Skype

Multitasking, the feature that has been the absolute top of every iPhone user’s want list –which, by proxy became a major marketing point for both Android and webOS — has made its way to iPhone OS 4. “We figured out how to implement multitasking for third party apps and avoid those things [battery life and lag]. So that’s what took so long,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs this morning. While it’s not actually full background processing, Apple has devised a way to reproduce the feeling. The company provided 7 APIs to developers which constitute the always-on services that apps can communicate with. These include: background audio, VoIP, Background Location, push notifications, local notifications, task completion, and fast app switching. ...

Communications security firm FaceTime of Belmont, Calif., has released the results of a survey (of 1654 people) that strongly indicates we are all using a lot of Web 2.0 applications at work and a third of our IT staffs aren’t aware of it. It was FaceTime’s fifth annual survey. Social media and Web 2.0 apps are being used by virtually all end users (99 percent) to support business processes, but 38 percent of IT professionals surveyed think there is no social networking on their networks. ...

Popular instant messaging, voice chat, and video conferencing client Skype and Skype Lite are no longer available on Windows Mobile devices. The company says, “We’ve chosen to withdraw Skype Lite and Skype for Windows Mobile because we want to offer our new customers an improved mobile experience — much like the version that has proved so popular on the iPhone, and which is now available on Symbian phones. Our focus is on providing a rich user experience that allows you to enjoy free Skype-to-Skype and low cost calls as easily on the move as you do at your desktop. We felt that Skype Lite and Skype for Windows Mobile were not offering the best possible Skype experience.“ ...

We were made aware that phishing for Skype credentials is currently taking place. The link the phishing mails direct to are dangerous – they aren’t detected by any phishing filter of the popular browsers yet. One thing caught my attention. Modern browsers should support domain highlighting so that the real domain is visible when someone surfs the Internet. Like Internet Explorer 8 properly does: There you can clearly see that you are not on the Skype website, but on another domain. ...

Jerome Segura, a Security Analyst at ParetoLogic of Victoria, B.C., Canada, just posted a nice piece on computer security practices with a different perspective in his “Malware Diaries” Blog. He begins his list of security tips by considering four classes of users: the pre-baby boomers: These folks rarely touched a computer in their lives and if they did, kudos! Typical use: Work, Solitaire, Printing stuff. the early and late baby boomers: They have been interacting with computers pre-Internet and have good notions but lack the ‘modern day stuff’. Typical use: Work, e-mail, Online searches. the 70’s – 80’s users: These guys are definitely into computers, maybe a bit more gaming and such. They possess quite a good sense of computing. Typical use: Games, Work, E-mail, Online Dating, Forums 90’s to present: Some of them were born with a computer or handheld device. Their lives would not be possible without the MSN, Skype and more recently all the social engineering glitter. Typical use: Twittering, Facebooking, Online shopping. then makes further distinctions by level of security knowledge and awareness: ...