LG’s Stylus 2 is the world’s first smartphone that supports DAB+ digital radio reception, the company said in a Monday announcement. DAB+ is the second-generation upgrade to the original digital audio broadcasting standard, but because DAB isn't forward-compatible with DAB+, older DAB receivers can’t receive DAB+ broadcasts. However, LG estimates DAB+ already reaches more than 500 million people in 40 countries, and users will be able to access more radio channels with DAB+ than with traditional FM, the company said. “Unlike regular radio apps that stream large amounts of data, DAB+ radio provides excellent audio quality for free, as it uses no data,” it said. “We are taking a proactive approach towards the fast-paced technological shift to digital broadcasting with DAB+ to deliver a new paradigm of experiences through the smartphone.” The Stylus 2 will be introduced first in Australia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the U.K., LG said.

Attempts to weaken or restrict encryption would have a damaging impact on the overall digital economy, including undermining systems, increasing consumer costs, and diminishing America's global competitiveness, said the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in a report released Monday (see 1603040023). ITIF authors Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn said the U.S. government should promote better cybersecurity practices around the world, "in part by encouraging continued innovation in encryption." They said the government can rebuild trust in the domestic technology sector through strong data security practices in the U.S. Congress should prohibit NSA from "intentionally weakening encryption standards" and improve transparency of the cryptographic standards-setting process, they said. It should also pass legislation to ban efforts to install back doors into products and services and preempt any similar actions by state governments, plus oppose other governments' initiatives to introduce back doors into products and services or weaken encryption, they wrote. Castro and McQuinn said Congress should set "clear rules for how and when law enforcement can hack into private systems, and how and when law enforcement can compel companies to assist in investigations." And it should provide more resources to law enforcement in investigations and analysis of digital evidence, they said.

LG’s G5 smartphone, launched last month at Mobile World Congress (see 1602220037), will hit U.S. stores in early April, LG said Thursday. For a limited time, customers ordering the phone will get a free extra battery and charging cradle, said the company. The G5 will be available from major carriers and retailers including AT&T, Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile stores, B&H, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and Verizon. Pricing will be announced in coming weeks, LG said.

Samsung announced a 12-megapixel smartphone image sensor with Dual Pixel technology adopted from digital SLR cameras. The technology enables rapid auto-focus for fast photo shooting while producing premium image quality on mobile devices, including low-light situations, said Samsung Wednesday. The sensor will enable consumers to capture events instantly on a smartphone “regardless of lighting conditions,” said the company. Each pixel of the Dual Pixel image sensor is capable of detecting phase differences of perceived light for a speedier auto-focus experience, said Samsung. The image sensor uses Samsung’s Isocell technology, which isolates the photodiodes in each pixel with a physical wall to reduce color crosstalk and maximize the sensor’s performance, said the company. Chip-stacking technology stacks a 65-nanometer sensor and a 28-nanometer logic chip together to meet the size requirements of a smartphone, it said.

The FCC reached a settlement with Verizon Wireless resolving an Enforcement Bureau investigation into the carrier’s practice of inserting unique identifier headers (UIDHs), also known as supercookies, into its customers’ mobile Internet traffic without their knowledge or consent. Verizon agreed to notify consumers about its targeted advertising programs, obtain customers’ opt-in consent before sharing the supercookies with third parties and obtain customers’ opt-in or opt-out consent before sharing UIDHs within the Verizon corporate family, the agency said. Verizon Wireless also agreed to pay a fine of $1.35 million. Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said Verizon cooperated with the investigation. “Consumers care about privacy and should have a say in how their personal information is used, especially when it comes to who knows what they’re doing online,” LeBlanc said in a Monday news release. “Privacy and innovation are not incompatible. This agreement shows that companies can offer meaningful transparency and consumer choice while at the same time continuing to innovate.” Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said he had asked the FCC to investigate (see 1502060039 and 1502060039). “This is a win for consumers that will hopefully make companies think twice before engaging in practices that violate consumer privacy,” he said in a statement. “Verizon gives customers choices about how we use their data, and we work hard to provide customers with clear, complete information to help them make decisions about our services," a company spokesman emailed. "Over the past year, we have made several changes to our advertising programs that have provided consumers with even more options. Today’s settlement with the FCC recognizes that. We will continue to give customers the information they need to decide what programs and services are right for them.” The bureau said it launched an investigation of the practice in December 2014. “The investigation sought to determine Verizon Wireless’s compliance with Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 8.3 of the Commission’s rules,” according to the consent decree. The bureau found that Verizon Wireless began inserting UIDH into consumers’ Internet traffic as early as December 2012, but didn't disclose it until October 2014. In March, Verizon updated its privacy policy to include notice of the use of supercookies, the agency said. “The Bureau’s investigation also found that at least one of Verizon Wireless’s advertising partners used UIDH for unauthorized purposes to circumvent consumers’ privacy choices by restoring deleted cookies.” "Recently, carriers and their anti-privacy supporters have claimed that FCC enforcement would hamper ISP ‘innovation,'" Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld said in a news release. "The only ‘innovation’ this consent decree prevents is the ability of Verizon to collect information from customers without their knowledge, and to expose that information to third parties without customer consent. Customers that value Verizon’s targeted advertising can still participate, but Verizon can no longer force them to participate without informed consent.”

IDC sees 2015 as likely the last year of double-digit percentage smartphone global sales growth, the research firm said in a Thursday report. The 2015 calendar year finished with 1.44 billion smartphones shipped worldwide, up 10.4 percent over 2014, IDC said. It sees 2016 shipments rising 5.7 percent to 1.5 billion. “Mature markets” like the U.S., China and Western Europe all had single-digit growth in 2015, while “high-growth markets” such as India, Indonesia, the Middle East and Africa “all remained healthy,” it said. "The mature market slowdown has some grave consequences for Apple, as well as the high-end Android space, as these were the markets that absorbed the majority of the premium handsets that shipped over the past five years."

Global smartphone demand reached 368 million units in 2015's Q4, up 14 percent from Q3 and 6 percent from Q4 a year earlier, GfK said in a Wednesday report. But Q4 sales growth on a monetary basis was flat at $115 billion compared with a year earlier because of average selling price declines of 6 percent, the research firm said. For the full 2015, 1.3 billion smartphone units were sold, an increase of 7 percent from 2014, it said. But ASP declines of 2 percent caused revenue to increase only 5 percent to $399 billion, it said. In China, the world’s largest smartphone market, Q4 unit sales jumped 12 percent to 107 million, but in North America, unit sales declined 1.1 percent to 56 million, it said. GfK sees global smartphone sales again increasing 7 percent this year to 1.4 billion units, led by a 23 percent increase to 227 million in “emerging” Asia Pacific markets, which GfK says include India, Indonesia, Kampuchea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. China will remain the largest global smartphone market this year, with shipments of 397 million units, a rise of 3 percent from 2015, it said. In North America, GfK forecast sales rising 2 percent to 194 million units.

Smartphones pulled ahead of Windows-based laptops, reaching 60 percent of the “malware activity observed in the mobile space” in 2015's second half, said Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Lab Tuesday in a report. It cited an increase in iOS-based malware, the “growing sophistication” of Android malware and the rising threat of mobile ransomware. Ransomware is malware that holds a device hostage by encrypting data and then locking it, which can be reversed only by paying the attacker a ransom fee via a prepaid cash voucher or with bitcoins, it said.

The FCC released information Tuesday on the number of handsets, by air interface, that individual carriers offered last year, as well as data on whether they satisfy hearing aid compatibility (HAC) requirements. The data show wide variations. AT&T, for example, offered 125 different handset models for GSM service and all but six were usable with hearing aids. All of the models offered by Verizon Wireless complied with the HAC rules. Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative, in comparison, offered 48 GSM handsets and 22 weren't HAC compliant. Docomo Pacific offered 98 GSM handsets and 38 were noncompliant. Puerto Rico Telephone had 300 handsets on its rolls and 200 were noncompliant.

Lease-to-own chain Aaron’s, having launched smartphones as a “device-only strategy” in November (see 1511020008), thinks the category “started well,” said President-Strategic Operations Steven Michaels on a Thursday earnings call. Aaron’s still plans to launch with a “national carrier” around mid-year, “and we expect that's when we'll promote more heavily and be more aggressive in the category,” said Michaels, newly named chief financial officer, succeeding Gilbert Danielson, who’s retiring at year-end after 26 years with the company. Aaron’s is “committed” to the smartphone category because “our customers have devices and want to upgrade,” he said. “So, we think it's going to be a good category for us, but we're moving forward with a conservative plan around inventory, device lineup and risk mitigation solutions to make sure that we're successful.”