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.

This serves two strategic purposes for Google. First, it advances a codec that’s de facto controlled by Google at the expense of a codec that is a legitimate open standard controlled by a multi-vendor governance process managed by reputable international standards bodies. (“Open source” != “open standard”.) And second, it will slow the transition to HTML5 and away from Flash by creating more confusion about which codec to use for HTML5 video, which benefits Google by hurting Apple (since Apple doesn’t want to support Flash), but also sucks for users.

It is, in other words, a thoroughly nasty bit of work. It’s not quite as bad as selling consumers down the river to Verizon on ‘net neutrality, but it’s close. And if Google is actually successful in making WebM, not H.264, the standard codec for web video, they’re literally going to render hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, etc. with H.264 hardware support obsolete.

“But wait!”, the OSS fans are saying. “Isn’t Google really standing up for freedom and justice, because H.264 requires evil patent licensing?”

No. Expert opinion [multimedia.cx] is that WebM infringes on numerous patents in the H.264 pool, and will need a licensing pool of its own to be set up, just like Microsoft’s VC-1 did. So the patents are a wash. This is Google manipulating the market entirely for selfish advantage here, and it’s all the worse because they’re pretending otherwise. And it’s going to be really frustrating watching people fall for it.

If Google had just said they wanted to increase pressure on the internet to get their video codec more uptake they wouldn’t be getting so much flak over this!

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.

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

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[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.

Apple’s legal battle with Nokia looks to have seen some setback, with staff at the US International Trade Commission (ITC) telling the judge in the case that Apple’s patent allegations are ‘unfounded’.

“The evidence will not establish a violation” of Apple patent rights, the staff, which acts on behalf of the public as a third party in the case, said in a pre-hearing memo released yesterday.

Bloomberg tells us the case will begin before Judge Charles Bullock today. Apple is attempting to have Nokia’s US phone imports banned on strength of its four allegations.

Nokia also has a case against Apple. Meanwhile, Apple is suing HTC and Motorola over Android phones, and Microsoft is suing Motorola. In fact, the mobile business is a minefield of legal fun and games, as displayed in the above info-graphic.

From 9TO5Mac.

The graph above shows just how crazy this has become.

In the end this will come down to who has the most influential lobbyists. Or who blinks first, and settles in a back room somewhere with an undisclosed deal.

The overall share of Internet traffic from Windows PCs has dropped slightly in the past two-and-a-half years, from 95.4% to 91.1%. But that’s true across the board for competing desktop OSes as well. Linux usage is down dramatically in 2010, to 0.85% from an all-time high of 1.08% in early 2009. Interestingly, OS X usage is also down, dropping by roughly a quarter of a percentage point since a year ago, from 5.26% to exactly 5.00%. In relative terms, that’s almost exactly the same overall drop as the Windows platform has seen in the same period.

It is clear that all desktop OSs are under attack from mobile OSs.

The mobile Internet is growing at an astonishing rate. This was the most fascinating set of numbers to me, and they’re also the ones that should have Microsoft most concerned.

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Not surprisingly, Apple’s iOS-based devices are the leader in the mobile category, as measured by usage, accounting for 42% of the total traffic from mobile sources. The very close runner-up, at 37%, is a big surprise: Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME), presumably running mostly on Nokia feature phones. Symbian is a distant third at 11%, with Android in fourth at 8%.

42% for iOS versus 8% for Android really puts recent device “activation” claims from certain quarters into perspective.

Windows Phone 7 currently has what is effectively a 0% share. And it’s a few years behind both Android and iOS in every way.

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!

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.