smartphones

China Bans Officials from Using iPhones and Other Foreign Devices at Work

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Wednesday that Chinese government officials have been ordered not to use Apple iPhones and other foreign devices for work, potentially inflicting a major blow on sales of those devices in China, whose titanic government bureaucracy employs a sizable portion of the population.

TOPSHOT - A Chinese couple tests the new iPhone 7 during the opening sale launch at an Apple store in Shanghai on September 16, 2016.

Pediatric Study: Excessive Screen Time Translates into Developmental Delays in Children

A new pediatric study has found a significant correlation between excessive screen time and developmental delays in children, raising concerns among parents and healthcare professionals. According to the data, children who spend more than four hours in front of screens are almost six times more likely to  suffer from delays in communication and problem-solving skills.

baby holding smartphone

Mandatory Olympic Athlete App Gives China Data Goldmine

Less than a week after Team USA advised Olympic athletes to purchase disposable “burner” phones to thwart Chinese surveillance of the Beijing Winter Olympics, researchers at the University of Toronto are warning of serious security issues in the “MY2022” smartphone app China is requiring all athletes, journalists, and spectators to download on their smartphones.

All those attending the Olympics in Beijing have to download MY2022, an app China says is to monitor Covid, but which anaylsts warn has "devastating" security flaws

BlackBerry Smartphones Are Finally Dead

This week, classic BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry OS will no longer be able to make calls, send text messages, access data, and call 911 making them essentially unusable.

BlackBerry Classic and its iconic physical keyboard will no longer be part of the Canadian company's product portfolio

Court Finds Dubai Ruler Hacked British Cell Phones in Bitter Custody Battle

England’s High Court ruled on Wednesday that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the rule of Dubai and vice president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), ordered hackers to break into the smartphones of his ex-wife Princess Haya bint al-Hussein and her lawyers during the battle for custody of their children. One of Haya’s legal representatives is Baroness Fiona Shackleton, a member of the House of Lords.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - MARCH 29: A portrait of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum ruler of Dubai looks on during the Dubai World Cup at the Meydan Racecourse on March 29, 2014 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)

Walmart to Give 740,000 Employees a Free Samsung Smartphone

Retail giant Walmart is set to give 740,000 employees free Samsung smartphones by the end of the year so they can use a new app to manage schedules and perform a wide variety of other tasks in the store. Employees will be free to use the phone for their personal business as well.

Walmart

UK Regulators Urged to Investigate Apple-Google Duopoly

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has been asked to investigate allegations that Google and Apple, which together control over 99 percent of the global market in smartphone operating systems, secretly colluded to stifle smartphone search engine competitors.

Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, speaks at Google's annual developer conference, Google I/O, in San Francisco on 28 June 2012

Global Smartphone Sales Drop 5.7 Percent in Q3 2020

A new report published this week revealed that global smartphone sales dropped almost six percent during the third quarter of 2020. During the same period, Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi passed Apple to become the third-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world.

The Associated Press

Study: Smartphone Notifications Don’t Distract Us, We Distract Ourselves

A recent study has found that users initiate 89 percent of all smartphone interactions on their own, with only 11 percent being initiated by a notification. These results go against the conventional wisdom that the mountain of notifications generated on the average person’s phone every day distracts us from other tasks.

BERLIN, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 04: Visitors try out the Honor 7 smartphone at the Huawei stand at the 2015 IFA consumer electronics and appliances trade fair on September 4, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. The 2015 IFA will be open to the public from September 4-9. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

India Bans More Chinese Smartphone Apps

India banned an uncertain number of Chinese smartphone apps Tuesday, adding to the 59 banned at the end of June and 47 more, mostly clones and alternate versions of the original 59, in July.

Members of the Working Journalist of India (WJI) hold placards urging citizens to remove Chinese apps and stop using Chinese products during a demonstration against the Chinese newspaper Global Times, in New Delhi on June 30, 2020. - TikTok on June 30 denied sharing information on Indian users with the …

Communist China May Make Coronavirus App Surveillance Permanent

When the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic hit its peak, the Chinese government was quick to make use of smartphones to track citizens’ movements and isolate those who might be infected. Now, privacy experts are warning that these surveillance measures may stay in place once the pandemic has ended. One communist party official claims that Chinese people want to be surveilled, saying the app is “loved so much that you cannot bear to part with it.”

woman and a child wearing protective masks walk toward check-in counters at Daxing international airport in Beijing on January 21, 2020. - The death toll from a new China virus that is transmissible between humans rose to six, the mayor of Wuhan said in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV …

Smartphone Suffers Largest Year-Over-Year Decline Ever

The smartphone industry has suffered its largest year-over-year decline ever according to a recent report as it struggles in the midst of the Chinese virus pandemic. The First quarter of 2020 saw a drop of almost 12 percent as compared to the same period in 2019 according to one analyst, while another analyst believes the drop could be as high as nearly 17 percent.

The Associated Press

Chinese Smartphone Sales Suffer Worst Decline Ever

The South China Morning Post reported on Thursday that Chinese smartphone sales suffered their worst decline ever during the first quarter of 2020, with a drop of 22 percent for every major manufacturer except Huawei, which grew by six percent.

The icons for Tencent Holdings Ltd. applications WeChat, clockwise from top left, QQ, JOOX, Tencent News and Tencent Video are arranged for a photograph on an Apple Inc. iPhone taken in Hong Kong, China, on Wednesday, July 26, 2017. Tencent is scheduled to release second-quarter earnings figures on Aug 16. …

Seattle Residents Can Cast Vote Via Smartphone in Local Election

Voters in the King Conservation District, which includes 1.2 million people in the Greater Seattle area, will soon be able to vote via smartphone in a first for U.S. elections. One professor specializing in election technology called the entire concept of voting via smartphone “a very stupid idea.”

BERLIN, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 04: Visitors try out the Honor 7 smartphone at the Huawei stand at the 2015 IFA consumer electronics and appliances trade fair on September 4, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. The 2015 IFA will be open to the public from September 4-9. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Silicon Valley High School Bans Students from Using Smartphones

Students at San Mateo High School — in the heart of Silicon Valley — must now lock up their phones at the start of every school day this year. The school is using a device, developed by a start-up company specifically for locking up phones so that students can be more engaged with their surroundings rather than with their phones.

Online harassment a problem for many US teens: survey