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Archive for the ‘cellphones’ Category
Cell Phones Don’t Increase Chances of Brain Cancer
Friday, December 4th, 2009
mclearn sends in news of "a very large, 30-year study of just about everyone in Scandinavia" that shows no link between mobile phone use and brain tumors. "Even though mobile telephone use soared in the 1990s and afterward, brain tumors did not become any more common during this time, the researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Some activist groups and a few researchers have raised concerns about a link between mobile phones and several kinds of cancer, including brain tumors, although years of research have failed to establish a connection. ... 'From 1974 to 2003, the incidence rate of glioma (a type of brain tumor) increased by 0.5 per cent per year among men and by 0.2 per cent per year among women,' they wrote. Overall, there was no significant pattern."
AU Mobile Operator Optus Blocking Paid Android Apps
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
APC Magazine details how Optus, an Australian mobile phone operator, has for months been deliberately blocking access to Android paid apps. "Optus is the exclusive Australian mobile carrier for the HTC Dream and Samsung Galaxy Android phones, and yet people who signed a long-term contract for these phones have to date been blocked from buying paid Android apps and getting the full Android experience. ... APC found many angry and frustrated comments on the Whirlpool community forums by Optus & Virgin Mobile customers." The article speculates, reading between the lines of the opaque comments offered by both Optus and Google, that the carrier is "demanding a cut of the sales revenue from Android apps if it is to remove its restriction on accessing them."
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iPhone App Store Rejects Find a New Home
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
eldavojohn writes "A new site called App Rejections (somewhat slashdotted already) aims to provide a home for misfit apps. With Apple offering no documents or discussions on the matter of application rejections, this site might become a popular place to pick forbidden fruit. Could a third party horn in on Apple's monopoly in the iPhone application market?"
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Security Firms Can’t Protect iPhone From Threats
Friday, November 27th, 2009
nk497 writes "F-Secure researchers are calling attention to the fact that it's impossible to run third-party anti-virus on iPhones, because the SDK doesn't allow for it. It's a problem, as they claim malware will start to target the phone. 'None of the existing anti-virus vendors can make one, without help from Apple,' chief research officer Mikko Hypponen said. 'Apple hasn't been too interested in developing antivirus solutions for the iPhone, because there are no viruses, which of course, isn't exactly true.' At the moment, the only worms faced by the iPhone have targeted unlocked, jailbroken devices — so Apple's not too bothered protecting users of such phones." While Apple claims that the iPhone's closed nature offers protection to its users, and security vendors maneuver for a piece of a market now closed to them, clearly both sides are pushing their own self-interest.
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Wikileaks Publishes 500,000 9/11 Pager Messages
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks is preparing to release 500,000 intercepted pager messages from a 24-hour period encompassing the September 11 terrorist attacks. The messages show emergency services springing into action and computer systems sending automated messages as buildings collapse. Wikileaks implies this data came from an organised collection effort."
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