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Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

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Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#31

Post by ungzd »

guptaneil wrote: post #24
pdonis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A national testing portal ought to support the default image format taken by the world's most popular phone, period. What if it can't because the format is proprietary and Apple wants to charge for its use? As I understand it, MS and Google have to pay licensing fees to enable support for it in Windows 10 and Android.

You're thinking of HEVC (video encoding, like h.265): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#P... HEIC (image encoding) is available without royalties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_For... Regardless, in this case, as others noted, iOS would have just converted to jpg if College Board was using a standard image upload form.

> When containing images and image sequences encoded in a particular format (e.g. HEVC or AVC) its use becomes subject to the licensing of patents on the coding format.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#32

Post by snazz »

Here's the relevant frontend source code for the file upload picker, if anyone's wondering (webpack://src/components/exam/submissions/FileInput.js):

   {
              const [file] = Object.keys(e.target.files).map(key => e.target.files[key])
              const fileSizeInMb = file.size/(CONVERSION_BASE*CONVERSION_BASE)
              const fileSizeInKb = file.size/CONVERSION_BASE
              const split = file.name.split('.')
              const fileType = split[split.length-1].toLowerCase()
              const extensions = EXTENSIONS[type].split(', ')
              const isAllowedExtension = extensions.includes(`.${fileType}`)
              const alreadyExists = files.find(f => f.name === file.name && f.size === file.size && f.lastModified === file.lastModified)
              let error

              if (alreadyExists)
                error = { title: 'You have already uploaded a file with the same name.', details: 'Please attach a different file.' }
              else if (!isAllowedExtension)
                error = { title: 'This file type is not acceptable.', details: 'Please check the requirements, save your file in one of the accepted formats, and resubmit.' }
              else if (fileSizeInKb  maxSize)
                error = { title: 'Your file is too big.', details: 'Please check the file-size requirements, save a smaller version, and resubmit. ' }
            
              if (error)
                await setError({error.title} {error.details})
              else {
                await updateFiles(file)
                setError(null)
              }

              inputRef.current.value = null
            }}
          />
The EXTENSIONS variable is defined here:

  export const EXTENSIONS = {
    [TYPE_DOC]: '.txt, .doc, .docx, .pdf, .odt',
    [TYPE_PHOTO]: '.png, .jpg, .jpeg',
    [TYPE_AUDIO]: '.m4a, .mp3, .wav, .ogg'
  }

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#33

Post by guptaneil »

ungzd wrote: post #31
guptaneil wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of HEVC (video encoding, like h.265): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#P... HEIC (image encoding) is available without royalties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_For... Regardless, in this case, as others noted, iOS would have just converted to jpg if College Board was using a standard image upload form.

> When containing images and image sequences encoded in a particular format (e.g. HEVC or AVC) its use becomes subject to the licensing of patents on the coding format.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with that quote? As I mentioned, HEVC is subject to licensing costs. If you try to wrap your HEVC video content in an HEIC container, you don't suddenly get to skip paying the original licensing costs.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#34

Post by [deleted] »

somehnguy wrote: post #8
crazygringo wrote: post #4

I thought iOS was supposed to convert HEIC images to JPEG automatically behind-the-scenes in any file transfer situation where HEIC isn't supported. The article itself even says: > iPhones convert HEICs to JPEGs automatically when they’re attached to emails in the Mail app I'm just curious technically why the same didn't happen with the testing portal? If you have a webpage that accepts image uploads, is iOS Safari n…

Probably not. If I Airdrop photos taken on my phone to my Macbook they arrive in HEIC format. I have to use an external tool (iMazing HEIC Converter) to manually convert them for a bunch of places.

[deleted]

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#35

Post by jrgaston »

I can't comment on the technical challenges here but I sure can express sympathy with the students and teachers. I used to teach AP Chemistry, a very challenging course, like all APs I guess. My first reaction was they're still giving the exams? The security around the exams is usually so tight.

Well, I always told my students that even if you didn't do well on the spring AP exam at least you got credit for the course (AP students got a gpa bump at my school), learned a lot of wonderful chemistry, and you got a good taste of what a college course is like.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#36

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

karatestomp wrote: post #9
_bxg1 wrote: post #3

This is the latest in a string of incidents where critical software systems, facing new pressure due to the pandemic, are catastrophically failing their users. I think what's happened in the past is that most public-facing software systems either a) were not really critical (because people had the alternative of doing things in-person), or b) (as in the case of all the ancient COBOL systems underpinning the US gov) h…

We keep making a bunch of products where protocols and existing software would do just fine, while hitting fewer edge cases. Know what would be better than the ten goddamn apps and the iPad and shit they're using for our kid's school? Mailed (or emailed) worksheet packets with guidance, recorded lessons on Youtube. Mail back the worksheets, have the food-delivering schoolbuses pick them up, drop them off at the schoo…

> Several logins to manage. Apps that erase your work if you hit the wrong thing. Weird interfaces. Jank galore. Just use the fucking basics. You don't need a custom app for every single thing. Email exists. Use it.

Yeah, but if you do that, how will you funnel money from the school system into private companies?

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#37

Post by fortran77 »

danso wrote: post #28
crazygringo wrote: post #4

I thought iOS was supposed to convert HEIC images to JPEG automatically behind-the-scenes in any file transfer situation where HEIC isn't supported. The article itself even says: > iPhones convert HEICs to JPEGs automatically when they’re attached to emails in the Mail app I'm just curious technically why the same didn't happen with the testing portal? If you have a webpage that accepts image uploads, is iOS Safari n…

Would it be correct for iOS Safari to quietly reencode to jpeg when a HEIC file is uploaded via a webform? How would Safari know that the site's backend didn't want an HEIC file? I agree the HEIC thing is very confusing (having set up my parents' phones recently), but I can't see how Apple is to blame. For starters, the College Board could've done a much better job emphasizing this step for iOS users in its instructi…

Does the HTTP "accept" tag play a role here?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Ac...

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#38

Post by _bxg1 »

wmf wrote: post #23
_bxg1 wrote: post #3

This is the latest in a string of incidents where critical software systems, facing new pressure due to the pandemic, are catastrophically failing their users. I think what's happened in the past is that most public-facing software systems either a) were not really critical (because people had the alternative of doing things in-person), or b) (as in the case of all the ancient COBOL systems underpinning the US gov) h…

18F released a pretty good guide about these topics but I can't shake the feeling that many organizations aren't willing to learn these lessons. https://github.com/18F/technology-budgeting/blob/master/hand...

Guidelines are well and good, but they aren't really helpful when the people who care about them can't enforce them and vice-versa. What we need is accountability when it comes to the engineers who work on systems that are critical to large swaths of society.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#39

Post by majormajor »

_bxg1 wrote: post #3

This is the latest in a string of incidents where critical software systems, facing new pressure due to the pandemic, are catastrophically failing their users. I think what's happened in the past is that most public-facing software systems either a) were not really critical (because people had the alternative of doing things in-person), or b) (as in the case of all the ancient COBOL systems underpinning the US gov) h…

> But in the latter case, as we saw with New Jersey's unemployment system, that "reliability" was fragile and contingent on the current state of affairs, and had no hope of withstanding a sudden shift in usage patterns.

"Reliable" and "Can survive a sudden shift in usage patterns" are extremely different things.

I think you have the causality backward. Engineering is about trade-offs. No quality guild will be able to wave those away. As long as the primary pressure is "get something that is functional enough at minimum time and cost" you're gonna have this.

(Software is particularly complicated because engineers, not just managers, have poor understanding of system quality and of each other's contribution quality. There's a combination of "it's not that complicated" complexity-blindness to business requirements and trade-offs that have to be traced through deep call stacks and across networks. We build things like chaos monkey - to prove resilience by seeing how hard it is to break the thing - because we don't have cost-effect techniques for actually understanding the system well enough short of operating it.)

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#40

Post by oefrha »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #27
oefrha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tried a standard input tag with the proper accept attribute Selected a HEIC file from Photos in Safari, the selected image was automatically converted to JPEG. Ten bucks says College Board programmer(s) failed to do the most basic and standard filtering. Edit: Like a sibling comment said, the accept attribute actually isn't necessary; even PNG images (e.g. screenshots) from Photos are converted to JPEG automatically.…

Is this the case on both Desktop and Mobile Safari?

Yes, see edit.
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