A dozen Ford Motor Co. workers are experimenting with wearable social-distancing devices that could be deployed more widely once the carmaker reopens idled manufacturing plants.

The small group of volunteers at a Ford factory in Plymouth, Michigan, are trying out watch-like wearables that vibrate when employees come within six feet of each other, said Kelli Felker, a company spokeswoman. The aim is to keep workers from breaching the distance that health experts recommend to avoid spreading the coronavirus.

The social-distancing device could be part of a broader array of new safety protocols Ford deploys as it resumes production as early as next month after at least a roughly six-week shutdown. The automaker is also expected to subject all workers entering a facility to a thermal-imaging scan to detect a fever. And it will provide staff with masks and, in some cases, plastic face shields, Felker said. The company is devising the measures along with the United Auto Workers union.

“Ford and the UAW are working closely to identify different ways to keep our people safe while they are at work,” Felker said.

The Samsung Electronics Co. smartwatches Ford is piloting use software from closely held technology firm Radiant RFID, according to a spokesman for the Austin, Texas-based company. The devices utilize Bluetooth short-wave and low-power technology to detect proximity and clustering of workers.

In near real-time, workers receive a vibration and a color-coded warning on the watch to let them know when they are closer than six feet to another person. Supervisors also receive alerts and reports that can be used to monitor social distancing and clustering in the workplace, according to Radiant.

Ford has been piloting the new safety procedures at factories where it’s now producing ventilators and respirators to supply hospitals fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Those practices – which include requiring workers to complete a daily online survey on their health and those they’re in contact with – are expected to be rolled out to the company’s traditional auto factories as they reopen.
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The automaker hasn’t set a date for when it plans to resume production.

With the incredible increase in concern about COVID-19, it’s prudent that we think about not just washing our hands frequently but also sanitizing the electronics we handle all day. Think about it. Everything we touch throughout the day comes back to our phones. We might take public transportation, press elevator buttons and open doors all while texting and scrolling (and that's all before our workday even begins). Then, you sit down at your desk and get down to business on equipment that probably hasn't been sanitized in weeks or months, if ever. 

So how can you effectively "wash" the germs off of the things around you? Well, one of the easiest and most effective ways to sanitize and disinfect your phone and other gadgets is with UV light technology.

How Does UV Light Sanitization Work? The UV light spectrum consists of UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C lights. It's the UV-C light that can kill germs, so that's what you want to look for when searching for a sanitizing product. When aimed at dirty surfaces, UV-C light permanently destroys the DNA or RNA of bacteria and viruses, so they no longer pose a threat. 

But Does It Really Work? Because UV-C sanitization works best on smooth surfaces, it is likely to be most effective on phones and cases without a lot of crevices for germs to hide. Some products, however, are designed to hit objects with UV-C light from multiple angles to try and cover as much surface area as possible.

Sure, you could just use antibacterial wipes — if you can find them these days — but UV light sanitizers have the added environmental benefit of producing less waste. So that's another tick in the "pro" column. Plus, they bring great peace of mind to back up your good hygiene habits, especially during cold and flu season – not to mention when we're in a global pandemic.

Two UV-C Sanitizers.Here are two Homedics products – one specifically for smartphones and one that’s a larger pouch design for not only phones, but also keys, glasses, earbuds, and other small items.

HoMedics UV-Clean Phone Sanitizer ($80).With this perfectly portable pop-up sanitizer, you'll just place your phone inside, and two germicidal LEDs get to work on disinfecting your device in only one minute. That gives you the perfect opportunity to wash your hands thoroughly, and your phone will be all good to go by the time you get back. Then, you just collapse the case flat and slide it back into your bag or laptop case for patented UV-C LED sanitization on-the-go.
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HoMedics UV-Clean Portable Sanitizer ($100).Another excellent option for portable protection is this generously-sized pouch. It harnesses the power of four UV-C germicidal LEDs to sanitize and disinfect your phone and other gadgets from every angle. It even includes interchangeable phone and platform clips to ensure that your items sit perfectly inside for optimal germ-killing effect. Aside from blasting bacteria from your phone, you can use it to clean your keys, glasses, remotes, and whatever else you can fit inside.

For better and for worse, our lives have been revolutionized by the internet. But a new high-tech innovation known as 5G is set to transform everything once again.

The internet plays a pivotal role in our lives, thanks to broadband piped through our homes. But 'fifth generation' 5G will take this a giant step forward.

It will enable mobile phones to use wireless broadband that matches the best fiber optic speeds. We will be able to rip out old phone lines and internet cables that clutter the house – and instead use mobile reception for all our needs.

Experts believe 5G will lead to an explosion of new 'smart' gadgets that talk to our mobile phones through more reliable superfast signals – offering everything from fridge cameras that order groceries when the contents are running low, to robot chauffeurs that can take us around in a self-driving car.

The possibilities of this connection of gadgets – known as the ‘Internet of Things' (IoT) – seem almost limitless.

The 5G technology will start by making pin-sharp video phone calls the norm so we can ditch our landlines if we haven't already.

And with broadband download speeds of perhaps 200 Megabits per second (Mbps) – which is more than four times faster than the current average home broadband speed – the technology will also help us economize and be more secure.

Smartphone apps controlled by 5G will monitor our heating and lights – turning gadgets off when not needed – while providing 24-hour security with cameras viewed from our phones.

Get It to Everyone. But all of the good that is forecast for 5G will only happen when 5G is available to everyone.  In the UK, where 5G is moving more quickly than in the U.S., Ernest Doku, a technology expert at comparison website uSwitch, said, “5G has the potential to transform the way we live – but at this stage, it is no silver bullet as we still need to ensure everyone has access to the connection before it can change the world.”

Last year, it started was rolled out in several major cities though connectivity was still small and patchy. And you need an expensive new smartphone such as the Samsung Galaxy S10 to gain access.

So far, Apple devices cannot connect to the 5G network, and the revolution cannot begin in earnest until they do – which may happen when the latest iPhone models come out in September.

Beware New Malware. New 5G technology offers an exciting opportunity to improve our networks – but it also opens a new door for fraudsters.

One of the critical concerns is the threat of so-called ‘stingrays.’ This is where a criminal intercepts your mobile signal with a copycat aerial that tricks it into sharing encrypted identifying data about the phone.

Using this information, the fraudster knows what handset you are using, can track your exact whereabouts, and might even be able to hack into your phone operating system’s software.

Cybersecurity expert Colin Tankard, of Digital Pathways, said, “The public needs to be aware of the dangers of this new technology – and with more gadgets being hooked up to 5G, it increases the risk of problems if you should get hacked.”

Tankard believes those that embrace 5G must ensure they add a layer of security to their smartphones by downloading ‘virtual private network’ (VPN) software on to their handsets via an app and using a subscription service. 

Doku says: “Although it may be exciting to be among the first people to embrace this new technology, prices for 5G phones and access to the 5G network should both fall if you hold on for at least 12 months.”

Also, as a newbie, you may initially be disappointed as national coverage is still poor, and the number of gadgets connecting to 5G is limited.
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But the potential for 5G to transform the way we live and manage our homes is really exciting.

The majority of phones sold today are enabled for 4G connectivity, but if you’re looking to get yourself a new phone with your holiday money, you would be wise to bide your time and get yourself a 5G phone.
Here are five of the best reasons why:

1. 5G networks are better than ever, and keep improving. When launched earlier this year, 5G was limited to a few of the busiest areas of the biggest cities. But now, 5G is present in many more locations than before and will soon spread further.

2. 5G phones will be far more widespread this year. It’s not just the networks that will see significant expansion this year; we also expect to see a far greater number of the devices themselves becoming available. Qualcomm has unveiled its two latest top-of-the-line processors, the Snapdragon 865 and the Snapdragon 765, and both of them have 5G enabled.

The Samsung Galaxy A90 5G is just one of a whole new wave of 5G phones hitting the market. That means there’s no option for a 4G flagship running Qualcomm this year, which is undoubtedly essential news when one considers the ubiquity of the chipsets among Android-sporting brands such as OnePlus, Sony, Motorola, Asus, and more. You’ll have a far greater choice of a 5G phone if you wait for 2020, and depending on your commitment to your favored brand, you might not even have the option to stick to 4G this year.

3. iPhones will almost certainly adopt 5G, so no need to switch to Android. It was mildly surprising that the most prominent tech brand in the world didn’t offer the option of a 5G handset last year, but they will most likely be offering multiple 5G models this coming year. What’s more, a report has indicated that 80 million 5G modems are being readied for the September launch of the iPhone 12, so there’s strong evidence that we may see the whole range enabled for 5G.

4. 5G phones will become more affordable. Also, at the Qualcomm conference, Xiaomi announced that they would release a minimum of 10 new 5G phones throughout 2020, but more crucially, that these new devices would fall in the mid-range and possibly even budget segments of the market.

Most reviewers have been impressed with Xiaomi’s new devices, even though the 5G handsets are costly. So, if Xiaomi brings out models in the mid-range with better pricing and 5G capability, it should be welcome news for the whole market.

Moreover, most industry insiders doubt that Xiaomi will be the only brand to offer mid-range devices.

5. 5G’s excellent performance means it is the future of mobile tech. The most persuasive argument in favor of 5G comes not in the form of words, but numbers. Qualcomm’s latest X55 modem promises top download speeds of 7Gbps, and upload speeds hitting 3Gbps.

The early real-world experience says that performance improvements will be eye-opening. This massive performance improvement to your daily usage would be reason enough to adopt 5G, but it’s the implications for future tech that mean you’ll want to be a part of this new revolution.

If it seems like all your friends have smartphones, you may be on to something. A new report by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that reports on technology and media for children, found that by the age of 11, more than half of kids in the U.S. have their own smartphone. By age 12, more than two-thirds do, and by 14, teens are just as likely as adultsto own a smartphone. Some kids start much younger. Nearly 20% of 8-year-olds have a smartphone!

Now, let’s speak to the kids. So, what’s the right age? The best answer is when both you and your parents feel the time is right.

Here are some points to consider to help you and your parents make this decision.

Responsibility.Have you shown that you are generally responsible? Do you keep track of valuable belongings? Do you understand the value of money, and can you save up to buy things you want? These are all good signs that you may be ready for a phone. If not, it might be wise to wait a bit longer.

Safety.Do you travel to or from school or after-school activities without an adult? This is when phones often go from a “want” to a “need.” Sometimes parents report that they feel better knowing they can reach their children directly and that their kids can reach them, too.

Social Maturity.Do you treat your friends with kindness and respect? Do you understand the permanence of the internet, the fact that once something goes out onto the web, it can never truly be deleted? It is critically important that you have a grasp on these issues before you own a smartphone.

Bullying. We all get angry and say hurtful things we don’t mean sometimes, but when you post something on the internet that you might not mean later, or might wish you could take back. It can have real and lasting harmful effects. In the era of smartphones, there have been considerable increases in cyberbullying.

Be Smart. If you and your parents decide this is an excellent time to take that step, here are some tips for creating a healthy relationship between you and your phone.
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Parents should model good behavior! Your parents are the number one most important influence in your life, and that goes for technology use as much as anything else. If parents are glued to their phones all day, guess what? Their children probably will be, too.
On the flip side, if parents model smartphone habits like putting the phone away during meals and not texting and driving, that will go a long way toward helping kids develop similar healthy behaviors.
You and your parents should talk together about the importance of setting rules and limits around your phone use and screen time. Understanding why rules are made and set in place can help kids stick to a system.

If you’re leaving a phone or tablet in your car for some reason, you probably put it in the glovebox or out of sight under something a fair bit less valuable. That’s just common sense. But in fact, your gadget’s Bluetooth may be making them way more visible than they ever could be with the naked eye.

As Outside Magazine notes, enterprising thieves have been using Bluetooth scanner apps – particularly in otherwise deserted areas like trailheads – to quickly scan their surroundings for high-value targets. To avoid this fate, simply put your device into Airplane mode (Android, iOS), turn it all the way off or, of course, avoid having to leave it in the car in the first place.

Better yet, you can test your own preventative measures by downloading a readily available Bluetooth scanner app yourself to see if your devices are visible by this method even after you have attempted to disable them. Certain devices like wireless headphones and fitness trackers can be pretty insistent on sending out Bluetooth signals for pairing purposes, so it is worth double-checking you actually know how to disable them fully.
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Or, for a dead-simple approach that will cost you a few bucks, pick up a signal-blocking “Faraday bag” to keep in your car, so you can be sure the gadgets inside it can’t signal the outside world no matter how hard they try.

Want to put Microsoft’s Office software on an iOS or Android device? Soon you won't have to download individual versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to use them. 

In an announcement from its Ignite conference in Orlando, Microsoft revealed that it's beginning to publicly test a new version of the Office app that will combine the three popular apps into one primary, centralized Office app. 

Reviewers have been quite impressed with how much you can do with your phone camera from this app. It’s quite easy to turn one or many pictures into a PDF or a Word document. When scanning a table from a user manual to turn it into an Excel spreadsheet, the text recognition was spot on.

The Lens mode also has special sub-modes for whiteboard and document scanning. So, if you attend a lot of lectures or meetings, this app could make it easier to grab notes without much effort.

Plus, the app also lets you take notes, kind of like you would in Google Keep. You can jot down text, create lists, and attach images. So, even if you’re not immersed in the Microsoft Office world, the app can help you in many situations where you need to send or sign a document quickly.
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In the new app – which is available now as a public preview on Android or as a beta through Apple's iOS Test Flight program– you'll be able to create new documents, presentations or spreadsheets as well as edit and view existing documents. You'll also be able to "snap a picture of a document" and make it into an editable Word file, create and sign PDFs or "transform tables from a printed page into an Excel spreadsheet."
Microsoft's individual apps have been popular on mobile. All three rank in the top 25 productivity apps on iOS' Top Charts for the category, while each app has been downloaded over 1 billion times on Android. 

If you're sick of hearing about dark mode on smartphone apps, I hear you. Now that both Android and iOS have the option to turn your interface darker, not a day goes by without this or that app adding support for dark mode. 

But beyond aesthetics, there's a real-world reason to turn on dark mode: increased battery life. According to a recent test, conducted by PhoneBuff, switching to dark mode can extend your iPhone's battery life by 30%. 

In the test, identical tasks were performed on an iPhone XS Max in Twitter, YouTube, Message, and other apps, first with the phone running light mode, and then with dark mode on.  

The result is quite spectacular. When the battery on the iPhone running light mode died, the other iPhone still had 30% battery life, which should give you several extra hours of service.  

Things aren't that simple, though. The test phones were set to 200 nits of brightness; you might see different results with other settings. Furthermore, during the test a single app was used for several hours at a time, which is (hopefully) not how most users use their phones.
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And there's a one big caveat: Only smartphones with OLED screens will see the battery life improvement. That’s because on OLED screens, black pixels are turned off instead of being backlit. So, users who are running an iPhone X, XS, XS Max, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max will get the benefit. However, those with an iPhone XR and iPhone 11 won't get the benefits.

Whether you love paper and pen or prefer to live paper-free, you still probably need to take notes, read PDFs, or maybe even illustrate an idea with a sketch. Smart notebooks help bring ideas typically captured on paper into a digital format. Some smart notebooks also involve real paper.

Smart notebooks don’t really conform to a firm definition. There’s still a lot of interpretation as to what a smart notebook is. That said, they are different from tablets: Tablets usually have color screens, like the Retina display on any recent iPad. Smart notebooks use some other kind of technology for the interface.

Some smart notebooks work best as digital tablets for writing and sketching. Others are paper-based notebooks with either a pressure-sensitive pad behind them to capture what you write or a companion app you use to scan pages.

Also included is one unique product that is something of an “honorary” smart notebook even though it’s a pen. It’s so smart, however, that it turns any notebook into a smart notebook.

Here are five of the best options listed in alphabetical order:

LiveScribe Echo 2GB ($179). It’s not a smart notebook per se, but the LiveScribe Echo pen turns any notebook into a smart one. This special pen has the unique ability to remember what you write or draw, the order in which you did so, and any audio that played while you wrote. That means you can take lecture notes while also recording the speaker. Or you can write your notes and dictate additional thoughts. When you’re done with your work, you can sync the memory from the LiveScribe Echo pen to a macOS or Windows computer and see all your notes reappear in the order that you took them on screen in a digital notebook.

Onyx Boox Max 3 ($859). It may seem like you need a money-is-no-object attitude to buy the Onyx Boox Max 3, and maybe you do. But the key thing to know about this smart notebook is just how much it’s capable of. It’s a big, 13.3-inch e-reader with E-Ink Mobius (making reading easy on the eyes) running Android 9 that’s Wi-Fi-capable, so you can also use it to surf the web or connect to digital libraries. About the only thing it can’t do is display color since it’s grayscale only. The Onyx Boox Max 3 is especially useful for anyone who spends hours a day pouring over PDFs and needs to make notes on the pages, mark them up, highlight passages, or even translate text. It ships with 4GB of RAM, a stylus, charging cable, HDMI cable, and protective sleeve.

reMarkable ($499). ReMarkable is billed as the digital notebook for people who don’t want to give up paper. It’s designed to feel like paper as you read, draw, and write on it. This 10.3-inch smart notebook not only feels like paper but also sounds like it when you write or draw on it with the included marker. The pressure-sensitive marker never requires charging or pairing. This notebook doubles an e-reader. The surface contains the company’s own Canvas technology, which uses black ink particles to reflect natural light. When you buy a reMarkable tablet, it ships with not only the marker but also with eight replacement tips and a cable for recharging.

Rocketbook Everlast ($32). The Rocketbook Everlast Notebook is a smart and reusable paper notebook. The predecessor version of the Rocketbook had users write with a special pen and then use a microwave oven to remove the writing. In the 2019 version, you write on special waterproof pages with a Pilot Frixion pen and wipe the pages clean with a damp microfiber cloth when you’re done. So, what makes it a smart notebook? Using a companion app, you scan your pages to turn them into digital notes. At the bottom of each page are a few icons. You assign each symbol to a destination in one of your cloud storage services, such as a particular folder in Google Drive or a notebook in Evernote. Whenever you write on a page, you put color in the corresponding icon, and the app files your pages accordingly when you scan them. The app works with Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, and email, with support for a few other services in the works. The book comes in four colors (black, red, midnight blue, and teal) and two sizes (8.5 X 11 inches with 32 pages or 6 X 8.8 inches with 36 pages).

Wacom Bamboo Folio ($199). The Wacom Bamboo Folio is for people who love to write on paper with a pen but also want the benefits of digitized notes. Wacom has long been a leader in digital tablets, especially those for drawing and sketching. The Bamboo Folio puts an exciting twist on the concept of a smart notebook, however. It’s a paper pad tucked into a little folio case, and the back of the case is a smart surface. When you write or draw on the paper, the smart surface records your marks. It stores them and later transfers them wirelessly to a companion app. You never have to scan your handwritten pages, but you get the same result as if you did.
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Wacom also sells a less expensive Bamboo Slate ($129.99). It works similarly, but it’s a slab rather than a folded folio.

If you’re lucky enough to get to travel abroad, you know it’s getting easier and easier to use our phones and other gadgets to translate for us. So why not do so in a way that makes sense to you? This little gadget seeking funds on Kickstarter looks right up my alley, offering quick transcription and recording – plus music playback, like an iPod Shuffle with superpowers.

The ONE Miniis not that complex of a device – a couple of microphones and a wireless board in tasteful packaging – but that combination allows for a lot of useful stuff to happen both offline and with its companion app.

You activate the device, and it starts recording and both translating and transcribing the audio via a cloud service as it goes (or later, if you choose). That right there is already super useful when you have meetings to transcribe, or you’re meeting one-on-one with someone who doesn’t speak English.

Recordings are kept on the phone because there is no memory onboard the device. There’s an option for a cloud service, but that probably won’t be necessary, considering the compact size of these audio files. If you’re paranoid about security, this probably isn’t your solution, but for everyday stuff, it should be just fine.

If you want to translate a conversation with someone whose language you don’t speak, you pick two of the 12 built-in languages in the app and then either pass the gadget back and forth or let it sit between you while you talk. The transcript will show on the phone, and the ONE Mini can speak the translation in its little robotic voice.

Right now, translation is only available online, but the company plans to offer offline translation for specific language pairs that have reliable two-way edge models, probably Mandarin-English and Korean-Japanese.
It has a headphone jack, too, which lets it act as a wireless playback device for the recordings or your music, or to take calls using the nice onboard mics. It’s lightweight and has a little clip, so it’s probably better than connecting directly to your phone in many cases.
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There’s also a 24/7 interpreter line that charges two bucks a minute. Though most people won’t use the service, in an emergency, it could be pretty helpful to have a panic button that sends you directly to a person who speaks both the languages you’ve selected.
Right now you can buy a ONE Mini for $79. They’ve already passed their funding goal and are planning on shipping in June, so it shouldn’t be a long wait.