Privacy/security breach?IPhone Snaps Everything You Do

What is apple upto? I mean... this is totally a privacy breach for any user who just uses a iPhone because he likes it.

wired.com says

While demonstrating how to break the iPhone's passcode lock in a webcast, iPhone hacker and data-forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski explained that the popular handset snaps a screenshot of your most recent action -- regardless of whether it's sending a text message, e-mailing or browsing a web page -- in order to cache it. This is purely for aesthetic purposes: When an iPhone user taps the Home button, the window of the application you have open shrinks and disappears. In order to create that shrinking effect, the iPhone snaps a screenshot, Zdziarski said.

The phone presumably deletes the image after you close the application. But anyone who understands data is aware that in most cases, deletion does not permanently remove files from a storage device. Therefore, forensics experts have used this security flaw to gather evidence against criminals convicted of rape, murder or drug deals, Zdziarski said.

"There's no way to prevent it," Zdziarski said during the webcast. "I'm kind of divided on it. I hope Apple fixes it because it's a significant privacy leak, but at the same time it's been useful for investigating criminals."

Now what is that means?It means.. to catch such people,everyone is a suspect?And every user who buys an iPhone will have to suffer such things? This is not the right feature if its breaching your security and privacy.I hope wpple will do something in this regard.

iPhone 2.1 firmware

Apple has released new iPhone 2.1 software on its iTunes online service that offers to decrease dropped calls, improve the battery life, improve e-mail reliability, improve text messaging notification, reduce 3rd-party application crashes and reduce the time it takes to sync the device with a computer.

Users have noticed more "bars" on the connection meter and have reported that it was faster performing key tasks. Last month's update from Apple drew some criticism from users that claimed that it did not enhance access to high-speed data networks as Apple had predicted. In this update, Apple also patched 8 security vulnerabilities including the "passcode bug" they fixed last January but failed to include in the July iPhone 2.0 update.

It seems now iPhone will be more of interest if it gives what it claims to provide!What you say?Lets hope this will bring it to what people expect from apple.

Nokia buys rest of Symbian - code will be open source

This will be a big move i think.And may be it can shake the mobile world?Yeah, but we can't guess that much. But this is something of interest for open source peoplse. If nokia buys and may be they make the code Open. Think what can be the development? Lets see what happens, but for sure this will bring new things to us :).

Nokia on Tuesday announced it plans to acquire all of Symbian, which develops an operating system for mobile phones. The Finnish phone giant currently owns about 48 percent and will pay €264 million ($410 million) for the rest. It has received thumbs up from Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, Panasonic Mobile Communications, and Siemens, which represents about 91 percent of the Symbian shares subject to the offer, according to a statement from Nokia.

Samsung Electronics, a partial stakeholder in Symbian, hasn't commented yet, but Nokia said it expects the company to agree to the sale. The deal doesn't come as a surprise to Geoff Blaber, an analyst at CCS Insight.

"Nokia paid out more than $250 million in Symbian license fees last year, so it makes commercial sense to buy Symbian for about $410 million, rather than keep paying what is effectively a subsidy to the other shareholders,"

Blaber wrote in a company blog.

Infoworld

3G iPhone To Launch June 9

Gizmodo has got this amazing shaking news. He says, he got news from someone very close to this release ;). It means, its a leak from internals!:)

Ok, jokes apart, it describes that this release will bring some new logics also for sell policies and pricing structure.

And it's also possible that they have some tie-ups with services providers and carriers for marketing structure. Where apple will go? I mean this iPhone will boom the cell market.

Already iPhone has covered a very big share in market, though it was costly in starting. Let's see what happens after the release.

Bluetooth: A risk for privacy!

Worried about your civil liberties and privacy? Then it may come as a shock to discover that you have unwittingly been allowing your phone to signal your every move.

Bluetooth, a wireless link built into many cellphones, makes our movements trackable by anyone equipped with a PC and an appropriate receiver. Vassilis Kostakos at the University of Bath in the UK placed four Bluetooth receivers in the city's centre. Over four months, his team tracked 10,000 Bluetooth phones and was able to "capture and analyse people's encounters" in pubs, streets and shops.

Bluetooth is now more of a privacy threat than the more frequently publicised RFID chips, Kostakos says.

"If people are worried, they should turn off the Bluetooth function on their mobile phones."

via NewScientistTech

BT's 'Blackberry for consumers'

BT is trying to introduce consumers to the delights of Blackberry-style mobile email and web access.

Dubbed BT Total Broadband Anywhere, the service provides the company's broadband customers with a "free" HTC Windows Mobile smartphone to take outside of the home.

The smartphone will hook up to any BT Wi-Fi hotspot - including 80,000 BT FON hotspots - to make calls, download emails or surf the web. When outside of a hotspot zone, the smartphone reverts to dawdling GPRS on the Vodafone network.

BT is attempting to play-up the simplicity of the device, claiming that it is simple for users to synchronise their BT email, VoIP telephone service and calendar. "

This is not a niche play,"

Warren Buckley, BT's group director of mobile and convergence told PC Pro at this afternoon's launch event.

"Having email and calendar access is not something consumers are used to. In testing, that was something consumers were very attracted to."

via pcPro

Price of 3G iPhone about to Cut to $200

AT&T is planning to put some extra shine on the even sleeker new Apple iPhone.

When the 3G iPhone is introduced this summer, AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone sales partner with Apple, will cut the price by as much as $200, according to a person familiar with the strategy.

AT&T is preparing to subsidize $200 of the cost of a new iPhone, bringing the price down to $199 for customers who sign two-year contracts, the source says. Apple is expected to have two versions of the new iPhone, an 8-gigabyte-memory and a 16-gigabyte-memory model with price tags widely expected to be $399 and $499.

AT&T and Apple declined to comment.

Microsoft Launches Windows Mobile 6.1

At CTIA Wireless 2008, Robbie Bach unveiled new features for an update to Windows Mobile, which includes enhanced features for socializing like threaded text messaging and features for simpler navigation. He also announced Microsoft’s plans to bring desktop-grade Web browsing experience to the Windows Mobile phone with an upcoming version of Internet Explorer Mobile.

Updates and new phones are expected to be available beginning in the second quarter of 2008. IE Mobile will be available to mobile phone partners in the third quarter of 2008 with the first Windows Mobile phones using the new version to be available by the end of 2008.

For Windows Mobile phones used in businesses, System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 is now available.

The Microsoft Mobile Services Plan (MMSP) was also announced today in partnership with AT&T, O2, Orange, TaTa Teleservices Ltd. and Verizon Wireless. The plan will help businesses with:

• Securing Windows Mobile phones with the same ease and flexibility as Windows-based PCs and providing access to information behind a company’s firewall.
• Helping businesses meet their mobile device management needs through mobile operators with the MMSP.
• Managing and securing phones with Exchange Server 2007 SP1 advanced mobile policies while enabling people to find, share, and use information no matter where they are

Press Release

iPhone SDK Second Beta Released

Apple has sent an email to developers in its program informing them that the second beta was available for download on the company's Developer Connection web site.

"The second beta version of the iPhone SDK includes Interface Builder, Xcode IDE, Instruments, iPhone simulator, frameworks and samples, compilers, and Shark analysis tool," the site reads. Interface Builder is "an application for designing and testing user interfaces. Developers can use Interface Builder to create user interfaces that follow the Mac OS X human-interface guidelines by dragging user-interface elements from a palette of predefined controls and dropping them into the window or view they are configuring," according to Apple.

CRN.com

TeaShark - full web browsing on your mobile!

TeaShark gives you full web browsing on your mobile phone with superb usability and performance. It renders web pages the same way as desktop browsers. No more 'mobile web', your favourite sites are the same on your phone and the desktop.

Features:

-TeaShark renders web pages the same way as desktop browsers. It's no more mobile web with hardly any content. Your favorite sites are the same on your phone and the desktop.

-There's an intelligent mouse for easy navigation. The cursor jumps to the next link to click, saving you the trouble. Navigate as fast or slow as you need with page up and down, left and right shortcuts. Jump to content: the display snaps to the text you're reading.

-TeaShark has unique 2-level zooming. The first level is for fine scrolling with reading capabilities, while the second is for quick jumping from section to section. You'll never be lost on the page.

-Go sideways for a more natural feel. TeaShark can rotate the page 90 degrees to landscape mode.

-Tabs is a must for any browser. TeaShark has it. You can open a link in a tab and access it the same way as you would access your browsing history. You can easily slide back and forth, up and down. TeaShark also remembers your last session and when you start it up again, your browsing and tab history is there as you left it the last time.

Check much more @ TeaShark.com

Sun's Java VM for iPhone

Sun Microsystems is developing a Java Virtual Machine for Apple's iPhone and plans to release the JVM some time after June, enabling Java applications to run on the popular mobile device. According to Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing at Sun, the JVM is to be based on the Java Micro Edition (ME) version of Java. Although Apple had not shown interest in enabling Java to run on the iPhone, Sun plans to step in and do the job itself after having pondered Thursday's release of an SDK for the iPhone by Apple.

"Now, the iPhone is open" as a target platform, Klein said. The free JVM would be made available via Apple's AppStore marketplace for third-party applications. "We're going to make sure that the JVM offers the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible...It's a new platform for us. We might be able to bring additional technologies onto the iPhone and the iTouch."

infoWorld.com

iPhone gets own "Unlimited" Calling Plan

Apple released It's official "Unlimited" calling plan for the Apple iPhone. The plan starts at $119.99/monthly and comes with:

• Unlimited Voice Calling
• Unlimited email and web surfing
• Visual Voicemail
• 200 Text Messages
• Unlimited Night And Weekend Minutes
• Unlimited Mobile To Mobile
  

200 text messages per week may be very little for some of us, Apple needs to increase this limit If they want to make this unlimited calling plan a good one.

iPhone Rates

Microsoft + Nokia - Silverlight On Mobile Devices

The strategy to get its rich Internet app on cell phones is part of Microsoft's effort to make the browser plug-in a cross-platform, cross-browser product. Microsoft's bringing Silverlight to cell phones, partnering with Nokia to bring the rich Internet app browser plug-in to devices that use Nokia's popular S60 software platform. Nokia will also make Silverlight available on its Series 40 devices and its Internet Tablet devices, the companies are expected to announce Tuesday.

The strategy to get Silverlight on mobile devices -- and particularly on the Symbian OS -- is part of Microsoft's effort to make the browser plug-in a cross-platform, cross-browser product in order to get as much penetration as possible on the Web. The company is also working on a version of Silverlight for Windows Mobile, a beta version of which is due out soon.

Microsoft is coming from behind. Adobe has had a strong mobile presence for Flash for years. It has distribution agreements with 18 of the top 20 device manufacturers worldwide including Nokia, and according to Adobe, 450 million devices have been shipped so far with Flash Lite, which is a trimmed down version of Flash. That, of course, compares to zero for Microsoft. According to Adobe, Flash Lite has seen a 150% growth in the past year.

informationweek.com

Apple Firmware 1.1.4 (Update) - iPod Touch and iPhone

Apple has released iPhone software version 1.1.4. The 162.1MB patch is available for download and installation through iTunes.

Apple isn't making a big deal about the release, beyond letting users know it "includes bug fixes and supersedes all previous versions." Some reports claim the update improves the reliability of Bluetooth, SMS and Mail on the iPhone, and that it boosts signal strength on mobile networks, but these haven't yet been confirmed.

However, Apple has been expected to ship its iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) this month, enabling a new industry creating third party applications for the iPod touch and the iPhone to emerge. While reports have recently circulated claiming the release of the iPhone SDK may be delayed, it's also likely that the iPhone 1.1.4 updates contains functionality to support the installation of new applications.

MacWorld.co.uk

Reviews: LockCrypt 1.18

LockCrypt is a free account management program written in Java. It uses high strength AES encryption to encrypt your data, so only you can access it. 1.18 adds different views and a menu option to reset all settings (incase you forget the password).

Changes in LockCrypt 1.18

• Added wizard which loads on first run to configure database and passwords.
• Added different views: Large icons, Small icons, List or Tiles.
• Added Split Pane to main window to allow resizing.(Thanks Mercury52)
• Added created and last modified fields for accounts (Thanks Mercury52)
• Added menu option to clear all preferences.
• Changed: Scrolling behaviour when showing a group.

LockCrypt Mobile, a J2ME version is also available. It allows you to carry your account database with you on any Java enabled mobile device.

LockCrypt.com

Reviews: Alienware Android Cell Phone

Google and Dell are on the point of launching a new mobile phone to run on the Android operating system, probably at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona that’s going on at the moment. Dell have tried to enter the mobile phone market once before but their range of PDAs was a complete flop.

Dell have also recently acquired Alienware, the trendiest tech company in the world, an expert in Video, Gaming, and Audio, and a company crying out for a mobile phone.

So here are the first pictures of the Alienware mobile phone!

• Classic Alienware eye catching design
• Large screen with high resolution
• Superb video gaming capability
• Fantastic Audio
• Built on the Google Android platform

More @ Dialaphone

Google Phone prototype to be unveiled in Barcelona

British chip designer ARM will demo an Android-based prototype mobile phone at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona next Monday. Google's open-source Android software platform will be used by T-Mobile and HTC when they release Android-based phones later this year.

In addition, Google is bidding on wireless spectrum space in the United States which would place Google in direct competition with the big mobile telecom providers.

ReUters.com

MOBILedit! 2.7.0.16

MOBILedit! is a software application that brings the ability to control a phone from your PC. After connecting the phone via cable, Bluetooth or infrared, view the contents of the phone on the PC, manage ringtones and games, dial numbers, and send SMS or MMS messages. With a simple click, backup all your data, copy to different mobile phones and edit your contacts without even touching the phone. When you receive a text message, it arrives on your PC in a similar way as an email; simply reply to it or move it to the archive. You will become much more productive as a result.

Home Page

Google phone plans to be announced Monday

While it had been suggested that an announcement would come November 13th at the earliest, the Journal's sources say that it will mostly likely happen Monday, November 5th, and with different carriers. T-Mobile is still involved, but the other main party is said to be Sprint. Foreign carriers may be included, but have not been mentioned.

Google is again said to be working with cellular networks and phone makers to promote an "open" application platform, courting companies such as HTC, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. With T-Mobile Google is claimed to be going even further, cooperating directly on building phones using its software. When the efforts of any of these collaborations might bear fruit remains unknown, but Journal proposes that the earliest date for sale of a Google-ready phone would be mid-2008.

Blogs.wsj.com

Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1: Upgrade for Office 2007 format

Office Mobile 6.1 is an upgrade to Office Mobile applications on Windows Mobile. The new upgrade supports the new Office 2007 file formats.Microsoft Office 2007 introduced new Open XML-based file formats for Office applications. These new file formats reduce file size, improve security and reliability, and enhance integration with external sources.

To allow Windows Mobile users to work with Office documents created in the Open XML formats, Microsoft has developed an upgrade for Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile applications. This upgrade to the Office Mobile applications allows viewing and editing of Word documents and Excel workbooks and viewing of PowerPoint slideshows created by using Microsoft Office 2007.

If your Windows Mobile device does not have a version of Microsoft Office Mobile prior to 6.1, you can purchase the full version of Microsoft Office Mobile.

The Office Mobile application suite includes Microsoft Office Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint® Mobile for Windows Mobile 6 powered devices, helping users manage and review documents. Microsoft Office Mobile includes support for rich reviewing and minor editing capabilities as well as support for rights-managed documents.

The primary user scenario enabled by Office Mobile is viewing e-mail attachments, performing minor edits, sharing document versions, and opening documents from an SD card or a SharePoint server. Office Mobile provides a high-fidelity document viewing experience, with capability to edit as well as fast performance in loading the first page of the document.

Note: This free upgrade works only for Windows Mobile powered devices that have an earlier version of Office Mobile. If your Windows Mobile powered device does not have Office Mobile applications, this upgrade will not work for you. You can purchase the full version of Office Mobile 6.1 online. For more information, click here -http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/mic...bileoffice.mspx.

Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1: Upgrade for Microsoft Office 2007 file formats