2010

Windows Mobile was never just a consumer product; it was also a significant player in handheld terminals, in-vehicle systems, and ruggedized consoles for business and industry. But that whole branch of business-oriented Windows Mobile devices used to be overseen by Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business group (MCB), the same group responsible for Windows Mobile-powered consumer devices, despite the fact that they were very different. Yesterday, David Wurster, senior product manager for Windows Embedded, announced that things will no longer be run that way. Now, all of the ruggedized and industry-specific device development will be the responsibility of the Windows Embedded Business group, regardless of their operating system (WinCE, WinMo.) ...

TSince 27 March a new game called 3D Antiterrorist has been cropping up on quite a few international freeware sites offering downloads for Windows Mobile smartphones. As well as the game itself, the 1.5 MB archive contains the file reg.exe which is actually a Trojan that calls premium rate international numbers and leaves smartphone owners significantly out of pocket. As of 8 April this malicious program has been detected by Kaspersky Lab as Trojan.WinCE.Terdial.a. Let’s take a closer look at what happens. ...

Apple is hosting an event at 1 p.m. EST to unveil the next-generation iPhone 4.0 OS. Take a look at some of the features Apple might just unveil today: Multitasking *Last year, it was all about copy and paste; this year, it’s all about multitasking. While native iPhone applications like iPod, Mail and Safari can take advantage of backgrounding or multitasking (i.e., you can listen to music using the iPod app while playing a game or surfing the web), third-party applications can’t do this. While there are specific reasons that multitasking or backgrounding hasn’t been implemented on a system-wide level, that hasn’t stopped complaints from users and pundits alike. Since January we’ve been hearing rumors about multitasking coming to the next iPhone OS. While we’re not sure how Apple will implement this feature, we have a strong feeling that it is coming. ...

Apparently, Facebook isn’t the only online sphere where ninjas are becoming a problem — The LinkedIn Blog reports that the job title “Ninja” has become more and more popular since 2002. According to LinkedIn, those who deem themselves “ninjas” tend to work with computers, social media, design, customer service, advertising and finance, and — as you can see from the chart below — their ranks have been steadily growing since the dawn of the century. ...

Today, Apple revised its iPhone Developer Program License Agreement to effectively ban the use of the Flash-to-iPhone converter. Throughout 2010, Steve Jobs and Apple made it very clear that they do not like Adobe. At all. They prominently left Flash off the iPad, instead promoting HTML5 at every opportunity. For some time now, though, Adobe’s had a tool to circumvent Apple’s ban on Flash for the iPhone and iPad: the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Flash-to-iPhone converter, which would have allowed developers to create apps in Flash and then port them over into iPhone. ...

Today, Apple unveiled a major update to the iPhone OS which is expected to reach iPhone 3G/3GS and 2nd/3rd gen iPod users sometime this summer, and iPad users in the fall. While the banner feature of this release is its multitasking capability, the announcement that Apple will open a web-based gaming network akin to Xbox Live and PlayStation Network has potential to be the biggest coup. Game Center lets users invite friends to play games, start multiplayer games through matchmaking, track achievements, and compare their high scores on a Web-based game network. This is a huge addition to the iPhone ecosystem which puts it on par with the two major home consoles, and actually catapults it past BOTH Nintendo’s Wii and its DS. ...

Yahoo Movies has posted the newest trailer for the upcoming film, Sex and the City 2. The sequel to the 2008 box office hit comes to theaters on May 28, 2010. While _Sex and the City 2_ has the obligatory Facebook Fan Page, the film’s website is still pretty barren — at least for now. In 2008, HBO and New Line put together a more interactive campaign, including a site that let you explore Carrie’s MacBook Pro, but we’ll have to wait and see if they do anything like that this time around. ...

The National Bureau of Economic Research has previously indicated that the United States has been in a recession since December 2007. What is interesting to note here is that Symantec first reported that spammers were showing an interest in the slowdown of the economy in October and November of 2007, so this begs the question, “Can the focus of spam email be used as an economic indicator or barometer?” Let’s take a brief look at the recession (thus far) by looking through Symantec’s spam folder (a.k.a. the Symantec Global Intelligence Network). ...

I don’t believe it!! This morning I’ve received an email sent by Google notifying me that I´ve won $950,000, so I think this will be the last post I’m going to write 😉 Well, I haven’t taken part in any promotion of this kind and I’ve never heard that Google gives prizes just like that, but I can consider it as if I won the lottery. Here you have the content of the message: ...

Now we know for certain: Twitter is working on a major redesign of its web interface. Twitter’s lead designer has just revealed a taste of what’s to come. Doug Bowman, the head of Twitter’s design team, posted a teaser picture displaying the new interface. While it doesn’t reveal much, it does show that the profiles are being overhauled, and so are the stats that are displayed on profiles. As you can see from the image, new stats displayed on profiles include the amount of days you have been on Twitter, the average number of tweets you send per day, and the percentage of @replies recently. ...

The Indian Premier League 2010 is a huge attraction for the cricket-crazy population in India. These matches are packed with all the ingredients to entertain, and are capable of satisfying viewers’ hunger for more and more cricket matches. People are ready to buy tickets in all possible ways just to watch their local and international cricket stars play. Symantec was anticipating a spamming campaign against ticket sales during the initial period of the sporting extravaganza; however, it is just halfway through the event and still not too late to lure email users with offers related to IPL tickets. ...

Heavy Gmail label users will appreciate the latest experimental feature, available in Gmail Labs: Nested Labels, which let you organize your inbox into as many categories and subcategories as you like. To enable it, open Settings – Gmail Labs, and enable the “Nested Labels” option. Now, if you want to create a child label – or a subfolder, if you will – you must name it with slashes (/). For example, you can create a label named “Friends”. A nested label for that label could be named “Friends/Workplace”. It would be nice to manipulate nested labels via drag and drop, but for now this naming scheme is the only way to do it. ...

One month ago we heard about the official Twitter app for BlackBerry, which has been in the works for quite some time now, bringing features such as automatic URL-shortening, easy photo-sharing, push and message list integration and search filtered by geolocation. Today, the first public beta of the app is available in the BlackBerry App World. Based on the feedback from closed beta testing, the developers have added several additional features. These include notifications of new tweets and @replies/mentions, support for lists, profile editing and persionalization settings, and changing the font size and style. You can get Twitter for BlackBerry here. How do you like it? Please, share your opinions in the comments!

Microsoft has put the PC-using world on notice that next Tuesday there will be 11 bulletins released addressing 25 vulnerabilities in Windows, Exchange and Office. Jerry Bryant, Group Manager of Microsoft’s Response Communications, said: “I also want to point out to customers that we will be closing the following open Security Advisories with next week’s updates: — Microsoft Security Advisory 981169 – Vulnerability in VBScript could allow remote code execution. ...

Search terms that are censored in China: “Tibet” “Tiananmen Square protests” “Carrot” Apaprently “carrot” has a Chinese character that is the same as the surname of President Hu Jintao. The New York Times has run a great story by Shiho Fukada about Internet censorship in China, where the effort to control the content seen by 384 million Internet users who have 181 million blogs is like “herding cats.” “This is China’s censorship machine, part George Orwell, part Rube Goldberg: an information sieve of staggering breadth and fineness, yet full of holes; run by banks of advanced computers, but also by thousands of Communist Party drudges; highly sophisticated in some ways, remarkably crude in others,” Fukada wrote. ...