If you just bought a Samsung Galaxy S5 phone and are upset to find you can’t take photos with the darn thing? You’re not alone — Samsung says a “limited number” of the phones have a fatal flaw that renders the 16-megapixel camera useless. [More]
smartphones
California Lawmakers Pull Plug On Smartphone “Kill Switch” Law
By 4.25.14
With nearly 3 million phones vanishing — often into the hands of sticky-finger thieves — each year, there has been a recent push to introduce legislation that would require wireless providers to include a “kill switch” functionality in all devices, allowing phone owners to remotely deactivate their devices until, and only if, they are located. But one such bill in California has been thwarted, and supporters are blaming the wireless industry. [More]
Anti-Theft Tools Coming To A Smartphone Near You In 2015
By 4.16.14
Last month we told you that a proposed anti-theft kill switch feature for smartphones could save the 1.6 million consumers who are victims of phone theft billions of dollars each year. Well, it looks like that technology is closer than we could have anticipated now that major U.S. wireless carriers and smartphone manufacturers have agreed to introduce similar tools to their products. [More]
Anti-Theft Kill Switch For Smartphones Could Save Consumers $2.6 Billion A Year
By 3.31.14
Smartphones are a popular target for thieves, in fact nearly 1.6 million phones were stolen in the United States in 2012. The anger knowing that you’ll have to shell out big bucks to replace it is almost comparable to the feeling of helplessness and rage one feels after having their trusty phone snatched away in the first place. But one simple change to all smartphones could lessen those feeling and keep $2.6 billion in consumers’ collective pockets. [More]
Mobile Ads Overtake Porn As Most Likely Way To Get Malware On Your Phone
By 3.5.14
While malware dressed in pornography’s clothing used to be the most tempting for smartphone users, it’s been overtaken recently by mobile ads, says one online security company in its latest report. Which means that either our big clumsy figures are accidentally hitting things or we’d rather look at ads than naked body parts. [More]
What’s The NSA Using To Spy On You Now? Angry Birds.
By 1.28.14
The revelations about just how embedded into every facet of modern, technological life the NSA is just keep coming. The spy agency isn’t just collecting calling records and tracking electronics; they’re in your iPhone games, too. [More]
South Korea Has Outlawed Bloatware On Smartphones
By 1.28.14
While Apple has long prevented wireless companies from force-placing cruddy, memory- and battery-sucking apps on its iPhones, most Android users have phones loaded with apps from their wireless providers and phone manufacturers that will probably never be used but which can’t be removed. Realizing that this is a mammoth annoyance to consumers, regulators in South Korea have banned the practice. [More]
Easy Access: Are Virtual Room Keys The Future Of Hotels?
By 1.27.14
Smartphones can do just about everything these days: handle your bank accounts, monitor your home for burglaries, and now unlock your hotel room. A chain of boutique hotels is hoping the use of virtual keys will be the next big thing in hotels. [More]
Is Voice-Recognition The Future Of Banking? Wells Fargo Thinks So
By 1.21.14
Who needs to go to the bank when you have a smartphone. Unless you really want to talk to a living, breathing person, you might not have to trek to the bank in the future. That’s because some banks are looking to add voice-recognition technology to their mobile banking repertoire. [More]
The Smartphone Has Effectively Replaced All The Technology Offered In This 1991 Radio Shack Ad
By 1.17.14
Should a time traveler visiting from 1991 show up here in 2014 at Radio Shack clutching this ad showcasing calculators, devices to play music and other electronic gizmos and gadgets, we’re sure they’d be pretty pleased to find they could get all that technology for the price of one smartphone. [More]
Micro-Windmills Could Power Your Smartphone In The Future
By 1.14.14
Using windmills in non-traditional places — like the roofs of high-rise office buildings and stadia — is already an accepted way of harnessing wind energy to generate electricity. But students at the University of Texas at Arlington want to put windmill power in the palm of your hands. [More]
Does $100 Moto G Shake Notion That Unsubsidized Smartphones Must Be Expensive?
By 1.2.14
The general line of thought in the wireless market is that prepaid customers are offered older and cheaper smartphones because most prepaid customers don’t also want to splash out the $500-800 for an unlocked, top-of-the-line device. Meanwhile, contract phone customers are pitched those pricier phones but at discounted rates (or monthly installment plans) that make the phones more affordable (and lock the customer into months or years of service). But does a good smartphone need to cost so much? Do phones for the prepaid market need to be so bad? Maybe not. [More]
Armed Mugger Disappointed By Victim’s Old Phone, Returns It
By 12.30.13
Dear criminals of the world: Stealers can’t be choosers. If you’re going to go around indiscriminately robbing people of their phones in public, you can’t always expect to walk away with a spanking new Galaxy S4 or an iPhone 5S. No, sometimes you’re going to get a 3-year-old LG Windows phone that is so much of a letdown you’ll feel compelled to return it to your victim. [More]
You Need A Wi-Fi Egg Tray, Or Maybe Nobody Does
By 12.4.13
Eggs keep for a long time when refrigerated, especially if kept toward the back of the shelf, but how do you keep track of when your eggs are going to expire? Sure, you could look at the packaging and expiration dates printed on the carton. Whatever, Grandma. Why would you want to do that when there’s a wi-fi enabled egg tray? [More]
TV Reporter Drops iPhone In Toilet, Runs It Over With Car, And It Still Works
By 11.7.13
Smartphones are tiny devices filled with delicate electronics, and ought to be coddled and shielded to ensure their safety…right? As part of a story about third-party mobile phone warranties, a TV reporter in Houston trashed an iPhone by dropping it in water and running it over with a car. These things rendered it completely unusable, right? Nope. [More]
Cellphone Lost Underwater Had To Hold Its Breath For 3 Months, But It Still Works
By 10.30.13
There’s dropping your phone in a glass of water, dumping it into a toilet and that time you fell into the town water fountain while reaching for a particularly shiny quarter, and then there’s losing your phone underwater for three months. Forget that trick with bag of instant rice — that phone’s gotta be well and duly drowned, no good, right? Actually… [More]
If Smartphones Get Smell-O-Vision, Everyone Needs To Stop Taking Photos Of Their Feet
By 10.4.13
Listen, technology is great and all, but based on the amount of people on Instagram who won’t stop posting photos of their feet (Standing here! Walking there! Wearing shoes!), I’d prefer it if it doesn’t get too advanced to the point where smell-o-vision isn’t restricted to simulated cooking smells. Because yes, someone has invented a smelly thing for smartphones. [More]
FAA Panel: You Should Be Able To Use Smartphone On Planes, As Long As You Don’t Use The ‘Phone’ Part
By 10.1.13
Travelers were hopeful last week when news came down that an FAA panel would soon be recommending that the use of smartphones be allowed during takeoffs and landings of commercial flights. Those recommendations have finally come through, but don’t get all excited and think that you’ll be using your phone to text or chat through the flight. [More]
