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Your Jeans May Be Changing The Color Of Your iPhone 6

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Many people are complaining that their new iPhone 6 is slowly changing color as the dye from their jeans is rubbing off on the plastic strips found on the reverse side of the phone. 

An investigation by BGR reveals that "Dyegate" is becoming a problem for iPhone 6 customers. People say their phones are turning blue after weeks of removing and inserting the phone into their jean pockets. 

BGR reports that it's difficult to get the blue stains off the plastic strips. However, we've heard that the blue coloring can be removed by wiping the phone down and that Apple hasn't received any formal complaints about the issue.

The iPhone has seen its share of controversy since it went on sale. First there was "Bendgate," in which people complained that the iPhone 6 would bend if stored in a pocket.

Apple moved quickly to dismiss the claims, playing down the number of people affected, but damning video evidence showed that the phone could indeed be bent if enough pressure were applied in the right place. 

There were also claims the iPhone 6 was ripping out the hair of its customers, after some people complained that the seam between the screen and the case would catch hair.

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Android 4.4.4 Update for HTC One M8 Developer Edition Now Rolling Out, Brings Eye Experience Suite

When HTC’s selfie-centric Desire EYE smartphone was announced, the Taiwanese company also introduced a new suite of camera-focused software features called Eye Experience. Users are now reporting that the HTC One M8 Android 4.4.4 update is rolling out for the Developer Edition model, bringing along the Eye Experience suite.

The new HTC One M8 DE Android 4.4.4 update is being rolled out OTA and it updates your software to version 3.28.1540.5. As I was mentioning above, the new update brings the Eye Experience software suite, besides other small improvements and bug fixes. Eye Experience includes features like Auto Selfie, Face Tracking, Split Capture, Live Makeup, and Face Fusion. As usual, the new firmware is being pushed to users in phases, which means that some of you might not be able to download and install it right away.

You probably know that once your HTC One M8 becomes eligible to receive the new Android 4.4.42 OTA update you should be able to see a system update message in the notifications panel. Tap on it, choose “Download now,” wait until the download is completed, then select “Install now.” Your smartphone should reboot and install  the new firmware. In case the system update notification failed to appear, you would also want to perform a manual check under Settings > About phone > Software updates > Check for software updates.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the new Android 4.4.4 update for HTC One M8 Developer Edition has a size of 235.92 MB. It’s recommended to use a stable WiFi network while downloading it in order to avoid unwanted data charges.

Are there any HTC One M8 Developer Edition owners reading this? Have you guys received the new Android 4.4.4 OTA update on your devices? Please let your fellow M8 owners know in the comments section below.

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Next-gen smartphones could have sensors built into display glass

Gorilla Glass could be getting a lot more useful. Corning International, which makes the material commonly used in mobile device screens, has teamed up with researchers at Polytechnique Montreal to create a new type of glass that incorporates transparent sensors. Soon, the glass in your smartphone screen could be used to take your temperature, among many other possibilities.

The team used lasers to carve photonic waveguides into regular Gorilla Glass, at varying levels within the thickness of the glass. Each one of these acts as a tunnel, which photons can travel through in the same way that electrical currents flow through copper wires.

The researchers have already used the technology to create a temperature sensor, which consists of a curved and a straight waveguide. As the temperature of the glass increases, the glass expands and the length of the two waveguides changes. That change in length in turn affects the way in which light coming out of one waveguide interferes with light coming out of the other. By analyzing that interference, it's possible to accurately gauge the temperature of anything touching the glass.

Additionally, a system has been developed that could be used to verify the user identity of a smartphone – which would come in handy if the phone were being used to conduct a financial transaction, for instance.

In this case, waveguides have holes drilled in them at various locations, those locations being unique to each phone. When someone wanted to authenticate the phone, they could shine infrared light on its screen, and use an infrared detector to analyze the pattern of light escaping from the holes. That pattern would have to match one that was already on file for that phone.

The laser-writing setup used in the research (Photo: Jerome Lapointe)

This certainly isn't the first time that researchers have experimented with photonic waveguides, although it is the first time that they have been created in Gorilla Glass. Additionally, the laser method used this time around is reportedly much cheaper and simpler than the photolithography process that has previously been used, plus it allows the waveguides to be made at various depths throughout the glass instead of just at the surface. This means that multiple sensors could even be stacked one on top of the other, in the same part of the screen.

Along with mobile devices, the technology could also find its way into things like biomedical devices, or even windows or tabletops that would have touchscreen functionality.

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Lenovo K920 With 6-inch QHD Display and Android 4.4 KitKat Launched

Lenovo's new flagship smartphone, the K920, has been revealed at the Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai.

As of now, there is no word on the pricing and availability of the Lenovo K920. The Chinese handset maker has also not revealed plans to launch the Lenovo K920 outside China.

The smartphone currently appears to be a China Mobile exclusive as it includes the logo branding of the operator on the back panel.

A Chinese publication has listed the specifications of the Lenovo K920, which include a 6-inch Quad-HD (2560x1440) display, which will be up against the likes of the LG G3 and Oppo Find 7, which also sport a QHD display.

The Lenovo K920 runs Android 4.4 KitKat out-of-the-box with the company's proprietary UI on top. The smartphone supports dual-SIM functionality.

The Lenovo K920 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.5GHz, and clubbed with 3GB of RAM. Currently, the flagship devices from HTC, LG, Samsung, and Sony are powered by the same chipset.

The new Lenovo smartphone sports a 16-megapixel rear camera and also houses a 5-megapixel front camera. There is 32GB of inbuilt storage on the K920 with no word on expandable storage. It also supports NFC connectivity.

It's worth noting that Lenovo was rumoured to be working on the successor to the Vibe Z, thought to be dubbed Vibe Z2 Pro, according to a recent report.

The Lenovo Vibe Z reached the Indian market earlier this year, and was launched at Rs. 35,999. The smartphone at launch ran Android 4.3 Jelly Bean out-of-the-box. The Chinese handset giantannounced an Android 4

Android devices await Heartbleed fix

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Millions of Android devices remain vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug a week after the flaw was made public.

Google announced last week that handsets and tablets running version 4.1.1 of its mobile operating system were at risk.

The search giant has since created a fix, but it has yet to be pushed out to many of the devices that cannot run higher versions of the OS.

It potentially places owners at risk of having sensitive data stolen.

In addition security firms warn that hundreds of apps available across multiple platforms still need to be fixed.

These include Blackberry's popular BBM instant messaging softwarefor iOS and Android.

The Canadian firm has said that it will not issue a fix until Friday, but said there was only an "extremely small" risk of hackers exploiting the bug to steal its customers' data.

In the meantime the program remains available for download from Apple's App Store and Google Play.

Data theft

News of the vulnerability with recent versions of the OpenSSL cryptographic software library was made public last Monday after researchers from Google and Codenomicon, a Finnish security firm, independently discovered the problem.

OpenSSL is used to digitally scramble data as it passes between a user's device and an online service in order to prevent others eavesdropping on the information.

It is used by many, but not all, sites that show a little padlock and use a web address beginning "https".

The researchers discovered that because of a coding mishap hackers could theoretically access 64 kilobytes of unencrypted data from the working memory of systems using vulnerable versions of OpenSSL.

Although that is a relatively small amount, the attackers can repeat the process to increase their haul.

Futhermore, 64K is enough to steal passwords and server certificate private keys - information that can be used to let malicious services masquerade as genuine ones.

Press reports initially focused on the risk of users visiting vulnerable websites, but attention is now switching to mobile.

At-risk handsets

Google's own statistics suggest that fewer than 10% of Android devices currently run version 4.1.1.

However, since close to one billion people currently use the OS that is still a significant number.

Some of those device owners can protect themselves by upgrading Android to a more recent version.

But several machines are unable to be upgraded higher than 4.1.1.

Customer websites indicate these include Sony's Xperia E and Xperia Jhandsets, HTC's One S, Huawei's Ascend Y300 and Asus's PadFone 2.

"Privacy and security are important to HTC and we are committed to helping safeguard our customers' devices and data," said the Taiwanese firm.

"We're currently working to implement the security patch issued by Google this week to the small number of older devices that are on Android 4.1.1."

Asus said its device was "expecting an update imminently". Sony and Huawei were unable to comment.

Tab grab

Google has now created a fix to address the problem. However, manufacturers still need to adapt it for their devices and this software will need to be tested by the various operators before they release it.

Users can check which edition of Android they are running by going to the "about phone" or "about tablet" option in their Settings app.

Alternatively several free apps have been released that can scan phones and tablets to say if they are vulnerable.

Lookout - a security firm behind one of the products - explained how hackers might take advantage of a vulnerable handset.

"Someone could build a malicious website or advert designed to steal data from your memory," Thomas Labarthe, the firm's European managing director, told the BBC.

"If you happen to be browsing it and have other tabs open in your browser, it could take data from a banking site - for example.

"No-one could steal a whole document - they can only take 64K of data - but that's still enough to steal your credentials."

'Forgotten about'

Another security firm, Trend Micro, has focused on the issue of vulnerable apps.

These can affect any mobile operating system because the problem is caused by the servers that send data to the apps not having been updated to the latest version of OpenSSL.

Trend Micro said it was currently aware of 6,000 such risky apps, including shopping and bank-related services. That is 1,000 fewer than its figure for Friday - suggesting some server operators are addressing the problem.

But it acknowledged that it was hard for members of the public to know which of the hundreds of thousands on offer were safe to use.

"Some of these are services that were set up and then forgotten about," said senior malware researcher David Sancho.

"There's no way from using an app you can know if it's good or bad.

"So, for the moment, the best thing to do is use the ones from the major vendors that we know have been patched... but for the minor ones that have said nothing, be wary."