Mobile

Google keeps an ever-closer eye on non-Play Store apps

SAN FRANCISCO -- Android owners who use apps installed from outside of the Play Store will soon find their devices just a smidge safer, as Google announced at the RSA Conference here that Verify Apps will soon keep an eye on non-Play Store apps even after you install them.

Adrian Ludwig, Google's Android security engineer lead, said the change builds on the Verify Apps security feature introduced last year. He explained the change during a talk on how Google has created a secure open-source operating system.

When the Verify Apps option is checked, Google will scan apps installed outside … Read more

FCC spectrum auction ends with more than $1.5B in proceeds

The Federal Communications Commission's spectrum auction for the so-called H Block concluded Thursday after bids reached the $1.564 billion reserve price that satellite provider Dish Network had promised to pay for the airwaves prior to the auction.

The auction, which began on January 22, closed after 167 rounds of bidding. Proceeds of this auction and the upcoming 600MHz TV spectrum auction scheduled for 2015 will be used to help fund a nationwide public safety network.

"With this successful auction, the Commission makes good on its commitment to unleash more spectrum for consumers and businesses, delivering a significant … Read more

Whistle, the Fitbit for dogs, makes push into mainstream

Surrounded by hundreds of miles of icy water, Tina Haskins still found a way to connect with her dog, Kona, who was thousands of miles away back home in New Jersey.

A marine scientist conducting research on plankton in Antarctica, Haskins used an app to track the activities of Kona, a blue-eyed Australian Shepherd, throughout the day.

In this case, the app syncs with the Whistle device, a small, coin-shaped wireless tracker that attaches to a dog's collar. Whistle tracks Kona's movements as well as her location, and Haskins' friend, Kona's temporary caretaker, posts photos of Kona and updates of his activities on the app. … Read more

Best of Mobile World Congress: Samsung Galaxy S5, Mozilla $25 phone, smart glove and more

BARCELONA, Spain -- It's been a whirlwind week for our team of reporters at Mobile World Congress: we have taken hundreds of briefings, sat through hours of press conferences and bought you all the news, hands-ons, pictures and video that we could muster.

Today our crack team of 25 took some time out from the hustle and bustle of the show to think about the products, concepts and news stories that have impressed us most over the last week.

Here, in no particular order, are the team's highlights.

Wearable tech you might actually wear Samsung was focussing on … Read more

Android widgets on the Nokia X feel out of place

BARCELONA, Spain -- I popped by the Nokia booth earlier today to try out the new Nokia X range of handsets and came away unimpressed.

The first thing I did was to try customising the user interface, and while Nokia has added a Windows Phone-like skin, the UI was decided sub-par in experience.

You can add widgets like Android, but these widgets feel out of place and don't really fit in the theme of the handset (as you can see from the picture I took).

Call me cynical, but Nokia already missed the non-burning Android platform a long while … Read more

Moov fitness tracker actually tells us how to fix ourselves

The complaints with wearable fitness trackers are routinely uniform. If a device is slim and sleek, it tends not to provide very useful data beyond counting steps and telling you when you rolled around in your sleep. If it's powerful, on the other hand, it's typically bulky and designed at the expense of looking like something you'd actually want to wear in public.

The team behind Moov, originating from a partnership between a former Apple engineer and two veterans of sensor research at Microsoft, is trying to change that paradigm. They're offering a device that they … Read more

At MWC 2014, phone makers go after the next billion, biometrics

BARCELONA, Spain -- Mobile World Congress will always have its fair share of high-end, gee-whiz devices and crazy concepts, but apart from the high-end Samsung Galaxy S5, MWC 2014 belongs to the humble low-cost phone.

Emerging markets have been a huge theme in mobile lately, but this year handset-makers really dug in, using press conferences to vocalize their goals at nabbing the next billion users and presenting low-cost phones meant for first-time smartphone owners.

Take the Nokia X family of phones, for instance. Based on Android, but with a look and feel that merges Asha and Windows Phone, this low-memory, … Read more

The chips of Samsung's Galaxy S5 -- Exynos and Snapdragon

BARCELONA, Spain -- Qualcomm and Samsung are back in the newest Galaxy device, the Galaxy S5.

The Korean electronics giant on Monday unveiled its newest flagship phone with a slightly tweaked design and updated specs. The Galaxy S5 has a 5.1-inch display HD screen and a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera with a bunch of bells and whistles that are supposed to improve the experience of taking and viewing images. The device also contains a fingerprint sensor and heart-rate monitor, as well as updated components.

When the Galaxy S5 launches in April, it will hit the market with two different processors … Read more

Sony finally puts full weight behind Xperia phones

BARCELONA, Spain -- You would think Sony's mobile executives would be even a little nervous.

After all, for more than the past year, they have been touting one unique feature for a premium smartphone: the ability to withstand dust particles and be dunked underwater.

So there must have been some cause for concern when Samsung said its flagship Galaxy S5 -- unveiled just hours after Sony's own flagship phone and tablet announcement -- would also be resistant to water and dust, right?

Not really.

"We started the waterproof trend," Ravi Nookala, head of Sony's US … Read more