Android 15 is now rolling out to Pixel devices, bringing them new privacy features, security tools, and improvements for foldables and tablets. The operating system first launched last month through the Android Open Source Project, but at the time, it wasn’t yet available on Pixel phones and tablets — or other major Android devices. Google announced today that it’s finally coming to Pixels alongside a series of Pixel feature drops.

One major new feature in Android 15 is the ability to make a “private space” for apps you might want to keep hidden from other people who get ahold of your phone. (Google gives the examples of social, dating, or banking apps.) Apps you put in the private space won’t show up in your recent apps, notifications, or settings, according to Google. To access the space, you’ll have to provide additional authentication, and you can even “hide the existence of private space from view on your phone,” Google says.

On foldables and tablets, Android 15 will let users pin and unpin the taskbar so they can choose to have somewhat easier access to their apps. And if you have certain apps that you frequently use side by side, you can set up an app pairing and access that pairing from one icon.

Many devices running Android — not just Android 15 — will also be getting Theft Detection Lock, which lets your phone automatically lock itself if it detects (with the help of AI) that it has been stolen. Google is also adding a feature called Remote Lock that lets you lock your phone using another Android phone, your phone number, and a “simple security check.” The company says that “most” devices on Android 10 and newer will get these features, and some people already have them.

If you want to learn more about what’s included in Android 15, we have a post with a full rundown of the biggest features.

Google is also starting to roll out a new Pixel feature drop for October that includes Night Sight for Instagram for taking better low-light photos and more controls for Audio Magic Eraser. In “the next few weeks,” Google is also adding a feature that lets you move media from a Pixel Tablet to a Pixel phone by holding the devices next to each other.

[Bea Thurman] had a retro music conundrum. She loved the classic Greengate DS:3 sampler, but couldn’t buy one, and couldn’t find enough information to build her own. [Bea’s] plea for help caught the attention of [Eric Schlaepfer], aka  [TubeTime]. The collaboration that followed ultimately solved a decades-old mystery. 

In the 1980s, there were two types of musicians: Those who could afford a Fairlight CMI and everyone else. If you were an Apple II owner, the solution was a Greengate DS:3. The DS:3 was a music keyboard and a sampler card for the Apple II+ (or better). The plug-in card was a bit mysterious, though. The cards were not very well documented, and only a few survive today. To make matters worse, some chips had part numbers sanded off. It was a bit of a mystery until [Bea and Tubetime] got involved. 

While [Bea] didn’t have the card itself, she had a photo of the board and a picture of an album that contained the key to everything. The Greengate came packed with a vinyl album, “Into Trouble with the Noise of Art.” An apt title, since the album art was the Greengate PCB top layer. Now if you know [Eric], you know he wrote the book (literally) on taking things apart and taking photos of them, even producing replicas. 

Thoroughly nerdsniped, [Eric] loaded the photos KiCad and started tracing. With the entire top layer artwork and most of the bottom layer, the 8-bit card wasn’t too hard to figure out. The sticky point was one chip. A big 40-pin part with the numbers scrubbed off. One owner pulled the chip to check for fab information on the back, only to be greeted by a proper British “You Nosey S.O.B.” penciled on top of more sanded part numbers. 

If the chip was an ASIC, the project would be blocked until they could get their hands on an actual board for analysis. An ASIC would have custom part numbers on it from the fab though – no need for sanding. It had to be something off the shelf. [Eric] used some context clues to determine that the Mystery chip had to be a DMA controller. This narrowed the field down. From there, he had to compare pinouts until he had a match with the venerable MC6844. 

With the mystery part out of the way, [Eric] put the finishing touches on the PCB, saved it to his GitHub as the GoodGreat DS:3, and sent it off.  A few days later, the bare boards arrived and were quickly populated with vintage parts. [Eric] ran a few tests and sent the card off to [Bea], where we will pick up with part 2. 

At least the device wasn’t protected with a self-destruct code.

"She offers us a heroine-centred narrative where a young, unprotected, often orphaned heroine is thrown into really dangerous situations where somebody is trying to force her into marriage and take her property rights." The heroines are often imprisoned in remote, atmospheric locations where supernatural events appear to take place. "That gives us a real sense of terror," said Wright. "It's quite psychological, before psychology was invented. She uses the image of the decayed castle or crumbling convent to explore the precarious and outmoded issue of marriage laws in England, where coverture meant a woman's legal identity and her property effectively disappeared when she married. So she shows young women in distress, in really exciting, action-packed narratives, with the aim of showing the precarious nature of a young female's existence who has no protection in society." By empowering her heroines with the strength and resilience they need to escape and marry the men they choose, Radcliffe is "very staunchly" showing that women can successfully resist domination, Wright said. "There is a sense of Radcliffe critiquing patriarchy and men who think they can dictate to women precisely what we should do and what we should give to them in marriage. So in many ways it is feminist literature, on a par with what Mary Wollstonecraft was arguing in A Vindication of the Rights of Women." At one point, a Radcliffe villain tells his victim: "You speak like a heroine, let us see if you can suffer like one." Wright added: "There's always a happy ending and a good resolution. But there's a sense of a heroine being able to manoeuvre that resolution."

• How Judy-Lynn del Rey shaped science fiction as we know it today - "Judy-Lynn del Rey (1943-1986) was a New York sci-fi and fantasy editor and a woman with dwarfism who revolutionized the world of sci-fi editing with books from luminaries such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick." (yt)
• The woman who revolutionized the fantasy genre is finally getting her due - "She reissued 'The Princess Bride' in 1977 with a dazzling, gate-folded die-cut cover and a new promotional campaign, without which the novel – and the film – might never have found its later success."