In its annual security report, Cisco has stated that 99 percent of the total mobile malware targets Android devices. The report highlights the current security concerns and trends in vulnerabilities so that users can build more effective defence strategies.

The report also stated that mobile malware constituted of 1.2% of all web malware encounters during 2013. Another highlight from the report is that 71% of web-delivered malware was meant for Android only. The malware rate for iPhone users was only 14 percent. Java was also a target of 91 percent of all web exploits. The report found that Android users were targets for “security encounters” involving phishing, forcible redirects, social engineering and “likejacking”.

Electronics manufacturing, agriculture and mining industries were also becoming targets for malicious software at about six times the rate of other industries. Cyber criminals are targeting Web hosting servers and data centers to form überbots. The report has also highlighted that there is a lack of security experts in India. On the shortage of trained professionals in India, Dayal said, “In India itself we are seeing a shortage of close to 4,00,000 cyber warriors as per CERT report in September last year. Over 1,000 times, the Indian government websites have been breached for the past 3 years.”

LG Electronics is said to be working on including fingerprint scanning technology on its 2014 flagship smartphones, the upcoming LG G3 and the LG G Pro 2 phablet - as well as three other models currently being developed.

A report on Korean newspaper etnews states that LG apparently wanted to move into fingerprint sensor technology to improve security on its 2013 flagship smartphone the LG G2, but the development process would have been too long and the production yield of companies providing the fingerprint module wasn't stable enough to meet LG's demands. Fingerprint scanning technology is a type of biometrics, the technology that identifies individuals by measuring physical characteristics related to the body, such as facial recognition, fingerprints, iris recognition, and even DNA.

An unnamed LG Electronics insider told etnews: "Rather than simply apply fingerprint recognition function, it is important to improve security and user convenience at the same time. We will give prominence to our functional differentiations in order not to suffer the disgrace of being called a mimicker to follow what the competitors do."

The LG G Pro 2 is expected to be launched at Mobile World Congress at the end of next month, boasting a 5.9 screen with a super sharp resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels, and running the latest version of Google's operating system, Android 4.4 (KitKat). The LG G3 meanwhile, is expected to be launched in May, featuring a powerful eight-core processor, a 16 megapixel camera and a similar display resolution to the G Pro 2.

Reports have come from a Samsung insider that claim flagships such as the Galaxy S3 and Note 2 should get updated to the latest version of Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) by the end of March this year.

Notably, the Galaxy S3 and Note 2 should be updated by the end of the first quarter that will include performance tweaks and overhaul along with a few other software features. Also included will be the new transparent status bar, new print feature (from settings) and an immersive full screen mode. The update is expected to roll out in phases, implying the update could take as long as a full month depending on carrier branded variants.

Earlier, Samsung had released the 4.3 update and users were complaining that the Jelly Bean update led to certain issues such as freezing of the display, fast battery depletion and in some cases the handsets were completely bricked.

The company is expected to follow a online retail model and has tied up with Flipkart. The details of the partnership are under wraps - so we cannot say for certain if Flipkart will be the only online retailer for the Google-partnered smartphone or will be one among multiple online retailers like Homeshop 18, Saholic etc.

Announced in November last year, this mid-range Android device sports a 4.5-inch 720p HD display and is powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM. The device is expected to launch with Google's latest iteration, Android 4.4 Kitkat in India. This will position the device quite strongly among its rivals both domestic and international as it will be the most budget handset in the market to run on Android 4.4 KitKat.

Android 4.4 KitKat offers a gamut of functions to the Motorola newbie which includes integrated SMS and chat messaging on Google Hangouts, better wireless printing capabilities, quick access to apps like camera and music, intuitive Google Now integration among others.

Peppered with more than decent specs, great build quality, plenty of color options and a budget pricing ( expected to be priced at Rs 15,000 for 8GB model), Moto G has a very strong chance of leaving its competitors in the dust.

A number of rumours regarding the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S5 are already making news. Today we have another one for you. Famous tipster Eldar Murtazin has tweeted that the new flagship smartphone will be announced on 23rd of February, which is around the same time when the Mobile World Conference starts in Barcelona.

The tweet also confirms the fact that it will be hitting stores by the end of April and will definitely have a new TouchWiz UI (Finally!). Regarding specifications, Murtazin hasn’t hasn’t said anything except the words “u know them”, pointing to the endless rumours about the device.

Just yesterday, we reported that the Galaxy S5 will be featuring a fingerprint scanning technology and that Samsung has dropped the idea of having an iris scanner. Earlier rumours had indicated that the S5 will have a QHD display, an octa-core processor with 64-bit processing, a 16MP camera and water-proof technology.

News is coming out that technology king Apple is all set to launch its educational courses and books in India with the help of its infamous iTunes. As per reports Apple will be expanding its worldwide access to its widely renowned educational content via iTunes U Course Manager and iBooks Textbooks. If reports are to be believed, Apple will be making this expansion to Asia, Europe, and Latin America along with some other parts of the world whose details are to yet to come out.

Apple’s iBook Textbooks currently features education and tutoring based interactive content for all of the Apple’s iPad users. Apple is now all set to expand the reach and make it available to almost 51 countries worldwide which will be including names like Brazil, India, Italy as well as Japan. Apple’s iBook Textbooks features exclusive rotating 3D diagrams, interactive animations, tap-to-play videos as well as flick-through photo galleries along with more than 25,000 educational titles which have been explicitly created by freelance teachers, publishers, as well as some of the leading education services companies.

On the other hand, Apple’s iTunes U Course Manager will also be made available by the tech king in more than 70 countries which will be including names like Russia, Malaysia and Thailand. Apple’s iTunes U Course Manager will allow the educators and instructors to create as well as distribute various sorts of education courses for their respective classrooms, plus allowing them with an opportunity to share all these publicly with the help of the iTunes U app.

The advent behind this expansion is to make available incredibly excellent tools as well as content that provide the educators with a bright opportunity and new novel ways to customize and modify the learning process unlike ever before. This announcement came out from one of the Apple officials Mr. Eddy Cue who is also the senior vice president of Apple’s Internet Software & Services.

Microsoft seems to be on the receiving end of the wrath of the Syrian Electronic Army recently, where their news Twitter accounts fell victim to. Apart from that, Microsoft’s Office Blog has been caught out by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) – and although the blog was defaced, it was quickly recovered by Microsoft. The screenshot above pointed to SEA putting out a bunch of posts that depicted how they have gained access to the blog, although many would not claim it to be a hack.

It is events such as these that would end up as an embarrassment to Microsoft, and the question remains as to how the SEA were able to gain access – perhaps through obtaining the passwords to gain access via phishing attacks that were previously confirmed by Microsoft. Needless to say, one would be wont to ask whether the SEA group has gained access to other properties from Microsoft. Chances are Microsoft would have taken the steps required to ensure that machines involved in the phishing attack would be scrubbed clean.

We do wonder just how will Microsoft beef up the security around their other blogs and websites so that such an embarrassment would not happen again in the future.

WhatsApp, an early mover in the messaging app space, has racked up 430 million active users to date. But despite the influx of new competition from the likes of Line, WeChat, KakaoTalk and Snapchat, WhatsApp says it will be sticking to its guns: avoiding advertising; staying away from “gimmicks” like disappearing photos and games; and continuing to request its users to keep paying to use the service as its basic business model.

The app, which used to be paid, is now free to download and costs $0.99/year to use after the first year. The comments were made by co-founder and CEO Jan Koum, who was speaking at the DLD conference in Munich, Germany. “The important thing is focus,” he said, not disappearing photos — a reference to the ephemeral messaging service Snapchat.

Of WhatsApp’s 430 million users, some 30 million started using the app in the last couple of months (it only announced 400 million in December). WhatsApp now sees some 50 billion messages sent and received daily — rivalling SMS volumes.

“No ads, no games, no gimmicks,” Koum said today. It’s a credo that is written on a Post-It note from co-founder Brian Acton (who first worked with Koum at Yahoo). Koum keeps that note, which he got Acton to sign, on his desk as a reminder of where WhatsApp would like to remain anchored.
“We just want to focus on messaging.

Covering a wide range of topics, Koum also was upfront about his preference for Android as a platform over iOS. “Android is a lot more open. We are able to build new features and prototype faster on Android, not to mention that we have a lot more users on Android,” he said.
Longer term, it doesn’t look like WhatsApp plans to turn away from smartphones for its core experience any time soon. “Our goal is to be on every smartphone.” Quoting a projection of 5 billion total smartphones down the line, he said their goal is to be “on every single one of them.”

David Knight, general manager of Proofpoint's Information Security division, said in a press release, "Botnets are already a major security concern and the emergence of thingbots may make the situation much worse."

Chet Kanojia an Indian immigrant has built Aereo- a stamp size antenna that can grab over the air TV signals and stream them to subscribers on the Internet on any device, whether it's a smartphone, tablet or even your laptop. Users will be able to even record shows for later viewing with cloud-based DVR for a few bucks a month.

The new device has lead to a legal battle between the American Broadcasting Companies and. Aereo that will come up in the Supreme Court in April. A case of copyright infringement has been filed by 17 broadcasting giants ranging from Disney's ABC to Comcast NBC to 21st Century Fox against Aereo. The TV giants have stated that the device is a threat to their business model, and undermines the cable re-transmission fees. Broadcasters maintained that Aereo's transmissions constitute a "public performance" that requires Aereo to pay for retransmitting them.

Kanojia who has an engineering degree from the National Institute of Technology and has a mechanical degree from Northeastern University, US holds patents in more than 14 fields ranging from robotics to data. He sold his first company, Navic Networks, to Microsoft in 2008 for a reported $250 million.

Apple fans expect a newer and better version of the smartphone. Well rumours have already started flooding in and according to a Chinese analyst Sun Chyang Xu, Apple is planning to announce the new iPhone 6 with a 4.7-inch display this June.

The display will have the same resolution as of the iPhone 5S (1136x640) which is kind of disappointing in a world where 4K display equipped smartphones are starting to emerge. The production of the new iPhone is expected to start in the month of May. Earlier rumours claimed that Apple will launch a 5.7 inch iPhone with a higher resolution display. Now, this could mean that this year we might see two different sized versions of the iPhone 6.  Apple has already announced this year’s WWDC scheduled for June 10th which perfectly coincides with the timeframe when the first four iPhones were announced in the past.

We personally think that Apple was doing it right with the 4 inch display on the iPhone. A larger display would not only mean higher production values, but would also lead to higher capacity batteries. All in all, we are keen to see what the next gen iPhone has to offer.

Dell today just announced the Venue 8 Pro, a Windows 8.1 toting tablet sporting the latest quad core Baytrail processor from Intel. We got some time with the tablet at the launch event and we must say, it is quite a beauty.


Specifications of Dell Venue 8 Pro :

• The tablet comes in a choice of two colours, black and red, but the colour scheme is only applicable to the back, which has a ridged texture and a Dell logo emblazoned on it. 
• The front is a gorgeous 8 inch screen with a 1280x800 resolution and a front facing camera. The front facing camera is not placed dead center of the tablet, but more to the top right corner, which we though could be a little annoying, at least during Skype sessions. 
• The tablet, which runs the full desktop version of Windows 8.1, has a rectangular, non-symmetrical bezel, which is thicker in the landscape mode and slimmer in portrait. While we’d have loved it if dell had just made the bezel thinner on all four sides.
• The tablet was actually quite comfortable to use, and we foresee that to remain as the case even with extended usage, seeing how it just weighs 395 grans. The tablet is just 9mm thick, and coupled with rounded edges, it sits really well in the hands.  
• The model we played with had just 32GB of onboard storage, which can be expanded by the means of a microSD card, but Dell says that a 64GB variant should be coming soon. Another variant planned is one sporting a 3G radio, slated for a late February availability.
• The Dell Venue Pro 8 costs Rs. 26,499 and is slated for an early February release. From our firsthand experience of the tablet, paired with the fact that Dell will be clubbing in a keyboard cover, the tablet is quite a sweet deal.