Category: Science & Technology

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Malware on Android Market

Malware on Android Market:

Aaron Gingrich, for Android Police:

Openness — the very characteristic of Android that makes us love it — is a double-edged sword. Redditor lompolo has stumbled upon a perfect example of that fact; he’s noticed that a publisher has taken ‘… 21 popular free apps from the market, injected root exploits into them and republished.’ The really scary part? ‘50k-200k downloads combined in 4 days.’

Uh-oh:

There’s another APK hidden inside the code, and it steals nearly everything it can: product ID, model, partner (provider?), language, country, and userID. But that’s all child’s play; the true pièce de résistance is that it has the ability to download more code. In other words, there’s no way to know what the app does after it’s installed, and the possibilities are nearly endless. [emphasis mine]

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Do I even have to say it?

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iPad 2

I was not that impressed with Apple’s release of the iPad 2.  It was truly anti-climactic what with all the hype and hyperbolic speculation bandied about ad nauseum.  I’ve said the original iPad is a game-changer and was saw a bright future for it at the outset.  I was not wrong.

But the iPad 2 is not a game changer.  It is an evolution of an already strong product, a refinement in point of fact.  It’s lighter, faster, stronger and includes features long predicted to make it into this revision.  FaceTime cameras, for example, have ben expected almost as long as the original iPad has been out.  It’s product positioning relative to the MacBook, esp. the 11-inch Air, has been refined.  No doubt it will be a big seller as its predecessor.   Ironically, the coolest innovation is not strictly within the iPad 2 itself but in it’s cover that doubles as a stand.  Can’t wait to see what the iPad economy comes up with for that magnetic connect.

I was disappointed that Apple stuck with 3G for a couple of reasons.  One, on the macro side their analysis of how 4G is playing out is like mine: Betamax vs. VHS or Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD.  We don’t know whether WiMax or LTE will be the Blu-ray of mobile broadband.  Two, if Apple isn’t charging ahead into 4G it probably means a industry standard that would allow for cheap (and this is important) carrier agnostic components to manufactured is not around the corner.  So 3G it is.

All-in-all ho-hum precisely because this is what we’ve come to expect from Apple.

 

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Time to Wake Up and Smell the Antitrust

Time to Wake Up and Smell the Antitrust:

“If it walks, talks, acts, and smells like a monopolist, odds are it’s a monopolist. And if this monopolist is earning extraordinary profits, and if there is even the possibility that this monopolist might be using those profits to restrain trade, then perhaps the Sherman Antitrust Act is not working. The possibility of online monopolists demands better theory than ‘there are no barriers to entry online’ and purported monopolists need better defense than ‘trust me.'”

(Via Eric K. Clemons.)

Clemons’ post elicits responses from Google within hours.  That should tell you something.

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Facebook Adds Share Capabilities To Like Button

Facebook Adds Share Capabilities To Like Button — Facebook — InformationWeek:

“The move could reduce user confusion over which button to use, especially if Share is dropped in the future. However, the move is more widely viewed as a positive one for advertisers and content creators who can expect to see page views increase as referrals drive traffic to their sites, according to several published reports.”

(Via InformationWeek.)

It increasingly appears to me that Facebook continues to fool users into revealing more and more information by getting them to develop habits then suddenly changing the rules and behaviors of their site after the habits are entrenched.  Not good.

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How Mobile Apps Are Disrupting the Car-Rental Business

How Mobile Apps Are Disrupting the Car-Rental Business:

“Since Zipcar has shown that a mobile app and special software can help tackle the logistical challenges of car sharing, rivals have been following suit. Six months ago, Hertz launched an iPhone app that functions in much the same way for Connect, its own Zipcar-like program. Whereas Zipcar has 6,500 vehicles, Hertz has nearly half a million, although only about 1,000 of those are available through Connect. “As we began to look at [Zipcar] and to see that model grow, it was a natural evolution for Hertz,” says Joseph Eckroth, Hertz’s chief information officer.“

(Via Technology Review: The Authority on the Future of Technology.)

I have personal experience with this.  It is indeed a niche that’s growing.  I don’t see ZipCar being able to fend off serious forays from the established rental companies if they get serious however.  Disruption?  Maybe.  Right now it looks more like evolution.  What would be disruptive is an acquisition forcing the remaining competitors to get into the game.  We’ll see.

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Microsoft, Apple and Market Share

This time the story is hardly the one you would expect.

Mac sales growth continues to surge ahead of PCs 3 to 1:

“The single biggest jump in sales has come from the business market, which is up by 66.3%. Among large and very large businesses, sales spiked 146% and 202% respectively, which is an excellent sign for Apple. Those large businesses tend to be controlled by large IT departments, which are typically very conservative when it comes to computer system upgrades and replacements. The popularity of iOS devices among executives and the more tech savvy is probably playing a big part in convincing these companies to take another look at Apple on the desktop.”

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Wow!  Of course, Apple has had a lot of room to grow in terms of the business market, but at this economic time?  That is pretty remarkable.

Apple is right to stay out of the high-end server market if the results keep coming in like this.  They want to sell metal not software so this strategy of strong user centricity is clearly working.  As long as the Mac can play nice in “corporate environments,” i.e. Windows environments, it can compete well.  Microsoft has recognized this by finally, after nearly a decade, opting to bring full Outlook back the Mac version of Office.  With the recent rehabilitation of Excel, Microsoft is still in a position to print money from it’s cash cow (to mix metaphors): Microsoft Office and it’s attendant servers.  Yes, Windows on the client end suffers a bit of market share loss, but Microsoft keep the servers and basic corporate technology on their platform.  And while Microsoft is doing its level best to answer the iOS, the trend right now suggests we should expect to see “Pocket” versions of the Office apps in the not too distant future.

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Because We Don’t Have an App for That

RIM CEO: Apple Is Wrong for Having an App for That:

”‘So you reject the appification of the Web?’ asked Summit host John Battelle. ‘Correct,’ Balsillie said, challenging Apple’s ‘there’s an app for that’ slogan for its iPhone App Store, which has more than 300,000 applications.

Balsillie’s comments were tinged with a note of bitterness in the wake of unprovoked attacks on RIM’s business by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. One month ago, Jobs appeared on Apple’s fourth-quarter earnings call to tout how Apple had passed RIM in smartphone sales for the quarter.”

(Via eWeek – RSS Feeds.)

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Apple and Oracle Partner for OpenJDK for Mac OS X

Apple and Oracle Partner for OpenJDK for Mac OS X:

“Apple and Oracle are working together to bring the OpenJDK project to Mac OS X. This will ensure the continued presence of Java on the Mac platform. The news comes on the heels of a revelation last month that Apple will no longer be providing its own line of custom Java packages, which many, us included, took to indicate the end of Java support in OS X altogether.”

(Via TheAppleBlog.)

Huge sigh of relief for Java developers deploying on Macs.

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Mobile Flash #Fail: Weak Android Player Proves Jobs Right

Mobile Flash Fail: Weak Android Player Proves Jobs Right:

“I was pleasantly surprised at how well Flash episodes of South Park streamed over 3G, until I realized that the site had detected that I was on my phone and was serving me a specially optimized non-Flash video player (like the YouTube app) instead.”

(Via Daring Fireball.)

That’s when you know the party is over.  It’s just the music hasn’t stopped playing.