California launched an earthquake early warning system combining a smartphone app with wireless emergency alerts, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Thursday. It uses ground motion sensors to detect earthquakes, then sends alerts through the app to provide “seconds of warning,” which is “enough time to drop, cover and hold on to help prevent injury,” the governor’s office said. The app will deliver alerts for earthquakes exceeding magnitude 4.5.
Global Payments’ Netspend digital Mastercard is the technology behind Samsung’s prepaid card, Samsung Pay Cash, it said Tuesday. The general purpose reloadable Mastercard is integrated into Samsung’s digital wallet, Samsung Pay, and will drive the Samsung Pay Cash service. The Netspend card, integrated with Samsung smartphones, allows users to establish a digital prepaid card within their mobile wallet to hold funds for spending and budgeting, it said. The prepaid card uses Mastercard token services, allowing users to store and use the card without having to expose card details, it said. More people are using their smartphones to manage financial tasks, and Pay Cash is like "cash in your wallet,” said Sang Ahn, Samsung vice president-division head, content and services.
The newly revamped Galaxy Fold touts obvious “fixes” of the problems that forced Samsung to scrap the foldable smartphone days before its April 26 debut (see 1904220028), said an updated iFixit teardown "Take Two" report Monday. The right-to-repair company’s original teardown analysis declared the Fold “fragile with a capital ‘F’” (see 1904240027). During the five months in which the Fold disappeared back into the lab, Samsung “closed some gaps, reinforced the folding display, and hid the edges of that screen protection layer that everyone found so catastrophically tempting to peel off,” said iFixit. The Fold “represents a new form factor for smartphones and is undeniably a cool piece of tech,” but questionable flaws remain, it said. “While Samsung added ingress protection in some areas, others -- like the spine -- seem sure to trap (and keep) debris.” Of the meaningful tweaks Samsung made, “we can’t help but wonder why these seemingly obvious durability safeguards weren’t part of the Fold’s design in the first place,” said iFixit. Samsung didn’t comment.
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment Wednesday on Pivotal Commware’s request for a waiver of Section 20.21(f) of rules on required industrial signal booster labeling disclosures. The company seeks an alternate label and placement of the labeling disclosures, the bureau said. Comments are due Sept. 30, replies Oct. 7 in docket 19-272.
A Monday Futuresource report pits Apple’s upcoming 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max iPhones against cameras priced at more than $1,500. With the Pro positioned “almost entirely around its camera capabilities,” blogged the researcher, Apple is targeting "users of professional cameras." Citing respected camera brands Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fuji, Futuresource called mirrorless and DSLR cameras a “segment of the camera market which has remained largely resilient to the growth of smartphones.” The wider camera and camcorder market, meanwhile, had shipments drop from a peak of 165 million units in 2010 to 33 million last year, “a direct result” of smartphones’ growth, it said. The Pro iPhones’ connectivity, software and apps leveraging machine learning algorithms and computer vision “should more than compensate for inferior hardware-based optics, when compared with ‘real’ high-end cameras,” it said.
After Apple’s fall smartphone release Tuesday, ABI Research projected shipments of smartphones with foldable, flexible or rollable displays will begin picking up as early as next year, growing to 228 million units by 2028. New phones' Improved speed and bandwidth aren’t keeping up with annual circulation of updated models, said ABI, and camera image quality “isn't getting much clearer and screen sizes in their current form aren't getting much larger.” Foldable and flexible display screens could be a way to offer larger-screened options “without burdening consumers with bulky, unwieldy devices,” it said. Early attempts at foldable phones, such as the Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate, showed the difficulty of creating a bendable screen without compromising the form factor, it said. ABI predicts once kinks are worked out, demand for foldable phones will “skyrocket.”
CTIA told an aide to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai that work remains before carriers can consistently transmit vertical location data on 911 calls to public safety answering points. "Consider a phased-in approach that reflects the nascent and evolving state of commercially available vertical location technologies that will be demonstrated in the upcoming 9-1-1 Location Accuracy Test Bed LLC’s Stage Za,” it recommended, posted Thursday in docket 07-114. Carriers' June comments supported a 3-meter standard for indoor wireless 911 calls, saying technological challenges need solving (see 1906190011).
As Treasury yields have declined since early August, it's no surprise AT&T and Verizon stock rose, MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett told investors Tuesday. Moffett said the outlook for the wireless sector as a whole remains uncertain. “What, exactly, is the prevailing narrative of the wireless industry at the moment?” Moffett asks: “Two years ago, it was clear. The industry was still in the late stages of a price war, and there was broad consensus that things were, well, ‘bad.’ One year ago, the wireless industry was ‘improving,’ and there was broad consensus that competitive intensity was ‘moderate.’ There is no similarly clear narrative today.”
TCL pushed its NXTVISION display and camera technology at IFA Thursday, bowing the Plex smartphone it’s using as a starting statement piece to solidify its position in the category. TCL has sold Blackberry-based smartphones (see 1904190015), but the 6.5-inch $360 Plex is the first of a range of mobile devices it will release next year, “including 5G products and devices with foldable displays,” said Peter Lee, general manager-global sales and marketing. The Plex, due in Europe this fall, uses standard dynamic range-to-HDR real-time conversion to enhance contrast, color, highlights and shadows in photos, said the company. Its primary 48-megapixel camera uses a Sony sensor with 4K recording function and a separate dedicated video camera with 2-MP 2.9-micrometer low-light sensor for night shooting, it said. It also has a 16-megapixel, 123-degree wide-angle camera and a 24-megapixel front selfie camera.
Altice USA's Altice Mobile service is launching with "the most aggressive" pricing in the wireless industry for single-line plans, Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said in a note Thursday to investors. Altice Mobile will be $20 per line per month for its Suddenlink and Optimum customers and $30 per line per month for non-customers living in its 21-state footprint, the company said. It said the plan comes with unlimited data, text, voice, video streaming and mobile hot spot. Altice is a Sprint mobile virtual network operator and has a national roaming agreement with AT&T. Wells Fargo said the pricing should let Altice gain market share, especially coming just before Q4, which sees higher volumes of wireless phone activations. It said Altice likely will have to raise pricing for its mobile product to be profitable.