An anonymous reader writes "The build-out of 3G networks in developing countries, plus ultra-low prices from the likes of Samsung, will make the smartphone the sole computer of millions of citizens worldwide. And by 2016, 97 percent of smartphones are expected to use touchscreens. Now, don't get me wrong — I carry an iPad and an iPod Touch in my backpack and love touchscreens — but I still like a phone that fits in my pocket. However, I'm going to be in the minority five years from now, when the majority of wireless communicators will be smartphones."

angry tapir writes "Intel and Google announced on Tuesday that they would partner to optimize future versions of the Android OS for smartphones and other mobile devices using Intel chips. Intel CEO Paul Otellini demonstrated a smartphone with the upcoming Medfield chip running on Android during a keynote at the Intel Developer Conference being held in San Francisco. However, Otellini didn't mention the version of Android running on the smartphone. Intel wants to make x86 the architecture of choice for smartphones, and porting Android will provide a larger opportunity to the chip maker in the smartphone market, Otellini said."

An anonymous reader sends word that Apple has removed from the App Store a game called Phone Story, which walks players through the creation of a smartphone, highlighting many of the negative aspects. There are four brief stages: running a mining facility in the Congo, saving suicidal factory workers, handing out phones to oblivious consumers, and generating e-waste through planned obsolescence. Apple said Phone Story violated sections 15.2, 16.1, 21.1, and 21.2 of the App Store guidelines, which make reference to "objectionable or crude content" and "offensive or mean-spirited commentary." A short video of the game has been posted at Kotaku.

CWmike writes "President Barack Obama's American Jobs Act would allow the FCC to conduct so-called incentive auctions, in which the agency would share the proceeds of a spectrum auction with television stations that voluntarily give up their spectrum. The goal would be to raise $6.5 billion to fund a nationwide voice and data network for police, fire departments and other emergency responders. Lawmakers and other groups have called for a nationwide public safety network since emergency responders had trouble communicating with each other during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists attacks on the U.S."

The 13,000 sq mile U.S. Radio Quiet Zone is an area in West Virginia where all wireless transmissions are banned because of the large number of radio telescopes located there. (This official page shows a map of the Zone; an old Wired article is fascinating reading.) These high-tech telescopes have attracted unlikely neighbors, people who claim to have Wi-Fi allergies. In recent years, scores of people have moved to the area to escape the "damage" that electromagnetic fields can cause them. From the article: "Diane Schou is unable to hold back the tears as she describes how she once lived in a shielded cage to protect her from the electromagnetic radiation caused by waves from wireless communication. 'It's a horrible thing to have to be a prisoner,' she says. 'You become a technological leper because you can't be around people. It's not that you would be contagious to them — it's what they're carrying that is harmful to you.'"

An anonymous reader writes "GameStop has confirmed rumors that it is planning to jump into the tablet market with a device dedicated to gaming. '[GameStop President Tony Bartel said] this week that Android was capable of running what he called a "GameStop-certified gaming platform" and that GameStop would be self-branding existing tablet hardware built by an unspecified third-party manufacturer. ... GameStop will sell its gaming tablet alongside consoles and handheld gaming devices from Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and others, he said.' There's no release date yet, but the device is currently being tested by consumers. It will apparently ship with its own wireless controller."

nk497 writes "Fusion Garage has dropped the price of its follow-up to the JooJoo tablet, cutting the Grid10's price by $200 to $299 in the US and £259 in the UK. Outspoken CEO Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan has clearly been following the HP TouchPad fire sale, and noticed the importance of price when it comes to taking on Apple's iPad. He said there's no point in buying 'a poor carbon copy' of the Apple tablet for the same price. 'At $499, why would you buy — it's like going to China and buying a [fake] Louis Vuitton bag, at the same price as the real Louis Vuitton bags. It doesn't make sense, when you know it's a rip-off product,' he said."

AmyVernon writes "Most computers today can't support gigabit connections and current Wi-Fi networks can't offer those speeds either. The first trial of Sonic.Net's gigabit network was a speed test on a generic laptop that showed off 420 Mbps down; the laptop couldn't handle a full gig. Plus, few applications need those speeds. It's hard to justify such a huge investment in a network that will have few subscribers and few applications that need it. Of course, that can change, and then these networks will be vital. This story has a good analysis of where things stand and what has to change."

An anonymous reader writes "Two Australian security researchers, Stephen Glass and Matt Robert, have published a paper that details flaws in the encryption implementation (PDF) in the APCO Project 25 digital radio standard, used by emergency services and police departments world-wide. The paper details flaws in the DES-OFB and ADP encryption that enable the encryption key to be recovered by traditional brute force key searching. Also detailed is a DoS attack that makes use of unauthenticated radio inhibit mechanism. The research is part of the OP25 project, which uses GNUradio to implement a P25 stack using software defined radio. With this solution in place, the researchers were able to do detailed analysis of the traffic coming from various radio systems and to transmit and receive to P25 radios in their lab."

First time accepted submitter AmyVernon writes with a small hack that "is supposed to boost signal strength by at least 2 to 4 bars," and which requires little more than a can of beer (or Orangina). She writes: "What you need: scissors, a utility knife, some adhesive putty and an empty beer can. The brand doesn't matter for the router, but I suppose it would be cooler looking if it were Asahi or Stella Artois than if it were Budweiser." Perhaps this will be added one day to my favorite (and very extensive!) list of low-budget Wi-Fi amplifying rigs.

CWmike writes "At long last Adobe Flash has come to an iPad or iPhone, writes Jonny Evans. Adobe appeared at Europe's NAB equivalent, IBC, this week to introduce Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 and Adobe Flash Access 3.0. Adobe's solution repackages content in real-time, changing the protocol to suit the target device, HTTP Dynamic Streaming or HLS, for example. This should mean that iOS devices will get much of the advantages of Flash video support, without the processor degradation and battery life cost of the format in use on other devices. 'With Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, media publishers now have a single, simple workflow for delivering content using the same stream to Flash-enabled devices or to the Apple iPhone and iPad,' Adobe says."

An anonymous reader writes "Last week the Department of Justice filed an antitrust complaint to stop the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile USA. Now, AT&T has responded, arguing that the merger would benefit consumers by increasing competition and freeing up spectrum. 'That means increased output, higher quality service, fewer dropped calls,and lower prices to consumers than without the merger,' they say. Meanwhile, House Republicans have sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Attorney General Eric Holder asking for an explanation of 'what went into the decision to challenge the merger and whether the agencies considered the impact on jobs and economic growth.' A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 21."

A user writes "It seems Samsung has finally lost the battle against Apple in Germany. Today the district court in Düsseldorf ruled that Samsung must not sell its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany. Furthermore, it has banned Samsung Germany from selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 anywhere in Europe."

MrSeb writes "An ingenious browsing hack has emerged: if you have an Android smartphone and a T-Mobile (US) unlimited messaging plan, you can now use an app called Smozzy to surf the web... for free. Smozzy is just a wrapper around the standard Android browser, but instead of requiring a data connection, everything is funneled through SMS and MMS. Whenever you click a link, instead of firing off a packet to a remote web server, a web request is instead sent to Smozzy's intermediate server via SMS. Smozzy forwards the request, downloads the web page you're trying to visit, and then sends it along to your phone as MMS messages — and both SMS and MMS are completely free with T-Mobile's unlimited messaging plan."

jfruhlinger writes "Your smartphone can send texts, surf the Web, and update your Facebook page, so it stands to reason that it can cure acne too, right? Well, maybe not. Two companies that marketed acne-cure apps have settled with the FTC and have been forced to take the apps off the market. (Colored light can kill acne-causing bacteria, but needs to be much more powerful than what a smartphone screen can put out.) Almost 15,000 people bought the apps."

spagiola writes "Late last week, a military transport aircraft with 17 people on -board went missing near Robinson Crusoe, Chile. The relatives of one of the crash victims logged into Find My iPhone and were able to isolate the coordinates of the last known whereabouts of the plane before it crashed. From the article: 'Rear Admiral Francisco García-Huidobro explained the founding that garnered a lot of attention today, and it has to do with an iPhone belonging to one of the victims of the aereal accident in Juan Fernández, in a beach in Bahía Carvajal. The phone signal could be captured thanks to the GPS system, however, water ended up shutting it down. Nevertheless, García Huidoro explained that they managed to plot the last position from where the signal was last generated, which will be made public tomorrow.'"

jbrodkin writes with an interesting article in Ars Technica about virtualization and phones. From the article: "VMware's mission to bring virtualization to the mobile market gained a major supporter last week when Samsung pledged to use VMware software to build business-friendly smartphones and tablets. The project known as Horizon Mobile will let Android phones use virtual machine technology to run a second instance of Android, in much the same way virtualization works on servers and desktops. The user essentially has two completely separate phones running on one device, and can switch from the personal one to the corporate one by clicking a 'work phone' icon." There are others pushing alternative approaches to virtualization on mobile devices.

snydeq writes "Ruby creator Yukihiro Matsumoto discusses the past, present, and future of the popular programming language, calling mobile the next target for Ruby: 'I'm currently working on an alternative subset or dialect of Ruby for the small devices. I'm going to make it public early next year. Of course, mobile computing is the way to go, so that's one of the reasons I focus on the Ruby dialect working on the smaller devices.'"

CWmike writes "Rice University researchers announced on Tuesday that they have successfully demonstrated full-duplex wireless tech that would allow a doubling of network traffic without the need for more cell towers. Professor Ahutosh Sabharwal said the innovative technology requires a minimal amount of new hardware for both mobile devices and networks. However, it does require new standards, meaning it might not be available for several years as carriers move to 5G networks, he added. By allowing a cell phone or other wireless device to transmit data and receive data on the same frequency, unlike with today's tech, the new standard could double a network's capacity. Rice has created a Wireless Open-Access Research Platform (WARP) with open source software that provides a space for researches from other organizations to innovate freely and examine full-duplex innovations."

An anonymous reader writes "E Ink turned up at IFA 2011 with its Triton color e-paper, which has exactly the same properties as the monochrome version found in the Kindle (two-month battery life, no power use when viewing a page, as readable as a sheet of paper) while adding 4,096 colors. We also get to see the E Ink watch, signage, cellphone and USB stick displays, and the latest glass-less e-paper inside a credit card. E Ink hopes to use the new plastic substrate in future e-readers, meaning they will be thinner, lighter, and more shatterproof than those that ship today."