Slashdot Mirror

Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Google Mobile Team has announced that in addition to removing the 21 malicious applications from Android Market that were downloaded 50,000 times, suspending the associated developer accounts, and contacting law enforcement about the attacks, they are remotely removing the malicious applications from affected devices. 'We are pushing an Android Market security update to all affected devices that undoes the exploits to prevent the attacker(s) from accessing any more information from affected devices,' wrote the team on their blog. 'For affected devices, we believe that the only information the attacker(s) were able to gather was device-specific (IMEI/IMSI, unique codes which are used to identify mobile devices, and the version of Android running on your device).' Google's actions come after numerous complaints in tech publications. "Does Google really want its Android Market to gain the reputation of being a cesspool of malware? 'Certainly not,' wrote Nicholas Deleon in TechCrunch. 'But then part of the allure of the Android Market is that it's open; you don't have to play by Google's rules, per se, to get on there like you do with Apple's App Store.'"

Shortly after the launch of Google TV, it became clear that several networks and services were blocking access. Reader padarjohn points out a blog post from Lauren Weinstein explaining the blocking mechanisms being used and wondering why it's being tolerated. "Imagine the protests that would ensue if Internet services arbitrarily blocked video only to Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers! Or if Hulu and the other networks decided they'd refuse to stream video to HP and Dell computers because those manufacturers hadn't made deals with the services to the latter's liking." Various workarounds are being used to get around the blocks.

Ponca City writes "Crunchgear reports that after selling 200,020,000 units worldwide since its inception over thirty years ago, Sony has announced that it is pulling the plug on the manufacture and sales of the Walkman, the world's first portable (mass-produced) stereo. Magnetic cassette technology had been around since 1963, when Philips first created it for use by secretaries and journalists, but on July 1, 1979, Sony Corp. introduced the Sony Walkman TPS-L2, a 14 ounce, blue-and-silver, portable cassette player with chunky buttons, headphones, a leather case, and a second earphone jack so that two people could listen in at once. The Walkman was originally introduced in the US as the 'Sound-About' and in the UK as the 'Stowaway,' but coming up with new, uncopyrighted names in every country it was marketed in proved costly so Sony eventually decided on 'Walkman' as a play on the Sony Pressman, a mono cassette recorder the first Walkman prototype was based on. The popularity of Sony's device — and those by brands like Aiwa, Panasonic and Toshiba who followed in Sony's lead — helped the cassette tape outsell vinyl records for the first time in 1983 as Sony continued to roll out variations on its theme with over 300 different Walkman models, adding such innovations as AM/FM receivers, bass boost, and auto-reverse on later models and even producing a solar-powered Walkman, water-resistant Sport Walkman, and Walkmen with two cassette drives." For now, at least, the Walkman brand lives on for some of Sony's media players and phones.

An anonymous reader writes "Ksplice, the technology that allows Linux kernel updates without a reboot, is now free for users of the Fedora distribution. Using Ksplice is like 'replacing your car's engine while speeding down the highway,' and it can potentially save your Linux systems from a lot of downtime. Since Fedora users often live on the bleeding edge of Linux development, Ksplice makes it even easier to do so, and without reboots!"

Pickens writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that video game industry revenue fell by 26 percent in April, adding more concerns about the health of the industry in the worst year-over-year decline since July 2009. But the big news is that the decline in portable sales makes up 61 percent of the overall monthly decline, suggesting that the Nintendo DS platform is losing steam but also reflecting the growing clout of the iPhone platform as the iPhone and iPod Touch continue to draw in more casual gamers, the iPad offers a bigger screen experience, and Apple announces the 'Game Center' — a social gaming hub with console-like online gaming features. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata is understood to have told his senior executives recently to regard the battle with Sony as a victory already won and to treat Apple, and its iPhone and iPad devices, as the 'enemy of the future.' 'If Nintendo's future mobile platforms are to be any kind of success, the company will have to figure out how to take on the ease of use afforded by the App Store,' writes Nicholas Deleon. A large part of Nintendo's faith in reviving its efforts hinge on the 3DS, which may ship in the fall, the first truly major handheld introduction for Nintendo since the original DS in 2004. He adds, 'Maybe Nintendo should just release a phone?'"

Mr.Fork writes "Scott Merrill from CrunchGear has a confession. He really, really hates computers. He writes: 'No, really, I hate them. I love the communications they facilitate, I love the conveniences they provide to my life, and I love the escapism they sometimes afford; but I actually hate the computers themselves. Computers are fragile, unintuitive things — a hodge-podge of brittle hardware and opaque, restrictive software.' Does his editorial speak to all of us in similar IT-related fields? Do we all silently hate the complexities and idiosyncrasies computers have, like error messages and UI designs that make no sense to the common user, which make our tech professions miserable?"

Keith found a nice manifesto saying "There's a trend that's been disturbing me lately. When the topic of modding or jailbreaking comes up — say, in the wake of the iPad announcement, or Sony's restrictive PS3 update — there is an outcry. Who am I to tell Apple what's best for their devices?"

An anonymous reader writes "The joint comment filed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) requests anti-infringement software on all home computers, pervasive copyright filtering, border searches, forced US intellectual property policies on foreign nations and a joint departmental agency to combat infringement during major releases." The MPAA would also like to have its rent paid a bit by Congress, with a ban on what seems to me like a useful tool (for those in as well as outside the film industry), the recently-discussed futures market for box-office receipts.

jimboh2k sends word of a printer introduced by Japanese company Sanwa Newtec, called the PrePeat RP-3100 (a play on "repeat"). It prints on A4-sized sheets of PET plastic, and these sheets can be reused up to 1,000 times, the company says. The printer uses heat transfer technology rather than ink, and so has no consumables. There's a video of the printer in operation at the link. The PrePeat costs about $5,600 and a supply of 1,000 plastic sheets will set you back another $3,300. However, the company gives a use case in which a corporation saves $7,360 per year on consumables, as well as putting less CO2 into the atmosphere. So far the PrePeat is available only in Japan.

Bleep Labs, the same people who brought you the Thingamagoop (and now Thingamagoop2!), have released a new fun gadget — the Arduino-based Nebulophone. "What do you get when you mash together an Arduino-based synth with a Stylophone-like keyboard? A month ago, even we wouldn't have known, but now that Handmade Music Austin has come and gone, we're happy to say that this beautiful concoction leads to the creation of a Nebulophone. Unfortunately, there's no video (yet) to showcase what this musical wonder can do, but we're told that it has 'adjustable waveforms, a light controlled analog filter, LFO and an arpeggiator that can be clocked over IR.'"

An anonymous reader passes along a word about an innovative LCD writing tablet. The Boogie Board costs $30, can be written on with a stylus or a fingernail, and uses no power in the act of writing. Only erasing consumes power — from a watch battery, which lasts for 50,000 erases. The total cost per "page" comes out to only 1/15th that of steno paper. The writing surface is pressure-sensitive and "highly responsive to variable amounts of pressure," so you can make thick and thin lines.

54mc writes "Crunchgear reports that Microsoft's long-searched-for forensics tool, COFEE, has been leaked. The tool started on a small, private tracker, but has since worked its way to The Pirate Bay. Not all those who have gotten hold of it are enthused, and reviews have ranged from 'disappointing' to 'useless.' From the article: 'You have absolutely no use for the program. It's not something like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro, an expensive application that you download for the hell of it on the off-chance you need to put Dave Meltzer's face on Brett Hart's body as part of a message board thread. No, COFEE is 100 percent useless to you.'"

Paolo DF writes "Geocities is closing today. Its advent in 1995 was a sign of the rising 'Internet for everyone' era, when connection speeds were 1,000x or 2,000x slower than is common today. You may love it or hate it, but millions of people had their first contact with a Web presence right here. I know that Geocities is something that most Slashdotters will see as a n00b thing — the Internet was fine before Geocities — but nevertheless I think that some credit is due. Heck, there's even a modified xkcd homepage to mark the occasion." Reader commodore64_love notes a few more tributes around the Web. Last spring we discussed Yahoo's announcment that Geocities would be going away.

A pest control company in Japan has come up with a way to catch human rats, an Anti-burglar door mat. The mat is basically a giant adhesive trap that weighs a respectable, but hardly immovable, 8kg. Still the company says the mat is effective, claiming that it has proved itself during a recent break-in at a restaurant already. The mat will become available in Japan starting this fall and is promised to be more humane than the companies last invention, The Poison Cookie Burglar Feeding Station.

Western Digital has announced a couple of new 2.5-inch mobile hard drives weighing in at 750GB and 1TB. The drives feature a 3 GB/s transfer rate and Western Digital's "WhisperDrive" tech along with specialized shock tolerance and head parking to ensure durability. "Both models are shipping now through various channels; the 1TB model is currently available in My Passport Essential SE USB drives. The Scorpio Blue 750GB model has a suggested sticker price of $190 while the Scorpio Blue 1TB is a mere $250. The My Passport Essential SE 1 TB portable drive is $299.99 USD and the 750 GB model is $199.99 USD."

snydeq writes to recommend Peter Wayner's inside look at the frustration iPhone developers face from Apple when attempting to distribute their apps through the iPhone App Store. Wayner's long piece is an extended analogy comparing Apple to the worst of Soviet-era bureaucracy. "Determined simply to dump an HTML version of his book into UIWebView and offer two versions through the App Store, Wayner endures four months of inexplicable silences, mixed messages, and almost whimsical rejections from Apple — the kind of frustration and uncertainty Wayner believes is fast transforming Apple's regulated marketplace into a hotbed of bottom-feeding mediocrity. 'Developers are afraid to risk serious development time on the platform as long as anonymous gatekeepers are able to delay projects by weeks and months with some seemingly random flick of a finger,' Wayner writes of his experience. 'It's one thing to delay a homebrew project like mine, but it's another thing to shut down a team of developers burning real cash. Apple should be worried when real programmers shrug off the rejections by saying, "It's just a hobby."'"

Ponca City, We love you writes "With a high level of technical sophistication, critical customers, and high innovation rate, Japan is the toughest cell phone market in the world. So it's not surprising that although Apple is the third-largest mobile supplier in the world, selling 10 million units in 2008, in Japan the iPhone is selling so poorly it's being offered for free. The country is famous for being ahead of its time when it comes to technology, and the iPhone just doesn't cut it. For example, Japanese handset users are into video and photos — and the iPhone has neither a video camera, multimedia text messaging, nor a TV tuner. Pricing plans in Japan are also very competitive, and the iPhone's $60-and-up monthly plan is too high compared to competitors; a survey lat year showed that among Japanese consumers, 91% didn't want to buy an iPhone. The cellular weapon of choice in Japan would be the Panasonic P905i, a fancy cellphone that doubles as a 3-inch TV and features 3-G, GPS, a 5.1-megapixel camera, and motion sensors for Wii-style games. 'When I show this to visitors from the US, they're amazed,' according to journalist Nobi Hayashi, who adds, 'Carrying around an iPhone in Japan would make you look pretty lame.'"

ChrisPaget writes "After my legal skirmishes with HID a while back, The Register has coverage of my latest RFID work — cloning Passport Cards and Electronic Drivers Licenses from a moving vehicle. Full details will be released at Shmoocon this weekend, but in the meantime there's video of the equipment and articles all over the place."

In the granddaddy of all stupid public relations decisions, Spirit Airlines decided to charge two passengers a $90 cancellation fee because the couple never used their return flight from Myrtle Beach on Flight 1549. While Spirit Airlines employees may not be very adaptable to tough situations, their HR department can take solace in the fact that they know how to spew forth company policy. It only took a day for the company to give the Kolodjay family a full refund. Behold the power of bad press!

CurtMonash writes "Much is being made of the deliberations as to whether President Obama will be able to keep using his beloved "BarackBerry." As the NYTimes details, there are two major sets of objections: infosecurity and legal/records retention. Deven Coldeway of CrunchGear does a good job of showing that the technological infosecurity problems can be solved. And as I've noted elsewhere, the 'Omigod, he left his Blackberry behind at dinner' issue is absurd. Presidents are surrounded by attendants, Secret Service and otherwise. Somebody just has to be given the job of keeping track of the president's personal communication device. As for the legal question of whether the president can afford to put things in writing that will likely be exposed by courts and archivists later — the answer to that surely depends on the subject matter or recipient. Email to his Chicago friends — why not? Anything he'd write to them would be necessarily non-secret anyway. Email to the Secretary of Defense? That might be a different matter."

anomalous cohort writes "CrunchGear has an interesting interview with the Director of Inflight Entertainment for the airline Virgin America, who discusses their adoption of Linux for the passenger's seat back computers. 'The ability to compose a music-video playlist is pretty cool and on the horizon. The READ section is also awesome in that it takes what is typically a bunch of wasted trees (excess newspapers, periodicals) and allows us to be more environmentally friendly and timely with things like news/event info/sports/entertainment etc.'"

An anonymous reader slipped us a link to the Seattle PI article discussing Bryan Lee's departure from Microsoft. The former business development VP for the Zune has parted ways with the company for personal reasons now that 'Zune was launched and on track'. This means that J. Allard will be stepping up into fill the void. Allard was instrumental in bringing the first Xbox console to market, and was the VP in charge of technical matters for the Zune. An analyst with Gartner is quoted as saying this move means not all is well in the land of Zune, but a rumour on the CrunchGear site indicates that Microsoft is planning on stepping things up later this year with a Zune cellphone. A smartphone designed to compete with Apple in that market it would seem, despite whatever problems may be going on, the company is still rather fond of the strange little brown device.