It certainly isn’t the biggest year for phones at the Mobile World Congress. Nevertheless, here are some of our favorite picks with a few added surprises. wired.trib.al/iUwcEKw 1/9
TCL dropped the new TCL 30 5G, TCL 30+, TCL 30, TCL 30 SE, and TCL 30 E. (Still with me?). But the big news here is the price point—the most expensive is the 30 5G which is roughly $280 US dollars (€249), and the price continues to plummet down to the 30 E. 2/9
Introducing: the TCL Fold 'n Roll. The name says it all here: This phone is both foldable and rollable, allowing you to both extend the display and shrink it down to size, then close it shut. Remember, this is a concept, so it's unlikely we'll see it for sale. 📸: TCL 3/9
Motorola is keeping things simple at #MWC22, with one phone headlining its offering: the Edge+. The design is straightforward, but additional appeal comes from three years of bimonthly security updates and two OS upgrades. 📸: Motorola 4/9
Nokia came bearing three new budget phones. The top dog is the Nokia C2 2nd Edition—a modest device that comes with a 5.7-inch display, up to 32 GB of internal storage and a single 5-MP rear camera. wired.trib.al/iUwcEKw 📸: Nokia 5/9
It may sound strange, but not everything at MWC is about phones. After a limited showing from the phone world, laptops, 2-in-1s, and tablets helped steal the show. Take Samsung’s new thin and light Galaxy Book2 range. wired.trib.al/7GKoDxD 6/9
Another great non-mobile pick is the Lenovo ThinkPad X13s Gen 1. The ThinkPad X13s Gen 1 will be the first opportunity to put an 8cx Gen 3 chip and Windows 11 on ARM combination through its paces. 📸: Lenovo 7/9
SCOOP: Edward Coristine (“Big Balls”), Luke Farritor, and Ethan Shaotran were part of the original DOGE crew. They were brought in under short-term “special government employee” status. Supposed to be temporary. Spoiler: it’s not. wired.com/story/big-ball…
As of May 31 (Coristine & Farritor) and April 10 (Shaotran), the trio officially became full-time federal employees. Their roles at the General Services Administration (GSA) are now permanent.
According to documentation viewed by WIRED, they each maintain their “senior advisor” titles.
Their pay? GS-15 for Coristine & Farritor, one of the highest government salary grades. Shaotran’s at GS-14—just one step below. wired.com/story/big-ball…
In fact, federal workers from at least six agencies tell WIRED that DOGE-style work is escalating in their departments, and Trump himself said in a press conference today that “Elon's really not leaving.” wired.com/story/doge-elo…
Members of Musk’s early DOGE team, including Luke Farritor and Gavin Kliger, have met with a number of departments and agencies in recent days, seemingly continuing business as usual, WIRED has learned.
Over the last week, federal workers have been asked to urgently review contracts across the government, and sources say the pressure to slash contracts has drastically increased in recent weeks. wired.com/story/doge-elo…
NEW: Tulsi Gabbard, now the US director of national intelligence, used the same easily cracked password for different online accounts including a personal Gmail account and Dropbox over a period of years, leaked records reviewed by WIRED reveal. wired.com/story/tulsi-ga…
The password associated includes the word “shraddha,” which appears to have personal significance to Gabbard: This year, WSJ reported that she had been initiated into the Science of Identity Foundation, which ex-members have accused of being a cult. wired.com/story/tulsi-ga…
Security experts advise people to never use the same password on different accounts precisely because people often do so. As director of national intelligence, Gabbard oversees the 18 organizations comprising the US intelligence community.
DOGE is knitting together data from the Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration, and IRS that could create a surveillance tool of unprecedented scope. wired.com/story/doge-col…
The scale at which DOGE is seeking to interconnect data, including sensitive biometric data, has never been done before, raising alarms with experts who fear it may lead to disastrous privacy violations. wired.com/story/doge-col…
“They are trying to amass a huge amount of data,” a senior DHS official tells WIRED. “It has nothing to do with finding fraud or wasteful spending … They are already cross-referencing immigration with SSA and IRS as well as voter data.” wired.com/story/doge-col…
American police are spending hundreds of thousands on Massive Blue’s unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected traffickers.
Massive Blue calls its product Overwatch, which it markets as an “AI-powered force multiplier for public safety” that “deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels.”
404 Media obtained a presentation showing some of these AI characters. These include a “radicalized AI” “protest persona,” which poses as a 36-year-old divorced woman who is lonely, has no children, is interested in baking, activism, and “body positivity.”
The audit covers DOGE’s handling of data at several Cabinet-level agencies, including:
–the Departments of Labor, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services
–the Treasury
–the Social Security Administration
–the US DOGE Service (USDS) itself wired.com/story/gao-audi…
It's being carried out after congressional leaders’ requests and is centered on DOGE’s adherence to privacy and data protection laws and regulations.
A Congressional aide said the requests followed media reports on DOGE’s incursions into federal systems. wired.com/story/gao-audi…