Rupert Neate, London

NOKIA, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, has given up on creating its own smartphone software to challenge Apple and Google.

The Finnish mobile giant has instead adopted Microsoft’s Windows Phone as the basis for its next generation of phones in one of the biggest shake-ups in Nokia’s 145-year history.

Stephen Elop, Nokia’s new chief executive, said the companies had formed a ”broad strategic alliance” to take on Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating system. Until now, Nokia’s phones have run on its own software platforms.

The announcement of the deal in London came after Mr Elop warned that Nokia risked being consumed by ”burning flames” unless it embraced ”radical change”.

Nokia, which dominated the mobile phone industry in the ’90s and early 2000s, has failed to keep pace with Apple and Google in the smartphone market.

Mr Elop, who joined Nokia from Microsoft last year, said the partnership meant the mobile market was now a ”three-horse race”.

It will be about a year before the new phones hit the market. Other changes loom, with Mr Elop saying there would be a ”substantial reduction” to Nokia’s 60,000 employee headcount

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Asher Moses

February 8, 2011 – 9:14AM

The second Google-branded smartphone is about to hit Australia as analysts predict the search giant’s mobile platform will surpass iPhone sales in Australia within a few years.

The Google Nexus S, released in the US and Britain in December last year, will be sold in Australia “soon”, according to Vodafone which has clinched a global distribution deal. Those interested in buying one are being asked to register their interest on Vodafone’s website.

Meanwhile, Sony Ericsson confirmed it would be launching its Android-based Xperia Play – dubbed the “PlayStation Phone” – on February 13. Support for Android is exploding with new phones soon to be launched by Motorola, Samsung, HTC, LG and Acer.

The “PlayStation Phone” … Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play.

The Nexus S, manufactured by Samsung, is the successor to the Nexus One, which launched around the world in early 2010 but only reached Australia in small quantities in July last year.

The Nexus S is the first Android phone with a built-in near-field communication (NFC) chip, which opens up a raft of new applications such as the ability to pay for items by swiping your phone on a shop scanner. NFC, which has only been running in limited trials in Australia, has been reported as a feature of the next iPhone model.

The device is manufactured by Samsung, whereas the Nexus One was built by HTC. It runs version 2.3 of Android (dubbed Gingerbread) and offers a 4-inch super AMOLED screen, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera for photos, front-facing VGA camera for video chat, 16GB of built-in storage and 512MB of internal memory.

Vodafone Australia did not reveal pricing or a firm sale date for the Nexus S, which is based on Samsung’s Galaxy S.

Foad Fadaghi, telecommunications analyst at the Australian firm Telsyte, said he expected Google’s Android platform to “match or exceed” iPhone sales in Australia by 2013.

“We expect Android will have a market share of 18 per cent by the end of this year,” he said.

“Nexus S represents even further improvements of the Android platform with version 2.3. It addresses the top end aspirational market and is suitable for existing Android users wanting an upgrade.”

But Fadaghi said he expected most of the growth in the Android platform would come from cheaper mid-range handsets sold on pre-paid SIMs.

Mark Novosel, telco analyst at research firm IDC, said the Nexus S, being a Google-branded phone, would receive software updates faster and offer a “pure Android experience” without other vendors’ custom user interfaces.

But the Android phone Novosel is most excited about is the LG Optimus 2X.

“Being the first dual-core processor smartphone, its extremely responsive and the screen has a wide viewing angle and very vibrant colours,” said Novosel.

“LG’s Optimus Black will also be one to watch, its slimmer, lighter and promises outstanding outdoor visibility with an extremely bright screen.”

Novosel said he expected Android to become the number one smartphone operating system in Australia by the middle of this year, but in terms of a vendor-by-vendor comparison Apple would likely remain in first place.

Google has added new features to Android in recent weeks to help it catch up with iPhone, including an Android Market web store that can be accessed from PCs and in-app purchasing, allowing app developers to sell new content and upgrades from within their apps.

But this move suffered a slight setback after security firm Sophos warned that the Android Market website could be used to install malware on users’ phones.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Natalie O’Brien

February 6, 2011

• Countries cite terrorist fears over encrypted devices

Bikie gangs and organised crime groups are believed to have foiled police attempts to tap their phones by importing untraceable, encrypted BlackBerrys from Mexico.

The telecommunications black hole exploited by the Comanchero gang and drug cartels has come to light after countries around the world – worried about terrorism and national security – threatened to ban BlackBerrys unless they were given the codes to break the encryption on emails and messages.

This website understands that the Comanchero have linked up with a Mexican drug cartel importing cocaine into Australia and are sharing technology.

”There is nothing strange in organised crime having better access to technology than the authorities,” said Michael Kennedy, a former NSW detective and an academic at the University of Western Sydney. ”The bikies are becoming more entrepreneurial and, after all, organised crime is a business enterprise. Crime groups will share technology if it helps them.”

The Comanchero are thought to use the Mexican phones with global roam activated. It costs a great deal of money to constantly use the roaming facility but for criminals, communications that cannot be monitored are priceless.

What makes the BlackBerrys so hard to tap is that Mexico has no reliable register of handsets, mobile numbers or users. Vendors are unregistered and sell the phones and SIM cards for cash, no questions asked. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reports Mexico has 83 million mobile phones and government attempts to set up an official registry are failing.

As well, the encrypted BlackBerry messaging service is routed through a server Australian authorities haven’t been able to access.

It is not known how many of the phones are in Australia and in the hands of organised crime groups. But experts agree the criminals will keep the technology among themselves as long as they can.

”The Australian Crime Commission is aware that organised crime networks will continually take opportunities, some real and some imagined, to use new technologies to try to escape the law,” said its chief executive John Lawler.

The Australian Federal Police would not say whether they had seized Mexican phones. But a spokesman said they were working with national and international authorities and industry groups to ensure it was up to speed ”on the challenges posed by criminal networks”.

Last year,  this website revealed that the feared Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel was regularly importing cocaine into Australia. It was also revealed that several men with ties to Mexico, the US and Guatemala had set up a drug distribution network in NSW, which is now understood to have included links to the Comanchero group.

Former NSW Police assistant commissioner Clive Small said the Mexican operators were trying to expand their drug markets in Australia, so would be seeking out new contacts like the bikie gangs to buy their shipments.

Just over a year ago, Clayton Roueche, head of a Canadian drug smuggling ring with Australian connections, was jailed for 30 years. The boss of the drug gang known as the ”United Nations” had been running his empire using a coded BlackBerry telephone. He was eventually caught – not by telephone surveillance but by border security officials in Mexico.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Asher Moses

January 31, 2011 – 12:30PM

NSW Police said it would support laws banning the use of iPods, mobile phones and other electronic devices while crossing the road and while riding bicycles.

It is the latest attempt to improve traffic safety by legislating against technological distraction, but questions have been raised over whether such rules could ever be properly enforced.

In New York, a bill is pending in the transport committee that would ban pedestrians, including joggers, from using gadgets while crossing the street.

Lambs to slaughter … the image used in the Pedestrian Council of Australia’s campaign.

Other states including Oregon, Virginia and California are moving to ban devices such as iPods from being used while riding a bicycle. Culprits would be fined between $US20 and $US100.

Similar legislation has yet to be introduced in Australia but NSW Police said “should legislation such as that described be introduced, it would receive our support and ongoing attention”.

The position is a marked turnaround from the views of NSW Police State Traffic Commander John Hartley, who said in 2007, when the US laws were first talked about, that “you can’t legislate stupidity”.

The reason for the change in position is unclear – national pedestrian road deaths have been falling consistently, from 351 in 1996 to 173 last year. In NSW, there has been a slight rise in pedestrian road deaths from 59 to 64 between 2009 and 2010, the RTA says.

The Pedestrian Council of Australia has been running advertisements showing people with lamb heads using their gadgets while crossing the road at a red light under the banner “Lambs to the slaughter, wait for the green”.

The council’s spokesman, Harold Scruby, said there should be a much stricter legislation and enforcement campaign to complement his awareness campaign. He also said device manufacturers had a “moral and corporate responsibility” to put warnings on their mobiles and music players.

In September last year a 46-year-old Sydney woman from Glebe was knocked down and killed by an ambulance – reportedlywhile wearing headphones – as she crossed Parramatta Road.

“They put you in la-la land, aside from the fact that, if you’re using two buds you’ve lost the stop, look and listen awareness of things around you,” Mr Scruby said.

He also criticised current laws that allowed drivers to operate vehicles and bicycles with an earbud in each ear (“they don’t hear tooting, fire engines, police vehicles, ambulances … “) and said police were generally not enforcing laws governing people crossing roads.

“You step off the footpath against a red light in America and they book you [but] in Australia they don’t touch you – you see cops standing next to people who are walking against the lights,” he said.

Already, Australian motorists face significant fines and three demerit points for driving or riding a vehicle while using a mobile phone, even when stopped at traffic lights. Hands-free kits are allowed but not “if it causes you to lose proper control of your vehicle”, the RTA says.

People with learner or P1 provisional licenses are prohibited from using their phones while driving, with or without a hands-free.

But with drivers now gadget-free, attention is turning to pedestrians and their risk of walking into oncoming traffic while zoning out with their music players or sending texts.

The ability of mobiles to distract people from the outside world was brought home to a global audience this month when a US woman tumbled head first into a shopping centre fountainwhile texting. She later threatened to sue the mall.

The New York senator who has been pushing the new rules for pedestrians, Carl Kruger, said people could not be fully aware of their surroundings while “fiddling with a BlackBerry, dialling a phone number, playing Super Mario Brothers on a Game Boy or listening to music on an iPod”.

He cited a rise in “accidents stemming from pedestrian distraction”, including the death of a 21-year-old man crushed by a Mack truck while listening to music.

In Australia, official figures do not allow one to drill down to see the number of people killed or injured while distracted by their gadgets.

However, according to the Department of Infrastructure, 173 pedestrians were killed on Australian roads last year, down slightly from 195 in 2009.

NSW Police said the community should be mindful that road use – whether as a driver, rider or pedestrian – was a complex task requiring alertness, awareness, compliance with the road rules and good judgment at all times.

“Any distraction from the task of safely using our roads has the potential consequence of reducing road safety and for that reason we encourage all road users to apply their best efforts and full attention to the task at hand when on our roads,” it said.

Spokespeople for the NSW Police and transport ministers directed requests for comment to the office of the Roads Minister, David Borger.

Mr Borger’s office did not immediately respond to questions over whether any legislation similar to that adopted in the US would be introduced in NSW

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Google’s Android operating system for mobile devices is more vulnerable to hackers and viruses than Apple’s iPhone platform, according to security software maker Trend Micro.

“Android is open-source, which means the hacker can also understand the underlying architecture and source code,” Steve Chang, chairman of Trend Micro, the world’s largest provider of security software for corporate servers, said in an interview. “We have to give credit to Apple, because they are very careful about it. It’s impossible for certain types of viruses” to operate on the iPhone, he said.

Google, owner of the world’s most-popular online search engine, offers Android for free and allows developers access to its code for writing software. Apple, whose iOS software trails Android in smartphone market share, requires every application to be approved before being sold in its online store.

“On all computing devices, users necessarily entrust at least some of their information to the developer of the application they’re using,” Mountain View, California-based Google said in an emailed statement. “Android has taken steps to inform users of this trust relationship and to limit the amount of trust a user must grant to any given application developer.”

‘The next PC’

Chang said he’s betting Android users will start to buy more security software for mobile devices.

“Smartphones are the next PC, and once they’re adopted by enterprises, data loss will be a very key problem,” he said.

On January 7, Tokyo-based Trend Micro released Mobile Security for Android, software that users can install on a mobile phone to block viruses, malicious programs and unwanted calls. Trend Micro aims for the $US3.99 application to help it gain revenue from the more than 250 million phones Gartner expects will run on Android by 2014.

“Apple has a sandbox concept that isolates the platform, which prevents certain viruses that want to replicate themselves or decompose and recompose to avoid virus scanners,” Chang said.

Apple’s iOS isn’t fully immune to security threats and may be hit with so-called social-engineering attacks, which trick users into authorising the download or installation of malicious software, Chang said. Trend Micro offers a security application for Apple’s iOS, he said.

Natalie Harrison, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

Market share

Phones using Android accounted for around 26 % of the global smartphone market in the third quarter, behind Symbian, used in Nokia Oyj handsets, and ahead of iOS, which had a 17 % share, researcher Gartner said November 10.

In 2014, 259 million devices, or 29.6 per cent of all smartphones, will use Android, trailing 30.2 per cent share for Symbian and ahead of 15 per cent share for iOS, Gartner predicted in September.

Trend Micro’s 2010 revenue is expected to have dropped 1.3 per cent to 95 billion yen ($1.16 billion) and net income is forecast to be 22 per cent lower, at 13.7 billion yen, according to the average of eight analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

You’ll soon be able to pay for things just by swiping your iPhone, analysts say.

Apple plans to introduce services that would let customers use its iPhone and iPad computer to make purchases, said Richard Doherty, director of consulting firm Envisioneering Group.

The services are based on “Near-Field Communication”, a technology that can beam and receive information at a distance of up to four inches, due to be embedded in the next iteration of the iPhone and the iPad 2, Doherty said. Both products are likely to be introduced this year, he said, citing engineers who are working on hardware for the Apple project.

Apple’s service may be able to tap into user information already on file, including credit-card numbers, iTunes gift-card balance and bank data, said Richard Crone, who leads financial industry adviser Crone Consulting LLC in San Carlos, California. That could make it an alternative to programs offered by such companies as Visa, MasterCard and eBay’s PayPal, said Taylor Hamilton, an analyst at consultant IBISWorld.

“It would make a lot of sense for Apple to include NFC functionality in its products,” Crone said.

The main goal for Apple would be to get a piece of the $US6.2 trillion Americans spend each year on goods and services, Crone said. Today, the company pays credit-card processing fees on every purchase from iTunes.

By encouraging consumers to use cheaper methods – such as tapping their bank accounts directly, which is how many purchases are made via PayPal – Apple could cut its own costs and those of retailers selling Apple products.

Natalie Harrison, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment.

Boon for PayPal, Visa and MasterCard

“NFC is definitely one of the technologies that’s getting a lot of attention, but ultimately the consumer is going to choose,” said Charlotte Hill, a spokeswoman for PayPal, owned by eBay.

Elvira Swanson, a spokeswoman for Visa, said the company was “excited to see NFC mobile devices coming into the market”.

Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer at MasterCard, said the company was “running the world’s fastest payment network, and that doesn’t need to be re-created”.

MasterCard sees NFC “as an opportunity to partner with organisations” and has already run NFC payment trials around the world.

The recently passed Durbin Amendment makes the timing right for a push by Apple, Crone said. The regulation, which will go into effect this summer, may limit debit-card fees paid by retailers and lets them encourage consumers to use one payment method over another.

Competing with Android

Under Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook, who is handling day-to-day operations as chief executive officer Steve Jobs takes medical leave, the iPhone is adding features that will help it compete with phones that use Google’s Android software.

Samsung Electronics’s Nexus S phone, which runs Android, can read information from NFC tags.

Nokia, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, has pushed NFC adoption for years, though the technology has been slow to take off.

“Apple could be the game-changer,” Doherty said.

Apple is considering starting a mobile payment service as early as the middle of this year, Doherty said. It would revamp iTunes, a service that lets consumers buy digital movies and music, so it would hold not only users’ credit-card account information but also loyalty credits and points, Doherty said.

Using the service, customers could walk into a store or restaurant and make payments straight from an iPad or iPhone. They could also receive loyalty rewards and credits for purchases, such as when referring a friend, Doherty said.

Targeted advertising

Apple also could use NFC to improve how it delivers mobile ads to customers’ handsets and charge higher fees for those ads, Crone said. NFC would let Apple’s iAd advertising network personalise ads to the places where a customer is spending money. That could double or triple the ad rates that Apple charges, Crone said.

Apple has created a prototype of a payment terminal that small businesses, such as hairdressers and mum-and-pop stores, could use to scan NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads, Doherty said.

The company is considering heavily subsidising the terminal, or even giving it away to retailers, to encourage fast, nationwide adoption of NFC technology and rev up sales of NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads, he said.

To help get ready for NFC, Apple last year hired Benjamin Vigier, who worked on the technology at mobile-payment provider MFoundry. It also has applied for a patent on a system that uses NFC to share information between applications running on various Apple devices.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Leigh Ritchie