You might describe your smartphone as a lifesaver, but now you can let it help in the fight against AIDS. Alternatively, you can turn it into a tool to help study global warming or discover pulsars. It’s thanks to the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC), which already offered a similar tool for computers. […]
If you’ve got an Android device, you can now make money when you unlock it. The independent program, Locket, involves you installing an app that takes over the default lock screen. You’ll then see an ad every time you come to unlock the phone and can choose whether to swipe in one direction to see […]
Researchers at two British universities have successfully powered a cellphone using urine. The project involves microbial fuel cells, which are ceramic cylinders filled with bacteria. As the bacteria eats fuel supplies, it creates a small electrical charge as a by-product. The technique works with micro-organisms that would normally, where oxygen is present, produce water as […]
A Kenyan firm has unveiled a modem designed to deal with the unreliable power supply and connectivity issues in the African market. The BRCK device is designed to deal with the fact that although many areas of Africa have good Internet access and/or cellphone coverage, electricity supplies can often be unreliable and cut out with […]
Comcast has revealed that it plans to use home customer’s routers to expand its public WiFi network. But it insists the system works on a separate signal and won’t affect privacy or service. The company is calling the idea a “neighborhood hotspot initiative.” If you subscribe to Comcast’s Xfinity service and have a wireless gateway […]
A firm that already offers free fixed-line and mobile broadband services is now offering a totally free of charge cellphone package including voice calls and texts. And not surprisingly there are some major catches. The company, Freedom Pop, offers a range of freemium services. Last year it launched a special iPhone case with a built-in […]
The chief of Motorola says the company is interested in using electronic “tattoos” in place of passwords for security on smartphones. Dennis Woodside says the idea works in testing, though concedes it might not be in handsets for some time. The testing used a device from Massachusetts firm MC10. Despite the “tattoo” name, it’s actually […]
The closest thing to a “Facebook phone” has been delayed indefinitely in Europe. Officially it’s to allow time to tweak some of the software, but it follows a poor initial response in the United States. Facebook has always insisted it won’t make a handset itself, reasoning that there’s no point putting its efforts into something […]