Tag: SMARTPHONES

A group of grad students has come up with a way to instantly diagnose malaria, using only a smartphone and some fancy software. The team, comprised of students from around the nation, developed the prototype using a Samsung Focus smartphone, running Windows 7. After adding a microscopic camera lens to the phone, the students developed software capable of analyzing and scanning blood for ...

Research in Motion is urging BlackBerry users to disable JavaScript on their smartphones after a major vulnerability was exposed at this year's Pwn2Own hacker challenge. According to the company, the security hole could allow a hacker to gain access to the device's data if a user stumbles upon any "maliciously designed" websites. The vulnerability only exposes data stored on a user's media card ...

HP snatched up Palm in 2010, and we've been waiting to see just how the computer company planned to use its new property. The only glimpse until now had been the Pre 2, a rather underwhelming upgrade to the original Pre, which was a mighty fine device that simply failed to capture the public's imagination. HP isn't ready to let the brand simply wither and die, though, and with good reason: WebOS ...

First, sales of laptops surpassed those of desktops. Now, smartphones are outselling PCs. The PC market continued to grow in 2010, with manufacturers shipping 92.1 million units in the fourth quarter. But traditional computers just simply couldn't keep pace with the exploding (and relatively new) consumer smartphone market. In last three months of 2010, 100.9 million smartphones were shipped ...

In honor of Valentine's Day, T-Mobile will be giving out all its phones (and smartphones) for free this weekend. Beginning Friday morning, customers will be able to grab any phone from T-Mobile's lineup, including comparatively more expensive models, like the myTouch 4G, HTC HD7, G2 and Samsung Vibrant. The catch, of course, is that you'll have to sign up for a two-year contract, but that's ...

Apple turned a lot of heads this morning when it unexpectedly opened the App Store to apps created with third-party development programs -- including, apparently, those using Adobe Flash. In a news release posted on its site, Apple declared that it would be "relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code." The ...

Earlier this month, AT&T and Verizon announced a joint venture to test a new system that would allow customers to pay for products with their smartphones. Now, Bank of America and Visa have followed in their footsteps, and, as Reuters reports, will begin testing their own smartphone-payment system next month.The test run, which will take place in New York from September through the end of ...

Wired Magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, like Prince, thinks the Web is dead. Unlike Prince, though, Anderson actually has some facts to back up his claim. In the cover story of the September issue of Wired, both Anderson and Michael Wolff use Internet traffic trends to support the argument that smartphone apps and e-readers have gradually begun to overtake the Web browser as our primary ...

We're live at RIM's BlackBerry event in New York, and the company's Torch phone (previously known as the 9800) just appeared on AT&T's site for $199. The first device running the brand new BlackBerry 6 operating system, the touchscreen and slider phone Torch represents a new form factor for RIM. Though the phone has hardly been a secret, we're finally getting the official specs and details. ...

The still-nascent field of smartphone payment systems may be getting a lot more crowded, since AT&T and Verizon Wireless have become strange bedfellows in testing a new system that allows store customers to pay for products with their smartphones. According to sources close to the deal, the test system would be similar to those already implemented in the U.K., Turkey and Japan, where ...

iPhone 4 users finally have an easy way to jailbreak their new smartphones -- a new browser-based tool, released just a few days after the Library of Congress officially declared jailbreaking totally cool. According to Engadget, JailbreakMe works on any Apple phone (except for the original), including the new iPhone 4, iPad and all iPhone 3GS models running iOS4. Developer Comex originally posted ...

If you love your iPhone but hate Apple's often draconian and seemingly arbitrary restrictions on what apps you can install, then you've likely at least thought about the prospect of jailbreaking. Yet, knowing whether or not your device is even jailbreakable, much less picking the proper tool and finding the right firmware to download, is about as difficult to comprehend as string theory. Someone ...

With the release of Froyo and the barrage of high-end handsets, Android has gone from an interesting but decidedly geeky smartphone experiment to a serious contender for your cellular buck. Whether you're upgrading from an older device, fleeing the cult of Apple, or converting from another platform like BlackBerry, there are a few things you'll need to know as you embark on your sugar-injected ...

America's killers and drug dealers might soon find themselves without even a cell phone to distract them from the everyday rigors of federal penitentiaries. As of right now, cell phones and wireless gadgets aren't classified as contraband by federal law, and prisoners found in possession of them are hardly ever punished. In a vote yesterday, though, the House of Representatives decided to close ...

During the iPhone's nascent stages, users had limited choices when it came to Twitter applications. But now, there are myriad services that allow you to blast 140-character tweets, and keep up with your buddies, too. So now, the problem is weeding out the pretenders from the contenders – not that we're complaining. So to help you decide which app is best for you, we're offering a brief ...