Samsung offers amazing offers and deals on Galaxy Note 10, S10

Get amazing discounts on select Samsung ecosystem products in India.

Continuing with the festive spirit, consumers looking to buy Samsung Galaxy flagships in India, can look forward to some amazing offers on multiple products this month. Samsung is offering discounts up to 32 per cent on a range of Samsung products, with the purchase of Galaxy Note10 and S10 series. These discounts are available on Samsung Wireless Charger, Galaxy Watch Active and Strap Combos, AKG Y500 headset, Galaxy Friends Cover, Clear View Cover and Galaxy Tab S5e.

Most of us today use multiple mobile and smart devices in our everyday lives. While each device has its own strengths, Samsung integrates these capabilities into an intuitive ecosystem. By offering seamless connectivity across devices, the ecosystem helps users accomplish more with greater ease. Whether it’s the Call Message Continuity feature of the Tab S5e which allows users to receive calls and texts even without their phone or the state-of-the-art activity tracker on the Galaxy Watch Active, this offer has been designed to help users navigate seamlessly between work and play. Transform your phone with the all-new Galaxy friend’s covers which allows you to change the theme of your phone to your favourite Marvel characters and with the combo pack of watch straps, you can change your look to match your style.

Galaxy Wireless Charger, priced at Rs 4,999, will be available at a discounted price of Rs 3,950 when purchased with Galaxy Note10 or S10 series. Galaxy Watch Active & Strap Combo, priced at Rs 25,388, can be purchased for just Rs 20,986 when bought with Galaxy Note10 or S10 series. The AKG Y500 headset, priced at Rs 9,999, can be purchased for Rs 8,000, while Galaxy Friends Cover, priced at Rs 3,299, can be bought for just Rs 2,230 when bundled with Galaxy flagship device. Consumers can buy Galaxy Tab S5e (W-Fi), priced at Rs 35,000, for Rs 32,800 with Galaxy Note10 or S10 series. Consumers can buy Clear View Cover, priced at Rs 3,499, for Rs 2,717.

Mobile - Dead battery gets charged in two minutes

Singapore: Imagine a dead smartphone battery getting charged up to 70 percent in flat two minutes?

By using a common ingredient found in sunscreen, researchers from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have developed a smart battery that uses a gel-based material to speed up the charging process.

To do so, researchers replaced graphite in the battery's anode with a gel made from titanium dioxide - a cheap ingredient found in sunscreen.

The substance speeds up the chemical reactions in the battery, the Huffington Post reported.

The battery can be recharged 10,000 times. It can last nearly 20 years before it needs to be replaced.

The new batteries could enter the market within two years, researchers added.

Mobile - iPhone Users Sue AT&T For 'Aiding and Abetting' Smartphone Thieves

On Monday, the FCC, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile announced a stunningly-obvious plan to combat smartphone theft: the creation of a national database to keep track of stolen phones and to deny service on any network to a phone that’s been reported stolen by its original owner. The hope is that thieves will be discouraged from stealing if inappropriately-acquired smartphones are rendered dumb. (Details on how it would work here.)

A class action lawsuit filed in California on Tuesday, though, alleges that AT&T is liable for not doing this within its own network earlier. Hilary White, Jeff Pello and Natalie Warren have all had their iPhones stolen, and they think AT&T didn’t do enough to get them back.

AT&T has “[made] millions of dollars in improper profits, by forcing legitimate customers, such as these Plaintiffs, to buy new cell phones, and buy new cell phone plans, while the criminals who stole the phone are able to simply walk into AT&T stories and ‘re-activate’ the devices, using different, cheap, readily-available ‘SIM’ cards,” states their complaint (PDF via Courthouse News Service) which alleges violations of California consumer and business laws, including conspiracy, fraud, breach of contract, accessory to theft, and unfair trade.

The plaintiffs claim that AT&T has willfully aided and abetted the thieves because the company knows that the deprived owners will simply buy new devices. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this complaint. When I was reporting on software to track and shame electronics-stealing thieves, I spoke with a San Francisco police officer, Marc Hinch, who runs Stolen911, a database for stolen goods. He made the point that many stolen devices, from phones to your Sony Playstation, by virtue of being connected to networks are trackable by the companies that provide them. “There’s no corporate incentive to track them or to ensure they’re returned to their owners, though,” said Hinch. “Because that person is just going to buy a new device, resulting in more sales.”

Plaintiffs White and co. say that AT&T should have used their phones’ unique International Mobile Equipment Identity numbers to thwart the thieves who tried to reuse them. The complaint is short on technological details, likely because the lawyers who filed the complaint, R. Parker White and Steven McHugh, are personal injury lawyers. Which may raise some questions about the legitimacy of this suit, depending on how you feel about personal injury attorneys.

“Plaintiffs have been told by AT&T representatives that they will not, and ‘cannot,’ block and effectively kill usage of such stolen cell phones by thieves and criminal organization, however, such representations are false and fraudulent,” states the complaint. It’s unclear whether that statement is based on the FCC’s announcement Monday.


AT&T doesn’t think much of the lawsuit. “The suit itself is without merit, but criminals stealing smartphones is a serious issue, which is why earlier this week we joined with law enforcement, the FCC and other wireless carriers to announce additional steps to provide a comprehensive industry and government response to the problem of wireless device theft,” says a spokesperson for the company.

Mobile - iPhone Thefts Drop, Microsoft And Google To Introduce Smartphone Kill Switch

Microsoft and Google will introduce “kill switches” to their respective smartphone operating systems, the New York Attorney General announced today.

As part of the Attorney General’s “Secure Our Smartphones” initiative, Eric Schneiderman announced in a report today that an agreement had been reached with the tech giants. The kill switch will render a smartphone useless once it has been activated remotely, making less appealing to thieves.

Apple introduced the kill switch – or “Activation Lock” as it’s known – to iOS 7 in September last year and, according the report, iPhone thefts have radically dropped as a result. “In the first five months of 2014, robberies and grand larcenies involving Apple products dropped 19% and 29%, respectively, compared to the same time period from 2013. The decrease in Apple thefts far surpassed the citywide decrease in all robberies (-10%) and all grand larcenies (-18%).”

Conversely, the report explained how smartphones without a kill switch saw a rise in thefts: “Perhaps most tellingly, robberies and grand larcenies from a person involving a Samsung smartphone, which did not have a kill switch during much of this time, increased by over 40%.

“Statistics from San Francisco and London show similar outcomes. In San Francisco, iPhone robberies declined 38% while robberies of Samsung devices increased by 12%. In London, Apple thefts declined by 24% while Samsung thefts increased by 3%.”


Carriers and trade association CITA, which represents the wireless telecommunications industry, had previously opposed the idea of a kill switch, claiming that “it isn’t the answer”. CITA argued that hackers could use the feature to activate the switch when it isn’t needed and cause mischief for millions of smartphone owners. Its opposition slowed down the possibly of the idea becoming a reality, but it thawed its opinion and came around to the idea earlier this year.

With Android and Microsoft’s now on-board, practically all smartphones will have the feature embedded in them. There’s no information yet on when the update 

Mobile - How Apple Made Your iPhone 6 Much Less Likely To Be Stolen

To you, your new iPhone 6 looks like a gleaming sheet of technological magic — but to a thief, it looks like a shiny, worthless brick.

That’s because every iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus comes with Activation Lock — Apple's AAPL +1.46% “kill switch” — on by default. Every phone, if stolen, can be wiped remotely and “bricked,” which makes it worth almost nothing to thieves, who usually want to re-sell stolen phones quickly for profit.

Apple introduced Activation Lock with the iOS 7 release a year ago, so many current phones already have it. But the feature is opt-in, and too many iPhone users still haven’t turned it on. Even today, thieves still have a good chance of striking gold — except with the newest models.

“The iPhone 6 is going to be a less attractive device for thieves,” said Max Szabo, spokesman for the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, which has been  pushing for universal kill switch for the past year.

When Activation Lock is on, an AppleID and password are required to turn off Find My iPhone, sign out of iCloud, or erase and reactivate a stolen phone.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are the first new smartphones to have the kill switch on by default. Because iPhones are the most commonly stolen smartphone — law enforcement have dubbed iPhone robberies “apple picking” — any reason for thieves to believe their targets are likely to have phones with kill switches should lead to a drop in crime.

Smartphone crime rates have already dropped since Activation Lock debuted. Thieves, wary of robbing someone but ending up with a dud phone, stopped trying as often. In the first five months of 2014, smartphone robberies and thefts dropped significantly in San Francisco, New York City and London, a June study found.


“It’s a simple game of odds on the streets,” Szabo said. “We’ve already seen a change in street behavior.”


In New York City, iPhone thefts and robberies dropped 29 and 19 percent in early 2014, while Samsung phones became attractive new targets. San Francisco and London also saw double-digit percent drops in iPhone thefts after an opt-in kill switch was offered.

Secure Our Smartphones, a coalition between the San Francisco District Attorney and New York Attorney General, has been pushing to stop smartphone crime along several different branches, but Apple’s Activation Lock is the first success. Microsoft MSFT +2.08% and Google GOOGL -2.44% said in June they would add kill switches to phones running their operating systems, and a new California law that goes into effect in July 2015 will require all phones sold in California to have a kill switch.

Carriers have been accused of dragging their feet in adopting broad policies that would make re-selling stolen phones harder. A group of users sued AT&T in 2012 for making “millions of dollars in improper profits” selling new phones and new phone plans to users whose phones had been stolen while thieves could easily re-set and re-sell phones.

Deterrence won’t stop all smartphone crime, Szabo said. But he believes sucking the value out of a stolen smartphone might keep it from being stolen in the first place.


“Am I going to go rob someone at gunpoint to sell their phone as a paperweight?” Szabo said. “Probably not.”

Mobile - Android Lollipop's New 'Kill Switch' Could Discourage Smartphone Theft But It Still Needs Work

Smartphone thieves may now think twice about snatching your Android phone, but they won’t be completely deterred yet.

Google GOOGL -2.44% released Android 5.0 Lollipop Wednesday, and for the first time, it lets users to enable a “kill switch” on their phones. The feature, dubbed “factory reset protection,” requires a Google ID and password before a phone can be reset, and only works when a phone passcode is enabled.

The kill switch is a great step toward making smartphone theft less enticing — when a stolen phone can’t be wiped clean and resold, it becomes a useless brick. But it’s missing one important component: the kill switch is still opt-in.

Kill switches work on two levels: damage control and loss prevention. If your phone’s already been stolen, a kill switch can prevent your data from falling into the wrong hands by letting you remotely wipe your phone — but that’s kind of a last resort. The far better outcome they produce is a deterrent to theft: if enough of the phones are likely to be useless to thieves, they won’t be stolen in the first place.

An opt-in kill switch, like the one Google rolled out Wednesday, is great for damage control (though many of the features were already available to savvy users through Android Device Manager). But opt-in does nothing for deterrence. Not enough users enable the optional feature, so thieves still think they have a good chance of nabbing a vulnerable phone — and yours, even if it’s safe, might be targeted anyway. Google’s kill switch is also weakened because it’s only in effect when the screen is locked, meaning it can be disabled by a thief who snatches a phone from someone who’s using it and knows to keep it from locking.

Apple's AAPL +1.46% been way ahead of the pack when it comes to kill switches. Its version, Activation Lock, was introduced in 2013 as opt-in and was made opt-out for all iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models. Even when Activation Lock was optional, it had a huge effect on iPhone thefts. They plummeted, while Samsung phone thefts shot up. (Samsung has since introduced its own kill switch.)


All this talk of opt-in and opt-out should be moot by July 2015, when California bill SB 962 goes into effect. The law requires that all smartphones sold in California (so, basically, all smartphones, since the companies likely won’t distinguish California phones from the rest) have a kill switch set to default “on.” Apple’s already there, and Google will presumably get there in the next year. Microsoft MSFT +2.08% also has promised to add a kill switch to its Windows phones.

Law enforcement officials also felt Google’s kill switch was a good step forward, but not far enough.

“In order for these theft-deterrents to effectively end the epidemic, they must be enabled by default so violent criminals lack the incentive to steal any smartphone,” said San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in a joint statement. “We will continue to encourage every actor in the smartphone industry – including Google – to take the necessary, additional step of ensuring this technology is opt-out on all devices.”

Mobile - Apple takes the tablets

Apple's subtle changes to its iPad and iMac lines have been made with the intent of world domination, says Matt Warman

It was hardly a month ago that Tim Cook took to the stage to announce the iPhone 6, a device that has already become the fastest-selling iPhone ever. This week the Apple chief executive was back again, announcing upgrades to the world’s most successful tablet, the iPad - it’s become an annual routine that asserts Apple’s dominance of consumer electronics just as users are wondering what to buy for Christmas. Now millions have the answer they were after.

And while the announcements of this week were not on the scale of the iPhone 6 upgrade, they nudged the iPad further into the territory of the fully fledged computer, able to play games and manipulate the videos and photos that more and more users are now taking. Apple is eager to set them, too, in the context of its other devices: from the Watch it will release next year through to the professional-grade iMac, it has every family and business covered better than ever before. As Geoff Blaber, an analyst at CCS Insight, observed, the real opportunity for iPad growth will come from businesses increasingly adopting them in the workplace.

And there was an announcement not mentioned on stage, too, that was an attempt by Apple to leverage its global power: iPads will now be available with a SIM card that can switch networks pre-installed. For now that will simply make international roaming between the UK and America a lot cheaper, but in due course one can envisage firing up an iPad or iPhone and being presented immediately with a host of competing tariffs, allowing users to choose the best for them. Only Apple has the scale to get networks to agree to such an idea.

That scale, too, will be what means Apple will shape the first mainstream generation of smartwatches: it announced the first chances for developers to start producing their own software for its Watch, and although Google has already made strides in this area, Apple’s power with people who write great software will inevitably drive them to the iPhone maker.

With that in mind, new, only slightly upgraded iPads look like the glue holding a new era of technology together.