An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Valve has posted an official teardown of its upcoming handheld gaming PC, the Steam Deck. Before diving into the teardown, though, the company spends about a minute to strongly caution against taking one apart unless you're sure you know what you're doing. "Even though it's your PC -- or it will be once you've received your Steam Deck -- and you have every right to open it up and do what you want, we at Valve really don't recommend that you ever open it up," a Valve representative said in the video. "The Steam Deck is a very tightly designed system, and the parts are chosen carefully for this product with its specific construction, so they aren't really designed to be user-swappable." Despite its warnings, however, the company likely understands that people are going to take the Steam Deck apart anyway, so this video could be a handy resource for people who are considering doing so.

In the video, Valve shows how to swap out two parts of the system. First, Valve shows how to replace the thumbsticks. The company cautions that they are completely custom, but says that it will offer a source for "replacement parts, thumbsticks, SSDs, and possibly more" in the coming months. After that, Valve shows how to swap out the SSD, which could be helpful for people who may have reserved the cheapest version of the device with an eMMC hard drive with the intention of upgrading it themselves. Be aware that all versions of the Steam Deck use an m.2 connector, including the version with the eMMC drive, so if you plan to make a swap, you're going to have to reinstall the OS and bring over any games you might have had loaded on your other drive.

Microsoft has published a new support webpage where they provide an official method to bypass the TPM 2.0 and CPU checks (TPM 1.2 is still required) and have Windows 11 installed on unsupported systems. Bleeping Computer reports: [I]t looks like Microsoft couldn't ignore the fact that bypassing TPM checks is fairly simple, so to avoid having people breaking their systems by using non-standardized third-party scripts, they decided to just give users an official way to do it. Installing Windows 11 on unsupported hardware comes with some pitfalls that users must be aware of, and in some cases, agree to before the operating system will install. "Your device might malfunction due to these compatibility or other issues. Devices that do not meet these system requirement will no longer be guaranteed to receive updates, including but not limited to security updates," Microsoft explains in a new support bulletin. [Y]ou will still require a TPM 1.2 security processor, which many will not likely have. If you are missing a TPM 1.2 processor, you can bypass all TPM checks by using this script that deletes appraiser.dll during setup. To use the new AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU bypass to install Windows 11 on devices, Microsoft instructs you to perform the following steps:

1. Please read all of these instructions before continuing. 2. Visit the Windows 11 software download page, select "Create tool now," and follow the installation instructions to create a bootable media or download an ISO. 3. On Windows, click 'Start', type 'Registry Editor' and click on the icon to launch the tool. 4. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup Registry key and create a new "REG_DWORD" value named "AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU" and set it to "1". Alternatively, you can download a premade Registry file that you can double-click on and merge it to create the above value for you. 5. Reboot your system

Having done all that, you may now upgrade to Windows 11 by double-clicking on the downloaded ISO file and running Setup.exe or by using the bootable Windows 11 media you created in Step 1. Microsoft states that standard installation options such as 'Full Upgrade', 'Keep Data Only', and 'Clean Install', will all be available as usual.

AMD said Windows 11 can cut game performance on Ryzen CPUs by 10 to 15 percent, and the operating system may not utilize AMD's "preferred core" technology, but a fix is in the works. PCWorld reports: A support note on AMD's web site published this week said Windows 11 may increase L3 cache latency a whopping threefold, which can cause slowdowns in latency sensitive applications. Lighter duty, cache-sensitive games might see a 3 percent to 5 percent hit, and lighter-duty games as e-sports titles could see frame rates drop from 10 to 15 percent. AMD also said its "preferred core" feature, which tells the operating system which core in each CPU can hit the highest clock, also doesn't work right in Windows 11. Each CPU is tested to see which core will run the fastest at the factory and is marked so the OS will dispatch tasks to that "preferred core." Since Windows 11 doesn't seem to work with it right now, any performance bump from using the best core wouldn't happen. The company said the performance cost would be most noticeable in CPUs with more than 8 cores and with TDP ratings above 65 watts.

In a significant departure from previous years, Google today rolled out Android 12 to AOSP but did not launch any devices, including Pixel phones. "Today we're pushing the source to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and officially releasing the latest version of Android," [said Dave Burke, VP of Engineering, in a blog post. "Keep an eye out for Android 12 coming to a device near you starting with Pixel in the next few weeks and Samsung Galaxy, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Tecno, Vivo, and Xiaomi devices later this year." 9to5Google reports: Traditionally, the AOSP launch of the next version of Android coincides with day one availability for Google phones. That is not the case this year, with Google only revealing that Pixel phones can expect an update in the "next few weeks." Google says over 225,000 people tested Android 12 over the course of the developer previews and betas. [...] Google officially highlights four Android 12 tentpoles for developers as part of today's AOSP availability. This starts with a "new UI for Android" that incorporates Material You (referred to today as "Material Design 3"), redesigned widgets, Notification UI updates, and App launch splash screens.

In terms of "Performance," Google says it has "reduced the CPU time used by core system services by 22% and the use of big cores by 15%." We've also improved app startup times and optimized I/O for faster app loading, and for database queries we've improved CursorWindow by as much as 49x for large windows. "More responsive notifications" are achieved by restricting notification trampolines, with Google Photos launching 34% faster after this change. Other changes include Optimized foreground services, Performance classes for devices, and Faster machine learning. "Privacy" is led by the new Settings Dashboard, the ability to only grant apps Approximate location, and a new Nearby devices permission for setting up wearables and other smart home accessories without granting location access. There are also the microphone and camera indicators/toggles. Developers can take advantage of "Better user experience tools" like new APIs to better support rounded screen corners, rich content insertion, AVIF images, enhanced haptics, and new camera/sensor effects. There's also Compatible media transcoding, better debugging, and an Android 12 for Games push.

Windows 11 is now officially available to download. While Microsoft is launching Windows 11-powered hardware worldwide on October 5th, the company has made the OS update available early for eligible devices in New Zealand and beyond. From a report: If you've purchased a Windows 10 machine recently, that means you should be able to upgrade to Windows 11 right now. For everyone else, the rollout of Windows 11 will be gradual. Microsoft says existing Windows 10 devices that are eligible for the Windows 11 upgrade will start to be able to upgrade today, but it will be mostly new hardware that will receive the upgrade immediately. Microsoft says, "We expect all eligible Windows 10 devices to be offered the upgrade to Windows 11 by mid-2022."

Oracle's Java magazine takes a look at some current JDK Enhancement Proposals, "the vehicle of long standing for updating the Java language and the JVM." Today, concurrency in Java is delivered via nonlightweight threads, which are, for all intents, wrappers around operating-system threads... Project Loom aims to deliver a lighter version of threads, called virtual threads. In the planned implementation, a virtual thread is programmed just as a thread normally would be, but you specify at thread creation that it's virtual. A virtual thread is multiplexed with other virtual threads by the JVM onto operating system threads. This is similar in concept to Java's green threads in its early releases and to fibers in other languages... Because the JVM has knowledge of what your task is doing, it can optimize the scheduling. It will move your virtual thread (that is, the task) off the OS thread when it's idle or waiting and intelligently move some other virtual thread onto the OS thread. When implemented correctly, this allows many lightweight threads to share a single OS thread. The benefit is that the JVM, rather than the OS, schedules your task. This difference enables application-aware magic to occur behind the curtains...

Project Valhalla aims to improve performance as it relates to access to data items... by introducing value types, which are a new form of data type that is programmed like objects but accessed like primitives. Specifically, value types are data aggregates that contain only data (no state) and are not mutable. By this means, [value types] can be stored as a single array with only a single header field for the entire array and direct access to the individual fields...

Project Panama simplifies the process of connecting Java programs to non-Java components. In particular, Panama aims to enable straightforward communication between Java applications and C-based libraries...

Several Amber subprojects are still in progress.

Sealed classes, which have been previewed in the last few Java releases and are scheduled to be finalized in Java 17. Sealed classes (and interfaces) can limit which other classes or interfaces can extend or implement them...

Pattern matching in switches is a feature that will be previewed in Java 17...
The article concludes that Java's past and current projects "testify to how much Java has evolved and how actively the language and runtime continue to evolve."

Security researchers have found a massive malware operation that has infected more than 10 million Android smartphones across more than 70 countries since at least November 2020 and is making millions of dollars for its operators on a monthly basis. The Record reports: Discovered by mobile security firm Zimperium, the new GriftHorse malware has been distributed via benign-looking apps uploaded on the official Google Play Store and on third-party Android app stores. If users install any of these malicious apps, GriftHorse starts peppering users with popups and notifications that offer various prizes and special offers. Users who tap on these notifications are redirected to an online page where they are asked to confirm their phone number in order to access the offer. But, in reality, users are subscribing themselves to premium SMS services that charge over $35 per month, money that are later redirected into the GriftHorse operators' pockets.

Zimperium researchers Aazim Yaswant & Nipun Gupta, who have been tracking the GriftHorse malware for months, described it as "one of the most widespread campaigns the zLabs threat research team has witnessed in 2021." Based on what they've seen until now, the researchers estimated that the GriftHorse gang is currently making between $1.5 million to $4 million per month from their scheme.

Thomas Claburn writes via The Register: Microsoft Exchange clients like Outlook have been supplying unprotected user credentials if you ask in a particular way since at least 2016. Though aware of this, Microsoft's advice continues to be that customers should communicate only with servers they trust. On August 10, 2016, Marco van Beek, managing director at UK-based IT consultancy Supporting Role, emailed the Microsoft Security Response Center to disclose an Autodiscover exploit that worked with multiple email clients, including Microsoft Outlook. "Basically, I have discovered that it is extremely easy to get access to Exchange (and therefore Active Directory) user passwords in plain text," he wrote. "It doesn't necessarily require any breach of corporate security, and at its most secure, is only as secure as file level access to the corporate website." His proof-of-concept exploit code, which affected Outlook (both Mac and PC), default email apps for Android and iOS, Apple Mail for Mac OS X, and others, consisted of 11 lines of PHP, though he insisted the exploit probably could have been reduced to three lines.

Microsoft acknowledged on August 11, 2016, that it had reproduced the issue in van Beek's report. Then on August 30, 2016, the Windows titan responded to van Beek by saying the report doesn't describe a genuine vulnerability: "Our security engineers and product team have reviewed this report and determined that it is not a security issue to be serviced as part of our monthly Patch Tuesday process. 'Never accept an SSL certificate without a matching host name' is already recommended for clients in the doc cited by your report: [link]. Before you send a request to a candidate, make sure it is trustworthy. Remember that you're sending the user's credentials, so it's important to make sure that you're only sharing them with a server you can trust. At a minimum, you should verify: That the endpoint is an HTTPS endpoint. Client applications should not authenticate or send data to a non-SSL endpoint. That the SSL certificate presented by the server is valid and from a trusted authority."

"This response casually forgets to consider that a hacked web server still retains a perfectly valid certificate -- it just happens to use that trusted tunnel to serve up problems," said van Beek. "Also, I have only found one Exchange client so far which actually checks the hostname against the certificate, which is Microsoft's own test tool." Van Beek said he thought it was incredible that Microsoft confirmed the behavior he reported within hours but does not consider it to be a problem. He suggested three mitigations: changing the order of operations so that DNS gets checked first; never accepting an SSL certificate without a matching host name; and reviewing why and when clients respond to authentication requests. When asked if the company plans to take any steps to address credential exposure and whether it believes its guidance adequately addresses the problem, a Microsoft spokesperson said: "We are continuing to investigate the specific scenario shared by the researcher."

"2021 Is the Year of Linux on the Desktop," writes PC Magazine. "No, really..." Walk into any school now, and you'll see millions of Linux machines. They're called Chromebooks. For a free project launched 30 years ago today by one man in his spare time, it's an amazing feat.... Linux found its real niche — not as a political statement about "free software," but as a practical way to enable capable, low-cost machines for millions...

Chrome OS and Android are both based on the Linux kernel. They don't have the extra GNU software that distributions like Ubuntu have, but they're descended from Linus Torvalds' original work. Chromebooks are the fastest growing segment of the traditional PC market, according to Canalys. IDC points out that Canalys' estimates of 12 million Chromebooks shipped in Q1 2021 are only a fraction of the 63 million notebooks sold that quarter, but once again, they're where the growth is. Much of that is driven by schools, where Chromebooks dominate now. Schoolkids don't generally need a million apps' worth of generic computing power. They need inexpensive, rugged ways to log into Google Classroom. Linux came to the rescue, enabling cheap, light, easy-to-manage PCs that don't have the Swiss Army Knife cruft of Windows or the premium price of Macs...

One great thing about open-source hacker projects is that they can be taken in unexpected directions. Linux isn't controlled, so it can adapt, Darwinian-style. It was a little scurrying mammal in the time of the dinosaurs, and then the mobile-computing asteroid hit. Linux could evolve. Windows couldn't. When you're building something that fits in your hand and has to sip battery, you can't just keep throwing processors and storage at it. Microsoft had a tough time adapting its monstrous megakernel OS to the new, tiny world. But *nix platforms thrive there: Android (based on Linux) and iOS.
"Android and Chrome water down the Linux philosophy," the article argues, "but they are Linux..."

Does this make any long-time geeks feel vindicated? In the original submission wiredog (Slashdot reader #43,288) looks back to 1995, remembering that "my first Linux was RedHat 2.0 in the beige box, running the 0.95(?) kernel and the F Virtual Window Manager...

"It came with 2 books, a CD, and a boot floppy disk."

"Asahi Linux for Apple M1 Macs is moving closer to reality," writes Slashdot reader TroysBucket.

An Asahi developer posted a detailed status update on Twitter. Linux enthusiast Bryan Lunduke offers this succinct summary:

- The Asahi Linux team has Linux (Debian, in this case) booting and usable with network support.

- They now have (very early) display drivers which "take full advantage of the display hardware."

- They have at least two base distributions — both Arch and Debian — working and functional (to some extent).

They also have, according to their latest update, "boot picker" support so that you can manually select which OS / Drive to boot from on the M1 Macs... I, for one, can't wait to see the first public, functional release of Asahi Linux — and will be following it extremely closely.

Yesterday after releasing new Windows 11 builds in the Dev and Beta channels, Insiders reported that their Start Menu and taskbar were crashing. As it turned out, it was caused by Windows 11 delivering ads, as was reported by Daniel Aleksandersen, who dug into the issue. XDA Developers reports: First of all, Microsoft did publish a fix. [If your PC is in an unusable state and you're reading this in an effort to get out of it, the article includes a step-by-step guide to fix the problem.] The ad itself is for Microsoft Teams, and how it's integrated into Windows 11. As with most of the ads that are injected into Windows, this should still pop up as a notification even if you have all notifications turned off.

While we know the cause, the bigger question that Aleksandersen dives into is how the Windows 11 shell can be so fragile that ads can crash it. Windows in 2021 has a ton of components in it that have to grab content from the cloud at any given time, from the Bing lockscreen wallpaper to Windows Update to advertisements that come from Microsoft. It's pretty wild that when one of them isn't functioning correctly, this could happen. There are clearly two issues here. One is that a cloud service can break Windows 11. The other is that Microsoft is injecting ads into the OS in the first place, a sure pain point for many. One thing is for sure; Microsoft isn't going to scale back on its advertisements in Windows any time soon. Instead, it's just going to fix the glitch, and if that makes you draw a parallel to Office Space, that's fine too.

In mid-July this year, Texas-based software provider SolarWinds released an emergency security update to patch a zero-day in its Serv-U file transferring technology that was being exploited in the wild. From a report: At the time, SolarWinds did not share any details about the attacks and only said that it learned of the bug from Microsoft's security team. In a blog post on Thursday, Microsoft revealed more details about the July attacks. The company said the zero-day was the work of a new threat actor the company was tracking as DEV-0322, which Microsoft described as "a group operating out of China, based on observed victimology, tactics, and procedures." Microsoft said the group targeted SolarWinds Serv-U servers "by connecting to the open SSH port and sending a malformed pre-auth connection request," which allowed DEV-0322 operators to run malicious code on the targeted system and take over vulnerable devices. The OS maker did not go into details about what the intruders did once they breached a target. It is unclear if the hackers were interested in cyber-espionage and intelligence collection or if DEV-0322 was a run-of-the-mill crypto-mining gang.

Microsoft won't ship support for Android apps on Windows 11 in time for the operating system's launch on October 5th. While Android apps running on Windows 11 is one of the big new features of the OS, Microsoft will only start previewing this feature in the coming months. From a report: "We look forward to continuing our journey to bring Android apps to Windows 11 and the Microsoft Store through our collaboration with Amazon and Intel; this will start with a preview for Windows Insiders over the coming months," says Aaron Woodman, general manager of Windows marketing at Microsoft.

Microsoft is announcing today that it won't block people from installing Windows 11 on most older PCs. While the software maker has recommended hardware requirements for Windows 11 -- which it's largely sticking to -- a restriction to install the OS will only be enforced when you try to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 through Windows Update. From a report: This means anyone with a PC with an older CPU that doesn't officially pass the upgrade test can still go ahead and download an ISO file of Windows 11 and install the OS manually. Microsoft announced its Windows 11 minimum hardware requirements in June, and made it clear that only Intel 8th Gen and beyond CPUs were officially supported. Microsoft now tells us that this install workaround is designed primarily for businesses to evaluate Windows 11, and that people can upgrade at their own risk as the company can't guarantee driver compatibility and overall system reliability. Microsoft won't be recommending or advertising this method of installing Windows 11 to consumers.

On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds, then a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland, sent a message to the comp.os.minix newsgroup soliciting feature suggestions for a free Unix-like operating system he was developing as a hobby. Thirty years later, that software, now known as Linux, is everywhere. From a report: It dominates the supercomputer world, with 100 per cent market share. According to Google, the Linux kernel is at the heart of more than three billion active devices running Android, the most-used operating system in the world. Linux also powers the vast majority of web-facing servers Netcraft surveyed. It is even used more than Microsoft Windows on Microsoft's own Azure cloud. And then there are the embedded electronics and Internet-of-Things spaces, and other areas.

Linux has failed to gain traction among mainstream desktop users, where it has a market share of about 2.38 per cent, or 3.59 per cent if you include ChromeOS, compared to Windows (73.04 per cent) and macOS (15.43 per cent). But the importance of Linux has more to do with the triumph of an idea: of free, open-source software. "It cannot be overstated how critical Linux is to today's internet ecosystem," Kees Cook, security and Linux kernel engineer at Google, told The Register via email. "Linux currently runs on everything from the smartphone we rely on everyday to the International Space Station. To rely on the internet is to rely on Linux." The next 30 years of Linux, Cook contends, will require the tech industry to work together on security and to provide more resources for maintenance and testing.

If you plan on unlocking the bootloader to root your Galaxy Z Flip 3 or Galaxy Z Fold 3 -- Samsung's two newest foldabes announced earlier this month, you should know that the Korean OEM will disable the cameras. Technically, this has only been confirmed for the Galaxy Z Fold 3, but the Galaxy Z Flip 3 likely has similar restrictions. XDA Developers reports: According to XDA Senior Members [...], the final confirmation screen during the bootloader unlock process on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 mentions that the operation will cause the camera to be disabled. Upon booting up with an unlocked bootloader, the stock camera app indeed fails to operate, and all camera-related functions cease to function, meaning that you can't use facial recognition either. Anything that uses any of the cameras will time out after a while and give errors or just remain dark, including third-party camera apps.

It is not clear why Samsung chose the way on which Sony walked in the past, but the actual problem lies in the fact that many will probably overlook the warning and unlock the bootloader without knowing about this new restriction. Re-locking the bootloader does make the camera work again, which indicates that it's more of a software-level obstacle. With root access, it could be possible to detect and modify the responsible parameters sent by the bootloader to the OS to bypass this restriction. However, according to ianmacd, Magisk in its default state isn't enough to circumvent the barrier.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Google's ambitions in the car led to Android Auto being redesigned a couple of years ago, mostly to positive feedback. However, the version of Android Auto on phone screens was meant to shut down at the time and has been on life support ever since. Now, that version has stopped working for some users. The aptly named "Android Auto for Phone Screens" was launched in 2019 as Google was forced to delay Google Assistant Driving Mode. That feature, which finally started rolling out in 2020, continued into earlier this year, and has expanded since, was supposed to replace the experience on phone screens. At the time, Google called this app a "stopgap" for users who needed an in-car experience but lacked a vehicle compatible with Android Auto.

In speaking with Google, we are able to confirm that Android Auto for Phone Screens is, indeed, shutting down with the release of Android 12. The experience will not be available for users on Android 12, but still on older versions of the OS. Google says that Assistant Driving Mode will be "the built-in mobile driving experience" on Android 12. Google's full statement follows: "Google Assistant driving mode is our next evolution of the mobile driving experience. For the people who use Android Auto in supported vehicles, that experience isn't going away. For those who use the on phone experience (Android Auto mobile app), they will be transitioned to Google Assistant driving mode. Starting with Android 12, Google Assistant driving mode will be the built-in mobile driving experience. We have no further details to share at this time."

More owners of the first-generation Nest Hub are receiving the update to Google's Fuchsia operating system as it expands beyond the Preview program. 9to5Google reports: Back in May, Google formally released Fuchsia, its effort to develop a "not Linux" operating system from scratch, which has been years in the making. The first device to receive the new OS was Google's 2018 smart display, the Nest Hub -- not to be confused with the second generation Nest Hub with sleep tracking released earlier this year -- taking it permanently off of the existing Linux based "Cast OS" without negatively affecting the UI or experience. At the time, the rollout of Fuchsia was limited to a select few devices that were enrolled in the "Preview program" available to all devices via the Google Home app. Over time, the number of Nest Hubs running Fuchsia was expanded, with Google no doubt watching carefully for any issues with the upgrade.

Late last week, Google updated a support page to reflect that the Nest Hub has received a new firmware update for both the Preview program and all other devices. Specifically, the first-gen Nest Hub is now receiving firmware version 1.52.260996. Google confirmed to us that this update does indeed include the upgrade to Fuchsia. All goes well, this means in a matter of days, all first-gen Nest Hub devices in households around the world should be running Fuchsia.

Stardock has a new app for Windows 11 that brings back the classic appearance of the Windows Start menu. The Verge reports: "This first beta is designed to regain some of the lost functionality in the current Windows 11 Start menu," says Brad Wardell, Stardock CEO. "We have a lot of exciting new features planned to make the Start menu not just more accessible but also more useful to companies and power users." Start11 includes a configuration UI that will support future Start menu designs, according to Stardock. While the previous Start10 app aimed to bring back the classic Windows 7 Start menu to Windows 10, Start11 will go further in future to add extra features to the Windows 11 Start menu. The Start11 beta is available today, priced at $4.99, and offers the choice between a Windows 7-style Start menu or a more modern one that brings back some of the classic style and features of the Start menu.

Today, Samsung launched the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic -- two new wearables that are "the fruits of Samsung's smartwatch collaboration with Google," writes Becca Farsace via The Verge. From the report: The Watch 4 Classic starts at $349 for the Bluetooth model, rising to $399 for the LTE model, while the Watch 4 is a little less expensive with a starting price of $249 (or $299 with LTE). Both are available to preorder today, and ship August 27th. The big difference between the two models is that the Watch 4 Classic has one of those physical rotating bezels that we've liked so much on Samsung's previous smartwatches, while if you opt for the standard Watch 4, there's a touch-sensitive bezel accessible by swiping at the edges of the screen. The Watch 4 Classic is also made of a more premium stainless steel rather than the aluminum you'll find on the Watch 4. On the right of both watches are a pair of control buttons.

External differences aside, internally both watches share a lot of the same specs. They're both powered by the same 5nm Exynos W920 processor Samsung detailed yesterday, paired with 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Battery capacity varies between sizes, but Samsung reckons you'll average around 40 hours of battery life regardless of model. There's LTE on select models, but if you were hoping for 5G, you'll be disappointed -- Samsung says it doesn't think it's worth it because the amount of data smartwatches process is too small.

But the biggest departure from Samsung's previous smartwatches is that the Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic aren't running its own Tizen operating system. Instead, their software is the result of a collaboration between Samsung and Google, which was announced in May. Samsung is branding the watches' operating system as "Wear OS Powered by Samsung" although Google has called it Wear OS 3. But either way, the hope is that it combines the best of Tizen with the best of Wear OS. On Samsung's watches specifically, the interface you're looking at is One UI Watch, which is effectively Samsung's skin sitting on top of Wear OS. Think of it as Samsung's One UI software on phones, which works with Google's Android. It gives the Watch 4's interface a similar look and feel to Samsung's previous Tizen-powered watches. Google has promised its collaboration with Samsung will lead to a host of high-level benefits for Wear OS, like improved battery life, faster loading apps, and smoother animations.