Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones News - Page 1

A new "holy grail" type of technology has been created by researchers at the University of California that very well could revolutionize how we charge our devices.

Engineers from the University of California San Diego have developed a new way of charging devices through harvesting energy from the human body. The engineers created a thin strip that is worn on the end of a finger that converts human sweat into energy that can then be used to power devices. Professor Wang and other authors on the study have said that the new form of technology is the "holy grail" of energy harvesters" due to how it doesn't require any external energy source such as sunlight or movement.

Not only does the strip generate energy from the sweat accumulated on the end of a finger, the biofuel cells located on the strip can also harvest energy from light finger presses such as typing on a keyboard, playing piano. The biofuel cells are able to produce 300 millijoules of energy per square centimeter, and the engineers were able to successfully power a Vitamin C sensing system.

A warning has been issued by a cyber-security expert regarding the use of Facebook's Messenger app on both iPhone and Android.

According to Zak Doffman, a widely recognized expert on surveillance and cyber and the security and privacy risks associated with big tech, Facebook Messenger users should know that none of their messages between users are encrypted. This means that messages and content that are sent on the platform can be flagged by Facebook, unlike Facebook's other messaging platform WhatsApp.

WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, which means that all content sent between two users is encrypted and can't be viewed by anyone else, not even Facebook. Doffman recommends that if you are on Android or iOS, you should use WhatsApp as your default messaging app for personal communication and Messenger for trivial communications.

Apple has only just entered the world of Mini-LED technology on its new 12.9-inch iPad Pro but the Cupertino-based company is already shifting into OLED.

The new 12.9-inch iPad Pro only just launched with its new Mini-LED display, and while we've been hearing rumors of an OLED iPad already, the latest word is coming from the Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC). DSCC said in its new quarterly OLED Shipment Report that Apple will release a 10.9-inch AMOLED iPad, possibly an iPad Air with an OLED panel in 2023.

Apple has been using OLED displays in their latest iPhones, the new Apple Watch, the MacBook Pro Touch Bar (hey, it still counts) as well as OLED displays for the Mac and iPad. DSCC says the first iPad with an OLED display will drop in 2023, but other rumors have said that Apple would have a 10.8-inch iPad with an OLED display in 2022... I guess we'll have to wait and see.

There is a really bad bug that has been found with Apple's iPhones, and if you have accidentally experienced it and want to fix it or just want to avoid it in general, this is what you will need to know.

Over the weekend, a security researcher named Carl Schou joined a Wi-Fi network named "%p%s%s%s%s%n" and noticed that the Wi-Fi on his phone stopped working and was unable to be turned back on. Additionally, Schou noticed that other network-based features such as AirDrop also weren't working. Schou said anyone could "disable any iOS device's WiFI by hosting a public Wi-Fi named %secretclub%power."

Another thing to note is that the Wi-Fi name doesn't need to have a "%" character in it for it to disable your Wi-Fi connection. Amichai Shulman, CTO of wireless security specialist AirEye said to Forbes, "Our research team was able to construct the network name in a way that does not expose the user to the weird characters, making it look like a legitimate, existing network name."

Back at the end of May, iOS 14.6 was released to the public, and since then, reports are surfacing about how the newest update is causing iPhone batteries to drain faster than usual.

A new report from CNET states that several users have been saying that their iPhone's battery is draining a lot faster than it usually does since they updated their phone to iOS 14.6 and that this was most noticeable when using when the Podcast app. iOS 14.6 ushered in new features for iPhone users, some of which are a new way to find lost AirTag trackers, Apple Card Family, and more Apple Music support.

CNET recommends that if you have noticed a drop in your iPhone's battery life, you should go to Settings > Battery to find any apps that are using excessive battery power. Once you have located these apps, it's up to you whether or not you want to close/remove them to fix the problem. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

iPhone users have a massive problem on their hands, and millions of iPhone users have now been recommended to do their best to avoid it.

The problem revealed itself to the world over the weekend when Carl Shou discovered that joining a Wi-Fi network that had specific symbols (%in the name (SSID) would break his iPhone's Wi-Fi connection until the phone's network settings were reset. You are probably thinking, "well, I just won't join a network that has out-of-place symbols in it's name".

You would have been right until Amichai Shulman, CTO of wireless security specialist AirEye spoke to Forbes regarding the issue and said, "Our research team was able to construct the network name in a way that does not expose the user to the weird characters, making it look like a legitimate, existing network name." Now, Shulman is warning users that hackers could create Wi-Fi hotspot networks that use the name of popular public Wi-Fi hotspots such as Starbucks to bait people into joining.

A woman has had her life saved from her Apple Watch after her heart rate was elevated and she was notified by her wearable to seek medical attention immediately.

Diane Feenstra was wearing her Apple Watch on April 22 when her heart started beating at 169 beats per minute, so she called her husband and asked what he thought she should do. He told her to call her doctor, while her Apple Watch was blasting notifications to her to seek medical attention.

Feenstra explained: "The day in question, April 22, I had 169 beats per minute heart rate even though the most vigorous exercise I had done was to walk up 12 steps. So I called my husband at work and said do you think this is concerning? And he said call your doctor".

Qualcomm and TSMC worked together on the next-gen Snapdragon 885 SoC and now it seems the company will be moving away from Samsung and its 4nm process for the warm arms of TSMC's next-gen 4nm node for its Snapdragon 895+ SoC.

In a new tweet, Ice Universe says that Qualcomm will use Samsung 4nm for its Snapdragon 895, but the overclocked Snapdragon 895+ will be made on TSMC 4nm. This makes sense as Samsung might have more allocation to give Qualcomm for the regular Snapdragon 895 -- which will be in many more phones than the higher-end overclocked Snapdragon 895+ SoC -- TSMC handling that on its 4nm node.

We should expect Qualcomm to unveil its next-gen Snapdragon 895 later this year during its Snapdragon Tech Summit, which is normally held in Maui, Hawaii -- but will be virtual this year. The overclocked Snapdragon 895+ should be unveiled 6-9 months later, and find its way into overclocking gaming smartphones of the future by the end of 2022 or so.

Apple debuted its new 2021 iPad Pro 12.9-inch with a beautiful new Mini-LED display, but rumor has it the new 2022 iPad Air and 2023 iPad Pro will reportedly use an OLED display -- and at up to the super-smooth 120Hz refresh rate.

According to the next-gen 2022 iPad Air (also known as the iPad Air 5) and it will reportedly feature a 10.8-inch rigid OLED display, while the new 2023 iPad Pro will shift from the mini-LED display inside of the just-released 2021 iPad Pro 12.9-inch to a higher-end OLED display.

The Elec is reporting that Apple will be rolling out new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPads with flexible OLED technology, with Apple reportedly moving over to LTPO OLED displays on the 2023 iPad Pro with 120Hz refresh rates on offer. The refresh rate will dynamically change depending on what is happening on screen, which will provide the best of both worlds: out of this world image quality, super-smooth refresh rate and kick ass battery life.

Apple's new iPad Pro 12.9 is here, with the upgraded 2021 model rocking a totally gorgeous mini-LED display and new in-house Apple M1 chipset -- but how does it handle being scratched, burned, and bent? That's why we have JerryRigEverything, check it out:

The latest and greatest slate from Apple goes under a torture test, and even survives having a damn elephant scratched into the back of it. The next-gen mini-LED display reacts to being burned like a champion, with the pixels turning black after around 17 seconds -- but once the heat is removed, the screen recovers.

Jerry scratches up the front, back, and sides of the new iPad Pro 12.9-inch 2021 model... and my gosh did it make me cringe. The expensive tablet bends pretty easily, and the mini-LED display and glass on the front of the iPad Pro bends away from the back of the tablet.