Friendly reminder that Bluetooth has a larger network stack than Wi-Fi. Much more code, much larger available attack base. There have been many numerous Bluetooth vulnerabilities that allow remote code execution or theft of files.

This is truly becoming a surveillance state, in no way that can be debated. That want to be able to access everyone's innermost thoughts (texts, notes, recordings, calendars, contacts, photos, you get it) without any chance of someone being able to protect against it.

Reminder that Google was the 2nd or 3rd company to commit to NSA's PRISM program of feeding American's data for future analysis.

Straight up 1984 Newspeak, where the Ministry of Truth is really concerned with lies, the Ministry of Peace is concerned with war, the Ministry of Love is concerned with torture, and the Ministry of Plenty is concerned with starvation.

GrapheneOS w/o Google tools Schoulf be safe.

While I like those options, they are definitely not for everyone. Those problems are collective, protecting the privacy of 1% of the population is as good as protecting nobody.

What do you think Google Maps and GSF are

More like, already deployed, this is just the announcement.

Apple already does it with their iPhone, just saying.

I also couldn't find a mention, and it definitely does not make sense (and likely isn't even possible) to run Bluetooth without Android itself running

...which uses a crowdsourced device-locating network to help you find your lost or misplaced devices and belongings quickly – even when they’re offline.

Maybe this line is being misinterpreted?

It's mentioned in the linked article about Find My Device.

This is what it says

1. Locate offline devices

Locate your compatible Android phone and tablet by ringing them or viewing their location on a map in the app — even when they’re offline. And thanks to specialized Pixel hardware, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro owners will also be able to find their devices if they’re powered off or the battery is dead.

Didn’t iPhone been doing it for years

You're trying to describe an action that has started in the past and is still taking place. "Didn't" is simple past which indicates a concluded action. The correct tense you'd want to use here is present perfect progressive --> "Hasn't iPhone been doing it for years".

Edit: Although, I missed the "been" in your sentence, so you just picked the wrong verb. Not too far off 👍

Anti Commercial-AI license

Graphene is built on Android. If you enable all the gsf on graphene with android 15 it can probably still run in the background while off.

Not a single mention in the article about whether Bluetooth is turned on or off.

Samsung has an opt in option for the Smart thing network. I guess Google will go the same route.

Depends how it's implemented, my bluetooth "smartwatch" runs for around 2 years on a single CR2032.

it looks like its going to be a hardware feature. if the main CPU is off, it implies the radio circuitry and its CPU (the BBM) are still powered. give google this at least, the special new Bluetooth API will be accessible to whatever OS is alive and awake to send commands (even if I don't trust that "off" means "off"). the fact that its using encryption (that's too complicated to be made out of Integrated Circut logic) means its likely another software feature added to the BBM co-processor (it handles all radio tasks on the phone). this all but confirms the BBM (at least going forward) will still get power, be awake and have access to the (transmit (TX) and reseave (RX) functions of the) radios even when everything else is properly off.

EDIT: or it could be an abuse of a generic BLE beacon mechanism that's "just there for whatever the consumer would need it for". but if they are doing proprietary encryption like they claim, that's not really possible without updating the BBM's software to add another feature.

Not really. Thieves know how powerful aluminium is against waves