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Huawei technicians may have helped African governments spy on opponents
An investigation by The Washington Post claims Huawei technicians helped African governments spy on domestic political opponents. According to the report, Huawei employees helped authorities in Uganda intercept encrypted messages and allowed police in Zambia to locate opposition bloggers. Such claims could validate the Trump administration's concerns about the use of Huawei technology in the US, but Huawei told The Washington Post it has "never been engaged in 'hacking' activities."
Arr Jim lad: Nokia's Treasure Tags keep your phone and wallet within 50 paces of each other
Phone, wallet, wooden leg. That's the mental, if not physical, pat down today's urban pirate typically goes through as they leave the house. Nokia's Treasure Tag hopes to remove some of that anxiety. The "tag" part attaches to your "treasure" and connects to your phone over Bluetooth (with NFC pairing). Should your gold and your phone be parted -- say, as you leave one on your desk as you dash out for lunch -- both pieces of hardware alert you with an alarm. The sonic part also helps you find the forgotten item, should you not remember where you left it. There's also a companion app that will locate your lost bounty on a map. The extra forgetful can pair unto four tags with one phone, and disable/enable alerts for each at will, and with battery life claimed to be around six months, you're good for a long while. It comes in Nokia's four favorite/regular hues, and costs $30 a pop. It's not restricted to Windows Phone, either, it seems, as Nokia states there will be support for third-party iOS and Android apps. What if you're prone to forgetting you keys and phone together? Then you probably don't deserve nice things in the first place, swashbuckler.
StickNFind Bluetooth stickers let you tag and locate your goods with a smartphone (hands-on video)
We've all misplaced keys, gadgets and occasionally even children. Well, no more. StickNFind is a nifty, inexpensive solution for tagging and locating electronics, keys and pets. For roughly $25 a pop (estimated retail), you get a small adhesive disk that can be affixed to any flat surface or attached to a keychain. Inside, there's a replaceable CR2016 watch battery that's said to last more than a year, a Bluetooth module and antenna, an LED-lit ring and a piezoelectric speaker. A free Android or iOS app then lets you hone in on any stickers within a roughly 100-foot (line of sight) range. The current version can only display distance, but an update, set to hit before StickNFind ships, will add direction, leading you directly to your target. You can also activate a (fairly faint) beeper, and an LED ring around the perimeter of the sticker, further helping you to find the device, even in a dark room. The app will offer several other features, including a "Virtual Leash" that alerts you when the sticker goes out of range -- a "Reverse Virtual Leash" will make the device (perhaps attached to your keys) beep, letting you know you've left your smartphone behind. The product designers will also be offering an SDK, so developers can even create their own apps for StickNFind. For example, you could write an app that uses the stickers as triggers -- apparently one museum plans to affix the device to art, so as visitors approach, a text notification will pop up describing the piece. Another company is considering using stickers at an upcoming conference, and with Bluetooth transmitters placed around a venue, they can track the precise location of attendee badges (and the individuals wearing them), and even send "pages" by triggering the beeper and light. During our hands-on, StickNFind worked quite well, though as we mentioned, the current alpha version of the app only displays distance, not direction. The device is currently available for "pre-order" on Indiegogo, with an estimated March ship date. You can snag a sneak peek of it in action though, in our hands-on video after the break.
HTCSense.com goes live, only Desire HD and Desire Z supported at launch
Let's say you're a mobile phone maker. Now, what's the first thing you do after raking in $360 million in a quarter? We're guessing that "launching a new backup / remote wipe portal" wasn't the first thing that came to mind, but that's precisely what HTC has done. HTCSense.com was officially introduced alongside the Desire HD and Desire Z in London last month, promising to one day allow registered owners to use the web in order to locate a lost handset, remotely wipe a lost handset and maintain a backup of your contacts, texts, customizations, etc. in the cloud. Looks like "one day" is "today," with the portal finally opening its doors to registrants. Unfortunately, the only two phones supported at the moment are the two it was introduced alongside of (neither of which are publicly available), so it looks like you'll spend most of your time at the source link ingesting what it can offer you in the future. But hey, who said a little schooling was a bad thing? Update: Pocketnow has a walkthrough of the new services (via a ROM hack on the HD2), with a video embedded after the break. We know it's tough to wait, but at least this glimpse will make it a bit easier, yeah? [Thanks, Marcus]
HTCSense.com will backup and remotely locate / wipe HTC devices
HTC's announcing more than hardware this morning, it's also announcing an enhanced HTC Sense experience. At the heart is HTCSense.com, a series of dashboard-connected services for backup, security, and control of your HTC handset. A new locate feature triggers the handset to ring loudly (even when set to silent) while flagging its location on an online map. If the phone was lost or stolen, owners can remote lock and/or wipe the phone. Backups will automatically archive your contacts, text messages, call history, customizations and data. Sense is also adding advanced multimedia capabilities to help ease the way we capture, share, and upload our content. HTC's also added on-the-fly capture effects and filters to manipulate depth of field or for adding distortion and vintage effects. Update: We've got a gallery's worth of interface shots from the new Sense experience! %Gallery-102313%
Apple launches 'Find My iPhone' app to remotely wipe and find your lost treasure
Stay with us here because this one isn't obvious. Apple just launched its Find My iPhone app on the iTunes App Store -- a service previously limited to MobileMe's web interface. The App will find your iPhone or iPad or iPod touch should it be lost or stolen. So obviously, you don't install it on your lost/stolen device, you install it on a different iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, yours or somebody else's (try a Starbucks). Panicked owners can then login with their MobileMe account to map their missing property and then remotely lock the device or wipe the data. The App can only be installed on iOS 3.1.3 or later devices and is available now for free.%Gallery-95615% [Thanks, Brian M.]
Navizon virtual GPS system now iPhone-friendly
It's been some time since we've heard anything from Mexens Technology, but now its virtual GPS system is finally available for the iPhone. Yeah, the program still utilizes "WiFi and cellular tower triangulation techniques," but according to the firm's CEO, "this is just as if the iPhone were equipped with a GPS chip." Of course, we're still doubtful that this peer-to-peer location approach works just as good as a bonafide GPS receiver, but considering that you won't be forced to pay the $24.99 purchase price until after 15 days are up, why not give it a go and find out?[Via Shareloc's Blog]
