tequila bomb

Google removed a number of malicious applications from the Android Market last week.

In addition to preventing further infection by removing the malicious applications from the Android Market, Google will also be using its remote kill switch to forcibly uninstall the application from infected handsets. The company is also pushing out an update to the Android Market that can reverse the exploit, thus preventing the attackers from using it to cause further damage. Google has already started to send out e-mails to affected users in order to explain the situation.

Although Google can deploy software to undo the damage caused by the malware, the underlying vulnerability that the attackers exploited can’t be closed so easily. Google says that the bug is fixed in Android 2.2.2 and later, but there are still a large number of users at risk because their handsets runs a previous version of the operating system. Google is making a patch available, but it’s going to be up to the carriers and handset makers to make sure that the patch gets deployed. In light of the mobile industry’s poor track record updating Android phones, it’s possible that this flaw will continue to be exploitable on a considerable number of handsets.

Another problem with Google’s “Open” approach to their smartphone OS.

We’ll see just how much service providers care about their customers’ security versus control over, and monetization of user features, in the coming days.

Google’s answer to Apple’s Subscription Publishing packages.

“Free and Open”, just as we have come to expect from Google. Unfortunately it’s not going to be available in more than a handful of countries, with the payment model probably working in even less; assuming that it’s all part of the same system as Android and Google Checkout.

The Chrome operating system is a work in progress. We’re looking for the right users to try it out and tell us how we can make it better.

Each participant in the Pilot program will receive a Cr-48 Chrome notebook; in return, we’ll expect you to use it regularly and send us detailed feedback.

Sound interesting? Please note:

• Chrome OS is for people who live on the web.
  It runs web-based applications, not legacy PC software.
• The Pilot program is not for the faint of heart.
  Things might not always work just right.

The Pilot program is open to individuals, businesses, schools, non-profits and developers based in the United States. Learn about Chrome notebooks for business

Applicants must be at least 18 years of age. We’ll review the requests that come in and contact you if you’ve been selected.

Apply Now

US only, again, unfortunately. Google really need to look at being less US centric with launches. It always strikes me as bizarre that such a forward thinking and groundbreaking company, in many ways, is so old fashioned, almost timid, in its approach to the global market-place.

Many of us are still waiting for Google Checkout in most of the world. A much needed alternative to PayPal, which many of us would jump at the chance to use.

Come on Google. You can launch hardware outside of the US as well as web services you know.

BARCELONA (Dow Jones)–Microchip designer ARM Holdings PLC (ARM.LN) has an “active technical dialogue” with Google Inc. (GOOG) that extends to Google TV, Chief Executive Warren East said Thursday.

East’s comments come after Dow Jones Newswires reported late Wednesday that ARM was in preliminary discussions with Google on a potential cooperation deal linked to Google TV, which lifted its stock.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecoms conference in Barcelona, East said: “It’s well known that all the Android phones that are out there at the moment are running on ARM, and so clearly Google are active users of ARM.

From  The WSJ.

This explains ARM‘s stock price jump over the last few days.

If I was Intel I would be very concerned about the future of Mobile, and more specifically my role in it.

This also perhaps explains why certain brand leading TVs with Google TV built in are put together in what looks more akin to prototype grating than something that rolled off a final unified production line.

Facebook gets so many page views that it now serves up an astounding 23% of the U.S.’s online display ads.

…

[T]here’s so much interaction and information being shared inside Facebook that it has become a decent-sized replica of the Web inside the Web.

Anyone remember AOL?

Singels article is worth a read, even if you don’t see things from his perspective, or agree with the conclusions he draws.

A week or so ago I mentioned Carol Bartz’s (Yahoo’s CEO) comments about iAd…

“That’s going to fall apart for them,” Bartz said about Apple’s iAd service. “Advertisers are not going to have that type of control over them. Apple wants total control over those ads.”

This week some initial industry figures are in…

Apple will end the year with 21 percent of the market, according to estimates provided to Businessweek.com by researcher IDC. Google’s share will drop to 21 percent, from 27 percent last year, when combined with results from AdMob, the ad network it bought in May. Microsoft will drop to 7 percent, from 10 percent.

That 21% that Apple now has is from a standing start, and from having exactly 0% of the market before iAd came into existence. They snagged some of Yahoo’s market too!

A chart comparing the total handset industry profits since 2005 captured by:

1) Apple (light blue), and

2) Everyone else (RIM, Nokia, HTC, Sony Ericsson, etc.)

Apple will generate 2X as much handset profit as the rest of the industry combined this year despite selling only 3% of the handsets by unit volume.

Puts it in perspective. If I was Nokia I’d be looking for a new CEO.. oh wait.

What are the rest of the competition doing?

Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. has launched a search for a new chief executive, people familiar with the situation said Monday.

The move comes as the current chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, struggles to find traction for the company in the market for high-end smartphones.

While Nokia continues to sell more cellphones than any other manufacturer, it has failed to keep up with advances by such rivals as Apple Inc. and makers of smartphones running Google Inc. operating software.

I touched on this in May.

[O]ther companies involved in the talks included Silicon Valley’s increasingly competitive rivals, Apple and Google, as well as BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, we have learned from a source familiar with the negotiations.

It’s nice to have some of this illuminated a little more. I discussed at the time why I thought it might be a good idea for Apple to buy Palm. But concluded that I didn’t think they would. In the end I am guessing they pragmatically set a maximum price at which Palm’s patent portfolio would be worth acquiring as ammunition in upcoming legal battles with Google and / or HTC.

Apple was mostly interested in Palm’s huge library of intellectual property and patents (450+ patents on file, another 400+ applications on file). And unlike some other bidders, Apple even seemed committed to funding Palm’s operations, perhaps to challenge RIM’s dominance in the keyboarded segment of the smartphone industry, our source says.

It’s a shame the purchase didn’t come off, as I always thought that even though Apple’s primary interest was in stashing away patents they probably would be one of the companies that might keep the spark of Palm alive in some way. If they could get it as part of a package deal of patents – at the right price.

RIM basically had the deal in its hands and “had to work incredibly hard to blow it,” our source recalls. RIM initially came in higher than HP, but HP upped its bid, our source says.

A final outcome that all three companies will come to regret, each in their own way.

Google, likely interested in Palm’s intellectual property, supposedly only wanted it because Google thought Apple might want it. But Google supposedly didn’t know Apple was actually bidding for Palm, so it didn’t proceed.

Shades of AdMob all over again. And it would have been almost as disastrous as HP buying Palm. They would have been absorbed.

Nokia didn’t even notice what was going on, apparently. But then they have enough internal troubles right now. Still, it might have been a sound move for them. Not so much from a legal standpoint. But to breath life into their OS.

Overall, I still wish that either Lenovo or Apple had saved Palm.

App Inventor is a new tool in Google Labs that makes it easy for anyone—programmers and non-programmers, professionals and students—to create mobile applications for Android-powered devices. And today, we’re extending invitations to the general public.

This is a great idea. But could also create an avalanche of crap which will make the average iTunes App Store pieces of chaff look like gems by comparison!