Smartphone camera apps could soon do more than just capture images. Software integrated with a new line of smartphone chips will be capable of recognizing, say, a cat or city skyline in a photo, and tagging pictures of your friends with their names.
Thought your smartphone’s GPS is the only way for others to track your movements…? Think again. An alarming new study shows that information about the geolocation of Android phones can be retrieved simply by tracking your phone’s energy consumption over time – no GPS needed. Creepy? We thought so.
In other words, even if you turn your cellular data off, it is still possible for someone to track you, or spy on your moves, according to a study by researchers at Israeli defense technology company Rafael and Stanford University. The researchers dubbed this alternative positioning system “PowerSpy” and warned about the dangers of carrying a smartphone.
In a small trial in Rwanda, a $34 smartphone attachment rapidly and accurately detected the presence of HIV and syphilis antibodies in drops of blood taken from pregnant women. The work, described in a paper published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine, demonstrates that laboratory-quality diagnostics can be run on a pocket-sized device that works well in field conditions.
This infographic shows that while it took sixteen years for smartphone usage to reach 1 Billion users, it will only take three years for an additional 1 Billion users to begin using smartphones. The largest group of smartphone users are those people between 25-34 years old.
