An anonymous reader shares a report: In case you were living under a rock this past week, it was hard to miss Samsung's big reveal for the Galaxy Note10. It was all over social media, news sites, televisions, and... notification trays. That's right, Samsung is once again spamming Galaxy phones with advertisements, this time for the Note10. This time around, push notifications advertising the Note10 are being sent out by at least three pre-installed applications -- Samsung Pay, Bixby, and the Samsung Push Service. Bixby wants you to ask it about the Note10, Samsung Pay is offering points when you look at the phone's product page, and Samsung Push Service just gives you a banner ad with no indication of where it came from. I received the Bixby ad on my international Galaxy S10e, but I haven't personally seen the others. To make matters even worse, Samsung has blocked disabling these alerts by holding down on them, at least for the Bixby app (again, I can't verify the other types of alerts). To disable the Bixby notifications, you have to open Bixby, tap the menu icon at the top-right, select Settings, and set 'Marketing notifications' to off.

Long-time Slashdot reader trolman scared this scathing editorial by security researcher Brian Krebs: If you are somehow under the impression that you -- the customer -- are in control over the security, privacy and integrity of your mobile phone service, think again. And you'd be forgiven if you assumed the major wireless carriers or federal regulators had their hands firmly on the wheel. No, a series of recent court cases and unfortunate developments highlight the sad reality that the wireless industry today has all but ceded control over this vital national resource to cybercriminals, scammers, corrupt employees and plain old corporate greed...

Incessantly annoying and fraudulent robocalls. Corrupt wireless company employees taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to unlock and hijack mobile phone service. Wireless providers selling real-time customer location data, despite repeated promises to the contrary. A noticeable uptick in SIM-swapping attacks that lead to multi-million dollar cyberheists...

Is there any hope that lawmakers or regulators will do anything about these persistent problems? Gigi Sohn, a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy, said the answer -- at least in this administration -- is probably a big "no."

"The takeaway here is the complete and total abdication of any oversight of the mobile wireless industry," Sohn told KrebsOnSecurity. "Our enforcement agencies aren't doing anything on these topics right now, and we have a complete and total breakdown of oversight of these incredibly powerful and important companies."

Long-time Slashdot reader freelunch reports that Google Voice "has announced via email that they are ending one of their most popular features -- sending transcripts of voice mails via text message. The cited reason is carrier message blocking."

From Google's email: It has come to our attention that certain carriers are blocking the delivery of these messages because they are automated and, at times, contain transcripts that resulted from unsolicited robocalls.

We can no longer ensure these messages will be delivered, so unfortunately we are turning down the feature. We have been slowly rolling out these changes and expect them to be fully deployed by 9 August 2019. No action is needed on your part.

However, the Get voicemail via email continues to be supported. As an alternative, the Google Voice iOS, Android and web apps can always be used to check voicemail and view transcripts.

A new study published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging found that blood pressure can be measured accurately by taking a quick video selfie. An anonymous reader quotes this announcement from the University of Toronto: Kang Lee, a professor of applied psychology and human development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and Canada Research Chair in developmental neuroscience, was the lead author of the study... Using a technology co-discovered by Lee and his postdoctoral researcher Paul Zheng called transdermal optical imaging, researchers measured the blood pressure of 1,328 Canadian and Chinese adults by capturing two-minute videos of their faces on an iPhone. Results were compared to standard devices used to measure blood pressure. The researchers found they were able to measure three types of blood pressure with 95 to 96 per cent accuracy.
Lee co-founded a company to turn their technology into a smartphone app (named Anura) that reports stress-level measurements and resting heart rate from a 30-second video of your face -- with plans to release a new version also returning blood pressure results sometime this fall in China.

The university also notes that the researchers now hope to extend their technology so it can measure blood-gluclose levels and cholesterol.

After months of conflicting statements from Huawei executives, the Chinese networking giant on Friday officially unveiled HarmonyOS, the much-anticipated microkernel-based, distributed operating system that it has developed to power smartphones, laptops, and smart home devices as the company attempts to reduce its reliance on American firms. From a report: HarmonyOS will be made available for deployment in smart screen products such as TV, smart watches, and in-vehicle infotainment systems later this year, said Richard Yu, CEO of the Huawei consumer division at company's developer conference. In next three years, Huawei, the world's second largest smartphone vendor, will look to bring HarmonyOS to more devices including smartphones, he said. Yu said, without offering any proofs, that HarmonyOS is "more powerful and secure than Android." He said HarmonyOS' IPC performance is five times that of Google's Fuchsia. The top executive also claimed that HarmonyOS' microkernel has "one-thousandth the amount of code in the Linux kernel. The company said it intends to continue to use Android moving forward, but HarmonyOS is officially its back-up plan if things go south. "We will prioritize Android for smartphones, but if we can't use Android, we will be able to install HarmonyOS quickly," Yu said.

Samsung axed the headphone jack from its newest Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus smartphones, removing a key feature that the company mocked Apple for removing in its iPhones. Samsung declined to mention the fact at yesterday's Note 10 event, and now they are attempting to hide its past advertisements. Android Authority reports: Over the past few years, there have been multiple high-profile Samsung ads that heavily criticized Apple's iPhone design limitations, specifically towards the removal of the headphone jack and the notched display on the iPhone X and XS. These ads are no longer on Samsung's official United States YouTube channel and appear to be erased from other official sources as well. One of the more prominent series of ads -- known as "Ingenius" -- center on an actor portraying an Apple employee as he tries to convince skeptical smartphone buyers to buy an iPhone. The customers all seem confused as they want certain things from the phone that it simply can't do, including headphone jacks, microSD card slots, and notch-less displays.

Another prominent Samsung ad was called "Growing Up." The ad shows a young man going through various iterations of the iPhone over the years, getting increasingly frustrated with the limitations of each one. A memorable scene in the ad shows him using his iPhone with a giant dongle attached to it so he can use his wired headphones and charge the device at the same time. This ad also no longer appears on Samsung's official U.S. channel.

Apple says it will offer up to $1 million for hackers who can find vulnerabilities in iPhones and Macs. "That's up from $200,000, and in the fall the program will be open to all researchers," reports Forbes. "Previously only those on the company's invite-only bug bounty program were eligible to receive rewards." From the report: As Forbes reported on Monday, Apple is also launching a Mac bug bounty, which was confirmed Thursday, but it's also extending it to watchOS and its Apple TV operating system. The announcements came in Las Vegas at the Black Hat conference, where Apple's head of security engineering Ivan Krstic gave a talk on iOS and macOS security. Forbes also revealed on Monday that Apple was to give bug bounty participants "developer devices" -- iPhones that let hackers dive further into iOS. They can, for instance, pause the processor to look at what's happening with data in memory. Krstic confirmed the iOS Security Research Device program would be by application only. It will arrive next year.

The full $1 million will go to researchers who can find a hack of the kernel -- the core of iOS -- with zero clicks required by the iPhone owner. Another $500,000 will be given to those who can find a "network attack requiring no user interaction." There's also a 50% bonus for hackers who can find weaknesses in software before it's released. Apple is increasing those rewards in the face of an increasingly profitable private market where hackers sell the same information to governments for vast sums.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: 5G won't be much different from 4G outside dense urban areas, a Verizon executive said yesterday. The massive hype around 5G has focused on speed improvements expected on millimeter-wave spectrum, which wasn't previously used on mobile broadband networks. But 5G on lower-spectrum bands will be like "good 4G," Verizon Consumer Group CEO Ronan Dunne said at Oppenheimer's annual Technology, Internet & Communications Conference (webcast link).

"While we can deploy and we will deploy a 5G nationwide offering, the lower down the spectrum tiers you go, the more that will approximate to a good 4G service," Dunne said. "The truth is, we have a very good 4G LTE service in parts of the US where our competitors don't. So if someone else is rushing to bring out 5G nationwide, it may be because they don't have credible 4G LTE coverage in those areas to start with." Dunne noted yesterday that the amount of spectrum in each band will play a huge role in determining the speeds available over 5G. The more spectrum you have, "the more of the features and capabilities of 5G that you can enable," Dunne said yesterday.

He continued: "We want to have both a coverage strategy and a capability strategy, and a very large majority of the volume of data that we carry on our networks goes to large, dense urban environments. From a population point of view, [big cities have] significantly less than half of customers, but from a data traffic point of view, it's significantly more than half. When it comes to the ability to use 5G as a significant capacity enhancement, there's more of an opportunity to leverage that in urban areas."

A longtime nightmare scenario for independent iPhone repair companies has come true: Apple has tied batteries to specific iPhones, meaning that only it has the ability to perform an authorized battery replacement on the newest versions of iPhones, two independent experiments have found. From a report: Battery replacements are among the most common repairs done by Apple and by independent repair companies. This is because lithium ion batteries eventually lose their ability to hold a charge, which will eventually make the phone unusable. Replacing the battery greatly extends the life of the phone: Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged earlier this year that battery replacements are resulting in fewer people buying new iPhones, which has affected Apple's bottom line. It's concerning on many levels, then, that on the iPhone XS, XS Plus, and XR, that any battery swap not performed by Apple will result in the phone's settings saying that the new battery needs "Service." An iPhone will still turn on and function with an aftermarket battery, but several important features are unavailable, and the iPhone warns users that they should seek service, presumably from an Apple Store.

According to 9to5Google, Google's upcoming Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones will feature 90Hz refresh rates, 6GB of RAM, and a DSLR attachment, among other features not reported until now. From the report: First, the basics: There will be a Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, and they will both more or less have the same features. They are phones. As we've already seen, they will have glass on the front and back, and a large camera bump. The have a sizable top bezel on the front housing the Soli radar chip, the speaker, a single front shooter, and the suite of sensors for face unlock. Other familiar aesthetic flourishes like a colored lock button and the usual 'G' logo on the back are also in tow. Things get a little interesting with the display specs. Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL will have 5.7-inch and 6.3-inch OLED displays, respectively -- the smaller is Full HD+, while the larger is Quad HD+. We can confirm now, though, that both will be 90 Hz displays, a feature Google is planning to call "Smooth Display."

We also have word on the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL camera specs. There are two sensors on the rear, one of which is a 12MP shooter with phase-detect auto-focus. Also, confirming details that we unearthed in the Google Camera app, the other rear sensor on the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL is a 16MP telephoto lens. Another interesting tidbit on the camera side: We're told Google is developing a DSLR-like attachment for the Pixel 4 that may become an available accessory. In other Pixel 4 specs, the smaller 5.7-inch Google Pixel 4 will have a 2,800 mAh battery, while the larger model will have a 3,700 mAh battery. That means, compared to last year, the smaller Pixel will have a slightly smaller battery (down from 2,915 mAh), while the larger Pixel will have a notably beefier one (up from 3,430 mAh). Both devices will pack the Snapdragon 855, get an appreciated bump to 6GB of RAM, and will be available in both 64GB and 128GB variants in the United States. Finally, we can confirm that both Pixel 4 models will have stereo speakers, the Titan M security module that was introduced with the Pixel 3, and of course, the latest version of Android with 3 years of software support. We're also told to expect that, like previous years, Google will show off some new Assistant features that will be exclusive to Pixel 4.

Earlier today at Samsung's Galaxy Note 10 launch event, Samsung announced several new features coming to DeX, an application that transforms your Samsung phone into a "desktop like" interface. The expanded version of DeX on the Note 10 now works with your computer, allowing you to transfer files (including photos), reply to messages and run mobile apps on your Mac or Windows PC. Engadget reports: The Note 10 also touts a Link to Windows option in the phone's Quick Panel that connects to a Windows 10 PC, sharing your phone's notifications on your PC screen with no specialized apps required. This concept also isn't completely new, but it's still helpful if you'd rather not check your phone for a must-see message or app alert. More Microsoft integrations are coming. You'll get to make and receive calls right from your PC (it's not clear if this is just for Samsung phones or for all Android devices). Samsung's Gallery app, meanwhile, will tie into OneDrive to upload photos to cloud storage. If the company has its way, your phone and computer will feel like extensions of each other.

At an event today, Samsung announced not one, but two versions of its flagship Galaxy Note 10 smartphone: the regular Note 10 and the jumbo Note 10+. The Note10's and Note10+'s frames are made from scratch-resistant aluminum that's IP68 rated to withstand 1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes, and their protective glass shielding -- Corning's Gorilla Glass 6, an upgrade from the Note9's Gorilla Glass 5 -- can withstand up to 15 consecutive drops from 1 meter onto rough surfaces. The shared specs of the Note 10 and Note 10+ are: Processor: Snapdragon 855; Display: Dynamic AMOLED with tone mapping; Wide-angle camera: 16 megapixels, f/2.2; Main camera: 12 megapixels, f/1.5 and f/2.4 dual aperture, OIS; Telephoto camera: 12 megapixels, f/2.1, 45-degree; Selfie camera: 10 megapixels, f/2.2; Radios: LTE Cat 2.0, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0; In-screen fingerprint sensor. The Note 10+ features a 6.8-inch display with 3040 x 1440 pixels resolution. It comes with 12GB RAM, 256GB or 512GB UFS 3.0 storage (with support for microSD expansion), and 4,300mAh battery.

The Note 10 features a 6.3-inch display of 2280 x 1080 pixels resolutions. It has 8GB RAM, and 256GB UFS 3.0 of storage (no microSD expansion), and 3,500mAh battery.

The Note 10 starts at $949 and comes in just one configuration: 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The Note 10+ starts at $1,099 with 12GB RAM / 256GB storage and you can spend $100 more to get 512GB of storage. Both are available for preorder today and will ship on August 23. The Note 10+ also comes with a 5G variant.

Monzo, a mobile-only bank operating in the UK, admitted today to storing payment card PINs inside internal logs. From a report: The company is now notifying all impacted customers and urging users to change card PINs the next time they use a cash machine. Monzo described the issue as a "bug" that occurred when Monzo customers used two specific features of their Monzo mobile apps -- namely the feature that reminds users of their card number and the feature for canceling standing orders. When Monzo customers used one of these two features, they'd be asked to enter their account PIN, for authorization purposes, but unbeknowst to them, the PIN would also be logged inside Monzo's internal logs. Monzo said these logs were encrypted and that only a few employees had access to the data stored inside. The company said it discovered the bug on Friday, August 2, and spent all weekend removing PIN numbers from its internal logs.

Huawei is testing a smartphone equipped with Hongmeng, the company's self-developed operating system, which could potentially go on sale by the end of this year, Chinese state-media outlet Global Times reported. From a report: The release of a Hongmeng-powered smartphone would mark a major step for China's Huawei, the world's second-biggest maker of smartphones, as U.S. government actions threaten its access to Google's Android operating system. The device will be priced at around 2,000 yuan ($288), the Global Times said on Sunday, citing unnamed sources. That will place the device toward the low-end segment of the smartphone market. Huawei executives have previously described Hongmeng as an operating system designed for internet-of-things products. Last month the company said the first major devices powered by Hongmeng would be its upcoming line of Honor-brand smart TVs.

Slashdot reader Artem S. Tashkinov writes: Mathy Vanhoef and Eyal Ronen have recently disclosed two new additional bugs impacting WPA3. The security researched duo found the new bugs in the security recommendations the WiFi Alliance created for equipment vendors in order to mitigate the initial Dragonblood attacks [found by the same two security researchers]. "Just like the original Dragonblood vulnerabilities from April, these two new ones allow attackers to leak information from WPA3 cryptographic operations and brute-force a WiFi network's password," reports ZDNet.
More from ZDNet: "[The] Wi-Fi standard is now being updated with proper defenses, which might lead to WPA3.1," Vanhoef said. "Although this update is not backwards-compatible with current deployments of WPA3, it does prevent most of our attacks," the researchers said.

But besides just disclosing the two new Dragonblood vulnerabilities, the two researchers also took the chance to criticize the WiFi Alliance again for its closed standards development process that doesn't allow for the open-source community to contribute and prevent big vulnerabilities from making it into the standard in the first place.

"This demonstrates that implementing Dragonfly and WPA3 without side-channel leaks is surprisingly hard," the researchers said. "It also, once again, shows that privately creating security recommendations and standards is at best irresponsible and at worst inept."
While these type of feedback might be ignored when coming from other researchers, it means more when it comes from Vanhoef. The Belgian researchers is the one who discovered the KRACK attack that broke the WPA2 WiFi authentication standard and forced the WiFi Alliance to develop the WPA3 standard, which it launched in June 2018.

Xfinity Mobile's unlimited data plans now cost an extra $20 a month if you want to watch HD video. They cost $45 per line per month, but video streams are generally limited to 480p resolution. "Comcast yesterday announced a new $20-per-month HD Pass 'for an upgrade to HD video resolution on Unlimited lines (720p on phone and 1080p on tablets),'" reports Ars Technica. "That raises the monthly price to $65." From the report: Xfinity Mobile does offer cheaper options with HD video if you don't need unlimited data. Comcast said it now allows HD streaming on its limited plans, which cost $12 a month for 1GB, $30 for 3GB, and $60 for 10GB. Comcast charges $12 for each additional gigabyte if you go over your limit. Comcast also now offers a "Data Saver" feature to limited-plan customers, which turns off HD streaming in order to reduce data usage.

The new $20 HD pass doesn't lift the 1.5Mbps cap for unlimited customers who use more than 20GB, but Comcast says buying the pass does let users "access faster speeds when the network is congested, such as during concerts and sporting events." Basically, this means unlimited customers who pay $20 extra and use less than 20GB a month will get HD video and will not get slower speeds than limited-plan customers during network congestion. The various speed restrictions do not apply when your phone is connected to a Comcast Wi-Fi hotspot. There are millions of those around the country, and Xfinity Mobile phones can automatically connect to them when in range.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Netflix thought I was four different people. I was being paid through an app to watch its trailers over and over again, racking up digital points I could eventually trade for Amazon gift cards or real cash. But rather than just use my own phone, I bought four Android devices to churn through the trailers simultaneously, bringing in more money. I made a small "phone farm," able to fabricate engagement with advertisements and programs from companies like Netflix, as well as video game trailers, celebrity gossip shows, and sports too. No one was really watching the trailers, but Netflix didn't need to know that. The goal was to passively run these phones 24/7, with each collecting a fraction of a penny for each ad they "watched."

Hobbyists and those looking to make a bit of money across the U.S. have been doing the same, buying dozens or hundreds of phones to generate revenue so they can afford some extra household goods, cover a bill, buy a case of beer, or earn more income without driving for Uber or delivering for Grubhub. The farms are similar to those found overseas, often in China, where rows and rows of phones click and scroll through social media or other apps to simulate the engagement of a real human. Every few months, a video of these Chinese farms goes viral, but in bedroom cupboards, stacks in corners of living rooms, or custom setups in their garage, American phone farmers are doing a similar thing, albeit on a smaller scale. Motherboard spoke to eight people who run farms of various sizes, most of whom are located in the U.S.

Have you ever been in a public place and hopped onto a public WiFi network? From a report: We conducted a survey of 1,195 US residents over the past two weeks asking about internet connectivity and one interesting trend stood out. 82% of respondents (980 total) said they connect to any freely available network while out in public. When asked about the security implications of such a decision, the majority of the respondents said they didn't think about such things, and that it wasn't a concern for them.

No country on earth has benefited from President Trump's trade fight with China more than Vietnam. From a report: The country's factories have swelled with orders as American tariffs cause companies to reconsider making their products in China. Now, more big technology firms are looking to bulk up their manufacturing operations in Vietnam, lifting the ambitions of a nation already well on its way to becoming a powerhouse maker of smartphones and other high-end gadgets. First, though, Vietnam needs to get better at making the little plastic casings on your earbuds.

Vu Huu Thang's company in the northern city of Bac Ninh, Bac Viet Technology, produces small plastic parts for Canon printers, Korg musical instruments, and Samsung cellphones and phone accessories, including earbuds. He said it would be hard for his firm to compete against Chinese suppliers as long as he had to buy 70 to 100 tons of imported plastic material every month, most of it made in China. "Vietnam cannot compare with China," Mr. Thang said. "When we buy materials, it's 5, 10 percent more expensive than China already." And the Vietnamese market is too small, he said, to entice plastic producers to set up plants here.

Security researchers say they can extract a user's phone number from the Bluetooth traffic coming from an iPhone smartphone during certain operations. From a report: The attack works because, when Bluetooth is enabled on an Apple device, the device sends BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) packets in all directions, broadcasting the device's position and various details. This behavior is part of the Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL), a protocol that can work either via WiFi or BLE to interconnect and allow data transfers between nearby devices. Previous academic research has revealed that AWDL BLE traffic contains device identification details such as the phone status, Wi-Fi status, OS version, buffer availability, and others. However, in new research published last week, security researchers from Hexway said that during certain operations these BLE packets can also contain a SHA256 hash of the device's phone number.