We singled out the best gear, gadgets, apps, and accessories at MWC 2015 and handed out awards for the Top Tech of the show yesterday. But without a fat lady to sing us out, the show goes on and the news keeps on coming. Here are the highlights from day 3 of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
With the Vive, HTC and Valve Software truly took us to other worlds for the first time in our waking life. The difference between the Vive and any other home virtual reality product, including the Microsoft HoloLens, is its startling accuracy. Your head and hands move around the virtual world you’re in with so flawlessly that even a Looney Tunes cartoon setting would feel real. Hell, the low-resolution of the demos (which was sort of like looking through a screen door) didn’t even bother us. It was frightening, astounding, surreal, and we desperately hope to return.
So how do you keep your smartphone’s information secure? If you’re stashing corporate secrets, government data, or just don’t want everyone meddling in your business, then what do you do to keep your content safe?
That’s where Sikur’s GranitePhone comes in. The GranitePhone is a smartphone built from the ground up to ensure the utmost safety and security for the data on its client’s smartphones.
A portable battery that could last forever
The single biggest, consistent complaint about smartphones is battery life. But maybe we’ve been looking for the answer in the wrong places. Wireless charging may never take off; removable batteries are increasingly rare; and external chargers or bulky cases are far from an elegant solution. But what about a fuel cell? “We’ve created the world’s most powerful fuel cell that’s actually portable,” says CEO, Bjorn Westerholm. Read all about it here.
Nokia’s back in the mobile game, but not in the same way it has been in previous years. Instead of giving us a new phone, it has recently launched a tablet called the Nokia N1, and it’s built to showcase Nokia’s own Android launcher.
It’s a very fine piece of hardware, with specs and a design to match (almost literally) the Apple iPad Mini. Made from a single piece of aluminum, and equipped with an 8-inch (zero-air gap, laminated) touchscreen, the Nokia N1 looks fantastic. Read all about it here.
Modular smartphones from wild and crazy guys
Yezz is a smartphone company you may not know, but it made quite an impact just prior to Mobile World Congress by announcing it would display a range of modules designed for use with Google’s Project Ara smartphone. While we secretly dreamed of seeing a working prototype of the exciting device, what we actually got was a glimpse at the world of creativity and collaboration that’s being built around the concept of a make-it-yourself smartphone.
A $50 cube that streams anything, anywhere
The SlimPort Nano-Console enables you to mirror your smartphone or tablet screen on your main TV.
It’s being described as a kind of set-top box and gaming console extension for mobile devices. It’s a strange little device that hooks up to your TV via HDMI and it has an assortment of features. And we think it’s pretty awesome.
Mobile World Congress grows in stature every year, and it’s never been bigger than 2015. Now the biggest mobile-focused show in the world each year, more than 90,000 people poured into Barcelona to see the latest and greatest in gadgets and gizmos.
Digital Trends sent a team of four to cover the madness. We’ve seen hundreds of devices and products already, and sifted through thousands of emails and pitches. Now, we’re skimming the cream of the crop in five categories: Phones and Tablets, Wearables, Cool Tech, Apps, and Accessories. And at the head of the list is our pick for the best product at the entire show.
MWC is still in full swing, and DT will stay on top of the news for you. Stick with us all week for all the show’s news, and follow our writers on Twitter for breaking news, photos, and details as they happen.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.