Robotech_Master writes: GoodEReader editor Michael Kozlowski is running an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to sell a $699 13.3" Android e-ink tablet. The campaign seeks $42,000--enough to fund the 60-device minimum order set by the OEM. But is it really a good deal for that much money? As an early-adopter or business-class device, it very well might be.

An anonymous reader writes: One year after Windows 10 Mobile was announced, Microsoft is finally rolling out their new OS to older mobile devices, specifically devices running Windows Phone 8.1. Here's the complete list of supported phones: Lumia 1520, 930, 640, 640XL, 730, 735, 830, 532, 535, 540, 635 1GB, 636 1GB, 638 1GB, 430, 435, BLU Win HD w510u, BLU Win HD LTE x150q, and the MCJ Madosma Q501. Depending on where you live and which carrier you have, the update will be handled differently. Microsoft has said "many older devices are not able to successfully upgrade without an impact on the customer experience." For an OS that continues to lose market share [to] iOS and Android, it makes sense for Microsoft to be so concerned about the user experience as it is crucial for the success of Windows 10 Mobile.

An anonymous reader writes: LG have released the first smartphone with built-in DAB+ circuitry,allowing users to listen to digital radio without consuming mobile data bandwidth. The LG Stylus 2 will initially be released in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands (perhaps not coincidentally these are among the highest-rate adopters of DAB/DAB+). Patchy coverage and often-poor bitrates have hindered the take-up of DAB/+, which has been in development since the early 1980s, and it's hoped that the shift from the motoring to the smartphone space will alleviate some of the coverage problems that users experienced with the push to DAB-based car radios. No benchmarks on power consumption of the integrated DAB+ circuitry is currently available.

MojoKid writes: To look at Samsung's new Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones, on the surface, one might mistake them for only a modest uplift of bells and whistles, and perhaps a light rebuffing of the phone's design language. However, one of the primary new features of the US-targeted Samsung Galaxy S7 is its underlying power plant — Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 system-on-a-chip (SoC). The Snapdragon 820 is based on Qualcomm's new, custom ARM-based core architecture called Kyro. Kyro marks an evolution beyond Qualcomm's venerable Krait core architecture that the company claims offers 2X the performance and power efficiency of their previous-gen Snapdragon 810. In addition, the quad-core Snapdragon 820 has a beefed-up Adreno 530 graphics engine on board as well. In performance testing versus Apple's potent A9 platform in the iPhone 6S Plus, Samsung's Galaxy S7 with the Snapdragon 820 generally outpaces the iPhone in multithreaded performance as well as graphics. The Apple A9 still does a lot of work with just two cores, but overall it looks as though Qualcomm has a highly-competitive SoC and Samsung put it to good use.

MojoKid writes: The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge don't officially launch for a few more days, but some carriers appear to have shipped pre-orders early and some phones are already in consumers' hands. One early Galaxy S7 Edge owner appears to have tested his phones' water-resistance already and uncovered another new feature in the process. The user submerged his Galaxy S7 Edge in water and snapped a photo, then about four hours later plugged the phone into its fast charger and a warning popped-up on screen that stated, "Moisture detected in charging port", and the phone wouldn't charge. The user dried the phone and let it sit for a while, and it eventually started to charge again, but it wouldn't quick charge any longer. Frustrated, the user RMA'd the phone and plans to send it back to T-Mobile. The Galaxy S7 is IP68 rated, which means it is sealed against dust and can handle continuous submersion in up to 1 meter of water. However, the water detection feature that's apparently built into the Galaxy S7 is a good idea. Though the devices are IP68 rated, a few drops of water in the charging port could easily cause a short when the phone is plugged in.

Just a day after it made headlines for announcing that it would remove encryption from its line of FireOS devices, reports Ars Technica, the company has reverted the change, and says that encryption will again be a user-selectable option, with an update to come sometime this Spring. Judging from comments here on Slashdot, that ought to please a lot of people. However, encryption isn't the Fire's only problem; Ricki Jennings at ComputerWorld has collected some of the user reaction to the change, and says that anemic hardware means that even with this small course correction, the Fire tablets themselves "still suck." I'm not so sure; I bought one of the low-end Fire tablets and returned it, disappointed not in the hardware (seemed not bad at all for $50, with a decent screen, snappy video, and sound that was better than reviews had led me to expect) but rather by the intentional limitations of the OS itself.

Okian Warrior writes: Dstillery gets information from people's phones via ad networks. When you open an app or look at a browser page, there's a very fast auction that happens where different advertisers bid to get to show you an ad. Your phone sends them information about you, including, in many cases, an identifying code (that they've built a profile around) and your location information, down to your latitude and longitude. On the night of the Iowa caucus, Dstillery flagged auctions on phones in latitudes and longitudes near caucus locations, some 16,000 devices. It then looked up the characteristics associated with those IDs to make observations about the kind of people that went to Republican caucus locations versus Democrat caucus locations. It drilled down farther by looking at which candidate won at a particular caucus location.

nerdyalien writes: While everybody is immersed in the Apple vs. FBI case, WhatsApp has posted a blog entry that could potentially alter the mobile landscape as we know it today. By the end of 2016, WhatsApp will no longer support many older mobile operating systems from BlackBerry, Nokia, Android and Windows Phone. Moving forward, WhatsApp will only support the latest and greatest iPhone, Android and Windows Phone platforms. With over 1 billion active users, and the backing of Facebook, is WhatsApp finally reducing the mobile landscape to a three-horse race ?

An anonymous reader writes with this story at the New York Times: Apple engineers have already begun developing new security measures that would make it impossible for the government to break into a locked iPhone using methods similar to those now at the center of a court fight in California, according to people close to the company and security experts. If Apple succeeds in upgrading its security — and experts say it almost surely will — the company would create a significant technical challenge for law enforcement agencies, even if the Obama administration wins its fight over access to data stored on an iPhone used by one of the killers in last year's San Bernardino, Calif., rampage. The F.B.I. would then have to find another way to defeat Apple security, setting up a new cycle of court fights and, yet again, more technical fixes by Apple.

David Rothman writes: Back in 2003, Slashdot ran TeleRead's call for a brick-and-mortar international e-book museum at the Library of Congress. The proposed museum would focus on the devices and other technology rather than the content. It still isn't too late for such a project, and TeleRead is again advocating the idea. Content, too, actually would benefit -- considering that proprietary formats and DRM can imperil the future readability of e-books. Meanwhile, a small-scale e-book museum is about to open in Paris and is looking for donations. A worthy cause!

An anonymous reader writes: Out before the much anticipated Google Modular Phone Project ARA, is a new phone from Fairphone: The Fairphone 2. This phone is claimed to be the the worlds first real modular phone. Fairphone is more than just a phone manufaturer but a social justice movement . Fairphone is a project of Waag Society, Action Aid and Schrijf-Schrijf to raise awareness about conflict minerals in consumer electronics and the wars that the mining of these minerals is fueling in the DR Congo. The Fairphone 2 build consists of 5-inch Full HD LCD screen, Android 5.1 Lollipop,Dual SIM, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Qualcomm quad core processor.

AmiMoJo writes with a report from Venturebeat on the state (and predicted future) of mobile-device graphics: ARM, the technology design company responsible for the popular ARM CPU architecture, is preparing for another big leap in computational power for smartphones and tablets. ARM ecosystem director Nizar Romdan explained that the chips that his company creates with partners like Nvidia, Samsung, and Texas Instruments will generate visuals on par with and then surpass what you get from the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles by the end of 2017. PS4 can compute around 1.84 TFLOPS (tera FLOPS), with mobile chips approaching 2 TFLOPS by the last quarter of 2017. Romdan points out that virtual reality eliminates that form factor difference. Wearing a headset on your face is the same if you're tethered to a PC or using a phone.

alphadogg writes: Likely to get lost among the shiny new Android and Windows smartphones and tablets at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona are demonstrations of technology that could bring LTE indoors over the 3.5 GHz wireless spectrum band, previously the sole domain of the military and satellite providers. But the exploitation of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service in the 3550-3700 MHz band, which the FCC voted about a year ago to make available for shared wireless broadband use, is worth paying attention to, especially if you're an organization that could stand to deliver more oomph for your employees who rely on wireless devices to make and receive calls in the office. CBRS — backed by the likes of Intel and Google — could overcome some of the troubles people currently have making LTE calls from indoors, due to interference or weak signals that result from penetrating tough building materials.

Nicola Hahn writes: As the Department of Justice exerts legal pressure on Apple in an effort to recover data from the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, Apple's CEO has publicly stated that "the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone." But, as one Windows rootkit developer has observed, the existing functionality that the FBI seeks to leverage is itself a backdoor. Specifically, the ability to remotely update code on a device automatically, without user intervention, represents a fairly serious threat vector. Update features marketed as a safety mechanism can just as easily be wielded to subvert technology if the update source isn't trustworthy. Something to consider in light of the government's ability to steal digital certificates and manipulate network traffic, not to mention the private sector's lengthy history of secret cooperation. Related: wiredmikey writes: Apple said Monday it would accept having a panel of experts consider access to encrypted devices if US authorities drop efforts to force it to help break into the iPhone of a California attacker. Apple reaffirmed its opposition to the US government's effort to compel it to provide technical assistance to the FBI investigation of the San Bernardino attacks, but also suggested a compromise in the highly charged legal battle.

In his first public remarks since Apple CEO Tim Cook said he would fight the federal magistrate's order, FBI Director James Comey claimed the Justice Department's request is is about "the victims and justice."

erier2003 writes: A court order forcing Apple to help the FBI access a terrorism suspect's iPhone has drawn responses from leading tech companies, newspaper editorial boards, and security experts. But one major faction is staying largely silent: the computer and smartphone manufacturers who compete with Apple for business and could be subject to similar orders in the future if the company loses its high-profile case. Silicon Valley software firms have universally backed Apple in its fight against the Justice Department, which won a ruling Tuesday from a California magistrate judge compelling Apple to design custom software to bypass security features on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. But Apple's hardware competitors are staying on the sidelines.

An anonymous reader writes: Why stop at asking ransom for encrypted files when you can also steal personal info, passwords, online banking credentials and credit card details, and sell it or use it to get even more money? Palo Alto researchers have recently analyzed Xbot, a Trojan that is capable of doing all the aforementioned things, and have found it mimicking 22 different Android apps.

An anonymous reader writes: Global mobile provider Three has announced that it will shortly begin to block online advertising on all of its six European networks, beginning with the UK and Italy. The company, which also has networks in Hong Kong and Indonesia, will announce its partnership with Israeli network ad-blocking startup Shine at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, according to sources. Shine's first network ad-block customer was Caribbean provider Digicel last year, but the new Three Group deal seems set to cause massive disruption to web-based publishers — who, it seems, may have to pay for bandwidth and show more respect for user privacy in their ads if they want to continue to operate in the mobile space.

An anonymous reader writes: Freedom 251 is the name of a new affordable Android smartphone which is going on sale in India. It features an 4-core 1.3 Ghz Processor, with 1GB RAM and 8GB internal memory, and runs an Android Lollipop 5.1 distribution complete with civilian and government applications for Indian citizens. It is being heavily subsidized to make up for the benefits that it will bring to the people who could never afford a smartphone before. Ars Technica notes that the phone is apparently not carrier-subsidized, but as Pocket Now points out, "[t]he nation's defence minister will be at the launch event, a sign that the government has heavily subsidized the project in line with its developmental prerogatives."

An anonymous reader writes: Two engineers from Cisco and Google have raised the problem of IPv6 networks that drain smartphone battery life and issued a series of tips for other network admins on why and how to properly configure their networks. The problem is because of Router Advertisements (RAs). These are periodic messages sent by the router to all network clients telling them its IPv6 address, at which it can be reached. Apparently some networks are sending these as often as every 3 seconds, while the engineers say the proper interval should be 7 per hour. Hence the reason why your battery life is often drained even if your phone is in sleep mode, but connected to a local network.

itwbennett writes: MazarBOT, a malware program that can take full control of Android phones, appears to be targeting online bank accounts. The malware has been seen advertised on Russian underground forums in the last few months and surfaced over the weekend. '[On] Friday, a swarm of SMSs were sent to random phone numbers in Denmark and likely elsewhere. The content of the SMS had the purpose of luring the recipient into clicking the provided link, which would serve up a malicious APK,' wrote Peter Kruse, an IT security expert and founder of CSIS Security Group. One interesting feature: 'MazarBOT will stop installing itself if it detects an Android device that is running within Russia,' writes Jeremy Kirk.