Browsing: Phone

A phone knows which way is up because a silicon chip smaller than a grain of rice contains tiny cantilever beams that physically bend under gravity, and the circuit measures how far they flex in three axes thousands of times a second

Saving Tips September 7, 2026

Pick up a phone, tilt it, and the screen rotates. The interaction feels like magic in the way most well-engineered…

How did a phone game released in July 2016 briefly double foot traffic to small businesses near landmarks, and why did the effect fade within eight weeks?

Saving Tips September 1, 2026

The game was Pokémon GO, and within a week of its US release the app was on more American Android…

You Insure the Phone, the Car, and the Spring Break Trip. Why Not the $30,000 Tuition Bill?

Passive Income July 28, 2026

Key PointsFamilies routinely insure phones, cars, and vacations, but most leave tuition (often the single largest check they write all…

When you tilt a smartphone, gravity shifts microscopic silicon fingers inside its accelerometer by only a few nanometres, changing the capacitance between them and producing the electrical imbalance the phone reads as a new direction for down

Saving Tips July 27, 2026

Turn a smartphone from portrait to landscape and the display follows within a fraction of a second. The motion feels…

Your phone does not actually know how much battery it has left; a fuel-gauge chip estimates the percentage from current, voltage, temperature, and a model of the cell, with a late correction sometimes turning 15 percent into 3 percent in less than a minute

Saving Tips July 21, 2026

A phone can display 15 percent while its lithium-ion cell is already approaching the voltage at which the device must…

When NASA lost contact with the IMAGE satellite in 2005, an amateur radio operator in Canada named Scott Tilley picked up its signal in January 2018 while hunting for a classified spy satellite, and the spacecraft turned out to be still spinning, still powered, and still trying to phone home after 13 years of silence.

Saving Tips June 9, 2026

On the night of January 20, 2018, an amateur radio operator and electrical engineer named Scott Tilley sat in his…

Masahiro Hara and Denso engineers built the QR code in 1994 to help Toyota suppliers scan car parts from any angle, then kept the patent open until phone cameras and a 2020 pandemic turned the factory square into a daily ritual on restaurant tables

Saving Tips June 8, 2026

Masahiro Hara was trying to make a factory scanner read faster when his team at Denso built the QR code…

Syria’s Sharaa holds phone call with Trump, Syrian presidency says

Personal Finance May 31, 2026

Syria’s Sharaa holds phone call with Trump, Syrian presidency says

People who flip their phone face down on every table aren’t being secretive. They figured out that staying interruptible meant handing their time to whoever rang first

Saving Tips May 26, 2026

There is a small gesture some people make without thinking about it. They sit down, put their phone on the…

Collegiate Mobile Review: Phone Plans For Students

Passive Income April 24, 2026

Quick SummaryMobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) offering affordable plansDirect a portion of your monthly bill to school of your choiceUp…