Tag Archives: smartphones

Deny teenagers any screen, they’ll soon go to sleep: Study

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Sleep in teenagers can be improved by just one week of limiting their evening exposure to light-emitting screens on phones, tablets and computers, said a study whose findings will be presented in Lyon, at the European Society of Endocrinology annual meeting, ECE 2019.

The study indicates that by simply limiting their exposure to blue-light emitting devices in the evening, adolescents can improve their sleep quality and reduce symptoms of fatigue, lack of concentration and bad mood, after just one week.

Recent studies have indicated that exposure to too much evening light, particularly the blue light emitted from screens on smartphones, tablets and computers can affect the brain’s clock and the production of the sleep hormone melatonin, resulting in disrupted sleep time and quality.

The lack of sleep doesn’t just cause immediate symptoms of tiredness and poor concentration but can also increase the risk of more serious long-term health issues such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Other studies have suggested that sleep deprivation related to screen time may affect children and adolescents more than adults, but no studies have fully investigated how real-life exposure is affecting sleep in adolescents at home and whether it can be reversed.

In this collaborative study between the Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience, the Amsterdam UMC and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, researchers investigated the effects of blue light exposure on adolescents at home. Those who had more than 4 hours per day of screen time had on average 30 minutes later sleep onset and wake up times than those who recorded less than 1 hour per day of screen time, as well as more symptoms of sleep loss.

The team conducted a randomised controlled trial to assess the effects of blocking blue light with glasses and no screen time during the evening on the sleep pattern of 25 frequent users. Both blocking blue light with glasses and screen abstinence resulted in sleep onset and wake up times occurring 20 minutes earlier, and a reduction in reported symptoms of sleep loss in participants, after just one week.

Dr Dirk Jan Stenvers from the department of Endocrinology and Metabolism of the Amsterdam UMC says, “Adolescents increasingly spend more time on devices with screens and sleep complaints are frequent in this age group. Here we show very simply that these sleep complaints can be easily reversed by minimising evening screen use or exposure to blue light. Based on our data, it is likely that adolescent sleep complaints and delayed sleep onset are at least partly mediated by blue light from screens”

Dr Stenvers and his colleagues are now interested in whether the relationship between reduced screen time and improved sleep has longer lasting effects, and whether the same effects can be detected in adults.

Dr Stenvers comments, “Sleep disturbances start with minor symptoms of tiredness and poor concentration but in the long-term we know that sleep loss is associated with increased risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. If we can introduce simple measures now to tackle this issue, we can avoid greater health problems in years to come.”

Godless Virus May Have Affected 4 Lakh Android Phones in India: Trend Micro

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The new mobile malware "Godless" has affected nearly 4 lakh devices in India and about a million devices worldwide, said a report from cyber-security firm Trend Micro.

In the report titled "Mobile App Reputation Service", it said the "Godless" malicious software, found in all app stores including Google Play, hides inside an app and operates on the root of the operating system (OS), opening up the admin access to outside devices. "It contains various exploits to ensure it can root a device and it can even install spyware," said the report. It has been designed to exploit the Android devices in endless ways and those devices running on Android 5.1 (Lollipop) or earlier versions are vulnerable.

Once the "Godless" malware finishes its rooting, it cannot be uninstalled easily. "When downloading apps, users should always review the developer. Unknown developers with very little or no background information may be the source of these malicious apps.Users should also have secure mobile security that can mitigate mobile malware," said Nilesh Jain, Country Manager for India, Trend Micro.

According to Strategy Analytics, Google-owned Android dominated the global smartphone market since 2014 with 1 billion units shipped worldwide. It accounts for 81 percent of all smartphones shipped in 2014, followed by Apple with 15 percent market share and Microsoft with 3 percent at third.

“Many users choose Android over other OS-based devices because first, the devices can be relatively cheap; second, it’s known for fast and efficient data storage and third, it’s available across different form factors, brands, and price points," says Paul Oliveria, researcher of Trend Micro. Android is also popular among mobile developers and manufacturers for its capacity to house innovative app development without licensing fees, and sporting a simple and powerful Software Development Kit (SDK).

Here are some tips to keep Android Phones Safe and Secure:

Lock the screen – Enabling a screen unlock code will prevent a device thief from accessing your mobile data.

Protect your data – Android virtually comes with pre-installed security measures that can be easily accessed and enabled from the security submenu. The Android security screen also includes an option to encrypt the device. Enabling this option will help protect sensitive information stored in the device.

Strengthen passwords and app permissions – Google does a fine job at synching their updates with Android devices. However, some manufacturers take a little more time to update. Remember to check the features that you allow the app to access, and don’t forget to use strong and unique passwords. If you re-use your passwords, hackers can effortlessly guess the passwords on your other accounts.

Install a security app – It’s always a good idea to make use of security apps. An app that offers anti-theft features like remote wipe-out, tracking, and locking, as well as malware scanning and detection can help mitigate potential threats. For example, Trend Micro Mobile Security is a security app for Android phone and Android tablet, which blocks malicious apps from Google Play before they are installed; guards against identity theft and viruses; blocks dangerous and fraudulent websites; protects your privacy on Facebook; protects kids online; and even extends battery life and optimizes device performance and memory.

Connect to secure networks – Whenever you go online using a network you don’t know, such as public Wi-Fi, you should be more careful because unsecured Wi-Fi networks can be used to stage man-in-the-middle attacks where data can be intercepted by a third party. Avoid online banking, financials, and purchasing over public networks. If you use Wi-Fi at home, please make sure you use a password to secure your router.

Avoid rooting your device – Before rooting your Android device, consider the pros and cons first. While it allows you more control over your device, it could also allow unsigned apps, including malicious ones, access to your data. This also makes it difficult to patch and update your OS and apps, which could leave your device vulnerable.

Download from official app stores – Downloading from third-party sites or app stores is one of the easiest ways for any mobile device to get infected with malware. Limiting your apps to those from official or trusted app stores (like the Google Play app store) can lower the risks.

World Thinnest Micro Lens Discovered, to Revolutionize Nanotech Applications

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Australian researchers have created the world’s thinnest lens, thousand times thinner than a human hair, which will revolutionize the nanotechnology frontiners into new smartphones, medical devices and miniature cameras.

Led by Yuerui Larry Lu from ANU Research School of Engineering, they discovered the potential of the molybdenum disulphide crystal which fits in the requirement to produce future lenses for visual devices.

“This type of material is the perfect candidate for future flexible displays,” said Dr Lu, leader of Nano-Electro-Mechanical System (NEMS) Laboratory in the ANU Research School of Engineering.

“We will also be able to use arrays of micro lenses to mimic the compound eyes of insects.”

The 6.3-nanometre lens outshines previous ultra-thin flat lenses, made from 50-nanometre thick gold nano-bar arrays, known as a metamaterial.

Molybdenum disulphide survives at high temperatures, is a lubricant, a good semiconductor and can emit photons too with capability of manipulating the flow of light in atomic scale opens an exciting avenue towards unprecedented miniaturisation of optical components and the integration of advanced optical functionalities, he explained.

Yuerui Lu, who received his Ph.D. degree from Cornell University, the school of Electrical and Computer Engineering, in 2012, joined the Australian National University as research fellow and lecturer under the Future Engineering Research Leadership Fellowship.

In October 2015, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer at the ANU. His research interests include MEMS/NEMS sensors and actuators, nano-manufacturing technologies, renewable energy harvesting, biomedical novel devices, nano-materials, nano-electronics, etc.

Molybdenum disulphide, known as chalcogenide glasses with flexible electronic characteristics can eb made from high-technology components. The team has created lens from a crystal 6.3-nanometres thick – 9 atomic layers – which they had peeled off a larger piece of molybdenum disulphide with sticky tape before creating a 10-micron radius lens, using a focussed ion beam to shave off the layers atom by atom, until they had the dome shape of the lens.

The team discovered that single layers of molybdenum disulphide, 0.7 nanometres thick, had remarkable optical properties, appearing to a light beam to be 50 times thicker, at 38 nanometres. This property, known as optical path length, determines the phase of the light and governs interference and diffraction of light as it propagates.

Then Assistant Professor Zongfu Yu at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, developed a simulation and showed that light was bouncing back and forth many times inside the high refractive index crystal layers before passing through. Molybdenum disulphide crystal’s refractive index, the property that quantifies the strength of a material’s effect on light, has a high value of 5.5.

Molybdenum disulphide crystal can be compared to a diamond, whose high refractive index causes its sparkle, is only 2.4, and water’s refractive index is 1.3.

This study is published in the Nature serial journal Light: Science and Applications.