Wireless Archive

Pirating Android apps is a long-standing problem. But it seems to be getting worse, even as Google begins to respond much more aggressively. The dilemma: protecting developers' investments, and revenue stream, while keeping an open platform.

Artificial intelligence is going mobile . The technology that can help machines behave more intelligently, popularized by such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, is finding its way onto tablet-style computers and other handheld devices.

Well, this certainly isn't particularly surprising. The rising popularity of Android leaves more victims in its wake than just Windows Mobile. Sony Ericsson, one of the major manufacturers of Symbian phones (other than Nokia) has just announced it will pretty much abandon the platform to focus entirely on Android - leaving Nokia as the sole person cheering for team Symbian.

So, we have the iPad out and about for a while now, doing its thing, most likely selling well. Of course, others want a piece of that pie as well, so we see tablets pop up all over the place, most of which are either ultra-low budget junk or vapourware (how that's Adam coming along, Notion Ink?). Earlier this year, Steve Ballmer proudly held up HP's Windows 7-powered Slate - but then, HP bought Palm, canned the Slate, promised a webOS tablet, and then resurrected the Slate as an enterprise product. Now we have a video of the Windows 7-powered Slate. Let's compare it to Samsung's detailed overview of its Galaxy Tab, and see ever so clearly why HP canned the darn thing in the first place.

Nokia might not be gaining a lot of mindshare in the smartphone world with its Symbian operating system, but fact of the matter is that Symbian is still the most popular smartphone operating system in the world - by a long shot. Today, Nokia officially unveiled three new smartphones that will run the latest iteration of the mobile platform, Symbian^3.

This one doesn't come as a total surprise: Nokia has replaced its CEO. Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is on his way out, and he's being replaced by Stephen Elop, head of Microsoft's Business division. This will be the first time someone from Foreign (from Nokia's perspective) will lead the company, but some fresh, outside blood may be just what the doctor ordered.

The iPad pretty much has the tablet market all to itself at this point, since no serious competitor has yet been released. We've been teased to death with the first real competitor, a device from Samsung called the Galaxy Tab. It has been officially unveiled today, and it indeed looks like the first serious competition to the iPad. It runs Android, naturally.

Highly innovative but remarkably illusive - that's how I describe the webOS. The operating system never made its way to The Netherlands, and as such, I never got to try it. Now that Palm is part of HP, development on webOS continues, and the company has just detailed what's coming for developers in version 2.0.

Kevin Rose, of Digg fame, wrote a blog post yesterday about the upcoming revolution of the TV. A sentiment that I of course agree with. However, trying to think one step ahead, it makes sense to envision that the next big device that will get "smart," is the car. And when this happens soon, everything else will follow.

Here's the dirty little secret about Android: After all the work Apple did to get AT&T to relinquish device control for the iPhone and all the great efforts Google made to get the FCC and the U.S. telecoms to agree to open access rules as part of the 700 MHz auction, Android is taking all of those gains and handing the power back to the telecoms.

I don't trust the site that brought the rumour, but hey, we don't have much else to report on so bear with me. DownloadSquad is reporting that they've heard from a reliable source that Verizon and Google are going to unveil a Chrome OS tablet in November. So basically, Chrome OS is going to compete with Android on tablets. Excellent idea. Oh and also, Engadget has compiled Verizon's roadmap for the rest of the year, and it's Android, Android, Android, Andrdoid. Update: Surprising - it's nonsense.

It's clearly summer in some parts of the world, since news has been particularly slow the past few days. In other words, I have to scrounge up something to talk about, so let's talk about another apparent victim of Apple's and Google's success in the mobile space. RIM launched its Torch mobile phone to much fanfare not too long ago, but early reviews were negative, and now sales aren't really stellar either. What more can RIM do?

The fact that Android is doing well shouldn't be a surprise to anyone; lots of figures already prove that. New figures from research firms Gartner and IDC from the second quarter of 2010 show that not only is Android doing well in the United States - it's doing well in Foreign as well. Worldwide, Android has soared past iOS, and is closing in on Research In Motion's BlackBerry - just one percentage point left. Symbian is still the undisputed king of smartphone land, with more installations sold than RIM and Android combined.

Kaspersky has announced in this article the first trojan specific for Android. "The new malicious program penetrates smartphones running Android in the guise of a harmless media player application. Users are prompted to install a file of just over 13 KB with the standard Android extension .APK. Once installed on the phone, the Trojan uses the system to begin sending SMSs to premium rate numbers without the owner’s knowledge or consent, resulting in money passing from a user’s account to that of the cybercriminals."