Cody Taylor

Mike writes “Kyocera recently unveiled a kinetic energy-powered phone with a flexible OLED display that can be folded up like a wallet. Dubbed the EOS phone, the display unfolds to reveal a wide screen, and shape memory allows the phone’s keys to pop up when in use and blend in with the surface during downtime. Best of all, the phone’s soft, semi-rigid polymer skin is embedded with an array of tiny piezoelectric generators — the more you use the phone, the more it charges!” So far, it’s just a design idea — but a cool one.

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Once again, the folks at DigiTimes have leaked information about a forthcoming Apple product. Citing “Industry sources in Taiwan,”

alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: “Stanford University researchers are designing an operating system from the ground up to handle the power and security requirements of mobile devices. The Cinder operating system is already working on an Arm chip, and members of the team are working on making it run on the HTC G1 handset, according to Philip Levis, a Stanford assistant professor. Levis spoke about Cinder at the Stanford Computer Forum on Tuesday. If an application isn’t running as fast as the user wants, a Cinder-based phone could include a button to boost the energy allocated to that application, Levis said. Cinder also could allow users to download any code and run it safely on their phones in a ‘sandbox’ mode.”

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narramissic writes “A team of researchers at the University of Southampton, UK, has received funding from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to learn whether otoacoustic emissions (OAE), the ear-generated sounds that emanate from within the spiral-shaped cochlea in the inner ear, can be used as a viable biometric technology like fingerprints and IRIS recognition. According to a report in New Scientist, someday instead of asking for passwords or pin numbers, a call center or bank would simply use a device on their telephone to produce a brief series of clicks in the recipient’s ear to confirm the person is who they say they are.” Try faking that with gummy bears.

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President Obama on Monday unveiled a plan that will allow U.S. residents to send cell phones, computers, satellite receivers, and more to friends and family in Cuba, and also allow U.S. telecom companies to do business in the country.

AT&T’s exclusive deal to sell the iPhone in the U.S. expires next year, and AT&T CEO Stephenson is in talks with Apple for an extension until 2011.

Alyssey writes “The Mexican government wants to have a database to track every cellphone number in the country (in Spanish, Google translation) and whom it belongs to. They want to tie in the CURP (Unique Registration Population Code in Spanish, like the Social Security Number in the US) with cellphone numbers. If Mexicans don’t send in their number and CURP via SMS before April 10, 2010, their cellphone number will be blocked. The new law was published back in February and is going into effect now.”

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Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs recently offered a vision of future mobile applications that included enhanced reality where mobile phones can use location data and cameras to identify people and places. While Jacobs did not give a time frame for his vision’s realization, it may be much sooner than he thinks.

Afforess writes “‘Proxy servers are an everyday part of Internet surfing. But using one in a crime could soon lead to more time in the clink,’ reports the Associated Press. The new federal rules would make the use of proxy servers count as ‘sophistication’ in a crime, leading to 25% longer jail sentences. Privacy advocates complain this will disincentivize privacy and anonymity online. ‘[The government is telling people] … if you take normal steps to protect your privacy, we’re going to view you as a more sophisticated criminal,’ writes the Center for Democracy and Technology. Others fear this may lead to ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ as Internet and cell phone providers often use proxies without users’ knowledge to reroute Internet traffic. This may also ultimately harm corporations when employees abuse VPN’s, as they too are counted as a ‘proxy’ in the new legislation. TOR, a common Internet anonymizer, is also targeted in the new legislation. Some analysts believe this legislation is an effort to stop leaked US Government information from reaching outside sources, such as Wikileaks. The legislation (PDF, the proposed amendment is on pages 5-15) will be voted on by the United States Sentencing Commission on April 15, and is set to take effect on November 1st. The EFF has already urged the Commission to reject the amendment.”

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You need to take the time to read the warrant available via PDF. Insanity. Someone’s computer crashes and suspects it’s a CS student’s fault because he does things like “‘jail breaks’ cell phones” and he is sometimes seen with a “[computer with] a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.” Yikes.