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Category: mobile phones – Page 4

NASA and the Italian Space Agency made history on March 3 when the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) became the first technology demonstration to acquire and track Earth-based navigation signals on the moon’s surface.

The LuGRE payload’s success in lunar orbit and on the surface indicates that signals from the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) can be received and tracked at the moon. These results mean NASA’s Artemis missions, or other exploration missions, could benefit from these signals to accurately and autonomously determine their position, velocity, and time. This represents a steppingstone to advanced systems and services for the moon and Mars.

“On Earth we can use GNSS signals to navigate in everything from smartphones to airplanes,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) Program. “Now, LuGRE shows us that we can successfully acquire and track GNSS signals at the moon. This is a very exciting discovery for lunar navigation, and we hope to leverage this capability for future missions.”

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A phone screen you can’t scratch no matter how many times you drop it; glasses that prevent glare; a windshield that doesn’t get dusty. These are all possibilities thanks to a new way to produce sapphire.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered techniques to bestow superpowers upon , a material that most of us think of as just a pretty jewel. But sapphire is seen as a critical material across many different areas, from defense to consumer electronics to next-generation windows, because it’s nearly impossible to scratch.

“Sapphire is such a high-value material because of its hardness and many other favorable properties,” said Chih-Hao Chang, associate professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and leader of the new research. “But the same properties that make it attractive also make it difficult to manufacture at small scales.”

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released a free, open-source tool named Rayhunter that is designed to detect cell-site simulators (CSS), also known as IMSI catchers or Stingrays.

Stingray devices mimic legitimate cell towers to trick phones into connecting, allowing them to capture sensitive data, accurately geolocate users, and potentially intercept communications.

With the release of the Rayhunter, EFF seeks to give users the power to detect these instances, allowing them to protect themselves and also help draw a clearer picture of the exact deployment scale of Stingrays.

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Optical atomic clocks have the potential to improve timekeeping and GPS

GPS, or Global Positioning System, is a satellite-based navigation system that provides location and time information anywhere on or near the Earth’s surface. It consists of a network of satellites, ground control stations, and GPS receivers, which are found in a variety of devices such as smartphones, cars, and aircraft. GPS is used for a wide range of applications including navigation, mapping, tracking, and timing, and has an accuracy of about 3 meters (10 feet) in most conditions.

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A smartphone’s glow is often the first and last thing we see as we wake up in the morning and go to sleep at the end of the day. It is increasingly becoming an extension of our body that we struggle to part with. In a recent study in Computers in Human Behavior, scientists observed that staying away from smartphones can even change one’s brain chemistry.

The researchers recruited for a 72-hour smartphone restriction diet where they were asked to limit to essential tasks such as work, , and communication with their family or significant others.

During these three days, the researchers conducted psychological tests and did brain scans using imaging (fMRI) to examine the effects of restricting phone usage. Brain scans showed significant activity shifts in reward and craving regions of the brain, resembling patterns seen in substance or alcohol addiction.

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Researchers developed a theoretical model that predicts a substantial increase in the brightness of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) by leveraging novel quantum states called polaritons. Integrating polaritons into OLEDs effectively requires the discovery of new materials, making practical implementation an exciting challenge.

OLED technology has become a common light source in a variety of high-end display devices, such as smartphones, laptops, TVs or smart watches.

While OLEDs are rapidly reshaping lighting applications with their flexibility and eco-friendliness, they can be quite slow at converting electric current into light, with only a 25% probability in emitting photons efficiently and rapidly. The latter is an important condition for boosting the brightness of OLEDs, which tend to be dimmer than other light technologies.

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Major Chinese tech companies have been ramping up efforts to spur AI business growth.

Alibaba Group plans to invest more than $52 billion on AI and cloud infrastructure over the next three years, in a bid to seize more opportunities in the artificial-intelligence era.

The spending of at least 380 billion yuan, equivalent to $52.41 billion, will surpass the company’s AI and cloud computing investment over the past decade, Alibaba said in a post Monday on its news site. Alibaba first mentioned the plan last week when the company reported its results but didn’t provide a specific figure.

The technology giant co-founded by Jack Ma delivered better-than-expected results for three months ended December, with revenue growth accelerating to its fastest pace since late 2023, supported by improvements in its e-commerce and cloud businesses.

Major Chinese tech companies, from Alibaba to Baidu, have been ramping up efforts to spur AI business growth as advancements by homegrown upstart DeepSeek have gained global attention. Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai earlier this month said its AI technology would be integrated into Apple’s iPhones for the Chinese market, a move that analysts expect to burnish the Hangzhou-based company’s brand image and benefit its long-term growth.

Last month, Alibaba introduced the Qwen2.5 Max, the latest version of its AI model, which it said was competitive with global leaders, including DeepSeek-V3.

Continue reading “Alibaba To Spend More Than Billion In AI, Cloud Over Next Three Years” | >

Optical atomic clocks can increase the precision of time and geographic position a thousandfold in our mobile phones, computers, and GPS systems. However, they are currently too large and complex to be widely used in society.

Now, a research team from Purdue University, U.S., and Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, has developed a technology that, with the help of on-chip microcombs, could make ultra-precise optical atomic clock systems significantly smaller and more accessible—with significant benefits for navigation, autonomous vehicles, and geo-data monitoring.

The research is published in the journal Nature Photonics.

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