smitty777 writes "Greentech is running a story on a solar powered laptop concept. The device was created by industrial designer Andrea Ponti, and includes a solar panel on the outside of the case as well as one below the keyboard. The idea seems to be taking shape; Samsung has a design they've been developing as well."

CWmike writes "With recent news of a possible link between cell phone radiation and risk of brain cancer, you may have a new-found interest in knowing how much radiation your mobile handset is giving off — or, more importantly, how much your body might be absorbing. The FCC's legal limit for mobile phones is 1.6 Watts of radiofrequency energy per kilogram, using a measure called Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). The Environmental Working Group, which tracks SAR data for more than 1,300 cell phone and smartphone models, notes that several factors besides your handset affect your actual level of exposure. Look up your phone's SAR; or see a full chart of phones." And relax — have a coffee.

An anonymous reader writes "Asus has announced that three Eee PCs will ship with Ubuntu Linux. Three 2011 models — the 1001PXD, 1011PX, and 1015PX — are immediately available, though no retailers seem to stock them yet. A Canonical exec had this to say about the new netbooks: 'There are a number of factors that make Ubuntu an attractive proposition for ASUS and its customers. Ubuntu continues to set the standard for slick design, ease of use and security, it is the world's third most popular operating system, and [it] has the most number of users in Linux. We [Canonical] were looking at publicly available data on the operating systems accessing Wikipedia last week and found the web site serves more pages to Ubuntu PCs than to iPads — there are a lot of users out there.' It might not be the same as Asus launching three flagship netbooks all running Ubuntu instead of Windows, but it's definitely a start. Asus says there are more Ubuntu netbooks to come later this year, too — hopefully they'll run Ubuntu 11.04."

splitenz writes "Sophisticated voice commands will be the next big step for the development of smartphones, according to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. 'We have gotten down to such tiny devices with amazing computers inside with all the human senses; vision, hearing, touch, location acceleration and movement. I don't want to click buttons anymore and I just want to do things without having to think about which buttons to click.' He was speaking at the Australian Chamber Business Congress. Wozniak also sees a continuing place for touchpads."

sticks_us writes with news of an Apple patent application, recently published by the USPTO, for an on-board camera system that would include circuitry for processing external infrared signals. The data received from these signals could then be used to present information to the user of the device, or even to modify the device's operation. "For example, an infrared emitter could be located in areas where picture or video capture is prohibited, and the emitter could generate infrared signals with encoded data that includes commands to disable the recording functions of devices. An electronic device could then receive the infrared signals, decode the data and temporarily disable the device's recording function based on the command. ... In some embodiments, a device may apply a watermark to detected images as an alternative to completely disabling a recording function."

angry tapir writes "Motorola's CEO blamed the open Android app store for performance issues on some phones. Of all the Motorola Android devices that are returned, 70 percent come back because applications affect performance, Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said during a webcast presentation at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Technology conference."

Dachannien writes "Patently-O and Ars Technica report that Lodsys has filed suit [here's the complaint] in the Eastern District of Texas against seven iPhone developers, asserting that the defendants are infringing two patents. Apple had previously indicated their belief that all iPhone developers are protected by a licensing agreement that Apple had made with the patents' former assignee, Intellectual Ventures. But Lodsys insists that the defendants are nonetheless liable for infringement. Still an open question is whether Apple will go beyond the mailing of strongly worded letters in defending third-party iPhone devs."

Trailrunner7 writes "Researchers have identified a second large batch of apps in the Android Market that have been infected with the DroidDream malware, estimating that upwards of 30,000 users have downloaded at least one of the more than 30 infected apps. Google has removed the apps from the market. There are at least 34 applications that researchers have found in the Android Market in the last few days that had a version of the DroidDream malware dropped into them. Once a user installs one of the infected applications, the malicious component, which researchers have dubbed DroidDream Light, will kick in once the user receives an incoming call. The malware then gathers some identifying information from the phone, including its IMEI number, IMSI number, packages installed and other data, and then sends it off to a pre-configured remote server."

Schiphol writes "A new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) concludes that mobile phone radiation presents a carcinogenic hazard. Are cell phones going to be the new tobacco, then?" This seems to be a new interpretation of a long-tern WHO study of possible cellphone health risks that had "inconclusive results" last May.

Compared to their dumber e-ink cousins, tablets with LCD screens suffer at least two notable disadvantages: their batteries last hours or days, rather than weeks (or months), and they're notoriously hard to read in the sunshine. Neither of these problems are likely to be licked soon, but the gap may be shrinking: Mary Lou Jepsen's OLPC spinoff Pixel Qi has now shown off a 10", 1280x800 panel. Pixel Qi's screens are well-known, though not currently widely adopted, for their ability to run in a high-contrast, low-power greyscale mode as well as a still-frugal color mode. Though the company is currently showing prototypes rather than a shipping version of the new high-resolution screens, it's reason to renew hope for a long-lived color-screen tablet that's comfortable in the sunlight.

jones_supa submitted an article in the Guardian. From the article "Shares in the Finnish phone maker Nokia plunged by 15% on Tuesday as the company warned that it may make no profit on phone sales in the quarter to the end of June, and that overall phone sales will be 'substantially below' its earlier forecast of €6.1bn to €6.6bn. Carolina Milanesi, mobile phones analyst for the research company Gartner, said Tuesday's warnings could mark the low point for Nokia, which has not made a loss in its handset division for more than a decade."

wiredmikey writes "New malware has been discovered embedded in more than 20 Android applications circulating via various forums on the Internet which auto-dials phone numbers to incur high user fees. Dubbed BaseBridge, the malware can be embedded in legitimate applications, and during the application's installation, the malware prompts the user to upgrade. If the user chooses to upgrade, the malware is installed on the Android device under the name 'com.android.battery'. Then, another prompt would pop up to ask the user to restart the app to run it, and the malware is formally activated upon restart. Once activated, the malware can activate three malicious services — AdSmsService, BridgeProvider and PhoneService, to communicate with a control server, from which it will download a configuration file to read related information and dial calls or send out SMS messages, incurring fees for users."

siliconbits writes with this excerpt from ITProPortal: "Just 24 hours after Asus unveiled its padfone, ECS is toying with an idea that resembles the Asus PadFone — in a nutshell, a tablet that becomes a docking station for your smartphone just by slotting it at the back. While the Padfone works only with Asus' own smartphone, the ECS model will be open to other models and the one we played with was physically compatible with the Apple iPhone 4. Wu reckons that the accessory will appeal to users because it doesn't require them to ditch their existing handsets and will be compatible with future models using what Wu described as 'simple upgrades.' The tablet will work across platforms; Windows Phone, Android & iOS which should include the iPhone 5."

Barence writes "PC Pro has taken an in-depth look at Wi-Fi and the factors that can cause connections to crumble. It dispels some common myths about Wi-Fi problems — such as that neighboring Wi-Fi hotspots are the most common cause of problems, instead of other RF interference from devices such as analogue video senders, microwave ovens and even fish tanks. The feature also highlights free and paid-for tools that can diagnose Wi-Fi issues, such as inSSIDer and Heatmapper, the latter of which maps provides a heatmap of Wi-Fi hotspots in your home or office."

MojoKid writes "NVIDIA just took the wraps off of a couple of new mobile GPUs at Computex and announced a slew of notebooks designs that will feature the new chips. The new GeForce GTX 560M and GT 520M will be arriving very soon, in notebooks from Asus, Alienware, Clevo, Toshiba, MSI, Samsung and others. The GeForce GT 520MX is an entry level DirectX 11 GPU designed for thin, light, highly mobile platforms. It sports 48 CUDA cores with a 900MHz graphics clock, 1800MHz shader clock, and 900MHz memory clock. Decidedly more powerful, the GeForce GTX 560M is outfitted with 192 CUDA cores and clocks in at 775MHz, with 1559MHz shaders, and 1250MHz for GDDR5 memory."

SJrX writes "I am planning on visiting the Pacific Northwest for several weeks, and was looking for the best smartphone option available. Roaming data rates and SMS rates are ridiculously high (best plans are $0.80 / MB, and $0.75 / message). Beyond AT&T and Verizon Prepaid, are there any other options? (I'm on an iPhone 4 so GSM is a must.) I assume in the US, I have no credit history for which to qualify for a plan, and a contract is obviously out of the question. Data and SMS are the only important things, with a few hundred minutes being plenty. I'm only planning on being in the US for 2 or 3 weeks, but mainly in rural areas (US Route 101) so large (3G) coverage is important."

destinyland writes "Amazon just doubled the reported battery life for their Kindle digital readers — but they did it by cutting the estimated daily usage in half. Monday Amazon's competitor Barnes and Noble released a new touch-screen version of their Nook reader, and C|Net notes that apparently Amazon 'took issue with how its competitor was calculating and presenting its battery life numbers.' When Barnes and Noble claimed that the Nook's charge lasted twice as long based on a half hour a day of usage, Amazon simply recalculated the Kindle's battery life using the same formula. By Wednesday, Barnes and Noble was insisting that the Nook's charge still lasted twice as long as the Kindle's. 'If that's true, then Barnes and Noble mangled the launch of their touch-screen Nook,' reports one Kindle blog, 'by botching their description of one of its main selling points.'"

tekgoblin writes "The suit against Samsung that Apple filed back in April has been full of surprises recently; Apple even asked to see some of Samsung's future devices. Now, Samsung is requesting to view Apple's upcoming devices such as the iPad 3 and iPhone 5."

jhernik writes with a selection from eWeek Europe's short story on a snag facing Google's new mobile payment system: "PayPal, eBay's payment service, has sued Google over its new Google Wallet service, accusing the search engine of poaching trade secrets for use in its mobile payment service. The suit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court just hours after Google unveiled its Wallet payments sheme, alleges that two key executives who created the near-field communication (NFC) service used company secrets about mobile payments to fashion its own service."

theodp writes "If you could change the way wireless companies did things, what would you do?' asked Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. How about stopping the use of Sprint's firmware updates to download apps that aren't wanted and can't be removed, Dan? Sprint confirmed to CNET's Elinor Mills that those strange apps she was shocked to find on her Android phone — sci-fi shooter N.O.V.A. and Blockbuster — with a long list of permissions that couldn't be uninstalled had been sneakily downloaded onto her phone during a firmware update. 'Sprint does offer a variety of partner applications that are optimized for use on our wireless phones,' a Sprint representative explained in an e-mail. 'From time to time, we will provide new apps to our customers in conjunction with a software maintenance release. Also, Sprint, in conjunction with Google, is taking steps to develop a technical solution that would allow customers to remove any unwanted applications that have been preloaded or pushed in an over-the-air software update.'" Asking first would be a nice non-technical solution.