Phony Fones

A New Research to Make Computers Hacker-proof

2011-05-30T00:22:00.000-07:00

A bad news for hackers:

Hackers can now be discouraged from hacking into user accounts despite having access to passwords, reveals a new research from Lebanon. According to the Key-Pattern Analysis (KPA), a new approach developed by the American University of Beirut, the password stolen by hackers can become ineffective. KPA is an attempt to scrutinise the speed with which a user taps the keys as well as measuring the gaps between keystrokes, the beat of their typing.

Biometric profile:

The result can be a biometric profile of the way individual users type in their password.

If the biometric profile does not match the user, then the password fails even if it is "correct, reports the International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions."

However, Ravel Jabbour, Wes Masri and Ali El-Hajj at the university point out that a modified keyboard would be inconvenient for an organisation or individual.

So, the team instead has incorporated "intra" timing that measures how long each key remains pressed, which gives them the beat of the typing and is a much more robust parameter.

The programme gathers information about how the users type in their password by recording the electronic signals from a standard keyboard as keys are pressed and released. Users would be expected to repeatedly type their password at the log-in registration stage to record a reproducible typing pattern for permitting a log-in.

LG Crystal, A Terrific Cell Phone

2011-05-28T01:04:00.000-07:00

LG are known for their original and creative phone ideas and the LG Crystal is another unique design. This is the first mobile to have a completely transparent keyboard. The phone, not being too dissimilar to the Samsung Tocco Ultra, consists of a touch screen user interface combined with a slide down keypad. The main difference from the Samsung though is that the crystal has a completely touch sensitive keypad as well. There are no separate keys with just a flat, see-through surface with numbers etched in.

The main display, as well as being touch screen has a very high resolution 800 x 480 pixels and 16 million colours as well as the actual size of the screen is quite impressive also being 3” diagonal. The features on this phone are also pretty cool such as the ability to draw a character on the screen to access your music, inbox, etc even if they are a slight bit gimmicky. But you can’t help but feel that with a price of up to £350 SIM-free LG could have given you something a little more special.

One problem that I have found after a couple of weeks of use is that when texting, you have the option of an on-screen QWERTY keyboard which is good and easily accessible but sometimes it locks up and you have to exit your text to unfreeze the phone.

Although the transparent keypad looks snazzy and is a great show off at the pub the original and cool design took all of 10 seconds for the novelty to wear off and for the £350 phone to slip into my pocket to be used just as I used my old, reasonably priced one.

To conclude, the new LG Crystal is a cool new design that could definitely be developed and the features are all quite neat concepts with a pretty good camera. The only drawback with this original mobile is the massive price tag associated with a phone that doesn’t quite give me all I wanted for the money I splashed out.

Battery – Standard battery, Li-Ion
Camera – 8 megapixel camera (3264×2448 pixels) with LED flash, autofocus and night mode, this mobile phone also has video and a secondary video-call camera

Data Features – GPRS Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots, 32 – 48 kbps), EDGE Class 10 (236.8 kbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, USB and 3G (HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps)

Display – 3-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen (16-million colours/480 x 800 pixels) featuring S-Class Touch UI, Multi-touch input method, Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Transparent touch-sensitive keypad, Gesture Shortcut and Handwriting recognition

Size and Weight – 105 x 52.5 x 13.4mm

Networks – 2G Network GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and 3G Network HSDPA 2100

Memory Features – Phonebook and photo-call memory, plus Call records at 40 dialled, 40 received, 40 missed calls, also comes with a microSD (TransFlash) card slot up to 16GB

Sound – Vibration alert, MP3 ringtones, Speakerphone, Downloadable polyphonic and Dolby Mobile

Other Features
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS
• SMS, EMS & MMS Messaging
• Email
• Instant Messaging
• Java MIDP 2.0
• TV-out
• HTML, WAP 2.0/xHTML Browser
• FM radio
• FM transmitter
• Games
• DivX, XviD, MPEG4 player
• MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA player
• Document viewer (DOC, XLS, PPT, PDF)
• Voice memo
• Organizer
• Alarm
• Calendar
• Notepad
• Calculator
• Clock
• To-do
• T9

What are the profit margins for wholesale mobile phone dealers?

2011-05-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

The mobile industry presented incredible prospects in terms of business when the device was first developed. Today, even though the competition in the entire supply management chain is fierce, but more wholesalers seem increasing interested to plunge into the business. All of this is because of the fact that despite tough competition, the mobile industry offers decent profit margins and a magnificent growth rate.

While manufacturers around the globe are busy developing newer models of hi-tech phones, there is a constant demand for simple and cheaper sets in the market. Wholesalers have little profit margins in the sale of these cheap sets but since cheaper sets are not that durable, they need to be replaced fairly often. This keeps a steady demand for these sets, offering a fair profit for the suppliers as well as others.

There are many ways of increasing these profit margins.

1. Catalogue:

One of the ways to do so is by offering your clients and customers a catalogue. By using catalogues, one can cut down the rental, maintenance costs on the warehouses. Because of the tough competition in the market, one cannot raise the wholesale prices of the items so it’s a smart idea to cut down on the associated expenses instead.

2. Market Rates:

The mobile phone wholesalers and dealers should also keep an eye on the Market rates. If you have no idea about the market trends and the costs of certain items, you will not be able to asses the compatible price and hence lose much of your profit margin. You will only be able to eke out a reasonable profit if you have a clear idea as to what the market has to offer. Remember, your offer must be close to the market rates, neither too inflated nor too wafer thin.

3. International Market:

The rates offered by the local market might be the complete opposite of those in the international or say in any of the South Asian countries where the IT sector is at its zenith. The difference between the currency and the rates in the local markets, these countries can make a considerable difference in the prices. In any case, as a wholesaler, you might want to consider importing from or exporting to any such countries to further fatten up your profit margins.

Young more eager to pay via mobile fones

2011-05-21T02:47:00.000-07:00

The

mobile

and banking industries have been all abuzz lately about offering consumers the ability to pay for items through their cell phones. But how do consumers actually feel about this?

Survey results

releas

ed yesterday by MasterCard tried to gauge how comfortable people would be using their cell phones to pay for items on the go at stores, restaurants, and other retail outlets. And

like many surveys focused on new technologies, this one showed a fairly big gap in feelings between the young and the not-as-young.

Among those 18 to 34 years old, 63 percent said they would be at ease using their mobile phones to make purchases. But among those 35 and older, only 37 percent expressed the same level of comfort.

Younger people feel much more dependent on their cell phones in general, the survey found. About 65 percent of those in the 18 to 34 range said they'd feel more naked without their phones than their wallets, compared with only 34 percent of those 35 and older who said the same thing.

Kelton Research, which polled 1,000 people, conducted the survey between April 15 and April 22 through an e-mail invitation and online survey.

Looking at other results of the survey, more men (51 percent) than women (40 percent) would be comfortable using their phones to make a mobile payment. Slightly more men (49 percent) than women (45 percent) would be impressed by someone who used their cell phone rather than a credit card to pay for something. Yet women (50 percent) more than men (36 percent) feel more exposed without their cell phones than their wallets.

But as always, security is a major concern. Almost 62 percent of those polled said they'd need to be sure that their personal information was safe in order to make a purchase through their mobile phones.

Mobile phone makers, wireless carriers, and financial companies have all been busy trying to ramp up the mobile payments technology of near-field communications, or NFC. With the necessary NFC hardware and credit card information stored on their phones, consumers would be able to pay for items and services by touching or passing over other equipped phones as well as NFC-enabled registers and terminals. The technology is seen as the next step beyond existing contactless mobile payment systems such as Visa's PayWave and MasterCard's PayPass.

New devices boost MP3 use at home

2011-05-20T03:16:00.000-07:00

Request Multimedia and S3 have developed new products that may expand the popularity of digital music beyond portable devices and desktop PCs.

S3, which markets the Diamond Rio portable MP3 player, today unveiled the Rio Digital Audio Receiver, designed to stream digital music from the PC to stereo speakers throughout a house using existing phone lines. In addition, Request today began shipping a home MP3 player that stores hundreds of hours of MP3-coded music on a 17GB hard drive.

The new digital music appliances are another indication that the MP3 craze is not a portable phenomenon alone. Although pocket-sized devices such as the Rio and Creative Labs' Nomad popularized MP3, electronics companies are recognizing it as a potential "killer app" for home networking.

MP3 is a popular standard for compressing digital music into manageable file sizes.

"There's a lot of interest, and it will develop over time as the technology becomes more mainstream," said Kevin Hause, an analyst with International Data Corp. He added that the market is still in its infancy, which offers opportunities for companies outside the consumer electronics realm, such as S3, a maker of graphics chips, and start-up Request.

"This market may be a couple hundred thousand units, which isn't as interesting to Sony or Thomson as it is to a start-up company," Hause said. "It's a good opportunity to put a stake in the ground, especially for a company like S3 with Diamond who wants to continue their market leadership."

S3’s strategy, for example, is to integrate Diamond's home networking technology and the Rio product line, with the goal being a home full of digital stereos and speakers connected by S3 technology.

"When you think about what a home network is useful for, the applications of digital media and entertainment jump to the top of the list," Hause said. "It's the next logical step in enabling other types of devices."

The Rio Digital Audio Receiver is a sort of stop-gap solution. The appliance transfers music stored on the PC to a receiver, which then pipes music throughout the house using existing phone lines, Diamond said. For example, a person could plug S3-compatible speakers into phone jacks in the bedroom and the kitchen and use the receiver to play different songs in each room.

"We're continuing to make good on our promise to take digital music beyond the PC," Mike Reed, director of marketing for the Rio group at S3, said in a statement today.

The device works with Real Networks' music management software and with Diamond's own proprietary software. Rio's Digital Audio Receiver is priced at $299.

The new Audio Request appliance from Request is essentially a large hard drive connected to speakers that acts as a digital music server for the home. The 17GB drive can store up to 300 hours of songs and can store songs from a CD after it is played once.

Eventually, Request plans to sell a device that connects directly to the Internet to permit the downloading of MP3 music without a PC. But this first version acts as a middleman: It will receive and store music from the PC and send it to the home stereo. The company also announced a deal today with eMusic, which will provide sample MP3 music to Audio Request users.

"Listening to music directly from CDs will soon become a thing of the past," Steven Vasquez, Request's CEO, said in a statement.

The Audio Request is priced at $799.95.

The tiny cube that could cut your cell phone bill

2011-03-26T04:01:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- As mobile data usage skyrockets, wireless companies are spending billions each year to maximize capacity, and consumers end up footing the cost in the form of higher cell phone bills.
But a cube that fits in the palm of your hand could help solve that problem.
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It's called lightRadio, a Rubik's cube-sized device made by Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) that takes all of the components of a cell phone tower and compresses them down into a 2.3-inch block. Unlike today's cell towers and antennas, which are large, inefficient and expensive to maintain, lightRadio is tiny, capacious and power-sipping.
As tiny as it is, it has been tasked with solving an enormous problem.
The global wireless industry is spending $210 billion a year to operate their networks, and $50 billion to upgrade them, according to Alcatel-Lucent and PRTM. Networks are dealing with that cost by putting data caps in place with heavy overage charges and by raising prices on their smartphone and tablet plans.
Despite all that spending and pressure on consumers to curb their data usage, the networks are fighting a losing battle. Mobile data usage is expected to grow 30 times in the next four to five years and 500 times in the next ten years, according to Alcatel-Lucent.
With a combination of miniaturization and cloud technology, lightRadio just might be able to help wireless carriers keep pace with their customers.
A cell tower that fits in your palm
When conceiving of lightRadio, Alcatel-Lucent's engineers stripped out all the heavy power equipment that controls modern cell towers, and moved them to centralized stations. That allows the lightRadio cubes to be made small enough to be deployed virtually anywhere and practically inconspicuously: Atop bus station awnings, on the side of buildings or on lamp posts.
Their small size and centralized operation lets wireless companies control the cubes virtually. That makes the antennas up to 30% more efficient than current cell towers.

Live data about who is using the cubes can be assessed, and the antennas' directional beams can be shifted to maximize their potential. For instance, radios may be pointed in one direction as people are coming to work in the morning and another direction as they're leaving work at the end of the day.
Multi-generationalantennas:

The lightRadio units also contain multi-generational antennas that can relay 2G, 3G and 4G network signals all from the same cube. That cuts down on interference and doubles the number of bits that can be sent through the air.
Today's cell towers, by contrast, send power in all different directions, most of which is lost, since it doesn't reach anyone's particular devices. They're inefficient in other ways as well: Roughly half of the power from cell towers' base stations is lost before it makes its way up to the antennas at the top of the tower. And they have separate antennas for 2G, 3G and 4G networks, causing interference problems.
Cut carries operating costs:

All of lightRadio's smart technology and power efficiency can help cut carriers' operating costs in half, Alcatel-Lucent believes.
"We need to think differently about this, because no one wants limits," said Tod Sizer, head of wireless research at Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Laboratories. "We hope to solve this problem so that the AT&Ts (T, Fortune 500), Verizons (VZ, Fortune 500) and Sprints (S, Fortune 500) of the world will be able to provide the data capacity that is needed by the customer."
The lightRadio trials will begin in September 2011, and the company expects to be producing them in volume by 2012. Several carriers have expressed interest in the technology, and Sprint Nextel plans to try out the cubes later this year.
"Sprint is talking to Alcatel Lucent about this technology and we will be working with them to test and evaluate it," a Sprint spokeswoman said. "We have been aggressive in smaller factor cell sites to help us support the growth in data traffic."
Complemintarytechnology:

Sizer said he sees lightRadio as a complimentary technology to existing cell towers. Those big antennas still serve a purpose, providing long distance signals or beams down a highway.
But as wireless companies add infrastructure to keep up with the ever-rising data demands from tablets and smartphones, carriers are finding that they're running into a cost and a space issue: Towers are expensive, and they're running out of room to erect new ones.
Exciting qualities:

Each 1.5-Watt lightRadio cube powers about a two-block radius, so in urban areas, they can be deployed throughout the city and stacked like Lego blocks in stadiums or other areas that need extra capacity. In rural areas, they can be deployed atop existing cell towers in arrays.
"The thing that's incenting us to move quickly is that more and more people are using smartphones, and my customers are being crushed by the enormous amount of data that people want to use," said Sizer. "We have to meet the access demands of the consumer, who wants to access data in any place."

Will Apple win or …………?

2011-03-14T03:27:00.000-07:00

Apple’s new shot:

Most popular talk of the day is as u know that Apple is preparing for the launch of the iPhone 5 this summer, the company finds itself in the odd position of needing to compete with a mainstream competitor which should never have existed. The iPhone is still the only smartphone which anyone outside of geek circles cares about, but it’s far from the only smartphone in popular use.

Black Berry losing market value:

The long-languishing BlackBerry is losing marketshare and has become the AOL of its industry. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 is as doubtful as Windows itself is mainstream. The HP Palm Pre doesn’t have a chance. The iPhone still has no competition except for one platform, which has roared into popular usage in much the same way cockroaches take over a house: unwanted, ugly, and leaving most folks eager to rid themselves of it if feasible.

Apple’s mistake:

Apple’s mistake, of course, was in launching the iPhone in such a manner in which the door for a cockroach like the Droid was left wide open, a vacuum to be filled by anything which came along, and now Apple is left cleaning up its own mess as it heads into the iPhone 5 era.

A comparison:

Features and specs aren’t the iPhone’s problem and never have been. Outside of geek circles, the only segment of the population which actually prefers the Android OS to the iPhone, no one cares that there are Android phones available with built in 4G. Come to think of it, almost no one cares that the iPhone has FaceTime either. Greater than ninety-nine percent of smartphone owners can’t name the processor speed of their phone or that of any other phones they may have considered. Usability, more specifically a positive ratio of frustration-free use to frustration-filled geekiness, is the only real litmus test the mainstream has when it comes to such devices. It’s why the iPod won the MP3 marketshare battle hands down. It’s why the iPad is doing the same in the tablet market. But because of an iPhone original sin, Apple embarks on the iPhone 5 era with a fraction of the marketshare it should have, and more problematically, a statistically significant competing platform in Android which almost no one (outside of the geeks) has anything positive to say about, but which plenty of them are willing to settle for if it means being able to stay with their preferred carrier.

Verizon’s internals show:

For a brief moment there, it appeared Apple was going to win the battle when it came to making the iPhone an AT&T-only product in the United States (and tying the iPhone to one carrier in each other nation) in the hopes of getting the public to mass migrate to that carrier. But even as Verizon’s internals show that was bleeding enough customers to AT&T over the iPhone prior to the Verizon iPhone 4 launch that the carrier’s growth had all but stalled out, that was more of a defeat for Verizon than it was a victory for Apple. Even as each non-iPhone carrier got its lunch individually eaten by the AT&T and the iPhone, with each carrier’s pet Android phone not being enough to keep customers from leaving in favor of the iPhone, that hasn’t been enough to keep the iPhone firmly atop the overall marketshare battle. And that’s shocking when one considers that none out of ten random non-geek consumers on the street will affirm that they want an iPhone, but perhaps only three out of ten actually have one. Ask why they’re using an Android based phone instead of the iPhone they say they want, their answer is straightforward and has nothing to do with Android. “I’m on Sprint,” they’ll say, as if that’s not a condition which can be corrected. “Our family uses T-Mobile,” they’ll protest, making it clear that they’d rather have a phone they can’t stand than a carrier they can’t trust. “I’m on Verizon,” they’ll retort, “and I skipped the Verizon iPhone 4 because it’s old news and I’m not eligible for upgrade pricing yet anyway. I’m waiting for the Verizon iPhone 5.”

WHAT should Apple do?

So half the battle is won. The mass migration among Verizon customers from the Droid to the iPhone has begun in earnest, and will evolve into a tidal wave the moment the iPhone 5 surfaces. But if Apple wants to actually win the smartphone marketshare battle instead of continuing to fumble it away, the iPhone 5 must surface on Sprint and T-Mobile as well, along with every major carrier in every nation in which the iPhone 5 is offered. Years ago, it was a cute experiment to see whether Apple could use the leverage of exclusivity to motivate AT&T into becoming a carrier which iPhone users could be proud of. The results of that long term experiment speak for themselves. And now Apple must deal with a competing platform which no one seems to even like but which far too many people appear to be perfectly willing to settle for.

How iPhone 5 would be?

2011-03-13T00:34:00.000-08:00

We know that we are months away from any type of iPhone 5 announcement, a Chinese site claims to have new pictures of the rumored product.

Engineering images obtained by iDealsChina show iPhone 5 to have a much larger, edge-to-edge screen that covers most of the front of the phone. However, besides the bigger screen, the device looks much like the iPhone 4.

Site statement

"We just got what appears to be mold engineering drawings for iPhone 5," the site says. "These would be used by case designers to create plastic, TPU, aluminum, silicone, and leather cases. A while back we [heard] rumors that iPhone 5 would have a curved back but these images show iPhone 5 with the same form factor as iPhone 4 but with an edge-to-edge screen."

This statement could expose the rumors that came out earlier this week that the back design of the next iPhone would be different. Sources said Apple would abandon the current glass back in favor of a metal back that would be similar to the original iPhone. Apple is reportedly nixing the glass back because of frequent scratching and difficulty painting that part of the phone.

Apple Rethinks:

Additionally, Apple could be rethinking the external frame that doubled as the iPhone 4's antenna. The external antenna led to a flood of bad press for Apple when it was revealed that holding the phone in a way that covers the antenna, dubbed the "death grip," could interfere with wireless signals. Apple would instead use the Apple logo on the back of the phone to transmit signals.

MacRumors says:

Whenever product rumors surface, there is always a question of whether or not they are real. But the newest images are in line with shots of an iPhone bezel that were posted on iDealsChina last month. However, MacRumors says that the authenticity of the previous images has been questioned.

Some more rumors

There have also been rumors that Apple would unveil different sized iPhones. A Recent leaked image from a Chinese iPhone parts supplier show a slightly bigger, 4-inch screen. The iPhone 4 has a 3.5-inch display. There have also been reports that Apple would produce a smaller iPhone, but The New York Times refuted that claim, and said that the main focus is lowering the price on the phone.