The Register reports on a bizarre new Android App hack, which literally makes your phone blab all its secrets.
The malware app sidesteps the normal attack vectors by doing one simple thing – calling the bad guy’s voice phone number – then the malware coerces the phone into actually “speaking” all your secrets down the phone line, using a bug in Google text to voice.
So next time your phone starts talking by itself, listen to what it is saying – because all that unexpected chatter might be something more sinister than a funny little software defect.
According to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook has suffered a significant drop in customer satisfaction, and is now close to the bottom of the heap, along with Linked in.
The drop in satisfaction ratings may be related to the level of advertising on the sites. Google+ for example, lost ground last year, but appears to have recovered some ground;
“A sharp increase in search engine advertising contributed to a drop in user satisfaction last year, but Google’s latest change to the way ads are labeled, along with its focus on the mobile user experience, may be steps in the right direction,” said [ACSI director] VanAmburg
If there is no in-app or web site advertising, sites and iPhone apps and Android apps which rely on advertising for revenue wouldn’t make any money – but the satisfaction surveys are a warning to businesses which rely on advertising revenue, not to push the envelope too hard. Because there is always a competitor eager to offer your customers a better user experience.
I’m about to release a new iPhone app – Mirror Mirror
Mirror Mirror is an incredibly simple app – all it does is turn the iPhone into a makeup mirror.
Unlike the iPhone selfie camera, which swaps left and right, Mirror Mirror behaves like a real mirror – left is left, and right is right.
I need to create 4 screenshots to promote the app. But this is a challenge – the app is so simple, its just a mirror.
So here’s my idea – if anyone wants to volunteer a selfie, and it isn’t too outrageous, it goes into the app. First 4 selfies I like.
Please hold the phone at arms length, with a simple background (like a white plaster wall) – I need to resize the image to fit all the different formats app store requires.
Please post selfie pictures to Queensland Mobile App Developers – I should be able to use the Facebook copy of your selfie image, but if this doesn’t work out, I’ll send you an address so you can email me a copy.
When (hopefully!) Apple approves Mirror Mirror, I’ll post a link to the app store listing, so you can show your friends a picture of yourself, in app store, on the promotion page of a real iPhone app.
Amazon have just announced Amazon Cognito – a new server technology for rapid development of Mobile App Servers.
Servers are a common feature of iPhone Apps and Android Apps. In its simplest form, a mobile app server allows apps to share data. Although iPhone Apps and Android Apps have access to the internet, they can’t talk directly to another copy of the same app on a different phone, except in special circumstances (e.g. if both apps are on the same WIFI network). There are various technical reasons for this, though one of the most important is the apps simply can’t find each other.
Instead, iPhone Apps and Android Apps use their internet access to contact a server, at a known internet address, which relays messages between different phones.
Amazon Cognito aims to simplify this process, by reducing the effort required to create new app servers. Instead of having to write variations of the same server code again and again, apps which need to share data can link up to Amazon Cognito, with minimal bespoke server code and server configuration.
Contact me if you would like to find out more about how Amazon Cognito could simplify the design and cut the cost of your next iPhone App or Android App.
According to The Register, a science and technology news site, the upcoming iPhone 6 display screen will be almost unbreakable.
The article features a video of someone trying to damage an iPhone 6 screen with a large knife – with no success.
This effort to make the new iPhone indestructible is welcome news for techies like me, whose pockets are always overstuffed with phones, keys, and various technological marvels grinding against each other like rocks in an industrial crushing machine.
I’ll still probably get a shock proof case for my new iPhone 6 though, when I finally get my hands on a new iPhone 6 – its one thing to be impressed by claims of durability, quite another to take risks with my precious new tech toy.
