USA

Today the folks at POCO confirmed that they would, indeed, release a second phone in the year 2020. This announcement came shortly after Xiaomi confirmed that POCO would be spun off into its own separate smartphone brand. The original POCO F1, aka Pocophone F1, was released a year and 5 months ago to almost universal acclaim, rolling with surprisingly high-end specifications and a price that seemed suspiciously low. Now they're teasing a second release.

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Today we're looking at a few factors involved in the launch of the first and second generation 5G-enabled iPhones for 2020 and 2021. Apple's not officially stated that they'll absolutely release iPhones in 2020 and/or 2021 with different sorts of 5G, but we've got enough must-do and common sense information now to make some assessments. We begin with a little information about the two major sorts of 5G in the USA (and coming in the near future).

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On December 20, 2019, US President Donald Trump signed legislation to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Part of this amendment package included raising the federal minimum age of sale of tobacco product from 18 to 21 years in the United States. Some states have raised the tobacco purchase age minimum to 21 as far back as January 1st, 2016 (that was Hawaii), and the last state to raise the age in 2019 was New York (effective as of November 13, 2019).

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The United States Food and Drug Administration has approved of an Ebola vaccine for the first time in history. This announcement was made just weeks after a similar approval by the World Health Organization. The vaccine goes by the name of Ervebo, and it's already been "assessed in approximately 15,000 individuals in Africa, Europe and North America." This vaccine's approval process, though rigorous, was done in relatively short order thanks to the efforts of the FDA and associated medical and scientific groups due to the urgent need for this vaccine as outbreaks continue to occur.

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There are currently two open source Linux phones trying to make their way into regular consumers' hands and one of them is getting all the spotlight but not all for good reasons. Although it was the first to launch and, on paper, has the better specs, Purism's Librem 5 is garnering some controversy, raising questions on its capability to ship a finished product in a few months. As if it didn't have enough to worry about, Purism just started pre-orders for a version of the Librem 5 that's 100% made in the USA and costs three times the regular Librem 5 that has yet to ship in its final form.

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Facial recognition is slowly but surely becoming the focal point of the next tug-of-war on privacy as more and more companies and governments are embracing the technology for their own needs. While an effective tool in safeguarding phones and computers, it is also feared to be a more subtle but more intrusive way to monitor people without their knowledge. It is against that backdrop of uncertainty that the US Homeland Security is proposing that face recognition checks in all US airports be done on all travelers, including the country's own citizens.

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The actor Ryan Reynolds purchased an ownership stake in the company called Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile is an MVNO, a mobile virtual network operator, a company that'll sell you a smartphone data plan over the internet for a phone you've already got in your pocket. If it seems strange to you that Ryan Reynolds purchased Mint Mobile, you are not alone.

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It seems that Huawei may be able to breathe a bit easier even if it keeps on showing an unaffected and nonchalant public face. The company was recently granted another 90-day reprieve and the US Department of Commerce has started to grant or deny applications for temporary licenses to export American products to the embattled Chinese company. While the fate of its mobile business still isn't in the clear despite these developments, Huawei will at least now have access again to Microsoft software, at least until the temporary licenses are revoked again.

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The rumors were only partially correct. The US Commerce Department has indeed thrown Huawei a lifeline by granting it another Temporary General License extension but not the short 14-day period earlier believed. In fact, for the third time, Huawei is being given another 90 days to do business with US companies. Despite what looks like a generous reprieve, however, the fate of Huawei's mobile products, particularly the Mate 30 series, still remains uncertain because of the limits the extension imposes on Huawei's trade with US companies.

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It has been half a year since the US government practically declared it illegal for US companies to do business with Huawei but the Chinese giant's fate still remains uncertain. That would have been sealed by Monday but it seems that the US still wants to hold power over Huawei and is likely to give it yet another extension of its license to do business in the US. This time, however, it will only be for 14 days, probably to give time for the US and China to finally sign a "Phase 1" trade agreement.

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Today we're looking at the OnePlus 7T Pro with specific emphasis on what's changed from earlier this year. Earlier this year the company released the OnePlus 7 Pro, a device with a 6.67-inch full-screen display with a mechanical pop-up front-facing camera. Now there's a OnePlus 7T Pro with almost identical specs - and it will not launch in the USA.

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There's an event happening in California of which you should be aware. The power is out for over 500,000 people on the west coast of the USA because of a threat of wildfire. The power is not out - this was voluntary. The company Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) initiated a Public Safety Power Shutoff that's now in effect - and will be spreading over the next few days.

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