Slashdot Mirror

GMGruman writes "The last time Apple's Mac sales accounted for more than 10 percent of the U.S. PC market was 1991. This spring, Apple finally returned to that market share high, with 10.7 percent of all U.S. PC sales, according to both IDC and Gartner. That's a major reversal from its 2004 share of under 2 percent. The sales report comes after some other good news this week for Apple: A third of big businesses now let employees choose a Mac as their PC — and more than half choose the Mac."

GMGruman writes "The last time Apple's Mac sales accounted for more than 10 percent of the U.S. PC market was 1991. This spring, Apple finally returned to that market share high, with 10.7 percent of all U.S. PC sales, according to both IDC and Gartner. That's a major reversal from its 2004 share of under 2 percent. The sales report comes after some other good news this week for Apple: A third of big businesses now let employees choose a Mac as their PC — and more than half choose the Mac."

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister takes an in-depth look at the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 3G and finds the device comparatively lackluster. 'The Chromebook is lightweight and inexpensive, and it offers a full-featured Web browsing experience. But its low-end hardware, lack of versatility, and primitive support for commonplace computing tasks such as printing, file management, networking, and media playback make it a poor choice for everyday use, particularly in a business setting,' McAllister writes. 'All in all, the Samsung Series 5 is an average-quality netbook with a large screen and a higher-than-average price tag, while Chrome OS itself feels more like a proof-of-concept project whose time has not yet come.'"

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister takes an in-depth look at the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 3G and finds the device comparatively lackluster. 'The Chromebook is lightweight and inexpensive, and it offers a full-featured Web browsing experience. But its low-end hardware, lack of versatility, and primitive support for commonplace computing tasks such as printing, file management, networking, and media playback make it a poor choice for everyday use, particularly in a business setting,' McAllister writes. 'All in all, the Samsung Series 5 is an average-quality netbook with a large screen and a higher-than-average price tag, while Chrome OS itself feels more like a proof-of-concept project whose time has not yet come.'"

snydeq writes "Kevin Fogarty takes a look at how the rise of cloud computing will impact IT jobs, outlining which roles stand to gain prominence in the years to come, and which roles will suffer as organizations extend their commitments to the cloud. 'Ultimately the bulk of IT could look more like a projects office than the way it looks now, when most of the hands-on work is done inside. It probably won't be a total transformation, but moving into cloud, there will be more of that and less DIY.'"

snydeq writes "Kevin Fogarty takes a look at how the rise of cloud computing will impact IT jobs, outlining which roles stand to gain prominence in the years to come, and which roles will suffer as organizations extend their commitments to the cloud. 'Ultimately the bulk of IT could look more like a projects office than the way it looks now, when most of the hands-on work is done inside. It probably won't be a total transformation, but moving into cloud, there will be more of that and less DIY.'"

Fudge Factor 3000 writes "HP released their much trumpeted enterprise tablet, TouchPad, last week. This device was also the first to showcase WebOS in a tablet. The tablet received several harsh reviews, though some stated that the OS showed potential. Most of the criticism surrounded the sluggish software and the lack of apps. As reported by CNET, WebOS chief Jon Rubenstein rallies his troops by comparing the WebOS tablet's debut to that of Mac OS X, which also struggled early on. However, it is not entirely clear if the comparison is appropriate, since WebOS has existed since 2009, and OS X had the ability to run most classic OS 9 apps during the transition period. Nevertheless, one can certainly argue that the situation is similar in spirit." Another reader tips a related article which suggests that — for better or worse — Apple has succeeded in defining what a tablet should be, making it difficult for competitors to get a foothold in the market.

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses the most dangerous programming mistakes, and what can be done to avoid them. 'Even more than input validation errors, this year's list is rife with application security blunders of all kinds. Some of them sound fairly esoteric, such as "inclusion of functionality from untrusted control sphere." But of all such errors, the highest-ranking one on the list is "missing authentication for critical function" — in other words, the attacker was able to gain access because there was no lock on the door to begin with,' McAllister writes. 'With the pace of Internet attacks accelerating, now is not the time to cut QA staff or skimp on testing and code review.'"

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses the most dangerous programming mistakes, and what can be done to avoid them. 'Even more than input validation errors, this year's list is rife with application security blunders of all kinds. Some of them sound fairly esoteric, such as "inclusion of functionality from untrusted control sphere." But of all such errors, the highest-ranking one on the list is "missing authentication for critical function" — in other words, the attacker was able to gain access because there was no lock on the door to begin with,' McAllister writes. 'With the pace of Internet attacks accelerating, now is not the time to cut QA staff or skimp on testing and code review.'"

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses the most dangerous programming mistakes, and what can be done to avoid them. 'Even more than input validation errors, this year's list is rife with application security blunders of all kinds. Some of them sound fairly esoteric, such as "inclusion of functionality from untrusted control sphere." But of all such errors, the highest-ranking one on the list is "missing authentication for critical function" — in other words, the attacker was able to gain access because there was no lock on the door to begin with,' McAllister writes. 'With the pace of Internet attacks accelerating, now is not the time to cut QA staff or skimp on testing and code review.'"

rtfa-troll writes "Microsoft is preparing its customers for plenty of outage time according to the Register, with a scheme for Office 365 which will give customers some money back. The offer seems to be Microsoft's answer to Google offering a '100% uptime guarantee' (they even pay for maintenance time) The most interesting thing about the scheme is that you can have a one and a half day outage every month (or is that 18 solid days a year?) and still expect to pay half price. I wonder Microsoft have put the Sidekick management in charge of their customer's data. Looking forward my expense forms have getting eaten by the cloud so I have to fill them in again."

snydeq writes "The fact that Oracle has handed over the keys to two major open source projects in recent weeks has some questioning the fate of other prominent open source projects Oracle took on in the wake of its 2010 acquisition of Sun. But while OpenOffice.org and Hudson provided little commercial opportunity for Oracle, it appears that Oracle has plans to keep rein on NetBeans, MySQL, and GlassFish contrary to expectations, analysts contend."

snydeq writes "The fact that Oracle has handed over the keys to two major open source projects in recent weeks has some questioning the fate of other prominent open source projects Oracle took on in the wake of its 2010 acquisition of Sun. But while OpenOffice.org and Hudson provided little commercial opportunity for Oracle, it appears that Oracle has plans to keep rein on NetBeans, MySQL, and GlassFish contrary to expectations, analysts contend."

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses why schools are having a hard time engaging young minds in computer science — and what the Scalable Game Design program in Colorado is doing to try to change that. 'Repenning's program avoids this disheartening cycle in three important ways. First, it deemphasizes programming while still encouraging students to develop the logical thinking skills they'll need for more advanced studies. Second, it engages students by encouraging them to be creative and solve their own problems, rather than just repeating exercises dictated by their instructor. Third, and perhaps most important, students are rewarded for their efforts with an actual, concrete result they can relate to: a game.'"

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses why schools are having a hard time engaging young minds in computer science — and what the Scalable Game Design program in Colorado is doing to try to change that. 'Repenning's program avoids this disheartening cycle in three important ways. First, it deemphasizes programming while still encouraging students to develop the logical thinking skills they'll need for more advanced studies. Second, it engages students by encouraging them to be creative and solve their own problems, rather than just repeating exercises dictated by their instructor. Third, and perhaps most important, students are rewarded for their efforts with an actual, concrete result they can relate to: a game.'"

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner provides a look at 10-plus mobile browsing alternatives, from Firefox, to Opera, to SkyFire, to Mercury, and more — a rapidly evolving area fraught with confusion, especially for developers seeking to target the mobile Web. 'All of this turmoil is creating opportunities. On the iPhone, the formerly unknown browsers are quite nice. They run quite well and sometimes offer the ability to run Flash content directly because they have compiled Flash into the stack. There are a surprisingly large number of new names appearing, and some are beginning to be mentioned in the same breath as the big browsers that dominate the desktop,' Wayner writes. 'The turmoil is also changing the definition of what a browser might be. A number of small applications such as Instapaper, Flipboard, and Evernote never set out to be browsers, but people are using them to read Web pages.'"

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner provides a look at 10-plus mobile browsing alternatives, from Firefox, to Opera, to SkyFire, to Mercury, and more — a rapidly evolving area fraught with confusion, especially for developers seeking to target the mobile Web. 'All of this turmoil is creating opportunities. On the iPhone, the formerly unknown browsers are quite nice. They run quite well and sometimes offer the ability to run Flash content directly because they have compiled Flash into the stack. There are a surprisingly large number of new names appearing, and some are beginning to be mentioned in the same breath as the big browsers that dominate the desktop,' Wayner writes. 'The turmoil is also changing the definition of what a browser might be. A number of small applications such as Instapaper, Flipboard, and Evernote never set out to be browsers, but people are using them to read Web pages.'"

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner provides a look at 10-plus mobile browsing alternatives, from Firefox, to Opera, to SkyFire, to Mercury, and more — a rapidly evolving area fraught with confusion, especially for developers seeking to target the mobile Web. 'All of this turmoil is creating opportunities. On the iPhone, the formerly unknown browsers are quite nice. They run quite well and sometimes offer the ability to run Flash content directly because they have compiled Flash into the stack. There are a surprisingly large number of new names appearing, and some are beginning to be mentioned in the same breath as the big browsers that dominate the desktop,' Wayner writes. 'The turmoil is also changing the definition of what a browser might be. A number of small applications such as Instapaper, Flipboard, and Evernote never set out to be browsers, but people are using them to read Web pages.'"

oDDmON oUT writes "Techcrunch has a piece about Facebook's Project Spartan, which aims to deliver app store functionality through the use of HTML5 in the iOS Safari browser. Given Facebook's shifting sands privacy stances, as well as their track record with their "trusted partners", I don't think I'd be alone in wondering if this wouldn't put a great big stake in the heart of the assertion that iOS is the most secure operating system in existence today."

medv4380 writes with news from InfoWorld about the near-term future of Java: "Java Platform, SE (Standard Edition) 7 has been passed this week by the JCP Executive Committee for SE/EE (Enterprise Edition), by a vote of 13 in favor and 1 — Google — against. Oracle, IBM, VMware, Red Hat, and Fujitsu are among the affirmative votes, and two committee members — Credit Suisse and Java architect Werner Keil — did not vote. Specifically, committee members voted on Java Specification Request 336, which pertains to the Java upgrade. Voting on the public review ballot for Java SE 7 finished up earlier this week after beginning on May 31. Java SE 7 still faces another vote on a final approval ballot."

GMGruman writes "There's no such thing as a perfectly secure operating system, but security experts agree — somewhat grudgingly in some cases — that iOS, Apple's mobile operating system, is the most secure commercial OS today, mobile or desktop. It didn't start that way of course, and Robert Lemos explains what Apple did to go from insecure to most secure."

GMGruman writes "There's no such thing as a perfectly secure operating system, but security experts agree — somewhat grudgingly in some cases — that iOS, Apple's mobile operating system, is the most secure commercial OS today, mobile or desktop. It didn't start that way of course, and Robert Lemos explains what Apple did to go from insecure to most secure."

snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia discusses the two ways to succeed in IT: through proficiency and hard work, a road that often leads to unending servitude, or the other way; with little effort or proficiency at all. 'I hate to say this, but a number of people in IT positions work harder to make it seem like they're busy as beavers than doing actual work. Quite often this dysfunction starts at the top: When an IT manager doesn't know the technology very well, he or she may hire folks who have no idea what their job is other than to show up every day and answer the occasional email, passing questions along to others with more technical abilities, or to their contacts at the various hardware and software vendors. People like these populate many consulting companies. They rely almost completely on contractors to perform the actual work, serving as remote hands in a real crisis and as part of a phone tree for less pressing issues.'"

snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia discusses the two ways to succeed in IT: through proficiency and hard work, a road that often leads to unending servitude, or the other way; with little effort or proficiency at all. 'I hate to say this, but a number of people in IT positions work harder to make it seem like they're busy as beavers than doing actual work. Quite often this dysfunction starts at the top: When an IT manager doesn't know the technology very well, he or she may hire folks who have no idea what their job is other than to show up every day and answer the occasional email, passing questions along to others with more technical abilities, or to their contacts at the various hardware and software vendors. People like these populate many consulting companies. They rely almost completely on contractors to perform the actual work, serving as remote hands in a real crisis and as part of a phone tree for less pressing issues.'"

snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia discusses the two ways to succeed in IT: through proficiency and hard work, a road that often leads to unending servitude, or the other way; with little effort or proficiency at all. 'I hate to say this, but a number of people in IT positions work harder to make it seem like they're busy as beavers than doing actual work. Quite often this dysfunction starts at the top: When an IT manager doesn't know the technology very well, he or she may hire folks who have no idea what their job is other than to show up every day and answer the occasional email, passing questions along to others with more technical abilities, or to their contacts at the various hardware and software vendors. People like these populate many consulting companies. They rely almost completely on contractors to perform the actual work, serving as remote hands in a real crisis and as part of a phone tree for less pressing issues.'"

snydeq writes "Oracle's decision to spin OpenOffice.org into an Apache incubation podling raises several questions regarding the future of the code, not the least of which is how it will co-exist with LibreOffice. Also of note are the business implications of Oracle's decision, which some see opening up commercial opportunities for OpenOffice.org support, as well as a likely push from Google and IBM to woo current OpenOffice.org customers to Google Docs and Lotus Symphony."

snydeq writes "Oracle's decision to spin OpenOffice.org into an Apache incubation podling raises several questions regarding the future of the code, not the least of which is how it will co-exist with LibreOffice. Also of note are the business implications of Oracle's decision, which some see opening up commercial opportunities for OpenOffice.org support, as well as a likely push from Google and IBM to woo current OpenOffice.org customers to Google Docs and Lotus Symphony."

rfc1394 writes with this snippet from an Infoworld report: "Internet Explorer's market share continues to drop like a rock. Net Applications published its numbers for May, and Internet Explorer's total share declined yet again, from 55.11 percent in April to 54.27 percent in May, a drop of [0.84 percent] in one month. Contrast that with Google's Chrome, which rose from 11.94 percent in April to 12.52 percent in May, an increase of [0.58 percent]. In the past year, IE's share of browser usage has dipped from 60.32 percent to 54.27 percent. How long before IE usage drops below 50%?'"

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner test-drives five leading JavaScript servers and finds the results compelling though still a work-in-progress. 'I enjoyed the challenge and stimulation of rethinking everything I know about the server, but I still found myself hesitant to push these new ideas too far or too fast. The speed of experimentation and development is heady and exciting to the open source crowd, but it will probably seem scary to corporate developers who like the long, stable lives of tools from Microsoft or Oracle. Some of these platforms will probably morph three or four times over the next few years, something that won't happen to the good, old JSP standard in the Java world,' Wayner writes in review of Node.js, Jaxer, EJScript, RingoJS, and AppengineJS."

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner test-drives five leading JavaScript servers and finds the results compelling though still a work-in-progress. 'I enjoyed the challenge and stimulation of rethinking everything I know about the server, but I still found myself hesitant to push these new ideas too far or too fast. The speed of experimentation and development is heady and exciting to the open source crowd, but it will probably seem scary to corporate developers who like the long, stable lives of tools from Microsoft or Oracle. Some of these platforms will probably morph three or four times over the next few years, something that won't happen to the good, old JSP standard in the Java world,' Wayner writes in review of Node.js, Jaxer, EJScript, RingoJS, and AppengineJS."

The Installer writes with news of yesterday's stock offering from LinkedIn, which shocked investors by closing at more than double the initial price. "Buyers crowded the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and financial news networks flashed LinkedIn's stock price urgently all day. By the closing bell, the company had a market value of $9 billion, the highest for any Internet company since Google had its initial public offering seven years ago. Millionaires and even one billionaire were made, at least on paper. The stock, issued at $45, went as high as $122.70 just before noon and closed at $94.25 on a trading volume of 30 million shares." That price values the company at over 30 times its 2010 revenue, leading to speculation that this is either evidence of the second dotcom bubble (a possibility we discussed in February) or a "watershed moment for social media." Many experts are questioning the value of LinkedIn, while others are claiming intentional market manipulation.

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses whether independent software developers should follow in the footsteps of Google and Mozilla and begin offering bug bounties before black hats pay up for their undisclosed software flaws. 'Whichever side of the fence you fall on, the fact is that bounties are being paid for undisclosed software flaws. They're just not always being paid by the vendor who developed the software. As ever more commercial data moves into the cloud and the stakes for cyber crime rise, black hat hackers are offering real money for exploitable bugs. In turn, when exploits happen, vendors may be held legally liable for any customer data that was compromised. Maybe it's time more software shops thought seriously about using their own cash to turn the tide in their favor.'"

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses whether independent software developers should follow in the footsteps of Google and Mozilla and begin offering bug bounties before black hats pay up for their undisclosed software flaws. 'Whichever side of the fence you fall on, the fact is that bounties are being paid for undisclosed software flaws. They're just not always being paid by the vendor who developed the software. As ever more commercial data moves into the cloud and the stakes for cyber crime rise, black hat hackers are offering real money for exploitable bugs. In turn, when exploits happen, vendors may be held legally liable for any customer data that was compromised. Maybe it's time more software shops thought seriously about using their own cash to turn the tide in their favor.'"

tsamsoniw writes "Researchers at the University of Ulm have found that eavesdroppers can intercept and use authentication tokens sent between Android apps and Google services via unsecured Wi-Fi. Those tokens, which aren't tied to specific devices or sessions, can be used to peek at and tweak a user's email, contacts, and calendar. Devices running Android 2.3.3 or earlier (which accounts for the vast majority of phones) are most vulnerable, but there are steps devs, Google, and users can take to reduce the risks."

tsamsoniw writes "Researchers at the University of Ulm have found that eavesdroppers can intercept and use authentication tokens sent between Android apps and Google services via unsecured Wi-Fi. Those tokens, which aren't tied to specific devices or sessions, can be used to peek at and tweak a user's email, contacts, and calendar. Devices running Android 2.3.3 or earlier (which accounts for the vast majority of phones) are most vulnerable, but there are steps devs, Google, and users can take to reduce the risks."

GMGruman writes "What happens if you take a netbook, remove its keyboard, put Windows 7 in one partition, a custom version of Android 2.2 in another, throw in a Linux bootloader, and physical buttons that match none of these? You get the ViewSonic ViewPad 10, a Frankenstein creation of technology body parts that just don't fit together. As this InfoWorld review shows, it's definitely a 'were they even thinking?' class of product."

GMGruman writes "What happens if you take a netbook, remove its keyboard, put Windows 7 in one partition, a custom version of Android 2.2 in another, throw in a Linux bootloader, and physical buttons that match none of these? You get the ViewSonic ViewPad 10, a Frankenstein creation of technology body parts that just don't fit together. As this InfoWorld review shows, it's definitely a 'were they even thinking?' class of product."

snydeq writes "Carcasses, garter belts, anthrax — there is no end to nasty when it comes to working in IT, as the fourth installment of InfoWorld's Dirty IT Jobs series proves. From the systems sanitation engineer, to the human server rack, surviving in today's IT job market often means thriving in difficult conditions, including standing in two feet of water holding a plugged-in server or finding yourself in a sniper's crosshairs while attempting to install a communications link." In case you missed them, here are the first three parts.

snydeq writes "Carcasses, garter belts, anthrax — there is no end to nasty when it comes to working in IT, as the fourth installment of InfoWorld's Dirty IT Jobs series proves. From the systems sanitation engineer, to the human server rack, surviving in today's IT job market often means thriving in difficult conditions, including standing in two feet of water holding a plugged-in server or finding yourself in a sniper's crosshairs while attempting to install a communications link." In case you missed them, here are the first three parts.

snydeq writes "Carcasses, garter belts, anthrax — there is no end to nasty when it comes to working in IT, as the fourth installment of InfoWorld's Dirty IT Jobs series proves. From the systems sanitation engineer, to the human server rack, surviving in today's IT job market often means thriving in difficult conditions, including standing in two feet of water holding a plugged-in server or finding yourself in a sniper's crosshairs while attempting to install a communications link." In case you missed them, here are the first three parts.

snydeq writes "Carcasses, garter belts, anthrax — there is no end to nasty when it comes to working in IT, as the fourth installment of InfoWorld's Dirty IT Jobs series proves. From the systems sanitation engineer, to the human server rack, surviving in today's IT job market often means thriving in difficult conditions, including standing in two feet of water holding a plugged-in server or finding yourself in a sniper's crosshairs while attempting to install a communications link." In case you missed them, here are the first three parts.

snydeq writes "Carcasses, garter belts, anthrax — there is no end to nasty when it comes to working in IT, as the fourth installment of InfoWorld's Dirty IT Jobs series proves. From the systems sanitation engineer, to the human server rack, surviving in today's IT job market often means thriving in difficult conditions, including standing in two feet of water holding a plugged-in server or finding yourself in a sniper's crosshairs while attempting to install a communications link." In case you missed them, here are the first three parts.

GMGruman writes "As mobile devices enter the workplace and latch on to Wi-Fi networks — along with devices such as HVAC sensors and videoconferencing that most people don't even realize use Wi-Fi — the typical wireless LAN is unable to cope. What needs to happen, argues Aberdeen Group's Andrew Borg, is a rethink of the wireless LAN not as a casual adjunct to the wired LAN (the typical mentality when they were first set up) but as the corporate LAN itself."

GMGruman writes "As mobile devices enter the workplace and latch on to Wi-Fi networks — along with devices such as HVAC sensors and videoconferencing that most people don't even realize use Wi-Fi — the typical wireless LAN is unable to cope. What needs to happen, argues Aberdeen Group's Andrew Borg, is a rethink of the wireless LAN not as a casual adjunct to the wired LAN (the typical mentality when they were first set up) but as the corporate LAN itself."

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner offers a look at 13 promising features unique to one browser. From Chrome's support for SPDY, to IE9's emphasis on energy efficiency, to Firefox Sync, browser vendors are working hard to establish any edge that might attract more users to their stack of code. And while speed and HTML5 compatibility remain key in the battle of the Web browsers, unique features often point the way forward. 'Given the pace of browser updates these days, don't be surprised to find the best of the bunch being copied by competitors soon,' Wayner writes. 'After all, yesterday's browser bells and whistles are today's must-have features.'"

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner offers a look at 13 promising features unique to one browser. From Chrome's support for SPDY, to IE9's emphasis on energy efficiency, to Firefox Sync, browser vendors are working hard to establish any edge that might attract more users to their stack of code. And while speed and HTML5 compatibility remain key in the battle of the Web browsers, unique features often point the way forward. 'Given the pace of browser updates these days, don't be surprised to find the best of the bunch being copied by competitors soon,' Wayner writes. 'After all, yesterday's browser bells and whistles are today's must-have features.'"

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner offers a look at 13 promising features unique to one browser. From Chrome's support for SPDY, to IE9's emphasis on energy efficiency, to Firefox Sync, browser vendors are working hard to establish any edge that might attract more users to their stack of code. And while speed and HTML5 compatibility remain key in the battle of the Web browsers, unique features often point the way forward. 'Given the pace of browser updates these days, don't be surprised to find the best of the bunch being copied by competitors soon,' Wayner writes. 'After all, yesterday's browser bells and whistles are today's must-have features.'"

GMGruman writes "Android smartphones have overpowered the iPhone in market share, yet Android tablets barely register in sales versus the iPad. Android tablets are as competitive in most respects against the iPad as Android smartphones are against the iPhone. So why the difference in success? Galen Gruman examines five theories for the gap, and concludes the reason is that Android tablets' real competitor is in fact not the iPad."

GMGruman writes "Android smartphones have overpowered the iPhone in market share, yet Android tablets barely register in sales versus the iPad. Android tablets are as competitive in most respects against the iPad as Android smartphones are against the iPhone. So why the difference in success? Galen Gruman examines five theories for the gap, and concludes the reason is that Android tablets' real competitor is in fact not the iPad."

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes of the growing unease among consumers around mobile data privacy, and how this distrust will impact mobile app development. 'When every week seems to bring another news story about a data breach resulting in the theft of customer data, customers are growing increasingly jealous of their privacy. Given the unique nature of the data to be found on smartphones, it's only natural that they have begun to view mobile apps with a skeptical eye. If you're developing apps that use customers' mobile data, you need to do more than recognize these realities. You need to develop a policy that places secure, ethical, and appropriate handling of user data at the core of your application development process.'"