smartphones

Six years on from the first iMicro smartphone microscope, comes the iMicro Q3p, a tiny tool that makes microscopy inexpensive, portable and accessible. It also has polarization, offering incredible detail in materials such as crystals and minerals.

Your smartphone may shoot great photos and videos, but it's still much more awkward to use than an actual camera. The Snappy is one of the latest gadgets to address that problem, as it brings camera-like functionality (including a shot-stabilizing gimbal) to your phone.

There are no humans working the new Xiaomi production lines – this new Smart Factory is 100% automated. Indeed, the company says the system is smart enough to diagnose and fix problems, as well as optimizing its own processes to "evolve by itself."

Photogram has announced the start of shipping to pre-order buyers of the Alice Camera – a Micro Four Thirds camera system with AI-driven computational photography that mounts to a smartphone running a companion app, for the best of both worlds.

Your smartphone may take nice photos, but it's likely still not as good as a full-on Micro Four Thirds (M43) camera. The SwitchLens is designed to combine the best of both devices, as it's an M43 camera that works with your phone.

Feeling limited by your smartphone's puny light? If so, you might want to check out the phone-mountable Wuben E1. It's currently on Kickstarter, and puts out up to 300 lumens as compared to the iPhone 15's measly 50.

Tech company Beaverlab has launched a Kickstarter to raise funds for a smart super-telephoto camera called the Excope DT1 that can be had with a 400-mm zoom lens, and works with a smartphone to capture distant imagery.

In a mobile communications breakthrough, SpaceX has sent the first X post from a regular, unmodified smartphone using Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit, bringing the end of cellular dead zones a step closer.

Existing processors in PCs, smartphones and other devices can be supercharged for enormous power and efficiency gains, according to UC Riverside. With no changes to hardware, this new approach to the software squeezes extra juice out of your system.

Xiaomi's latest flagship handset has launched in China ahead of an expected Mobile World Congress appearance in Barcelona next week. The 14 Ultra's headline feature is a Leica main camera with a new Sony 1-inch sensor.

If you lose your smartphone, you definitely don't want to lose all the photos and other files stored on it. That's why it's so important to perform backups, and the PhotoCube PD+ offers a particularly simple means of doing so.

We've seen a number of handsets over the years that have been designed to cut down on over-stimulating distractions present on smartphones. The latest looks like a happy marriage between a Blackberry and e-reader, and goes by the name of Minimal.