Entrants and spectators from around the world gathered in Finland over the weekend for its annual mobile phone throwing competition, a cathartic contest where participants are invited to hurl their handset as far as they possibly can.
The 13th annual mobile phone throwing world championship took place in the Finnish town of Savonlinna over the weekend, an occasion where a year’s worth of phone-related pent-up frustration is unleashed with an almighty skyward launch of the offending device.
Three categories of competition make up the event: over the shoulder, where contestants aim to throw the device as far as possible; freestyle, where entrants are judged on aesthetics and creativity; and one for those under 12 where younger phone users can hurl their handset in the hope of winning a prize.
Finnish lad Ere Karjalainen came top in the distance category, throwing his device a staggering 101.46 meters (332 feet), creating a new world record in the process. Boy, he must have had some real issues with his mobile to have been able to throw it that far (unfortunately the phone maker is not specified by the organizers).
Among the female flingers, Jonna Mattero managed to sling her phone the furthest, reaching a distance of 42.47 meters (139 feet). Aleksi Muukkonen won the junior category with a more modest but no less impressive throw of 39.19 meters (128 feet).
On the competition’s official website, mobile phone throwing is described as “a phenomenon [that] speaks to people and interests people all over the world,” and indeed, contestants for the 2012 event did come from far and wide.
One guy from India was smiling broadly when he pitched his handset, his disappointing effort proving that to reach a decent distance it helps if your phone has been ticking you off in the weeks or months leading up to the event, whether due to battery issues, signal dropout or simply an annoyingly small choice of apps.
It may not currently be an Olympic event, but if the cathartic act of slinging your smartphone continues to grow in popularity, might we see it introduced at the 2016 Rio Olympics? No, probably not.
A hacker claims to have found an SMS trick to which iPhones are particularly vulnerable, but how does it work, and why can't Apple stop it?
Late Friday, a blog focused on iOS security research claimed to have found a severe security flaw in iOS. It’s not a way to install malware or otherwise run destructive code, but it is an effective way to create fraudulent text messages that could be used in phishing schemes. While any phone that uses SMS text messaging is vulnerable, UI aspects of the iPhone make it a particularly tempting target. Since then, Apple has claimed the vulnerability lies in SMS technology, not iOS, and that it has no way of fixing it. So how does such a gaping hole in SMS security work?
As pod2g’s security blog explains, the vulnerability originates in the Protocol Description Unit system that’s used to transmit text messages. When you create an SMS message on your phone and hit the Send button, your phone translates the message into PDU terms, tosses it across the network to its recipient, and the phone at the other end catches the bundle of PDU code and translates it into whatever display format the recipient phone uses. But if you’re handy with raw code, you can bypass all the technology that UI designers have worked so hard to make nice and instead create a message in raw PDU text format.
That’s where shenanigans can begin. Just by typing a few words into a text string, a nasty spammer can change the User Data Header in the PDU code, and make it appear to the recipient that the text is coming from their beloved “Mother,” “The FBI,” “Messengers From Space,” or any other recipient they choose to specify. So you could get a message from “Mom” asking you to “Please log into this bank site so we can pay for your Uncle’s kidney surgery” or some other piece of phishing trickery. Even more maliciously, someone who knew the name of your trusted contacts could send, for example, a message that appears to be from your buddy Dave claiming to have had an affair with your house-pet, driving you into a jealous frenzy for nothing but their own amusement. More seriously, courts have used SMS messages as evidence, so this scam could be used to falsely prove that someone violated a restraining order, or is engaged in criminal conspiracy.
The iPhone is especially vulnerable because of its SMS user interface. In a typically Jobsian pursuit of cleanliness, the iPhone doesn’t display the phone number of whoever sent you a message, only the name of the sender. So if “Uncle Jed” is texting you from a phone number in Kazakhistan, there’s no way to tell that you’re getting messages from a suspicious number. Obviously, the iPhone isn’t the only phone to keep those ugly integers tucked away in the pursuit of elegance, but it’s by far the most prominent, and therefore the one with the most to lose if its interface gets regarded as a security risk.
Apple has dealt with phishing vulnerabilities on the iPhone before, as well as phishing scams built around the Apple ID. Unfortunately, this vulnerability is inherent to the SMS protocol, making it much harder to unilateraly fix it. Seth Bromberger, a security consultant at NCI Security, suggests that the iPhone should display an originating number but it’s hard to imagine Apple cluttering up its clean lines with the kind of numeral strings that we all stopped remembering the day we got a built-in contacts list. For now, Apple has issued a statement telling users to be careful, and mentioning that hey, by the way, if you and all your friends just used iPhones exclusively then you would automatically be texting with the iMessage system, where these problems can’t happen. So perhaps the solution to this iPhone vulnerability is to buy an iPhone for all the people who might text you. Everybody wins.
OnLive hasn't closed its doors, but the company's future remains murky, and employees may have a rough road ahead.
Yesterday, we reported that rumors were bouncing across the Internet regarding the possible closing of cloud gaming service OnLive. As anonymous sources start speaking to the press, it’s becoming clear that OnLive services will not disappear immediately, but that’s little comfort to its former employees.
OnLive has issued a statement saying that the company’s assets have been transferred to a newly-formed company “backed by substantial funding.” So for users, service should continue uninterrupted as the new company maintains OnLive’s servers and infrastructure. Of course, there’s no assurance that users won’t be hit with new subscription fees, or that the service won’t disappear if the new owners decide they’d rather unload the company’s assets rather than fix its problems. But it’s at least an offer of continuity for OnLive subscribers.
OnLive staff won’t be so lucky. Anonymous sources are claiming that at least half of the staff has been laid off, and others allege that as many as three quarters of the staff has been let go. OnLive’s statement claims that while it’s starting a new life with a skeleton crew, it plans to re-hire more of their former employees in the future. However, Kotaku reports that the re-hired employees will be paid in nothing more substantial than stock options, an unappealing compensation package from a new company with an uncertain future.
Stock options look especially dicey considering that there’s no indication that OnLive is on track to solve its fundamental problem: Massive infrastructure costs to support a relatively small user base. According to a report at Joystiq, CEO Steve Perlman blamed the company’s collapse on the cost of maintaining 8,000 servers, complete with demanding contracts, to support user numbers that never got above 1,600 simultaneous players. Lag-free cloud gaming is incredibly technically demanding, so there was never a way to avoid massive startup costs. Unfortunately, the users didn’t appear in large enough numbers to pay for all those servers, and OnLive competitor Gakai was the one to get the buyout offers that could lead to a tidy payday.
Ironically, this is happening after what was looking like a good year for OnLive. The company was going to be supported out of the box by the Ouya console, which had become a dramatic success story on Kickstarter. The OnLive Remote Desktop service impressed our reviewers in hands-on tests. Vizio recently announced a new set-top box that would provide video-game streaming via OnLive. And the company’s experiments in streaming games to tablets and smartphones seemed extremely promising. If the reformulated company going to stick around to see all these opportunities through, it will need to bring costs and revenues in line, and fast.
Mozilla will release a preview of Firefox for Windows 8 in September, complete with Modern UI styling and windowless Flash.
Mozilla already announced plans earlier in the year to offer a Modern UI (formerly known as Metro) version of its popular browser, but now new details are beginning to emerge, including a few carefully placed screenshots like the one above.
Brian R. Bondy, a developer working on the project, posted an update to his blog outlining Mozilla’s progress and goals for the fall release.
“Work on the Metro style enabled desktop browser has progressed steadily and things are looking really good,” Bondy writes.
According to Bondy, a preview version of Firefox will be available first as a beta release, planned for later in the year. The preview will be styled as a “combined classic + metro browser” with classic desktop user interface elements for tabbed browsing and navigation.
The Mozilla team still has a lot of work to do before beta release, but a few features have already been successfully implemented. Some are of little interest to the average user, referring to programmer-specific details. But others like a built-in PDF viewer (no need for a plug-in), an option to view a page on the desktop when in the Metro version, windowless Flash, and auto-populated search results below the URL bar are all promising.
Add-ons will not be included in the initial release when in Metro-mode — much like IE’s Metro browser — but Mozilla hopes to enable them eventually. Syncing between the desktop and Metro versions of the browser is also in development. Bondy hopes to find some sort of local sync functionality requiring zero set-up, but says he and the rest of the team can always default to the current syncing solution if needed.
Based on some screenshots posted by developers working on the project, Firefox for Windows 8 will borrow a little inspiration from its Android version with a sprinkling of Modern UI on top. The simple URL bar at the top of screen makes the design look neat and clean, though it’s oddly located at the top rather than the bottom — Microsoft’s preferred position. The tiled bookmarks are a welcome addition as well, an improvement over the traditional drop-down menu.
Google may have beat Mozilla to the punch on Windows 8 with a Chrome dev release tailored to the Modern UI design, but from what we’ve seen and read so far, it seems Firefox will do a much better job of competing with Internet Explorer’s tiled interface than Chrome, which basically ported its desktop design to Windows 8.
Apple has issued a statement urging iPhone owners to use only iOS iMessage service after a SMS security flaw was uncovered within iOS.
Late last week a hacker discovered that it was possible to send texts to an iPhone and convince the device and the user that they were from someone else.
The spoofing attack manipulates the 'reply to' address within the header section of the SMS app so the number or contact the user thinks they are replying to could be something different altogether.
Now Apple, after themselves being urged to plug the hole, says iMessage is a safer option as it does what the mobile carriers do not as verifies the address from which the message is sent.
SMS limitations
"Apple takes security very seriously," the statement obtained by Engadget read. "When using iMessage instead of SMS, addresses are verified which protects against these kinds of spoofing attacks.
"One of the limitations of SMS is that it allows messages to be sent with spoofed addresses to any phone, so we urge customers to be extremely careful if they're directed to an unknown website or address over SMS."
Of course, there's one caveat to that. Although iMessage is completely free over Wi-Fi and 3G, it's only available for use between iOS and Mac OS X users.
So, if 50 per cent of your pals are on Android, you're vulnerable to a spoof calamity.
The device, as reported early this month, features a slightly-faster 1.7GHz dual-core processor and Android Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box.
The current model has a 1.5GHz dual-core chip and arrived with Gingerbread in tow.
Same screen, same camera
Beyond that, it features the same 4.3-inch, 720p touchscreen, same design and the same 12.1-megapixel camera.
You'll also be able to pick it up in silver and pink, as well as the black and white shades, when the SL goes on sale. No word yet on exactly when that will be.
Mayank Sharma shows you how to create an app without even writing any code
Think you need to be fluent in Java to write apps for Google's Android mobile OS? What if you could write an app simply by navigating through a bunch of menus, without installing any piece of software and, more importantly, without writing a single line of code? Thanks to Andromo, it isn't a question of what if' but what is.
Andromo's app-creation process is totally idiot-proof. If you have a mouse, a web browser and an imagination, the world's your oyster. Anyone, including someone who doesn't even have a whiff of programming knowledge, can whip up an Android app in a matter of minutes. Best of all, it costs nothing.
But don't let that fool you into thinking of Andromo as a tool only for newbies. It's also got lots for the seasoned app developer who likes to spend time customising their apps to the hilt. For a fee, pro app developers can resell Andromo-created apps and even list them on Google's Android Store, Google Play.
If you still aren't convinced to try Andromo, here's another gem: Andromo can help you generate revenue. That's right. To cover its costs while making the tool available for free, all Andromo apps display small non-intrusive strips of ads, 50 per cent of the revenue from which it'll share with you!
Click, click, done
Andromo runs completely inside a web browser, so you don't need to install any additional software, unless you want to test your Android app inside an emulator.
The Andromo interface is divided into tabs with each representing a step in the app-creation process. After making changes inside a step, remember to click the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom of the page, before moving on to another tab. You can also exit the process at any step and return to it later.
The first step is to describe the app. An important part of this step is to select an icon. You could go with Andromo's default icon, but it's best if you choose your own. If you're not familiar with creating icons, there's no dearth of royalty-free icons available on the web.
Dress it up
Then there are different steps for customising the various aspects of your app. For example, in the Styles tab you can select from one of the two predefined Android themes, depending on whether you want a light or a dark background colour.
From under the Action Bar tab you can customise the appearance of the bar that appears at the top of your app. Besides displaying your app's name, users will use the bar to navigate between the various components in your app.
The most important screen, which you need to spend time decorating, is the home screen. Head to the Dashboard tab to alter its look. Here you can choose to apply a variety of backgrounds. You can upload images, as well as fine tune their alignment.
Bring in content
The meat of the app-creation process lies in the Activities tab. This is where you select and define the capabilities of your app.
Andromo currently supports a total of 13 activities with 11 free activities, and a couple of Gold-only activities available to paying members. The tool supports two kinds of activities: one that pulls in data from external services, and others that display data bundled with your app.
The external services that Andromo can bring in data from include Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and Google Maps. Additionally you can pull in a website, or an RSS/ Atom news feed, or stream audio over the internet using HTTP progressive and live streaming.
While all activities have similar configuration elements, such as a name and a custom icon, each has its own additional configuration options and nuances. So if you want to display a Facebook page with the social network's activity you only need to enter the name of the page as it appears in the URL.
Similarly, using the Flickr activity you can display images of a particular user by mentioning their Flickr User ID. Or you can display images from various sections of the website, such as the most popular photos on Flickr, or a user's favourite photos, by pointing to the relevant Flickr feed URL.
Bundle content
Then there are activities that let you bundle content along with the app. One you definitely need to use is the About activity. It's designed to include information that describes your app as well as yourself, thanks to optional URLs to your Facebook page, or your Twitter feed, or profiles on LinkedIn or Google+, or even your website.
If you need more flexibility you can use the Custom Page activity to create the About Us page or a Contact Us page. It includes a full-featured HTML editor to help you design the page.
With the Audio activity you can bundle normal audio tracks with the app that users can play with Andromo's customisable music player, which has visible media controls. Or you can include short sounds that are played back with the soundboard that lacks any media controls.
But be cautious while using this activity or else your app will become very bulky. Currently Andromo limits the size of each audio track to 6MB. Furthermore, if you wish to put your app on the Android Market, remember that only apps up to 50MB in size are permitted.
Testing the app
The only real shortcoming with the process is that you can't test your app before first building it. So double-check those colours! When you're done creating your app, Andromo will build it on its servers and email you a download link when it's ready.
After downloading your app, you can test it on an emulator or run it on your Android device. Read these instructions for setting up the Android emulator along with the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Android Debug Bridge.
You can also download the app directly onto your Android handset and install it, after setting up the phone to install apps from other sources in addition to Google Play.
Step by step: create an Andromo app
1. Register with Andromo
Before you can create an app you need to register with Andromo.com by picking a username and password, and providing an email address. After you've registered, log in and edit your public profile. You should also get a gravatar if you don't already have one. You can also change your password and email address from here.
2. Create new project
Once registered, you can start building your app. Begin by entering a name for your app, which you can change later. This lands you at Andromo's tabbed app creation control panel. The first step is to describe your app by editing its name, entering a description and a version number, and categorising it under one of the Google-approved categories.
3. Upload an icon
To help people find your app and to distinguish it from other apps, you can (and should) also upload a custom icon for your app in this tab, replacing Andromo's default icon. You can find lots of free icons on the web or you can create your own. Just make sure the icons are in the dimensions and file format mentioned on the website.
Customise the app
1. Pick a theme
Andromo lets you customise various aspects of your app. Head to the Styles tab where you can choose the background colour of the app as well as the colour of the headings, date and various other pieces of text. You can either enter the hex colour code or pick it up from the colour picker. Make sure you click the 'Save Changes' button before moving on.
2. Action Bar
This is the bar at the top of your app. It requires four colour schemes for the four elements it displays. The first is the single colour or a two-colour gradient background. Then there's the font colour for the foreground text. Pressing the action bar will display a drop-down list of activities in your apps, and your can alter their colour schemes as well.
3. Dashboard
This is the main interface of your app and therefore has lots of customisable elements. You can select a single colour or a two-colour gradient for the background, or a textured image that will fill the screen irrespective of the phone's orientation. Additionally, you can upload images for the background – one for the portrait mode and one for landscape.
Add content to your app
1. My Projects
Log into your account and create an app if you haven't already done so. To continue working on an existing project, go to the My Projects section, which lists all your apps. Navigate to the app you want to edit and click on the 'Edit' button underneath it. This will bring you to the app-creation control panel where you can review your app's description.
2. Select an activity
Next, define the functionality of your app by adding various activities from the Activities tab. So, if you're a Star Trek fan, your app can have the Facebook activity to point to your Star Trek fan page, and the website activity to point to the official website, as well as the Audio Player activity to play the theme music and different sounds from all the Star Trek series.
3. Customise the activity
After you've picked up an activity, say Audio Player, customise it. That includes naming it, uploading an icon for it and selecting a background image. Since you need both an audio player (to play themes) and a music board (to play Klingon pronunciations), add multiple audio player activities, then upload the relevant audio files for each.
4. Arrange activities
By default the activities appear in your app in the order in which you added them. To rearrange the order of the activities, modify their Order column value in the Activities tab. Activity with the lowest number is displayed first. Click on the 'Edit' button next to the activity you want to move and specify the new number in the Position field.
5. Advertising
After you've added and arranged all the activities, head to the Ads and Analytics tab to customise the advertising options. You can choose from three ad modes. The first will show Andromo ads. The second option will split the ad space with ads served by your AdMob account. Or, you can turn off ads altogether by switching to the Gold Upgrade Package.
6. Build and showcase your app
That's all there is to it. Now head to the Build tab and ask the service to turn your app into an Android app. When your app is built, you can download it from the emailed URL, then share it with others. You can also share the app with other Andromo users by adding it to the Andromo Showcase, from under the Showcase tab.
Share your app
After you've created your app, you need to ask the Andromo service to process it and generate an .apk file for you. Once it's done, it'll email you a link to download your app. The link is valid only for an hour, so if you need to distribute your app to other people, you need to download it from Andromo and host it elsewhere.
If you want to restrict the app to a small group of people, you can email the .apk file to your group, or host it on your own website. To install the app, others will have to tweak the settings in their phones to allow installation of apps from sources besides Google Play.
The other option is to upload the app to Google Play. But before you can upload your .apk file to Google Market, you need to register by paying a registration fee of $25 (about £16), even if you're going to distribute your app for free. After you've registered, you can upload your app along with a couple of screenshots, an application icon and app details.
Gold upgrade
For the most part the Andromo service doesn't cost you anything. But to keep it that way, the service displays ads in your apps. In fact, they'd even share half the ad revenue with you if you want (or you can let them have all of it).
You can also turn off the adverts altogether by subscribing to Andromo's Gold Upgrade Package. It costs $99 (about £63) per year per app. Besides giving you the ability to turn off in-app adverts, you get several other features with the upgrade.
For one, you can remove the Andromo branding from the About section of the app, which would be of use if you want to sell the app via Google Play or customise it for a client who wouldn't want third-party branding or advertising.
The upgraded apps are also placed higher in the build queue and get priority over non-Gold apps. Usage of Gold apps can also be tracked via Google Analytics. Finally, the Gold Upgrade enables business users to add activities so users of their apps can contact them straight from within the app itself, either via phone or email.
