Smartphone design is mostly about minimizing form factors and maximizing features. Caltech’s dream of implementing 3D scanners in smartphones should be no hindrance to that trend.
Author: Nicky Arriola
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Huawei Upcoming Kirin Chipsets for 2015
Huawei made headlines recently when word spread that Google will be asking the company to design the next Nexus phone. This time, Huawei is in the news for their upcoming chipsets.
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Wireless Charging from MediaTek
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Kyocera at MWC with a Solar Phone
At this year’s MWC, Kyocera will be showcasing an ultra rugged Windows Phone, the Kyocera Torque. The ruggedized aspect of the phone extends to the phone’s usability despite running out of battery.
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Tech Security: Shutdown Malware on Chinese Phones, Lenovo’s Superfish Cure, Hacked SIM Encryption
Shutdown Malware on Chinese Phones
AVG Antivirus has spotted a type of malware that targets phones running Android v4.4 and below.
The malware emulates a phone shutdown sequence, making the user assume the phone is in shutdown, but is actually fully functional and accessible to hackers.
It is reported that phones with root access are less likely to be infected, but users are urged to be extra cautious about download sources of apps. Furthermore, phones running on Lollipop OS will not be affected — a pretty good reason to want for a Lollipop update.
Lenovo’s Superfish Cure
Lenovo has been busy trying to salvage the situation they’ve dropped themselves into. Recent Lenovo laptops have reportedly been installed with the Superfish adware, which was supposed to help users discover new products.
However, the tech company had failed to spot a serious security flaw, wherein users logged onto the same Wi-Fi network as the adwared machine will be able to hack through the computer’s web encryption. This allows the hacker to spy on the user and even feed malware into the infected laptop’s data stream.
Lenovo released a tool that would uninstall the Superfish program as well as remove web browser certificates, and are taking a serious step, working with Microsoft and McAfee to ensure all affected machines will be cured of the bug.
The company said the laptops infected are those sold between September 2014 and January 2015, but give their confidence that no ThinkPads are affected.
Hacked SIM Encryption
SIM-maker and digital security company, Gemalto is currently investigating the claims that the Mobile Handset Exploration Team has gotten their hands on encryption keys of Gemalto SIM cards.
The MHET is a joint force of some of NSA and GCHQ agents. They allegedly spied on Gemalto operations, specifically how the encryption keys were handed off to their wireless carriers partners. The team then intercepted the hand off and have gained access to keys of millions of SIM cards.
With access to encryption keys, users’ calls and messages can easily be accessed and monitored with ease. Furthermore, as SIM cards are simply transferred from smartphone to smartphone, the spies have backdoor access to the phones as well.
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Xposed Framework for Lollipop
Xposed is a versatile tool that gives rooted users access to almost every imaginable mod and tweak to their phones.
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ARM Cortex A-72 Processors For Next Generation Chipsets
At the heart of nearly every smartphone out there is at least one ARM processor core. The various chipsets powering Android smartphones are based on ARM Cortex cores.
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Smartphone Batteries with Twice the Capacity
SolidEnergy is a start-up company that specializes in the research and development of rechargeable battery technology. Their main target is the development of batteries powering E-Vehicles. While they are on their way towards that, the company has potentially solved the short life span of lithium-ion batteries by using metal electrodes.
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Raspberry Pi 2 Quad Core at $35
The famous development board from the Raspberry Pi foundation, that has greatly impacted software development, now exists on a whole new level.
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MediaTek Update: MT6753 Mid-Ranger and MT6735
More and more phone models are utilizing the quad-core MT6732 and octa-core MT6752 64-bit chipsets; the latter going into phones under the high-end category, while the former into low-end phones. While the MT6732 is tagged as low-end, its benchmark test results are still quite impressive, and at par with the popular 32-bit MT6592 that carries twice as many cores.
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Kevlar To Make Li-ion Batteries Safer and More Compact
The ban on batteries flying solo on aircrafts has been stressing out consumers. There is the fear that the ban would escalate to all Li-ion batteries even if accompanying a gadget, making it a hassle (if not an impossibility) to purchase electronics online. It was imposed because of the increasing frequency of grounded flights due to battery fires.
Luckily, University of Michigan Engineering has decided to save the day.
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YotaPhone 2 World’s First Dual Screen Smartphone
It is hard to argue with the saying that two heads are better than one. Smartphone manufacturers know this: We see all these phones with dual cameras, dual flashes, and more recently, two glass layers encasing the devices. But what about two screens?
