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Your smartphone's WiFi hotspot might double as a disaster rescue beacon
When disasters strike, communication services tend to go down; you can't simply call for help or share your location online. However, engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology have found a way to use a smartphone as a rescue beacon when there aren't any available networks. The researchers have written a victim app that inserts an SOS alert into the name of the phone's WiFi hotspot. Emergency crews just have to use a companion app to find you up to 330 feet away. It's a simple trick, to be sure. The big challenge is getting people to use the software in the first place -- the team would like its code built into your phone's interface, but they might have to find a way to distribute their apps in the field. If Fraunhofer's staff succeed in making the tools commonplace, though, you may soon find a ready-made distress signal in your pocket. [Image credit: United Nations Photo, Flickr]
Iridium's satellite hotspot will get you online nearly anywhere on Earth
Globalstar's Sat-Fi won't be the only game in town for satellite hotspots. Iridium has unveiled the Iridium Go, a hotspot that lets up to five WiFi-equipped devices hop on the internet, send texts and make phone calls from just about anywhere on the planet. It's built for outdoor adventurers with both a rugged design and an SOS mode that gets in touch with emergency services. However, software may be the Go's real ace in the hole; while it will ship with official Android and iOS apps, there's already a developer kit that lets third-party software take advantage of the satellite link on any platform. Iridium plans to ship the hotspot in the first half of the year. The firm isn't discussing exact pricing at this point, but it promises that Go will represent its "lowest cost" offering to date at below $800 -- for some people, it will be cheap enough to come along on that big summer hiking trip.
Globalstar's new service turns your WiFi device into a satellite phone
Your choices for satellite communication devices are relatively limited, especially if you'd prefer to use your own gear while chatting in the wilderness. You're going get a much wider selection of hardware once Globalstar's Sat-Fi service goes live, though. The subscription offering revolves around a satellite hotspot (not yet pictured) that lets you make calls and send data on Globalstar's network using most any WiFi-capable device. You can share the connection between multiple gadgets, and you can even use an existing phone number. Just be patient if you're eager to sign up for an always-available data link. The company doesn't expect the FCC to approve the hotspot until some time in the second quarter of the year, and you'll have to wait until shortly afterward to use the service itself.
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MMObility: CES highlights for mobile gaming enthusiasts
Most years, I am unimpressed by CES, the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas. Sure, I watch the feeds and keep an eye on the latest bits of technical glitter that pop out of the event, but generally I find 4K televisions that cost thousands of dollars to be about as exciting as a bag of dead hamsters. I don't care about the next wave of supercomputers, and I certainly have no interest in technically advanced cars that mostly innovate on ways to make people spend money. What excites me about almost any trade show is the stuff you find in the corners of the show room: the smaller booths, the indie developers or the hints of up-and-coming tech that will eventually make our lives easier and more fun. And of course, I'm always excited to see tech that might bring mobile MMOs to the place they deserve to be, a place in our everyday lives. CES is exciting to me because it shows the potential and possibly inexpensive future of tech. Thanks to Engadget, one of our sister sites, I was able to get more than an eyeful of neat mobile tech!
ZTE's Android-powered Projector Hotspot dishes out 1080p video and US-native LTE
We've seen some pretty clever hotspots in our day, but ZTE is determined to trump them all with its new Projector Hotspot. As the name implies, it's both a 1080p DLP projector (with HDMI and WiFi Display support) as well as an 8-device LTE hotspot, giving your mobile devices a big screen and internet access at the same time. However, it's smart enough that you sometimes won't need another device at all. This hotspot runs Android 4.2, folks -- you can hop online through its 4-inch touchscreen and project content from any app or website. ZTE plans to bring the Projector Hotspot to the US sometime in 2014, although it isn't yet saying which carriers (if any) are involved with the launch.
AT&T's Unite Pro LTE hotspot supports up to 15 devices, doubles as a charger
The follow-up to AT&T's Unite LTE hotspot has arrived in time to keep folks connected during their holiday travels. Like its predecessor, the newly launched Unite Pro has a 2.4-inch touchscreen panel where users can change the WiFi network's info, as well as monitor usage and battery life. The Unite Pro, however, ups the ante by connecting to as many as 15 gadgets, while promising up to 16 hours of use in one charge and having the capability to juice up a device jacked into it. What's more, the portable modem even packs LTE-A and dual-band WiFi support. Those upgrades do come at a premium -- while the original Unite cost mere 99 cents with a two-year contract, the Unite Pro will set you back $50 up front when it's available on November 22nd. Feeling particularly jazzed about the hardware? Head past the break for a video overview.
Karma's shareable hotspot service to support Sprint LTE
While Karma had a good idea when it launched its shareable hotspot service last year, it had to rely on Clearwire's WiMAX data -- not what we'd share with others when the technology is on its way out. The company is catching up, however, with a new deal to use Sprint's LTE. The upgrade gives the prepaid provider not just a much faster network, but also expanded coverage that blankets large parts of the US. Just don't expect an immediate transition. Karma says it will be giving hotspot owners "exclusive upgrade options" in the future, which hints that it will take some time (and likely money) before customers can take advantage of the speed boost.
T-Mobile launches trio of budget Android smartphones and an LTE hotspot
T-Mobile USA doesn't do anything by half measures, apparently -- it just launched four devices that address many of its budget- and data-conscious subscribers in one fell swoop. We'll break it down for you. To start, the company is now shipping its promised Alcatel One Touch Evolve, a 4-inch Android smartphone that costs a mere $100 at full price. The handset's 4.5-inch cousin, the Fierce, will arrive on October 23rd for $164. Samsung will offer a rough parallel to these devices through its upcoming Galaxy Light. While there are no launch details for the Light so far, it will be one of T-Mobile's cheaper LTE phones thanks to its 4-inch WVGA screen and 5-megapixel camera. Wireless internet mavens will also want to look at Samsung's LTE Mobile HotSpot Pro, which is available now for $170. We can't guarantee that everyone will like the carrier's expanded lineup, but curious customers will find more details at the source links.
Home is where you roam: AT&T, Fon sign global WiFi agreement
AT&T customers traveling overseas may not have to look too far for WiFi access in the future. Today, the company signed an agreement with global hotspot provider Fon that gives AT&T customers access to Fon's nearly 12 million hotspots on smartphones and other WiFi-enabled devices. Fon's members will gain access to AT&T's nearly 30,000 hotspots in the US in return. Fon's a fascinating business -- the company's members share their home WiFi and in turn get free access at all other Fon hotspots. The company provides special routers to members that prioritize the homeowner's internet traffic, but allow secured access to other Fon members nearby. To access the Fon hotspots, AT&T customers just need to install the free WiFi International App. This app lets AT&T customers with the 300 MB or 800 MB Data Global Add-On package use up to 1 GB of WiFi at no extra charge. Likewise, Fon members using the free Fon app will gain access to AT&T's hotspots located throughout the US.
AT&T and Fon agree to share WiFi networks for holiday hotspot hoppers
It may not be as convenient as, say, Three UK's attempt to abolish data roaming frustrations, but today AT&T has partnered with yet another WiFi hotspot provider to make sharing those vacation pictures with cubicle-bound chums that much easier. International hotspot outfit Fon and Ma Bell have inked a deal that opens their respective WiFi networks up to each other's customers, though jetsetters will need a device compatible with AT&T's WiFi International iOS and Android apps. That's not the only catch, either. Like with AT&T's other hotspot arrangements, patrons of the US carrier will already need a roaming data plan to take advantage of the free 1GB of WiFi per month -- a 300 or 800MB Global Add-on package, in this case. Well, like everyone says: there's no such thing as free international WiFi sharing agreement data.
FreedomPop jumps to LTE, lets you run out of free data faster than ever
FreedomPop's namesake free data hasn't been especially fast given its reliance on WiMAX and EV-DO, but the company is taking a big step forward with just-launched support for Sprint's LTE network. Those who buy the $149 FreedomSpot 5580 LTE hotspot (pictured above) can get truly high speeds without having to pay a cent for regular service. Future devices and LTE-friendly smartphone service are also coming, although there is a big catch. That free tier is still capped at 500MB per month -- take full advantage of LTE and you're more likely to either pay overage fees or switch to one of FreedomPop's paid plans. Even so, the upgraded service may be tempting for those who aren't willing to sacrifice performance at any price.
Goodspeed flat-rate hotspot service now supports China Unicom
Uros' Goodspeed hotspot service offers sanely priced international data, but it hasn't been available in China so far -- that's not much help when visiting friends in Fuzhou. Travelers won't have to fret, however, as Uros just unveiled a network agreement with China Unicom. Goodspeed's €5.90 ($8) daily rate now supplies a modest-but-usable 500MB of 3G data throughout large parts of China. Visitors will also need to pay Goodspeed's usual €9.90 ($13) monthly fee and buy the €269 ($353) hotspot, but they're still looking at big savings over conventional data roaming. Those planning Chinese expeditions will likely want to give the service at least a cursory look through the source link.
Researchers able to predict iOS-generated hotspot passwords in less than a minute
Anyone who's tried to tether to their iPhone or iPad will recall how iOS manages to craft its own passwords when used as a personal hotspot. The aim is to ensure that anyone sharing a data connection will get some degree of security, regardless of whether or not they tinker with the password themselves. However, three researchers from FAU in Germany have now worked the structure behind these auto-generated keys -- a combination of a short English word and a series or random numbers -- and managed to crack that hotspot protection in under a minute. To start, the word list contains about 52,500 entries, and once the testers were able to capture a WiFi connection, they used an AMD Radeon HD 6990 GPU to cycle through all those words with number codes, taking just under 50 minutes to crack with rote entry. Following that, they realized that only a small subset (just 1,842) of the word list was being used. With an even faster GPU -- a cluster of four AMD Radeon HD 7970s -- they got the hotspot password cracking time to 50 seconds. The Friedrich-Alexander University researchers added that unscrupulous types could use comparable processing power through cloud computing. "System-generated passwords should be reasonably long, and should use a reasonably large character set. Consequently, hotspot passwords should be composed of completely random sequences of letters, numbers, and special characters," says the report, which outlines the trade-off between security and usability. However, as ZDNet notes, Apple's cycled password approach still offers more protection than static options found elsewhere. Check out the full paper at the source.
Some other cool (and relatively unmentioned) iOS 7 features
Craig Federighi simply didn't have the time to go through all of the features in iOS 7, so I decided to scrape some of those features from a slide. View PDF annotation -- in iOS, it's been impossible to view annotations that someone has added to a PDF. It appears that feature is finally coming to iOS 7, and that will bring even more PDF power to our apps. Enterprise single sign-on -- Not sure how this is going to be implemented, but providing a way for enterprise users to use one sign on for all of the sites that they need to work with on a daily basis is huge. This resolves the issue of needing to log into multiple apps on an enterprise network. Turn-by-turn walking directions -- Finally, what we have in Google Maps, available for iOS Maps. Do Not Track option in Safari -- I believe this is similar to Chrome's "incognito windows. A feature brought over from the desktop version of Safari that blocks websites, ad companies, analytic services and social networks from tracking you online. A version of it was present in iOS 6 as Private Browsing, but was not officially announced. Improved Mail search -- I currently find searching iOS mail to be frustrating, and when I really need to look up an old email, I resort to OS X. I can only hope that iOS Mail search is improved to that level. Night mode for Maps -- No more glaring screen when using Maps at night. WiFi HotSpot 2.0 -- Not sure what the improvements are going to be, but it's interesting to see that "Personal Hotspot" is getting an update. Hotspot 2.0 is a public access WiFi standard that allows devices to connect automatically to a compatible WiFi service when a user enters a coverage area. It'll let users walk around their city and connect to WiFi hotspots on the fly without any interaction with their phone. FaceTime Audio -- the ability to do FaceTime using only audio -- this could be helpful for doing podcasts. App Store Volume Purchase -- This may be a way for developers or Apple to offer volume purchase rates to schools, perhaps with "promo codes" that work for a large number of users. Scan to acquire Passbook passes -- At a store? Want to get a Passbook pass for a discount coupon? Just scan a code to have it automatically loaded into Passbook. Inclinometer == built-in level. We'll continue Zaprudering the slides as time goes by here today. There's a lot of information to digest!
3DS owners get the gift of free WiFi from O2 in the UK
3DS owners in the UK will have at least one less thing to gripe about starting today: connectivity. Not that the British arm of the gaming giant hasn't been incredibly proactive about lining up WiFi partners, but the deal struck with O2 grants customers free access at yet another 7,000 hotspots. That includes major chains such as McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Costa Coffee, Debenhams, House of Fraser and Toby Carvery, not mention several major venues and arenas. This expansion of Nintendo's gratis network keeps DLC and new games within easy reach at almost all times, since the country's major airports, hotels and a few other fast food chains are already covered. Now Nintendo just needs to strike a deal with a few of the nation's optometrists. All that extra play time is certainly going to strain a few eyes.
Hong Kong's CSL preps network for LTE Cat 4, offers Huawei's 150 Mbps mobile hotspot (video)
With Hong Kong boasting pretty much the fastest average internet speed on this planet, it's no surprise that the city is also one of the first to launch commercial 150 Mbps LTE Cat 4 service -- just right after SingTel's launch in Singapore earlier this month. Announced yesterday by CSL (who operates both one2free and the more premium 1010), its FD-LTE network takes advantage of the recently acquired 5MHz extended spectrum, in order to increase the capacity of 2600MHz from 2 x 15MHz to 2 x 20MHz. This upgrade is what enables Cat 4 download speed of up to 150Mbps on compatible devices, and it went live yesterday. The company's 1800MHz spectrum will also get an upgrade from 2 x 10MHz to 2 x 15MHz in June, followed by another jump to 2 x 20MHz towards the end of the year. You'll find a live demo video (courtesy of RingHK) showing the performance difference between Cat 3 and Cat 4 after the break, with CTO Christian Daigneault claiming he's seen a speed increase of up to twice as fast in the lab.
Yota introduces Ruby LTE hotspot with e-ink display at CTIA 2013 (hands-on)
Remember Yotaphone, the twin-display Android smartphone (color LCD in front, e-ink in back)? Today at CTIA in Las Vagas, Yota devices, the company behind the innovative handset, introduced Ruby, a sleek LTE hotspot with a small e-ink screen. We don't usually get too excited about such devices, but Ruby looks like something out of Jony Ive's workshop, with some interesting features to match. The design recalls the iPod mini but is made of white plastic instead of aluminum. Along the top edge, you'll find the e-ink display and a two-way power switch -- slide it to the left and Ruby behaves like a secure hotspot, slide it to the right and it's a public access point. The e-ink screen shows battery and signal status, the number of connected devices and a smiley icon to confirm public mode. On the bottom edge is a trick flap that's both a micro-USB socket and a USB Type A plug depending on how it's positioned -- the micro-SIM slot is cleverly hidden behind it. A programmable RGB LED mounted behind the Yota logo completes the package on the front of the hotspot. Ruby currently supports quad-band EDGE, plus HSPA+ and LTE for the European market, but the radio can be configured (in hardware) to support other bands. The 2100mAh battery powers the unit for about 16 hours of use (60 hours on standby) and can be charged to 70 percent capacity in about an hour. Yota's signed a few deals with carriers in Russia and Europe and the device is expected to become available to Russian customers in two to three weeks for about $120 (unsubsidized). No word on whether Ruby will land in the US (yet). Take a look at our hands-on gallery below. %Gallery-189072%
FreedomPop announces $40 hotspot with access to Sprint's 3G network
FreedomPop, the famously "free" data-only internet provider, promised an upgrade from WiMAX to Sprint's LTE by the end of 2013, and while the company may have missed that mark, it is now offering access to the carrier's 3G network. A new $40 Overdrive Pro hotspot, available today, will connect to Sprint's 3G in addition to 4G courtesy of Clearwire's WiMAX network. Users will get 500MB of 3G/4G coverage for free each month, and can choose a monthly 2GB plan for $20. FreedomPop says it will release several devices running on Sprint's LTE spectrum later this year, in line with the carrier's build-out. Even the addition of Sprint's 3G is a big step up, though, as FreedomPop's own network doesn't exactly blanket the US. If you already own one of the company's hotspots but want to upgrade to this one, you'll be able to swap yours via customer service. Check out the full press info past the break.
Magazine slips in a free T-Mobile WiFi hotspot, courtesy of Microsoft (video)
Microsoft has tried more than a few publicity stunts to get us using Office 365, including WiFi hotspots in UK park benches. A magazine with a hotspot, however, is fresh -- and might just get us to notice the ads we normally skip. Americans who've received a special issue of Forbes have flipped past the articles to discover a fully functional (if stripped down) T-Mobile router tucked into a cardboard insert. Once activated, it dishes out 15 days of free WiFi for up to five devices at once, at up to three hours per charge. Microsoft is naturally hoping that we'll see the value of always being in the cloud and pony up for an Office 365 subscription, but we're sure that many will just relish having an access point while they're reading on the train home -- it sure beats settling for a Twitter feed. [Thanks, Britton]
AT&T and Boingo unite on free-but-not-really airport WiFi
AT&T has been forging partnerships that give its roaming customers free WiFi while abroad, and it just struck one of the more logical networking deals that we've seen to date, if also the most lopsided. A pact with Boingo will let AT&T subscribers have 1GB of free data each month on Boingo's airport hotspots -- but, as with previous arrangements, only if they're subscribed to AT&T's $60 or $120 international data plans. Boingo subscribers, meanwhile, get a much better deal. They can use AT&T hotspots anywhere in the US as part of their existing rate, which could see them paying as little as $10 per month. Either arrangement will keep us online during a layover, and for that we're thankful -- but there's only one that's likely to have us pulling out our credit cards.
