android

Tell Your Android Adware Story And Win A Windows Phone !

January 30, 2012 | By Pradeep

Yesterday we reported about the new variation on a trojan malware which may have infected up to 5 million Android handsets. The malware was packaged in many apps from different publishers, with different attractive titles and was made available for users to download from Android Market by Google.

If you are one among them, consider yourself as lucky. You can win a brand new Windows Phone which will never get infected by a trojan malware. All you need is to tell your Android malware/adware story to @BenThePCGuy / Ben Rudolph on twitter, best 20 stories will get a Windows Phone !

Good job, Ben.

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Up to 5 million Android handsets infected with information-stealing bot

January 28, 2012 | By Surur

counterclank

Symantec has released a report detailing a new variation on a trojan malware which may have infected up to 5 million Android handsets.

Android.Counterclank is a minor modification of Android.Tonclank, a bot-like threat that can receive commands to carry out certain actions, as well as steal information from the device.

The combined download figures of all the malicious apps indicate that Android.Counterclank has the highest distribution of any malware identified so far this year. With 250 million Android handsets activated, it appears a significant percentage of Android users are suffering the effects of malware, downloaded directly from the Android Marketplace, and a problem which has only continued to escalate, with Juniper Networks saying Android malware is increasing at a rate of 1,320% per year.

While Windows Phone has not been free of its issues, it is by design much, much less of a wild west than the Android ecosystem. Feeling secure when you downloads apps is definitely a clear reason to chose Windows Phone over Android.

Via allaboutphones.nl

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Dance*Cam Mobile also coming to iPhone and Android

January 21, 2012 | By Surur

We posted recently that Microsoft has confirmed they will be bringing Xbox Live and a number of their titles to other platforms.

The above promotional video shows that Dance*Can Mobile, the mobile companion to the Kinect Dance*Cam game, will also be coming to multiple platforms, including iPhone and Android.

While we think Microsoft should be using their Xbox property to give Windows Phone an advantage, Microsoft’s recent Financial report, which showed that Xbox has become a major leg of the Microsoft business ($4.2 billion in revenue vs $4.7 billion for Server and Tools and Windows and Windows Live) makes it pretty clear Microsoft is not going to jeopardise this segment on their business just for the embryonic Windows Phone business.

The big problem with this of course is that success in Mobile is seen by many, including investors, as the most important priority for Microsoft, leaving Microsoft with the Innovators Dilemma – how to move forward when it may mean cannibalizing your existing revenue structure.

We don’t have the answers for Microsoft but we suggest they examine their priorities, not just for the next quarter, but the next 40.

Thanks Cyk for the tip.

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Prediction: 2012 Will be the Year of Windows Phone

January 18, 2012 | By robtiffany

Windows Phone 7.5 is running fast out of the gate for 2012. The stunning mobile operating system from Microsoft was the talk of CES in Las Vegas this year. The accolades streaming in from the world’s most influential newspapers, magazines, reviewers, and tech bloggers are unprecedented.

The Nokia Lumia 900 won the Best of CES award in the Smartphone category and it’s no surprise. Before listing off the impressive specs, just look at this gorgeous piece of hardware. Looks matter…trust me. Windows Phone is already the most elegant mobile operating system. Breathtaking industrial design is the other half of the equation. When paired with iconic hardware, it’s like pairing your favorite Walla Walla Cabernet with your favorite steak.

I can’t count the number of reviews and comments stating that Windows Phone on the Lumia 900 has surpassed the iPhone. If you follow the U.S. wireless market, then you know that things like 4G LTE network speeds, large screens, front-facing cameras, and dual-core processors are the current drivers of smartphone sales. The Lumia 900 addresses three of those drivers with support for AT&T’s 4G LTE network, a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display, and a front-facing camera for video calls. It’s powered by a single 1.4 GHz processor and if you’ve paid attention to all the reviews in the press, you’ve heard that Windows Phone runs circles around its dual-core competitors. Better software design, better engineering, more efficient algorithms, and optimized coding techniques means you can do more with less. Last but not least, the Lumia 900 comes with an amazing 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics.

The HTC Titan II came to the CES party guns-blazing with a monster of a smartphone. It tics all the required boxes needed for sales by delivering a massive 4.7 inch screen, support for AT&T’s 4G LTE network, and a front-facing camera. The 1.5Ghz Snapdragon 2 processor gives this superphone all the horsepower it needs.

Joining the camera arms-race with the Lumia 900, the Titan II comes equipped with a whopping 16 megapixel camera that can capture 720p video. If you’re looking for a giant phone that can go head-to-head with the Galaxy Nexus, this is your device.

2012 is already shaping up to be a great year with compelling hardware matched-up with Windows Phone 7.5, but what else does this platform need to make my prediction come true? Oh yeah, apps. Do you remember back in the 80′s when DOS-based PCs from IBM and Compaq gave Apple IIs and Macs more than they could handle? It might not have been eye-catching, but DOS had more apps that allowed consumers and companies to be successful. In the 90′s, Windows ran away with the computing market with the Mac, Linux, NeXT, and OS/2 unable to compete in the app department. Why do you think this was the case? I know a big reason was because Borland and Microsoft made better and easier-to-use development tools for Windows.

With 50,000+ apps in the Marketplace, Windows Phone is surging forward and now sits in third-place behind the iPhone App Store and the Android Market. Aside from developers betting on the success of a platform, they need development tools, emulators, and programming languages that make it easy for them to be productive. When I look at the velocity at which new apps are being added to the Windows Phone Marketplace, it tells me that Visual Studio is making a big difference.

In my job, I have to work with the development tools for all the major smartphone platforms and I can tell you without drinking any Kool-Aid that the competition isn’t even close. Most iPhone developers I know find that learning Objective-C from the NeXT operating system to be a daunting task compared to modern, high-level languages like C# and VB. While the world is full of Java developers, the complexity of cobbling the necessary tools together needed to build for Android apps is a real productivity killer. Just running Eclipse on JDK 1.6 sucks the life and performance out of my fast Windows 7 laptop. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone is free and the emulator + SDKs all download and install together making the whole process fast and simple. Apps get access to all phone sensors, a local database (SQL Server Compact), and Metro design.

Better productivity means faster time-to-market which means more apps for Windows Phone.

If you’re a web designer/developer, Internet Explorer 9 is alive and well on Windows Phone 7.5. This means you’re no longer held hostage to the highly-fragmented WebKit mobile browser platform. You get a hardware-accelerated, amazingly fast browser with support for more “fully-baked” HTML5 standards like Web Storage, Geolocation, Canvas, Audio and Video.

The lightning fast-Chakra JavaScript engine supports ECMAScript 5 which means your DOM interactions and Ajax web service calls will blur the lines with native apps. When you retrieve data from the cloud or your on-premise servers via Ajax, you’ll now be able to persist it offline in Web Storage. Support for CSS3 means things will be beautiful, 2D transforms will occur, and media queries will give you responsive design.

So here we stand with the best smartphone operating system, best hardware, best development tools and the best mobile web browser. I’m certain that Windows Phone with its army of app developers, OEMs and Mobile Operator partners will be marching to victory this year.

Be fearless,

Rob

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Microsoft adds LG as an Android licensee – now cover 70% of the US Android market

January 12, 2012 | By Surur

Microsoft has announced that it has added LG as an Android licensee. The license “provides broad coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for LG’s tablets, mobile phones and other consumer devices running the Android or Chrome OS Platform.”

Together with other Android licensees HTC, Samsung and Acer, 70% of the US market are now covered by the Microsoft licence, leaving Motorola, who is currently in litigation with Microsoft, as the main hold-out.

“We are pleased to have built upon our longstanding relationship with LG to reach a mutually beneficial agreement. Together with our 10 previous agreements with Android and Chrome OS device manufacturers, including HTC, Samsung and Acer, this agreement with LG means that more than 70 percent of all Android smartphones sold in the U.S. are now receiving coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio,” said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel, Intellectual Property Group at Microsoft. “We are proud of the continued success of our program in resolving the IP issues surrounding Android and Chrome OS.”

The new licensee is interesting, given that Microsoft’s case agaisnt Barnes and Noble, another prominent hold-out, is felt to be somewhat shaky, with Microsoft recently withdrawing one of the patents it was using against the company.

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Reminder: Windows Phone into round 3, Nokia Lumia 800 taking on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus! Vote now!

December 29, 2011 | By Surur

Windows Phone sailed through round 1, and did a good job defeating the Nintendo 3DS. Now, in possibly its biggest fight ever, the Nokia Lumia 800 is taking on the new Android heavyweight, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Vote for the Lumia 800 and all of Windows Phone against Android at Gizmodo here.

Thanks Xpache for the tip.

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Initial determination by ITC finds Motorola violates 4 of Microsoft’s patent claims

December 20, 2011 | By Surur

infringing

An example of an infringing device.

Microsoft won the first step of its battle to win license fees from Motorola for use of its patents in Android.

The ITC has made a final preliminary finding that Motorola Mobility is in violation of one of Microsoft’s patents, U.S. Patent No. 6,370,566 which allows users to “schedule an appointment anytime, anywhere, and invite others to attend, making easy use of email addresses and contact information and synchronizing calendars across their phone, PC and other devices.”

The panel found Motorola did not infringe 5 other patients however.

In a statement Microsoft said:

We are pleased with the ITC’s initial determination finding Motorola violated four claims of a Microsoft patent. As Samsung, HTC, Acer and other companies have recognized, respecting others’ intellectual property through licensing is the right path forward.

It is of note that, while Microsoft has been attempting, relatively successfully, to extract license fees from Android OEMs, their aims are very different from Apple’s litigation, which is explicitly aimed at “going nuclear” on the Google mobile OS.

The finding is just the first part of the process. The next step is a final determination by the six-member commission followed by the ITC judge takes the staff’s opinions into account in making a final decision.

ITC bans importation of HTC’s Android devices in US

December 19, 2011 | By Surur

htclogo

The ITC has solidly come down on the side of Apple, banning importation of HTC’s Android devices which violate two claims of patent #5,946,647, which is a system level patent issued in 1999 on analysing and linking data structures.

The patents implicate all of Android, and not just HTC’s implementation, which would make it difficult for HTC to remediate in the 4 months before it goes into effect on the effect on April 19, 2012 .

This of course leaves HTC with their library of Windows Phone 7 handsets in USA, which may explain the rumours of a HTC LTE Windows Phone on AT&T a mere 2 months after the HTC Titan has been released.

HTC has however said “… we are well prepared for this decision, and our designers have created alternate solutions for the ‘647 patent” but the decision may still prompt HTC to spend a bit more time on Windows Phone 7.

Orange support claims Windows Phone can get viruses, Android “do not have such a problem”

December 19, 2011 | By Surur

jhrj48

There is still a lot of education of carrier staff needed, not least this support staffer from Orange, who clearly thinks Windows Phones run actual Windows, prone to slow-downs, viruses and whatnot, unlike Android which is blesses “not to have such problems.”

Of course we know its the reverse which is true, but this may very well be Microsoft’s fault for sticking with the Windows brand with Windows Phone 7.

Do our readers think a Zune or Xbox Phone would have less perception problems than Windows Phones? Let us know below.

Thanks Kieran for the screen shot and tip.

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Microsoft giving away free Windows Phones to virus-infected Android users with the best story

December 12, 2011 | By Surur

Ben Rudolph, a Microsoft evangelist, has offered Android users stuck in the hell of malware and lack of updates a long cool drink by offering them a chance to win one of 5 Windows Phones if they tweet the best tale of woe regarding their experience with Android malware.

Example tweets so far include:

@BenThePCGuy Am furious with carriers installing carrier iq rootkit with no ability to turn it off.They do not respect the user. #droidrage

and

@BenThePCGuy #droidrage malware bricked phone &, I had to get a new Google store acct. The worst part is no idea what’s safe I need #wp 7.5

See more of the sorry tales at the Hashtag #DroidRage here.

Via MobilityDigest.com

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Samsung mocks iPhone buyers

November 23, 2011 | By Surur

There is a very real war going on between Samsung and Apple; in the market, where Samsung recently overtook Apple as biggest smartphone shipper, and the courts, where Samsung is uniformly being hammered.

Samsung has now taken it to the airwaves, with a commercial mocking dedicated iPhone buyers who actually queue for each new iteration of the device, even if its only marginal, like the iPhone 4S.

While Samsung is not promoting anything Windows Phone in the ad, I think our readers can appreciate running into both Android and iPhone users who would never dream of trying a Windows Phone, despite the better experience, simply because of their allegiance to their current OS.

Do our readers think Microsoft should be running a similar campaign, or would it make Microsoft look bad? Let us know below.

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WP7 Nokia Drive compared to Android Google Navigation

November 21, 2011 | By Surur

Mobiletechworld have posted this video comparing the GPS Navigation app Nokia Drive, found on the Nokia Lumia devices, with the free Google Navigation app which comes with most Android handsets.

Unfortunately the Nokia Drive app does not come of very well from the comparison, with MTW noting it is missing:

No remaining time until arrival displayed during navigation (it’s only noted during 5 secs on summery screen before the navigation starts)
No Directions breakdown list: Even Bing Maps and Nokia Maps have it.
POIs are useless: You can’t tap on them
No way to save or favorite a location: only recent destinations/searches are automatically saved in a history list that can be manually cleared
No traffic data, No Public Transit Data
No way to have more than one itinerary unless you stop/cancel the current one and manually re-calculate another one
Requires an active Data connection to do the routing calculation even-though it has offline maps loaded on the device

Of course we know Nokia was in a major rush in getting their apps and phone ready for a fall release, and have already promised one update. I am sure more are to come, but Nokia Drive is already good enough to stop Lumia owners from having to shell out for Navigon, which is really what matters in the end.

Android’s Malware Monopoly Continues: 472% Increase In Android Malware Since July

November 21, 2011 | By Pradeep

How about security in new smartphone platforms these days ?? Microsoft’s Windows Phone and Apple’s iPhone situation seems to be much much better than Google’s Android. Why is it so ? Take a look at the recent reports from McAfee and Juniper Networks,

First from Juniper Networks,

“The Juniper Global Threat Center found that the months of October and November are shaping up to see the fastest growth in Android malware discovery in the history of the platform,”

“The number of malware samples identified in September increased by 28 percent over the number of the known Android malware samples. October showed a 110 percent increase in malware sample collection over the previous month and a striking 171 percent increase from what had been collected up to July 2011.”

“Google’s solution, the Android Market Security Tool, was also pirated and turned into malware in China.”

From McAfee,

Android OS solidified its lead as the primary target for new mobile malware. The amount of malware targeted at Android devices jumped nearly 37 percent since last quarter, and puts 2011 on track to be the busiest in mobile and general malware history. Nearly all new mobile malware in Q3 was targeted at Android. This follows a 76 percent rise in Android malware in Q2 of 2011.

The Android platform was the only mobile operating system for all new mobile malware in Q3. One of the most popular forms of trickery in Q3 was SMS-sending Trojans that collect personal information and steal money. Another new method of stealing user information is malware that records phone conversations and forwards them to the attacker.

Other types of security attacks are also on the rise. Fake Anti-Virus (AV), AutoRun and password-stealing Trojans have bounced back strongly from previous quarters, while AutoRun and passwords stealers remain at relatively constant levels.

It seems no other smartphone platform can beat Android’s Monopoly in malware distribution if it continues at this rate. Windows Phone can never ever beat Android in this security battle. Anyway, I’m happy to see Android wins in this case ! ! !

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