Month: August 2006

“Secure Computing Corporation has warned that organizations that have installed their BlackBerry server behind their gateway security devices could be subject to a hacking attack when security researcher Jesse D’Aguanno is scheduled to release the code for his BlackBerry hack next week.The soon-to-be-released hacking program called BBProxy can be installed on a BlackBerry or sent as an e-mail attachment to an unsuspecting user. Once installed, BBProxy opens a back channel bypassing the organizations gateway security mechanisms between the hacker and the inside of the victims’ network. Since the communications channel between the BlackBerry server and handheld device is encrypted and cannot be properly inspected by typical security products, a tunnel is most often opened by the administrator to allow the encrypted communications channel to the BlackBerry server inside the organizations network. A malicious person could potentially use this back channel to move around inside of an organization unabated and remove confidential information undetected or use the back channel to install malware on the network. Paul Henry, vice president of Strategic Accounts for Secure Computing, offers the following common sense network architecture and policy suggestions to reduce the risk of this impending threat: Servers connecting to the public Internet have an inherent risk. Isolating these Internet facing servers reduces the risk of a compromised server providing access to other critical servers. Hence due diligence would require that any Internet facing server like a BlackBerry server should be isolated on its own DMZ segment. Only those connections necessary to facilitate the operation of the BlackBerry server should be permitted. The BlackBerry server should not be permitted to open arbitrary connections to the internal network or Internet. The mail server that is working with the BlackBerry server is also an Internet facing server and should also be isolated on its own separate DMZ. Only those connections necessary to facilitate the normal operation of the mail server should be permitted. The mail server should not be permitted to open arbitrary connections to the internal network or Internet. Internal users should not be permitted to open arbitrary connections to either the BlackBerry server or mail server. ”

” It’s not often that I get to review an application that’s perfect in every detail. Yet Handy Weather is such a program – admittedly it only really does one thing (check the upcoming weather for a small number of location) but it does it so smoothly and unobtrusively that it just had to earn a coveted Mega-App award. Available for almost every handheld platform in the world, Handy Weather impresses under S60, shown here, by not only working as a standalone application but also making its functionality available as a screen-saver.After installation of the week-long trial version, you’re gently led into picking a home city (even medium sized towns are available in many countries) and an auto-update interval (the default is 8 hours, which is about right), then it’s into Handy Weather proper. The four opening functions (Day list, Graph, Current condition and My cities) are duplicated nicely across a multi-tabbed interface once you’ve selected a function, and this proves the fastest way of getting around.” Read this review here:

“The sides are smooth and free from buttons and switches. The ends are leveled, so the device lies comfortably in hands. The number of control elements on the front panel increased greatly: there appeared a full-featured navigation button and Calendar and Contacts buttons by its sides. The power button got an inconvenient position – at the bottom left angle of the LCD. If you already hold the PDA, you have to switch it on with your free hand. But that’s rather a fault-finding matter than a real flaw. Besides you get accustomed to this location very quickly.” Read this interesting review here:

” When I first touched Samsung i320 I was impressed by both its brilliant construction and the materials it is made of. In spite of its slimness the phone has a solid body, which does not give out a creak even if pressed or twisted. The thin part covering the battery does not show any gaps either; just on the contrary, it holds firmly as if having been fixed for good. If you do not change SIM cards frequently, I am convinced it is going to keep its qualities during the entire life of the phone. I have to confess that I have a soft spot for both the materials used on Samsung i320 and its color. The device is dark-black when looked at under artificial light or in twilight. At the same time, it gets a unique reddish nuance when placed under direct sunlight. It is only the glossy cover of the display that will definitely require regular care, as it catches fingerprints all over. In any case Samsung i320 looks classy and stylish.Located on the right side of the device are a couple of connectors protected by rubber covers, the latter being caught to the body of the phone. The bottom cover protects the system connector, which assures the electrical connection of the synchronizing cable. A little bit upper is located the earphones slot, different from the standard jack connector. Unfortunately, the Samsung i320 model our team obtained for testing was not accompanied by an earphone set. Yet, I believe such will be available in every standard phone package.” Read this BIG review here:

“Put the power of a cell phone, PDA, computer, scanner and imager in the hands of your mobile workers with the MC70. Designed to withstand all-day everyday use in nearly any environment, this rugged compact device delivers true anywhere anytime wireless WAN/LAN/PAN voice and data communications, including superior voice functionality, advanced data capture and the power to run nearly any application. The MC70 provides everything your mobile task workers need to achieve a new level of enterprise productivity — whether they are out in the field reading meters, delivering packages or repairing appliances, on the retail floor taking inventory, or in a hospital checking test results and verifying medication orders.Features Intel XScale 624 Mhz processor 64MB RAM/128MB ROM Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Premium Bluetooth: Class II, v 1.2 Tri-mode IEEE 802.11a/b/g Lithium Ion 3.7V, 1900 mAh Smart Battery ntegrated Voice-over-IP ready (P2P, PBX, PTT)” Check this great device here:

” QCOX is a new interesting portable media player on the market in Korea. QCOX runs Windows CE 5.0 on an AMD Alchemy CPU. The PMP has a 4.3 inch screen, 30GB HDD, DMB tuner, Macromedia Flash UI and TV out. A cool looking wheel on the side of the player lets you choose the different functionalities.The PMP is apparently made by Korean Curon. More details and photos PMPInside (Korean).” via i4u.com

“The windows mobile Treo Lennon (Treo 750) show its face.Cingular Treo users will love to upgrade to the antennaless Treo Lennon (Treo 750). There are Treo Nitro and Lennon where Lennon is running Windows Mobile 5.0. The upcoming smartphone will support HSDPA and UTMS to keep up with the latest wireless technology. It is said to be available in October according to the Cingular’s internal release notice.” Check more photos here:

“Palm and Yelp today announced the release of Yelp Mobile (mobile.yelp.com), which has been optimized for Palm Treo smartphones.The co-branded mobile website will provide Treo smartphone users with easy access to information that enhances their mobile-computing experience. Mirroring the local search website, Yelp Mobile, which comprises hundreds of thousands of reviews, is presented in a small digestible format that enables users to easily read what the local community is saying about a specific business. The cooperative project represents Yelp’s first dedicated mobile effort and is available on all web-enabled phones.”Searching for local information is a vital part of the mobile experience. Working with Yelp will provide Treo owners with incredible, localized content for people on the go,” said Page Murray, vice president of marketing, Palm, Inc. “Fast access to Yelp’s trusted and insightful reviews will help accelerate user adoption and engagement with Treo smartphone web-based services.”The Yelp Mobile experience allows users to either search or browse for local businesses, and more importantly, taps into the collective “local knowledge” that has been generated by the Yelp community.Search for a specific business — By inputting a specific business name and city, users will have immediate access to helpful information, such as: Standard directory information (address, phone and hours of operation, where available); Map of the business location and its surrounding five-block radius; Yelp star rating (1-5); Unbiased, witty and insightful reviews from real people in the Yelp community; and Images of reviewers and businesses photos (available only on Treo smartphones, where available). Browse for interesting local businesses — Users can input a specific location to view the most popular nearby businesses as determined by the Yelp community. Browse businesses by category (restaurants, shopping, bars/nightlife, spas, and so forth); Browse by neighborhood (where available); and Refine the browse experience by neighborhood and category (where available).Palm has partnered with Yelp as the official mobile sponsor for the launch. Palm also will receive sponsorship promotion in the Weekly Yelp, a five-market weekly email newsletter that is distributed to the Yelp community.”

“Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) today announced its plans to develop and deploy the first fourth generation (4G) nationwide broadband mobile network. The 4G wireless broadband network will use the mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) IEEE 802.16e-2005 technology standard. Working together with Intel, Motorola and Samsung, Sprint Nextel will develop a nationwide network infrastructure as well as mobile WiMAX-enabled chipsets that will support advanced wireless broadband services for computing, portable multimedia, interactive and other consumer electronic devices. These efforts are intended to allow Sprint Nextel customers to experience a nationwide mobile data network that is designed to offer faster speeds, lower cost, and greater convenience and enhanced multimedia quality. The Sprint Nextel 4G mobility network will use the company’s extensive 2.5GHz spectrum holdings, which cover 85 percent of the households in the top 100 U.S. markets – the most of any wireless carrier in any single spectrum band. To access that network, Sprint Nextel will work with Intel, Motorola and Samsung to incorporate WiMAX technology for advanced wireless communications and help make chipsets widely available for new consumer electronics devices, connecting consumers to the Internet and to each other while providing them with the flexibility to do what they want or need to do regardless of time or place.”None of us today can envision our lives without wireless connectivity or the Internet,” explained Gary Forsee, president and chief executive officer of Sprint Nextel. “Sprint Nextel is taking a major step forward by linking the incredible potential of these two cornerstones of daily communications. We’ll give customers the power to harness business information and personal entertainment easily and inexpensively — and in ways that they will one day wonder how they lived without.This announcement is another step in Sprint Nextel’s broadband mobility leadership, and we expect to establish a first-to-market next generation network advantage. We will have a unique broadband capability for meeting the growing access and mobile Internet needs of businesses, governments and consumers when and where they want.” In working together with Intel, Motorola, and Samsung, Sprint Nextel has the experience, network infrastructure, spectrum and distribution channels to make 4G mobility services pervasive and indispensable for customers. The company’s deployment plans target a launch of the advanced wireless broadband services in trial markets by the end of 2007 with plans to deploy a network that reaches as many as 100 million people in 2008. Sprint Nextel plans to expand mobile WiMAX network coverage thereafter. The company will continue to invest in and offer access to its current wireless and Sprint Power VisionSM mobile broadband networks to serve customer communications needs today and into the future. As evidenced by its strong data results and expanding 3G broadband network, Sprint Nextel continues its innovation and leadership in driving mobile data.New Business ModelSprint Nextel has created a unique business model designed to foster the rapid deployment and adoption of mobile WiMAX technology in the United States and abroad. Sprint Nextel is expecting to invest $1 billion in 2007 and between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in 2008 relating to the 4G mobile broadband network. The WiMAX technology to be deployed in the network is expected to offer a cost-per-megabit and performance advantage that reflects a substantial improvement in the comparable costs for the current 3G mobile broadband offerings. Commitments from Intel, Motorola and Samsung in the areas of market development, mobile WiMAX devices and other contributions to Sprint Nextel’s core business are expected to accelerate Sprint Nextel’s goal of deploying services and market adoption. Motorola and Samsung will also support Sprint’s current and CDMA/EV-DO network technologies by creating multimode devices that will support services on both the 4G network and the 3G network in areas outside the planned 4G coverage, and will provide voice service using the core 3G network. The 4G broadband network will offer a complementary, high-bandwidth service driven by data centric devices. Intel, one of the early members of the WiMAX Forum and one of the key contributors to the IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard, will deliver next generation WiMAX solutions for Centrino Mobile Technology and next generation computing devices. Intel will bring its extensive history in device-to-network verification as well as marketing expertise to expose customers to the breadth of new WiMAX capabilities and services. Motorola has been a long-standing proponent of WiMAX and will offer Sprint Nextel both single- and multimode devices designed to enable seamless mobility for users, while playing a major role in its WiMAX infrastructure roll-out. Since Motorola is the exclusive supplier of iDEN technology as well as a major supplier of CDMA and EV-DO Revision A technology, it can offer a complete end-to-end solution (from radio access network equipment to both single- and multimode mobile devices) and is uniquely positioned to expand the seamless mobility experience into the wireless mobile broadband market. Samsung Telecommunications America will be a primary Mobile WiMAX infrastructure supplier to Sprint Nextel and will also deliver dual-mode devices supporting Mobile WiMAX and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, designed to enable Sprint’s Mobile WiMAX users to utilize Sprint Nextel’s existing 3G network resources. With its installation of networks in South Korea and other markets, Samsung Electronics is the first to commercially deploy Mobile WiMAX and with its alliance with Sprint Nextel will bring this global expertise to North America. Samsung is the global leader in delivering Mobile WiMAX technologies and offers Sprint a total solution including chipsets, infrastructure, mobile devices and consumer electronics focused on Mobile WiMAX and dual-mode WiMAX/CDMA services delivery.Sprint Nextel’s long-term goal is to have a broad range of mobile WiMAX-enabled chipsets and modules and an array of portable data and consumer electronics devices available from multiple vendors which work seamlessly among Sprint’s network offerings. To that end, Sprint Nextel and other leading consumer electronic companies are planning to form a strategic marketing and product alliance for the purpose of introducing innovative consumer electronic devices and multimedia content solutions using Sprint’s 4G mobile WiMAX network.”Sprint Nextel has built its success on being a pioneer – beginning with its rollout of the first nationwide digital fiber optic network 20 years ago,” said Sean Maloney, executive vice president of Intel. “With the choice of mobile WiMAX for its 4G mobile broadband technology, Sprint Nextel again helps move the U.S. to the forefront of technology innovation and competitiveness. Sprint Nextel’s decision confirms Intel’s belief that WiMAX is the wireless technology of choice to deliver affordable broadband access. Intel is pleased to work with Sprint Nextel, Motorola and Samsung to bring the promise of mobile broadband and WiMAX to consumers nationwide.”Motorola Chairman and CEO, Ed Zander, stated, “We are excited that Sprint Nextel has selected WiMAX, and we believe that mobile WiMAX is a perfect choice for a visionary company like Sprint Nextel. Today’s announcement is another milestone in Motorola’s focused strategy to continue to expand and grow our wireless broadband business and advance our vision of seamless wireless broadband mobility. We expect that this decision from one of America’s leading carriers and the largest holder of 2.5GHz spectrum will influence the adoption of mobile WiMAX by other carriers worldwide.”KiTae Lee, president of Samsung Electronics’ Telecommunication Network Business, stated, “I believe Sprint Nextel’s decision to deploy Mobile WiMAX as the 4G network technology will set a milestone in the U.S. telecommunication industry’s history and contribute to further advancements in wireless technology. Mobile WiMAX has the fastest data transfer rate among the existing wireless technologies and is based on all-IP technology. Mobile WiMAX-based services will create a new paradigm shift in wireless services and improve consumer lifestyles. I believe that Sprint Nextel will successfully provide this mobile WiMAX technology based service and begin a new revolution in mobile broadband services nationwide.”

“Firstly, one aim is to keep the amount of data transferred as low as possible. This is done through a proxy server. Rather than your phone going online and connecting directly to a web page, you connect to one of Opera’s proxy servers. This then scurries off and gets the full page (at no cost to you) and then scrunches out the important data, re-sizes any pictures to a smaller size (and colour depth) and then sends the resulting smaller page and picture files to your phone. As this is the bit that eats your bandwidth, having the proxy server will significantly reduce the amount of data you transfer.The page is also re-worked to make sure that the layout is suitable for a small screen device through the small-screen rendering. This is the second principle; make sure that all the relevant information on a page is presented in the easiest way possible to read on a mobile device. This will probably mean the layout of a page is compromised from the original designer’s intent, but quite frankly if it means it’s accessible at all on the relatively tiny mobile screen, so much the better.This usability leads to what, in my mind, is the best way to move around a web page on a mobile device. Unlike the new Web Core-based Nokia browser, in Opera Mini you can page up and down the screen with a single tap of the cursor pad either to the left or the right. This makes flicking through a long column of text pretty quick. Given that the small screen rendering places everything in one column exactly the width of the screen (and thus not having to pan the screen from left to right), it’s an elegant and simple solution.” Read this nice review here: