Nokia to roll out its mobile Money platform
Nokia has been quite busy this week. In advance of Nokia World 09, the company introduced its first PC in more than 18 years and two new handsets (the 5800 navigation edition and the 5230.) Today, the Finnish mobile phone leader introduced Nokia Money, a mobile banking platform that will continue the company's advancement into the "wallet phone" model.
Working in cooperation with Obopay, Nokia Money will let users buy merchandise and pay bills with their mobile device.
Skype doubles connection fees for many international calls
Skype's connection fee for placing calls to landline and mobile phones in certain countries will increase 100% on September 6th, the company's site now says.
For Skype users who are not on an unlimited calling plan, calls that connect to landline or cellular numbers incur a one-time connection fee and a per-minute charge.
Mozilla credited with discovering exploitable Google Chrome 2 flaw
Google is not saying much today about a flaw discovered in the V8 JavaScript engine of its Chrome 2 stable Web browser, one which triggered an update that is being rolled out to Chrome users today. Amid what it is sharing today, however, is a surprising fact: Mozilla Security is being credited with the discovery.
Malicious JavaScript, Google says, can cause the Chrome browser to run arbitrary code, although that code may still be protected by the browser's "sandbox" -- its protected area of memory where running code has no access to system resources. However, it's conceivable that code running within the sandbox could provoke the user (by social means, perhaps by feigning a crash or system bug) to perform an action that may trigger a more damaging process delivered through a different payload, so Google treated the issue with a "High" severity rating.
Mac malware poses as popular freeware PDF viewer
Foxit Reader, a free, lightweight PDF viewer and printer popular in our FileForum, has an evil twin.
Today, the Foxit Corporation warned that a malware claiming to be Foxit Reader for Macintosh has been perpetrating attacks on users thinking they were downloading an official version of the free PDF reader. The thing is, there is no Foxit Reader for OS X. The software is available for Windows, Windows Mobile, Embedded Linux, Desktop Linux, and U3.
Open source project makes ADO.NET data accessible with PHP
Microsoft's most recent Web-driven database technology is ADO.NET, although only the first three letters of its name have been a throwback to its predecessor: There's nothing "ActiveX" about ADO.NET whatsoever. Up to now, its purpose has been to expose data through HTTP Web services that can be utilized by JavaScript clients (read: common Web pages) as well as by .NET applications including Silverlight.
But that fact has kept the pairings of ADO.NET with ASP.NET, and PHP with MySQL, separate and distinct from one another.
Analyst: Blu-ray may never replace DVD in PCs
Even though Blu-ray player sales are on a rapid climb, and Sony's new PS3 Slim and cheaper PlayStation 3 are expected to cause an explosion in Blu-ray penetration, market research company iSuppli says the drives haven't even begun to break the PC market.
According to the firm's tallies of the global PC market, only 3.6% of all computers shipped this year were equipped with Blu-ray drives, and the growth rate will remain low.
The dead shall rise: Appeals victory sends SCO/Linux trial back to square one
For the last two years, there really hasn't been much of an SCO Group left, although the company remains in business. The biggest question facing the continued existence of that company in recent days has been whether to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (it filed for Chapter 11 in October 2007), after which its remaining assets could be sold off.
But while many think the company is on its last breath, a possible reprieve has come in the form of a reversal of what many felt was the only truly scoring blow in its interminable Linux copyright deathmatch against Novell, the company that sold its Unix and Unixware properties to SCO's predecessor Santa Cruz Operation in 1995. SCO accused Novell of sullying the value of the Unix intellectual property it was sold, by becoming a vendor of Linux. Two years ago, the judge in the case -- who, by that time, may have wished he'd taken up a safer, quieter job managing an ammunition testing facility -- ruled that Novell could do anything it wanted because it never ceded control of its Unix copyrights.
Google Maps for Mobile users become traffic beacons
This week, Google is expanding the traffic layer in Google Maps to cover all US highways, and to determine the flow of traffic, its own users are anonymously supplying the data.
In Google Maps for Mobile with "My Location," phones with GPS (excluding iPhones) send their speed data to Google so it can determine the overall speed at which traffic is flowing. Traffic flow is not uploaded in a social way. That is to say, a single user does not simply flick on his GPS to show other users that he's stuck in traffic. Rather, Google pulls the speed data off of every phone with Google Maps and GPS and combines it to arrive at an average.
Yahoo promises it will still innovate search
In a conference call yesterday live-blogged by Search Engine Land, representatives from Yahoo gave a live demonstration to reporters and analysts of new features of their principal Web applications that they believe will attract new users. Included on their list were ways that Yahoo plans to improve search.
This after Yahoo signed away its search infrastructure to Microsoft in an historic deal late last month, which many perceive as Yahoo opening its floodgates to Bing. In an effort to minimize the appearance of the deal having any impact on Yahoo's search strategy, the company's senior vice president for search, Prabhakar Raghaven, told reporters Yahoo can still innovate with regard to the experience users receive from search. Maintaining the search engine itself, however, was a battle Yahoo could no longer afford to fight.
Sony's latest e-reader finally adds 3G wireless
After debuting two new products in its Reader family at the beginning of the month, including the lowest-priced e-reader yet, the $199 "Pocket Edition" PRS-300, and the $299 touchscreen model aptly called the "Touch Edition," Sony has fully stepped up its e-reader game. As the company announced this morning, it is finally endowing one of its Readers with wireless connectivity, the critical feature which has already pushed Amazon's Kindle into the top of the class.
Kindle has offered 3G wireless connectivity from Sprint from the start, allowing users to acquire new content and update subscriptions effortlessly. But come this December, Sony's new $399 Daily Edition will have a 3G wireless connection through AT&T, and a 7-inch touchscreen display which can be used in portrait or landscape mode.
Windows 7: Obviously I've struck a nerve
I guess I stirred up quite the beehive of activity with my last column, Windows 7 is coming: Don't upgrade. Before I continue, I wanted to share a few final thoughts on what's clearly been the most controversial piece of writing I've published in a while.
First, I'm a big boy, and I've got a thick skin. If you didn't agree with what I had to say (and many of you didn't) I promise you I didn't skulk back to my office with a sniffle in my nose and a tear in my eye after reading the comments. Pro or con, agree or disagree, if I get readers to think critically about a given issue, I've accomplished my goal. I don't particularly enjoy fanboys agreeing with my every word, so don't expect my writing to reflect some kind of middle-of-the-road festival of milquetoast mutual admiration.
RIM acquires WebKit browser maker Torch Mobile, shuts down WM version
A little over one month after one of the most promising WebKit-based Web browsers for Windows Mobile introduced what its manufacturer called, "a whole new level of Internet capabilities to mobile devices," the manufacturer of IrisBrowser has found itself suddenly acquired by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. The announcement was made this morning on Torch Mobile's blog:
"Our team of developers will join RIM's global organization and will now be focused on utilizing our WebKit-based mobile browser expertise to contribute to the ongoing enhancement of the BlackBerry platform," the latest blog post reads.
If you're wondering whether that means the end of the line for Iris Browser for Windows Mobile -- one of the two platforms Torch supports, the other being the Linux-based Qtopia -- apparently the answer is yes. Links to the latest downloads for the Windows Mobile version of Iris, including several that still appear on Torch Mobile's company blog, take the user now to a notice which includes the above excerpt.
Microsoft launches OneApp application platform for feature phones
As NPD recently showed, more than 72% of all phones being sold are feature phones, and though there are a few examples of app stores for these phones, the mobile app trend has largely missed the majority of phone owners. Today Microsoft announced its move to change that with OneApp, a mobile app environment which gives feature phones access to smartphone-style applications.
With applications for Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, news, weather, sports, stocks, games, and RSS feeds, OneApp is available on several dozen feature phones: Nokia (3555, 5320, 6300, 6500, 6600, E50, E51, E63, E65, E66, E71, N70, N72, N73, N78, N80, N81, N82, N85, N95, N96) Samsung (U900, Soul) and Sony Ericsson (C510, C902, C905, G705,K610i, K800i, K805i, T650i, W200i, W580i, W595, W660i, W980.)
Latest trend: Announcing iPhone apps before they're approved
Now that it's a known fact that Apple rejects something in the neighborhood of 88,000 iPhone apps a year, companies are getting wise and publicizing their applications before Apple has a chance to finish reviewing them.
RealNetworks has submitted an app for its subscription music service Rhapsody to Apple for approval. The application will let subscribers access Rhapsody's 8 million song database for streaming over EDGE/3G/Wi-Fi. Though it hasn't passed Apple's review yet, Real is already publicizing the app.
Windows 7 upgrades, Family Pack will come to Europe after all
On September 1, Microsoft announced this morning, it will be making upgrade editions of Windows 7 available to European customers, as originally planned, apparently with Internet Explorer 8 included. These editions will be publicly available on the originally planned global availability date of October 22, although pre-orders will begin September 1.
This leaves a one-week window in which European customers may continue to pre-order full versions of Windows 7 Home Premium at the upgrade price, which is currently €119.99 for most European customers, £79.99 in the UK.
While we do know that €119.99 will be the upgrade price for Home Premium from September 1, and that the full version price will be somewhat higher, we do not know as of yet the specific breakdown for the upgrade prices for the Professional and Ultimate SKUs. These prices did not yet appear on Microsoft's online retail sites in foreign countries, as of 12:15 pm EDT Monday afternoon.
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