By Tony Bradley
October 18, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – The demand for the iPhone 4S has been overwhelming. Apple has shattered previous sales records, and seems on track to sell three or four million of the new iPhone 4S just this weekend. Obviously there are many who can’t wait to get the latest Apple smartphone, but if you’re expecting it–or any other new smartphone–to change your life, you’d better think again.

A new study from Qumu, conducted by Harris Interactive, finds that 88 percent believe the release of new smartphones is an event that matters. The survey goes on to break down various groups of people that a new smartphone is likely to matter to: tech geeks, business people, working moms, etc.

Smartphones Are a Minority

You wouldn’t guess it from the tech headlines or general media hype, but most people don’t have a smartphone at all. Recent numbers from comScore show that just over a third of mobile phone users in the United States have a smartphone.

A Smartphone Is a Smartphone

Even among those who do have a smartphone, the frenzy around new devices, and the zealotry associated with the various platforms seems over the top. When push comes to shove they all do about the same thing in about the same way.

In the past few months I have had a fair amount of cross-platform experience. I have used the iPhone for the past few years. But, my son recently got a Motorola Atrix with Android “Gingerbread”, I got a Motorola Xoom tablet running Android “Honeycomb”, and I spent a month using a Samsung Focus with Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango”.

SAN FRANCISCO – Since more and more malware is emerging for the Android platform every day, you must pay strict attention to what is happening on your phone or tablet. Smartphones are essentially computers–and all computers are vulnerable to viruses, phishing, and other attacks from malicious software.

Here are five quick tips to help you keep your Android phone or tablet free of malware.

Always research the publisher of an app: What other apps does it offer? Does the publisher have its own website? Do any of the other apps look a bit shady? If so, you should probably stay away. Read online reviews, but remember that Android Market reviews may not always be truthful. Check around to see what reputable websites such as PCWorld, AppBrain, or AppLib are saying about the app before you press the download button.

Always check app permissions: Whenever you download or update an app, you see a list of permissions for it. An alarm clock app, for instance, probably shouldn’t need to look through your contacts. The general rule of thumb: If an app is asking for more than what it needs to do its job, you should skip it.

Avoid directly installing Android Package files (APKs): When Angry Birds first came to Android, you could get it only through a third-party app store and “sideloading” it, installing the app by using an APK file. Although Angry Birds wasn’t malware, in general it is highly advisable not to download and install APK files from third-party websites or app stores. Most of the time you won’t know what the file contains until you install the file–and by then it’s too late.

Put a malware and antivirus scanner on your phone: Several different big-name security companies already offer mobile-security options, many of them free. Antivirus apps such as Lookout Mobile Security can scan your phone and make sure that no malware is installed. On top of that, most of the utilities include features that allow you to track your phone–and perhaps even remotely lock it and wipe your personal data–if you lose the handset.

Watch out for scams: Believe it or not, your smartphone is prone to phishing scams, malicious sites, and drive-by downloads, just as your PC is. Malicious sites often try to trick people into entering personal information about themselves; even more annoying, however, is some sites’ ability to automatically download malware to your phone. Because of a phone’s smaller screen, users are three times more likely to click a suspicious link on a phone than when they are using a PC. Again, though, Lookout Mobile Security has your back: Its Safe Browsing feature is currently available in the Premium version of its app.

If you follow these steps and keep a watchful eye on your device, you should be able to enjoy your phone malware-free.

BEIJING – Nokia unveiled Tuesday its new N9 smartphone that runs the MeeGo operating system, and is being marketed as a “pure touch screen” device without buttons.

The N9 will launch later this year, and the company will release later the device’s pricing and availability in various markets, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said at a company event in Singapore.

Nokia said in February that it would establish a future smartphone strategy around Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, to help the company compete against Apple’s iPhone and handsets using Google’s Android operating system.

The company said it would still put out during the year a smartphone with MeeGo, a Linux-based OS developed in collaboration with Intel.

The Windows-based product is scheduled to ship later this year, Elop said. Nokia had earlier said the product would ship by the fourth quarter.

Nokia also restated its commitment to the Symbian operating system at the event. The company said it will start shipping Nokia N8s, E7s, C7s and C6-01s with the new Symbian Anna software update in July. By the end of August, existing owners of these devices can also download Symbian Anna. Over the next 12 months Nokia plans to bring up to 10 new Symbian-based smartphones to market.

Nokia designed the N9 as an “all screen” phone with a 3.9 inch display that covers most of the front side of the device. No home button is built on to it. Instead, users navigate back to the home view by simply swiping across the edge of the phone’s screen.

People want more screen on their phone, and want to be able to use their phones when on the move, said Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia’s senior vice president for design. That requires the phone to offer better one-handed use, and the ability to view all information at a glance of the phone, he added.

The N9 features an 8-megapixel camera. It also uses near-field communication technology. During Tuesday’s demo Ahtisaari showed that the device can easily synchronize with a Bluetooth headset, simply by having the phone touch the earphones.

The phone will come in three colors: black, cyan and magenta. There will be two versions available with storage at 16GB and 64GB.

The design of the N9 will be carried forward to other smartphones from Nokia, Elop said.

SAN FRANCISCO – Considering a new phone? It’s easy to get pulled into the specs war: single-core or dual-core processor? 3G or 4G? But today’s smartphones are mostly big screens and it makes more sense to pay attention to how good apps, pictures and video will look on those screens.

Phones: Specs That Don’t Matter

Noise-reduction technology: A few phones out there boast “noise-reduction technology,” which supposedly blocks out background noise when you’re calling on a busy street. In our hands-on tests, we’ve noticed that this technology can make your voice sound really strange to callers on the other end of the line, and it sometimes adds a weird muffling effect to your contacts’ voices. Related: Will 4G Fix Voice Quality?
HDMI port: Unless you store a library of HD movies on your phone, and unless you own an HDMI cable with the proper connection for your phone’s port (you’ll have to buy that separately) plus an HDTV, pay no attention to whether a phone has an HDMI port. It’s a nice extra for movie junkies who have a lot of full-length flicks on their handset, but we’re not sure that describes many people. Related: Android Multimedia AppGuide | iPhone Multimedia AppGuide
Phones: Specs That Sometimes Matter

4G: If you don’t have 4G coverage in your area (or even close to your area), don’t bother getting a 4G phone yet. If you do have coverage, 4G is fantastic for streaming music and movies on your phone, surfing the Web, and downloading apps quickly. Be careful, though: 4G will drain your phone’s battery life long before you finish streaming any one of the entries in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Related: 4G Speed Tests: Which Carrier Is Fastest?
Camera megapixel count: When it comes to image quality, megapixels are largely irrelevant, as we’ve seen better photos taken with a 5-megapixel phone camera than with an 8-megapixel camera. If you’ll mostly be viewing your photos on your phone, sharing them via e-mail and MMS, occasionally uploading them to Facebook, and overlaying image effects such as the ones you’ll find on Instagram and Hipstamatic, a 12-megapixel camera is overkill in both resolution and file size. That said, looking for a phone with at least a 3-megapixel camera is a good idea, just to have a little more flexibility with your images–especially if you plan on using your phone as your primary camera. Related: White iPhone 4 vs. Black iPhone 4: Do They Have Different Cameras?
Processor speed: We’ve heard a lot of buzz about phones that use dual-core processors, but such power is really not necessary for the average user. Unless you’re doing a lot of app multitasking or playing games with 3D graphics, you’ll probably be fine with a 1GHz processor. Aside from the processor speed, other factors–such as the version of software your phone is running (Android 2.3 is faster than Android 2.2) and the speed of your network–contribute to speedy, fluid phone performance. Related: Overclock Your Phone, If You Dare
Phones: Specs That Always Matter

Display size/resolution: If you intend to surf the Web on your phone, use the calendar and organizer, or compose and read a lot of e-mail and text messages, make sure the screen is up to snuff. Is it big enough for you to take full advantage of the phone’s features? For browsing the Web or editing office documents, a screen that measures less than 2.7 inches diagonally will feel very cramped.

Consider the screen’s resolution, too. The higher the resolution, the sharper your videos and photos will look. Also factor in what kind of screen technology it uses. AMOLED displays perform well in sunlight, but many people think they make colors look oversaturated. qHD displays (whose resolution is one-quarter of a full-HD 1080p frame and three-quarters of a 720p frame) generally look the best in video playback and games.

Being able to take control of the screen’s contrast and backlight settings can also be important, as phones have noticeable differences in their default display settings. If your phone allows you to adjust contrast and brightness, text and graphics can be easily viewable in well-lit places, and you can also save battery life in a pinch. Related: 10 Ways to Boost Your Phone’s Battery Life

TAIPEI – LG Electronics provided details on some of its most highly anticipated mobile gadgets on Sunday, including the LG Optimus Pad tablet and Optimus 3D smartphone, which will be shown at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.

The Optimus Pad comes with an 8.9-inch touchscreen and a built-in 3D camera, according to an LG statement. Designed to take on Apple’s iPad, LG’s new tablet has the latest version of Google’s Android mobile OS on board, Honeycomb, and an Nvidia Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor.

The device’s screen has a resolution of 1280 by 768. Images and video taken with the 3D camera can be viewed on 3D TVs or shared on the Web via YouTube 3D, LG said.

The LG Optimus 3D smartphone, with a 4.3-inch glasses-free 3D screen, features a dual-lens camera for taking pictures and video in 3D, the company said.

LG used an applied parallax barrier technology to create the glasses-free 3D effect on the screen. The technology puts a series of slits on the front of the LCD screen that block light in a way that ensures a user’s left and right eye see different images, thereby creating the illusion of depth for the 3D image.

The Optimus 3D is based on a 1GHz OMAP4 dual-core processor from Texas Instruments. It has an HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) connector and supports the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) networking standard that enables simpler transfer of pictures and video between devices.

LG did not say what kind of OS the phone uses, and could not immediately be reached for comment.

The South Korean electronics giant also plans to show off two additional smartphones at the Mobile World Congress, the Optimus 2X and Optimus Black, details of which have previously been announced. The Optimus 2X has a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor on board for powerful multimedia, including smooth web browsing and 1080p HD video playback, LG said. The Optimus Black is a thin, light Android smartphone with a 4-inch display designed to be read under any lighting situations.

LG said 2 million pre-orders have already been placed for the Optimus Black since it was unveiled at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

LG’s mobile phone operations struggled last year due to a focus on emerging markets. The company caught onto the rise of smartphones late compared to rivals, but has worked hard to make a comeback.

The Mobile World Congress opens on Monday in Barcelona.

SAN FRANCISCO – More than three years after the iPhone was first hacked, computer security experts think they’ve found a whole new way to break into mobile phones — one that could become a big headache for Apple, or for smartphone makers using Google’s Android software.

In a presentation set for next week’s Black Hat conference in Washington D.C., University of Luxembourg research associate Ralf-Philipp Weinmann says he plans to demonstrate his new technique on an iPhone and an Android device, showing how they could be converted into clandestine spying systems. “I will demo how to use the auto-answer feature present in most phones to turn the telephone into a remote listening device,” he said in an e-mail interview.

Weinmann says he can do this by breaking the phone’s “baseband” processor, used to send and receive radio signals as the device communicates on its cellular network. He has found bugs in the way the firmware used in chips sold by Qualcomm and Infineon Technologies processes radio signals on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks used by the majority of the world’s wireless carriers.

This is a new area of research. Until recently, mobile phone attacks had focused on another part of the phone: the programs and operating systems that runs on the device’s CPU. By tricking someone into visiting a malicious Web site, for example, hackers could take advantage of a Web browser bug on the phone and start messing around with the computer’s memory.

With baseband hacking, security researchers are looking at a brand new way to get into this memory.

“[It's] like tipping over a rock that no one ever thought would be tipped over,” said the Grugq — a pseudonymous, but well-respected, wireless phone hacker, and one of a handful of people who have done research in this area. “There are a lot of bugs hidden there,” he said, “It is just a matter of actively looking for them.”

But hacking a smartphone with a baseband attack is very tricky, to say the least. The mobile phone’s radio communicates with a cell phone tower. So in Weinmann’s attack, he has to first set up a fake cell phone tower and then convince his target phone to connect to it. Only then can he deliver his malicious code. And even then, the malicious code he writes must run on the firmware that’s used by obscure radio processors — something that most hackers know nothing about.

“This is an extremely technical attack,” said Don Bailey, a security consultant with Isec Partners. He says that while the work on baseband hacking is very exciting — and ultimately a big deal for the mobile phone industry — he doesn’t expect any attacks that target the general public to emerge anytime soon.

But the research into this area is just starting to take off, fuelled by new open-source software called OpenBTS that allows virtually anyone to set up their own cellular network radio tower with about US$2,000 worth of computer hardware.

Five years ago device makers didn’t have to worry about this type of hacking, because it used to cost tens of thousands of dollars to set up a cellular tower. But OpenBTS has changed all that. “Now it’s a completely different game,” Bailey said.

It’s a risky game too. In the U.S., federal wiretapping laws make it illegal to intercept phone calls over the licensed frequencies used by mobile phones. In August, it took intense last-minute negotiations between lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission before security researcher Chris Paget could demonstrate a very simple tower spoofing technique at the Defcon hacking conference in Las Vegas.

Two months from now another hacker conference, Vancouver’s CanSecWest, will invite hackers to break into mobile phones using a low power transmitter. If their baseband attacks work, they can win cash prices. Conference organizer Dragos Ruiu said that Canada’s broadcast laws are “more lenient’ for researchers who want to set up low-power towers for research purposes.

Still, it remains a touchy subject. “Last year we were worried about falling afoul of regulations,” he said.”Now we’ve figured out a nice safe way to do that so that we don’t mess up anybody else’s cell phones at the conference.”

Ruiu expects some interesting results from the contest, called Pwn2Own. “It sounds like the radio parts of the phones are very shaky indeed and pretty vulnerable,” he said.

The Android v. iPhone debate will continue for some time, but there’s one area where Android wins every time: hackability. iPhone users might discuss jailbreaking, which allows–wow!–unauthorized software to be installed.
However, Android phones typically allow everything from overclocking the processor for speed boosts to installing entirely different operating systems.

But is it wise to overclock a phone that cost several hundred dollars and is tied to a lengthy and expensive contract?

The question might seem to answer itself, but the real-world issues to consider are heat generation and decreased battery life between charges. After all, some phones struggle with these problems at stock speeds set by manufacturers.

In reality neither issue is necessarily a game stopper, but could become annoying.

Although warnings are always given about possible hardware damage arising via overclocking, most PCs get away with it provided adequate cooling is provided. Essentially, the faster a chip runs, the more heat gets generated.

In most cases you can set upper and lower clock speeds for your phone, and the phone will scale between the two extremes depending on user demands. It’s even possible to under-clock to stretch out battery life, although the phone may be punishingly slow to use.

To overclock an Android phone, you’ll need to install a custom firmware (sometimes referred to as a custom ROM). The chief thing this usually provides is root access to the phone, allowing hardware tweaks, although sometimes getting root access needs to be done manually. Search via Google using your phone model for more information.
The custom firmware files are usually based on the latest Android system files, but with modifications to also allow overclocking. Which firmware you need depends on your phone; generally speaking, looking through the XDA-Developers forums for your phone model should provide answers. Additionally, a recent thread on the Reddit social bookmarking site could provide clues. Lots of people use the Cyanogen mod firmware (to find out more info, visit the Cyanogen wiki).

You might lose any data stored in the phone, such as text messages and contacts, so perform a backup beforehand.

Once the firmware has been updated, use the Android Marketplace to search for and install the SetCPU software. It costs just $2 and is designed to make overclocking extremely easy. The Max and Min sliders set the maximum and minimum clock speeds, and the changes take effect straight away. The Scaling dropdown refers to the power profile and it’s probably best to leave it at “Ondemand,” which will ramp up the processor speed when needed.

When overclocking watch out for the heat issue, which might take a few minutes to show after the change has been made. Try doing processor-intensive tasks, such as browsing Websites with a lot of content, for example, or playing video files.

If you decide overclocking isn’t for you, it should be possible to perform a factory restore by resinstalling your phone’s original firmware. Visit the phone manufacturer’s Website for details.