‘It might be waterproof to 100 feet, but TAT7‘s iPhone Scuba Case only includes three strategically-placed mechanical buttons for launching and operating the default camera app. So updating your Facebook profile from Davy Jones’ locker isn’t going to happen.
The $85 case can be installed in just seconds—you literally just slide your phone in and close the door. And it includes a wrist lanyard so you won’t need James Cameron‘s help if you drop it. Its three waterproof mechanical buttons look like they’re positioned to operate the home button, launch apps located in the lower right corner of the screen, and operate the camera app’s shutter button and photo/video switch. But that’s it.
There’s no way to access or use the iPhone’s keyboard, or even swipe to unlock the lock screen. So before you head out into the deep blue sea you’ll want to make sure you’ve turned off any automatic lock timers otherwise you’ll be carrying nothing but an expensive dive weight. [TAT7 via The Fancy]
“If you ever thought that maybe your smartphone wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be, that’s because it wasn’t.”
Take cover, iPhone owners: Nokia is about to rain some furious criticisms down on your smartphone. Three “mysterious” videos uploaded by YouTube user SmartphoneBetaTest this weekend take some not-so-veiled shots at the iPhone’s vulnerabilities, all seeking to prove that your current smartphone isn’t all that great and that, furthermore, Apple treats its handset owners like beta testers.
The videos — widely suspected to be part of Nokia’s advertising campaignfor its upcoming Lumia 900 release — show “recently obtained, never before seen footage” of three fictional execs (company unnamed!) discussing shortcomings in their firm’s smartphones. The most viewed video, titled “Death Grip” (guess what that’s a reference to?), features one exec panicking that his phone’s signal is disappearing when he grips the phone a certain way; another exec scolds him and tells him he’s holding it wrong (get it?).
Image by jstar.pl via FlickrKorean Scientists have theorised successfully that Smartphone could be used to detect Cancer.
This is likely to ease the tedious initial diagnostic process, which of course must be done at the Hospital by an Oncologist.
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A team of scientists at Korea Advanced Institute of Science of Technology (KAIST) said in a paper published in Angewandte Chemie, a German science journal, that touch screen technology can be used to detect biomolecular matter, much as is done in medical tests.
“It began from the idea that touch screens work by recognizing the electronic signs from the touch of the finger, and so the presence of specific proteins and DNA should be recognizable as well,” said Hyun-gyu Park, who with Byong-yeon Won led the study.
The touch screens on smartphones, PDAs or other electronic devices work by sensing the electronic charges from the user’s body on the screen. Biochemicals such as proteins and DNA molecules also carry specific electronic charges.
According to KAIST, the team’s experiments showed that touch screens can recognize the existence and the concentration of DNA molecules placed on them, a first step toward one day being able to use the screens to carry out medical tests.
“We have confirmed that (touch screens) are able to recognize DNA molecules with nearly 100 percent accuracy just as large, conventional medical equipment can and we believe equal results are possible for proteins,” Park told Reuters TV.
“There are proteins known in the medical world like the ones used to diagnose liver cancer, and we would be able to see the liver condition of the patient.”
The research team added that it is currently developing a type of film with reactive materials that can identify specific biochemicals, hoping this will allow the touch screens to also recognize different biomolecular materials.
But confirming that the touch screen can recognize the biomolecular materials, though key, is only the first step.
Since nobody would put blood or urine on a touch screen, the sample would be placed on a strip, which would then be fed into the phone or a module attached to the phone through what Park called an “entrance point.”
“The location and concentration of the sample would be recognized the same way the touch of the finger is recognized,” he added.
There are no details yet on a prospective timetable for making the phone a diagnostic tool, however.
A security researcher has posted a video detailing hidden software installed on smart phones that logs numerous details about users’ activities.
In a 17-minute video posted Monday on YouTube, Trevor Eckhart shows how the software – known as Carrier IQ – logs every text message, Google search and phone number typed on a wide variety of smart phones – including HTC, Blackberry, Nokia* and others – and reports them to the mobile phone carrier.
The application, which is labeled on Eckhart’s HTC smartphone as “HTC IQ Agent,” also logs the URL of websites searched on the phone, even if the user intends to encrypt that data using a URL that begins with “HTTPS,” Eckhart said.
The software always runs when Android operating system is running and users are unable to stop it, Eckhart said in the video.
“Why is this not opt-in and why is it so hard to fully remove?” Eckhart wrote at the end of the video.
In a post about Carrier IQ on his website, Eckhart called the software a “rootkit,” a security term for software that runs in the background without a user’s knowledge and is commonly used in malicious software.
Eckhart’s video is the latest in a series of attacks between him and the company. Earlier this month, Carrier IQ sent a cease and desist letter to Eckhart claiming he violated copyright law by publishing Carrier IQ training manuals online. But after the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, came to Eckhart’s defense, the company backed off its legal threats.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the software that Eckhart has publicized “raises substantial privacy concerns” about software that “many consumers don’t know about.”
Carrier IQ could not immediately be reached for comment. But the company told Wired.com that its software is used for “gathering information off the handset to understand the mobile-user experience, where phone calls are dropped, where signal quality is poor, why applications crash and battery life.”
On its website, Carrier IQ, founded in 2005, describes itself as “the world’s leading provider of Mobile Service Intelligence solutions.”
Smartphones are a craze that’s sweeping the world, and we are yet to see any indication this is going to change in the foreseeable future. This can only be a good thing – it gives you the chance to have the computer you dreamt of a few years ago in your pocket and do all the fancy stuff you want to do while on the go. Mind, this is only the beginning and these smart devices are getting better all the time, so more features are on the way – and more features translate into more opportunities, while more opportunities ensure that we are going to store additional and potentially sensitive information on our smartphones. And here comes the issue with smartphone security – a problem that is grossly underestimated by most users, which is really surprising given the fact that a few viruses have already managed to breach the security of various mobile OSs.
The outbreak might not be contained to the smartphone either.
Most of the current generation of smartphones have mini usb connectors. The connector not only allow the devices to be charged, but also allows them to be plugged into a desktop computer for data syncing. This could allow a virus to be transferred to your desktop or laptop from your smartphone. (I also plug my smartphone into my car’s usb connector to charge. Could a virus be uploaded into it?)
So, what should smartphone owners do? While many companies have developed anti-virus software for smartphones, I suggest simply using the same safe computing practices one uses with their desktop:
Be wary of email attachments, even if they come from friends
![Touchscreen and VT[5]](https://i0.wp.com/farm4.static.flickr.com/3272/2831542740_db8b3a740a_m.jpg?resize=240%2C159 "Touchscreen and VT[5]")
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