Super-secure Blackphone rooted at DefCon conference
The Blackphone, billed as a super-secure consumer alternative to standard smartphones, has been successfully hacked.
The hack comes not long after Blackphone sparred with BlackBerry after the latter called the secure device "unacceptable" for enterprise and petty customers.
Most businesses don’t have an enterprise-led mobile strategy
The boom in numbers of mobile devices offers an opportunity for enterprises to change the way they do business, but a majority are failing to take advantage.
A new white paper produced by IDC and sponsored by enterprise mobility specialist Kony looks at how companies are using mobile technology to boost their business.
5 steps to the perfect mobile web strategy
It's not commonplace, but every so often, businesses tell me that their mobile traffic is still too low for them to make it a priority over the traditional PC web. In truth, the low traffic is probably a direct correlation to the poor user experience their visitors have when accessing a non-optimized website via a mobile device. It's a vicious circle, but things have to change.
Not having a mobile web strategy for a consumer-facing company means you're ultimately moving against the market and no business should be swimming against such a powerful tide as that means being left behind. So what is a good mobile web strategy? Here are five key questions you need to answer to know if your website is mobile ready.
Enterprise mobile spending expected to grow more than 50 percent
There has been rapid growth in the number of mobile devices attached to corporate systems in recent years and this shows no signs of slowing down.
A new survey sponsored by Oracle shows that not only are enterprises more committed to mobility, but that the rate of development, deployment and spending for support of mobile applications and devices is set to increase dramatically.
Mozilla takes Firefox OS to new markets and devices, including India
Not to be outdone by Google's Android operating system, Mozilla wishes to push its own mobile platform out to customers. The organization is aiming mostly at the low-end market, but that will be expanding in the future.
The mobile platform initially debuted on just two devices, but Mozilla has managed to scare up a few more partners to produce its product.
RE: Was it good for you? -- 8 percent of people check emails after sex
Email is often cited as the killer app which popularized the internet. You might think that by now we'd have moved on but a new survey of 1,000 US email users from mail app provider My.com suggests we're just as in love with our inboxes as ever.
There are currently around 3.9 billion email accounts worldwide and the number is expected to increase by around 27 percent this year. We're also spending more time on our email these days with 46 percent of users admitting to spending an hour or more a day reading their messages.
Win! Win! Win! Get your hands on a 5-port USB charger
Hitting the road means luggage, and luggage is a pain -- all that… stuff… to carry from place to place. Traveling light can help to make the journey less of a chore, but there are some things that simply have to be packed: no self-respecting technology fan would go on vacation without taking a raft of devices with them. But devices need power, and this means chargers are needed. iPhones, MP3 players, Android tablets, iPads, digital cameras, Chromebooks, and countless other devices all need power -- and that means a lot of chargers.
We just took a look at the Lumsing DCH-5U 5-Port USB Travel Wall Charger which enables you to leave the chargers at home and charge up to five devices simultaneously from a single power point. And we have one to give away!
Lumsing DCH-5U 5-Port USB Travel Wall Charger [Review]
A few weeks ago I took a look at Lumsing's harmonica battery pack. Now from the same stables comes the lengthily titled DCH-5U 5-Port USB Travel Wall Charger. This is a slightly different twist on the idea of providing power to travellers' devices -- this is a wall charger rather than a portable battery pack. If you're going on vacation, taking a trip, or even just hitting the office, there are your devices to consider. Your phone, tablet, MP3 player, and other bits and pieces all need power, all need their own charger.
Except they don’t. Leave all of your chargers at home, and just take a selection of USB cables -- this 5-port hub allows for up to five USB devices (obviously) to be charged from a single wall power point. The 31W/6.2A unit has two 5V 1A ports for phones, and three 5V 2A ports for tablets and devices with higher power demands. Oddly, the ports are labelled, left to right, iPad, iPad, Samsung Tab, iPhone, and Android. It would have made more sense to simply indicate which of the five were the high-powered ports, but this is a minor niggle in the grand scheme of things.
Mobile Identity Connect provides secure single sign-on for enterprises
One of the biggest concerns that businesses have about the increasing use of mobiles and BYOD is how to keep their data secure. Traditional security tools were built to cope with desktop devices rather than the on/off existence of mobile connections.
Mobile platform specialist Kinvey aims to help mobile developers to seamlessly secure mobile, tablet, and responsive Web apps with its newly-launched Mobile Identity Connect product.
With Surface Pro 3 as mediator, Windows and I reconcile our differences
Fourth in a series. Before adopting the Chromie lifestyle and declaring independence from Apple two summers ago, I primarily was a Mac user. I wrote most of the so-called anti-Apple stories (so some commentary say) on the company's laptops. Chromebook still warms my heart, but for the summer -- and likely longer -- we part ways. On June 20, I walked out of Microsoft Store San Diego with a free Surface Pro 3. But I am accidental thief; that story later.
In April, I wrote about "My two years with Chromebook", giving loads of praise. I might still use Chrome OS as my primary platform today, but I'm a bifocal reader now and wanted to reduce eye-strain. I purchased a refurbished Surface RT preinstalled with Windows 8.1, because of the free Word, which will ease ebook publishing. I really enjoyed the user experience, much more than the Surface Pro reviewed in February 2013. Updated operating system is major reason. Also, Microsoft's ClearType improved my reading ability. Windows' terrific graphics -- on the tablet and Nokia Lumia Icon smartphone -- are good for the aging eyes, too.
Smart consumers will be Android Wear wary
I find the whole smartwatch craze rather amusing, even more so now that Google has officially announced Android Wear, with two models, made by LG and Samsung, shipping next month. One-day battery life? Bwaaahaha. Do they never learn? Microsoft-powered smartwatches got better than that a decade ago, and short battery life still turned out to be one of the main reasons the timepieces failed.
In product design you can never ignore existing behavior. A watch is a set-it, and forget-it device. I suppose some gadget geeks accustomed to daily smartphone charges (or less) will be dumb enough to buy. But smart consumers will be Android Wear wary. Just ask Microsoft about the road to ruin, which is paved with the best intentions, the right manufacturing partners, and concept seemingly smart that isn't.
27 percent of websites aren't configured for smartphone searches
A new report from SEO and content marketing specialist BrightEdge reveals that although almost 60 percent of American adults own smartphones and 40 percent own tablets, more than a quarter of websites aren’t mobile friendly.
This leads to a massive loss of potential traffic and if marketers rectify this misconfiguration, the report discovered they stand to boost smartphone traffic by 200 percent.
ID stealing cloned banking app found on Play Store
A cloned banking app which steals user login credentials has been discovered on the Play Store this week. Mobile security company Lookout discovered the app and informed Google which immediately removed it.
The malware, called BankMirage, targets the customers of an Israeli bank called Mizrahi Bank -- the fourth largest in the country. The authors of the app placed a wrapper around the bank's legitimate app and redistributed it on the Google Play store, pretending to be the financial institution.
Survey highlights need for wireless security to keep pace with today's mobile technology
Inhance Technology commissioned iReach Insights to conduct a comparative survey of 2,000 mobile users in the US and UK; the surprise was not so much the differences but similarities in attitudes.
The headline story is that US users (27 percent) are more worried than 12 months ago than their UK counterparts (21 percent) about being mugged for their device. However, from a mobile security perspective, the more interesting data is contained in the body of the research.
Google announces better Glass, new Glassware
Following feedback received from early adopters (known as Explorers), Google has announced a significantly revised Glass wearable. But, unlike prior iterations, it looks like this one will not be available as a free-of-charge upgrade for current users, who will now have to pay full price to get the latest and greatest.
The improved Google Glass is touted to offer better performance courtesy of a RAM capacity increase to 2 GB, which is 1 GB more than before (prior versions only allowed 682 MB of RAM to be effectively used, making the difference quite substantial). There are also more Google Now cards available, which will display extra information like shipping delivery estimates and car location.
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