Mobile Devices - Page 192

A company called PINoptic has a new method for securing your smart phone that it claims will make it 37 times more secure.

The way the software works is to replace the traditional numbered PIN with a picture based system. The images will show up on each of the 10 numbered buttons; however they will do so randomly. This means that someone watching you will not be able to memorize the sequence but would have to carefully watch the actual images you press.

PINoptics claims that someone would have to watch a person login over 10 times before they would be able to figure out the login.

Smartphones are become more of a target as they often contain personal or work e-mails as well other personal information.

Read more here

In a first of its kind move, the Public Prosecutor in Milan, Italy has filed criminal charges against Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer.

The charges (which include defamation and failure to exercise control over personal data) arose after a video depicting a disabled teen being bullied by several other boy showed up on Google's YouTube.

Google made the statement that this is "totally wrong" because they cannot be responsible for what people do on their site. This is the same tack they take with their other products such as Google Earth. It seems that Google does not feel any public responsibility for what can and cannot be done with their products.

Francesco Cajani (Milan's Public Prosecutor) feels different as under Italian law ISPs are responsible for third party content. This should make Google (the host of the service) responsible too.

Fleischer was arrested and brought before a judge on January 23rd. If this action goes through Fleischer could face up to 36 months in Italian prison. But more importantly it might finally set a precedent making the search and ad giant responsible for the material it pushes out.

Read more here

But the iPhone has always lacked a few important items that have kept it from being even more widely accepted. These are items such as Multimedia messaging, copy and paste, a real text editor and of course Flash.

Flash has been a sticking point with many and of course Apple has laid the blame at Adobe's feet. This mantel of blame was further enhanced when Adobe's own CEO said they were responsible.

But it seems that it might not be Adobe to blame after all. According to an article at Fudzilla it is nothing less than Apple's desire to maintain control over the iPhone. If an unrestricted version of Flash were allowed onto the iPhone, Apple just might lose that iron grip it has. Although I am not sure how much control they think they still have with JailBreak apps so common and easy to use.

Read more here

If you have been following the Obama blackberry issue you by now know that it is has become a huge issue. Well now we see that what the press calls the first technologically savvy President might not be as savvy as he likes to think.

President Obama wants to keep to his beloved Blackberry 8830; he claims that it will allow him to keep in touch with the real world. I am not sure who in the "real world" he is talking to other than his personal associates as last time I checked his cell number was not available to the rest of us. But that is beside the point.

His choice of PDA is what I am concerned with now. President Obama has chosen to maintain using his 8830 Blackberry (with a few enhancements) however this is neither the most secure phone nor the best phone for him to use.

The best choice would be the Sectera Edge. This is the only PDAPhone certified for use by the US National Security Agency. It operates on both GSM and CDMA networks (with 3G on either) supports SCIP (Secure Communications Interoperability Protocol) and can switch between secure and unsecure with the press of a button. So much for making the best technology decisions, but then again the 8830 looks cooler.

Take a look here

The controversy surrounding Gary McKinnon is something to watch. The U.S. wants him due to the embarrassment caused by having supposedly secure military installations breached more than any real damage done.

While his lawyers want to keep him at home and have pretty much thrown every argument in the book out to keep him in the UK.

The question is; did McKinnon hack into the US DOD to look for little green men? Or did he know what he was doing. He knew enough to leave little notes saying that the security sucked. He also was aware enough to plan out the hack attempt by using a blank password scan.

But there are others that feel he is not in a fit mental state. One of these is London Mayor Boris Johnson. In a very emotional editorial he asks President Obama to once and for all drop the extradition efforts and leave McKinnon alone.

Read more here.

Apple has just dumped another firmware on the iPhone. This one is a small update to 2.2 and only includes a few stability fixes to Mobile Safari and one for mail images not saved to your camera roll.

As always if you have an Unlocked or Jailbroken phone approach this update with caution, you will need to reapply any hacks you have setup.

Read more here.

Apple's New CEO (for now) Tim Cook has been busy denying rumors of an Apple Nano.

According to a blurb over at Fudzilla, Cook says that Apple will not enter the low-end phone market as they cannot be the best there. To me that sounds like they cannot really compete on a technology level and have to have gimmicks and gadgets to work.

Apple is also keeping an eye on the Netbook arena. They have not made plans for $500 book due to the tradeoffs that would have to occur. Additionally the iPhone can do much of that a netbook can, as long as you do not need to copy/paste, run flash, shockwave, real java applets, any kind of productivity work and a host of other things.

Read more here.

President-Elect and CrackBerry addict Barack Obama is at it again.

Despite being informed that keeping his BlackBerry will be a violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978 (since there is no real way to make those phone conversations and emails available) and the dozens of security issues surrounding him keeping it he still is going to try.

His stated reason for this is that he wants to keep in touch with the world outside the Presidential Staff. However I personally do not buy it. I think that he just can't get along without it. If he really wants to keep in touch then get out amongst the people and talk to them. How many regular people are going to have this e-mail address or phone number.

I am not sure about the abilities of a President that can't function without a smart phone. Perhaps when it is hacked, or used in an attempt on his life that will put other's lives at risk he will get the picture and put the thing down.

Read more here.

President Elect Obama is still clinging to his blackberry despite the potential security risks.

For some odd reason he feels the need to maintain a publicly controlled communication device that can be tracked by not one but three spate methods. In addition to being able to pinpoint its location by the unique GPS transceiver in the device you can also use cell tower pings and radio frequency triangulation to nail him down. In fact using Cell Tower Data Pings is a proven method for tracking criminals and finding their patterns. Not good for a President.

This is in addition to the insecure RIM network that opens all of his emails to the hackers out there.

I did some looking and think his fuss about his Blackberry might just be a nice little Presidential Plug for RIM. Especially considering the $63,000+ US Dollars they threw and the Democratic Party this election year.

Read more here and here.

Well it has finally happened; WebEx is coming to the iToy. Although I am not surprised I do wonder how effective it will be.

The new client for iPhone will leverage WiFi and 3G connections. I would hate to see it over an Edge connection though. The application will be free from the App Store and will support audio, texting in a messenger like method and the ability to view content shared from other attendee's desktops. As of the current release video is not supported.

Read more here.

Since it is Monday and I am feeling a little grumpy I went looking for some Apple bashing news (not really but it makes a good lead in). I did not have to look very long as I happened upon a nice little article about the iPhone and its affect on non-US carriers.

Now in the US there is only one iPhone partner and that is AT&T, they reap the sales benefits even if the phones end up unlocked and on another carrier.

In Europe this is not the case and it seems that the iPhone has become something of an Albatross according to Strand Consulting. They recon the iPhone is as vapid as Paris Hilton according to their 2008 predictions ("when we compared the iPhone to Paris Hilton. We said both were beautiful, but ultimately little more than media hype"). They blame the issue on the press, something I find odd considering there is almost as much bad press on the iPhone as there is good.

Read more here.

Despite many rumors about a Zune-Phone, it looks like we won't be seeing one at CES 2009.
Fudo over at Fudzilla has been keeping in touch with someone at MS about this, but there was no need to cite unnamed sources as Brian Seitz, Group Manager for the Zune products, went on record to say there would not be a Zune-Phone launch at CES 2009

Read more at Fudzilla.

President Elect Obama does not want to give up his cherished Blackberry phone. Despite the security (personal and data) that surround the device.

He is fighting with the laws that prevent the president from having such a device and the ones that exist to preserve all presidential communications for posterity.

The Blackberry (and indeed almost all Cellular devices have means to be tracked remotely. This (to me at least) would seem to be reason enough to do away with the device as it puts the President at risk to long range remote attacks. But not for Obama, I guess he is hoping that big red "s" he is going to have tattooed on his chest will protect him.

The Sidney Morning Herald has more here.

This is Bill, he is my virtual friend. See Bill on his virtual Cell Phone? Boy when I was a kid they kept telling me to live in the real world. But I guess no one gave the gang over at VMWare that talk.

VMWare (an EMC Company) have added another platform to their virtual list. Now they are going to virtualize the mobile phone platform. That is right, you will be able to run multiple OSes on your smart phone now. The new technology is called MVP (Mobile Virtualization Platform).

MVP information here

HTC today took the covers off its latest phone and this one is a truly a stunning gem of a product. Say hello to the Touch HD - it's packed with features we don't even know where to begin.

Word has come in from Nokia that they have now begun shipping their latest flagship phone, the N96. Nokia refer to it as more of a "multimedia computer" with Carl Zeiss optics 5 mega-pixel camera, 16GB internal memory (expandable to 24GB using microSD cards - a big plus), live TV, WLAN and HSDPA support, GPS, 2.8" display, built-in stereo speakers, MPEG-4, Windows Media Video and Flash Video playback, N-gage gaming; the list goes on and on.

Amongst much wrangling and dragging of heals, Intel enthusiasts may finally be able to partake in some NVIDIA SLI goodness, or so this report from Expreview would have us believe.

Last week MWg launched two new Windows Mobile 6 based phones in Hong Kong at its lavish launch event.

There is great news for those iPhone users who hesitate about hacking their baby fruit.

What am I on about? Well, the Pwnage Tool is out and according to a Gizmodo article, it seems as if the hacked phones are completely free of bugs worth mentioning. What should also be noted is that the latest Version 2.0 firmware needs to be installed for the applications to be PWNED.