Mobile

H-Online: UK regulator PhonepayPlus (fomerly known ICSTIS) has imposed a fine of £50,000 on a payment provider used for an Android malware-based fraud and forced it to reimburse customers’ losses. Last December, unknown perpetrators posted fake versions of popular applications on Google’s Play store (formerly the Android Market) which sent out expensive premium rate text messages. According to Android virus experts Lookout, the applications in question were based on the RuFraud malware and were customized to disguise themselves as 30-plus titles such as Angry Birds, Assassins Creed and Cut the Rope....

The H-Online: WhatsApp Sniffer is an app able to display messages from other WhatsApp users connected to the same network as the app user. The tool diverts all data traffic on, for example, a Wi-Fi network through the user’s smartphone and seeks out WhatsApp messages, which are transferred in plain text. All the user requires is a rooted Android smartphone. The WhatsApp messaging service has established itself as an alternative to texting between smartphone users, because, unlike text messages, users only have to pay for data use....

Corss-posted from ZDNet: Summary: Cyber criminals have created a fake Biophilla app for Android that is really just malware in disguise. Your first red flag should be that Biophilla is officially available on iOS, but not on Android. During April alone, we’ve already seen malicious versions of Angry Birds Space and Instagram in the wild. Both are Android apps that are really just malware designed to generate money from unsuspecting users by sending expensive international text messages....

SophosLabs: This week has seen the annual Mobile World Congress event. For 2012, the giants of the mobile tech world are back in Barcelona to captivate the imagination of the tech press with their latest smartphone and tablet offerings. The mobile industry trade show has certainly not disappointed. Announcements of smartphones with new quad core processors, phone cameras with huge numbers of megapixels crammed onto its sensor and 3 in 1 smartphone-tablet-netbooks have all provided much excitement....

SophosLabs: Scammers don’t just lure you into visiting their websites via email, Facebook and Twitter – you can be targeted on your mobile phone too. For instance, there have been numerous people on the internet who have reported receiving messages like the following: Apple needs iPhone5 testers! The first 1000 users who visit [LINK] and enter code 4444 will get to test & keep the new iPhone5. Of course, the promotion has nothing to do with Apple (who do not do public tests of their upcoming products), and – as the iPhone 5 hasn’t even been announced yet – you have close to zero chance of receiving a free smartphone....

Google Operating System Blog: Google found a way to solve the problem of Android patents and it’s only three times more expensive than acquiring the Nortel patents: buying Motorola for $12.5 billion. “Motorola has a history of over 80 years of innovation in communications technology and products, and in the development of intellectual property, which have helped drive the remarkable revolution in mobile computing we are all enjoying today. (…) In 2008, Motorola bet big on Android as the sole operating system across all of its smartphone devices....

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that Google post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights” and subscribe to the series. This week we have news from the Gmail and Google Docs teams, which both made interface changes to streamline how you use those applications. We also introduced some new keyboard shortcuts and made improvements to spreadsheet charts and functions. New preview pane in Gmail Labs...

Mashable: Get ready, folks with no sense of direction; Google Maps 5.0 app for Android is looking to make your life a lot easier with 3D graphics, more accurate orientation and the ability to function offline. According to Gizmodo, the app — which was demoed at D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco — is much faster than the previous iteration and renders in real time. 3D buildings are visible at street-level view, which lets you tilt the image and check out your virtual surroundings....

Google has finally announced its new phone ‘Nexus S’ manufactured by Samsung and is the first phone powered by the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS. Nexus S is a successor of Nexus One and looks an amazing Android phone with powerful hardware. Nexus S Official Specifications: Connectivity Quad-band GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 Tri-band HSPA: 900, 2100, 1700 HSPA type: HSDPA (7.2Mbps) HSUPA (5.76Mbps) Wi-Fi 802.11 n/b/g Bluetooth 2.1+EDR Near Field Communication (NFC) Assisted GPS (A-GPS) microUSB 2....

Mashable: If you didn’t think the Nexus S was real, perhaps these pictures of the purported device will convince you otherwise. Kudos to Engadget, which was the first publication to get pictures of the mythical successor to the Nexus One. As we reported earlier today, the device is built by Samsung and has a lot of similarities to the Galaxy S Android phone. According to multiple reports, the Nexus S runs Gingerbread (Android 2....