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UK mulls ban on tiny mobiles to block prison smugglers
UK police and government officials are considering a plan to block the sale of small mobile phones designed to look like car key fobs after confiscating an increasing number of the mini-mobes from prisoners.
Car key fob phone Phone too popular with prisoners
"A range of techniques – including body orifice security scanners …
Jolla's first Sailfish phone preorders 'fully booked'
Jolla, the Finnish smartphone startup founded by former Nokia staffers, has announced that the first production batch of mobiles based on its incipient Sailfish OS have been "fully booked," and that it expects to begin shipments by the end of the year.
Sailfish, you may recall, is Jolla's commercial variant of the Linux-based …
Wow, the future is HERE: Charge your phone (wirelessly) in your CAR
A range of General Motors cars will feature wireless charging next year, but don't expect to charge a Galaxy Nexus or Nokia handset as GM is backing yet another juice-over-the-air standard.
The feature will be built into dashboards from 2014, according to Detroit News. Just place a phone on the pad and it will start charging, …
'BLING BLING, BLING BLING' 'Hello, yes, my iPhone is made of GOLD'
The Apple rumour mill is approaching lightspeed, fuelled by a growing number of insiders talking up a C-3PO-like gold iPhone 5S.
Today's iOS mobes are only available in black and white, but more and more anonymous sources are piling in online to claim the next-generation model - due out on 10 September - will sport an optional …
Apple sucking triple the phone switchers as Samsung – report
The latest market data shows that Apple is winning over Samsung users from Android at three times the rate that the Korean firm is wooing iPhone owners into the open source fold.
The data, based on four quarterly reports between June 2012 and July 2013 from analyst house Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, showed that 33 …
ZTE's $80 Firefox OS mobe sells out on eBay
If you were hoping to get your hands on ZTE's first Firefox OS phone and you don't live in one of the markets where it was picked up by a mobile carrier, you may be out of luck for now.
The Chinese smartphone maker put a limited stock of its new ZTE Open handset up for sale to customers worldwide last Friday, exclusively via its …
SQUEEEEE! Microsoft goes retro with pay-by-squawk NFC tech
Researchers at Microsoft Research India have proposed a new form of near-field communication (NFC) for mobile phones, one that even works on devices that lack any kind of specialized NFC hardware.
The technique is a modern throwback to the earliest days of computer communications, and a big clue to how it works can be found in …
iPhone 5S: 64-bit A7, 128GB storage, flashy ƒ/2.0 camera, and...
More details rumors about the iPhone 5S that's reportedly being readied for a September 10 unveiling include a 128GB option, improved low-light camera performance due to a dual-LED flash and an ƒ/2.0 lens, a new 64-bit A7 SoC based on the ARMv8 architecture, and a step up in memory bandwidth from LPDDR2 to LPDDR3 RAM.
Longtime …
Apple files 'Bonk to Gift' near field communication patent application
Apple has filed an unusually detailed, 63-page patent application for the ability to "gift" – and yes, our dictionary recognizes that word as a verb – digital content via near field communication (NFC).
Application number 20130211971, filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office just this March, published on Thursday …
BlackBerry: It's the end-to-endness, stupid
Analysis Going private still looks the most likely next step for BlackBerry, with Prem Watsa, the largest shareholder in the company, resigning from its board this week, apparently to put together a deal. Watsa still holds almost 10 per cent of BlackBerry stock.
Yet even if BlackBerry goes private, its options remain brutal. Nobody …
Peak Apple: Samsung hits DOUBLE the market share of iPhones
Not even the cheapest iPhones could help Apple claw back ground lost to Samsung - whose smartphone gear has now amassed more than twice the market share of the iPhone.
The smartphone market expanded 46.5 per cent in Q2 with more than 225 million units shipped worldwide, data from beancounters Gartner showed.
However it was the …
Samsung Mega 6.3: Enter the PHONDLESLAB
Review Some made-up words deserve a place in the popular lexicon. I’m thinking about “friscalating” or “omnishambles”. Others, like the wholly wretched term “phablet”, most certainly do not. So from now on I’ll be calling smartphones with screens between 5 and 7 inches VLPs, or Very Large Phones. Anyone using the word phablet in my …
NORKS prepping glorious People's Smartmobe
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has visited a mobile phone factory in the reclusive nation and revealed some details of a handset dubbed the “Arirang”.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) isn't the kind of source to go heavy on tech specs and its English isn't the best, so we don't know just what the phone runs but is widely …
BlackBerry hits 88MPH, goes back to the future with NEW old 9720 mobe
BlackBerry has announced a new phone for emerging markets: the BlackBerry 9720. It's not part of the shiny new BlackBerry OS 10 line-up of mobiles because it's powered by the ancient BlackBerry 7 OS, which last saw action in 2011.
It's the consequence of a mismatch between BlackBerry's swanky modern QNX-based operating system …
20 injured at LG phone giveaway as PR stunt turns into freetard riot
LG has cancelled a series of publicity stunts promoting its new G2 smartphone after 20 Korean consumers were hurt as they attempted to get a free handset.
The PR boffins at LG decided it would be a good idea to release 100 helium-filled balloons, each carrying a voucher entitling the recipient to claim their 950,000 won ($852.54 …
ZTE to flog Firefox OS mobe worldwide via eBay
Chinese mobile maker ZTE has announced plans to sell a smartphone running the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox OS worldwide via online auction site eBay.
The company said the orange-colored version of the ZTE Open would go on sale "soon" for $79.99 on eBay's US site and £59.99 in the UK, though no specific date was given.
"The ZTE …
US Department of Defense throws lifeline to beleaguered BlackBerry
BlackBerry has received certification to be used on US Department of Defense networks, the first Mobile Device Management (MDM) provider to be so certified.
"With foreign entities – governmental and criminal – ramping up attacks on electronic communications and information systems, BlackBerry provides government agencies with a …
Canonical: Last change to Ubuntu Edge phone price – we promise
Canonical has stabilised pricing for its proposed Ubuntu phone, Edge, at $695 to be paid by eager Penguins into an Indiegogo funding round.
It has also landed a corporate patron, Bloomberg, which pledged $80,000 to the effort. Only financial backers of this funding round will get a phone – the actual mass-manufactured job won't …
British ankle-biters handed first mobe at the age of SEVEN - Ofcom
Children receiving their first mobile phone are, on average, just seven-and-a-half years old, claims the latest survey – although these figures contradict official stats from Ofcom.
The new survey comes from mobilephonechecker.co.uk, which asked just over 1,000 parents the age of their kids when their hapless carers gave them a …
Android approaches 80% smartphone share as Apple's iPhone grows old
Apple's lack of revisions to its iPhone product line has cost it market share and Android now has 79.3 per cent of the worldwide market, according to the latest shipment data from IDC, with over 187 million Android handsets shipped in the second quarter of 2013.
"The iOS decline in the second quarter aligns with the cyclicality …
Google patents swish, swosh, swoosh pattern unlock app swipe
Google has a new, freshly approved patent up its sleeve that should get rid of a few of the gestures involved when you launch your favourite app on your locked phone.
Google's unlock to app patent
The Chocolate Factory has won a patent for "alternative unlocking patterns", which would let fandroids get into apps like the …
See a young Brit's mobe? 55% chance it has nekkid selfies on it, claims poll
Roughly half the young adult Brits polled in a survey have admitted to keeping naughty pictures of themselves or others on their mobile phones. One in ten confessed to accidentally sending dirty photos to the wrong person.
And only a third said they protected their pocket stroker with a PIN or password.
More than one in two (52 …
Smashing your phone? There's an app stupid game for that
Smashing your phone ? There's an app stupid game for that Just when you though the “there's an app for that” jokes didn't have much life left in them, along comes Send Me to Heaven, aka S.M.T.H., a game that encourages you to despatch you phone to the next life by tossing it into the air.
The game's concept is simple: using a …
Hey, you know Android apps can 'access ALL' of your Google account?
The single-click Google account login for Android apps is a little too convenient for hackers, according to Tripwire's Craig Young, who has demonstrated a flaw in the authentication method.
The mechanism is called “weblogin”, and basically it allows users to use their Google account credentials as authentication for third-party …
BlackBerry slides crown jewels into Samsung: BBM Android app touted
BlackBerry is sharing its crown jewels - BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) - with non-BlackBerry devices for the first time: and the lucky punters are Samsung fandroids in Africa.
The instant-messaging app will be free, compatible with the Android-powered Galaxy range of handsets, and offer all the important BBM functionality including …
Apple will swap fanbois' killer phoney phone chargers for legit adapters
Dodgy knockoff power adapters for iPhones, iPads and iPods can be swapped for an official charger in a new trade-in deal from Apple.
The Cupertino giant is keen to get dangerous third-party power gear out of fanbois' hands after a woman in China was electrocuted when she tried to take a call on her iPhone while it was charging …
South Korea: We're 'concerned' that Obama saved Apple from ban
The South Korean government has said that it's concerned about the decision by President Barack Obama not to go through with a ban on Apple iDevices that were found by the ITC to infringe on a Samsung patent.
"The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy expresses concerns over the negative effect the decision by the US Trade …
USA reverses iPhone, iPad sales ban
US Trade Representative Michael Froman has recommended Samsung's bid to prevent Apple from selling its iPhone and iPad due to patent violations not be approved.
In a letter (PDF) dated August 3rd, Froman wrote to the Chair of the International Trade Commission (USITC) and laid out his reasons for deciding not to impose a sales …
Samsung brings back clamshell phones with added Android
Samsung is reportedly bringing back the flip phone, adding Android and a pair of 3.7-inch touch screens to a form factor popular in the first GSM phones of the mid-1990s.
Japanese blog Ringer's Blue Men spotted a manual (PDF) for the new handset. Dated July 2013 and labelled version 1.0, the manual leaves no doubt it's an …
Moto X: It's listening to you. But can voice control finally take off?
After much teasing, Motorola Mobility has finally unveiled the Moto X phone it's hoping will restore the company's fortunes - and help repay the $12.5bn Google splashed out on the troubled mobile phone vendor.
Moto X
The basic handset has a 4.7-inch, 1280-by-720 pixel AMOLED screen, 2GB of RAM, 802.11a/g/b/n/ac Wi-Fi, no …
People really liked our Xperia. Throw in a weak yen and KERCHING - Sony
The weak yen and strong sales of its smartphones in Japan combined to help Sony report a better-than-expected operating profit in its fiscal first quarter.
Things were looking good for the one-time electronics giant at home, where foreign exchange rates were helping its bank balances and its flagship Xperia smartphone was well- …
Nokia sidles up to Qualcomm, hands over bulging map package
Nokia Here will be sharing its global floorplan database with Qualcomm, putting indoor maps together with indoor positioning in an assault on the last place one can get lost.
Here is Nokia's mapping division. It has accumulated a huge database of airports, museums and venues which it will share with Qualcomm in the new deal. …
First Austin, now live across the US: Watch Americans pay by bonk
US pay-by-bonk platform ISIS will go live across the US later this year following the pilots in Salt Lake City and Austin, as network operators make their big play for big data.
ISIS is jointly owned by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, and has been trialling its electronic wallet for the last nine months. Now it's going national with …
Apple kingpin springs to Beijing, pings telco kings: Flog our iPhone things
Apple chief Tim Cook has been doing the rounds in China with national telcos, drumming up interest in carrying iPhones and iPads to the country's massive mobile market.
Cook met China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua in Beijing to "discuss matters of cooperation", Reuters and Bloomberg reported.
The world's largest mobile carrier by …
So, who here LURVES Windows Phone? Put your hands up, Brits
Nokia's cheap Lumia handsets helped Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system to a nearly nine per cent share of the UK market - but for all the Finns' efforts, the Lumia is still a rounding error in the United States.
The data comes from a Kantar Worldpanel poll of buyers globally in the second calendar quarter of 2013; the …
Egad! Could Samsung be CHEATING in Galaxy benchmark tests?
Samsung has reportedly been cheating in benchmark tests, artificially boosting the scores of its latest and greatest system-on-chip, the Exynos 5 Octa, on those performance-ranking number generators so beloved by reviewers and product evaluators.
"Oh hell Samsung, shame on you!" wrote a Beyond3D forum member in a posting on one …
Lingering fingerprint fingering fingered in iOS 7 for NEW iPHONE
A London-based programmer has found a reference to fingerprint-recognition technology in a beta build of Apple's new iOS 7 for iThings.
Hamza Sood grabbed a load from text from a folder called BiometricKitUI within the Accessibility Bundles in the Library directory of the new operating system. The software is in the hands of app …
China Labor Watch gumshoes uncover TOP SECRET PLASTIC IPHONE
The first concrete details of Apple's cheapo plastic iPhone have been inadvertently revealed during a recent labour rights' group probe into alleged worker abuse on Cupertino's Chinese production line.
China Labor Watch produced a long document describing the alleged long working weeks of workers at three Pegatron facilities and …
Apple: 'Average' iPad toiler does a mere 46-hour week
Apple is under fire again after a new China Labor Watch report accused its factories of committing nearly 90 workers' rights violations.
This time iPhone and iPad fabs operated by Taiwanese manufacturing giant Pegatron are facing the allegations, rather than Foxconn. Apple today confirmed to The Reg that it will immediately …
New in Android 4.3: At last we get a grip on privacy-invading crApps
The latest version of Google's Android, 4.3, has a panel controlling access permissions on an app-by-app basis - but only for those users ready to experiment with untested functionality.
The App Ops control was found by Android Police and initially required a hack to bring it to life. Now there's an app in the Google Play store …
Spanish mobile startup offers Firefox OS phones to world+dog
Geeksphone, the Spanish startup that launched the first commercially available Firefox OS developer phones in April, has announced that it will soon release a version of one of its handsets that's suitable for general consumers.
The new phone is an improved version of the Peak, one of the two Firefox OS mobes the company shipped …
Apple drops hints about future low-cost iPhones
Apple surprised Wall Street on Tuesday when it announced that it had sold more iPhones than most forecasters had envisioned. What it didn't say in its earnings release, however, was how many of those 31.2 million iPhones it sold in its third fiscal quarter were iPhone 5s, and how many were lower-priced, older models.
But on a …
