Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who we thought had hitched his wagon to the Windows Phone OS, seeing as they’re owned by Microsoft, showcased three Nokia Android-powered devices today which likely shocked more than a few people. Here’s a snippet from the Nokia blog on the Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL:
The Nokia X family offers terrific value with acclaimed Nokia and Microsoft services and experiences. HERE Maps with turn-by-turn navigation and offline maps are included. Nokia MixRadio offers hundreds of free streaming and offline playlists. Free cloud storage from Microsoft OneDrive with 7GB of space for free is included out of the box. There’s also access to Outlook.com as your email service. And there’s Skype with a month’s free calls to international landlines in selected markets.
All three of the devices are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon Dual Core processor and are Dual SIM. A range of third-party apps comes preinstalled, including BBM, Plants vs. Zombies 2, Viber, Vine and Twitter. As many more as you can fit can be obtained from the Nokia Store, third-party app stores and sideloaded.
Interesting. It seems that Microsoft still managed to get something onto these phones. Now to the part that everyone cares about, the specs:
The Nokia X is the entry level member of the family, with 4-inch IPS LCD screen, 512MB RAM and a 3-megapixel camera. It will be available in green, black, white, yellow, cyan and red.
The Nokia X+ offers you a little more, as the name suggests: there’s 768MB RAM and a 4GB MicroSD card is included in the box. It comes in the same colours as the Nokia X.
Lastly, the clue is in the name for the Nokia XL, as well, with its 5-inch screen. The Nokia XL also boasts 768MB RAM, the free MicroSD card and it has both a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for Skype calls, as well as a 5-megapixel rear camera with autofocus and flash. The same colours are available as for the Nokia X and X+, except bright orange replaces the red with this model.
As for availability, all these will be available “globally.” Whatever that means.
Last week, Apple released an update to iOS 6 and iOS 7, as well as the version of iOS inside the AppleTV to fix a bug with its SSL implementation, which would allow a evil doer on the same local network as your computer to intercept sensitive information as you browse the Web, send or receive mail, or many other things that use SSL. Well, some digging indicates that OS X has the same bug and so far it is unpatched. Here are the details from the National Vulnerability Database for your review. If that’s a bit too technical for you, here’s something that is a bit more down to Earth:
The problem lies in the way the software recognizes the digital certificates used by banking sites, Google’s Gmail service, Facebook and others to establish encrypted connections. A single line in the program and an omitted bracket meant that those certificates were not authenticated at all, so that hackers can impersonate the website being sought and capture all the electronic traffic before passing it along to the real site.
In addition to intercepting data, hackers could insert malicious web links in real emails, winning full control of the target computer.
The intruders do need to have access to the victim’s network, either through a relationship with the telecom carrier or through a WiFi wireless setup common in public places. Industry veterans warned users to avoid unsecured WiFi until the software patch is available and installed.
Apple has promised that a fix is on the way, but it is yet another example of how Apple isn’t taking security very seriously as this is just the latest example of Apple failing on that front.
Posted in Commentary with tags Fitbit on February 21, 2014 by itnerd
This is going to suck for Fitbit. It’s issuing a voluntary recall of its Force wristband after some users reported issues with skin irritation. Here’s what The Consumerist had to say:
Since the first reports of contact dermatitis caused by Fitbit Force movement trackers surfaced on the company’s forums (and gained publicity when Consumerist broke the story last month) customers have asked that the company recall the trackers. Fitbit has been happy to refund customers who have skin problems and send their trackers back. Today, the company announced that they’re recalling all Force wristbands.
This recall is voluntary, not prompted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The company won’t state how many trackers they’ve sold or how many people have experienced rashes. A spreadsheet maintained by the vocal group of users on the Fitbit forums shows more than 500 documented cases of skin irritation resulting from Fitbit use. In a letter to customers, Fitbit CEO James Park states that 1.7% of customers who own the Force have reported “any” skin irritation related to the device.
This is not good if you’re trying make a reputation for yourself as the leader in this market. Now they have a new product coming out shortly, but you can fully expect Nike and Jawbone to take advantage of this misstep by Fitbit.
BlackBerry just lost a major customer. The US Air Force has decided to replace legacy BlackBerry devices for iOS devices. Clearly BlackBerry is not going to be overjoyed about the Air Force defecting to Apple. But what caught me off guard was the fact that the company actually came out and said so. Here’s what they said to CrackBerry:
The ongoing threat of cyber attacks requires organizations to be vigilant about mobile security. For customers that have the highest security requirements, such as those in government, there is nothing more secure than a BlackBerry device managed by a BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
There is a clear reason why BlackBerry has more government certifications than any other vendor, and the only enterprise mobility management vendor and handset maker to receive the Department of Defense “Authority to Operate” certification. Security is built into everything we do, and we’ve been doing it longer and better than anyone else.
We’ve been a trusted partner to government agencies for more than a decade, and have more than 80,000 BlackBerry devices in DISA alone. Our competitors have not been tested in the field or subjected to the long term rigors of high stress applications, making their security model difficult to trust. BlackBerry remains the best option for governments around the world.
We’ll see if the Air Force comes back to BlackBerry if there’s a major security issue. But seeing as the US Army just bought a pile of Samsung smartphones a few days ago, methinks that it’s not going to happen.
Canadian ISP Teksavvy got handed a court decision that on the surface looks kind of bad for customers. They have to hand over the names of customers who pirate movies to Voltage Pictures. Here are the details from the CBC:
A Federal Court decision released Thursday compels Ontario-based TekSavvy to identify the customers allegedly linked to downloads of films by the U.S. production company Voltage Pictures, which is behind the likes of The Hurt Locker, Dallas Buyers Club and Don Jon.
As a result, those TekSavvy customers could eventually receive a letter from Voltage threatening legal action. Under the federal Copyright Act, statutory damages for non-commercial infringement range between $100 and $5,000.
Now that does sound bad. But here’s why Voltage Pictures may never see a dime:
But while the court sided with Voltage’s efforts to go after copyright violators, it sought to protect against the company acting “inappropriately in the enforcement of its rights to the detriment of innocent Internet users.”
“On the facts of this case, there is some evidence that Voltage has been engaged in litigation which may have an improper purpose. However, the evidence is not sufficiently compelling for this court at this juncture in the proceeding to make any definitive determination of the motive of Voltage,” wrote judge Kevin Aalto.
Aalto ordered that before Voltage can send a letter to the alleged downloaders, it must return to court to get the wording of its communications cleared by a case management judge.
“In order to ensure there is no inappropriate language in any demand letter sent to the alleged infringers, the draft demand letter will be provided to the court for review,” Aalto wrote.
“Any correspondence sent by Voltage to any subscriber shall clearly state in bold type that no court has yet made a determination that such subscriber has infringed or is liable in any way for payment of damages.”
Voltage was also ordered to pay any costs that TekSavvy incurs in identifying the customers in the case, as well as legal fees.
So. Anything that Voltage Pictures does has to be overseen by a court. Plus they have to pick up the costs of Teksavvy for doing their legwork. If I’m Voltage Pictures, that may be a huge disincentive for them to go after a single movie pirate. Of course, Voltage could always appeal or just decide the costs are worth it. We’ll have to see what happens.
Posted in Commentary with tags LG, Rogers on February 20, 2014 by itnerd
Introduced back in October, the LG G Flex is the world’s first curved smartphone!. And today Rogers announced that they will be carrying it exclusively in Canada. Here are some features that you should take note of:
The LG G Flex is designed to fit in the palm of your hand and follow the curve of your face with its six-inch curved screen (it even has a curved battery!);
It has a self-healing coating, which means the phone’s back cover can recover from day-to-day nicks and scratches;
The LG G Flex is super-fast and can run on the our 2100 and 2600 MHz spectrum, reaching top speeds on the Rogers LTE network. This speed, coupled with the LG Flex’s curved design, enhances video experiences with virtually no buffering or delays.
Rogers will have more details to share in the coming weeks, but customers who can’t wait to get their hands on this device can reserve theirs on the Rogers Reservation System beginning today.
Posted in Commentary with tags Adobe on February 20, 2014 by itnerd
Adobe today announced for the second time this month an emergency update for Flash. This update addresses a threat that could allow an attacker to take control of an affected system, executing malicious code. The vulnerability (CVE-2014-0502) has already been exploited. Apparently at least three nonprofit organizations according to security firm FireEye (via ArsTechnica) have been hacked using this exploit.
Now you can grab the update here. But doesn’t this seem like the Java circus that was happening last year? Doesn’t it make you want to consider dumping Flash? I know I am considering it.
A year after I came to this country as a 7 year old from the United Kingdom (which was 1977), I was enthralled by a cartoon series called Battle Of The Planets. It was a English adaptation of a groundbreaking Japanese cartoon series called Science Ninja Team Gatchaman which details the story (At least in the English version. The Japanese version has a slightly different plot line) of five highly trained teenagers backed by state of the art technology fighting against a group of aliens bent on invading and taking over the Earth. One of those pieces of technology that the teenagers had were special watches that they each wore which among other things, allowed them to communicate by voice to each other by speaking into the watch. I had to admit that I found that to be very cool and I often imitated that when I pretended to be one of those teenagers.
Fast forward to 2014.
I have in my possession a Samsung Galaxy Gear that Rogers provided me this week. It a member of a growing subset of technology called a smart watch which is a watch that does more than tell the time. It can have apps, check your e-mail and text messages, or in the case of the Galaxy Gear, allow you to have a phone conversation without having to use your phone to do it. The latter allowed me to live out my childhood fantasies in a way.
Now the Galaxy Gear needs a Samsung phone to work with. Thankfully, Rogers also provided me the Galaxy Note 3 which is a phone I’ve previously reviewed. But that was with another carrier. So I figured that it would be interesting to see what difference changing carriers made. I found that there were two differences. One was minor and one was significant. The minor difference was that Rogers had a number of their apps on this phone including Rogers Anyplace TV, City TV Video, and apps that allows you to check your Rogers account as well download ringtones among other things. The significant difference was the speed on LTE. The Galaxy Note 3 served up an average of 29Mbps downstream and 9.5 Mbps upstream on the Rogers LTE network. While the upstream speed was just short of my previous test of this “phablet” on a different carrier, the downstream speed which is what most people care about was significantly faster. Interesting.
So. Before I even get into the setup of the device, how does it look on your wrist? Let’s start with my wrist:
Okay, it’s big but the Galaxy Gear looks decent on my wrist. Now let’s try my wife. I’ll not that she’s 5′ 6″, 125 pounds soaking wet and slim:
It looks overwhelming on her wrist. If you’re interested in the Galaxy Gear, make sure it looks good before you plunk down your cash. In terms of looks, the Galaxy Gear looks classy as it is made of metal. It doesn’t scream “geeky” at all. The AMOLED touchscreen which is covered in Gorilla Glass which is 1.6″ in size is bright. Though as you will note from the pictures above, it does attract light amounts of smudges. Having said that, it was viewable in any lighting condition I subjected it to. The Galaxy Gear felt comfortable on my wrist and I didn’t really notice it was there. Though your mileage may vary. I should also note that the straps come in different colours to fit your fashion needs, but they do not appear to be able to be swapped by end users.
The Galaxy Gear comes with a micro-USB cord and a special charging cradle. Its the only way to charge the Galaxy Gear and I guess that was done to keep the look of the watch upscale by not having a micro-USB port on it. The top cover of the charging cradle is secured by a latch, so just open it up, rest the watch inside and reattach the cover to start charging it up.
Let’s talk about setting up the Galaxy Gear with the Samsung phone of your choice. The list of phones that supports the Galaxy Gear can be found here. It’s important that you check this list before you buy, otherwise you’ll be buying a very expensive brick. The reason being that it only works with those phones from Samsung.
Now, assuming you have a compatible phone, it’s very easy to set up:
Power up the Galaxy Gear and you’ll be prompted to use NFC.
Make sure that NFC is activated on the Samsung Phone and tap the back of Galaxy Gear to the back of the phone.
Once the two devices recognize each other, the phone downloads the Gear Manager software. The it turns on Bluetooth and auto pairs the Galaxy Gear to the phone. Just make sure you follow the prompts.
Done. Declare victory and have a beer.
Now the whole point of the Gear Manager software is that it acts as interface for your Galaxy Gear and allows you to tweak settings, adjust the order of apps and even download third-party apps that have been specially made for the smaller screen. Speaking of apps, Samsung has a decent roster of apps in a number of categories and the platform is open for third party developers as well. Though the only third party apps that I noted were MyFitnessPal and Runtastic. I used Gear Manager to pick the watch face that I want as well as set the Galaxy Gear to let me know when e-mails and text messages come in. And all of this without having to whip out the Note 3 to check any of this. However, I will note that I cannot respond to e-mail or texts on the Galaxy Gear.
I got used to navigating the Galaxy Gear smart watch quickly. The longer you spend playing with the device the easier it becomes. You can swipe down from the top of the home screen to access the camera, swipe up from the bottom to access the Dialler, and right or left to get to Notifications, S Voice, Voice Memo, Gallery, Media Controller, Pedometer, Settings, Apps, Logs and Contacts. Inside each menu item you can tap on actions to select them, and use the drop-down menu at the top right of certain screens to access further options. Dragging down from the top of the screen returns you to the previous one. Now, all of this is driven from your Samsung smartphone via Bluetooth, so if your phone isn’t within range of the Galaxy Gear, you won’t get any of this info pushed from your phone. Having said that, if you are out of range of your phone, the Galaxy Gear does act as a proper watch as it will display the current time. Some things do stand out:
S Voice which is Samsung’s answer to Apple’s Siri is built in and it can do such things as search online to find answers to your questions, text or call a friend, and add appointments to your calendar.
Its Pedometer app works in conjunction with the S Health app on the Samsung smartphone to count your steps and track your health. It’s handy to for the fitness nut.
It’s handy to dial a number and use the Galaxy Gear to talk to someone. The sound quality is decent, but you will get stares from people as you do this.
The other feature that the Galaxy Gear has going for it is a 1.9 MP camera that does 720P video and a choice of 1392×1392 (1:1) or 1280×960 (4:3) still pics. Now, I will note that it was a bit weird to aim the camera using the touchscreen, and that can make taking pictures interesting at times. More on that in a second. Now to test the still pictures, I set it to 1280×960 and took it along with the Note 3 to the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto to see how it performed. Here’s a few examples of what I was able to do with the camera. Click the pictures to see them in full resolution:
The camera on this Galaxy Gear was never intended to produce top-quality stills and video, although the quality is acceptable. The only place that this camera really let me down is trying to aim it. It’s the odd placement of the camera on the side of your arm is what makes this feature difficult to use. Holding up your arm to take shots is a practice that’s prone to both camera wobble and attracting all sorts of attention from people around you. I got all sorts of stares from people using smartphone to take pictures who were perplexed as to why I was taking photos using a watch. Having said that, I can see how you can use it to sneak a photo or two in places or situations where you aren’t meant to take photos. Or you can use it to take a quick photo without whipping out a phone.
Now when it comes to video, it will do 720P. Now instead of shooting some video at the car show, I decided to go to my usual location of Pearson Airport in Toronto to film a plane landing. Make sure that you set the video to full screen and 720P:
Like the photos, it is a bit blurry, but it works if you need to take a quick video. And I do mean quick as you are limited to 15 seconds of video. Two things to note with both stills and videos. When you take a picture or a video, it automatically uploads to your smartphone.
Now when it comes to battery life, I got an average of a day and a half of solid use. So I can see that you could get at least a couple of days of usage between charges.
So, what’s my verdict? It’s a solid effort from Samsung, but I believe it needs time to grow and mature. But as it does, I think it will be a solid competitor in the growing ranks of smart watches. It’s big challenge will be to fight off competitors like the Pebble smart watch which has the advantage of being both iOS and Android compatible, and the much rumoured and much hyped iWatch from Apple. The Samsung Galaxy Gear goes for $329 at Rogers. If you have a Samsung phone that works with it, and you’re interested in a smart watch, take a good look at the Galaxy Gear.
The BBC among others are reporting that popular messaging app WhatsApp has been bought by Facebook for an absolutely stunning $19 billion:
In a statement announcing the deal, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg described WhatsApp’s services as “incredibly valuable”.
It better be incredibly valuable for $19 billion. Here’s why Facebook was interested:
Cathy Boyle, a senior analyst at research firm eMarketer, said WhatsApp was valuable to Facebook for several reasons beyond advertising, including its younger user base and its popularity overseas.
“WhatsApp actually has greater penetration in a lot of international markets than Facebook,” Ms Boyle told the BBC.
She added that it was notable that Facebook’s chief financial officer David Ebersman referred to the telecommunications industry when discussing the firm’s purchase.
“WhatsApp is trying to siphon the billions that the telecom industry would make from [traditional SMS text messaging]” she said.
We’ll see what Facebook does with this. I’m thinking that this won’t be the last purchase of this type that you’ll see from the company.
So who won the 700 Mhz spectrum auction and will it radically change the wireless landscape? Let me tell you the winners and then I’ll tell you what I think will happen next.
First, underscoring the importance of social media, the results were announced on Twitter:
So you could click the link above and read all the details, but if you want to save some time, here’s the list of winners divided by region:
Newfoundland and Labrador: Bell, Eastlink, Rogers, Telus
Nova Scotia: Bell, Eastlink, Rogers,TELUS
Prince Edward Island: Bell, Eastlink, Rogers, Telus
New Brunswick: Bell, Eastlink, Rogers, Telus
Quebec: Bell, Rogers, Telus, Videotron
Southern Ontario: Bell, Rogers, Telus, Videotron
Northern Ontario: Bell, Eastlink, Rogers, Telus
Yukon and Northwest Territories and Nunavut: Bell, Feenix, Telus
Manitoba: Bell, MTS, Rogers, Telus
Saskatchewan: Bell, Rogers, SaskTel, Telus
Alberta: Bell, Rogers, Telus, Videotron
British Columbia: Bell, Rogers, Telus, Videotron
One thing that you’ll notice is Videotron is now the proud owners of spectrum in BC, Alberta, and Southern Ontario as well as in their home province of Quebec. Given that they give the big three a run for their money on a frequent basis in Quebec, it is possible they can do the same thing elsewhere. Thus they could eventually become the fourth national player that Canada needs so desperately. Though we’ll likely have to wait at least a couple of years to see if that’s the case. Another thing to note is that most areas have a fourth company to provide wireless service. That might be a good thing as well. Finally you should note that the Canadian government pulled in $5.27 billion. That’s great for them.
Now, what do you think? Will this be good for Canadian wireless users? Do the big three have anything to worry about? Post a comment and share your thoughts.
Nokia Releases Android Phones… No That’s Not A Misprint
Posted in Commentary with tags Android, Nokia on February 24, 2014 by itnerdNokia CEO Stephen Elop, who we thought had hitched his wagon to the Windows Phone OS, seeing as they’re owned by Microsoft, showcased three Nokia Android-powered devices today which likely shocked more than a few people. Here’s a snippet from the Nokia blog on the Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL:
The Nokia X family offers terrific value with acclaimed Nokia and Microsoft services and experiences. HERE Maps with turn-by-turn navigation and offline maps are included. Nokia MixRadio offers hundreds of free streaming and offline playlists. Free cloud storage from Microsoft OneDrive with 7GB of space for free is included out of the box. There’s also access to Outlook.com as your email service. And there’s Skype with a month’s free calls to international landlines in selected markets.
All three of the devices are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon Dual Core processor and are Dual SIM. A range of third-party apps comes preinstalled, including BBM, Plants vs. Zombies 2, Viber, Vine and Twitter. As many more as you can fit can be obtained from the Nokia Store, third-party app stores and sideloaded.
Interesting. It seems that Microsoft still managed to get something onto these phones. Now to the part that everyone cares about, the specs:
The Nokia X is the entry level member of the family, with 4-inch IPS LCD screen, 512MB RAM and a 3-megapixel camera. It will be available in green, black, white, yellow, cyan and red.
The Nokia X+ offers you a little more, as the name suggests: there’s 768MB RAM and a 4GB MicroSD card is included in the box. It comes in the same colours as the Nokia X.
Lastly, the clue is in the name for the Nokia XL, as well, with its 5-inch screen. The Nokia XL also boasts 768MB RAM, the free MicroSD card and it has both a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for Skype calls, as well as a 5-megapixel rear camera with autofocus and flash. The same colours are available as for the Nokia X and X+, except bright orange replaces the red with this model.
As for availability, all these will be available “globally.” Whatever that means.
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