Month: February 2023

OnePlus has confirmed that its first foldable phone is on the way, and says it’ll be at the ‘pinnacle’ of the foldable market.

OnePlus has had a busy time at MWC 2023, showing off a OnePlus 11 Concept phone, letting us deliver a hands-on OnePlus Pad review, and revealing a OnePlus 45W Liquid Cooler. But the company might have saved the best for last.

In a panel hosted by TechRadar’s Senior Phones Editor Alex Walker-Todd, we learned from Kinder Liu, President and COO of OnePlus, that the company is building its first foldable phone, and plans to launch the device before the end of 2023.

Specifically, this OnePlus foldable is set to land in the second half of the year, so sometime between July and December.

Speaking about the phone, Liu said: “Our first foldable phone will have the signature OnePlus fast and smooth experience. It must be a flagship phone that doesn’t settle because of its folding form, in terms of industrial design, mechanical technology, and other aspects. We want to launch a device that aims to be at the pinnacle experience of today’s foldable market.”

So it sounds like this will be a no-compromise phone, and will probably also therefore be very expensive. That said, most OnePlus phones – including the OnePlus 11 – are slightly cheaper than a lot of their rivals, so there’s some hope that the same might be true of the company’s first foldable.

OnePlus hasn’t revealed anything else about this phone yet, but it has said that more information will be revealed in the coming months. This is a company that tends to drip-feed information ahead of launches though, so we may well learn most of the details before the OnePlus foldable is fully unveiled.

The Oppo Find N2 (Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)

Analysis: it could be similar to the Oppo Find N2

While OnePlus hasn’t said more about its foldable phone, there are some clues as to the form it might take.

For one thing, we’ve heard rumors of a OnePlus foldable for a while, and the more recent ones suggested that it might be based on the Oppo Find N, which was only available in China.

OnePlus is a subsidiary of Oppo, so that’s certainly a possibility; although since we heard these leaks, the Oppo Find N2 launched, so basing the OnePlus foldable on the newer phone seems more likely.

The Oppo Find N2 is also only available in China (though the Oppo Find N2 Flip has launched more widely) so in most of the world it wouldn’t be a competitor to a OnePlus device.

This is just speculation though, so don’t be surprised if the OnePlus foldable is something completely different; but for reference, the Oppo Find N2 has a 7.1-inch 1792 x 1920 foldable display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 5.54-inch 1080 x 2120 cover screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 4,520mAh battery with 67W charging.

It also has a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, up to 16GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage, and a triple-lens camera with a 50MP wide snapper, a 48MP ultrawide, and a 32MP telephoto with 2x optical zoom. That’s an impressive assortment of specs, so if the OnePlus foldable is based on this then it could have a great shot at ranking among the best foldable phones.

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The release brings Google’s email provider and calendar app up to speed with the rest of Google Workspace.

Client-side encryption (CSE), a means of protecting and controlling access to personal or corporate data, has arrived for Gmail.

In a blog post announcing the news, the tech giant notes that, while Google Workspace already encrypts data using secure cryptographic libraries, CSE gives Workspace users and admins “total control” over their cryptographic keys and access to data. 

Simply put, this should mean that no-one can read sent emails or calendar entries but those in an organization and the recipients. 

A Gmail encryption history

As The Verge points out, Google has been trying to bring CSE to Gmail since 2014. 

In those halcyon days, the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s disclosure of the US’ National Security Agency’s (NSA) totally legal and constitutional (*fingers crossed behind back*) surveillance programmes meant that data privacy protections were on the whole world’s mind.

The leading encryption solution back then was Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), an open-source standard that had, at the time, endured for twenty years while being wholly unintuitive to an end user, who wouldn’t, for instance, be able to reset a forgotten password, because even Google wouldn’t keep them on file.

Google made CSE available for other Workspace applications in October 2022, including its Drive cloud storage solution, Docs, Sheets and Slides, as well as its Meet video conferencing software.

CSE finally arriving for Gmail, Google Calendar, and the whole raft of Workspace apps suggests that a middle-ground has been found. Those who work in industries reliant on privacy seem optimistic about it too.

“Client-side encryption gives us the next level of privacy, to ensure integrity within the journalistic process,” said Sacha Morard, Chief Technology Officer of media conglomerate (and Google Workspace customer) Groupe Le Monde.

“This allows us to guarantee a higher level of security for our journalists, and to protect our sensitive content.” 

 Here’s our list of the best endpoint protection services right now

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Since a high in 2020, the number of incidents has declined – but that’s no reason to relax.

Since reaching record highs in 2020, the number of mobile malware installers has been gradually declining, new figures from Kaspersky have claimed. 

The company’s “mobile malware threat landscape in 2022” report claims that although 5.6 million detected mobile malware installations were detected in 2020, this number has fallen to 1.6 million in 2022, a drop of roughly 70%.

In previous years, the most distributed malware type was adware. In 2022, however, this was replaced by RiskTool-type potentially unwanted software, which now takes up 27.39% of all mobile malware installations. Adware is now second with 24.05%.

The Chinese under attack

Consumers in China were the most popular targets, the report notes, saying that out of all the victims attacked with mobile malware last year, 17.70% were Chinese, followed by Syrians (15.61%), Iranians (14.53%), and the Yemeni (14.39%). The only European country to make the top ten list was Switzerland, placed eighth (5.44%). 

Even though the number of detections overall appears to be in freefall, there’s one subset of mobile malware that’s actually gone up recently – mobile banking Trojans. Kaspersky detected a total of 196,476 installs in 2022, a 100% increase year-on-year, and the highest figure in the past six years. 

The biggest variant was Bray (66.4%), whose operators mostly targeted the Japanese. Fakecalls and Bian rounded off the top three with 8.27% and 3.25% respectively.

While in the short-term the numbers have gone up, Kaspersky said that compared to the 2020 highs, the number of detected malware installers actually dropped.

“The cybercriminal activity leveled off in 2022, with attack numbers remaining steady after a decrease in 2021,” the report concluded. 

“That said, cybercriminals are still working on improving both malware functionality and spread vectors. Malware is increasingly spreading through legitimate channels, such as official marketplaces and ads in popular apps. This is true for both scam apps and dangerous mobile banking malware.”

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