OS

Samsung Galaxy Note was due for a slice of Google’s much craved Ice Cream for a long time. However, the good news for the Note owners is out claiming that Samsung has started to roll out Android 4.0 update to its much revered phablet. The news broke out after a tweet from Devin Balentina of Netherlands.

The tweet shows an over-the-air update for Galaxy Note, which includes Android 4.0 with TouchWiz, new S Note App and a S Memo widget, the overall update up to the size of 319MB. This might be one of the rare times when you don’t have to use Samsung Kies desktop software for the update. Notably, Samsung had promised ICS’s roll out in Q1 which was later delayed to Q2 owing to addition of premium suite apps, though if we go by the screenshot any such update seems to be missing.

The update for now is limited to select countries in Europe the good news being the update will soon be available worldwide. If you’re one of the proud owners of this 5.3-inches mammoth hulk phone you should get yourself ready for the update. In case you’re one of the very first to do the update we would advise you to better take a backup of your data in case you don’t want to jeopardize your precious files. For the rest keep tuned in. We’ll be on it as soon as the update becomes available in India.

Via: CNet

LG seems to have no further plans to launch more Windows Phone handsets, which are not financially beneficial for the company. LG sources have revealed to the Korea Herald that it will concentrate more on Android platform instead of Microsoft’s Windows Phone in future. The reason the South Korean firm came up with for the move is the huge depreciation in sales of its Windows Phone handsets in global markets.

Here’s something disappointing for Apple loyalists who firmly believe the manufacturer is thoroughly unalloyed and honest-to-goodness for whatever it sketches out. So not expectedly, a judge from the International Trade Commission has recently served summons for Apple for having violated a technology patent belonging to Motorola Mobility.

Windows announced today that non Mango devices will no longer have access to Windows Phone Marketplace. So devices which are not yet upgraded to Windows Phone 7.5 Mango can’t download apps from the store now. To download apps, users would have to upgrade their devices to Mango. Upgrade can be done by connecting phones to computers and follow steps in the help section.

A latest update on Official Sony Facebook page has stated that Sony has started offering Android 4.0 updates for Xperia phones and Sony Ericsson Live in India. Sony started updating phones to 4.0 in the mid of this month, though it was initially scheduled for March end. The update has finally come to India after covering countries like Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. In India, this update would be available on Xperia arc S, Xperia neo V and Xperia ray.

With the release of Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the iPhone 4S and the new Apple iOS 5 seem to have got some competition. Google probably is the only company that can match Apple in creativity, exclusivity, speed and product innovation. And they have done exceedingly well if we may say so. The new iOS boasts of an enhanced browser, photo enhancements, facial recognition and several changes to the core apps which promising to make the Galaxy Nexus (into which they will be integrated) a fitting rival for the Apple heroes! Here is how they will be battling out on some key features:

You might love your Nokia Lumia but can you can you use it as a hotspot to utilize the capabilities of its wireless 3G? The answer to this prior to now was no but there is a rumor that Nokia has already launched an update for Tango in certain countries that will help you tether your Lumia phone. It was last month that Nokia hinted at such update and surprisingly they are now available in Belgium, Netherlands and Vietnam. While Lumia 610 and 900 already enjoy the tethering capabilities, it is the Lumia 710 and 800C (the Chinese version of Lumia 800) that will benefit from this update.

Motion sensors used on your phones are being used by web attackers and hackers to steal sensitive information from your handset. Generally known as Taploggers, these malicious programs actually hide inside game apps. Usually, games that require users to match contents or similar looking images conceal these hazardous Taploggers. A similar program used by attackers last year was the Touchlogger. It seems that most Android handsets and also Windows 8 devices are vulnerable to such attacks. In fact, the malicious code also works on Blackberry’s operating system.

But how exactly does this whole mechanism work? Well, the main culprit are the motion sensors in your phone. The Trojan virus becomes familiar with the manner in which a user executes pitch, roll and azimuth on their devices. The style in which each user works across these three dimensions is not the same. So, the Taplogger works by marking the precise regions on either the dial pad or the screenlock that one tends to use the most. The trojan now becomes capable of mimicking the way each user works their way through the screen.

But how does this Trojan manage to study and then recreate user patterns of different people so accurately. Actually, the Trojan keeps a tight tab on the way one uses his phone. All the changes on orientation are recorded in real time. The trojan closely monitors usage whenever a person enters a code to unlock their screen, punches digits on the dialer to make a call or enters numbers during a call. The Taplogger mostly hides in game apps. It collects all the data about usage patterns while the user is playing games. The more you play, the better the Trojan becomes at making guesses.

There are other variables like background vibrations that come in the way of the trojan sourcing information from your phone. However, these are not powerful enough to prevent it from accessing a major chunk of information. So, even though the information provided to the attacker is not complete, it still helps to reduce drastically the number of guesses they have to make to get to any sensitive information like PIN numbers or social security codes. For instance, one has to ideally try out 10000 combinations to crack a four digit PIN number. But this Trojan will bring down the number of tries to just 81, drastically increasing the success rate of the attacker.

The Trojan actually goes through all readings returned to the phone’s built in accelerometer, orientation sensor and gyroscope. All these readings are then sent out to another computer that is controlled by the hackers. These readings can be easily uncovered by the Taplogger. Whenever a user taps on their phone, the exact coordinates are reported to the OS of your phone. The malicious program makes interpretations easily by matching these coordinates to the information a user is accessing on their screen. Thus, Taploggers is capable of uncovering sensitive information like passwords, PINs or social security numbers from your phone easily and the basic problem according to a PhD candidate Zhi Xu is that the sensing motion on most smartphones is currently unmanaged.

Via: Arstechnica