All posts tagged: smartphones

Tech firms urged to block nude images on children’s smartphones | Science, Climate & Tech News

Tech firms urged to block nude images on children’s smartphones | Science, Climate & Tech News

Published by skeptic

Tech firms should act urgently to introduce nudity-blocking technology on children’s smartphones to prevent exposure to “horrific” abuse, MPs have said. A letter to bosses at Apple and Google, signed by more than 100 MPs, warned that nude images are being used to “exploit, groom, and blackmail children”. Online child sexual abuse crimes are being committed “out of sight from moderators or regulation”, the letter said, adding it is “unacceptable that children continue to suffer whilst, as adults, we have the power and the capacity to protect them”. Earlier this month, ministers said major tech platforms would be forced by law to make it impossible for children to take, share or view nude pictures. Previously in June they gave Apple and Google three months to either detect and block such images for children – or face being forced to by law. The letter, organised by Labour MP Alistair Strathern and the NSPCC, comes as the children’s charity estimates 11,400 online child sexual abuse offences – on average 100 every day – will have been recorded …

You Don’t Need to Pay for Distraction-Blocking Software

You Don’t Need to Pay for Distraction-Blocking Software

Published by skeptic

Wish you looked at your phone less? Then you’ve probably heard of Brick, a $59 device that claims to help you block distractions. You tap your phone against the Brick when you want to avoid distractions—the bundled software stops you from opening whichever apps you’ve decided you need to stop doomscrolling. The idea is to add a physical barrier between you and apps like Instagram—if you want to scroll, you need to physically get up, find the Brick, and tap it. It’s a good idea, and implemented in a way that makes it easy to get started. But what if you don’t want to buy a chunk of plastic? Good news: the Brick is basically just an NFC chip, not that different from the one in your credit card or passport. You can buy a blank NFC chip for a dollar. Even better, free applications can use these chips to block distractions, exactly like the Brick. Or, if you prefer, these apps also support QR codes, meaning all you need is a printer. Here are …

Google’s Gemini Can Now Make Calls for You on Pixel Phones

Google’s Gemini Can Now Make Calls for You on Pixel Phones

Published by skeptic

Voice assistants handling phone calls is a little more accepted today than back in the Duplex days. Call screening features abound—whether on a Pixel, Samsung, or iPhone, onboard assistants routinely intercept unknown callers to ask why they’re calling. But these kinds of features—much like hyped-up AI translation features—can often fall short. Calls are unpredictable, and the person on the other end may hang up, assuming it’s just another spam call. What happens if Gemini doesn’t understand a person’s accent all that well? Will it trap the clerk in an endless loop of asking them to repeat themselves? And if the shop doesn’t have the tool you need, does the bot know how to bow out politely—or just cut the line? “That is exactly what we want to continue testing,” the Google spokesperson says. “With this experiment, we look forward to users testing a variety of cases, so that we can continue to improve the feature across accents and noisy environments.” And yes, Google says Gemini will “politely” hang up if the business can’t accommodate your …

Here’s the iFixit Repairability Rating for the iPhone 18 Pro

Here’s the iFixit Repairability Rating for the iPhone 18 Pro

Published by skeptic

iFixit, the company known for completely tearing apart just about every product and device it can, has fully disassembled a brand new iPhone 18 Pro. The goal is to understand how all the parts fit together and find ways to fix anything that might break. In the company’s post and teardown video, iFixit showed off how it took apart the latest iPhone, and what people who may someday need to fix theirs should look out for. It gave the iPhone 18 Pro a repair rating of 7/10, citing easy-to-remove camera and battery assemblies. This matches the rating it gave the iPhone 17 Pro in 2025. That doesn’t mean the iPhone repair process is simple. The Achilles heel of the iPhone 18 Pro may be a new feature: a variable aperture lens in the phone’s main 48-megapixel camera. It is the first variable aperture in an iPhone (though not the first in a smartphone). It uses six rotating aperture blades the width of a human hair to allow for different apertures for photo and video. Courtesy …

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max Review: For Camera Fiends

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max Review: For Camera Fiends

Published by skeptic

Battery life has been stellar on the Pro models over the last few years, and that remains true here. The Pro Max is the more notable of the two because it packs a denser battery. With average use (around 5 hours of screen-on time), I hovered around 50 percent by the end of the day, and easily made it through day two on a single charge. I spent a little less time with the smaller Pro, but so far it has also comfortably gotten me through a day with around 40 percent left by bedtime. Safe to say, most people will very much enjoy the battery life, but the update doesn’t feel drastic. Next, there’s the processor: the A20 Pro chip. I hardly run into problems with Apple’s flagship silicon, and that hasn’t changed. The phones run every app fluidly, and my benchmark tests show a surprisingly sizable leap over the A19 Pro in the 17 series. It runs Control—a AAA game from 2019 ported to iOS earlier this year—decently well. However, aggressive upscaling makes …

Apple Debuts the iPhone Duo, Its First Folding iPhone

Apple Debuts the iPhone Duo, Its First Folding iPhone

Published by skeptic

The iPhone Duo is Apple’s first folding smartphone. The company announced the device at its annual September event at Apple Park in Cupertino, California. The iPhone Duo comes in Star White and Night Sky, and costs $1,999 for 256 GB of storage. While preorders kick off on October 16, the device won’t officially go on sale until October 23. It arrives alongside the pro versions of Apple’s handsets, iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. The Duo has a 5.4-inch screen on the outside, and when you open the Duo up, it reveals a second, 7.6-inch display—remarkably close to the iPad Mini’s screen size. Apple says it kept the aspect ratio consistent across both the front and inner screen for the highest quality when viewing content. The Duo has a titanium frame with a mirror finish, Apple’s Ceramic Shield glass on the back, and Ceramic Shield 2 glass on the front. It even sports an IP68 dust- and water-resistance rating. Apple says the hinge has a “custom variable torque profile” that precisely opens and …

The Fairphone (Gen 6+) Review: Finally in the US

The Fairphone (Gen 6+) Review: Finally in the US

Published by skeptic

The 6.3-inch AMOLED, 120-Hz screen is more than adequate. It’s colorful, sharp, and bright enough to read in sunlight. Fairphone’s adaptive brightness mode can be a little aggressive, so I often manually adjusted the brightness slider, but I don’t have much else to complain about. Battery life from the 4,415-mAh cell isn’t impressive, but it won’t have you running to a wall outlet all the time either. I typically ended most days with around 20 percent by bedtime; that’s with around five to six hours of screen-on time. It’s a shame there’s no wireless charging, but that’s a nice-to-have, not necessarily a deal-breaker. Oddly, the phone doesn’t come with a USB-C cable (the lack of a charging block is standard across phones these days), but the idea is that you probably have one lying around in a drawer. Less e-waste! The dual-camera system, powered by a 50-MP main and a 13-MP ultrawide, is solid. No, Fairphone can’t really compete with the big tech giants like Google, Apple, and Samsung on this front. Low-light scenes suffer …

Here’s Samsung’s Advice for Apple and Its Upcoming Folding iPhone

Here’s Samsung’s Advice for Apple and Its Upcoming Folding iPhone

Published by skeptic

On the eve of Apple’s highly anticipated folding iPhone, Samsung isn’t feeling threatened. Instead, the folding smartphone pioneer says the competition is “absolutely welcome.” That’s according to Hee-Cheul Moon, head of Samsung’s Advanced Mechanical R&D Group, who sat with WIRED on a virtual Zoom call with Seungki Choi, head of Samsung’s Smartphone R&D Group. Before the talk veered toward Apple, the pair spoke about how the company managed to shave 75 grams off the weight of its latest Galaxy Z Fold8 in the 7 years since it debuted the original. Weight is integral to a folding phone’s success. If the device is too chunky and heavy, you’re less likely to want to use it. Over the past two years, folding devices from Honor, Google, and Samsung have rapidly gotten lighter, which each iteration featuring thinner designs. It may be why Samsung saw preorders for its latest folding handsets increase 30 percent globally versus last year’s models, with the Fold8—the device with a new smaller shape that’s easier to hold—accounting for nearly half. “Seeing these other …

How to Watch the Apple September Event (2026)

How to Watch the Apple September Event (2026)

Published by skeptic

Another Apple event is almost here, though this one will likely feel a little different than the September events of lore. It’s the first Apple event since CEO Tim Cook’s departure, and might be the first time the public gets a taste of how the company’s new CEO, John Ternus, can slip into those shoes. The event will be livestreamed on September 9 at 10 am Pacific (1 pm Eastern). You can watch the stream right here on this page, or on Apple’s website and YouTube channel. Apple will also stream the event on its Apple TV devices and Apple TV+ streaming service. Leaks and rumors have left just about everyone expecting news about Pro-level iPhones and a long-awaited Apple foldable device. Since the Covid pandemic, Apple has eschewed live presentations, instead inviting media and employees to the Apple campus to watch prerecorded videos of all its product announcements. WIRED will have reporters on the ground—you can follow along with all the action on our live blog, which will go live the morning of the …

My Brief Summer Fling With Siri AI

My Brief Summer Fling With Siri AI

Published by skeptic

When I first tested the developer beta of Apple’s Siri AI by taking it as my tour guide around San Francisco, I was convinced the overhauled smartphone assistant would be an “everything tool” on the iPhone. The answers felt reliable enough and more helpful than previous versions of Siri. Also, the chatbot-style app for Siri felt very sleek, very Apple-y. Over the next month, I kept experimenting with the Siri AI in the iOS 27 beta. The tool was quite powerful, especially with the personal context brought in by indexing the contents of my phone. Finding an ancient text message or photo has never been easier. Even so, my usage of the smartphone assistant slowly started tapering off. It’s not that Siri AI isn’t better now. It is! This new version is quite the step change, which makes my reaction even more devastating. Siri AI isn’t revolutionizing how I interact with my phone the way I’d initially hoped, especially as an AI assistant built directly into the device and factoring in that Apple gives more …