Technology news in brief

4.5 million smartphones lost or stolen

A report released Thursday said 4.5 million smartphones were lost or stolen in the United States last year, up from 2.8 million in 2012.

Thefts were largely responsible for the increase in devices that were permanently separated from their owners, according to Consumer Reports’ annual “State of the Net Survey.” The organization, which tests products, said device thefts nearly doubled from 1.6 million in 2012 to 3.1 million in 2013.

The number of lost devices increased from 1.2 million in 2012 to 1.4 million in 2013. More than 3,100 adults in the U.S. participated in the Consumer Reports survey that was used to calculate the figures.

“Our survey revealed that the number of lost and stolen smartphones is on the rise, and too many smartphone users are needlessly imperiling their personal data by not taking basic security measures,” said Glenn Derene, Consumer Reports’ electronics editor.

Consumer Reports recommends that at the minimum consumers should secure their smartphones by setting up a four-digit lock code.

The survey comes shortly after top phone manufacturers and wireless carriers, including Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and several others, announced their commitment to begin including basic anti-theft tools on all smartphones made after July 2015 and sold in the U.S.

These tools will enable users to remotely lock their devices as well as remotely erase any data on the phones.

Google patents contact-lens camera

Google Inc. has applied for a patent that details a way to fit a camera into a contact lens.

The patent has to do with the tech giant’s smart contact lens project, which was first announced earlier this year. By fitting a camera into a contact lens, users could process a variety of data that could then be relayed to a connected smartphone.

The patent, which was reported by Patent Bolt, outlines a way that Google could fit a camera into a contact lens without drastically increasing its thickness. A camera on a contact lens could be used to collect data from users’ surroundings, including light, colors, objects, faces and motion, according to the report.

That data could be quickly processed and used to provide users with information on a display within the contact lens. For example, a moving vehicle or the face of a nearby user could be highlighted by the smart contact lens - think “Terminator” vision.

The camera also could expand users’ eyesight. Patent Bolt said the camera could give users a wider view or also be used to zoom in, like a pair of binoculars.

For users with no eyesight, the smart contact lens with a camera also could be used. The camera could capture imagery and data that then would be relayed to a connected smartphone.

Google applied for the patent in late 2012, and it was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office earlier this month, according to Patent Bolt.

  • Los Angeles Times

Facebook to help find nearby ‘friends’

Facebook Inc. will let people know when their friends are nearby via smartphone notifications, adding features for its growing base of mobile users.

In its blog post, Facebook said the new feature will be available for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android-based devices in the U.S. “in the coming weeks.”

Consumers can customize the tool, called Nearby Friends, to see a certain group of people for a set period of time, or turn it off completely, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company said Wednesday in a blog post. Friends will need to have the feature turned on in order to be seen.

Nearby Friends is Facebook’s latest move into location-sharing capabilities. The world’s biggest social network has added the ability for its more than 1.2 billion members to check into places like they would on Foursquare Labs Inc.’s mobile application. Facebook also has acquired Glancee, a location-tracking startup, and Gowalla, a location-based social network.

Foursquare, which popularized social-location sharing, isn’t threatened by Facebook’s new service, Chief Executive Officer Dennis Crowley said in a post on his Tumblr blog. He cited a posting April 16 on the Verge technology news blog saying that people have accumulated many acquaintances on Facebook that aren’t their true friends.

Bloomberg News reported on Facebook’s plans to track users on their phones in February 2013.

Business, Pages 20 on 04/21/2014

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