soon: 

  1. Built-in screen recording. Finally, we will have the chance to take not only screenshots, but also videos without third-party apps. This is a useful feature for the mobile gamer who wants to upload gameplay videos or even for an average consumer who wants to show a step-by-step guide for their elder. 
  2. Mute notifications while a video is on. No more beep sounds when you are Netflixing. We were desperately waiting for this one for years. You can also enjoy online videos without annoying notification from social media apps. 
  3. Increased touch sensitivity. This feature can help Android users who like to put extremely strong screen protectors. Small upgrade, but it can improve the overall feeling.
  4. Notification history. Now, if you dismissed a notification, you can still be able to find it in the history of all notifications. The notifications are a mess for a long time. At least now you can search inside them easily. 
  5. App permissions auto-revoke. Google will auto-revoke permissions like microphone, camera, etc. of apps, that you haven’t used in a while. A clever little feature that I like. 
  6. COVID 19 Exposure Notification API. Not sure if this will be really helpful, but there it is. Devs will be able to use the API for COVID-19 apps. Probably it won’t be used at all, but at least it was a nice PR move. 

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Small updates:

  • Updated power menu
  • New screenshot interface
  • Revamped menus and shortcuts
  • Quick “select text” button in the overview menu
  • The media player moves from the notifications to quick settings – it is a bit more comfortable there, I must admit. 
  • Airplane mode keeps Bluetooth on – Perfect for those who use Bluetooth headphones. Maybe bad for the airplanes? Who knows.  
  • Better voice access capabilities allow you to perform actions with your voice in a natural way. Now you can directly say the function, instead of saying the number on the screen that correspond. 
  • Chat bubbles will be more present. You are probably familiar with it. Facebook use it for a long time.  
  • Separate icons for different 5g networks. Because up until now, everything was showing 5g even if it is actually 4g
  • Auto-activated dark mode depending on the time of the day. 
  • One-time permissions for apps. iOS has this from some time already. Now Android 11 caught up.

What I am missing still

These are a few new features that I want from Google:

  • Screenshot feature. It is so lovely to be able to make a panoramic-like screenshot of a complete web page and read it later. Also, you can use it to save a whole chat with somebody. 
  • Desktop mode. This is a very niche desire, but I would really like to have a desktop mode. That way I can use my mobile when I am on holiday, with whatever screen there is in the hotel. 

We are currently in Android 11 Beta 3, so we can expect almost all of these new features to stay in the final version. We are just a few days away until Google releases it. 

5 types of Apps you shouldn’t download on your smartphone

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In the last years, all sorts of apps have been developed to make “our life easy”. Some useful, others very pointless, but all push us to install them on our smartphones. 

The problem is, many just occupy storage space, worsen the general performance of your device, drain battery, and wants your personal data! 

Keyboard

Third-party keyboards have tempted many users with better auto-correction, smart reply, nicer interface, and “for free” signs!

Well, you don’t give money, but you painfully pay!

Through the keyboard, we access pretty much to everything: typing passwords, personal data, credit card numbers, conversations with clients, family, friends. Everything could get registered in the app. Do you trust the developers with all of that?!

Battery savers and fast charging

All users want their device to last longer, reduce the power drain, and charge the device without waiting hours. That’s why such apps sound very attractive, but they don’t work.

What actually helps is to reduce the use and quit all running services and apps in the background because they continuously use power. Those apps need to close applications and keep them closed. They will need root access for that, and they don’t have it. 

Fast charging driven by an app is also false. Apps can order specific functions to devices, but they can’t manage the independent voltage/current controller that every battery has.

The charger also has a power output limit that an app can’t change. 

These are apps you shouldn’t download because they will consume extra space, energy, and sometimes, a lot of data. 

Social networking

Yes, currently, many users can’t live without social networking apps. But the space they take is massive, the amount of energy they use, invasive permissions, data consumption, and risks for your info are crazy. Especially Facebook.

Just having the Facebook app installed can significantly affect the performance of your mobile. Suppose you add more apps like this, plus the ones you use to work, exercise, banking, etc. You are really shortening the life of your battery.

You don’t need to quit. Just use it from the browser instead of the app version. Sites won’t take your device resources once closed.

RAM Optimizers

Each application needs RAM. It keeps temporary files there. Sometimes even after it is turned off. What RAM optimizers and RAM savers promise is to close the applications and remove all their temporary files from the RAM. Some apps can do it, but you can do it too. Just open the multi-task window and close some apps manually. If you need some extra RAM for an app, this is fast and easy. 

Remember that Android and iOS themselves have features to manage the use of RAM automatically too.

So such an app will just do the same as the OS already does.

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Cleaning utilities 

Another kind of apps you shouldn’t download because they just will take you memory, energy, and in some cases, private data from your device.

They say they clean pointless files to free space to boost the device’s performance by cooling it down, saving battery, and other marvels.

It is true that every mobile has cached data from the apps. The good news is that it can be effectively deleted without a third-party app. If you go to settings, you just need to tap the Clean Cached Data in General or delete a specific app’s cached data.

Wrap up

These are apps you shouldn’t download, but apps are more present every day, so it is not to avoid them totally but to look for the safest. 

Always get apps from well-known app stores like Google Play Store or Apple App store. Choose apps from known developers. Check the pros and cons, and don’t forget the users’ reviews. They can be extremely helpful. When installing an app, I’m always very cautious. If it demands access to the mic, camera, contacts, location, files (image/video), etc. without an apparent reason, I put it in my Apps you shouldn’t download list.

Access to my personal data is a “price”, I’m not willing to pay.