The FCC on Tuesday gave wireless carriers until next summer to implement a system designed to prevent caller ID spoofing. The goal is blocking phone scammers from using fake caller ID information to convince call recipients that they are talking to someone trustworthy or from their local area.
The US House of Representatives has approved an anti-robocall bill by a nearly unanimous vote of 413-3. The bill will require phone carriers to block robocalls as well as giving the government more power to punish scammers.
It will next make it to the Senate. Its bipartisan support means it has a good chance of being signed into law by the end of 2019.
The House of Representatives passed a new bill Wednesday calling for tougher penalties on “robocalling” operations. This means that carriers would need to put technology in place to ensure phone calls are authentic.
The legislation also would allow the Federal Communications Commission to fine illegal robocallers $10,000 per violation. When you think about the potential quantity of calls made, that figure could add up quickly!
The way iPhone handles incoming calls is probably one of the worst UI elements still around in iOS. Instead of only showing a small alert, the entire screen is taken hostage by a caller. This especially sucks in the age of endless robocalls, yet Apple has shown no motivation to change all of that.
Concept designer Vinoth Ragunathan has come up with a clever solution that fixes all that and it doesn’t even require much work on Apple’s part. All you would have to do is swipe up to dismiss the screen.
Billions of spam calls were made last year, but Apple is doing what it can to save us from the frustration of robocalls. iOS 13 will let users automatically send incoming calls to voicemail if they came from someone unknown. And this system is actually smarter than just checking the user’s phone book.
Another week, another roundup of awesome deals on gear and gadgets. This round, we’ve got a truly attractive AirPods alternative, a powerful tool for blocking unwanted calls and texts, the ultimate time-management platform, and a set of camera lenses for your iPhone.
Snag one or all — at hefty discounts!
If you thought we were past the age of spam calls, sorry, but no. From intrusive advertising to scam calls, some estimate that billions of scam calls afflict us per month.
Luckily, in the arms race against robocalls, machine learning joins the fight — on your side!
It feels like spam calls have gotten out of control lately. With more calls resulting in sales pitches and attempts to scam you, people are answering their phones less and less.
A new report from call identification and blocking company Hiya shows just how bad these spam calls have gotten.
Did you know that, if you have your iPhone set to share incoming calls with your Mac, your iPad, and/or Apple Watch, then the iPhone won’t let you reject incoming calls? The red telephone icon isn’t there. You have to either answer the call, or scramble to another device in order to bump the call without picking up first.
But there’s a great hidden trick that lets you reject any call from your iPhone, without even touching the screen.
There were 3.4 billion robocalls in April this year, and the chances are it feels like you got roughly half of those to your own phone. These calls aren’t just telemarketing anymore, either. Just like email spam, scams pervade these already-annoying automated calls. One way around this is to unplug your landline phone, and to ignore all phone calls to your iPhone (go to Settings > Notifications > Phone and switch off Allow Notifications).
A better way is to troll the robocallers by hooking them up to a service that answers the calls for you, and uses robots to keep the telemarketers on the line, wasting their time an costing them money. And for that, you need the Jolly Roger.
