"My goal is to have a firewall that I trust," writes Slashdot reader eggegick, "not a firewall that comes from the manufacture that might have back doors." I'm looking for a cheap mini PC I can turn into a headless Linux-based wireless and Ethernet router. The setup would be a cable modem on the Comcast side, Ethernet out from the modem to the router and Ethernet, and WiFi out to the home network.
Two long-time Slashdot readers had suggestions. johnnys believes "any old desktop or even a laptop will work.... as long as you have a way to get a couple of (fast or Gigabit) Ethernet ports and a good WiFi adapter... " Cable or any consumer-grade broadband doesn't need exotic levels of throughput: Gigabit Ethernet will not be saturated by any such connection...

You can also look at putting FOSS firewall software like DD-WRT or OpenWrt on consumer-grade "routers". Such hardware is usually set up with the right hardware and capabilities you are looking for. Note however that newer hardware may not work with such firmwares as the FCC rules about controlling RF have caused many manufacturers to lock down firmware images.

And you don't necessarily need to roll your own with iptables: There are several BSD or Linux-based FOSS distributions that do good firewall functionality. PFSense is very good and user-friendly, and there are others. OpenBSD provides an exceptionally capable enterprise-level firewall on a secure platform, but it's not designed to be user-friendly.
Long-time Slashdot reader Spazmania agrees the "best bet" is "one of those generic home wifi routers that are supported by DD-WRT or OpenWrt." It's not uncommon to find something used for $10-$20. And then install one or the other, giving a Linux box with full control. Add a USB stick so you have enough space for all the utilities.

I just went through the search for mini-PCs for a project at work. The main problem is that almost all of them cool poorly, and that significantly impairs their life span.I finally found a few at the $100 price point that cooled acceptably... and they disappeared from the market shortly after I bought the test units, replaced with newer models in the $250 ballpark.
Share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments.

Can you roll your own home router?

Jess Weatherbed reports via The Verge: Bullitt Group, the UK-based smartphone manufacturer behind the rugged handsets of Cat, Land Rover, and Motorola, has seemingly shut down. On Monday, Mobile World Live spotted several Bullitt Group employees on LinkedIn saying that the company folded on January 26th after a "critical planned restructuring" failed. The Telegraph reported earlier this month that the company was on the brink of insolvency. Bullitt Group has yet to issue an official statement confirming the closure. The manufacturer previously told The Telegraph that it planned to transfer its satellite connectivity business and all 100 of its employees to a new company owned by its creditors, though one former employee now claims the entire workforce has been laid off.

Founded in 2009, Bullitt found its niche producing mobile devices and accessories for other companies. The most notable are the hardy, rugged handsets like the Land Rover Explore and Motorola Defy series, though it also made more traditional smartphones like the Kodak Ektra. In recent years, the company placed greater focus on satellite connectivity projects like the Motorola Defy Satellite Link as it struggled to compete against larger phone providers like Apple and Samsung.

T-Mobile has tweaked its terms of service for its home broadband users to add a new clause: If you are a heavy internet user that passes 1.2TB of data in a monthly billing cycle, you may have your speeds slowed in "times of congestion" or when there is a lot of pressure on the network. CNET: As spotted by The Mobile Report, the change went into effect on Jan. 18. In its updated terms, the carrier says that these users "will be prioritized last on the network" in congestion situations, which could mean painfully slow speeds for however long the congestion persists. T-Mobile does note that since its Home Internet service is available only in "limited areas" and intended to be used in a "stationary" setting, as opposed to a phone that could be in a busy place like a packed stadium, "these customers should be less likely to notice congestion in general."

"Would you pay $15 a month so Android doesn't track you and send all of that data back to Google?" asks Stuff South Africa: A new Swiss-based privacy company thinks $15 is a fair fee for that peace of mind. "A person's data is the original digital currency," argues Apostrophy, which has created its own operating system, called Apostrophy OS.

It's based on Android — don't panic — but the version that has already been stripped of Google's intrusiveness by another privacy project called GrapheneOS, which used to be known as CopperheadOS. Launched in 2014, it which was briefly known as the Android Hardening project, before being rebranded as GrapheneOS in 2019. Apostrophy OS is "focused on empowering our users, not leveraging them," it says and is "purposely Swiss-based, so we can be champions of data sovereignty".

What it does, they say, is separate the apps from the underlying architecture of the operating system and therefore prevent apps from accessing miscellaneous personal data, especially the all-important location data so beloved of surveillance capitalism... Apostrophy OS has its own app store, but also cleverly allows users to access the Google Play Store. If you think that is defeating the point, Apostrophy argues that those apps can't get to the vitals of your digital life. Apostrophy OS has "partitioned segments prioritising application integrity and personal data privacy".
The service is free for one year with the purchase of the new MC02 phone from Swiss manufacturer Punkt, according to PC Magazine. "The phone costs $749 and is available for preorder now. It will ship at the end of January." Additional features include a built-in VPN called Digital Nomad based on the open-source Wireguard framework to secure your activity against outside snooping, which includes "exit addresses" in the US, Germany, and Japan with the base subscription.

"The ambient light sensors present in most mobile devices can be accessed by software without any special permissions, unlike permissions required for accessing the microphone or the cameras," writes longtime Slashdot reader BishopBerkeley. "When properly interrogated, the data from the light sensor can reveal much about the user." IEEE Spectrum reports: While that may not seem to provide much detailed information, researchers have already shown these sensors can detect light intensity changes that can be used to infer what kind of TV programs someone is watching, what websites they are browsing or even keypad entries on a touchscreen. Now, [Yang Liu, a PhD student at MIT] and colleagues have shown in a paper in Science Advances that by cross-referencing data from the ambient light sensor on a tablet with specially tailored videos displayed on the tablet's screen, it's possible to generate images of a user's hands as they interact with the tablet. While the images are low-resolution and currently take impractically long to capture, he says this kind of approach could allow a determined attacker to infer how someone is using the touchscreen on their device. [...]

"The acquisition time in minutes is too cumbersome to launch simple and general privacy attacks on a mass scale," says Lukasz Olejnik, an independent security researcher and consultant who has previously highlighted the security risks posed by ambient light sensors. "However, I would not rule out the significance of targeted collections for tailored operations against chosen targets." But he also points out that, following his earlier research, the World Wide Web Consortium issued a new standard that limited access to the light sensor API, which has already been adopted by browser vendors.

Liu notes, however, that there are still no blanket restrictions for Android apps. In addition, the researchers discovered that some devices directly log data from the light sensor in a system file that is easily accessible, bypassing the need to go through an API. The team also found that lowering the resolution of the images could bring the acquisition times within practical limits while still maintaining enough detail for basic recognition tasks. Nonetheless, Liu agrees that the approach is too complicated for widespread attacks. And one saving grace is that it is unlikely to ever work on a smartphone as the displays are simply too small. But Liu says their results demonstrate how seemingly harmless combinations of components in mobile devices can lead to surprising security risks.

Samsung announced its new flagship Galaxy S24 smartphone lineup today, with loads of new artificial intelligence features. CNBC reports: For Samsung's top-tier S24 Ultra, which is the company's biggest of the three devices and comes with punchier specs and features, Samsung is using a version of Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon Series 8 Gen 3 optimized for Galaxy. The company is using a mix of Qualcomm systems-on-chips (SoCs) and its own Exynos chipset for its S24 and S24+ models. [...] The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is the main event for most tech gadget enthusiasts -- and, for the most part, it isn't a whole lot different to the Galaxy S23 Ultra looks-wise. That's because Samsung isn't changing an awful lot with the hardware. It still comes in the same size as its predecessor -- the display is 6.8 inches, measured diagonally, though the phone is flatter this time round. The S23 Ultra had more curvature to it. The big upgrade to the external hardware with this model is that it's cased in titanium, so it's a lot sturdier than the S23 Ultra.

The main difference this time round is what's inside: Samsung is going big on artificial intelligence. A key focus for Samsung, like other smartphone makers, now is on "on-demand" AI -- or, the ability to carry out AI workloads directly on a device, rather than over the cloud. Samsung said its new Galaxy S24 Ultra will come with a bunch of new AI features, a lot of which is being powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset for mobile, which is tailored for AI devices. One feature Samsung's loading into the Galaxy S24 range is the ability to circle locations or items a user is directing their camera at, or on a picture they've taken, and then look up results on what those things are. So, for instance, if you see a landmark or a shoe you want to buy, you can make a circle around that object and then the AI shows you appropriate results on Google.

Another feature Samsung touted is the ability to use AI to edit photos. So users can edit reflections out of pictures they've taken, for instance if you took a picture of yourself in front of a window. Or you can move a person from one side of the room to another by dragging them from left to right. Samsung also showcased live transcription features with its latest smartphones. When calling someone who's speaking in French, for instance, a user can pull up a transcription that's being fed through to them in real time. You can also record a conversation between two people and get it transcribed, while the AI assigns a label to each person speaking, similar to transcription products like Otter AI. Samsung is also incorporating AI watermarking into these features, helping to combat misinformation and copyright infringement. "So when a Galaxy S24 user uses AI to modify a photo, Samsung will keep a log of what was changed with AI and store it in the metadata," reports CNBC. "It'll also have an icon in the bottom left corner to show that the image has been edited using AI, kind of like a watermark."

An LG washing machine owner discovered that his smart home appliance was uploading an average of 3.66GB of data daily. "Concerned about the washer's internet addiction, Johnie forced the device to go cold turkey and blocked it using his router UI," reports Tom's Hardware. From the report: Johnie's initial screenshot showed that on a chosen day, the device uploaded 3.57GB and downloaded about 100MB, and the data traffic was almost constant. Meanwhile, according to the Asus router interface screenshot, the washing machine accounted for just shy of 5% of Johnie's internet traffic daily. The LG washing machine owner saw the fun in his predicament and joked that the device might use Wi-Fi for "DLCs (Downloadable Laundry Cycles)." He wasn't entirely kidding: The machine does download presets for various types of apparel. However, the lion's share of the data transferred was uploaded.

Working through the thread, we note that Johnie also pondered the possibility of someone using his washing machine for crypto mining. "I'd gladly rent our LPU (Laundry Processing Unit) by the hour," he quipped. Again, there was the glimmer of a possibility that there could be truth behind this joke. Another social media user highlighted a history of hackers taking over LG smart-connected appliances. The SmartThinQ home appliances HomeHack vulnerability was patched several weeks after being made public. A similar modern hack might use the washing machine's computer resources as part of a botnet. Taking control of an LG washing machine as part of a large botnet for cryptocurrency mining or nefarious networking purposes wouldn't be as far-fetched as it sounds. Large numbers of relatively low-power devices can be formidable together. One of the more innocent theories regarding the significant data uploads suggested laundry data was being uploaded to LG so it could improve its LLM (Large Laundry Model). It sought to do this to prepare for the launch of its latest "AI washer-dryer combo" at CES, joked Johnie.

For now, it looks like the favored answer to the data mystery is to blame Asus for misreporting it. We may never know what happened with Johnie, who is now running his LG washing machine offline. Another relatively innocent reason for the supposed high volume of uploads could be an error in the Asus router firmware. In a follow-up post a day after his initial Tweet, Johnie noted "inaccuracy in the ASUS router tool," with regard to Apple iMessage data use. Other LG smart washing machine users showed device data use from their router UIs. It turns out that these appliances more typically use less than 1MB per day.

For the first time ever, Apple beat out Samsung to ship the most smartphones in a year according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. From a report: Although IDC cautions that its data is preliminary and subject to change, a second research agency, Canalys, also has Apple taking its top spot for all of 2023. IDC has Apple's total mobile shipments at 234.6 million, versus 226.6 million for Samsung. Xiaomi, Oppo, and Transsion round out the top five with 145.9, 103.1 and 94.9 million smartphones shipped, respectively.

IDC notes that the last time Samsung wasn't on top of the annual board was 13 years ago in 2010. Back then Apple didn't even feature in the top five. Instead it was Nokia in first place, Samsung in second, LG Electronics in third, ZTE in fourth, and Research in Motion (manufacturers of BlackBerry devices) in fifth.

Verizon has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its monthly "Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge." The telecom giant will distribute the funds to customers who submit claims, with individuals receiving up to $100 each. Though admitting no wrongdoing, Verizon said it "continues to deny that it did anything wrong." The company defended its right to impose the charge, which was recently raised from $1.95 to $3.30 per month per line, and warned it may increase the fee again in the future. Settlement emails are still going out to eligible customers, who have until April 15 to file.

Last week's story about a reporter switching to a flip phone was just part of a trend, argues a Chicago school principal who did the same thing.

"I do not feel punished. I feel free." Teachers said they could sense kids' phones distracting them from inside their pockets. We banned phones outright, equipping classrooms with lockboxes that the kids call "cellphone prisons." It's not perfect, but it's better. A teacher said, "It's like we have the children back...."

And what about adults? Ninety-five percent of young adults now keep their phones nearby every waking hour, according to a Gallup survey; 92% do when they sleep. We look at our phones an average of 352 times a day, according to one recent survey, almost four times more often than before COVID. We want children off their phones because we want them to be present, but children need our presence, too. When we are on our phones, we are somewhere else. As the title of one study notes, "The Mere Presence of One's Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity...."

I made my screen gray. I deleted social media. I bought a lockbox and said I would keep my phone there. I didn't... Every year, I see kids get phones and disappear into them. I don't want that to happen to mine. I don't want that to have happened to me. So I quit. And now I have this flip phone.

What I don't have is Facetime or Instagram. I can't use Grubhub or Lyft or the Starbucks Mobile App. I don't even have a browser. I drove to a student's quinceañera, and I had to print out directions as if it were 2002... I can still make calls, though people are startled to get one. I can still text. And I can still see your pictures, though I can "heart" them only in my heart. The magic of smartphones is that they eliminate friction: touchscreens, auto-playing videos, endless scrolling. My phone isn't smooth.

That breaks the spell. Turning off my smartphone didn't fix all my problems. But I do notice my brain moving more deliberately, shifting less abruptly between moods. I am bored more, sure — the days feel longer — but I am deciding that's a good thing. And I am still connected to the people I love; they just can't text me TikToks...

I'm not doing this to change the culture. I'm doing this because I don't want my sons to remember me lost in my phone.

After removing the feature with Android 5.0 in 2015, Google appears to be bringing back lock screen widgets in the next version of Android. "There haven't been any indications since then that Google would ever bring this feature back," notes Android Authority. "But after Apple introduced widgets to the iPhone lock screen in iOS 16, many speculated that it was only a matter of time." From the report: As for how they might do that, there seem to be two different approaches that are being developed. The first one involves the creation of a new "communal" space -- an area on the lock screen that might be accessed by swiping inward from the right. Although the communal space is still unfinished, I was able to activate it in the new Android 14 QPR2 Beta 3 update. Once I activated the communal space, a large gray bar appeared on the right side of the lock screen on my Pixel device. After swiping inward, a pencil icon appeared on the top left of the screen. Tapping this icon opened a widget selector that allowed me to add widgets from Google Calendar, Google Clock, and the Google App, but I wasn't able to add widgets from most of my other apps. This is because the widget category needs to be set to KEYGUARD in order for it to appear in this selector. KEYGUARD is a category Google introduced in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean that very few apps utilize today since the lock screen hasn't supported showing widgets in nearly a decade. After adding the widgets for Google Clock and Google Finance, I returned to the communal space by swiping inward from the right on the lock screen. The widgets were indeed shown in this space without me needing to unlock the device. However, the lock screen UI was shown on top of the widgets, making things difficult to see. Clearly, this feature is still a work in progress in the current beta. [...]

While it's possible this communal space won't be coming to all devices, there's another way that Google could bring widgets back to the lock screen for Android phones: leveraging At a Glance. If you aren't familiar, Pixel phones have a widget on the home screen and lock screen called At a Glance. The interesting thing about At a Glance is that it isn't actually a widget but rather a "custom element behaving like a widget," according to developer Kieron Quinn. Under the hood, At a Glance is built on top of Smartspace, the API that is responsible for creating the various cards you can swipe through. Although Smartspace supports creating a variety of card types, it currently can't handle RemoteViews, the API on which Android app widgets are built. That could change soon, though, as Google is working on including RemoteViews into the Smartspace API.

It's unclear whether this will allow raw widgets from all apps to be included in At a Glance, since it's also possible that Google is only implementing this so it has more freedom in building new cards. Either way, this new addition to the Smartspace API would supercharge the At a Glance widget in Android 15, and we're excited to see what Google has in store for us.

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.