Splish splash! What if your phone takes a bath?

It's that time of year again. The sun is shining. You're barbecuing by the pool or at the beach. Maybe you've had a beer or two. Everyone jumps in the water to cool off. You do too. But wait! Your brand-new iPhone is still in your pocket. D'oh!

A boozy Memorial Day weekend could lead to a wet phone. And now that the days of a new-subsidized-phone-every-two-years are over, making silly mistakes like soaking your phone in the pool is a lot more costly.

But before you panic and buy a bag of rice, CNET's Maggie Reardon has some tips that could help you save your waterlogged device.

Dear Maggie,

I know at some point this summer, I'm going to end up in the pool with my phone. Any tips for bringing it back to life?

Thanks,
Phone-in-My-Pocket Dude

Dear Pocket Dude,

You are in luck. The gadget trade-in site Gazelle has put together a handy-dandy list of tips for what to do when your iPhone or Android device goes for a swim. If you follow these tips, maybe, just maybe, your phone will survive.

1. Remove it from water as soon as you can

The longer your phone stays underwater, the less likely it is to come back to life.

2. Power down

Turning the device off may prevent it from short-circuiting. This is a really important step, so make sure you do this as soon as you can.

iPhone: Hold the Lock button and the Home button simultaneously for 5 seconds for a hard shutdown.

Android: Remove the battery to shut down instantly. If you have a phone without a removable battery, try holding down the power switch for 10 seconds. It may not work for every model of Android. You may need to do a search online of the make and model of your phone for information about a hard shutdown.

3. Drain it

Remove the battery (if possible), headphones, SIM card and memory card and let the water come out. You could also try dabbing with a dry cloth or paper towel to remove excess water.

Optional: Gazelle recommends rinsing your device under clean tap water if it fell in salt water, dirty water or something other than water. This will flush out any residual salt, minerals or other contaminants. Don't worry, the company says, your phone was already full of water, so you're not making it wetter -- just cleaner. Other sites recommend rinsing your device and components with rubbing alcohol to get rid of impurities.

Next, start forcing as much water as possible out of the device, this includes gentle shaking, tilting or blowing air through the device. You could also try vacuuming water out of it.

4. Open it up

The best way to dry out your phone is to open it up. Gazelle recommends the site iFixit.com to find instructions for opening your phone.

5. Dry it

Now that your phone is open, you'll need to dry it to reduce the damage done to the components. You've got a few options for drying:

Air it out: In dry climates, good air circulation may do the trick. Open-air drying works best. A fan may improve airflow through the phone's ports.

Absorb it: In humid climates, air drying may not be enough. You could put your device in something to absorb the moisture. But don't bother with regular uncooked rice. Gazelle tested it, and the company says it's not effective for absorbing liquids.

Here are a couple of other options.

• Silica Gel. The best common drying agent is silica gel. It can be found in the pet aisle of your grocery store as "crystal" style cat litter.
• Couscous, instant rice or oatmeal are good substitutes for silica. These options also absorb water faster than conventional rice, according to Gazelle's tests. Instant oatmeal works too, but it makes a mess of your phone.

Note: Gazelle maintains that nothing does a better job of drying out your phone than leaving it on a countertop with good air circulation to air dry.

What next?

Make sure you give your phone a few days to dry out. Then you can turn it back on and see what happens. It may boot up right away. If it doesn't, you could try charging it and swapping the battery. If that doesn't work, try syncing it. Gazelle said that in its tests, iPhones that appeared dead could still be synced and that data could still be retrieved. Also, keep your SIM and SD cards. These contain contact lists and other personal data that can be uploaded to a new device.

If all else fails, you can always trade it in, even if it's water damaged and not working.

Ask Maggie is an advice column that answers readers' wireless and broadband questions. If you have a question, I'd love to hear from you. Please send me an e-mail at maggie dot reardon at cbs dot com. And please put "Ask Maggie" in the subject header. You can also follow me on Facebook on my Ask Maggie page.

Facebook copy briefly surfaces in North Korea

A clone of the Facebook social media site has briefly appeared in North Korea before quickly going offline.
Hosted on the StarCon.net.kp address in North Korea it had many of the features of other social networks.
It is not clear who created StarCon but it is thought to be a test project for a future service to be offered by the nation's telecoms operator.
Soon after being discovered, the site was hacked and it is now not accessible.
The site was spotted by Doug Madory, a researcher at network management firm Dyn, who said it was rare to see any websites hosted in the secretive nation. The site's name suggested it was linked to North Korea's Star telecom service, he said.
Parody account
StarCon was built around a commercial software package called phpDolphin and had many of the features, including newsfeeds, messaging systems and personal spaces, seen on other social sites. However, many of the site's pages were unfinished and were filled with placeholder text.
"I don't believe it was intended to be accessible from outside North Korea," Mr Madory told the BBC.
However, he said, Dyn's mention of StarCon on its Twitter feed led people to set up personal pages on the site and start using it to swap messages.
One of the first accounts created parodied North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Outsiders created about 300 accounts on StarCon during its brief existence.
"There were a lot of people signing up that, based on their comments, appeared to genuinely think they could reach the North Korean people through the website," he said.
"I'm quite sure that no North Koreans ever really used it for a social network website despite the fact that it was hosted in North Korea."
A day after being discovered, the site was hacked to re-direct every visitor to a YouTube video. Soon after, it went offline completely.

Deliveroo announces partnership with biggest fish in UK dining

Deliveroo has landed a big fish of UK dining, signing a lucrative deal to deliver Pizza Express food to customers.

With 460 restaurants across the UK, the pizza giant will be the biggest brand on the food delivery firm’s books, and will generate a “significant” increase in revenue, Deliveroo founder Will Shu said.

Speaking exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Shu said that he had been trying to win over Pizza Express’s chief executive, Richard Hodgson, for some time. “I sent lunch to his office every day for a month to get his attention,” Mr Shu revealed.

“When we asked customers for the one brand missing from Deliveroo, Pizza Express was always top of their list.”

Deliveroo ran a trial with the business in the summer of 2015 but was still too small to convince Mr Hodgson to take a punt on a partnership.  Pizza Express already runs a takeaway business whereby customers can order and collect food from the restaurants. “

We sell about one million pizzas through takeaway already, but it’s not that convenient for customers,” Mr Hodgson said, adding that he had considered launching his own delivery service but it was “hard enough competing with Prezzo, Zizzi and Ask without trying to compete on delivery.”

According to both bosses, the partnership will result in a “significant increase” in sales. “Pizza has traditionally been delivered to people’s homes,” Mr Hodgson said. “We think this could be significant for the business. We’ve seen how many people are taking advantage of Deliveroo.”

Mr. Shu added: “The Pizza Express partnership will let us go into a lot of new markets. We are already working with them in other countries.” Pizza Express recently ran a trial with Deliveroo in Hong Kong where it has 15 restaurants.

Mr Hodgson denied that the delivery deal could jeopardise restaurant bookings or reduce the number of pizzas and dough balls Pizza Express sells in supermarkets. “People still like escaping the house and coming to us,” he said. “And during the trial last summer we looked at what happened to sales of pizzas in local shops and saw no drop-off whatsoever.”

Deliveroo has grown rapidly since it launched in 2013, raising almost £135m in venture capital to date.

Pizza Express has also defied all gloom on the high street, posting a sales increase of 15.9pc to £267.2m in 28 weeks to Jan 10.

“There’s been a significant increase in demand for restaurant quality food delivered to the home and we didn’t expect that explosion,” Mr Hodgson said. “It’s about convenience. Some people don’t want to walk to the fridge, take out a pizza, warm up the oven and wait 11 minutes for it to cook, they prefer the tap, tap, boom of Deliveroo.”

iPhone 7: Apple set to finally ditch 16 GB model for release of new handset

Apple will finally drop the 16 GB iPhone in the upcoming iPhone 7, ending claims that it is selling phones with insufficient capacity but potentially raising the price in the process, it has been reported.

Kevin Wang, an IHS technology analyst who claims links in Apple’s supply chain, said the new phone, expected to be released in September, would come with 32 GB as its minimum storage.

The company has launched its flagship models with a minimum of 16 GB storage since 2011’s iPhone 4s, although a later version of the phone and the iPhone 5c both had 8 GB options. But as apps, photos and videos get bigger, many people have complained that the 16 GB capacity is not enough.

Apple does offer iPhones with 64 GB and 128 GB capacities, but the entry-level option is significantly cheaper, making it a popular choice. The current crop of iPhones feature vastly improved cameras and shoot 4K video, making it easy to fill up storage.

The iPhone 7 is set to be a relatively minor upgrade on the 6s, looking largely the same, although leaked images suggest the camera is set for a major upgrade, at least on the bigger “Plus” model.

Apple has also been rumoured to be getting rid of the headphone jack, encouraging owners to use headphones connected to the charging port.

The company is expected to save any major changes until next year’s iPhone, possibly called the iPhone 8, which will feature an all-glass body and possibly wireless charging.

The iPhone 7 approaches its release as Apple struggles with an unprecedented decline in iPhone sales. In April, Apple said revenue had fallen for the first time in 13 years, while quarterly iPhone sales fell from 61 million to 51 million. The company is forecasting another fall in the current quarter.

Mr Wang, writing on Chinese social media, also claimed that the iPhone’s RAM will remain at 2GB, 9to5Mac reported.

What did one car say to the other car? If you make that turn I'll hit you!

You're driving through town with your mind half on work, half on the traffic around you. You come to the two-way intersection you've crossed a thousand times before, stop, look around and start to turn left.

And then your car sounds a warning bell, loudly and insistently. It's telling you, "WAIT -- the pickup truck barreling straight at you can't stop in time."

Got your attention, no?

It works because your car and that pickup are exchanging their location, speed, acceleration, direction and steering faster than we can blink. Many consider this conversation -- called vehicle-to-vehicle, or V2V -- the most important lifesaving technology to hit the auto industry in the past 10 years.

If V2V did nothing more than warn you not to turn left or enter an intersection, it could prevent about half a million crashes and save around 1,100 lives a year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

But automakers, universities and government organizations are exploring V2V for more than just intersection safety. They're also developing the technology to see around blind spots, warn when a pickup five cars ahead has suddenly braked, and tell you, "Whoa, don't pass that horse trailer, because there's oncoming traffic you can't see." Because of benefits like these, the US Department of Transportation is pushing automakers to adopt V2V within the next few years.

"Connected, automated vehicles...have the potential to revolutionize road safety and save thousands of lives," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement last year. "The department wants to speed the nation toward an era when vehicle safety isn't just about surviving crashes; it's about avoiding them."

In other words, there's an excellent chance that five years from now, V2V will be standard in every new car people buy.

Catch-22

Without that government mandate, automakers can decide when, or even if, to add the technology. And that's an issue because the promise of V2V depends on nearly universal adoption.

"If I've got a talking car and there's no one else to talk to, that would be a problem," explains Gordon Trowbridge, NHTSA's communications director.

So far, General Motors is the only automaker to announce production plans for the US market, saying V2V will be on its 2017 Cadillac CTS luxury sedan. Toyota last year added the technology to three models sold in Japan.

Further complicating V2V's critical mass: We don't seem to be in any hurry to buy that new car or truck. The average age of cars driven on US roads is now a record 11.5 years. And that means it will take almost 30 years for 95 percent of the nation's cars and trucks to talk to each other, says Russ Rader, senior vice president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Who's there?

Last July, car security experts Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek hacked into a Jeep Cherokee and drove it into a ditch. A month later, Chrysler recalled 1.4 million Jeeps.

It shows what can go wrong with the connected-car and wireless infotainment systems that automakers already offer in their high-end models. But that vulnerability is especially worrisome for a technology like V2V, which aims to touch nearly every vehicle on the road, says Jeff Williams, co-founder of Contrast Security. "You're connecting your car to any random person out there," Williams says. "It's likely to save tons of lives, but people might misuse the system."

For its part, the NHTSA claims its V2V design already meets "a very high level of security" and says the agency is "actively engaged with security experts" to make the system safe, secure and private.

In the meantime, automakers like Ford, GM and Honda are working on V2V because it's a good idea -- not just the law.

"The root cause of people dying in car crashes is drivers. It's not the vehicle, and it's not the environment," says Mike Shulman, Ford's V2V technical leader. "Like polio vaccines, if we have technology that could prevent thousands of deaths each year, why not use it?" 

Talking traffic lights

If your car talks to other vehicles on the road, shouldn't it talk to the city, too?

That's the idea behind vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology, an important complement to V2V. With V2I, your car can have fruitful chats with traffic signals, road signs, streetlights, and sensors embedded in pedestrian walkways.

Imagine, for example, that your car is having a nice conversation with the string of traffic lights that dot your city's major artery. Using V2I, those traffic signals could advise you, through the car's dashboard, that driving 31 miles per hour would let you sail through every green light.

Other situations include dashboard alerts for road construction, lane shifts and traffic advisories. And advocates for the blind envision beacons attached to light poles that would help the vision-impaired cross busy streets.

The downside depends on how states and cities use the data they glean from your driving habits. It would be fairly easy -- and lucrative, for example -- for them to automatically issue traffic tickets every time you exceed the speed limit.

And then there's the issue of timing. Unlike V2V, which the federal government can mandate for new vehicles, the Department of Transportation can only offer city and state governments incentives, guidance and support to install the intelligent infrastructure.

The DOT is currently drafting detailed guidelines to make sure V2I works the same everywhere, but it will be up to cities and states to implement it. And that means it's anyone's guess when your car and Mr. Traffic Light can have their chat.

Apple's slickest iPhone releases may slip to a 3-year cycle

Apple might prolong its big iPhone refreshes from every two years to every three years.

The company currently issues a major iPhone upgrade every other year, with a less momentous model coming in the off year. For example, the iPhone 5 was followed by the more incremental iPhone 5S, and the iPhone 6 by the iPhone 6S.

A shift from that plan is "likely," according to Japan's Nikkei newspaper, just as the smartphone market itself is shifting.

Apple would ramp up to a three-year upgrade cycle for major refreshes for a couple of reasons, says the Nikkei. First, smartphone demand is slowing. In the first quarter of the year, Apple suffered its first-ever drop in smartphone sales.

Second, Apple is outfitting each new iPhone with fewer enhancements. The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus offered little in the way of new features beyond 3D Touch pressure sensitivity and Live Photos, which generate quick videos. Reports say this year's expected iPhone 7 lineup will include just a few new features, such as dual speakers and a dual camera system (but only on the iPhone 7 Plus).

Apple isn't the only victim of a sagging smartphone market, where a once regular stream of blockbuster debuts has given way to "phone fatigue." Consumers in developed markets have become blase over a perceived lack of exciting features in new phones and are sticking longer with the phones they already have. Mobile carriers have also put the kibosh on subsidized plans, which effectively makes new phone models more expensive.

A three-year cycle for Apple could start in 2017. Reports claim that the company is waiting until next year, the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone, to stage a major upgrade. The 2017 iPhone could switch from conventional LCD screens to OLED displays, which are thinner, lighter and less battery-hungry. Next year's phone may also adopt an edge-to-edge display and dispense with the physical home button.

For 2016, Apple isn't expected to top the 230 million iPhones it sold in 2015, according to production schedules provided to suppliers, the Nikkei added. If so, that will be the first time annual iPhone sales failed to surpass those of the prior year.