Collaborate Disseminate
Politico reports that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s cell phone was compromised back in December. I know this is news because of who he is, but I hope every major government official of any country assumes that their commercial off-the-shelf cell phone is compromised. Even allies spy on allies; remember the reports that the NSA tapped the cell… Continue reading White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s Cell Phone was Tapped
An anonymous reader writes:Hurricanes Irma and Maria wiped out more than 90 percent of the cellphone coverage on Puerto Rico. Now the FCC has given “Project Loon” permission to fly 30 balloons more than 12 miles above the island for the next six months… Continue reading Alphabet’s Balloons Will Bring Cellphone Service To Puerto Rico
An anonymous reader quotes NBC:
Cellphones smuggled into prisons — enabling inmates to order murders, plan escapes, deal drugs and extort money — have become a scourge in a bloc of states where corrections officers annually confiscate as many as one … Continue reading US Prisons Have a Cellphone Smuggling Problem
A company called Sirin Labs is developing an open-source smartphone that runs on a fee-less blockchain. “The Finney — named in honor of bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney — will be the only smartphone in the world that’s fully secure and safe enough to hold … Continue reading The World’s First Blockchain Smartphone Is In Development
An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld:
Swift 4.0 is now available. It’s a major upgrade to Apple’s Swift, the three-year old successor to the Objective-C language used for MacOS and iOS application development. The Swift 4 upgrade enhances the Swift Pac… Continue reading Apple’s Swift 4.0 Includes A Compatibility Mode For ‘The Majority’ Of Swift 3.x Code
schwit1 writes about a new mass-market Broadcom chip designed for the next generation of smartphones: It’ll know where you are to within 30 centimeters (11.8 inches), rather than five meters. At least that’s the claim chip maker Broadcom is making. It … Continue reading Super-Accurate GPS Chips Coming To Smartphones In 2018
schwit1 shares a column from the Chicago Tribune:
When cellphones first appeared, they gave people one more means of communication, which they could accept or reject. But before long, most of us began to feel naked and panicky anytime we left home with… Continue reading Can An Individual Still Resist The Spread of Technology?
An anonymous reader quotes the Verge:
Essential’s debut smartphone has received approval to run on Verizon, meaning it’s now supported by all four major US carriers. Sprint was the device’s launch partner, so it of course had support, and both AT&T… Continue reading Essential Phone Now Supported By All Four Major Carriers (Including Verizon)
Andrew "bunnie" Huang and Edward Snowden have designed a hardware device that attaches to an iPhone and monitors it for malicious surveillance activities, even in instances where the phone’s operating system has been compromised. They call it an Introspection Engine, and their use model is a journalist who is concerned about government surveillance: Our introspection engine is designed with the… Continue reading A Hardware Privacy Monitor for iPhones
Slashdot reader unixisc writes:
While it’s always been well known that Windows phones in the market have floundered, one saving grace has always been that one could at least use it for the barest minimum of apps, even if updates have stopped… Aside f… Continue reading Ask Slashdot: What Can You Do With An Old Windows Phone?