Freshen up your Android phone with five hot new apps and games.
The Cambridge SoundWorks OontZ Angle 3 Next Generation Ultra Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 5,000 people on Amazon (
Google and Honeywell have signed a patent cross-license agreement that resolves a long-standing patent dispute over thermostats made by Nest Labs, the home automation startup the Internet giant acquired. The proceedings in the case have been pending in court for about four years, awaiting the results of a reexamination of the patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to court records. The companies said Thursday they believe that the patent accord “promotes product innovation and consumer choice in the market for smart home products.” The financial and other details of the deal between the two companies were not disclosed.
A vulnerability in an Android component shipped with phones that use Qualcomm chips puts users’ text messages and call history at risk of theft. The flaw was found by security researchers from FireEye and was patched by Qualcomm in March. However, because the vulnerability was introduced five years ago, many affected devices are unlikely to ever receive the fix because they’re no longer supported by their manufacturers. The vulnerability, which is tracked as CVE-2016-2060, is located on an Android component called “netd” that Qualcomm modified in order to provide additional tethering capabilities. Malicious applications could exploit the flaw in order to execute commands as the “radio” system user, which has special privileges.
If you can’t say it in 160 characters, do you really need to say it at all?
Most forms of malware hide their infections, but
You buy a big and heavy 15.6-inch laptop so you can get real work done faster—that means a burly quad-core CPU and discrete graphics. Samsung’s Notebook 9 Pro packs those in, then adds an excellent 4K Ultra HD touchscreen and a 10Gbps USB 3.1 Type C port to the mix. At $1,500 MSRP (available at The Notebook 9 Pro has the classic look of a Samsung laptop, with a black, anodized-aluminum chassis and brushed-aluminum accents. At 4.5 pounds, this 15.6-inch notebook feels solid but is a little slippery, too—you’ll need to keep a good grip on it. Our review unit also had an overly stiff hinge that I had to crank on in order to reach its maximum 140-degree viewing angle, which made opening it while walking extra dangerous.
The Artik 10 is priced at US $150, and can be ordered from A shipment date for the Artik 10 board wasn’t immediately available. The Artik 10 has all its components mashed onto a circuit board, much like Raspberry Pi. The board is targeted at enthusiasts looking to make smart gadgets, appliances, robots, drones, sensor devices, and industrial automation equipment.
Apple has stepped up its efforts to target enterprise customers through a new partnership with SAP. The companies will deliver “SAP is the ideal partner to help us truly transform how businesses around the world are run on iPhone and iPad,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. As part of the deal, SAP will develop native iOS apps using Apple’s Swift programming language. An app might enable a field maintenance worker to order parts or schedule service, for example; another might allow a doctor to share the latest patient data with other healthcare workers.
The next time you want to complain about slow Wi-Fi, think about saving your vitriol for wires instead. So-called gigabit Wi-Fi, or 802.11ac, is slowly starting to show up in homes, buildings and public hotspots, but it’s not delivering a gigabit to smartphones, according to OpenSignal used its free connection-monitoring app, running on thousands of smartphones, to learn what kinds of Wi-Fi networks users were on and what kind of speed they were getting.