Today’s topics include Sirin’s new highly secure Solarin smartphone, why 425 million MySpace and Tumblr accounts were put up for sale on a hacker forum, Microsoft’s call to OEMs to create devices that support the Windows Holographic platform and the new study that finds that exposure to cell phone radio frequencies cause cancer in male rats.
Sirin Labs has taken the wraps off its first smartphone, the luxury, high-security Sirin Solarin handset, which starts at $13,800 each. The company—which first announced the handset through a teaser splash page on its Website in April—officially launched the handset May 31.
The announcement touted the smartphone’s military-grade data protection and privacy features, as well as the spare-no-expense quality of its construction and components. According to Sirin, those attributes will make the Solarin smartphone worth $14,000 or more to a buyer.
The handset’s ultra-high-security features come from Zimperium Inc.’s zIPS mobile intrusion prevention system, which is built into the handset.
Since 2013 social networks MySpace and Yahoo-owned Tumblr both were compromised by data breaches that exposed the account records of millions of users. While those records are now several years old, that hasn’t prevented the thieves from offering them for sale on the Web.
MySpace’s owner, Time Inc., revealed May 27 that it has been informed that as many as 360 million MySpace usernames and passwords are available for sale in an online hacker forum.
Tumblr, a social networking microblogging owned by Yahoo, reportedly had about 65 million email addresses and passwords stolen and put up for sale on the same forum.
Windows Holographic, the augmented- or mixed-reality technology that powers Microsoft’s HoloLens headset, is now available to the company’s hardware partners, announced Terry Myerson, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group, on June 1.
“Today, we announced that Windows Holographic is coming to devices of all shapes and sizes from fully immersive virtual reality to fully untethered holographic computing, he wrote. “Today we invited our OEM, ODM and hardware partners to build PCs, displays, accessories and mixed-reality devices with the Windows Holographic platform.”
To date, HoloLens has had the lonely duty of serving as the physical embodiment of Windows Holographic. The device, which is currently available to developers with $3,000 to spare, overlays 3D “holograms” over a user’s physical environment.
“Low incidences” of cancers were found in the brains and hearts of male lab rats that were exposed to typical amounts of cell phone radiation over two years, according to a recently released study that is reopening the discussion about whether cell phone and smartphone use can be hazardous to users’ health.
The study, conducted by researchers at The National Toxicology Program within the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences inside the National Institutes of Health, “found low incidences of tumors in male rats, but not in female rats” after the animals were exposed to cell phone radiation over nine hours daily from when they were born until turning 2 years old, according to a May 27 post by the agency.