A startup called Rabbit sold out of its first batch of pocket AI companions a day after it was debuted at CES 2024. The company announced on X that it sold 10,000 units in just a day. "When we started building r1, we said internally that we'd be happy if we sold 500 devices on launch day," Rabbit writes. "In 24 hours, we already beat that by 20x!" The Verge reports: Rabbit introduced the R1 during CES on Tuesday, which comes with a small 2.88-inch touchscreen that runs on the company's own Rabbit OS. It uses a "Large Action Model" that works as a "sort of universal controller for apps," according to my colleague David Pierce, who got to try out the device during the showcase. This allows it to do things like play music, buy groceries, and send messages through a single interface without having to use your phone. It also lets you train the device how to interact with a certain app. A second batch is available for preorder from Rabbit's website with an expected delivery date between April and May 2024. The first batch of products are expected to start shipping in March.

According to Bloomberg, Apple's AirDrop feature has been cracked by a Chinese state-backed institution to identify senders who share "undesirable content". MacRumors reports: AirDrop is Apple's ad-hoc service that lets users discover nearby Macs and iOS devices and securely transfer files between them over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Users can send and receive photos, videos, documents, contacts, passwords and anything else that can be transferred from a Share Sheet. Apple advertises the protocol as secure because the wireless connection uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption, but the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice (BMBJ) says it has devised a way to bypass the protocol's encryption and reveal identifying information.

According to the BMBJ's website, iPhone device logs were analyzed to create a "rainbow table" which allowed investigators to convert hidden hash values into the original text and correlate the phone numbers and email accounts of AirDrop content senders. The "technological breakthrough" has successfully helped the public security authorities identify a number of criminal suspects, who use the AirDrop function to spread illegal content, the BMBJ added. "It improves the efficiency and accuracy of case-solving and prevents the spread of inappropriate remarks as well as potential bad influences," the bureau added.

It is not known if the security flaw in the AirDrop protocol has been exploited by a government agency before now, but it is not the first time a flaw has been discovered. In April 2021, German researchers found that the mutual authentication mechanism that confirms both the receiver and sender are on each other's address book could be used to expose private information. According to the researchers, Apple was informed of the flaw in May of 2019, but did not fix it.

home-electro.com shares a report from Engadget: On Sunday night Samsung held its annual First Look event at CES 2024, where the company teased the world's first transparent MicroLED display. While there's still no word on how much it costs or when this tech will find its way into retail devices, Samsung showcased its transparent MicroLED display side-by-side next to transparent OLED and transparent LCD models to really highlight the differences between the tech. Compared to the others, not only was the MicroLED panel significantly brighter, it also featured a completely frameless design and a more transparent glass panel that made it easier to see objects behind it. LG also unveiled a similar piece of tech: the company's "first wireless transparent OLED TV." It's called the OLED T and supports 4K resolution and LG's wireless transmission tech for audio and video.

You can watch a demo of Samsung's transparent microLED screen on YouTube.

The Wi-Fi Alliance is now starting to certify devices that use the latest generation of wireless connectivity, and the goal is to make sure these devices work with each other seamlessly. Android Central: Basically, the certification allows router brands and device manufacturers to guarantee that their products will work with other Wi-Fi 7 devices. Qualcomm, for its part, is announcing that it has several designs that leverage Wi-Fi 7, and that it achieved the Wi-Fi Alliance certification -- dubbed Wi-Fi Certified 7 -- for the FastConnect 7800 module that's baked into the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 8 Gen 2, and the Networking Pro portfolio.

Wi-Fi Certified 7 is designed to enable interoperability, and ensure that devices from various brands work without any issues. In addition to Qualcomm, the likes of MediaTek, Intel, Broadcom, CommScope, and MaxLinear are also picking up certifications for their latest networking products. I chatted with Andy Davidson, Sr. Director of Technology Planning at Qualcomm, ahead of the announcement to understand a little more about how Wi-Fi 7 is different. Wi-Fi 7 uses the 6GHz band -- similar to Wi-Fi 6E -- but introduces 320Mhz channels that have the potential to deliver significantly greater bandwidth. Wi-Fi 7 also uses a clever new feature called Multi-Link Operation (MLO) that lets devices connect to two bands at the same time, leading to better signal strength and bandwidth. Further reading: Wi-Fi 7 Signals the Industry's New Priority: Stability.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Among the harrowing details of the blown-off fuselage panel that triggered a sudden decompression event on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, one revelation seemed to defy the laws of physics: one of the mobile phones that had been sucked out of the Boeing 737 Max 9 jet's cabin remained in functioning condition after a 16,000-foot tumble. A new-generation Apple iPhone landed intact, unlocked and with hours of battery life remaining on a Portland, Oregon roadside, according to a post on X by a user calling himself Seanathan Bates, who said he discovered the device. The screen showed an email from Alaska Airlines about a baggage claim for the flight, based on Bates' photos.

The phone was in airplane mode, Bates said in a TikTok video. "It was still pretty clean, no scratches on it, sitting under a bush and it didn't have a screenlock on it," he said. The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed at a briefing on Sunday that one phone was found on the side of a road and another in a yard. The people have handed in both of the devices, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters.

"This December, I made a radical change," writes a New York Times tech reporter — ditching their $1,300 iPhone 15 for a $108 flip phone.

"It makes phone calls and texts and that was about it. It didn't even have Snake on it..." The decision to "upgrade" to the Journey was apparently so preposterous that my carrier wouldn't allow me to do it over the phone.... Texting anything longer than two sentences involved an excruciating amount of button pushing, so I started to call people instead. This was a problem because most people don't want their phone to function as a phone... [Most voicemails] were never acknowledged. It was nearly as reliable a method of communication as putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea...

My black clamshell of a phone had the effect of a clerical collar, inducing people to confess their screen time sins to me. They hated that they looked at their phone so much around their children, that they watched TikTok at night instead of sleeping, that they looked at it while they were driving, that they started and ended their days with it. In a 2021 Pew Research survey, 31 percent of adults reported being "almost constantly online" — a feat possible only because of the existence of the smartphone.

This was the most striking aspect of switching to the flip. It meant the digital universe and its infinite pleasures, efficiencies and annoyances were confined to my computer. That was the source of people's skepticism: They thought I wouldn't be able to function without Uber, not to mention the world's knowledge, at my beck and call. (I grew up in the '90s. It wasn't that bad...

"Do you feel less well-informed?" one colleague asked. Not really. Information made its way to me, just slightly less instantly. My computer still offered news sites, newsletters and social media rubbernecking.
There were disadvantages — and not just living without Google Maps. ("I've got an electric vehicle, and upon pulling into a public charger, low on miles, realized that I could not log into the charger without a smartphone app... I received a robot vacuum for Christmas ... which could only be set up with an iPhone app.") Two-factor authentication was impossible.

But "Despite these challenges, I survived, even thrived during the month. It was a relief to unplug my brain from the internet on a regular basis and for hours at a time. I read four books... I felt that I had more time, and more control over what to do with it... my sleep improved dramatically."

"I do plan to return to my iPhone in 2024, but in grayscale and with more mindfulness about how I use it."

CNN reports that some Verizon customers "might have found an unexpected surprise in the mail this week: An opportunity to receive a refund as part of a proposed $100 million settlement from a class-action lawsuit." Eligible customers are receiving postcards or emails alerting them to file a claim by April 15 to receive up to $100, which is the result of the lawsuit accusing Verizon of charging fees that were "unfair and not adequately disclosed."

At issue is Verizon's "administrative charge," which the plaintiffs said were "misleading" because that fee wasn't disclosed in their plan's advertised monthly price and were charged in a "deceptive and unfair manner." Verizon has denied the claims and said in a statement that it "clearly identifies and describes its wireless consumer admin charge multiple times during the sales transaction, as well as in its marketing, contracts and billing." A company spokesperson said that the charge "helps our company recover certain regulatory compliance and network related costs."
"The payout is at least $15," adds CNN, "and might be more depending on how long the customer used Verizon and the number of customers who file a claim."

Tuesday's launch was different. "SpaceX launched its first batch of Starlink satellites designed to connect directly to unmodified smartphones..." reports SpaceNews, "after getting a temporary experimental license to start testing the capability in the United States." Six of the 21 Starlink satellites that launched on a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:44 p.m. Eastern from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, carry a payload that the company said could provide connectivity for most 4G LTE devices when in range. SpaceX plans to start enabling texting from space this year in partnership with cellular operators, with voice and data connectivity coming in 2025, although the company still needs regulatory permission to provide the services commercially. Initial direct-to-smartphone tests would use cellular spectrum from SpaceX's U.S. mobile partner T-Mobile. SpaceX has also partnered with mobile operators in Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, New Zealand, and Switzerland....

Meanwhile, early-stage ventures AST SpaceMobile and Lynk Global are closing in on fundraising deals to expand their dedicated direct-to-device constellations. AST SpaceMobile said January 2 it is seeking to secure funds this month from "multiple parties" ahead of launching its first five commercial satellites early this year on a Falcon 9. Lynk Global, which is currently providing intermittent texting and other low-bandwidth services to phones outside cellular networks in parts of the Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, and Palau, plans to raise funds by merging with a shell company run by former professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez.

Code within the latest version of the ChatGPT Android app suggests that you'll soon be able to set it as the default assistant app, replacing the Google Assistant. Android Authority's Mishaal Rahman reports: ChatGPT version 1.2023.352, released last month, added a new activity named com.openai.voice.assistant.AssistantActivity. The activity is disabled by default, but after manually enabling and launching it, an overlay appears on the screen with the same swirling animation as the one shown when using the in-app voice chat mode. This overlay appears over other apps and doesn't take up the entire screen like the in-app voice chat mode. So, presumably, you could talk to ChatGPT from any screen by invoking this assistant. However, in my testing, the animation never finished and the activity promptly closed itself before I could speak with the chatbot. This could either be because the feature isn't finished yet or is being controlled by some internal flag. [...]

However, the fact that the aforementioned XML file even exists hints that this is what OpenAI intends to do with the app. Making the ChatGPT app Android's default digital assistant app would enable users to launch it by long-pressing the home button (if using three-button navigation) or swiping up from a bottom corner (if using gesture navigation). Unfortunately, the ChatGPT app still wouldn't be able to create custom hotwords or respond to existing ones, since that functionality requires access to privileged APIs only available to trusted, preinstalled apps. Still, given that Google will launch Assistant with Bard any day now, it makes sense that OpenAI wants to make it easier for Android users to access ChatGPT so that users don't flock to Bard just because it's easier to use.

A cartel in the embattled central Mexico state of Michoacan set up its own makeshift internet antennas and told locals they had to pay to use its wifi service or they would be killed, according to prosecutors. New submitter awwshit shares a story: Dubbed "narco-antennas" by local media, the cartel's system involved internet antennas set up in various towns built with stolen equipment. The group charged approximately 5,000 people elevated prices between 400 and 500 pesos ($25 and $30) a month, the Michoacan state prosecutor's office told the Associated Press. That meant the group could rake in about $150,000 a month. People were terrorized "to contract the internet services at excessive costs, under the claim that they would be killed if they did not," prosecutors said, though they did not report any such deaths. Local media identified the criminal group as a faction known as Los Viagras. Prosecutors declined to say which cartel was involved because the case was still under investigation, but they confirmed Los Viagras dominates the towns forced to make the wifi payments.

SpaceX launched a total of 21 satellites on Tuesday night, including "the first six Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities that enable mobile network operators around the world to provide seamless global access to texting, calling, and browsing wherever you may be on land, lakes, or coastal waters without changing hardware or firmware. The enhanced Starlink satellites have an advanced modem that acts as a cellphone tower in space, eliminating dead zones with network integration similar to a standard roaming partner," the company said. Ars Technica reports: Besides T-Mobile in the US, several carriers in other countries have signed up to use the direct-to-cell satellites. SpaceX said the other carriers are Rogers in Canada, KDDI in Japan, Optus in Australia, One NZ in New Zealand, Salt in Switzerland, and Entel in Chile and Peru. While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote that the satellites will "allow for mobile phone connectivity anywhere on Earth," he also described a significant bandwidth limit. "Note, this only supports ~7Mb per beam and the beams are very big, so while this is a great solution for locations with no cellular connectivity, it is not meaningfully competitive with existing terrestrial cellular networks," Musk wrote.

Starlink's direct-to-cell website says the service will provide text messaging only when it becomes available in 2024, with voice and data service beginning sometime in 2025. Starlink's low Earth orbit satellites will work with standard LTE phones, unlike earlier services that required phones specifically built for satellite use. SpaceX's direct-to-cell satellites will also connect with Internet of Things (IoT) devices in 2025, the company says.

TechCrunch reports: Apple's warnings in late October that Indian journalists and opposition figures may have been targeted by state-sponsored attacks prompted a forceful counterattack from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Officials publicly doubted Apple's findings and announced a probe into device security.

India has never confirmed nor denied using the Pegasus tool, but nonprofit advocacy group Amnesty International reported Thursday that it found NSO Group's invasive spyware on the iPhones of prominent journalists in India, lending more credibility to Apple's early warnings. "Our latest findings show that increasingly, journalists in India face the threat of unlawful surveillance simply for doing their jobs, alongside other tools of repression including imprisonment under draconian laws, smear campaigns, harassment, and intimidation," said Donncha Ã" Cearbhaill, head of Amnesty International's Security Lab, in the blog post.
Cloud security company Lookout has also published "an in-depth technical look" at Pegasus, calling its use "a targeted espionage attack being actively leveraged against an undetermined number of mobile users around the world." It uses sophisticated function hooking to subvert OS- and application-layer security in voice/audio calls and apps including Gmail, Facebook, WhatsApp, Facetime, Viber, WeChat, Telegram, Apple's built-in messaging and email apps, and others. It steals the victim's contact list and GPS location, as well as personal, Wi-Fi, and router passwords stored on the device...

According to news reports, NSO Group sells weaponized software that targets mobile phones to governments and has been operating since 2010, according to its LinkedIn page. The Pegasus spyware has existed for a significant amount of time, and is advertised and sold for use on high-value targets for multiple purposes, including high-level espionage on iOS, Android, and Blackberry.
Thanks to Slashdodt reader Mirnotoriety for sharing the news.

Multi-link operations and the 6-GHz band promise more reliability than before. From a report: The key to a future Wi-Fi you can depend on is something called multi-link operations (MLO). "It is the marquee feature of Wi-Fi 7," says Kevin Robinson, president and CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance. MLO comes in two flavors. The first -- and simpler -- of the two is a version that allows Wi-Fi devices to spread a stream of data across multiple channels in a single frequency band. The technique makes the collective Wi-Fi signal more resilient to interference at a specific frequency. Where MLO really makes Wi-Fi 7 stand apart from previous generations, however, is a version that allows devices to spread a data stream across multiple frequency bands. For context, Wi-Fi utilizes three bands-2.5 gigahertz, 5 GHz, and as of 2020, 6 GHz.

Whether MLO spreads signals across multiple channels in the same frequency band or channels across two or three bands, the goals are the same: dependability and reduced latency. Devices will be able to split up a stream of data and send portions across different channels at the same time -- which cuts down on the overall transmission time -- or beam copies of the data across diverse channels, in case one channel is noisy or otherwise impaired. MLO is hardly the only feature new to Wi-Fi 7, even if industry experts agree it's the most notable. Wi-Fi 7 will also see channel size increase from 160 megahertz to a new maximum of 320 MHz. Bigger channels means more throughput capacity, which means more data in the same amount of time.

That said, 320-MHz channels won't be universally available. Wi-Fi uses unlicensed spectrum -- and in some regions, contiguous 320-MHz chunks of unlicensed spectrum don't exist because of other spectrum allocations. In cases where full channels aren't possible, Wi-Fi 7 includes another feature, called puncturing. "In the past, let's say you're looking for 320 MHz somewhere, but right within, there's a 20-MHz interferer. You would need to look at going to either side of that," says Andy Davidson, senior director of technology planning at Qualcomm. Before Wi-Fi 7, you'd functionally be stuck with about a 160-MHz channel either above or below that interference.

Researchers on Wednesday presented intriguing new findings surrounding an attack that over four years backdoored dozens if not thousands of iPhones, many of which belonged to employees of Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky. Chief among the discoveries: the unknown attackers were able to achieve an unprecedented level of access by exploiting a vulnerability in an undocumented hardware feature that few if anyone outside of Apple and chip suppliers such as ARM Holdings knew of. ArsTechnica: "The exploit's sophistication and the feature's obscurity suggest the attackers had advanced technical capabilities," Kaspersky researcher Boris Larin wrote in an email. "Our analysis hasn't revealed how they became aware of this feature, but we're exploring all possibilities, including accidental disclosure in past firmware or source code releases. They may also have stumbled upon it through hardware reverse engineering."

Other questions remain unanswered, wrote Larin, even after about 12 months of intensive investigation. Besides how the attackers learned of the hardware feature, the researchers still don't know what, precisely, its purpose is. Also unknown is if the feature is a native part of the iPhone or enabled by a third-party hardware component such as ARM's CoreSight. The mass backdooring campaign, which according to Russian officials also infected the iPhones of thousands of people working inside diplomatic missions and embassies in Russia, according to Russian government officials, came to light in June. Over a span of at least four years, Kaspersky said, the infections were delivered in iMessage texts that installed malware through a complex exploit chain without requiring the receiver to take any action. With that, the devices were infected with full-featured spyware that, among other things, transmitted microphone recordings, photos, geolocation, and other sensitive data to attacker-controlled servers. Although infections didn't survive a reboot, the unknown attackers kept their campaign alive simply by sending devices a new malicious iMessage text shortly after devices were restarted.

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this article from the Atlantic: For the past few years, parents, researchers, and the news media have paid closer attention to the relationship between teenagers' phone use and their mental health. Researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have shown that various measures of student well-being began a sharp decline around 2012 throughout the West, just as smartphones and social media emerged as the attentional centerpiece of teenage life. Some have even suggested that smartphone use is so corrosive, it's systematically reducing student achievement. I hadn't quite believed that last argument — until now.

The Program for International Student Assessment, conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in almost 80 countries every three years, tests 15-year-olds est scores have been falling for years — even before the pandemic. Across the OECD, science scores peaked in 2009, and reading scores peaked in 2012. Since then, developed countries have as a whole performed "increasingly poorly" on average. "No single country showed an increasingly positive trend in any subject," PISA reported, and "many countries showed increasingly poor performance in at least one subject." Even in famously high-performing countries, such as Finland, Sweden, and South Korea, PISA grades in one or several subjects have been declining for a while.

So what's driving down student scores around the world? The PISA report offers three reasons to suspect that phones are a major culprit. First, PISA finds that students who spend less than one hour of "leisure" time on digital devices a day at school scored about 50 points higher in math than students whose eyes are glued to their screens more than five hours a day. This gap held even after adjusting for socioeconomic factors... Second, screens seem to create a general distraction throughout school, even for students who aren't always looking at them.... Finally, nearly half of students across the OECD said that they felt "nervous" or "anxious" when they didn't have their digital devices near them. (On average, these students also said they were less satisfied with life.) This phone anxiety was negatively correlated with math scores.

In sum, students who spend more time staring at their phone do worse in school, distract other students around them, and feel worse about their life.

The next version of Android could give you an estimate of your battery's remaining capacity, which naturally degrades over time. "Android 14 laid the initial groundwork for the OS to track battery health information, but Android 15 could actually bring that information in front of users," reports Android Authority. It could also tell you whether your device's battery has been replaced. From the report: The manufacture date and cycle count aren't the only battery-related statistics that Android 14 exposes to apps through new APIs, though. Other battery health details like the date of first use, charging policy, charging status, and state of health are also available. The state of health is particularly interesting because it's an estimate of the battery's current full charge capacity, expressed as a percentage relative to the battery's rated capacity. For example, if your Pixel 8 battery's state of health is measured at 90%, that means its remaining full charge capacity is estimated to be about 4118mAh (compared to the rated 4575mAh).

The Settings app currently doesn't show the battery state of health, but that's set to change in the future, as the latest version of the Settings Services app (an extension to the Settings app on Pixel and other devices) found within Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2 has a new "battery health" page that is set to show the state of health. [...] Strings within the APK suggest this page will show you the "estimated percentage of charge the battery can currently hold compared to when it was new" (i.e. the state of health) before and after "recalibration" of the battery. We don't have the exact details on what "recalibration" entails, but given that one string suggests the "process may take a few weeks," we're guessing that it's simply the system collecting data over a longer period to provide a more accurate estimate of the battery capacity. Meanwhile, the "initial battery health values" are "based on lab results" and hence "may vary from your actual battery state."

[...] We also learned that the Settings app itself will surface "tips" to the user when either the battery capacity is degraded or can't be detected, so the user doesn't have to manually check the "battery health" page. Lastly, we learned that Google is working on exposing more battery-related information to the OS, such as the part status and the serial number. [...] At the very least, we do know that Android will support reading the battery's part status and serial number, provided the battery exposes that information to the OS, and the vendor implements the new version of the Android health HAL. The health HAL is the software responsible for bridging the gap between the OS APIs that read battery/charging information (i.e. everything we talked about before) with the software that controls the battery/charging chips. Version 2.0 of the health HAL needs to be implemented to support all the new Android 14 battery health APIs like state of health, which is why so few devices support that right now.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's no secret that TV makers are seriously invested in pushing ads. Using TVs for advertising goes back to 1941 when the first TV commercial aired. But as we trudge our way through the 21st century, TV vendors are becoming more involved in ensuring that their hardware is used to sell stuff and add to their own recurring revenue. This has taken various forms, but in some cases, we're seeing increasingly invasive strategies for turning TVs into a primary place for shopping. The latest approach catching attention comes from the startup Displace. Its upcoming TVs will use integrated webcams and NFC payment readers to make it easy for people to buy stuff they see on TV. [...]

The two new TVs Displace is adding to its 2024 release plans, the Displace Flex and Displace Mini, are all about making TV shopping better. According to Displace's announcement, the Displace Flex (a 55-inch 4K OLED TV) and Displace Mini (a 27-inch 4K OLED TV) will use proprietary gesture technology and each TV's integrated 4K camera to tell when a user is raising their hand. It's unclear how accurate that will be (could the shopping experience accidentally be activated if I raised my hand to tie my hair up, for example?), but at that point, the TV is supposed to pause the content being played. Then, it uses computer vision to "analyze the screen to find products available for sale. Once they see something they want to purchase, viewers drag and drop the product into the global Displace Shopping Cart," the announcement says. Displace Shopping will work at any moment the TV is on, and users can buy stuff they see in commercials by using the TVs.

Displace's December 14 announcement said: "As soon as the viewer is ready to checkout, Displace Payments makes paying as easy as bringing a user's smartphone or watch near the TV's built-in NFC payment reader, a fully secure process that requires no credit card info. Viewers can also pay from within the Displace app." If the TV can't find a specific product for sale, it will "search for similar items" without user intervention, according to Displace. The TV will show products from any available online retailers, allowing users to select where they want to make their purchase. Displace hasn't provided full details about how it will make money off these transactions, but when reached for comment, founder and CEO Balaji Krishnan told Ars Technica that Displace has "different business models, and one of them is to take a transaction fee," and that Displace will share more details "later." Displace also sees people using Displace Payments to pay for telehealth applications and equipped the Flex and Mini with thermal cameras. To ease privacy concerns, Krishnan says the integrated cameras can be folded into the TVs if a user needs privacy.

Eventually, Displace sees itself working with content publishers to lay its shopping UI over actively playing content. "Users would see a workable buy button right on top of the playing video," adds Ars.

Forbes recently published this article by author/speaker Nina Xiang, who reports that Huawei is pushing forward with "an amibitious plan to dethrone Android." Hundreds of technical experts from many of China's biggest state-owned and private companies, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Telecom, Meituan, and Baidu, all gathered in Beijing last month. The purpose behind the meeting was for their staff to receive training so they could be certified as developers on Huawei's Harmony Operation System (OS).

While most observers were looking the other way, Huawei has been quietly building an independent Chinese operating system that isn't subject to U.S. sanctions. In the four years after the telecom giant was banned from using Google apps, the Shenzhen-based company has been making significant strides toward achieving its long-term goal: To dethrone Android and make its HarmonyOS the default operating system in China.

Looking at the data for smartphone sales in China shows that HarmonyOS had the third-largest share with 10% in the second quarter of 2023, thanks to a strong resurgence in sales of Huawei smartphones. Although it's still well below Android's dominant 72%, it's not far from iOS's 17%... Huawei already says more than 700 million devices (including phones, smart devices, computers, and others) were equipped with HarmonyOS as of August this year, with over 2.2 million developers actively building within the ecosystem...

A key moment will come next year, when Huawei says HarmonyOS will no longer be compatible with Android apps.

An anonymous reader quotes this report from Bloomberg: The U.S. doubts whether Huawei Technologies Co. can produce the advanced chip in its new smartphone at the scale or performance threshold necessary to meet market demand, a senior Commerce Department official told lawmakers Tuesday. "Neither the performance nor yields may match the market of the device," Thea Kendler, assistant secretary for export administration, said during testimony before a House Foreign Affairs Committee oversight panel.

"Moreover, the semiconductor chip that is inside that phone is a poorer performance than what they had years ago," Kendler said. "So our export controls are meaningful in slowing China's advanced technology acquisition...."

The [U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security] is under pressure from Republicans to be tougher on Huawei and its chipmaking partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp [or SMIC]. Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul and others have called for the Bureau of Industry and Security to fully cut off both firms from their American suppliers. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Bloomberg News in a Monday interview that the U.S. will take the "strongest possible" action to protect its national security following the breakthrough, while declining to confirm the existence of an investigation into Huawei or SMIC.

Solana Saga smartphones sales are surging after arbitrage traders realized every phone comes with an airdrop of BONK meme coins valued at more than the cost of the hardware. "Saga sales have >10x'd in the past 48 hours, and are now on track to sell out before the new year," said Solana co-founder Raj Gokal in a post on X. As a result, Gokal's counterpart, Anatoly Yakovenko, said they'll need to raise the price. CoinDesk reports: The euphoria around BONK -- Solana's dog-themed equivalent to Dogecoin -- has led to a turnaround story for Saga, which just one week ago faced dimming prospects amid forgettable sales figures. Saga is a blockchain-enabled smartphone with special features for storing one's crypto securely on the phone's own hardware. The Saga Discord server exploded on Thursday with newcomers declaring they just bought the phone and wanted to get the airdrop.

According to posts on the Discord server, the BONK airdrop is available to those who download the BONK app from Saga's crypto-forward custom app store. "When you physically have the phone you will be able to mint 'Genesis token' through the 'dApp store, [this] token is eligible to claim the bonk drop," said a user who identified themselves as an employee of Solana Mobile in the Discord server. "The bonk drop is NOT forever, at some point that promotion will end," the user, whose screen name was Jax, said in the Discord. "As of right now the claim is live and is up to the bonk team on when they'd want to close it. No end date yet."