Android mobile wallet, OS attracts security concerns, trademark lawsuits (Appolicious)

Google launched its Mobile Wallet last week, unveiling details of the hopeful plan to turn your Android phone into a digital version of your credit cards, coupons and loyalty programs. Hinging on Google’s NFC technology and supporting kiosk infrastructure, the Mobile Wallet has become fresh grounds for growing security concerns. Less than a week after launch, Google Wallet’s weaknesses are being uncovered, raising consumer questions around mobile payments, as well as Google’s long-term position in this emerging market.

An article in PCWorld calls out Google’s associated Android app the Achilles heel of their Wallet security, worrying that tying security standards to an app could incur the wrath of malicious apps developed to access the NFC card, which securely stores your mobile payment information. Android’s open platform, then, is really the weak spot, as it’s not exactly a harsh environment for “bad apple” apps. Even as Google and Apple both face government officials for mobile data collection and use, Google could find itself defending yet another initiative for the Android OS, again centering on security. The article goes on to note that Apple wouldn’t face similar security issues for a mobile wallet app, as it has a stricter gateway system for its app economy.

While Google is taking steps to make the Android Market a safer place, pulling known dangerous apps from the Market and devices, and pushing through security updates to protect consumer data, Google faces another battle regarding its Mobile Wallet project. PayPal filed a lawsuit against Google last week, with claims of the company executives stealing trade secrets. After a deal between the two companies fell through, Google poached a PayPal executive and proceeded to launch Mobile Wallet. Google’s already responded to PayPal’s claims, saying they respect trade secrets and “will defend ourselves against these claims,” but the legal battle only heightens industry interest in owning this market.

Trade secrets have become the topic of discussion for Android’s OS between Samsung and Apple as well, with Samsung demanding early access to Apple’s next iPhone and iPad prototypes. The request was presented to the court after Apple asked to see Samsung’s newest smartphones and tablets, which Apple claims are copies of their popular iOS devices. Samsung’s been one of the many manufacturers designing devices around Android to offer Apple alternatives, with the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab among the most popular. The court ruled in favor of Samsung, Computerworld reports, putting attention on Apple’s upcoming iPhone in particular, which may not be released until September, breaking with its practice of launching new models during the summer.

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Nvidia Kal-El promises quad-core mobile graphics (Digital Trends)

Nvidia’s Tegra graphics processor might be the current top-dog for graphics in the universe of Android devices, but Nvidia has already outlined its plans to dominate the mobile graphics arena for years to come. Last February, the company announced its forthcoming Kal-El quad-core mobile graphics chip, and now the company has provided an update on its progress, releasing a demo video of Kal-El’s real-time lighting and physics capabilities on a HoneyComb Android tablet—and all the lighting and physics are calculated in real time, rather than merely playing back canned video animations. The video is called “GlowBall,” and features a glowing ball lighting up and moving through a 3D “creepy funhouse” environment.

“This shows off the power of true dynamic lighting, rendered in real-time with physics (no canned animations here, folks),” Nvidia’s Matt Wuebbling wrote in the company blog. ” This marks the first time this type of lighting is feasible on a mobile device.”

Nvidia claims Kal-El boats five times the graphics performance of the Tegra 2 processors currently powering graphics in devices like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Motorola Xoom. Unlike the Tegra 2, however, Kal-El boasts a quad-core processor powering the Android device, supplemented by a 12-core graphics processor. Nvidia’s video shows that the GlowBall demo is leveraging all that computing power for its real-time effects: shutting down two of the device’s main processor cores has a dramatic impact on Glowball’s overall performance.

Graphics developers like Nvidia face a conundrum with mobile graphics capabilities; on one hand, they have technology from their PC businesses to put major computing and graphic processing capabilities into a wide range of devices; on the other hand, the power and heat-dissipation requirements for mobile devices impose some severe constraints: nobody is going to want to use a tablet device with fabulous graphics that’s too hot to hold and burns through is battery in half an hour. For now, graphics developers are focussing on spreading graphics duties across a number of lower-power processing cores, hoping to get more work done in each clock cycle while retaining lower power requirements.

Nvidia hasn’t announced when Kal-El chips will be available for device manufacturers—emphasizing the demo was produced using a pre-production device—although industry reports have Kal-El devices hitting the market in time for the end-of-year holiday buying season. Nvidia also promises production versions of Kal-El will be significantly faster than the current demo.

Kal-El is, of course, the Kryptonian name for Superman. Following on the superhero theme for its mobile processors, Nvidia has outlined mobile processors codenamed Wayne, Logan, and Stark for 2012, 2013, and 2014, respectively.

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Google to debut new mobile payment service on Thursday (Yahoo! News)

After months of speculation, rumors, and teases, Bloomberg is reporting that Google will beat Apple to the punch and introduce a new mobile payment system on Thursday. The service will use near-field communication (NFC) technology, which uses special hardware inside of a mobile phone to make wireless transactions at stores equipped with NFC readers.

Google's new mobile payment option will reportedly be available exclusively to Sprint customers, at least at the start. The only smartphone on the U.S. market equipped with NFC technology is Google's Nexus S, which is available on both Sprint and T-Mobile. More phones with NFC capabilities are confirmed to be in the works, and there's even been talk of an upcoming iPhone model supporting the technology as well.

The service will reportedly launch in 5 cities at the start, including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Chicago. No timetable was given on a further rollout, but that information may well be detailed when the service is officially announced on Thursday, so be sure to check back!

(Source)

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Upwardly mobile in Brazil: Pedicures as a path from Rio slum to a mortgage (The Christian Science Monitor)

Rio de Janeiro – A paper cap corralling her long, curly hair and a white paper mask muffling the lilt of her salon gossip, Meire adjusts a neon ring of light and peers businesslike at the calloused foot of a client lying on a white leatherette recliner. Pedicures are serious business in this mecca of sun worship and sandals.

As lowly a job as it may seem to bathe, poke, pluck, and massage other people's feet, this job is golden. It has boosted Meire up the socioeconomic ladder and out of the slums: By serving the middle and upper classes in her cubicle at Ipanema's Spa do Pe (Foot Spa), she has herself entered Brazil's burgeoning middle class.

"I love what I do," she often says, as she straightens up from hunching over a client's newly buffed feet. And that's despite a three-hour round-trip bus commute to work five days a week – and frequent house-call detours she makes for extra cash.

IN PICTURES: The Rising Global Middle Class

Meire, who asked that the Monitor not use her real name for security reasons, is living the middle-class dream that is spreading across the globe. Her income – the equivalent of $1,000 a month – has enabled her to get a mortgage on a small house on a tree-lined street 15 minutes from her parents' home in the giant Jacarezinho favela, or slum. Brazil's middle class, swelling with people like her who have achieved higher levels of education than their parents, is now estimated to include half the nation's population of 191 million. The burgeoning consumer appetite, say economists, buffered the country from the world recession that began in 2008: Unlike the United States and much of Europe, Brazil's economy is booming, with 7.5 percent gross domestic product growth in 2010.

Thanks to a constitutional provision for universal education enacted in 1987, Meire got a high school diploma. She worked at a General Electric light bulb factory for six years after high school. But when incandescent bulbs lost market share, the factory closed. Meire's diploma saved her: It qualified her to take an 18-month specialized salon course.

"Brazilians are consuming more because they're working more, and they're working more because they went to school," says economist Marcelo Neri, who last year produced the Getulio Vargas Foundation study "The New Middle Class in Brazil: The Bright Side of the Poor." Mr. Neri adds that enrollment in technical schools such as the one where Meire got her training grew 75 percent from 2004 to 2010.

The favela where Meire grew up is famous for a section where drug addicts openly use crack, undisturbed. And security is hardly provided by police: She recalls how she and a companion awoke in a favela apartment four years ago surrounded by police who threw a packet of cocaine on their bed in a mistaken-identity extortion bid.

Her parents still live there, in a house of concrete rooms stacked atop each other in three stories, so close to a house across the alley that a neighbor can lean over and serve lemonade to visitors.

Even for those most determined to get ahead in life, favelas are full of pitfalls. Meire's first boyfriend, a cocaine addict, promised he'd stop using drugs if she had sex with him. She became pregnant at 16 – in 1994 – with her first daughter. But the boyfriend was killed in 2001 by a drug lord because his habit was leading to crimes that stirred up trouble for the community.

Despite being left alone in difficult circumstances, in November 2008 Meire performed some financial acrobatics and took out one of the Brazilian government's increasingly available low-cost 20-year loans to buy a 1930s-era yellow two-bedroom house with a front porch.

"My mother said 'You're crazy,' and I said 'You get things done if you're crazy,' " Meire recalls. " 'Otherwise I'll be here in Jacarezinho seeing the days go by.' "

Later, she made a sentimental discovery: The bungalow with its decorative stone chimney had been her mother's dream home. As a child, her mother had walked by it on the way to school, dreaming daily of it being hers. "She wept when she saw my new bedroom set," says Meire, who paid the equivalent of $47,000 for the home.

To realize her mother's dream a generation later and make her down payment, Meire withdrew the equivalent of $4,700 from her government-stipulated workers' fund account, and sold her furniture. She also had to prove to the bank providing the home loan that she had a hefty balance in her account. But after scrounging for the down payment, she didn't have a hefty balance. So friends shifted cash into her account to make it look that way.

This is what economists call "social capital." The fact that Brazilians turn mostly to family and friends for help is one of the fragilities of the new middle class. Analysts say government institutions need to be stronger, more reliable and accountable, offering greater access to microcredit and low-cost housing.

Meire's oldest daughter, now 16, was joined by a half sister, now 12. Thanks to their mom's determination and resourcefulness, both study at a private school and plan on college; they share a computer and regularly use the Internet. In summer, all three sleep in one air-conditioned bedroom.

It is a peaceful place Meire has made for her family. Though she leaves a bill unpaid each month to make ends meet, she says her financial scramble is nothing.

"In the favela you wake up in the night hearing shootouts," she sighs, stretched out one late-summer Sunday morning in her air-conditioned bedroom. "The peace of mind [here] is worth the cost."

SOUND OFF: Reinvention: How might your job history mimic this woman's?

IN PICTURES: The Rising Global Middle Class

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MasterCard says 62 percent of people would make payments using mobile phones (Appolicious)

Google (GOOG) and a number of other companies think that paying for things using smartphones might be the future of brick-and-mortar commerce.

It’s called Near-Field Communication, and it’s a technology found in Google’s Nexus S phone and other smartphones that have recently hit the market. It allows the devices to broadcast a short-range signal that can interact with certain receivers. Users could wave the phone at a payment terminal when they go to check out at the grocery store, and their credit card information would be used instantly to complete the transaction. It could also be used to gather information from movie posters, for example, that would offer advertising information or show times.

But payments are the real power of NFC technology, it seems. According to a report from Fierce Mobile Content, MasterCard (MA) has been surveying customers to see if they’d be willing to use their mobile devices as payment tools for transactions, with 62 percent of those asked responding in the affirmative.

The survey found that 63 percent of respondents between ages 18 and 34 would be willing to make mobile NFC purchases, but that number dropped down to 37 percent for respondents who were 37 or older. MasterCard also found a disparity between men and women in mobile payments, finding that 51 percent of males said they were comfortable with NFC transactions, compared to 40 percent of females.

Respondents in the survey were also asked how they feel about having cell phones on them – 65 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds said they felt more ‘naked’ without their phones than their wallets, compared to 34 percent of respondents older than 35. Between men and women, 50 percent of women said they felt more exposed without a mobile device than a wallet, with only 36 percent of men responding in the affirmative.

MasterCard has worked with Google in the past to help embed NFC payment technology in smartphones, which is supported by Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system.  Other companies, like Amazon (AMZN), are considering getting in on near-field technology, considering it the cutting edge of mobile capabilities. Verifone (PAY), a maker of payment terminals for retailers (you’ve probably seen them – they’re often used for scanning credit and debit cards and inputting PINs), is adding NFC capabilities to all its newly manufactured terminals, as well.

But MasterCard’s survey suggests that while 62 percent of respondents are willing to go along with mobile NFC payments, that means almost half of respondents still feel the technology is a bit dubious. There’s a lot of investment going into NFC from many sources, but it’s going to take an investment in convincing people that near-field communication is a trustworthy and safe way of passing financial information before it really takes off.

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Facebook, Apple pressed on kids' mobile privacy (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A high-tech Wild West where location data, including some gleaned from teenagers' mobile devices, is scooped up and sold without consumers' consent needs to end, lawmakers told a panel of tech companies on Thursday.

While lawmakers noted extraordinary technical innovation by Apple Inc, Google Inc, Facebook and others in Silicon Valley, they also showed irritation at data collection and sale without consent. Much of the ire was aimed at smartphone applications and the collection of teenagers' data.

"A teenager accessing an application may not realize that her address book is being accessed and shared with a third party. That is not meant to happen in this country without the permission of an adult," said Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Commerce Committee.

Twenty percent of children aged 11 or younger had a cell phone in 2009 while 66 percent had one by age 14, and just under 75 percent of high schoolers have one, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project report.

The revelation last month that Apple's iPhones collected location data and stored it for up to a year -- even when location software was supposedly turned off -- has prompted renewed scrutiny of the nexus between location and privacy.

Google, which has had privacy battles of its own with controversy over Buzz and Street View among others, has been dragged in because it provides the guts of the Android phones.

But Google's Alan Davidson warned lawmakers against focusing on headline issues and said they should instead hone in on establishing principles. "Otherwise, this committee and others will be returning term after term to address the latest new technology fad," he warned.

Senator Pat Toomey, the ranking Republican on the Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Internet subcommittee, noted that he was the father of two young children and was "very concerned," while adding: "As a general matter, I prefer to see the market self-regulate."

LOTS OF LEGISLATION

Rockefeller also pressed Facebook, which says it bars children under age 13 from the website, to explain why 7.5 million children aged 12 or less have accounts.

Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor said it only shuts down the accounts of children when someone else reports that a child is on the website. Children 12 and under get special privacy protection by law, which means that many web sites prefer not to cater to them.

Apple also said that it bars children under age 13 from its iTunes store and does not sell apps that target minors for data collection. "If we learn that we have inadvertently received the personal information of a child under 13, we take immediate steps to delete that information," said Apple's Catherine Novelli.

Democratic Senator John Kerry called for changes to "modernize our privacy laws."

"We want ... legislation to work for both the consumer and entrepreneur. I reject the notion ... that privacy protection is the enemy of innovation. It absolutely doesn't have to be," said Kerry, who has introduced a privacy bill with Republican Senator John McCain.

In addition to the Rockefeller and the Kerry-McCain bill, there are online privacy bills introduced in the House of Representatives by Representatives Bobby Rush and Jackie Speier. Representatives Ed Markey and Joe Barton are mulling an update to the children's online privacy protection laws. It is too early to tell whether any will become law.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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Mobile hacking sets off security gold rush (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) – Hackers are increasingly aiming attacks at smartphones, touching off a race among software giants, start-ups and telecom operators seeking to cash in on ways to help consumers protect themselves.

As the previously fragmented smartphone market coalesces around big operating systems like Apple's iPhone and Google's Android, it has become a more attractive target for hackers seeking to maximize damage with one hit.

That's creating a big business opportunity for everyone from traditional antivirus players like Intel's McAfee to mobile operators like France Telecom and handset makers like Nokia.

Market research firm Infonetics forecasts sales of mobile security software will grow 50 percent a year through 2014 to hit $2 billion.

"The mobile security market will one day be bigger than that of computers," Neil Rimer, co-founder of Geneva-based fund Index Ventures, said at the Reuters Global Technology Summit. "It's a no-brainer that people will pay to protect their devices, and the market will not be owned by one big player."

Rimer's fund has invested in three-year-old start-up Lookout Mobile Security, which has racked up more than 2 million users by selling its software on Google's Android Market and via partnerships with operators like Verizon.

Hackers attack mobiles in a myriad of ways. They can force phones to send hundreds of texts to paying services, steal account information when a person uses their bank website, or make fake phone calls to long distance numbers.

The "app' craze in which people download small bits of software to do everything from play games to search movie times has also opened up new opportunities for cyber-criminals to infect phones.

Unlike Apple, which reviews and approves all the offerings on its App Store, Google's Android Market allows developers to post their apps directly. That more open approach could leave Android more vulnerable to attack, according to security experts.

The first significant security breach hit the Android Market in March when hackers added malicious code, known as a Trojan, to 58 popular apps and quickly infected 250,000 phones. According to a blog post from Google's Android security head, the company was forced to use its 'kill switch' to remotely erase the apps from users' phones and issued an update to its Android Market to patch the hole the hackers exploited.

A recent study by telecom gear maker Juniper Networks found a fourfold increase in malware targeted at Android's operating system from June last year through January, while overall mobile attacks more than doubled.

"We've seen issues on all platforms, Nokia's Symbian, Apple's iOS and Android," said John Hering, Lookout's founder.

Some industry executives believe that the creators of operating systems bear much of the responsibility to safeguard smartphones.

"The platform itself needs to provide a sufficient level of security then we can help with software," said Florian Seiche, who heads the European region for Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC.

Meanwhile telecom operators are also trying to take a piece of the mobile security pie. Some 40 telecom operators including Vodafone and TeliaSonera have signed deals with mobile security specialist F-Secure to offer anti-virus software and anti-theft protections to smartphone customers.

"Operators are very interested in offering security as a service to their customers as a way to generate revenue and promote customer retention," explained Sean Obrey, F-Secure's head of operator business development.

These packages can cost anywhere from 5 to 10 euros a month, said Obrey.

Eric Edelstein, head of Internet and mobile security at France Telecom said the group was tailoring its mobile security products and services to its different markets.

The group, which markets its services under the brand name Orange, pre-packages security software on some smartphones in Britain, sends text messages to users with infected phones in Poland, and offers security services to its French customers for 3 to 9 euros a month.

But some think it will take a major virus or worm on mobiles before consumers will be willing to pay extra for security protection on their phones as they do on their personal computers.

"When you start asking them what's your willingness to pay for a solution, if they're not a little frightened, their willingness to pay is nothing," said John Stankey, the head of AT&T's enterprise business.

AT&T plans to start marketing a security offering to consumers next year, Stankey said at the Reuters summit.

"It'll take a little time for this to go mass market."

(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Hans Peters)

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3 children, adult die in Texas mobile home fire

Three people were injured in the blazeThe cause of the fire is under investigation

(CNN) -- Four people, including three children, died early Sunday in a mobile home fire in Conroe, Texas, according to the town's fire chief.

The blaze was reported about 2:41 a.m., said Chief Ken Kreger, and five engines and a ladder company responded. The first unit on scene found the mobile home was "totally involved," he said. Three injured people were outside and told firefighters that others remained inside the mobile home.

Two children between the ages of 3 and 8 were pulled out of a bedroom that was not involved in the fire but had heavy smoke. They could not be revived, Kreger said. Firefighters found another child between 3 and 8 and a woman, believed to be about 27 years old, dead in another area.

An adult male and female had escaped through a door and pulled a 7-year-old girl out with them, he said. All three were taken to a hospital. The two adults were in stable condition after being treated for cuts and smoke inhalation, Kreger said. The 7-year-old was transported to a Houston hospital because she was having trouble breathing.

The cause of the fire was under investigation, Kreger said. Firefighters believed three separate families lived in the home. Autopsies were ordered on the victims, he said.

Conroe is about 40 miles north of Houston.

CNN's Maggie Schneider contributed to this report.

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Iraq to bring banks to the masses -- by mobile (AFP)

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Just a fifth of Iraqis have bank accounts, but 70 percent have mobile phones, so Baghdad is hoping to close the gap by getting people to open accounts, make payments and transfer cash -- all via mobile.

In a country that is one of the most corrupt and violent in the world, the initiative is aimed at securing Iraqis' funds, and strengthening the banking sector as higher revenues resulting from a greater number of transactions boost profits.

"It's a very important project" in terms of "increasing the capacities of private banking," Sinan al-Shabibi, the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, told reporters at a conference on the initiative organised by the bank and USAID.

Shabibi said he hoped the project would be ready "in the coming year".

Only about 20 percent of Iraqis hold a bank account, according to experts. That figure is markedly lower than the average for developing countries, which a World Bank report released last year pegged at 28 percent among adults.

By contrast, 81 percent of adults in developed countries held bank accounts, the "Doing Business 2011" report said.

While much of Iraq's low bank account penetration has to do with a lack of confidence among Iraqis in banks, other factors are also at play.

"It can... be attributed to long period the country was at war, international sanctions, isolation from the outside world, prevailing security situations, coverage of banks in remote areas," said Indrajit Roy Choudhury, a banking expert working as a consultant for the state-owned Trade Bank of Iraq.

Choudhury added that a lack of modern banking facilities and poor financial literacy among Iraqis' was also to blame.

In addition, most Iraqis are paid in cash, with many avoiding the tedious procedures of dealing with the country's bank branches, where queues are long and customers often spend a great deal of time simply in order to deposit funds that they often end up spending within a month.

Others who receive their salaries in cheques typically withdraw the full amount in cash and eschew making deposits or opening an account.

"This situation is changing," Choudhury noted, pointing out that several banks were opening branches in more of Iraq's provinces, networking those branches, and coming out with more "customer-oriented products".

Iraq is hoping to use the relative popularity of mobile telephones here, with market penetration estimated at 70 percent, to accelerate the development of the banking sector.

A 2009 report by India's National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development notes that "lack of access to finance for... weaker sections of the society has been recognised as a serious threat to economic progress, especially in developing countries."

It added: "Moreover, prolonged and persistent deprivation of banking services to a large segment of the population leads to a decline in investment and has the potential to fuel social tensions causing social exclusion."

According to Carl Rosenquist, an expert who is working on the Iraqi project, it is likely that younger Iraqis will be the system's guinea pigs.

"Experience shows that the take-up of mobile financial services attracts initially the young and subsequently the take-up will increase up the age ladder," said Rosenquist, who has worked on similar initiatives in the Philippines, Mongolia, Jamaica and Kenya.

If the project is fully realised, all it would take for an individual to open a bank account would be a phone call.

Iraqis would be able to make transfers, pay bills, or withdraw funds from non-banking agents such as general stores, who would receive a commission in return.

It is all part of a larger project, estimated to cost between $15-20 million, to unify Iraq's banking system.

"The biggest obstacle is regulation... The law is far behind," said Rosenquist, who complained that Iraqi banks are not required to be linked to a central payment system.

"We have a system and they are not all members.... If they (regulators) don't mandate the use of it, then it's useless."

Discussions are also ongoing between certain banks and mobile phone operators to develop mobile banking, with the chief executive of Kuwaiti firm Zain's Iraqi arm acknowledging that his own company was in talks with two Iraqi banks.

"We're working with a couple banks here in Iraq," Emad Makiya said in an interview with AFP, adding that he could not name which banks as a result of a non-disclosure agreement.

"We're just studying this right now.... We should strike something by the end of this year. We will help them out with their mobile banking."

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