Mashable: How to take stunning long exposure photos on your iPhone. “As long as you can take Live photos with your iPhone you can turn standard snapshots into artsy long exposure shots. Every iPhone since the 6s has had the ability to take ‘Live’ photos through Apple’s built-in camera. As long as you have the ‘Live’ setting turned on, long exposure stills are only a few taps away.”
Engadget: Corning’s new Gorilla Glass protects smartphone cameras while letting in more light. “Having conquered phone displays, Corning is bringing Gorilla Glass to handset cameras. The company’s DX and DX+ range of damage-resistant glass will next be available for mobile camera lens covers, starting with Samsung devices. Alongside the added protection, Corning claims its tech can improve the optical performance of smartphone cameras.”
The Verge: Here’s how to check your phone for Pegasus spyware using Amnesty’s tool. “Amnesty International — part of the group that helped break the news of journalists and heads of state being targeted by NSO’s government-grade spyware, Pegasus — has released a tool to check if your phone has been affected. Alongside the tool is a great set of instructions, which should help you through the somewhat technical checking process. Using the tool involves backing up your phone to a separate computer and running a check on that backup. Read on if you’ve been side-eyeing your phone since the news broke and are looking for guidance on using Amnesty’s tool.” The process is fairly involved; folks without a lot of tech chops will need some help.
USGS: A Fixed Smartphone Network Offers Inexpensive Earthquake Early Warning Potential. “In late 2019, a research team assembled 82 smartphones, strapped them to walls and floors in buildings across Costa Rica and waited six months. After a careful analysis, they discovered that they had created an effective and inexpensive Earthquake Early Warning system that could provide communities with up to tens of seconds of warning that an earthquake occurred and shaking is imminent.”
Daily Dot: ‘Uncensorable’ Freedom Phone raises a host of security questions. “Though people might understandably be drawn to a phone that prioritizes privacy and free speech, multiple reports have raised security concerns and questioned whether the Freedom Phone is being upfront with customers. The Freedom Phone appears to be a rebranding of the Umidigi A9 Pro, a roughly $120 phone made by Chinese tech company Umidigi, according to a report Thursday from The Daily Beast.”
The Verge: How to change your iPhone’s text size for a specific app. “Sometimes you want the text in your app to be smaller, so you can fit more content on a single screen. Sometimes you want it to be bigger, especially if you’ve been putting off buying those reading glasses. But until recently, if you had an iPhone, you had to pick a single text size as a standard for all your apps. Not anymore.”
Motherboard: Inside the Industry That Unmasks People At Scale. “Tech companies have repeatedly reassured the public that trackers used to follow smartphone users through apps are anonymous or at least pseudonymous, not directly identifying the person using the phone. But what they don’t mention is that an entire overlooked industry exists to purposefully and explicitly shatter that anonymity.”
Lifehacker: The Best Podcast Apps for Your iPhone and iPad (2021). “We’ve been on this beat for a while, and have a pair of definitive recommendations for the best apps to manage podcasts on your iPhone and/or iPad (and maybe even Android or desktop, too), as well as a few backup suggestions for those seeking a more novel podcast listening experience.”
Cornell Lab of Ornithology: What Bird is Singing? Ask the Merlin Bird ID App for an Instant Answer . “Hear a bird singing? Today with the free Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, you can make a quantum leap in bird identification just by holding up your phone. As Merlin listens with you it uses AI technology to identify each species like magic, displaying in real time a list and photos of the birds that are singing or calling.”
Mashable: How to set up Notification Summary in iOS 15. “If you get a million app notifications a day, and have become numb to the important ones, iOS 15’s Notification Summary feature is about to be your new best friend. Notification Summary will let you zero in on what you might call your ‘important-but-overwhelming-due-to-constant-pestering’ apps, and receive a summary report of their notifications for you to review at a time of your own choosing.”
Mashable: AI bot trolls politicians with how much time they’re looking at phones. “Launched Monday, [Dries] Depoorter’s system monitors daily livestreams of government meetings on YouTube to assess how long a representative has been looking at their phone versus the meeting in progress. If the AI detects a distracted person, it will publicly identify the party by posting the clip.”
Make Tech Easier: How to Screen Record on iPhone. “In the past, recording your iPhone’s screen was a nearly impossible task. For a very long time, there wasn’t a built-in option to support screen recording on iOS, while Apple refused to allow such third-party apps to appear in the iOS App Store. However, that all changed a couple of years back in iOS 11, so you probably already have access to this feature. Let’s see how you can screen record on your iPhone.”
ZDNet: This app teaches you how to make your iPhone secure. “First and foremost, iVerify is a security scanner that makes sure you are making use of the basic security features such as Face/Touch ID, Screen Lock, and are running the latest iOS version. It also runs a device scan that looks for security anomalies and gives you a heads up if something seems out of place.” Not free, but the price is only $2.99.
Fair Planet: The Growing Role Of Smartphones And Social Media In Migration. “Researchers posit that mobile technologies are a driving factor for migrants and refugees, especially for those inspired by the experiences of others in their situation. While the number of global smartphone users is said to be over 3 billion, for the more than 68.5 million refugees escaping persecution, war and hunger at home, a phone is not just a means of communication but a mode of survival and hope.”
