It had to happen, with users unwilling to spend Rs 34,000 for buying iPhones in India. Instead, they chose to rely on friends and family in the US to get *jailbroken handsets that would cost less than half the amount they would otherwise pay.

*(Apple sells iPhones locked with network operator and to use the iPhone in India, you will have to pay to get it unlocked for using it with Indian sim cards)

Today we heard of the first iPhone virus, dubbed the ‘ikee’ worm that breaks into iPhones, changing their lock screen wallpaper to an image of 1980s pop star Rick Astley with the message: “ikee is never going to give you up.” And that’s all the virus does, FOR NOW.

As per a security company’s survey, nearly 97 per cent of people believe the iPhone will suffer from further virus attacks in the future. It’s safe to declare that hackers have now started to take Apple seriously. Before this, Apple was computing hardware was widely believed to be free from any kind of viruses unlike Microsoft’s Windows which are all so vulnerable to virus attacks. Well, yeah, Apple was damn right but the reason was that no hacker ever took Apple seriously so as to even try to create a worm for it.

“Fortunately the worm doesn’t do anything more malicious than that - it doesn’t steal information, access your emails or snoop on your calls,” informs Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for security and data protection company, Sophos. But now that the virus writers have put the iPhone’s source code on the internet – which means that other hackers can potentially create much more dangerous versions of the worm.

This worm appears to have been created by a 21-year old Ashley Towns, a student from Wollongong, New South Wales, who boasted about it on his Twitter page. Towns claims to have created the worm out of “boredom,” wrote in the worm’s code that he found it “stupid.”

This must be treated as a wake-up call to iPhone users around the world to take greater care about their security - especially if they jailbreak their phones. This also means that enterprises also need to make sure that they don’t have staff who are endangering corporate data by running insecure smartphones.

This latest incident raises the stakes — and it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that more hackers might become intrigued about the possibility of striking jailbroken iPhones in this fashion to deploy more sinister payloads than an image of Rick Astley in future.

Cyber crime has surpassed illegal drug trafficking as a criminal money maker. Worse, you could be probably using an infected machine that is now a ‘digital asset’ for the cybercriminal. This way the cybercriminal can trade your machine online – over and over again! Each trade results into a different “owner” who can decide to install additional malware on the purchased infected machine and then sell it on to others.

The latest breach was when 10,000 email accounts mainly Microsoft’s Hotmail, Google’s Gmail, Yahoo, Comcast, and Earthlink – with passwords – were posted online on the website www.pastebin.com. Don’t start blaming the companies, as the data wasn’t stolen from Google or Microsoft servers. The companies claim that the leak was not the result of an internal breach but through an elaborate phishing scheme.

Promptly, Microsoft has disabled the compromised accounts and is asking affected users to fill out a form to regain access. Google, on other hand, has enforced password resets on the affected accounts.

This is a classic example of how phishing is employed by scammers to steal private information by either tricking users into downloading malicious content encrypted on web sites or through e-mail attachments. Every three seconds an identity is stolen, as reported by Symantec. It doesn’t matter if it is a home computer or if it belongs to a C-level executive of a Fortune 500 company, a government agency or news network – each compromised PC has its own value and price in the cyber-economy.

Despite all this, we still have people who use the same username and password across websites. Why? “Because it is easier to remember,” they say. Right, it is easy to remember and is easiest to crack.

You might offer that you promptly delete all the spam mail or phishing emails that keep pouring in, but cyber criminals are rapidly evolving their methods to steal information from you too.All it takes is a few cautious steps and you could avoid falling into the trap of cyber-criminals.

How to avoid becoming a victim?

• Delete mails from unknown sender or email ids promptly.

• Change passwords often. Combine uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and characters.

• Avoid using consecutive letters or numbers, and never use names of pets, family members, or close friends.

• Never click links in the body of an email that are coming from a bank, Paypal or any enterprise that may be leading to a request to enter data. Go to your favorites menu or manually type the address in.

• Pay attention to phishing filters. Most updated browsers have built-in phish filters that toss up a red flag warning of a potential ruse.

Thin is the current aesthetic that is obsessed on by majority of the world’s population, and the makers of consumer electronics do their selling to that population. Hence, logically speaking it was inevitable that computer manufacturers would follow suit and make thin a rage in the computer world too.

It all started with Apple Air — the craze to have an ultra thin notebook, and today every vendor is chasing that dream to have one in its consumer portfolio. Just imagine laptops an inch thick that multitask and edit multimedia content, and cost only Rs 25,000 - Rs 45,000? Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are betting they aren’t too good to be true. The world’s thinnest laptops, usually the province of executives and the well-heeled, are set to go mainstream this year — thanks to cheaper but still-powerful processors from AMD and Intel. This new category, tagged ultrathins, floats somewhere between the high-end suave looking professional laptops and the affordable lot of netbooks.

So, now we have Hewlett-Packard’s Pavilion dv2, Acer’s Timeline series and most recently, Dell too has added its Inspiron Z series in the ultrathin market. Dozens of other ultrathin offerings from just about every computer maker are expected to hit retailers this festive season.

Analysts assert that post the success of netbooks that have screens under 11 inches along with smaller keyboards, there has been a surge in demand for an intermediate computer that blends attributes from both ends of the spectrum. The new ultrathins have screens ranging from 12 to 15 inches, with a standard-size keyboard. And yes, they all ape Apple Air in design. There was a time when I stood outside Apple Store in Mumbai, along with a crowd of people, staring at the display Macbook Air model through the glass with a look of longing, and sorrow in their eyes. So there is no denying that an ultrathin devices can strike a cord of lust into the hearts of even the most cynical and battle-hardened of geeks.
What is interesting to note is that Acer, one of the first companies to introduce a cheap Intel-powered ultrthin laptop, expects revenue from that segment to account for 15 per cent of its total sales by the end of 2009. So, could ultrathins be the growth driver for the struggling PC industry, trying to recover from one of its worst downturns? Perhaps.

The New York Times wrote in its editorial - There is a kind of bloodthirsty thrill in learning that Google plans to develop a personal computer operating system to compete with Microsoft Windows.

That’s what it is, a bloodthirsty thrill. With Google announcing its intent to launch Chrome OS — an open source, lightweight operating system — for the netbooks by 2H10, we wonder whether Google can actually live in direct competition with Microsoft.

Google’s case

Think of it this way, Chrome OS comes with the promise to expand the usage of web-based apps and services, stimulating search and page view volumes, which are critical to Google’s ad-based monetisation strategy. Second, this move exerts a price and margin pressure on Microsoft’s netbooks business plan unerringly when Win7 launch is just around the corner. Lastly, Chrome OS will ensure a continued availability of its search, apps and services even if Microsoft insists on a tighter coupling of Win7 and Bing.

Already, over 30 million people are using Google’s Chrome browser, says Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management, Engineering Director on Google’s official blog.

You might have noticed that Google has also done away with the “Beta” label from its Google Apps such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Talk. This move, we believe, sends out a signal to enterprise buyers that Google apps has reached a degree of maturity and that it should be considered as a viable option to Microsoft Exchange and Office. Enterprises could find Google’s cloud-based app strategy compelling if the total cost of ownership of software, infrastructure and support services remain attractive.

Microsoft’s case

The strongest segments of the PC market have been the netbooks followed closely by consumption in the emerging markets. The lower-priced version of Windows XP is the only operating system that currently runs on netbooks. However, Windows 7 OS, when it is released, will also run on netbooks and allows Microsoft the ability to re-evaluate product and pricing for netbooks.

It is widely expected that a version of Windows 7 will have a price in line with the current XP version, to help Microsoft get an easy entry in the netbook space. Win7 is also said to fix many of Vista’s problems, including better ease of navigation, start-up time, general performance, and compatibility.

Microsoft too believes that as economy improves, the new Win7 could help spur PC and thereby the company revenues.

The verdict

Google’s new Chrome OS has grown directly out of its browser, also called Chrome, which was introduced last year. Google could see lasting benefits by bringing together incremental traffic through its OS and applications. The technical drawback that stares Google in the eye is that 70 per cent of enterprise applications cannot run in a browser (Google’s Chrome is essentially a browser-based OS) and there are major limitations to the amount of computing that can be done within a browser today. Experts also allege that while the Linux kernel underneath Chrome OS could be packaged up with a suite of peripheral driver controllers, it is not clear who, if anyone, would provide on-going patches, critical bug fixes and other updates for Chrome OS on Linux.

Seems like Microsoft will not let the Google Chrome OS steal away the thunder.

Apple has just made my life a bit more difficult. I love my Apple iPhone 3G (even with all the drawbacks that I have pointed out here). But Apple’s latest upgrade is so beguiling that I want to make the switch to the new iPhone 3Gs (where S stands for speed).

But I am happy to note that iPhone OS 3.0 software will be available on June 17 as a free software update via iTunes 8.2 or later for all iPhone customers. And that includes me! The iPod Touch customers will be able to purchase a software update for £5.99 (inclusive of VAT).

When do we get the new iPhone 3Gs in India?

Take a guess – the UK customers are getting the new iPhone on June 19, it’s anyone’s guess as to when India gets its iPhone 3Gs and more importantly at what cost (the basic iPhone 3G model has been down priced to $99 from $199).

Even if we are a less than lakh Apple iPhone 3G users in India, the company has sold more than 20 million iPhones in the past few years. And if the prices come down further (present pricing starts at Rs 29,000), then new users are bound to join the Apple family. Even the analysts conceded that price cut in iPhone 3G tag would make the market more challenging for rivals. A price cut on the original iPhone device to $199 from $399 in June 2008 doubled the demand. Why should that not happen now?

Why wait for iPhone 3Gs?

Having reviewed almost every phone (smartphone and PDA), I do take the liberty to attribute myself with some knowledge about smartphones and the processing speed they deliver. By far, Apple iPhone 3G has been the smoothest touchscreen I have operated and even at dodgy GPRS signals, it loads a web page comfortably. BlackBerry models, too have similar speeds but there’s a certain novelty (and also ease to scroll through pages) in browsing the web on a touchscreen.

And what’s new in 3Gs?

There’s the faster processor at the heart of the new iPhone and that’s half the battle won. It also includes new 3D graphics support in hardware – that translates to faster and more complicated 3D games on iPhone.

On the software side, the new iPhone OS 3.0 software will bring in features including — Cut, Copy and Paste; MMS; Spotlight Search to search across iPhone or within Mail, Contacts, Calendar and iPod; landscape keyboard for Mail, Messages, Notes and Safari (Apple’s browser) and the ability to capture and send audio recordings on the go with the new Voice Memo app. iPhone 3.0 software also includes a new Find My iPhone feature that works together with Apple’s MobileMe application so that you can locate your lost iPhone on a map, send a message that will appear on the screen or play a sound to help you find it even if your phone is set to silent. If you cannot find your iPhone, you can erase all data and content on your iPhone with the new Remote Wipe feature.

The iPhone 3Gs has a new 3 megapixel autofocus camera and it also allows sending photos and videos by email, MMS or you can directly post to YouTube.

It remains to be seen how Nokia, BlackBerry and off late Samsung too, will battle it out with Apple’s latest warhead.

Frankly, how many of us actually use personal navigation devices (PNDs) to find our way around? Perhaps, a handful of technology-crazy users and yet companies continue to put their faith (and money!) on global positioning systems (GPS), maps and services around GPS. The numbers tell a positive story. We are soon going to be a 400 million strong mobile phone market, of which smartphones (with GPS features) would be roughly 15-20 per cent. We have over 1.8-2 million still/digital cameras. IDC numbers tell us that the total installed base of PCs in India has surged past the 36 million units mark, and now India has one personal computer for every 30 people. (more…)

Twitter (a popular microblogging site) has been trying to fend it off, after it went under attack twice. Clickjacking is the latest hazard doing round on the web.

Twitter users first noticed the clickjacking prank in February and soon Twitter had shut it down. The site had tweets that carried a tag ‘Don’t Click’ followed by a link. Clicking the link took the user to a page that included a button that said ‘Don’t Click.’ Clicking the button automatically distributed the identical tweet. As imagined, this did spread pretty quickly.

Simply put clickjacking is an attack where some bad guy slips a malicious link invisibly onto a webpage or under a commonly used button on a website. When the user clicks on the link or rolls his mouse over the link, he becomes infected, explained security experts.

Although Twitter’s original fix wiped a page clean if it detected a malicious frame on its pages, but then hackers circumvented that and Twitter was forced to come up with another fix.

It is concealed spying, say security experts. “Web pages know what web sites you’ve been to …, where you’re logged in, what you watch on YouTube, and now they can literally ’see’ and ‘hear’ you,” wrote Jeremiah Grossman, founder and CTO of WhiteHat Security, in his blog post.

The threat has only grown with every passing day. Now, every big company that values its brand name is working to fend off clickjacking attacks. For instance, Microsoft has included a new clickjacking protection feature in Internet Explorer 8 that lets websites safeguard their sites and visitors without browser add-ons.  Adobe Systems too updated its popular Flash Player to fix vulnerabilities over clickjacking. Clickjacking is both a web and a browser problem, but the fixes are likely to come from the browser vendors.

To make matters worse, using JavaScript, an attacker could make the invisible target constantly follow the user’s mouse pointer, thereby intercepting his first click no matter where it happens on the current page. The latest version of NoScript, a Firefox browser plugin that blocks Flash, Java, and JavaScript, includes a new anti-clickjacking feature called ClearClick. It reveals transparent or concealed windows so the user can see attempts to co-opt clicks for malicious purposes.

Quite clearly clickjacking can turn into the worst sort of security risk. Why? Because it is transparent to the unwitting user, simple to implement and difficult to stop.

Software major Microsoft expects its Windows Mobile operating system (OS) available in over 35 mobile phone models, to capture an 8 per cent market share with 3.5 lakh OS (es) in India by the end of this financial year. With the new mobile OS, Microsoft will also unveil its Windows mobile application store that will compete with Apple’s App Store. (more…)

Nokia has dropped broad hints of its intentions to enter the netbook market. Nokia’s big boss, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo in an interview with a Finnish TV admitted “we are looking very actively at this opportunity.”

What began as rumours last year has fuelled itself into a full-blown opportunity for Nokia.  The company executives do not want to miss out on a product category that is thriving and which could be a good platform for boosting uptake of its web services (that are to be launched in May-June this year). This backs up Kallasvuo’s statements made at Barcelona last month that Nokia would expand the definition of the smartphone “into categories and form factors that have not yet been explored”. But the use of an ARM-based chip will hugely disappoint Intel.

Intel’s Atom processors gave birth to the idea of netbooks by leveraging its powerful position in the PC industry. Today, the chip giant has ensured that its mobile processors remain dominant in netbooks category, even as it got tougher to break into the conventional smartphone world. Intel is investing through recession – which executives insisted would be the pattern for 2009 too– in order to emerge from the downturn with the most advanced products in key growth areas. With operators relying on mobile data for their own survival plans, netbooks with embedded 3G, Wi-Fi and/or WiMAX should certainly represent one of those growth areas, and Atom is already driving volumes at Intel, even if it is squeezing margins.

Nokia, the Finnish giant, is reportedly working on a cut-down, mobile web-optimized PC, based on the recently announced ARM multicore Sparrow processor and incorporating elements of the existing N800 internet tablet, including its Maemo-based Linux software platform.

We won’t see a Nokia netbook until early 2011, and most probably missing the first boat for netbooks. But trust Nokia to try to outdo the traditional PC makers in terms of form factor and mobility, playing to its strengths and building on the N800 experience to create a new approach, as well as capitalizing on its vast scale and logistical excellence.

According to various leaked features (found easily on the internet) of the supposed prototype, nicknamed Nokia Sparrow, include a multi-slide keyboard with different layouts, automatically revealed as the device is moved in different directions; and a multidirectional display, similar to the tilting display of the N97 smartphone.

We cannot imagine a day without our phones, right? We have observed that there is whole lot of mayhem when you drop your mobile (or better termed as your life line) into water. (Guess, it’s no big secret that we all take our phones to wash rooms, during work hours at least).  So, here are some useful tricks to help you bring back a ‘wet’ mobile phone to normalcy.

It works…I dropped a Nokia N81 in a water tub to prove my point (I know I’m mad). And it is in working condition as I write this post.

Disclaimer: Please don’t perform these stunts by your own unless you have a spare phone or a genuine wet phone. (more…)