"When your phone rings, there's about a 50 percent chance it's a spam robo-call," reports the Washington Post. Now a computer science professor who's researched robo-call technologies reveals the economics behind automatically dialing phone numbers "either randomly, or from massive databases compiled from automated Web searches, leaked databases of personal information and marketing data." It doesn't matter whether you've signed up with the federal Do Not Call Registry, although companies that call numbers on the list are supposed to be subject to large fines. The robo-callers ignore the list, and evade penalties because they can mask the true origins of their calls.... Each call costs a fraction of a cent -- and a successful robo-call scam can net millions of dollars. That more than pays for all the calls people ignored or hung up on, and provides cash for the next round. Casting an enormous net at low cost lets these scammers find a few gullible victims who can fund the whole operation...

Partly that's because their costs are low. Most phone calls are made and connected via the Internet, so robo-call companies can make tens of thousands, or even millions, of calls very cheaply. Many of the illegal robo-calls targeting the United States probably come from overseas -- which used to be extremely expensive but now is far cheaper...

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission has been asking U.S. phone companies to filter calls and police their own systems to keep out robo-calls. It hasn't worked, mainly because it's too costly and technically difficult for phone companies to do that. It's hard to detect fake Caller ID information, and wrongly blocking a legitimate call could cause them legal problems.
The professor's article suggests guarding your phone number like you guard your credit card numbers. "Don't give your phone number to strangers, businesses or websites unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Of course, your phone number may already be widely known and available, either from telephone directories or websites, or just because you've had it for many years. In that case, you probably can't stop getting robo-calls."

Huawei has built its own operating system for phones, tablets and computers in case tensions between Huawei and the U.S. escalate even further than they already are. "The OS has been rumored for years, but Huawei confirmed its viability with the South China Morning Post, saying it could be used if the company were cut off from Android or Windows," reports Engadget. "It's seen as a last resort, but given the current discord between the U.S. and Huawei, it's not entirely surprising that the company has a plan B." From the report: Huawei began building the OS in 2012, after the U.S. banned Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE from using American products and services. This was reportedly seen as a way to prepare for "worst-case scenarios." Now, with Huawei suing the U.S. government and the U.S. saying it might punish Germany if the country works with Huawei on its 5G networks, those worst-case scenarios might not be too far-fetched. At the moment, this doesn't change much. Android and Windows are still the company's first-choice. "We fully support our partners' operating systems -- we love them and our customers love them," a company spokesperson told South China Morning Post. Still, given the state of the U.S.-Huawei relationship, this contingency plan could be significant.

According to a report from Yonhap News Agency, Samsung's vice president of its display R&D group, Yang Byung-duk, said the company is working on making the entire front of its phones a screen, with no need for bezels or a camera cutout of any kind. He said that "though it wouldn't be possible to make (a full-screen smartphone) in the next 1-2 years, the technology can move forward to the point where the camera hole will be invisible, while not affecting the camera's function in any way." The Verge reports: The comments come less than a month after Samsung announced its latest flagship, the Galaxy S10, which is the company's first phone to have a "hole-punch" cut out from its display for the selfie camera. Yang called the S10's Infinity-O display a "milestone" for the company, but suggested that Samsung eventually plans to place the selfie camera under the display itself, removing the need for any cut out or pop-up mechanism.

Microsoft is bringing its Xbox Live network to iOS and Android devices. "The software giant is launching a new cross-platform mobile software development kit (SDK) for game developers to bring Xbox Live functionality to games that run on iOS and Android," reports The Verge. "Xbox Live features like achievements, Gamerscore, hero stats, friend lists, clubs, and even some family settings will all be available on iOS and Android." From the report: It's all part of a bigger push from Microsoft to make its Xbox games and services available across multiple platforms. Game developers will be able to pick and choose parts of Xbox Live to integrate into their games, and it will all be enabled through a single sign-in to a Microsoft Account. Microsoft is using its identity network to support login, privacy, online safety, and child accounts. Microsoft wants game developers to take a similar Minecraft approach and bring Xbox Live to more mobile games. Some iOS and Android games already have Xbox Live Achievements, but they're only enabled in titles from Microsoft Studios at the moment and this new SDK will open up Xbox Live functionality to many more games.

If you were hoping to see Xbox Live on Nintendo Switch then you might have to wait a little longer. "Our goal is to really unite the 2 billion gamers of the world and we're big fans of our Xbox Live community, but we don't have any specific announcements as it relates to Switch today," reveals Choudhry. Xbox Live on PlayStation 4 also looks unlikely, but Microsoft is open to the idea if Sony is willing to allow it. "If you've watched us for the past few years, we've taken a very inclusive approach," says Choudhry. "Phil [Spencer] has been very proactive on issues like crossplay, cross-progression, and uniting gamer networks, and we're willing to partner with the industry as much as we possibly can."

Google's latest speech recognition works entirely offline, eliminating the delay that many other voice assistants have to return your query. "The delay occurs because your voice, or some data derived from it anyway, has to travel from your phone to the servers of whoever operates the service, where it is analyzed and sent back a short time later," reports TechCrunch. "This can take anywhere from a handful of milliseconds to multiple entire seconds (what a nightmare!), or longer if your packets get lost in the ether." The only major downside with Google's new system is its limited availability. As of right now, it's only available to people with a Pixel smartphone. From the report: Why not just do the voice recognition on the device? There's nothing these companies would like more, but turning voice into text on the order of milliseconds takes quite a bit of computing power. It's not just about hearing a sound and writing a word -- understanding what someone is saying word by word involves a whole lot of context about language and intention. Your phone could do it, for sure, but it wouldn't be much faster than sending it off to the cloud, and it would eat up your battery. But steady advancements in the field have made it plausible to do so, and Google's latest product makes it available to anyone with a Pixel.

Google's work on the topic, documented in a paper here, built on previous advances to create a model small and efficient enough to fit on a phone (it's 80 megabytes, if you're curious), but capable of hearing and transcribing speech as you say it. No need to wait until you've finished a sentence to think whether you meant "their" or "there" -- it figures it out on the fly. So what's the catch? Well, it only works in Gboard, Google's keyboard app, and it only works on Pixels, and it only works in American English. So in a way this is just kind of a stress test for the real thing. "Given the trends in the industry, with the convergence of specialized hardware and algorithmic improvements, we are hopeful that the techniques presented here can soon be adopted in more languages and across broader domains of application," writes Google in their blog post.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inverse: Fearing unknown health risks, members of the City Council in Portland, Oregon, will vote Wednesday to oppose the rollout of 5G wireless networks. In a proposed resolution, Mayor Ted Wheeler, along with Commissioners Chloe Eudaly and Amanda Fritz, write that there's evidence suggesting wireless networks can cause health problems -- including cancer. They express concern that the Federal Communications Commission has not conducted enough research to demonstrate that 5G networks are safe, while at the same time prohibiting state and local governments from passing their own regulations on telecommunications technology. And while Wheeler, Eudaly, and Fritz are correct about the FCC's power to dictate how state and local governments manage wireless networks, the connection between 5G networks and cancer is a lot more complicated than they say it is.

"There is evidence to suggest that exposure to radio frequency emissions generated by wireless technologies could contribute to adverse health conditions such as cancer," reads the proposed resolution. This evidence comes from a large-scale study conducted by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The final results of this study, published in November 2018, showed a strong association between the type of radiation used for mobile phone signals and certain types of cancerous tumors in lab rats. But that's where the situation gets tough. The NTP study, which took place over 10 years and involved exposing more than 7,000 rats and mice to radio-frequency radiation, focused on signals used by wireless technology under the 2G and 3G standards. It's nearly impossible to say whether these results will apply to 5G hardware.

"Since the available research doesn't address 5G, the Portland City Council's resolution demands that the FCC embark on another such research project to assess the health effects of 5G," reports Inverse. "Presumably, it would take just as long to conduct another study on the hypothesized connection between 5G and cancer, but by that time, the industry will almost certainly have moved on to 6G -- or 7G."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comedian John Oliver is taking aim at the Federal Communications Commission again, this time demanding action on robocalls while unleashing his own wave of robocalls against FCC commissioners. In a 17-minute segment yesterday on HBO's Last Week Tonight, Oliver described the scourge of robocalls and blamed Pai for not doing more to stop them. Oliver ended the segment by announcing that he and his staff are sending robocalls every 90 minutes to all five FCC commissioners. "Hi FCC, this is John from customer service," Oliver's recorded voice says on the call. "Congratulations, you've just won a chance to lower robocalls in America today... robocalls are incredibly annoying, and the person who can stop them is you! Talk to you again in 90 minutes -- here's some bagpipe music."

When it came to robocalling the FCC, Oliver didn't need viewers' help. "This time, unlike our past encounters [with the FCC], I don't need to ask hordes of real people to bombard [the FCC] with messages, because with the miracle of robocalling, I can now do it all by myself," Oliver said. "It turns out robocalling is so easy, it only took our tech guy literally 15 minutes to work out how to do it," Oliver also said. He noted that "phone calls are now so cheap and the technology so widely available that just about everyone has the ability to place a massive number of calls." Under U.S. law, political robocalls to landline telephones are allowed without prior consent from the recipient. Such calls to cell phones require the called party's prior express consent, but Oliver presumably directed his robocalls to the commissioners' office phones. Oliver told the FCC commissioners: "if you want to tell us that you don't consent to be robocalled, that's absolutely no problem. Just write a certified letter to the address we buried somewhere within the first chapter of Moby Dick that's currently scrolling up the screen... find the address, write us a letter, and we'll stop the calls immediately."

Experts have proven once again that facial recognition on modern devices remains hilariously insecure and can be bypassed using simple tricks such as showing an image or a video in front of a device's camera. From a report: The latest device to fall victim to such attacks is Samsung Galaxy S10, Samsung's latest top tier phone and considered one of the world's most advanced smartphones to date. Unfortunately, the Galaxy S10's facial recognition feature remains just as weak as the one supported in its previous versions or on the devices of its competitors, according to Lewis Hilsenteger, a smartphone reviewer better known as Unbox Therapy on YouTube. Hilsenteger showed in a demo video uploaded on his YouTube channel last week how putting up a video of the phone owner in front of the Galaxy S10 front camera would trick the facial recognition system into unlocking the device.

"The next success for the company behind Angry Birds could be twofold: convincing the U.S. public they should buy a 5G mobile phone from Sprint Corp., and developing the world's biggest video game streaming platform in the process," reports Bloomberg: Rovio Entertainment is in talks with "several" investors to take a stake in its subsidiary Hatch -- a "Netflix for games" platform that Sprint will use to showcase what its high-speed 5G handsets can do when it opens its new network in May. But Rovio Chief Executive Officer Kati Levoranta also needs new investors to buy into her vision for three-year-old Hatch, on which Rovio has already spent about 17 million euros ($19 million), to help it build up its library of games from developers such as Ubisoft and Sega.

"The Hatch service is brilliant for use with 5G, and many of our strategic partners are looking for services that demonstrate how 5G works and the benefits it brings," Levoranta said in an interview at the company's seaside headquarters in Espoo, Finland.... "5G is a big opportunity for us," Vesa Jutila, co-founder and chief commercial officer of Hatch Entertainment Oy, said in an interview. "Everyone seems to think cloud gaming is the way to tell the 5G story to consumers."

The app offers a portfolio of pre-vetted games to consumers, streamed to their handsets via a monthly subscription. Once the initial account is set up, mobile games can be played straight from the cloud, without needing to be downloaded or installed. The advent of high speed, low latency 5G networks makes the model all the more attractive to carriers looking to sell their latest services.

Version 6.50 of the PlayStation 4's firmware now allows you to remotely play your PS4 games from an iPhone or iPad. "To access it, you'll need to download the Remote Play app for your iOS device, and then pair it with your console," reports The Verge. "Compatible games can then be played over Wi-Fi using the on-screen buttons." From the report: Announced back in 2013, Remote Play originally let you stream games from a PS4 console to the handheld PlayStation Vita, but later in 2016, Sony released Remote Play apps for both Windows and Mac. Although Sony has yet to announce a broader Android version of the service, the existence of an Android version of the app that's exclusive to Sony Xperia phones suggests there aren't any technical barriers. Bringing the functionality to iOS is a huge expansion for Remote Play, although it's a shame that you're not officially able to pair a DualShock 4 controller with the app via Bluetooth for a more authentic experience (although some users have reported being able to get the controller working via a sneaky workaround). If you're prepared to use a non-Sony controller, then you'll be happy to know that MacStories is reporting that other MFi gamepads (such as the SteelSeries Nimbus) work just fine with the iOS app. Other limitations with the functionality are that you'll need an iPhone 7 or 6th-generation iPad or later to use it, and it's also only available over Wi-Fi. You can't use Remote Play from another location over a mobile network.

PS4 version 6.50 also adds the ability for you to remap the X and O buttons on the controller.

Samsung is working on a pair of new foldable smartphones to follow its Galaxy Fold, a smartphone with dual screens that fold in half like a notebook, and another that works just like any other. Bloomberg reports: The South Korean manufacturer is said to be developing a clamshell-like device, and another that folds away from the user similar to Huawei's Mate X, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing internal plans. The $1,980 Galaxy Fold that Samsung plans to release in April folds inward like a notebook. While it's still too early to gauge how much demand there will be for smartphones with flexible screens, Samsung and other rivals are eager to gain an edge over Apple Inc. in the $495 billion industry, especially amid cooling sales.

Samsung plans to unveil the vertically folding phone late this year or early next year, and is using mock-ups to fine-tune the design, the people said. The gadget is designed with an extra screen on the outside, but the manufacturer may remove it depending on how customers respond to a similar display on the Galaxy Fold, they said. The outfolding device, which already exists as a prototype after being considered as Samsung's first foldable gadget, will roll out afterward, the people said. It will be thinner because it has no extra screen, they said. Samsung may also incorporate an in-display fingerprint sensor for its foldable lineup, as it did for the Galaxy S10 model announced last month, they said. The report also touched on the Galaxy Fold's screen imperfection. Apparently, a crease "appears on the panel after it's been folded about 10,000 times, and Samsung is considering offering free screen replacements after releasing the product."

"The Galaxy Fold's screen imperfection develops on a protective film covering the touch sensor bonded with the display underneath," the report adds. "That's one reason why Samsung kept the phone inside a glass case at MWC in Barcelona last month."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechRadar: Could Samsung be on the cusp of a fully wireless TV? A recent patent hints that a Samsung TV without any pesky cables could be around the corner. Spotted by LetsGoDigital, the patent was filed in March 2018 but only released publicly in late February of this year. The patent revolves around a wireless power transceiver, which would make the prospective television the first of its kind to transmit power across the room rather than relying on a power cable -- increasingly seen as an eyesore next to Samsung's premium design sets. The transceiver takes the form of a magnetic bar attached to the rear of the television, given that panels themselves are too thin to house anything of this kind. It would then require a separate power transmitter (plugged into the mains) to keep the TV running.

Hackers and security researchers use rare "dev-fused" iPhones created for internal use at Apple to bypass Apple's protections and security features to uncover iPhone vulnerabilities and other sensitive info, Motherboard reported Wednesday, citing two dozen security researchers, current and former Apple employees, rare phone collectors, and members of the iPhone jailbreaking community. From the report: These rare iPhones have many security features disabled, allowing researchers to probe them much more easily than the iPhones you can buy at a store. Since the Black Hat talk, dev-fused iPhones have become a tool that security researchers around the world use to find previously unknown iPhone vulnerabilities (known as zero days), Motherboard has learned. Dev-fused iPhones were never intended to escape Apple's production pipeline have made their way to the gray market, where smugglers and middlemen sell them for thousands of dollars to hackers and security researchers. Using the information gleaned from probing a dev-fused device, researchers can sometimes parlay what they've learned into developing a hack for the normal iPhones hundreds of millions of people own.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Wall Street Journal reporter Takashi Mochizuki took a Wednesday opportunity to review one game maker's financial reports: CyberAgent Inc, maker of smartphone games like the Nintendo-published Dragalia Lost. This report, published at the end of January, made vague allusions to a single smartphone game dragging the company down. Quoting from the company's own English-language press release: "At the time of the original earnings forecast announcement on October 25, we looked a new game title made a good start [sic]. However, its performance is being slower than we expected as of today." That resulted in a whopping 20-percent drop in revenue expectations in the company's gaming sector, from 50 billion yen to 40 billion. Mochizuki pressed the company to confirm which game that was, and CyberAgent confirmed the game in question was indeed Nintendo's Dragalia Lost.

The company clarified things even further to the WSJ, alleging that Nintendo responded to players' complaints about Dragalia's loot box economy by asking the developer to "adjust the game" to reduce how much a player might spend in the game to progress normally. "Nintendo is not interested in making a large amount of revenue from a single smartphone game," a CyberAgent representative told the WSJ. "If we managed the game alone, we would have made a lot more." When asked by the WSJ, Nintendo's Japanese arm replied with a statement that apparently confirms CyberAgent's allegation. "We discuss various things, not just limited to payments, to deliver high-quality fun to consumers," the Nintendo rep told the WSJ. The report says the reason why Nintendo's revenue goals for its entire smartphone-gaming sector are considered modest compared to other large Japanese publishers may be "because its smartphone games are positioned less to make oodles of cash and more to raise awareness of Nintendo's IP (which Nintendo will soon leverage with theme park attractions and a feature-length film)."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: According to Wired, glass-maker Corning is "working on ultrathin, bendable glass that's 0.1 millimeters thick and can bend to a 5 millimeter radius" that may be usable for smartphone displays within two years. Corning produces Gorilla Glass used in Apple's iPhones, as well as in phones made by other manufacturers like LG, Asus, OnePlus, Nokia, Samsung, and more. Developing Gorilla Glass that can bend or fold like the materials used for the Samsung Galaxy Fold display or other foldable phone concepts could address some shortcomings endemic to these early designs.

The folding phones you see in headlines and gadget blog galleries today rely on plastic polymers that may scratch easier or have other undesirable properties. Generally, smartphone-makers that have announced foldable phones have not allowed us to test-drive these phones, which is otherwise normal practice for traditional smartphone product unveilings. That may be primarily because the software is not there yet, but it could also be that the companies anticipate negative reactions to the plastic displays, which have not been standard in flagship phones for a decade. [...] John Bayne, Corning's head of Gorilla Glass, and another expert Wired spoke with believe that Corning (or a competitor like ACG) will have foldable glass ready for use in foldable smartphones within a couple of years. But it's a difficult journey. "We have glasses we've sampled to customers, and they're functional," Bayne told Wired. "But they're not quite meeting all the requirements. People either want better performance against a drop event or a tighter bend radius. We can give them one or the other; the key is to give them both."

A study into the amount people pay for mobile data has found that the UK has some of the most expensive prices in Europe. From a report: The research, from price comparison site Cable.co.uk, found that one gigabyte (GB) of data cost $0.26 in India but $6.66 in the UK. The US had one of the most expensive rates -- with an average cost of $12.37 for the same amount of data. The results were "disappointing" said Cable's telecoms analyst Dan Howdle. "Despite a healthy UK marketplace, our study has uncovered that EU nations such as Finland, Poland, Denmark, Italy, Austria and France pay a fraction of what we pay in the UK for similar data usage. It will be interesting to see how our position is affected post-Brexit," he said. The study compared mobile data pricing in 230 countries around the world. The UK ranked 136th in the list. The global average was $8.53 for 1GB.

the_newsbeagle writes: In newborn intensive care units (NICUs) today, tiny fragile babies lie in incubators, wired to a variety of monitors that track their vital signs. This mess of wires makes it complicated for nurses to pick up the babies for routine tasks like diaper changes, and makes it hard for new parents to pick up their infants for cuddling. Skin-to-skin contact between parents and infants has been proven not only to help with bonding, but also to have a host of medical benefits for the infants, so the wires that tether babies to their beds are a real problem. At Northwestern University, an electrical engineer who works on flexible, stretchable electronics teamed up with a pediatric dermatologist to invent a solution. They devised a system of stick-on wireless biosensors (with a gentle adhesive that's safe even for thin preemie skin) that actually provide more information than today's standard setup. The system "is composed of two sensors, one that sticks to the chest to record electrocardiograms (providing heart rate), another that sticks to the foot to record photoplethysmograms (measuring blood oxygenation) and skin temperature," reports IEEE Spectrum. "The foot sensor required the engineering team to create software that could compensate for movement artifacts in the data. Time-syncing these two sensors also provides a continuous measurement of blood pressure; the system knows when the heart pumps out a pulse of blood and when it arrives at the foot, and that time measurement correlates well with blood pressure."

"The sensors use near-field communication (NFC) to connect to a module that can be attached to the baby's bed, and which both receives the data and sends wireless power to the sensors," the report adds. "That module transmits the data via bluetooth to a mobile phone or tablet."

Speaking to investors on Friday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he has "never been more optimistic" about where the company is today and where it's heading. He said the company is "planting seeds" and "rolling the dice" on future products that will just "blow you away." A story adds: Cook went on to say that Apple's eventual goal is to be able reduce the price of the 2018 Retina MacBook Air, which currently starts at $1,200. In reference to the Apple Watch and the AirPods, Cook said there's a "long, great roadmap" of "fantastic" products on the horizon. [...] On the topic of services, Cook said Apple is well on its way towards meeting the goal it set in 2016, which was to double its $25 billion revenue by 2020.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A bad security decision by Comcast on the company's mobile phone service made it easier for attackers to port victims' cell phone numbers to different carriers. Comcast in 2017 launched Xfinity Mobile, a cellular service that uses the Verizon Wireless network and Comcast Wi-Fi hotspots. Comcast has signed up 1.2 million mobile subscribers but took a shortcut in the system that lets users switch from Comcast to other carriers. To port a phone line from Comcast to another wireless carrier, a customer needs to know his or her Comcast mobile account number. Carriers generally use PINs to verify that a customer seeking to port a number actually owns the number. But Comcast reportedly set the PIN to 0000 for all its customers, and there was apparently no way for customers to change it. That means that an attacker who acquired a victim's Comcast account number could easily port the victim's phone number to another carrier. Comcast told Ars that "less than 30" customers were affected by the problem, that it has implemented a fix, and that the company will eventually roll out a real PIN-based system to further protect customers. But Comcast declined to describe the recent fix in any way, saying that information could help attackers. Comcast also did not say when its new PIN-based system will be ready. Here's what Comcast had to say about the changes it's made and will make: "We have also implemented a solution that provides additional safeguards around our porting process, and we're working aggressively towards a PIN-based solution. We are reaching out to impacted customers to apologize and work with them to address the issue. We take this very seriously, and our fraud detection and prevention methods, policies and procedures are continually being reviewed, tested and refined."

A new patent application from Apple, titled "Electronic Devices with Flexible Displays," describes how the company could prevent foldable smartphone displays from getting damaged in extreme temperatures. "While at or in the region of typical temperatures hospitable to humans, folding systems may work fine, but adhesives and other elements used in a device's production may become more resistant to flexing at cold temperatures, which could cause unwanted wear or damage to the display if attempted in such conditions," reports AppleInsider. "To mitigate the cold temperature, Apple simply suggests there should be some way to warm up the area of the display panel where the bend takes place." From the report: As part of Apple's solution, an onboard temperature sensor is used to determine how warm the device is, and whether or not there is any danger to allowing the screen to be flexed by the user. The warming process itself can be performed by a heating element located near to the section that bends the most, with heat conductors transferring the warmth to where it is required. A heating element may not be practical to add to such a device, which has led to Apple suggesting an alternative, namely using the heat generated by illuminating the screen. To do this, a screensaver could be used that concentrates most on the bent section, such as by making it brighter and lit up more than the rest of the screen.

As the heating process could take time to complete, Apple notes there is a danger of the display being flexed before it is safe to do so, something it has also considered. Aside from warning the user on an attempt to bend, Apple believes the use of a latching mechanism to keep the device closed while folded may be worth investigating, both as a mechanical latch and by the folded device being held shut by magnets. When the temperature of the area is relatively safe, the latching system can be disengaged and the user will be free to open the device once again. The patent application does not seem to answer the question of how to prevent the user from folding up an unfolded device, but it could be feasible some form of locking mechanism could be used when the smartphone is flat.