Forget FaceTime, why not say hello with a hologram? Imagine making a holo-call on your phone, with a 3D image of the caller appearing to leap out at you from the phone screen. "The basic idea of using hologram technology in a smartphone is that you would be able to project a 3D image into space at a certain short distance away from the device," says Waiman Lam, VP for global marketing at ZTE Mobile Devices, who also told us that holographic phones are on pre-research stage.

Recently, RED, the company better known for their professional cinema cameras announced last year its first mobile phone release the Red Hydrogen, and it’s expected to be launched in summer 2018. The phone won’t be cheap as will cost about $1,595. However, RED promised a phone with supposedly revolutionary tech: a "holographic" display known as 4-View that not only provides a glasses-free 3D image but also lets you look around and behind objects by displaying multiple perspectives on whatever you're watching. This totally shows that Holo-phones will become a reality very soon and the Red Hydrogen may declare market competition to the next iPhone and Android models.

As a 21st century human, you probably have quite an intimate relationship with electronic gadgets including your mobile phone devices that you may probably refuse to sleep without them. Naturally, this brings with it a rather fierce dependency on battery chargers, adapters and power packs, and there seems to be a limited amount of electricity, however the amount of energy around us is more than plenty. Thus, the reason why motion charging has emerging demand among users.

Researchers have made an ultrathin energy harvesting system that can generate small amounts of electricity when it is bent or pressed, even at the very low frequencies that characterize human motion. The device could lead to clothing that uses motion to generate energy that could be used to charge a mobile phone and other devices. “In the future, I expect that we will all become charging depots for our personal devices by pulling energy directly from our motions and the environment,” says Cary Pint, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, who directed the research.

One of the more futuristic applications of this technology might be electrified clothing. It could power clothes impregnated with liquid crystal displays that allow wearers to change colors and patterns with a swipe on their smartphone. In fact, there are many directions that this technology could go but only time will tell.

Cellphones go with us everywhere. Based on the damaged devices you’ve seen, people bring them into the ocean, into their pets’ mouths, into bonfires, under car tires, even in the bathroom. When handling a phone, you should be aware of germs that may be impregnated on the phone itself for you may contract a disease. If you want to keep from getting sick, prevention is key by creating good hygiene habits and cleaning your station at all time. Some of the best tips include first wearing gloves as it works as a barrier between germs and your skin. There are tons of options out there: latex, nitrile, poly, vinyl. Second, wipe down devices by applying rubbing alcohol and cleaning with an appropriate microfiber cloth. Get the germs before they get you! Third, wash your hands the proper way: wet your hands, soap them and scrub, rinse completely and dry them before returning to your station. Finally, improve your nutrition by consuming vitamins and probiotics for it never hurts to advocate a healthy diet and keep all those germs away.
In conclusion, for all Mobile phone repair specialists, be sharp, stay healthy and be prepared to fix phone and tablets without worrying about your health.

Why aren't our phones still powered by the sun? It feels like there is an obvious solution, right above our heads: the sun offers bountiful energy, and the idea of actually utilizing solar power to energize our phones is far from a fantasy. Unfortunately, there have been many attempts in the past starting in 2010, but none of those ideas ever went well on the market including ideas from Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung. In fact, Apple had rejected patents talking about the same topic.
However, there have been recent studies which would benefit a revival in solar energy at phones. The Kyocera phone could set a huge precedent for the future of solar-powered tech. If Sunpartner's transparent photovoltaic material delivers, it is likely to be snapped up by many more smartphone manufacturers than just Alcatel and Kyocera. And there are plenty of similar materials being pioneered in the photovoltaic space. A company called Ubiquitous Energy, part of MIT, has created a kind of tech that acts as an invisible coating, designed to transform any surface into a solar panel. Up until now, solar panels have been dark, based on the science that darker and denser materials tend to absorb more light. Therefore, there is clearly potential for solar-powered smartphones in the future, as the materials become better for assembly and installation. We should not expect this innovation in our phones anytime soon as the implementation would be very slow. Solar-powered phones would be launched first at places without ubiquitous power supplies (and brighter days), and then it would be launched everywhere else. In the meantime, we should be grateful that there are more studies about technologies going green and being environmentally friendly.

So, you are about ready to offload your old phone for a new one. The next step is figuring out what to do with yesterday's hardware. You can always keep it around as a spare just in case or pass it on to a family member or friend. Or, you could angle to get some cash, credit or trade-in value to offset the price of your hot, new handset. If it is cash on the spot you need, your options are limited to direct sales, GameStop and to EcoATM, which has physical kiosks at malls across America.

Let us talk about EcoATM as this brand is specialized on buying phones from you. EcoATM Gazelle offers customers a simple way to trade, buy, and sell services while being conscious to the environment. Their team of workers include highly experienced members and strategist who are not afraid on defying the normal standard of society. Also, they are a company that aims to give a long-lasting impression by giving a good impression on people who pre-owned technology of any kind.

Over the last decade, especially since 2010, mobile phones have changed the way we share information and spend our everyday life. Smartphones have become rather commonplace in recent years, and the smartphone industry is booming as never before, even as prices continue to decline and make smartphones increasingly affordable to the bulk of U.S. consumers. What was considered an industry that would fade away eventually, recent studies proves us the otherwise. In fact, the smartphone industry in all aspects is booming in business, and that also includes mobile phone related repairs.

In 2014 alone, $23.5 billion was spent in the U.S. on replacement of broken smartphones. A good portion of that sum was spent because of cracked screens, but the screen replacement industry is booming as well. More than two-thirds of smartphone repair shop owners entered the market less than two years ago, the majority of them having no previous experience specific to the industry.

Moreover, when phone users buy a new phone, the old ones are usually sold to someone else, and the old models still work after a few repairs of course. Thus, even this statistic indirectly shows the potential strength of the smartphone repair business. In addition, iPhones often retain more than 50 percent of their original value when first re-sold; the quality, durability, name recognition and relative high cost of Apple® products has caused the Apple pre-owned products market to far outpace the competition. Also, Approximately 25% of iPhone mobile device users have cracked their screen at one time or another, and around half of U.S. households own at least one Apple product, and most likely owning the famous iPhone. This has obvious beneficial implications for the smartphone repair business as a whole.

To define, Refurbished phones are basically those mobile phones which are returned to the seller because of some manufacturing and functioning defect, then it is taken back by seller, and so these electronics or items are repaired again under full quality check with best industrial standards and sold again. Basically, refurbished phones look like new phones but at a discounted price. If you want to save some money by going the refurbished route, you need to keep some things in mind. In fact, you will want to do more research than you might if you were buying a new device. Check for a warranty; it is a very important document that proves the phone is still working, if it does not have one there is a bigger chance something will be wrong with it out of the box. Try to buy from the manufacturer because many times the factory will give you all accessories needed including charger and earphones. They will often try to resell them as refurbished phones on their official website. Finally, always read the print. A red flag while buying refurbished phones is a phone marked “as is”. Reading such fine print might reveal that you cannot return the phone or get a refund if anything is not working. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis, more consumers are buying refurbished versions of previous years' models rather than opting for more expensive new models. Premium and expensive models of iPhone or Android are now more likely have 3 to 4 owners in the course of their life. Moreover, nearly 10 percent of smartphones sold worldwide are now refurbished. If accurate, used smartphone sales are the fastest-growing segment of the industry. In conclusion, there are tons of options out there if you want to save yourself some money. And refurbished phones are getting more relevance in the market and giving more options on how users want to own a mobile phone depending on their priorities such as price.

Do you value your smartphone? So, does scammers. As mobile phone sales are reaching to billion over the years, you can expect crime related to these wonderful devices. Suppose that you would like to purchase a used phone and get it purchased a few days later. However, within a month the phone will get blocked and deactivated; upon further investigation, you realize your new phone has been reported lost or stolen. The seller will not respond to your messages. To make matters worse, no one wants to help you. If you experienced this situation before, you must have fallen on a commonly used phone sale scam.

There are several ways the scammer may make profit out of any phones, even the most recent models. Sometimes the scammer will be selling a new phone they legitimately got, but then claim for it on insurance. That way they can sell the phone for cash and double their money when they claim it has been lost or stolen. Another scenario would be when they sell you a handset for a phone they do not even own and make you pay for it is a monthly contract. When the scammer stops paying for the phone or reports it as lost or stolen, the user will always end up with a blocked phone. Thus, it is a nightmare scenario for any phone user that will get a blacklisted phone in the end.

Nevertheless, you can stop phone scams by prevention. In fact, there are websites such as, Check MEND where you pay $1 to find out more about the history of a phone. This site will include information such as whether or not the phone is blacklisted or blocked. There are other websites such as Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) that has the same goals as the Check MEND website. But for all its sophistication, sadly, the Check MEND system is not a cast iron guarantee of safety either. Since these websites still need to work on accuracy, an alternative solution would be to make sure to buy used phones where a refund is guaranteed. Most places offer a 30-day returns policy. Purchases by Pay-Pal allows you up to 45 days to dispute your claim for refund. To summarize, mobile phone sale scams is a major problem for technology sales, and no one wants to be held accountable. However, it is proven that sites such as Check MEND is taking more initiative to offer more solutions to this problem. In the future, mobile phone sale scams will most likely be reduced as more businesses share the same goals as Check MEND.

What all mobile phones have in common is that they can contain lots of information by the user. For the field of forensics, mobile phones became very useful tools for it allows investigators and researchers to extract crucial information to solve all kinds of cases. Just like any law procedure, there are steps that every expert on the field takes in order to make a successful practice at mobile phone forensics.

First, the seizure is where the device is confiscated and labeled as evidence; also, the phone must be on at all times to avoid deleting information and with additional tools we isolate the device from any kind of communication. Second, the acquisition is where you retrieve data from the mobile device; the screen can be unlocked by a PIN, passcode, or pattern which also applies to SMS messages and apps. It is hard to be in control of data on mobile devices because the data is mobile as well. Once communications or files are sent from a smartphone, control is lost. Third and last, examination and analysis is where the device is identified by model, carrier, and type of network. It also uses examination tools such as AccesData and EnCase, which are the most popular forensic tools. Finally, all this information reported, analyzed and extracted is presented to other examiners, to the court, and admitted as official evidence. Finally, there are two kinds of methods that can be used for any case: the non-invasive and the invasive one. The non-invasive methods are used if the phone is fully functional and extracting information can still be done with tools like A USB cable or Bluetooth. The invasive method is used when the phone is severely damaged and is non-functional to a certain extent. The only way to retrieve data in this case is to extract the flash memory chip of the device.