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This week the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the Apple iPhone was celebrated. A lot has changed in cell phone technology since 2007. By our current standards, cell phones before the iPhone were crude. The Motorola RAZR was the hip phone back then along with the Blackberry for business. Things changed rapidly after the introduction of the iPhone. I remember visiting Venezuela at the end of 2011 and laughing over the fact that Blackberries were their most popular "advanced" phone since they were already obsolete in the states. I think I first became aware of how much iPhones and...

Walking alongside rice paddies and water buffalo on the outskirts of Dhaka with Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus was like walking down the red carpet with a Hollywood movie star. Women in saris grabbed at the handsome man with thick gray hair, flirting and addressing him with ease. I was surprised, given we were in a conservative Muslim country where rural women typically take a backseat to men. But this man, who won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, had taught them to stand up to their husbands by giving them small loans that now put them in the driver's seat....

Four months into the Trump Administration, political activists with their congressional representatives on speed-dial may be running a tad short on cell phone minutes. Credo Mobile, a small national cellular carrier, sees that as a good business opportunity. Earlier this month, the company launched an unlimited data plan with a unique selling point. Its formal tagline–“Progress Without Limits”–appears in an online ad alongside images of Trump with a giant “X” over his mouth. That’s just part of Credo’s attempts to align itself with the “resistance,” though it’s in line with the values the company has espoused since its founding–and part...

Please stop, I silently beg the three drivers heading down the on ramp to Interstate 70 from Washington Avenue. I’m driving parallel to them at 55 mph with a line of traffic behind me. I have my turn signal on signifying that I’m getting off at the exit just west of that on ramp. I cannot slam on my brakes and stop on the highway to allow these drivers to merge into my lane. Yet they keep coming down the ramp toward me. Fear has crept into my throat and I cannot scream if I wanted to. Don’t they understand...

Well, the good news is that my wife and I have officially entered the 21st century today since our new Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge phones arrived today. I also ordered a couple of glass screen protectors for them. I will also be getting cases. And I am also interested in getting insurance for them. Therefore I am asking for advice on the best/cheapest cell phone insurance plans. Here is what I need covered: 1. Damage to cell phone. 2. Loss of cell phone. 3. Theft of cell phone. I seem to remember Laura Ingraham about a year ago advertising for...

For the first time, the nation's largest wireless provider is losing customers faster than it can replace them. It's a major milestone for Verizon, which on Thursday reported a net decline of 289,000 cellphone subscribers over the past four months. Even though Verizon usually loses some cellular customers every quarter, it has historically lured enough back to be able to report growth in that part of its business. But recent months have seen hundreds of thousands of customers defect to competitors such as T-Mobile and Sprint, analysts say. Things could have been even worse if Verizon hadn't suddenly reintroduced unlimited...

Charlotte, N.C., March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Akoustis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKTS) (“Akoustis” or the “Company”), a manufacturer of patented single-crystal BulkONE® bulk acoustic wave (BAW) high-band RF filters for mobile and other wireless applications, announced that in order to support and motivate Akoustis’ expansion into Upstate New York, Empire State Development (“ESD”) has offered the Company up to $8 million in performance-based incentives under the Excelsior Jobs Program. On March 24, 2017, Akoustis announced it had entered into definitive agreements to acquire a 120,000 Sq. Ft. Wafer Manufacturing Facility and STC-MEMS, a semiconductor wafer manufacturing operation with associated...

As the discussion over wiretapping and foreign hacking still dominates the conversation in Washington, an unusually high amount of suspicious cell phone activity in the nation’s capital has caught the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, raising concerns that U.S. officials are being monitored by a foreign entity. The issue was first reported in the Washington Free Beacon, but a source at telecom security firm ESD America confirmed the spike in suspicious activity to CBS News. ESD America, hired preemptively for a DHS pilot program this January called ESD Overwatch, first noticed suspicious activity around cell phone towers in...

Cell phones have become ubiquitous over the last few years, along with the debate over whether or not they can cause cancer. While many agencies — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and National Institute of Environmental Health — say they’ve found no link between cancer and the electromagnetic fields emanated by cell phones, a newly-released document is reheating the argument.It comes from the California Department of Public Health and is called “Cell Phones and Health.” It lists potential risks from cell phones to both adults and children. The 2014 document was held...

Hi, I'm looking at selecting a new phone plan, and I'm wondering if any Freepers know about any good plans. I'm open to Android or iPhone, and hoping for a no-contract. Any recommendations?

Hundreds of thousands of women who went on marches on Saturday were asked by celebrities including George Tekei to take part in text 'census' They were never told that it was being gathered by a non-profit different from the march organizers and that it therefore held the rights to the data gathered Now it says it will share with the 'march organizers' - who include extreme-left parties and a Muslim body scrutinized over terror link claims Census was run by 'It's Time Network' which promotes women's equality and claims that building bio-gas power stations is crucial to advancing it It...

SoftBank Group Corp founder and chief executive officer Masayoshi Son is planning to meet with President-elect Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said. Mr Son, 59, has no specific agenda but wants to meet Mr Trump as an investor in the US, including in wireless operator Sprint Corp, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. Shares in SoftBank rose on the news, climbing 2.5 per cent to 6,975 yen in Tokyo, their highest since Aug. 31. The Japanese billionaire is in the process of...

WASHINGTON — For about $50, you can get a smartphone with a high-definition display, fast data service and, according to security contractors, a secret feature: a backdoor that sends all your text messages to China every 72 hours. Kryptowire, the security firm that discovered the vulnerability, said the Adups software transmitted the full contents of text messages, contact lists, call logs, location information and other data to a Chinese server. The code comes preinstalled on phones and the surveillance is not disclosed to users... Security experts frequently discover vulnerabilities in consumer electronics, but this case is exceptional. It was not...

In what’s believed to be an unprecedented attempt to bypass the security of Apple iPhones, or any smartphone that uses fingerprints to unlock, California’s top cops asked to enter a residence and force anyone inside to use their biometric information to open their mobile devices. FORBES found a court filing, dated May 9 2016, in which the Department of Justice sought to search a Lancaster, California, property. But there was a more remarkable aspect of the search, as pointed out in the memorandum: “authorization to depress the fingerprints and thumbprints of every person who is located at the SUBJECT PREMISES...

It started innocently enough: Andreas H. Koertel, 46, was pulled over in a traffic stop. Then things got hairy in hurry. Turns out Koertel, a German national, was in possession of meth and illegal weapons, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, so he was booked into jail on multiple charges, KXTV-TV reports.

HACKER HORROR: ALL PRIVATE CELLPHONE NUMBERS OF DEMS IN CONGRESS MADE PUBLIC

On Thursday, a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter claimed that the Department of Homeland Security demanded access to her mobile phones when she was crossing the border at the Los Angeles airport.The case highlights the powers that border agents purport to have, and how vulnerable sensitive information can be when taken through airports in particular.“I wanted to share a troubling experience I had with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in the hopes it may help you protect your private information,” Maria Abi-Habib, a WSJ journalist focused on ISIS and Al Qaeda wrote in a post on Facebook. (Abi-Habib...

I have seen Freepers discuss different cell phone plans, my son is in search of a new plan and when I searched for past articles, nothing was found. I was hoping if you would share positive experiences with your cell phone carrier and plan. I'm not super excited about mine. My sone have Republic Wireless now and is thinking of switching to Cricket. Thank you in advance.

A new family of malicious apps, most of which were available on the Google Play Store, all containing malicious codes have been detected by a group of security researchers. The Godless apps are believed to be able secretly to root 90 percent of all Android phones. AntiVirus provider, Trend Micro wrote in a recent blog post that they had discovered a new family of malicious apps. The apps called, Godless, contains a collection of the rooting exploits that can work on any device which is running the Android version 5.1 and below. This means that close to 90 percent of...

Those who prefer their mobile phone to remain anonymous are in for a shock in Germany, as ministers agreed on Wednesday to require anyone buying a pay-as-you-go SIM card to present ID. “You could buy a prepaid phone today in the name of Donald Duck,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said after the weekly cabinet meeting. “Knowledge is power. And we want to oppose terrorist organizations powerfully,” he went on in a press conference defending the new anti-terror law that the rule falls under. […] “The new anti-terror package mixes up widely varying enlargements of powers for the security services...