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Welcome to Mobi 123, beginner's guide to everything mobile

smartphones

1. Smartphones

Everyone loves the cellular phone + integrated computer combos.

tablets2. Tablets

These devices incorporate touch screens and have huge batteries.

iot3. IoT Devices

Internet of Things gadgets collect and transfer data autonomously.

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Mobi Guides

5g spectrumMaking sense of the 5G spectrums

5G is the next generation of mobile networks, and it's considered a major step ahead in comparison with the existing 4G LTE networks. It was built with the goal of meeting the constantly growing mobile data demands, increasing bandwidth, and thus communication speed. Not only that, but it will also reduce latency, the time it takes a device to respond after receiving a data package over the Internet. According to Data Alliance CEO George Hardesty, current 4G LTE networks provide latencies of 30-50 milliseconds, while 5G promises to cut down latency to 1-5 milliseconds.

Unlike 4G, the new technology will allow many more devices to connect with each other. This means that 5G-based Internet of Things devices have the potential to revolutionize lots of industrial processes and agriculture, for example. Low latency data transfers will make it possible to offer remote medical help, treatment, and so on. And having access to an ultrafast, reliable Internet connection on the go is definitely a huge plus on my list.

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your phone

How to use Windows 10's "Your Phone" app

Do you remember the Windows Mobile operating system, which was released back in 1996? Probably not, because Microsoft discontinued it a few years later. Windows Mobile was supposed to be a lighter version of Windows, which was able to run on mobile devices. It was an ambitious plan, but phone hardware was way too weak to run Windows back then. Sadly, Windows Mobile's successor - Windows Phone - shared a similar fate, and it looks like Microsoft's newest Windows 10 Mobile OS will be discontinued as well.

There is a simple explanation for this: both the Android and iOS operating systems are (and have always been) much more popular amongst mobile device users. So, Microsoft has decided to stop competing with the OS makers, choosing to offer programs and services that add new features and functionality to iOS and Android. And Microsoft's recent Your Phone app is an amazing project that's been perfectly executed; read this article and you will see that for yourself.

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extend battery life

Proven ways to extend phone battery life

Believe it or not, some phone owners used to enjoy a 7-day battery life only a decade ago. It's true that those phones had tiny monochrome displays and couldn't do too many things besides calling and receiving calls from others, though.

Modern phones incorporate tiny, and yet very powerful computers; the gap between desktop PCs and mobile devices that can be used for real work and entertainment is getting smaller by the day. Smartphones use powerful CPUs, have huge displays (do you remember the revolutionary Dell Streak?) and can run all sorts of intensive apps. It's not a surprise that all of these will quickly deplete even the most powerful battery.

So, how can you make sure that your phone's accumulator lasts for as long as possible? If you play games for several hours each day or you spend a lot of time watching videos, there is a single proven way to extend battery life: use an external battery, often called a "power bank".

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clean smartphone

Six steps to keep your smartphone safe

Most of us agree that having an antivirus suite installed on our PCs is mandatory. And yet, very few people install a mobile antivirus on their phones. Here's how you can make sure that cyber criminals won't be able to infect your device.

1. Begin by setting up a strong password for your smartphone. Very few people realize that all their data will be compromised if the phone is lost or gets stolen. Resist the temptation to use a pattern lock; it's really easy to break this "password", and even a 4-digit pin code can be easily brute-forced. So, use a password that's got 10 to 15 characters, utilizing a mixture of lower- and upper-case letters, numbers and symbols. Here's a good online password generator.

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internet of things

What is the Internet of Things (IoT)?

Here's the simplest definition I could come up with: IoT is a huge array of gadgets that are connected to the Internet. Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant, is an IoT device. Your intelligent lightbulb, which can be controlled using a smartphone, is an IoT device. If you've got a HVAC system which utilizes an Internet-connected thermostat, that's an IoT device. And yes, any smart plug is an IoT device as well.

I think you've got it: almost any gadget that is connected to the web and can gather, process and then send data is an Internet of Things device. The key word is "connected"; there are lots of tiny IoT devices that do an impressive work not because they pack powerful processors and have huge amounts of RAM memory and storage space, but because they are connected to Internet servers that have an impressive processing power.

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tablet displays

Popular display technologies used for tablets

I am pretty sure that you have visited a computer shop before. And when you have examined all those great looking tablets, you've noticed that some of them have much brighter and/or more colorful screens. Read this guide and I promise that you will be able to tell the difference between LCD and AMOLED displays in a jiffy.

1. Liquid-Crystal Displays (LCDs) use the light modulating properties of liquid crystals to display information. Basically, crystals change their orientation when electrical current flows through a suspension that contains them, either allowing light to pass through them, or blocking it.

Companies have been building LCD-based displays for their watches for several decades now. Of course, since LCDs don't emit light on their own, a light source must be placed behind one of the two sheets of polarized material.

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Mobi News

harmony os

Huawei unveils the Harmony OS

The Chinese multinational technology company has built its own operating system for mobile devices. Huawei will continue to use Android for its smartphones for now, and Harmony OS will be rolled out gradually to other products. According to Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer business group, developers will only need to write code once, and then they'll be able to deploy it on a great variety of devices.

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expensive phones

$1000 is way too much for a phone

More and more people consider that premium smartphones cost too much, and earnings reports for Apple and Samsung seem to confirm that. Frankly, phone manufacturers have introduced very few game-changing features during the last few years. Sure, it's nice to have a faster CPU and more memory, but these aren't groundbreaking features. It's not a surprise that many of us prefer to keep our old smartphones.

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techoference

Managing parenting technoference

How do your kids feel when they're seeing you staring at the phone for hours in a row? Psychologists say they'll understand that your smartphone is more important than what they're doing. Sadly, parents talk much less with their kids while they're looking at their devices, and this impacts the children's development. Since kids will feel ignored, they will try to do whatever they can to get their parents' attention.

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siliconThe renaissance of silicon

Bandwidth consumption has increased 100-fold during the last decade. To keep up with the much bigger demands, companies have built massive data centers. Still, it looks like Moore's law, which stats that the number of transistors that can be incorporated in a chip doubles every one or two years, has reached its limits. Fortunately, companies are designing specialized CPUs that can take data processing to the next level.

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