Verizon Accused of Remotely Controlling Droid

I'm still wondering why an "auto-focus routine" would have the time in it...

They have to fix the auto-focus. The government spies who watch you through your phones camera don't like watching blurry video...

/tinfoilhat

This sounds almost as good as the old 'phase of the moon bug' in a LISP program at MIT. I doubt if the auto-focus has the time in it, but rather a timestamp prepared to save with the photo overruns a buffer and stomps on something the auto-focus routine needs.

Note that 24.5 days is very close to 2^^31 milliseconds. Probably a signed/unsigned math bug causing the problem.
(Could also be an exception trap throwing off RT scheduling of the auto-focus, but that's pure speculation since I don't know much about embedded phone programming.)

I can't help if its a RNG that uses the timestamp based seed for the autofocus PID loop starting point. Granted, I'm looking at is as a ChemE and not an EE, so it could lots of things. I remember that being an issue years ago on KOTOR I on the original xbox, if your system date was a date was a day that the game actually didn't exist yet (like Jan 1, 1990 or whatever) the loot generator would cause the system to crash when you opened up a box.

"more stranger" is not proper English. Perhaps Tom's needs an editor.

DUUUH I have an DSLR and I make sure I check the time EVERYTIME I use autofocus. If YOUR not then your a ....................

/HEADDESK

They fixed a problem without telling you, the issue is?

Now this is weird, seriously, can any1 please explain why an auto-focus need to be date related? There is no need for a camera to have access to time and date, you may need auto-shoot, but that would only need an clock counter (not sure about how to call it) not a full clock and calendar LOL

I may be wrong, but this is like if the microphone to work properly the time and date of the phone need to be correct.

Sorry for my english

"...the problem is much more stranger than..."

as strange as the writing?

Photo files have a date and time stamp built into the exif file. It also can be used to sync the photo with a gps location based on the time the photo was taken.

LOL sunflier!!

Droid, the first phone with PMS.

That explanation is BS. I really can't figure why an auto-focus feature would rely on a timestamp!

"There's a rounding-error bug in the camera driver's auto-focus routine (which uses a timestamp) that causes auto-focus to behave poorly on a 24.5-day cycle,"

I don't think that this is accurate. the true problem was:
"asynchronous inode failure" or "parallel processors running perpendicular" or anything else you can figure out from the Excuse Board

But clearly Verizon DIDN'T snuck in through the back door and secretly corrected the issue.

I think michaelzehr hit it on the head. They probably use the timestamp just as a randomizer for something, and unfortunately when that timestamp has the high-bit set (or when it doesn't) it screws with their calculations.

When you have an embedded piece of software it is more efficient to call current time and compare it the the previous time that section of code was accessed. The alternative is asking the OS to keep track of when you should access which isn't consistent or efficient.

They do this for any number of reasons. The biggest reason is they don't want the auto focus to auto focus every time the code loops (why auto focus 1000 times a second and bog down the interface when 2 times a second in more than enough and allows for more time for gui processing).

How you can screw something up like that and get a negative number ever month for a month is beyond me. Miss placed if/else statement?

We need a cyber bill of rights to combat this intrusiveness. Just because I own a product, that does not give the manufacturer or service provider the right to surreptitiously access it in any way, form or fashion. All interactions should be visible and approved. Burying the authorization somewhere in an obscure twenty page license agreement doesn’t count.

The more we allow ourselves to become comfortable with such actions the less secure we will be in our possessions or privacy. As the world moves towards a more data dominated society we can no longer consider these actions anything less than a provocation. Don’t stand for it!!! This leads nowhere good.

Counselmancl has a very valid point, it just didn't apply here.
Anyway, maybe the autofocus routine is tied to whatever puts the date and time on your shots. Maybe sometimes it looks at those pixels when it shouldn't.

But your right, I read the article wrong. I thought they did access the phones, but I know I have read that companies have done this in the past. Looking for the article...

Good lord Tom, maybe next time you can not use a sensationalist title? In the article itself you give the official (and perfectly reasonable) explanation for the resolution of the error, and yet youre title makes it seem like they actually did the backdoor access.

That is some seriously irresponsible journalism. FFS, just look at these comments, you have a lot of people here talking about privacy issues which is exactly what DIDN'T happen.

Unless of course you don't believe their explanation, but if that's the case go ahead and say it, don't imply it in such a sensationalist manner.

Sounds like Auto-Focus Hocus-Pocus to me.