Nothing has announced that it will allow users to delete Facebook, Instagram and other Meta services from its mid-range and entry-level phones after users objected to the company's decision to pre-install these apps. The update will arrive by the end of November for devices running the Android 16-based OS 4.0 on the Phone (3a) series. Nothing said it will continue to pre-install partner apps on non-flagship devices in most regions.

Devices in the United Kingdom, European Union and Japan will also come with TikTok installed by default. The company defended the practice by saying most users rely on these apps and that pre-installing them allows faster cold starts. Carl Pei's company blamed razor-thin margins on mid-range devices for the decision to bundle third-party software. Nothing did not address whether users can uninstall the service that powers newly introduced lock screen advertisements, which the company previously described as disabled by default and standard across the industry.

"People are creating 'dumb homes,'" the VP of research at the Global Wellness Institute, tells the web site Axios.

Some are swapping NASA-style setups for old-fashioned buttons, switches and knobs. Others are designing digital detox corners — all part of a bigger "analog wellness" movement...

The return to analog hobbies and spacesis about more than nostalgia for pre-internet times, researchers say. A home where "technology is always in the background, working and listening, feels anxiety-producing" instead of restorative, architect Yan M. Wang tells Axios... Design media brand Dwell named the decline of smart homes a top trend for 2025 and beyond.

Wealthy Los Angeles house hunters have started shunning WiFi-enabled, voice-activated appliances "to escape the $100 billion home-automation industry," according to the Hollywood Reporter. Meanwhile, landlines have found new fans — many of them parents who want to keep their kids off screens, the Washington Post reports.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Someone recently managed to get on a Microsoft Teams call with representatives from phone hacking company Cellebrite, and then leaked a screenshot of the company's capabilities against many Google Pixel phones, according to a forum post about the leak and 404 Media's review of the material. The leak follows others obtained and verified by 404 Media over the last 18 months. Those leaks impacted both Cellebrite and its competitor Grayshift, now owned by Magnet Forensics. Both companies constantly hunt for techniques to unlock phones law enforcement have physical access to.

"You can Teams meeting with them. They tell everything. Still cannot extract esim on Pixel. Ask anything," a user called rogueFed wrote on the GrapheneOS forum on Wednesday, speaking about what they learned about Cellebrite capabilities. GrapheneOS is a security- and privacy-focused Android-based operating system. rogueFed then posted two screenshots of the Microsoft Teams call. The first was a Cellebrite Support Matrix, which lays out whether the company's tech can, or can't, unlock certain phones and under what conditions. The second screenshot was of a Cellebrite employee. According to another of rogueFed's posts, the meeting took place in October. The meeting appears to have been a sales call. The employee is a "pre sales expert," according to a profile available online.

The Support Matrix is focused on modern Google Pixel devices, including the Pixel 9 series. The screenshot does not include details on the Pixel 10, which is Google's latest device. It discusses Cellebrite's capabilities regarding 'before first unlock', or BFU, when a piece of phone unlocking tech tries to open a device before someone has typed in the phone's passcode for the first time since being turned on. It also shows Cellebrite's capabilities against after first unlock, or AFU, devices. The Support Matrix also shows Cellebrite's capabilities against Pixel devices running GrapheneOS, with some differences between phones running that operating system and stock Android. Cellebrite does support, for example, Pixel 9 devices BFU. Meanwhile the screenshot indicates Cellebrite cannot unlock Pixel 9 devices running GrapheneOS BFU. In their forum post, rogueFed wrote that the "meeting focused specific on GrapheneOS bypass capability." They added "very fresh info more coming."

A new study from the Complexity Science Hub Vienna finds that as people's close social circles expanded from two to five friends around the rise of social media (2008-2010), polarization in society spiked. "The connection between these two developments could provide a fundamental explanation for why societies around the world are increasingly fragmenting into ideological bubbles," reports Phys.org. From the report: The researchers' findings confirm that increasing polarization is not merely perceived -- it is measurable and objectively occurring. "And this increase happened suddenly, between 2008 and 2010," says [says Stefan Thurner from the Complexity Science Hub (CSH)]. The question remained: what caused it? [...] The sharp rise in both polarization and the number of close friends occurred between 2008 and 2010 -- precisely when social media platforms and smartphones first achieved widespread adoption. This technological shift may have fundamentally changed how people connect with each other, indirectly promoting polarization.

"Democracy depends on all parts of society being involved in decision-making, which requires that everyone be able to communicate with each other. But when groups can no longer talk to each other, this democratic process breaks down," emphasizes Stefan Thurner. Tolerance plays a central role. "If I have two friends, I do everything I can to keep them -- I am very tolerant towards them. But if I have five and things become difficult with one of them, it's easier to end that friendship because I still have 'backups.' I no longer need to be as tolerant," explains Thurner.

What disappears as a result is a societal baseline of tolerance -- a development that could contribute to the long-term erosion of democratic structures. To prevent societies from increasingly fragmenting, Thurner emphasizes the importance of learning early how to engage with different opinions and actively cultivating tolerance. The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Guide: Microsoft Teams is about to deal a heavy blow to those who like to work from home for peace and quiet. In a new feature update rolling out December 2025, the platform will track a worker's location using the office Wi-Fi, to see whether you're actually there or not. From a boss' perspective, this would eliminate any of that confusion as to where your team actually is. But for those people who have found their own sanctuary of peaceful productivity by working from home, consider this a warning that Teams is about to tattle on you. According to the Microsoft 365 roadmap: "When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will automatically set their work location to reflect the building they are working in." The location of that worker will apparently update automatically upon connecting.

It's set to launch on Windows and macOS, with rollout starting at the end of this year. "This feature will be off by default," notes Microsoft. But "tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in."

Kohler has launched the Dekoda, a $599 smart toilet camera that analyzes users' waste to track hydration, gut health, and detect potential issues like blood. "It also comes with a rechargeable battery, a USB connection, and a fingerprint sensor to identify who's using the toilet," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The Dekoda is currently available for preorder, with shipments scheduled to begin on October 21. In addition to the hardware purchase fee, customers will need to pay between $70 and $156 per year for a subscription. If you're uneasy about the privacy implications of putting a camera right below your private parts, the company says, "Dekoda's sensors see down into your toilet and nowhere else." It also notes that the resulting data is secured via end-to-end encryption.

"A new study published on Monday found that communications from cellphone carriers, retailers, banks, and even militaries are being broadcast unencrypted through geostationary satellites..." reports Gizmodo. "The team obtained unencrypted internet communications from U.S. military sea vessels and even communications regarding narcotics trafficking from Mexican military and law enforcement." Researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the University of Maryland scanned 39 of these satellites from a rooftop in Southern California over three years. They found that roughly half of the signals they analyzed were transmitting unencrypted data, potentially exposing everything from phone calls and military logistics to a retail chain's inventory. "There is a clear mismatch between how satellite customers expect data to be secured and how it is secured in practice," the researchers wrote in their paper titled "Don't Look Up: There Are Sensitive Internal Links in the Clear on GEO Satellites...." "They assumed that no one was ever going to check and scan all these satellites and see what was out there. That was their method of security," Aaron Schulman, a UCSD professor and co-lead of the study, told Wired....

Even more surprisingly, the researchers didn't need any fancy spy gear to collect this data. Their setup used only off-the-shelf hardware, including a $185 satellite dish, a $140 roof mount with a $195 motor, and a $230 tuner card. Altogether, the system cost roughly $750 and was installed on a university building in La Jolla, San Diego.

With their simple setup, the researchers were able to collect a wide range of communication data, including phone calls, texts, in-flight Wi-Fi data from airline passengers, and signals from electric utilities. They even obtained U.S. and Mexican military and law enforcement communications, as well as ATM transactions and corporate communications... When it came to telecoms, specifically, the team collected phone numbers, calls, and texts from customers of T-Mobile, AT&T Mexico, and Telmex... It only took the team nine hours to collect the phone numbers of over 2,700 T-Mobile users, along with some of their calls and text messages.
T-Mobile told Gizmodo the lack of encryption was "a vendor's technical misconfiguration" affecting "a limited number of cell sites" and was "not network-wide... [W]e implemented nationwide Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) encryption for all customers to further protect signaling traffic as it travels between mobile handsets and the network core, including call set up, numbers dialed and text message content. We appreciate our collaboration with the security research community, whose work helps reinforce our ongoing commitment to protecting customer data and enhances security across the industry."

Indeed, the researchers write that "Each time we discovered sensitive information in our data, we went through considerable effort to determine the responsible party, establish contact, and disclose the vulnerability. In several cases, the responsible party told us that they had deployed a remedy. For the following parties, we re-scanned with their permission and were able to verify a remedy had been deployed: T-Mobile, WalMart, and KPU."

The researchers acknowledge that exposure "was limited to a relatively small number of cell towers in specific remote areas."

In two separate reports, Apple and Samsung are said to report underwhelming sales of their new ultra-thin smartphones. According to The Elec, Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air while Samsung has canceled its planned Galaxy S26 Edge smartphone after disappointing sales of the Galaxy S25 Edge, Korea's NewsPim claims. MacRumors reports: Samsung apparently halted work on the Galaxy S26 Edge this week, informing employees internally that the product line would be discontinued. Internal discussions in September shifted priorities toward the more conventional "Plus" form factor after confirming that consumer demand for ultra-slim flagships was weaker than expected. [...]

Samsung will apparently instead add a Galaxy S26 Plus model to its 2026 lineup, reverting to the company's traditional three-tier structure of base, Plus, and Ultra variants. Despite the cancellation, development of the Galaxy S26 Edge was already complete. Development of the S26 Plus is expected to begin before the end of the third quarter of 2025. The atmosphere inside the company is said to be "chaotic" and "embarrassed" following the sudden lineup revision. Samsung reportedly plans to sell through existing inventory of the Galaxy S25 Edge and cease further production once stock is depleted. As for Apple's iPhone Air, here's what MacRumors is reporting: The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing significantly better than the iPhone 16.

The iPhone Air is apparently the outlier; Apple plans to reduce production by one million units this year. Meanwhile, Apple plans to increase production of all other models by two million units. The overall production forecast of the iPhone 17 series this year has also been increased from 88 million units to 94 million units for the start of 2026.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Samsung Electronics will unveil its highly-anticipated trifold smartphone when world leaders and global dignitaries gather at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea later this month. It will be the company's first device with two hinges -- allowing it to work as either a conventional smartphone or a significantly larger tablet when fully unfurled -- and will be displayed at an exhibition of cutting-edge Korean technology on the sidelines of the multilateral summit, according to a person familiar with the matter.

For Samsung, the Gyeongju-hosted APEC event will provide a global spotlight for a product it hopes will burnish its reputation as an engineering pioneer. Alongside Huawei, Samsung has led the move to develop foldable phones, and Huawei introduced the world's first trifold device in China last year. The Korean company now has the opportunity to take the form factor global.

BrianFagioli writes: TP-Link has officially achieved the first successful Wi-Fi 8 connection using a prototype device built through an industry collaboration. The company confirmed that both the beacon and data throughput worked, marking a real-world validation of next-generation wireless tech. It's an early glimpse of what the next leap in speed and reliability could look like, even as the Wi-Fi 8 standard itself remains under development. The Verge adds: Like its predecessor, Wi-Fi 8 will utilize 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands with a theoretical maximum channel bandwidth of 320MHz and peak data rate of 23Gbps, but aims to improve real-world performance and connection reliability. The goal is to provide better performance in environments with low signal, or under high network loads, where an increasing number of devices are sharing the same connection.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC News: The study by a team from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children (also known as Sick Kids) and St. Michael's Hospital was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It found that children who spent more time on screens before age eight scored lower on standardized tests. Child psychiatry researchers say handing kids digital devices, like iPads, every time they have a tantrum could lead to future issues. One new study links too much screen time to emotional and anger management problems.

The study followed more than 3,000 kids in Ontario over a 15 year span from 2008 to 2023, tracking how much time they spent watching TV or DVDs, playing video games, using the computer or playing on handheld devices like iPads, as reported by their parents. That data was compared to their EQAO standardized test scores, which are used to assess the reading and math skills of kids across Ontario in grades 3 and 6. The findings point to a "significant association," between screen use and lower test scores, according to Dr. Catherine Birken, a pediatrician and senior scientist at Sick Kids and lead author of the study.

"For each additional hour of screen use, there was approximately a 10 percent lower odds of meeting standards in both reading and mathematics ... in Grade 3 and mathematics in Grade 6," said Dr. Catherine Birken, a pediatrician and senior scientist at Sick Kids and lead author of the study, in an interview with CBC News. The study didn't differentiate between different types of screen time -- for example, whether a child was playing a game on their iPad versus FaceTiming a relative in another city, or watching an educational video. It was also an observational study that relied on parents answering questionnaires about how much time their kids spent in front of screens. The study authors note that this means the research can't be taken as definitive proof that screen time causes lower grades, just that the two things tend to go hand in hand.

Verizon is acquiring Starry, the struggling wireless ISP that beams high-speed internet via millimeter-wave antennas. The company said the acquisition "advances" its ability to offer high-speed internet in apartments, condominiums, and other multi-dwelling units. The Verge reports: Starry made its debut in Boston in 2016, offering gigabit speeds via its unconventional approach to internet connectivity. Instead of carrying connectivity across a web of wires -- which are expensive and time-consuming to deploy -- Starry beams its internet service from a larger antenna into homes via high-speed, short-range mmWave broadcasts. The challenge with those broadcasts is that Starry connections generally require an uninterrupted line of sight between the transmitter and the receiver, as mmWave signals can be easily blocked.

In recent years, Starry has run into trouble, with the company laying off half of its workers in 2022 and filing for bankruptcy in 2023. It also pulled out of one of its markets, Columbus, Ohio, leaving Starry with nearly 100,000 customers across Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington, DC. It sounds like Starry's tech will end up getting used by Verizon. Through the acquisition, Verizon plans on expanding its ability to deliver internet connectivity in urban locations, building on its 5G home internet and growing fiber footprint. Verizon expects the deal to close in 2026, subject to regulatory approval. "Verizon is uniquely positioned to accelerate this expansion because of its significant fiber backbone and extensive holdings of mmWave spectrum," the company said in its press release.

Android Authority notes the start of a new trend we're seeing in some new smartphones: devices shipping without USB cables. It follows the earlier industry shift away from bundled charging bricks, which Apple started back in 2020 with the launch of the iPhone 12. While manufacturers cite environmental benefits, "the main driver behind these decisions for companies like Apple and Sony is, of course, profit," writes Android Authority's Taylor Kerns. From the report: Now, it looks like we may be in for a similar shift with bundled USB cables. As shared on the Linus Tech Tips subreddit, user Brick_Fish's recently purchased Sony Xperia 10 VII came without a charger or a charging cable. In a photo included with the post, you can see iconography on the back of the phone's box that spells out these omissions. Sony's not really a major player in the smartphone space these days, but this seems like the type of trend we should expect to see gain traction over the next couple of years. [...]

Apple actually beat Sony to the punch here, in a way. The company's latest earbuds, the AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 3, both ditched bundled USB cables, as well. Still, Sony's the first manufacturer I've heard of to omit charging cables with its smartphones.

Last month, federal investigators said they dismantled a China-linked plot that aimed to cripple New York City's telecommunications system by overloading cell towers, jamming 911 calls, and disrupting communications. According to law enforcement sources, the plot was even bigger than first thought. "Agents from Homeland Security Investigations found an additional 200,000 SIM cards at a location in New Jersey," according to ABC News. "That's double the 100,000 SIM cards, along with hundreds of servers, that were recently seized at five other vacant offices and apartments in and around the city." From the report: Investigators secured each of those locations, seized the electronics, and are now trying to track down who rented the spaces and filled them with shelves full of gear capable of sending 30 million anonymous text messages every minute, overloading communications and blacking out cellular service in a city that relies on it for emergency response and counterterrorism.

According to sources, the investigation began after several high-level people, including at least one with direct access to President Donald Trump, were targeted not only by swatters but also with actual threats received on their private phones. "The potential threat these data centers pose to the public could include shutting down critical resources that the public needs, like the 911 system, or potentially impacting the public's ability to communicate everything, including business transactions," said Don Mihalek, an ABC News contributor who was formerly with the Secret Service.

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: NASA has awarded Solstar Space a $150,000 SBIR Phase I contract to develop a Lunar Wi-Fi Access Point (LWIFI-AP). The system is designed to provide wireless connectivity for astronauts, rovers, and orbiting spacecraft as part of the Artemis and Commercial Lunar Payload Services programs. Solstar's goal is to build a space-rated, multi-band, multi-protocol access point that can survive radiation, extreme lunar temperatures, and other harsh conditions. NASA has identified Wi-Fi and 3GPP standards as core communication needs across mission systems ranging from the Human Landing System and Lunar Terrain Vehicle to the Lunar Gateway.

Although this is only an early-stage contract, Solstar's proposal addresses a clear gap in space-qualified networking hardware. The company says that just as Wi-Fi transformed daily life on Earth, it will be equally important for living and working on the Moon. If the project advances, astronauts could soon be relying on familiar wireless technology that has been adapted for one of the most challenging environments in existence.

The FCC mistakenly published a 163-page PDF containing detailed schematics for Apple's upcoming iPhone 16e, despite Apple explicitly requesting indefinite confidentiality to protect trade secrets. AppleInsider reports: A cover letter is also distributed alongside the schematics, addressed to the FCC and dated September 16, 2024. The letter from Apple is a request for the confidential treatment of documents that are filed with the FCC. [...] The letter from Apple requests a series of documents are withheld from public viewing "indefinitely." The justification is that they contain "confidential and proprietary trade secrets" that are not disclosed to the public post-release, due to giving competitors an "unfair advantage."

The list of documents, Apple states, includes: Block Diagrams, Electrical Schematic Diagrams, Technical Descriptions, Product Specifications, Antenna Locations, Tune-Up Procedure, and Software Security Description. Other documents, such as external and internal photographs, shots of the test setup, and the user manual, are deemed to be less damaging and have "short-term confidentiality" requirements. In those cases, Apple asks for short-term confidentiality for 180 days after the equipment authorization is granted by the FCC.

The Taliban have imposed a nationwide telecommunications shutdown in Afghanistan, severing fibre-optic connections and cutting off internet, mobile, and satellite services as part of "morality" measures. Netblock is currently tracking the outages. The BBC reports: Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have imposed numerous restrictions in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. Flights from Kabul airport have also been disrupted, according to reports. Several people in Kabul have told the BBC that their fibre-optic internet stopped working towards the end of the working day, around17:00 local time (12:30 GMT). Because of this, it is understood many people will not notice the impact until Tuesday morning, when banking services and other businesses are due to resume. [...]

The Taliban earlier said an alternative route for internet access would be created, without giving any details. Business leaders at the time warned that if the internet ban continued their activities would be seriously hit. Hamid Haidari, former editor-in-chief of Afghan news channel 1TV, said after the shutdown that "loneliness enveloped the entire country." "Afghanistan has now officially taken first place in the competition with North Korea for [internet] disconnection" he said on X.

The Japanese city of Toyoake has passed (PDF) a symbolic ordinance limiting recreational smartphone use to two hours a day, aiming to improve citizens' sleep -- especially for students after summer vacation. The Register reports: "The primary purpose of this ordinance is to ensure that all citizens receive adequate sleep," states a Council information page, which explains that many Japanese people ignore Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare recommendations to spend six to eight hours a day dozing. An accompanying FAQ [PDF] explains that Council passed the ordinance because students who return to school after summer vacations sometimes need a nudge the re-establish an appropriate daily regime.

The ordinance also points out "Excessive phone users and their families are facing difficulties in their daily and social lives," and suggests the two-hours-a-day guidance might help. Council's documents point out that smartphones have myriad uses beyond recreation, and that the ordinance should not be taken as a suggestion to reduce overall use of the devices. Toyoake is part of the Nagoya megalopolis and is home to around 70,000 people. The town's government plans to survey residents about the ordinance, and the FAQ also mentions it wants to tackle other digital menaces, among them harmful effects of using smartphones while walking.

Neon Mobile, now the No. 2 social networking app in Apple's U.S. App Store, pays users up to $30 per day to record their phone calls and sell the data to AI companies. The app claims to only capture one side of a call unless both parties use Neon, but its terms grant sweeping rights over recordings. TechCrunch reports: The app, Neon Mobile, pitches itself as a money-making tool offering "hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year" for access to your audio conversations. Neon's website says the company pays 30 cents per minute when you call other Neon users and up to $30 per day maximum for making calls to anyone else. The app also pays for referrals.

According to Neon's terms of service, the company's mobile app can capture users' inbound and outbound phone calls. However, Neon's marketing claims to only record your side of the call unless it's with another Neon user. That data is being sold to "AI companies," the company's terms of service state, "for the purpose of developing, training, testing, and improving machine learning models, artificial intelligence tools and systems, and related technologies."

Despite what Neon's privacy policy says, its terms include a very broad license to its user data, where Neon grants itself a: "...worldwide, exclusive, irrevocable, transferable, royalty-free, fully paid right and license (with the right to sublicense through multiple tiers) to sell, use, host, store, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform (including by means of a digital audio transmission), communicate to the public, reproduce, modify for the purpose of formatting for display, create derivative works as authorized in these Terms, and distribute your Recordings, in whole or in part, in any media formats and through any media channels, in each instance whether now known or hereafter developed." That leaves plenty of wiggle room for Neon to do more with users' data than it claims. The terms also include an extensive section on beta features, which have no warranty and may have all sorts of issues and bugs. Peter Jackson, cybersecurity and privacy attorney at Greenberg Glusker, told TechCrunch: "Once your voice is over there, it can be used for fraud. Now, this company has your phone number and essentially enough information -- they have recordings of your voice, which could be used to create an impersonation of you and do all sorts of fraud."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: While many vibe-coding startups have become unicorns, with valuations in the billions, one area where AI-assisted coding has not yet taken off is on mobile devices. Despite the numerous apps now available that offer vibe-coding tools on mobile platforms, none are gaining noticeable downloads, and few are generating any revenue at all. According to an analysis of global app store trends by the app intelligence provider Appfigures, only a small handful of mobile apps offering vibe-coding tools have seen any downloads, let alone generated revenue.

The largest of these is Instance: AI App Builder, which has seen only 16,000 downloads and $1,000 in consumer spending. The next largest app, Vibe Studio, has pulled in just 4,000 downloads but has made no money. This situation could still change, of course. The market is young, and vibe-coding apps continue to improve and work out the bugs. New apps in this space are arriving all the time, too. This year, a startup called Vibecode launched with $9.4 million in seed funding from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six. The company's service allows users to create mobile apps using AI within its own iOS app. Vibecode is so new, Appfigures doesn't yet have data on it. For now, most people who want to toy around with vibe-coding technology are doing so on the desktop.

iFixit's teardown of Apple's iPhone Air reveals a device dominated by its battery, which occupies approximately two-thirds of the internal space while critical components including the logic board cluster at the top. The battery matches the component used in Apple's iPhone Air MagSafe battery pack and can be swapped between devices.

The top-heavy component layout addresses the bendgate vulnerability that damaged logic boards in previous thin iPhone models when pressure was applied to the device's middle section. Despite the iPhone Air's thinner profile, iFixit awarded it a 7 out of 10 repairability score, citing reduced component layering that provides more direct access to the USB-C connector, battery, and other serviceable parts compared to standard iPhone models. The dual-entry system further contributes to the device's serviceability.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max appear to provide little resistance to scratches and scuffs around the sharp edges of the camera bump. Tech blogger Zack Nelson demonstrates this weakness in a durability test on his JerryRigEverything YouTube channel, explaining that the anodized aluminium layer on the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max "does not stick to corners very well" -- creating a weak point in the coating. This is a known issue with the electrochemical anodizing process, so it was a design decision Apple knowingly made.

"For some reason, Apple didn't add a chamfer, fillet, or radius around the camera plateau, and I think it was intentional, so it looks cooler," Nelson says in the video. "But that decision to look cool out of the box is going to plague everyone who owns this phone down the road." The video shows that everyday objects, like a coin or house key carried in the same pocket as the iPhone 17 Pro, can chip away at the anodized coating around the sharp corners of the camera bump. However, that same mildly aggressive scratching on the flat surface of the camera plateau only produced dust that could be easily wiped away.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The Taliban leader banned fibre optic internet in an Afghan province to "prevent immorality," a spokesman for the administration said Tuesday. It's the first time a ban of this kind has been imposed since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, and leaves government offices, the private sector, public institutions, and homes in northern Balkh province without Wi-Fi internet. Mobile internet remains functional, however.

Haji Attaullah Zaid, a provincial government spokesman, said there was no longer cable internet access in Balkh by order of a "complete ban" from the leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. "This measure was taken to prevent immorality, and an alternative will be built within the country for necessities," Zaid told The Associated Press. He gave no further information, including why Balkh was chosen for the ban or if the shutdown would spread to other provinces.

They stole a woman's phone in Barcelona. Unfortunately, her husband was security consultant/penetration tester Martin Vigo, reports Spain's newspaper El Pais.

"His weeks-long investigation coincided with a massive two-year police operation between 2022 and 2024 in six countries where 17 people were arrested: Spain, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru...." In Vigo's case, the phone was locked and the "Find my iPhone" feature was activated... Once stolen, the phones are likely wrapped in aluminum foil to prevent the GPS from tracking their movements. "Then they go to a safe house where they are gathered together and shipped on pallets outside of Spain, to Morocco or China." This international step is vital to prevent the phone from being blocked if the thieves try to use it again. Carriers in several European countries share lists of the IMEIs (unique numbers for each device) of stolen devices so they can't be used. But Morocco, for example, doesn't share these lists. There, the phone can be reconnected...

With hundreds or thousands of stored phones, another path begins: "They try to get the PIN," says Vigo. Why the PIN? Because with the PIN, you can change the Apple password and access the device's content. The gang had created a system to send thousands of text messages like the one Vigo received. To know who to target with the bait message, the police say, "the organization performed social profiling of the victims, since, in many cases, in addition to the phone, they also had the victim's personal belongings, such as their ID." This is how they obtained the phone numbers to send the malicious SMS...

Each victim received a unique link, and the server knew which victim clicked it... With the first click, the attackers would redirect the user to a website they believed was credible, such as Apple's real iCloud site... [T]he next day you receive another text message, and you click on it, more confidently. However, that link no longer redirects you to the real Apple website, but to a flawless copy created by the criminals: that's where they ask for your PIN, and without thinking, full of hope, you enter it... "The PIN is more powerful than your fingerprint or face. With it, you can delete the victim's biometric information and add your own to access banking apps that are validated this way," says Vigo. Apple Wallet asks you to re-authenticate, and then everything is accessible...

In the press release on the case, the police explained that the gang allegedly used a total of 5,300 fake websites and illegally unlocked around 1.3 million high-end devices, about 30,000 of them in Spain.
Vigo tells El Pais that if the PIN doesn't unlock the device, the criminal gang then sends it to China to be "dismantled and then sent back to Europe for resale. The devices are increasingly valuable because they have more advanced chips, better cameras, and more expensive materials."

To render the phone untraceable in China, "they change certain components and the IMEI. It requires a certain level of sophistication: opening the phone, changing the chip..."

Apple's newly launched iPhone Air will ship globally without physical SIM card slots. The move follows the company previously eliminating SIM trays in US models starting in 2022.

Global consultancy firm Roland Berger forecasts eSIM connections will reach 75% of smartphone connections by 2030, rising from 10% in 2023. CCS Insight predicts eSIM-capable handsets will increase from 1.3 billion to 3 billion by 2030. Google offers eSIM-only Pixel 10 models in the US.

Analyst Ben Thompson, commenting on Apple's outlook following the launch of the iPhone 17 lineup: Apple, to be fair, isn't selling the same sugar water year-after-year in a zero sum war with other sugar water companies. Their sugar water is getting better, and I think this year's seasonal concoction is particularly tasty. What is inescapable, however, is that while the company does still make new products -- I definitely plan on getting new AirPod Pro 3s! -- the company has, in the pursuit of easy profits, constrained the space in which it innovates.

That didn't matter for a long time: smartphones were the center of innovation, and Apple was consequently the center of the tech universe. Now, however, Apple is increasingly on the periphery, and I think that, more than anything, is what bums people out: no, Apple may not be a sugar water purveyor, but they are farther than they have been in years from changing the world.

Apple has unveiled its iPhone 17 lineup, introducing three distinct models targeting different market segments. The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max feature an aluminum unibody design incorporating a vapor chamber for thermal management, enabling the A19 Pro chip to deliver 40% better sustained performance than its predecessor. Both Pro models include three 48MP cameras offering 8x optical zoom -- the longest in an iPhone -- and an 18MP Center Stage front camera.

The standard iPhone 17 gains ProMotion display technology previously exclusive to Pro models, along with dual 48MP rear cameras and the Center Stage system. Apple introduced iPhone Air as the thinnest iPhone at 5.6mm, built on a titanium frame housing the A19 Pro, N1 wireless, and C1X cellular chips. All models feature Ceramic Shield 2 protection offering three times better scratch resistance than previous generations. The iPhone 17 starts at $799 with 256GB storage, iPhone Air at $999, iPhone 17 Pro at $1,099, and Pro Max at $1,199.

In 2016 comedian Dave Chappelle made headlines by requiring concert attendees to lock their cellphones in a pouch to prevent recording.

Nine years later those pouches (made by tech startup Yondr) are required for at least 2.5 million students in America, reports CBS News, "and the company said the number could triple after the 2025 numbers are tallied in about three months... Students in 35 states, including New York, Florida, Texas, California, Massachusetts and Georgia, now contend with laws or rules limiting phones and other electronic devices in school."

For example, The Yonkers School District purchased about 11,000 pouches, according to the article, "to comply with the statewide mandate that bans phones in classrooms." The pouch, which students carry with them, is locked and unlocked using magnets affixed to the entrance of the school and outside the main office... ["Some students have reported long lines and disruption at their schools," the article notes later, "as they wait to open their pouches." But on the first day of school at Yonkers, one student said the lines actually went pretty smoothly, and they ended up having a live conversation with a friend during lunch and "felt human"...] Other students were not so enthralled by the pouch; some reported seeing classmates bypass the Yondr pouch by using their Apple watches, buying "burner" phones and putting them in the pouch, breaking the pouch and other tricks to get to their phones.

[Yondr CEO Graham] Dugoni acknowledged that there will always be some students who can figure out how to get around the restrictions. The purpose of the pouches, he said, was to create a culture change in a school and create an environment conducive to their learning and development. More than 70% of high school teachers in the U.S. say cellphones are a major classroom distraction, according to the Pew Research Center Center.
Yondr CEO Graham Dugoni uses a flip phone, the article points out, and says "Our whole perspective is that it's not taking something away from students, it's giving them something back."

He says his larger mission is to create chances for people "to experience life outside of a fully digital realm" — and that Yondr now has school partners in all 50 U.S. states, and in 45 different countries: The cost of buying the pouches — roughly $25-30 per student — has set off debates around how schools should be spending their limited budgets. It's a particular issue for districts struggling with crumbling infrastructure, limited textbooks and access to other technology needed to learn...Districts in various states have reported spending from $26,000 to over $370,000, with Cincinnati Schools saying they spent $500,000 to provide pouches for students in grades 7-12.

Amazon's Project Kuiper has landed its first airline deal with JetBlue and plans to offer satellite-powered in-flight Wi-Fi starting in 2027. The Verge reports: Yesterday, Amazon's Panos Panay showed off a speed test using an "enterprise-grade customer terminal" (aka, dish) to achieve a download speed of just over a gigabit. Fine, but we'll have to wait to see how it performs once individuals using consumer dishes at scale. Amazon says the first customers will start using the service this year, ahead of a broader rollout in 2026.

Project Kuiper-powered Wi-Fi will be available on "select" aircraft initially. Amazon says its satellites will provide lower latency and "more reliable service" for passengers, as they orbit between 367 and 391 miles above Earth -- far closer than the geostationary satellites that orbit around 22,369 miles above the planet. Amazon has also struck a deal with Airbus to build Project Kuiper's satellite internet service into its aircraft.

Phonemaker Nothing used professional stock photos to demonstrate its Phone 3's camera capabilities on retail demo units, according to The Verge. Five images the company presented as community-captured samples were licensed photographs from the Stills marketplace, taken with other cameras in 2023.

The Verge verified EXIF data confirming one image predated the Phone 3's release. Co-founder Akis Evangelidis acknowledged the photos were placeholders intended for pre-production testing that weren't replaced before deployment to stores.

South Korea has passed a bill banning the use of mobile phones and smart devices during class hours in schools -- becoming the latest country to restrict phone use among children and teens. From a report: The law, which comes into effect from the next school year in March 2026, is the result of a bi-partisan effort to curb smartphone addiction, as more research points to its harmful effects. Lawmakers, parents and teachers argue that smartphone use is affecting students' academic performance and takes away time they could have spent studying.

Dish's parent company EchoStar is selling $23 billion worth of 5G spectrum licenses to AT&T and shifting Boost Mobile onto AT&T and T-Mobile networks, effectively abandoning its bid to become the fourth major U.S. wireless carrier. The Verge reports: As part of T-Mobile's deal to acquire Sprint in 2019, the Department of Justice stipulated that another company must replace it as the fourth major wireless carrier. Dish came forward to acquire Boost Mobile from Sprint, paying $1.4 billion to purchase the budget carrier and other prepaid assets. Since then, Dish has spent billions acquiring spectrum to build out its own 5G network, which the company said was close to reaching 80 percent of the US population as of last year, in line with the Federal Communications Commission's deadline to meet certain coverage requirements.

But Dish struggled to repay mounting debt, leading it to rejoin EchoStar, the company it originally spun off from in 2008. And at the same time, it came under renewed pressure from the FCC to make use of its spectrum. In April, the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX wrote a letter to the FCC saying EchoStar "barely uses" the AWS-4 (2GHz) spectrum band for satellite connectivity. Weeks later, FCC chair Brendan Carr opened an investigation into EchoStar's 5G expansion, criticizing the company's slow buildout and claiming that it had lost Boost Mobile customers since its acquisition of the carrier. Carr also questioned EchoStar's use of the AWS-4 spectrum, which isn't included in its deal with AT&T.

In July, Carr said that he's not concerned with having a fourth mobile provider, saying during an open meeting that there isn't a "magic number" of carriers needed in the US to maintain competition. "We're always looking at a confluence of different factors to make sure that there's sufficient competition," he said, as reported by Fierce Network. Now, EchoStar will become a hybrid mobile network operator, which is a carrier that operates on its own network, in addition to using other companies' infrastructure. As noted in the press release, Boost Mobile will provide connectivity through AT&T towers and the T-Mobile network. "This ensures the survival of Boost Mobile," [said Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst at Recon Analytics]. "It gives them money, but at the end, they don't have much of a network left."

AT&T said Tuesday it would buy wireless licenses from EchoStar for $23 billion, after a years-long saga over what the latter would do with its vast spectrum holdings. From a report: EchoStar was reportedly under pressure from regulators and the White House to either start selling its spectrum or potentially lose it. The cash payment is almost three times the size of EchoStar's entire market capitalization.

AT&T said the acquired spectrum covers "virtually every" U.S. market, and will let it speed up and expand the deployment of its home wireless Internet service, as well as continue the phase-out of traditional copper phone line service.

Phone manufacturers rarely acknowledge that IP68 water resistance degrades over time, but Google has broken that silence with advertising disclaimers for its Pixel 10 Pro Fold. The fine print explicitly warns that water and dust protection "will diminish or be lost over time due to normal wear and tear, device repair, disassembly or damage." The company further notes that liquid damage voids warranties despite IP68 certification at manufacture.

A federal appeals court rejected T-Mobile's attempt to overturn $92 million in fines for selling customer location information to third-party firms. From a report: The Federal Communications Commission last year fined T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon, saying the carriers illegally shared access to customers' location information without consent and did not take reasonable measures to protect that sensitive data against unauthorized disclosure. The fines relate to sharing of real-time location data that was revealed in 2018, but it took years for the FCC to finalize the penalties.

The three carriers appealed the rulings in three different courts, and the first major decision was handed down Friday. A three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled unanimously against T-Mobile and its subsidiary Sprint. "Every cell phone is a tracking device," the ruling begins. "To receive service, a cell phone must periodically connect with the nearest tower in a wireless carrier's network. Each time it does, it sends the carrier a record of the phone's location and, by extension, the location of the customer who owns it. Over time, this information becomes an exhaustive history of a customer's whereabouts and 'provides an intimate window into [that] person's life.'"

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is manufacturing more of its iPhone 17 phones for the US in India instead of in China, and for the first time, the full lineup of new models will ship from India at launch, according to Bloomberg. The company is also working on a successor to the iPhone 16E that it plans to make in India, Bloomberg says.

Apple has increasingly been moving iPhone production to India to reduce its dependence on manufacturing in China. The company already expects to pay $1.1 billion in tariffs for the current quarter, but Bloomberg reports that currently, Apple's exports of iPhones to the US from India are exempted from tariffs. That's despite the Trump administration's 50 percent tariff on many imports from India, and while analyst Patrick Moorhead says the move "does dodge some tariffs," he noted that iPhone subassemblies are still mostly produced in China then shipped to India for final assembly.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Manufacturer to the stars Foxconn is building so many AI servers that they're now bringing in more cash than consumer electronics -- even counting the colossal quantity of iPhones it creates for Apple.

The Taiwanese company revealed the shift in its Thursday announcement of Q2 results, which saw revenue grow 16% to NT$1.79 trillion ($59.73 billion) and operating profit rise 27% to NT$56.6 billion ($1.9 billion). CEO Kathy Yang told investors the company's Cloud and Networking Products division delivered 41% of total revenue, up nine percent compared to Q2 2024, and surpassing the company's Smart Consumer Electronics unit for the first time. The latter business includes Foxconn's work for Apple.

Despite dwindling global market share, retreat from key regions like Europe, and halting in-house production, Sony insists its Xperia smartphone line remains "very important" to its business. 9to5Google reports: During Sony's latest financial results presentation this week, Sony CFO Lin Tao addressed the state of its Xperia smartphone brand, saying that Xperia is part of "a very important business for us" as reported by CNET Japan (translated). Tao said that "communication technology is a very important technology that Sony has cultivated for a long time. We also want to continue to value our smartphone business." Though adding that "communication technology is used in areas other than smartphones."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Patrick Schlott often finds himself in a cellular dead zone during his drive to work. "You go down the road, you turn the corner and you're behind a mountain and you'll lose cell coverage pretty fast," he says. The 31-year-old electrical engineer says poor reception is a common frustration for residents of Vermont's Orange County. To address this issue, he's providing his community with a new way to stay connected.

Schlott has taken old pay phones, modified them to make free calls, and set them up in three different towns across the county. He buys the phones secondhand from sites like eBay and Craigslist and restores them in his home workshop. With just an internet connection, these phones can make calls anywhere in the U.S. or Canada -- no coins required. And Schlott covers all the operating costs himself. "It's cheap enough where I'm happy just footing the bill," he says. "You know, if I'm spending $20 a month on, say, Netflix, I could do that and provide phone service for the community. And to me, that's way more fun." Hundreds of calls have been made since the first phone was installed back in March last year. "I knew there would be some fringe cases where it would be really helpful," says Schlott. "But I never expected it to get daily use and for people to be this excited about it."

"One of the cornerstones that I want to stick to is, no matter what happens on the backend, the calls will always be free," he says. "And I will figure out a way to make that happen."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple CEO Tim Cook appears unfazed by concerns that advancements in AI could topple the iPhone's dominance. During Thursday's earnings call, Wamsi Moen, an analyst with Bank of America, asked Cook directly how Apple is preparing for a world where dependence on screen-based devices "significantly diminishes," thanks to advances in AI. Cook didn't seem to see an imminent threat to Apple's hero product.

"When you when you think about all the things an iPhone can do, from connecting people to bringing app and game experiences to life, to taking photos and videos, to helping users explore the world and conduct their financial lives and pay for things and so much more, you know, it's difficult to see a world where iPhone's not living in it," Cook said. "And that doesn't mean that we are not thinking about other things as well," Cook added, "but I think that the devices are likely to be complementary devices, not substitution." Apple said yesterday it had sold 3 billion iPhones since the product's launch in 2007

Apple reported its strongest quarterly revenue growth since 2021, with iPhone sales jumping 13% and total revenue up 10%. CEO Tim Cook also announced increased AI investments and hinted at future acquisitions to accelerate Apple's AI roadmap. CNBC reports: "It was an exceptional quarter by any measure," Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC's Steve Kovach. Cook said that about 1% of the company's 10 percentage points of revenue growth could be attributed to customers buying more products to get ahead of potential tariffs. The company's most important business remains the iPhone, which saw 13% growth on an annual basis during the quarter to $44.58 billion in sales. Cook said that iPhone revenue was strong because the iPhone 16 is more popular compared to the iPhone 15 devices on sale last year at the same time. Cook said iPhone 16 sales were up "strong double digits" versus its predecessor. Cook specifically highlighted popularity among current iPhone users upgrading to a new one.

Apple's Mac business grew the fastest of any of Apple's units during the June quarter, growing nearly 15% to $8.05 billion in revenue. Apple released updated MacBook Air laptops, its best-selling Mac, just before the quarter started. The company's services business, which includes the company's warranties, content subscriptions, licensing deals with Google, and iCloud continued to grow to $27.42 billion in the period, a 13% increase. Cook highlighted growth in the company's iCloud subscriptions and said App Store revenue grew "double digits" during the quarter.

The two tougher spots in Apple's report were iPad sales and the company's other products division, which it sometimes calls its wearables. It consists of Apple Watch, AirPods, and other accessories. Revenue for iPad was down 8% to $6.58 billion, despite the company launching a low-cost iPad in March. Apple's wearables unit declined 8.64% to $7.4 billion during the quarter. Apple also saw success in China during the quarter, with sales rising 4% on an annual basis to $15.37 billion. Apple reports its sales from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the same unit. It's a reversal from the past two quarters, where Apple's China sales declined 2% in Apple's second fiscal quarter and 11% in the first quarter. Cook said a Chinese subsidy for some devices helped Apple in the region. "The subsidy does apply to some of our products, and it clearly helps," Cook said.

Jack Dorsey's new app Bitchat is now available on the iOS App Store. The decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app uses Bluetooth mesh networks for encrypted, ephemeral chats without requiring accounts, servers, or internet access. Dorsey said he built it over a weekend and cautioned that it "has not received external security review and may contain vulnerabilities..." TechCrunch reports: The app's UX is very minimal. There is no log-in system, and you're immediately brought to an instant messaging box, where you can see what nearby users are saying (if anyone is actually around you and using the app) and set your display name, which can be changed at any time. [...] Dorsey has not directly addressed the fake Bitchat apps on the Google Play store, but he did repost another user's X post that said that Bitchat is not yet on Google Play, and to "beware of fakes."

India has overtaken China to become the top source of smartphones sold in the US, after Apple shifted to assemble more of its iPhones in the South Asian country. From a report: In the quarter through June, India was the largest manufacturer of smartphones shipped to the US for the first time, accounting for 44% of the market, according to Canalys data. Vietnam, home to much of Samsung's production, came in second. China fell from having more than 60% of all estimated shipments a year ago to just 25%.

The stark change comes as Apple ramped up its production in India and smartphone makers "frontload device inventories amid tariff concerns," Canalys researchers wrote. The volume of made-in-India devices more than tripled in the past quarter from a year earlier. Apple's iPhone shipments to the US declined by 11%, reflecting distortions to its usual pattern due to unusually high shipments to stockpile units earlier in the year.

After filing for bankruptcy, Norwegian smart home company Futurehome abruptly transitioned its Smarthub II and other devices to a subscription-only model, disabling essential features unless users pay an annual fee. Needless to say, customers aren't too happy with the move as they bought the hardware expecting lifetime functionality and now find their smart homes significantly less smart. Ars Technica reports: Launched in 2016, Futurehome's Smarthub is marketed as a central hub for controlling Internet-connected devices in smart homes. For years, the Norwegian company sold its products, which also include smart thermostats, smart lighting, and smart fire and carbon monoxide alarms, for a one-time fee that included access to its companion app and cloud platform for control and automation. As of June 26, though, those core features require a 1,188 NOK (about $116.56) annual subscription fee, turning the smart home devices into dumb ones if users don't pay up.

"You lose access to controlling devices, configuring; automations, modes, shortcuts, and energy services," a company FAQ page says. You also can't get support from Futurehome without a subscription. "Most" paid features are inaccessible without a subscription, too, the FAQ from Futurehome, which claims to be in 38,000 households, says. After June 26, customers had four weeks to continue using their devices as normal without a subscription. That grace period recently ended, and users now need a subscription for their smart devices to work properly.

Some users are understandably disheartened about suddenly having to pay a monthly fee to use devices they already purchased. More advanced users have also expressed frustration with Futurehome potentially killing its devices' ability to work by connecting to a local device instead of the cloud. In its FAQ, Futurehome says it "cannot guarantee that there will not be changes in the future" around local API access. Futurehome claims that introducing the subscription fee was a necessary move due to its recent bankruptcy. Its FAQ page reads: "Futurehome AS was declared bankrupt on 20 May 2025. The platform and related services were purchased from the bankruptcy estate -- 50 percent by former Futurehome owners and 50 percent by Sikom Connect -- and are now operated by FHSD Connect AS. To secure stable operation, fund product development, and provide high-quality support, we are introducing a new subscription model."

The company says the subscription fee would allow it to provide customers "better functionality, more security, and higher value in the solution you have already invested in."

Samsung's new One UI 8 update has quietly disabled the ability to unlock the bootloader on all Galaxy devices globally, ending the custom ROM and kernel era for Android enthusiasts. While most users won't notice, the developer community sees this as a major blow to modding freedom -- one that could potentially raise regulatory concerns within the EU. SamMobile reports: A new report highlights evidence found in the Galaxy S25 One UI 8 beta builds that the bootloader unlock option has been removed. A similar change has also been confirmed on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 which are running stable versions of One UI 8. A deep dive into the stable version's code has also confirmed that regardless of the region, the bootloader unlock option will not be available on devices running One UI 8. The enthusiast community won't like it.

They won't be able to use custom ROMs to update devices when the official software support runs out or use custom kernels to extract more performance. However, with most Samsung phones now offering seven years of Android OS upgrades, one can argue that the utility of this capability is not as significant as it once was.

A recent Echelon firmware update has effectively bricked offline functionality for its smart gym equipment, cutting off compatibility with popular third-party apps like QZ and forcing users to connect to Echelon's servers -- even just to view workout stats. Ars Technica reports: As explained in a Tuesday blog post by Roberto Viola, who develops the "QZ (qdomyos-zwift)" app that connects Echelon machines to third-party fitness platforms, like Peloton, Strava, and Apple HealthKit, the firmware update forces Echelon machines to connect to Echelon's servers in order to work properly. A user online reported that as a result of updating his machine, it is no longer syncing with apps like QZ, and he is unable to view his machine's exercise metrics in the Echelon app without an Internet connection. Affected Echelon machines reportedly only have full functionality, including the ability to share real-time metrics, if a user has the Echelon app active and if the machine is able to reach Echelon's servers.

Viola wrote: "On startup, the device must log in to Echelon's servers. The server sends back a temporary, rotating unlock key. Without this handshake, the device is completely bricked -- no manual workout, no Bluetooth pairing, no nothing." Because updated Echelon machines now require a connection to Echelon servers for some basic functionality, users are unable to use their equipment and understand, for example, how fast they're going without an Internet connection. If Echelon were to ever go out of business, the gym equipment would, essentially, get bricked. Viola told Ars Technica that he first started hearing about problems with QZ, which launched in 2020, at the end of 2024 from treadmill owners. He said a firmware update appears to have rolled out this month on Echelon bikes that bricks QZ functionality. In his blog, Viola urged Echelon to let its machines send encrypted data to another device, like a phone or a tablet, without the Internet. He wrote: "Users bought the bike; they should be allowed to use it with or without Echelon's services."

T-Mobile has officially launched its Starlink-powered "T-Satellite" service nationwide, offering off-grid text messaging and location-sharing to both customers and non-customers. The service is currently $10/month (soon to be $15), supports over 60 devices, and will expand to include voice and "satellite-optimized" apps. The Verge reports: Your device will automatically connect to T-Satellite if you're in an area with no cellular coverage. As long as there isn't a heavy amount of cloud coverage or trees blocking your view of the sky, you should be able to send and receive text messages, including to 911, as well as share a link that temporarily tracks your location. T-Mobile's support page says the ability to send pictures is available on "most" Android phones, and the company plans on adding support for more devices soon.

T-Mobile is also aiming to enable voice messages and will eventually allow devices to connect to "satellite-optimized" apps, which it previously said could include AllTrails, Accuweather, and WhatsApp. The more than 650 Starlink satellites used by T-Mobile cover the continental US, Hawaii, parts of southern Alaska, and Puerto Rico. The carrier says it's working on offering satellite connectivity while abroad and in international waters as well. [...] In order to use T-Satellite, you'll need to have an unlocked device with support for eSIMs and satellite connectivity.

Researchers from La Sapienza University in Rome have developed "WhoFi," a system that uses the way a person's body distorts Wi-Fi signals to re-identify them across different locations -- even if they're not carrying a phone. By training a deep neural network on these subtle signal distortions, the researchers claim WhoFi is able to achieve up to 95.5% accuracy. The Register reports: "The core insight is that as a Wi-Fi signal propagates through an environment, its waveform is altered by the presence and physical characteristics of objects and people along its path," the authors state in their paper. "These alterations, captured in the form of Channel State Information (CSI), contain rich biometric information." CSI in the context of Wi-Fi devices refers to information about the amplitude and phase of electromagnetic transmissions. These measurements, the researchers say, interact with the human body in a way that results in person-specific distortions. When processed by a deep neural network, the result is a unique data signature.

Researchers proposed a similar technique, dubbed EyeFi, in 2020, and asserted it was accurate about 75 percent of the time. The Rome-based researchers who proposed WhoFi claim their technique makes accurate matches on the public NTU-Fi dataset up to 95.5 percent of the time when the deep neural network uses the transformer encoding architecture. "The encouraging results achieved confirm the viability of Wi-Fi signals as a robust and privacy-preserving biometric modality, and position this study as a meaningful step forward in the development of signal-based Re-ID systems," the authors say.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Security researchers say Chinese authorities are using a new type of malware to extract data from seized phones, allowing them to obtain text messages -- including from chat apps such as Signal -- images, location histories, audio recordings, contacts, and more. In a report shared exclusively with TechCrunch, mobile cybersecurity company Lookout detailed the hacking tool called Massistant, which the company said was developed by Chinese tech giant Xiamen Meiya Pico.

Massistant, according to Lookout, is Android software used for the forensic extraction of data from mobile phones, meaning the authorities using it need to have physical access to those devices. While Lookout doesn't know for sure which Chinese police agencies are using the tool, its use is assumed widespread, which means Chinese residents, as well as travelers to China, should be aware of the tool's existence and the risks it poses. [...]

The good news ... is that Massistant leaves evidence of its compromise on the seized device, meaning users can potentially identify and delete the malware, either because the hacking tool appears as an app, or can be found and deleted using more sophisticated tools such as the Android Debug Bridge, a command line tool that lets a user connect to a device through their computer. The bad news is that at the time of installing Massistant, the damage is done, and authorities already have the person's data. "It's a big concern. I think anybody who's traveling in the region needs to be aware that the device that they bring into the country could very well be confiscated and anything that's on it could be collected," said Kristina Balaam, a researcher at Lookout who analyzed the malware. "I think it's something everybody should be aware of if they're traveling in the region."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For the second time in a year, Google has announced that it will render some of its past phones almost unusable with a software update, and users don't have any choice in the matter. After nerfing the Pixel 4a's battery capacity earlier this year, Google has now confirmed a similar update is rolling out to the Pixel 6a. The new July Android update adds "battery management features" that will make the phone unusable. Given the risks involved, Google had no choice but to act, but it could choose to take better care of its customers and use better components in the first place. Unfortunately, a lot more phones are about to end up in the trash. [...]

Pixel 4a units contained one of two different batteries, and only the one manufactured by a company called Lishen was downgraded. For the Pixel 6a, Google has decreed that the battery limits will be imposed when the cells hit 400 charge cycles. Beyond that, the risk of fire becomes too great -- there have been reports of Pixel 6a phones bursting into flames. Clearly, Google had to do something, but the remedies it settled on feel unnecessarily hostile to customers. It had a chance to do better the second time, but the solution for the Pixel 6a is more of the same. [...]

When Google killed the Pixel 4a's battery life, it offered a few options. You could have the battery replaced for free, get $50 cash, or accept a $100 credit in the Google Store. However, claiming the money or free battery was a frustrating experience that was rife with fees and caveats. The store credit is also only good on phones and can't be used with other promotions or discounts. And the battery swap? You'd better hope there's nothing else wrong with the device. If it has any damage, like cracked glass, it may not qualify for a free battery replacement.

Now we have the Pixel 6a Battery Performance Program with all the same problems. Pixel 6a owners can get $100 in cash or $150 in store credit. Alternatively, Google offers a free battery replacement with the same limits on phone condition. This is all particularly galling because the Pixel 6a is still an officially supported phone, with its final guaranteed update coming in 2027. Google also pulled previous software packages for this phone to prevent rollbacks. [...] If you have a Pixel 6a, the battery-killing update is rolling out now. You'll have no choice but to install it if you want to remain on the official software. Google has a support site where you can try to get a free battery swap or some cash.