The Onyx Boox Note Air and the Onyx Boox Max Lumi are two of the latest generation digital note taking devices with an E INK screen. One of the most exciting features is that they are the first e-notes that ship with Android 10, which gives users a slew of new abilities, such as the Note Air being able to run two apps at once. This version of Android is actually more secure, because you will be able to get automatic security updates via Google Play, without having to rely on Onyx.
Android 10 is an important release because Google broke some of the core components of Android into modules, there are currently 12 of them on Android 10 and 25 on Android 11. Google can now address these modules independently, without sending a full firmware update or involving Onyx
These modules allow Google to push out security and privacy fixes to your e-note, directly from the Google Play Store, in the same way your apps update. So you’ll get these fixes as soon as they’re available, without having to wait for a full OS update. The security updates themselves are automatic. Once a security update is available, Google will push the update to all devices that support this mechanism. The device will stop that particular OS component, apply the update, and restart the component without having to shut down the entire OS –and inherently the user’s device.
Most of the modules that will be automatically updated are not something most users will recognize. This includes ExtServices, Media framework components, Permission controller or Time zone data. These files are usually the components in which security researchers typically find security flaws.
A good example of where Google Play System Updates could have helped was the Stagefright security bug in 2015. Stagefright was an attack on a multimedia player component in Android. The media framework is one of the 12 components that can be updated through Google Play System Updates. Many devices were never patched to protect against Stagefright because it required a firmware update.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.