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Mobile Phones

Ozcan (in his UCLA lab) started a company, Holomic, to market microscope-outfitted smartphones, which he calls “a telemedicine tool” for improving health care in the developing world.

Inside the Technology That Can Turn Your Smartphone into a Personal Doctor

The fantastic tricorder device that “Bones” used to scan aliens on “Star Trek” is nearly at hand—in your cellphone

Israeli-based research firm StoreDot is looking to revolutionize batteries with a system that uses tiny nanodot crystals to quickly store energy.

Tech Watch

This Battery Could Charge Your Smartphone In 30 Seconds

An Israeli startup has developed a bio-organic material that uses tiny nanodot crystals to quickly store energy.

Steve Perlman hopes his invention, the pCell, will transform how we transmit data from our smartphones.

Tech Watch

Checking The Claim: A Wireless Network That Streams A Thousand Times Faster?

As wireless data networks face more congestion, will entrepreneur Steve Perlman’s latest idea be the ultimate fix?

Tell me phone, how do I feel today?

Cool Finds

Can Your Phone Tell How You’re Feeling by How Your Voice Sounds?

This app is supposed to listen to your voice and tell you how you’re feeling

Play on, my mathematicians!

Cool Finds

Mathematicians Say Candy Crush Really Is Hard

You can feel better about your obsession with Candy Crush. The game isn’t just mindless swiping; it’s an actually difficult math problem.

New Research

Parents Playing With Their Phones Have Less Patience for Their Kids

Kids compete with Candy Crush and texting for a parental attention

Neuroscientist Aaron Seitz argues that training the brain to better adapt to changing eyes is no different than exercising the body to be stronger or faster.

Tech Watch

This New App Promises to Sharpen Your Eyesight

Forget Lasik. A neuroscientist from the University of California Riverside swears that his exercises can improve your vision

Zach Lund, a former Olympian and head driving coach for the U.S. bobsled team, films an athlete training in Lake Placid, N.Y. for the Sochi Olympics using Ubersense, an app that allows for real-time video analysis.

Winter Olympics

How Technology is Changing the Way Athletes Train

Apps like Ubersense and AMPSports bring run-by-run data to skiers, bobsledders and other competitors

Coming in the fall, the oPhone is primed to make the smartphone experience about smell, too.

Tech Watch

With an oPhone, You Can Send Scents to Friends

An inventor has come up with a system for embedding smells into movies, music and text messaging

The Science Is Clear: Don’t Text and Walk

Being distracted by texting makes people walk more slowly and crookedly, and they are more likely to be hit by cars

Drivers Are Doing Something Besides Driving Ten Percent of the Time

Simply talking on a cellphone, however, did not increase the risk of an accident or near accident for drivers - so long as their eyes stayed on the road

Next Year, Your Smartphone Might Actually Charge Itself Using Solar Power

“Invisible” solar cells may soon turn smartphone displays into battery-assisting solar panels

Designer Dave Hakkens bills Phonebloks, his concept for a new smartphone, as “a phone worth keeping.”

Is This the Last Smartphone You’ll Ever Need?

A Dutch designer has come up with a smartphone design that allows every essential function to be easily upgradeable

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Energy Innovation

This Gadget Charges Your Phone With Fire

A new device uses heat from any fire to produce electricity

A screengrab of the Highlight app for the iPhone

Need a Little Social Discovery in Your Life?

The buzz at the SXSW conference this year is about mobile apps that tell you when there are people nearby you really should meet

How much technology is too much?

So Many Gadgets, So Little Time

Innovation happens so fast now that it’s harder and harder to keep up with the pace. But is it really innovation?

The future of your wallet

When a Smartphone Becomes a Wallet

They won’t go mainstream for a few years, but mobile wallets are finally starting to pick up steam in the U.S.

Korogocho resident Phylis Mueni is one of the many Kenyans who benefit from the HabitHuts that can provide up to 1,600 gallons of clean water per day.

Pop-Up Relief in Kenya’s Slums

Solar-powered huts built by a Montana-based construction company provide two big needs: water and cellphone power

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There Was an App for That

Software applications changed the course of history

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