As part of Sony's push into mobile gaming, the company has formed a PlayStation Studios Mobile Division that will operate separately from console game development. According to a press release, the new team will create mobile games with "new and existing PlayStation IP." From a report: Sony's move to form a mobile gaming division aligns with the company's overall goal of extending its IP to PC and mobile games, as well as TV series and movies. Earlier this year, Sony announced that it wants half of its games to be on PC and mobile by 2025, with Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan stating that it could result in a "significant growth in the number of people who play our games." The company's also looking to expand into live service games -- games like Fortnite, Rocket League, or Destiny 2 that are continually updated to keep players interested -- with its $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie.

To help fill out its new mobile division, Sony has also acquired Savage Game Studios, whose co-founders previously worked at Zynga, Insomniac, and Wargaming. It doesn't look like the studio launched any games just yet, but it received $4.4 million in funding for a mobile shooter game last year. The press release expands on this a bit, noting that the studio is currently working on "an unannounced new AAA live service action game," but doesn't offer any additional details on what to expect. Hermen Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios, said the company's "proud" of its "upcoming releases on PC," which should give gamers without a Playstation console a chance to experience games like Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection and Marvel's Spider-Man. "Our mobile gaming efforts will be similarly additive, providing more ways for more people to engage with our content," he said, "and striving to reach new audiences unfamiliar with PlayStation and our games."

Lockdown Mode disables a series of features that can be used to hack iPhone users. But the lack of these features also makes it easier to figure out who is using Lockdown Mode. From a report: Once Apple launches the new iPhone and iPad operating system early next month, users will be able to turn on a new privacy mode that the company calls "extreme." It's made for journalists, activists, politicians, human rights defenders, and anyone else who may be worried about getting targeted by sophisticated hackers, perhaps working for governments armed with spyware made by companies such as NSO Group. Apple calls it "Lockdown Mode" and it works by disabling some regular iPhone features that have been exploited to hack users in the past. But if users turn on Lockdown Mode, they will be easy to fingerprint and identify, according to a developer who created a proof of concept website that detects whether you have Lockdown Mode enabled or not.

John Ozbay, the CEO of privacy focused company Cryptee, and a privacy activist, told Motherboard that any website or online ad can detect whether some regular features are missing, such as loading custom fonts, one of the features that Lockdown Mode disables. "Let's say you're in China, and you're using Lockdown Mode. Now, any website that you visit could effectively detect you are using Lockdown Mode, they have your IP address as well. So they will actually be able to identify that the user with this IP address is using Lockdown Mode," Ozbay said in a call. "It's a tradeoff between security and privacy. [Apple] chose security."

Continuing the focus on delivering the world's fastest internet speeds that led Chattanooga's municipal utility to launch America's first comprehensively available Gig-speed internet service (2010) and the first 10-Gig internet service (2015), EPB has launched the nation's first community-wide 25 gigabits per second (25,000 Mbps) internet service. Chattanoogan reports: It is set to be available to all residential and commercial customers over a 100 percent fiber optic network with symmetrical upload and download speeds. Through a partnership with Hamilton County and the city of Chattanooga, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Convention Center is EPB's first 25 Gig customer, making it the first convention center worldwide to offer such blazingly fast speeds over a broadband network. With this technology, the Convention Center will be able to simultaneously provide high bandwidth connectivity to thousands of smart devices to draw business conferences, e-gaming competitions, live streaming events and more.

Hamilton County and the city of Chattanooga have each dedicated $151,000 in infrastructure funding for a total of $302,000 to cover the cost of installing new networking equipment and Wi-Fi access points throughout the convention center as well as much of the cost of providing multi-gig connectivity for the next five years. Once the new equipment is installed, visitors will be able to benefit from high-speed connectivity throughout the facility.

The ubiquitous device is becoming a shop window for the firm's services. From a report: As it dreams up more gadgets to sell to more people, however, Apple is employing another strategy in parallel. The company has so far put 1.8bn devices in the pockets and on the desks of some of the world's most affluent consumers. Now it is selling access to those customers to other companies, and persuading those who own its devices to sign up to its own subscription services. As Luca Maestri, Apple's chief financial officer, said on a recent earnings call, the Apple devices in circulation represent "a big engine for our services business." The strategy is picking up speed. Last year services brought in $68bn in revenue, or 19% of Apple's total. That is double the share in 2015. In the latest quarter services' share was even higher, at 24%. Apple doesn't break down where the money comes from, but the biggest chunk is reckoned to be fees from its app store, which amounted to perhaps $25bn last year, according to Sensor Tower, a data provider.

The next-biggest part is probably the payment from Google for the right to be Apple devices' default search engine. This was $10bn in 2020; analysts believe the going rate now is nearer $20bn. Apple's fast-growing advertising business -- mainly selling search ads in its app store -- will bring in nearly $7bn this year, reckons eMarketer, another research firm. Most of the rest comes from a range of subscription services: iCloud storage, Apple Music and Apple Care insurance are probably the biggest, estimates Morgan Stanley, an investment bank. More recent ventures like Apple tv+, Apple Fitness, Apple Arcade and Apple Pay make up the rest. New services keep popping up. Last November Apple launched a subscription product for small companies called Apple Business Essentials, offering tech support, device management and so on. In June it announced a "buy now, pay later" service. The company claims a total of 860m active paid subscriptions, nearly a quarter more than it had a year ago.

MIT Technology Review obtained Prince's investor presentation for the "RedPill Phone," which promises more than it could possibly deliver. From the report: Erik Prince's pitch to investors was simple -- but certainly ambitious: pay just 5 million euros and cure the biggest cybersecurity and privacy plagues of our day. The American billionaire -- best known for founding the notorious private military firm Blackwater, which became globally infamous for killing Iraqi civilians and threatening US government investigators -- was pushing Unplugged, a smartphone startup promising "free speech, privacy, and security" untethered from dominant tech giants like Apple and Google. In June, Prince publicly revealed the new phone, priced at $850. But before that, beginning in 2021, he was privately hawking the device to investors -- using a previously unreported pitch deck that has been obtained by MIT Technology Review. It boldly claims that the phone and its operating system are "impenetrable" to surveillance, interception, and tampering, and its messenger service is marketed as "impossible to intercept or decrypt."

Boasting falsely that Unplugged has built "the first operating system free of big tech monetization and analytics," Prince bragged that the device is protected by "government-grade encryption." Better yet, the pitch added, Unplugged is to be hosted on a global array of server farms so that it "can never be taken offline." One option is said to be a server farm "on a vessel" located in an "undisclosed location on international waters, connected via satellite to Elon Musk's StarLink." An Unplugged spokesperson explained that "they benefit in having servers not be subject to any governmental law." The Unplugged investor pitch deck is a messy mix of these impossible claims, meaningless buzzwords, and outright fiction. While none of the experts I spoke with had yet been able to test the phone or read its code, because the company hasn't provided access, the evidence available suggests Unplugged will fall wildly short of what's promised.

[...] The UP Phone's operating system, called LibertOS, is a proprietary version of Google's Android, according to an Unplugged spokesperson. It's running on an unclear mix of hardware that a company spokesperson says they've designed on their own. Even just maintaining a unique Android "fork" -- a version of the operating system that departs from the original, like a fork in the road -- is a difficult endeavor that can cost massive money and resources, experts warn. For a small startup, that can be an insurmountable challenge. [...] Another key issue is life span. Apple's iPhones are considered the most secure consumer device on the market due in part to the fact that the company offers security updates to some of its older phones for six years, longer than virtually all competitors. When support for a phone ends, security vulnerabilities go unaddressed, and the phone is no longer secure. There is no information available on how long UP Phones will receive security support. "There are two things happening here," says Allan Liska, a cyberintelligence analyst at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. "There are the actual attempts to make real secure phones, and then there is the marketing BS. Distinguishing between those two can be really hard."

"When I worked in US intelligence, we [penetrated] a number of phone companies overseas," says Liska. "We were inside those phone companies. We could easily track people based on where they connected to the towers. So when you talk about being impenetrable, that's wrong. This is a phone, and the way that phones work is they triangulate to cell towers, and there is always latitude and longitude for exactly where you're sitting," he adds. "Nothing you do to the phone is going to change that."

The UP Phone is due out in November 2022.

Apple is aiming to hold a launch event on Sept. 7 to unveil the iPhone 14 line, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter, rolling out the latest version of a product that generates more than half its sales. From the report: The new iPhones will kick off a busy fall product season, which will also include multiple new Macs, low-end and high-end iPads, and three Apple Watch models. Apple is updating its flagship product at a precarious time for the industry. Smartphone sales have begun to flag as consumers cope with inflation and a shaky economy. But Apple appears to be faring better than its peers: The iPhone sold well last quarter, and the company has signaled to suppliers that it doesn't foresee a dropoff in demand.

The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday upheld the FCC's decision to reallocate part of the 5.9 GHz band for unlicensed use -- rather than the dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) it was originally allocated for. "This is part of the spectrum that in 1999 was set aside exclusively for the auto industry to use for DSCR to improve auto safety," notes Fierce Wireless. "At that time, the full amount set aside was 75 megahertz." From the report: After about 20 years, nothing ever really came of DSRC, and in 2020, the FCC divvied up the 75 megahertz, making 45 megahertz available for unlicensed use with the remaining 30 megahertz designated for auto safety. Specifically, the auto safety spectrum was reallocated for Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology, a more modern tech than DSRC. The Intelligent Transportation Society of America and American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials didn't like the FCC's decision and appealed, arguing that it violated the Transportation Equity Act. They also said the FCC unlawfully revoked or modified FCC licenses. But Circuit Court Judge Justin Walker said it did not violate the act and said the court disagreed with the transportation officials' arguments "on all fronts."

"Apple is set to expand ads to new areas of your iPhone and iPad in search of its next big revenue driver," reports Bloomberg.

The Verge writes that Apple "could eventually bring ads to more of the apps that come pre-installed on your iPhone and other Apple devices, including Maps, Books, and Podcasts." According to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has internally tested search ads in Maps, which could display recommendations when you search for restaurants, stores, or other nearby businesses. Apple already implements a similar advertising model on the App Store, as developers can pay to have their app promoted on a search page for a particular query, like "puzzle games" or "photo editor." As noted by Gurman, ads on Maps could work in the same way, with businesses paying to appear at the top of search results when users enter certain search terms.

Gurman believes that Apple could introduce ads to its native Podcasts and Books apps as well. [Gurman describes this as "likely".] This could potentially allow publishers to place ads in areas within each app, or pay to get their content placed higher in search results. Just like Maps, Podcasts and Books are currently ad-free.... Gurman mentions the potential for advertising on Apple TV Plus, too, and says the company could opt to create a lower-priced ad-supported tier, something both Netflix and Disney Plus plan on doing by the end of this year.
Bloomberg points out that Apple is already displaying ads inside its News app — where some of the money actually goes back to news publishers. ("Apple also lets publishers advertise within their stories and keep the vast majority of that money.")

And while you can disable ad personalization — which 78% of iOS users have done — Bloomberg notes that "Another ironic detail here is that the company's advertising system uses data from its other services and your Apple account to decide which ads to serve. That doesn't feel like a privacy-first policy."

Bloomberg's conclusion? "Now the only question is whether the customers of Apple — a champion of privacy and clean interfaces — are ready to live with a lot more ads."

Last year Rodolfo Castro made baseball history. Called up to the Major Leagues in April, the 22-year-old eventually recorded his first hit — a home run. But his next four recorded hits were all also home runs, something no player had done since 1901.

CBS News reports that this week, finally called back up to the Major Leagues, Castro again made history — of another sort: Modern technology has allowed people to take their phones, as well as the power of the internet, with them anywhere they go. Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Rodolfo Castro took his around the bases against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night.
Yep — an iPhone made a bizarre cameo in the 4th inning, reports the Associated Press: Castro and third base coach Mike Rabelo stood and stared, mortified.... Even third base umpire Adam Hamari had the perfect reaction, pointing at the phone that came flying out of Castro's back pocket during a head-first slide, trying not to giggle at the absurdity of the situation.

Those around the sport cringed along with them. "That's obviously not something that should happen," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.... This faux pas just happened to be at a televised big league game, creating a video clip seen by millions.

"I just remember getting dressed, putting my pants on, getting something to eat, using the restroom," the 23-year-old Castro said through a translator Tuesday night after the Pirates lost 6-4 to Arizona. "Never did it ever cross my mind that I still had my cellphone on me...."

It's far from the first time a phone has made a cameo on a pro sports field. One of the most famous examples came nearly 20 years ago when New Orleans Saints receiver Joe Horn pulled out a flip phone — remember those? — that he had hidden in the padding around the goalpost and then acted like he was taking a call after scoring a touchdown.

Earlier this week, Samsung unveiled their new Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 -- two of the most refined and polished foldable smartphones on the market. However, what Samsung hasn't done (or any other phone manufacturer for that matter) "is make the case for why you'd actually want a foldable phone," writes David Pierce via The Verge. "And until it can explain why it's worth all the extra cost and tradeoffs, I'm having a hard time figuring out why you'd be willing to give up the phone you know and love to get one." From the report: What Samsung needs to do with the Galaxy Fold (and the rest of the industry will eventually need to do with their own foldables) is convince people that it's worth buying a phone that's more expensive, more fragile, and takes up more room in your pocket. Right now, the worst thing about foldables is that they force you to make significant sacrifices on the most important device you own: your smartphone. The new Fold 4 is a little shorter, about an ounce heavier, and about twice as thick as the Galaxy S22 Ultra. It's also $600 more expensive. The Ultra has a bigger battery, better camera specs, and a 6.8-inch screen that supports an S Pen. The Fold 4, when opened, is noticeably larger, but the candy bar phones still get plenty big. And Fold makes a lot of sacrifices for some more real estate.

It's not even clear to me that Samsung knows why you should make all of those sacrifices. On its website, one of the first selling points the company offers is that you can prop up the screen on a table by opening it halfway for watching or taking videos hands-free. Here in reality, we call that a kickstand, and this is an awfully expensive one. In this mode, you're also only using half the screen, which sort of defeats the whole purpose. So far, multitasking seems to be the foldable's one actual advantage. Open up your Galaxy Fold, and you can run two apps side by side or even three or four on the screen at once! This, I agree, is a delightful thing. Being able to use my browser and my notes app side by side or see my calendar and my email together is much better than constantly swiping between two full-screen apps. And seeing two pages at a time in the Kindle app is the best. And you know what? Big screens are just good -- good for games, good for reading, good for watching Netflix.

But these aren't just arguments for foldables; they're arguments for tablets. And so far, the arguments for Android tablets don't seem to be convincing many users. While Android has gotten better as a large-screen operating system, and the Fold 4's software being based on Android 12L is a good sign, too many apps that are "optimized" for foldables are actually just sticking a giant sidebar onto one side, which doesn't accomplish much. Others just streeeetch everything to fit the larger screen. Don't even get me started on how the vast majority of apps deal with Microsoft's approach of two separate screens attached with a hinge. Samsung has done an admirable job of wrangling all of Android's weirdness onto the Fold's screen, and in general, it's not that the Fold doesn't work; it's that there's nothing about the Fold that is dramatically better than the phone or tablet you might already be carrying around. And shoving them into a single device actually makes them both a little worse.

On Wednesday, Meta announced that the Portal Plus Gen 2 and Portal Go now support Duet Display, an app that can turn a display into a secondary monitor for Macs and PCs. Ars Technica reports: The Portal Plus is the same size as some of the best portable monitors, so it makes sense to repurpose it for that function. Because it's built for video image quality, it has a decent resolution for a portable display -- 2160x1440. Duet Display doesn't require a display to be connected to a computer via a cable, so specific Portals are now portable wireless monitors, too.

At a time when webcams are integrated into many laptops, and USB webcams are easier to find again, many consumers don't need a display dedicated primarily to web calls. But an extra monitor? That's more widely appealing. With the addition of Duet Display, Portal owners have further reason to think about their Portal when they're not on a video call. Meta also gave all Portals with a touchscreen -- namely, the Portal Go, Portal Plus, Portal, and Portal Mini -- a Meta Portal Companion app for macOS. The app enables screen sharing during video calls and provides quick access to video call features, like mute and link sharing in Zoom, Workplace, and BlueJeans.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a local high school "has seen a dramatic decrease in behavioural issues and a boost in physical activity and students talking to each other just two months after it tightened restrictions on mobile phone usage."

The school's principal tells the newspaper that "in eight weeks of the policy, there has been a 90 per cent reduction in behavioural issues related to phones in the school." He said it was "so clear" that mobile phones hindered student learning and focus in classrooms and stunted their emotional and social intelligence. He said phone usage also contributed directly to conflict between students.

"At a time when mental health is of such a concern amongst our young people, our school community saw the phone as a significant and negative contributor to student wellbeing," he said....

An online petition calling for a ban on mobile phones in NSW high schools has attracted more than 21,600 signatures. A survey of Davidson High School parents in 2021 found 89 per cent supported the policy of permitting mobile phones at school but not allowing students to use them.
The principal said the move reduced distractions for students and teachers.

This week Samsung said customers can finally start buying replacement screens, rear glass and charging ports for home repairs from repair resource site iFixit, as well as from Samsung's Experience stores across the country, according to the Washington Post.

But their article warns that for now the program is limited to just "a handful of higher-end models" like the Galaxy S20 and S21 series smartphones. ("We plan to expand to more models as the program matures," said a Samsung spokesperson.) You can't, for example, buy just a screen to replace a broken one in your Galaxy phone. Instead, Samsung says you must purchase an entire screen "assembly," which includes the display itself, the metal frame that surrounds it and another battery. Essentially, that means replacing the entire front of the phone and then some.

That also means that, for the time being, Samsung doesn't have a way for you to purchase a genuine battery on its own to replace the one that isn't holding a long-charge or bloating — a common issue in devices that are used and charged regularly. The Samsung spokesperson told The Washington Post that "additional parts will be added as the program ramps up," though co-founder and CEO Kyle Wiens says iFixit will continue to sell third-party replacement batteries....

And we're not kidding about how fiddly these guides can be: according to iFixit, the process of replacing a Galaxy S20's screen assembly requires 41 steps, and that doesn't include putting the phone back together.

According to a new report from ETNews, Intel is planning to install its next-generation Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) technology in devices by 2024 as Apple transitions its devices to Wi-Fi 6E. MacRumors reports: Wi-Fi 7 is the successor to Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), bringing two times faster data processing speeds of 5.8 Gbps and more stable 6 GHz bandwidth stability, as well as support for up to 36 Gbps when working with data. Intel plans to expand its Wi-Fi 7 development efforts ahead of its introduction to the market in 2024 and intends to apply its technology predominantly in laptops before expanding to other devices. "We are currently developing Intel's Wi-Fi '802.11be' in order to obtain the 'Wi-Fi Alliance' certification, and it will be installed in PC products such as laptops by 2024. We expect it to appear in major markets in 2025," Eric McLaughlin, vice president of Intel's wireless solutions division, said at a recent press conference in Asia.

Meanwhile, Apple is on the cusp of transitioning its devices to Wi-Fi 6E. While it was heavily rumored to debut with the iPhone 13 lineup last year, Apple has yet to release any devices with support for Wi-Fi 6E. That is expected to change this year starting with the iPhone 14. Apple's long-rumored mixed-reality headset is also expected to feature Wi-Fi 6E. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that head-mounted display devices in 2022, 2023, and 2024 will offer Wi-Fi 6/6E, Wi-Fi 6E/7, and Wi-Fi 7, respectively, but it is unclear if this information was related to Apple's product roadmap specifically. "Wi-Fi 6E offers the features and capabilities of Wi-Fi 6, including higher performance, lower latency, and faster data rates, extended into the 6 GHz band for processing speeds of 2.4 Gbps," notes MacRumors. "The additional spectrum provides more airspace beyond existing 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, resulting in increased bandwidth and less interference."

Other tech giants like Qualcomm, Broadcom, and MediaTek are also planning to release Wi-Fi 7-based products in the next few years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Samsung is introducing an interesting new feature for people sending in their Galaxy phones for repair: "repair mode." When shipping off your phone, you might want to do something to protect your data, and the new feature sounds like a great solution. It locks down your data, but not your phone. [...] While in repair mode, technicians can still poke around in your device and test everything, but they'll only see the default apps with blank data. When you get your device back, you can re-authenticate and disable repair mode and you'll get all your data back. The feature was first spotted by SamMobile, and Samsung has so far only announced the feature in a Korean press release; it is first launching in Korea for the Galaxy S21 (the S22 is Samsung's latest flagship phone). Repair mode can be turned on from the settings menu, and Samsung says (through Google translate), "You won't be able to access your personal data, such as photos, messages, and accounts," and anyone with the phone will "only use the default installed apps." Repair mode can be exited the same way, though you'll need to authenticate with a pattern, pin, or fingerprint.

76.6 million Americans were affected by last year's T-Mobile data breach, TechCrunch reports — and now in compensation they may have a few bucks coming their way.

T-mobile has announced a settlement of $550 million for affected customers (and the various attorneys bringing the consolidated class action lawsuits) — plus another $150 million "for data security and related technology." For now, the class defined by the settlement document is "the approximately 76.6 million U.S. residents identified by T-Mobile whose information was compromised in the Data Breach," with a little extra legalese for Californians, where class actions are handled slightly differently.

As is common in these giant lawsuits, lawyers take a huge bite and then the company must alert the class members they're owed money, so you can expect a postcard if you were a T-Mobile customer in August of 2021 (in the interest of full disclosure, I was). Then the money gets split up, depending on how many people respond and how much the lawyers take. The final settlement terms could be approved as early as December.

Chances are you won't even be able to cover a single monthly mobile bill with what you get, but these days a $9 check might be the difference between "dinner" and "no dinner" for quite a few people, so let's not mock these small sums — except that it's kind of insulting to have five serious breaches in as many years and all customers get is enough to order off the value menu.

In an upcoming update, Chromebooks equipped with mobile data will be able to serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot for other devices, just like Android and iOS devices can today. 9to5Google reports: The work-in-progress feature has made its first appearance in ChromeOS code in the form of a new flag coming to chrome://flags. The details are quite slim at the moment, with little more than the flag description available today. That said, it's easy to imagine how a mobile hotspot would work on ChromeOS, based on how the same feature works on Android phones today.

Presumably, you would be able to choose the name and password for your Chromebook's hotspot through the Settings app in ChromeOS, where you can also toggle the hotspot on and off. If it truly follows the example of Android, there would also be an easy way to turn on your hotspot through a Quick Settings toggle.

Nvidia has just announced that GeForce Now is picking up support for 120fps gameplay on all Android smartphones, after previously limiting the functionality to only a few select models. 9to5Google reports: GeForce Now is a cloud gaming service that allows players to stream PC games from marketplaces such as Steam and the Epic Games Store, among others, to virtually any device. It's a great way to expand the gaming experience on your PC over to a mobile phone or your TV, or just to play games that your PC isn't powerful enough to run on its own. The service is free, but you can pay to get longer sessions and better quality.

Last year, the service picked up its RTX 3080 tier, which offers the power of the still-hard-to-find graphics card, but through the cloud. While it's a pricey option, it was quickly found to be the gold standard of cloud gaming thanks to minimal input latency, higher resolution, and faster refresh rate. It's that faster refresh rate that's boosting GeForce Now for Android players this week, with 120fps expanding to all Android phones with faster refresh rates. If your phone has a 120Hz display, you can now stream games at 120fps. The official list of supported devices can be found here.

Nvidia says that the expanded support will arrive "over the coming weeks" and that the experience could vary from device to device.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: The Trump administration's immigration enforcers used mobile location data to track people's movements on a larger scale than previously known, according to documents that raise new questions about federal agencies' efforts to get around restrictions on warrantless searches. The data, harvested from apps on hundreds of millions of phones, allowed the Department of Homeland Security to obtain data on more than 336,000 location data points across North America, the documents show. Those data points may reference only a small portion of the information that CBP has obtained.

These data points came from all over the continent, including in major cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Denver, Toronto and Mexico City. This location data use has continued into the Biden administration, as Customs and Border Protection renewed a contract for $20,000 into September 2021, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement signed another contract in November 2021 that lasts until June 2023. The American Civil Liberties Union obtained the records from DHS through a lawsuit it filed in 2020. It provided the documents to POLITICO and separately released them to the public on Monday.

The documents highlight conversations and contracts between federal agencies and the surveillance companies Babel Street and Venntel. Venntel alone boasts that its database includes location information from more than 250 million devices. The documents also show agency staff having internal conversations about privacy concerns on using phone location data. In just three days in 2018, the documents show that the CBP collected data from more than 113,000 locations from phones in the Southwestern United States -- equivalent to more than 26 data points per minute -- without obtaining a warrant. The documents highlight the massive scale of location data that government agencies including CBP and ICE received, and how the agencies sought to take advantage of the mobile advertising industry's treasure trove of data. "It was definitely a shocking amount," said Shreya Tewari, the Brennan fellow for the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "It was a really detailed picture of how they can zero in on not only a specific geographic area, but also a time period, and how much they're collecting and how quickly."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Bad news about smartphone shipments has become the norm, rather than the exception, in recent years. The trend pre-dates the pandemic, but has only accelerated during the pandemic, thanks to various economic and supply chain impacts. Even so, a high single-digit drop warrants examination and some difficult questions around the industry's health. New figures out this morning from Canalys show a 9% year-over-year drop for global smartphone shipments in Q2. The culprits are, well, pretty much everything you've been hearing about for the last couple of years. Consumers have broadly slowed down their upgrade cycles, as phones have gotten better and more robust. The phones themselves have grown more expensive in the process, adding an air of consumer caution amid economic uncertainty, including unemployment and inflation.