5 Cam Nokia 9 PureView; Microsoft HoloLens 2; Amazon Chasing Autonomous Vehicles; New 4G & 5G Flaws Allow Tracking

Razors have seemingly stopped adding blades at 5, but will smartphones? It’ shard to tell, but Nokia has rolled out the Nokia 9 PureView, which sports 5 rear 12MP cameras! The $699 handset has done this…and amazingly, there’s no ‘camera bump! According to 9to5google.com, the Zeiss cameras are powered by Light…the cam company that made that wild camera with 16 individual modules! Two of the 5 cameras are color, and the other 3 are black and white. The focal length is the same on all. The B&W cams don’t add more detail and depth. There’s no so-called ‘telephoto’ or ‘wide-angle’ lens on this handset. Most of the other characteristics of this phone are pretty standard for a $699 price. No release date has been announced, but Nokia says it will be limited production, so you’ll want to act fast if you want one, once it comes out.

Microsoft HoloLens 2 is on deck, and can be pre-ordered for $3500. Theverge.com reports that this rendition is smaller, lighter, and easier to use. Microsoft is clearly expanding past gaming…in a demo, they had journalists act as if they were repair people. Microsoft had an ATV missing a bolt. Off to the side field of view in the HoloLens was a glowing, highlighted bucket of bolts…and instructions floating above. The system guided them through the repair. This is not new, but the smaller, lighter headset has a more natural feel and is much better balanced than the original. Microsoft indicated that this iteration is primarily aimed at enterprise. It uses the Azure Kinect sensor, an ARM processor, eye tracking sensors, and a new display system. The field of view is twice the size of the original model. As with Google, Apple, Oculus, and the rest…the ultimate goal is to shrink the headset down to the size of a pair of glasses….maybe then, we’ll all be ‘Glassholes.’

As everyone gets excited about the latest on self-driving tech from Tesla, Google, General Motors, Uber, and even Apple, one tech giant has been flying under the radar. Amazon has been pouring cash into autonomous vehicle tech. As axios.com notes, though, their aim isn’t your new, self-driving car or a driverless taxi service…it would allow even quicker shipping from their warehouses to your door…and without relying on other delivery services like UPS, FedEX, or the Post Office…or even Amazon’s own contractors! According to a report from McKinsey, autonomous deliveries would cut shipping costs by up to 40%! Kroger and Walmart are also interested in autonomous vehicle delivery, but the real 800 lb. gorilla is Amazon…and of late, they have really stepped up activity in autonomous vehicles with and investment in Aurora Innovation…a start-up led by engineers from Google, Tesla, and Uber, and in Rivian…which has an electric chassis that can be adapted to virtually any type vehicle. Think of how much stuff people will buy from them if nearly everybody can get delivery in an hour or less? Buy groceries online and have them at your door in under an hour from Whole Foods. It may be here sooner than you think!

Three security flaws have been found in 4G and 5G that can allow intercepting phone calls and location tracking of cell phone users. According to techcrunch.com, a group of academics from Purdue and University of Iowa will present the info in San Diego tomorrow to the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium. These previously unknown attacks can defeat newer protections that were thought to make it harder to snoop on phone users. The first attack, named Torpedo, actually allows the other two. The hacks can be made with radio equipment costing as little as $200! They work on all 4 major US operators’ systems.