phone

iPhones will now automatically share precise location details with 911 operators during emergency calls. It's part of an overhaul of the emergency phone system for the mobile age. The change will come in iOS12, the next edition of the Apple ... operating system, which will be released this fall. It means that by default the location is transmitted when the phone makes an emergency call. Apple says the data collected and shared in this process will only ever be used for emergencies. (Source: theverge.com ) Precise Location Uses Multiple Sources It builds on a 2015 Apple feature called Hybridized ... (view more)

Samsung looks set to release a phone with a giant foldable screen. But rumors of the price are varying wildly. Reports suggest that the phone will fold out a little like a book. When open, the screen will be more than seven inches across, meaning it ... resembles a small tablet computer. When folded, the device will be the size of an ordinary smartphone and, although a little thicker than most phones, should fit easily in a pocket. The idea is that the design would dramatically change what's viable with a phone. For example, working on document editing would be much more bearable for the user. It ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve G. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thank you so much for your article on How to Disable Full Screen Popup Ads in Android ! Lately I have been inundated with full screen ads appearing on my smartphone and I have no idea where they are ... coming from. I tried your suggestion in the article, which says to wait for the full screen ad to appear, then press the app button on my phone to see where the ad is coming from. The problem is that these full screen ads don't have a title, so unfortunately I can't tell where the ad is coming from. You also suggested using a firewall but I am not ... (view more)

A drug dealer was convicted after his phone revealed his fingerprint. It wasn't from a log-in scanner, but rather an unfortunate side effect of a photo he took. Police in Wales seized a phone from a property they raided after receiving a tip-off ... that it was being used to sell drugs. The phone included the app called "WhatsApp," which is a very popular tool used to send private messages to friends. The app is prevalent among some users because the messages are encrypted in transit, meaning that the company behind WhatsApp is unable to hand over the contents to law enforcement ... (view more)

Facebook users have been shocked to discover it stores the phone numbers of people who've never signed up to the site, along with the SMS and voice call histories of some users. But Facebook insists that users have explicitly given permission for ... such data storage. The site's data storage and sharing policies came back under the spotlight with the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, when a journalist revealed that information gathered about users and their friends for a psychological study was shared without permission for use in political ad targeting. Since then, many users have been taking ... (view more)

A newly discovered malware exploit offers hackers an incredible level of control and access. Fortunately the creators appear to be highly targeting their victims, though it's still a threat to ordinary users. Dubbed Skygofree, the malware affects ... users of the Android smartphone operating system. It is said to give the people behind the malware the ability to remotely carry out 48 different operations on an infected phone. These include targeted controls not previously seen, as well as more common malware exploitations. Some of the 'normal' options for the malware creators include the ability ... (view more)

Two of Apple's big investors want the company to tackle 'smartphone addiction' among younger users. They say failing to address the problem now could hurt the company's value in the long term. The call comes from investment management company Jana ... Partners, along with the managers of retirement plans for teachers in California. Between them they hold around $2 billion of Apple Stock, though that is only around one fifth of one percent of the entire company. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) They cited research that says using smartphones too much can mean students don't get enough sleep and pay less ... (view more)

Google researchers are working on a way to warn users when someone else might be sneaking a peek at your smartphone. They say it can spot a gaze in just two milliseconds. The project is the work of Hee Jung Ryu and Florian Schroff, who'll ... demonstrate their work at a conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. It's based on a remarkably simple concept with some smart technology. Front Camera is Key to Tool In its current form, the system runs on a Google Pixel phone and takes advantage of the front-facing camera - the one typically used for face / video conferencing before it became ... (view more)

Google has admitted it tracked the location of cellphone users even when they had location services switched off. It says it's now stopped an 11-month program designed to improve "message delivery." Having location services switched on allows an ... Android phone to collect information about a user's location, commonly combining GPS data, details of nearby WiFi networks, and the location of nearby cellphone towers - all of which can be detected by a phone. Google - and third party app makers - use this data for tools such as mapping, navigation and finding nearby outlets of a particular chain of ... (view more)

T-Mobile has fixed a bug that let hackers get sensitive personal data just by using a phone number. In theory, it could have been possible to collect details on all the company's customers, though T-Mobile denies this. The problem was discovered by ... Karan Saini, a security researcher who discussed the problem with the Motherboard Vice website. The site then approached T-Mobile about the problem. It said "we were alerted to an issue that we investigated and fully resolved in less than 24 hours. There is no indication that it was shared more broadly." (Source: vice.com ) The bug had to do with T ... (view more)