Congresswoman Eyes On McAfee
WASHINGTON : A congresswoman on Wednesday requested more information on security company McAfee's report detailing a five-year hacking campaign that breached 72 organizations globally.
Representative Mary Bono Mack, chairman of the House Commerce subcommittee with jurisdiction over cybersecurity, said she was alarmed by the report on a slew of cyber attacks that McAfee has dubbed "Operation Shady RAT."
The congresswoman introduced legislation in July that would require companies that collect consumers' personal information to implement data security measures and notify consumers of data breaches.
Bono Mack also asked about the five-year hacking campaign's financial impact on the United States, and whether the company found evidence that consumers' sensitive or personal information was compromised.
The high-profile cyber attacks of recent months, including breaches of Sony Corp and the websites of the U.S. Senate and Central Intelligence Agency, are classified in McAfee's report as unsophisticated and opportunistic compared with the insidious intrusions of Operation Shady RAT.
McAfee uncovered the biggest hacking campaign discovered to date, a multiyear campaign targeting governments, corporations, the United Nations, defense contractors and others. Its report, released last week, said a single "state actor" -- which the company did not identify -- seeking military, diplomatic and economic advantage was behind the attacks.
Intel Corp acquired McAfee, the world's No. 2 maker of security software after Symantec Corp, in a $7.68 billion deal earlier this year to help it offer customers using its chips more safety from hackers. In her letter to McAfee, she also sought a better understanding of what hackers consider to be a greater target: intellectual property and national security information or consumer information linked to identity theft.
Stock Market Burns
Apple doesn't make bandaids. It doesn't make bullets. It makes none of the things you see people using in zombie movies or in alien invasion flicks. Mad Max never booted up a MacBook. This is real life. And in real life the stock market and London are burning, and Apple's the most valuable company in the world.
Like everything else, the Cupertino, Calif.-based Mac maker's shares were down Wednesday: 1.42% in mid-day trading. Everything else, however, was down more. While Dell and HP offer cheaper alternatives to the Mac, if money doesn't mean anything any more, why not go with the best-looking computer?
Can't afford to buy a $250 netbook? Apple' shiny objects can offer you some digital comfort: iPods start at just $49. That's less than a tank of gas. No wonder Apple is more valuable than Exxon Mobil right now.
And then there's the iPad. Apple's competitors are still struggling to match Apple's price of $499 here. Apple just builds more of them. It can also offer shaky suppliers the kind of gold-plated credit most governments can't.
If you're building a new factory in the Far East, you're going to want to strike a long term deal with Apple. With state and local governments in the United States heading towards bankruptcy, riots engulfing foreign cities and state fairs, and stock markets plunging worldwide... it might just be worse this time.
Record Breaking Camera Captures 1,000,000 Frames Per Second
This High Speed Camers Break the Records & Captures 1000,000 Frames per Second.
Puppy showers, mouse traps, and even Jell-O can spring to life in a whole new way when viewed through a high-speed lens. In the world of slow motion video, camera manufacturer Vision Research is a top name, and the company is flexing its recording muscle to the extreme with the new Phantom v1610: a camera capable of recording at an astounding 1 million frames per second (FPS).
Slow motion cameras work by recording many times the number of images that a standard video camera is capable of in a given time frame. These frames are then played back at the same rate as a normal video, but because there are so many more than in a regular speed recording, the action is slowed. When recording for TV and movies, frame rates typically top out at around 30 FPS, while high-speed cameras can capture many hundreds, or even thousands of frames per second.
By lowering the resolution, the new Phantom's power can be used to slow down the action even further. And by dropping the resolution to a meager 128 x 16 — which would only be good for extremely close shooting — the v1610 can record at an astounding 1 million FPS. At that speed, a single second of real-time recording would take over 9 hours to watch at a standard 30 FPS viewing speed.
As the new Phantom v1610 was just unveiled, there are no example videos to showcase its capabilities quite yet. To help put its power into perspective, we can check out a clip shot with a different Phantom model. The video above was shot using a Phantom Flex, with the recording rate set at 2,564 FPS at 1280 x 1080 HD resolution. The v1610 is capable of recording 16,000 FPS at a slightly lower 1280 x 800 resolution — that's over 6 times slower.
The new Phantom can boast such a remarkable statistic because of its record-breaking 16 gigapixels-per-second save rate, which has never been attainable by any camera before it. That type of massive image data requires an equally massive storage solution, and the camera's largest built-in memory option tops out at 96 GB, which the uber-cam can fill in a matter of seconds. Thankfully, an external storage solution can bump that up to a more accommodating 512 GB.
As you can imagine, with great power comes a great price tag, and you can expect to spend at least $100,000 on the v1610. Depending on options and accessories, your final bill would likely be considerably more. But if you've got the coin to spend, and you feel like recording a sneeze and playing it back for the next 18 hours.
Android App to Control Your DSLR Camera
Android 3.1 and 2.3.4 running device is now equipped with USB support to control accessories for integration. A beta DSLR Controller app is now available in the Android Market to do photography in your Android smartphone and tablet devices as long as you have the aforementioned versions, USB connectors fitted in supported Canon EOS DSLRs. Unfortunately, since this app is currently in beta, you might Face problems like connection errors or freezes that are immediately treated by “disconnecting your camera, turning it off and on, rebooting your Android device, and only then trying again” according to the app developer.
Chainfire’s DSLR Controller app’s description on the Android Market, using DSLR Controller allows you access to the following features:
- Live View
- Auto Focus (tap Live View)
- Manual focus adjustments in Auto Focus mode
- Histogram
- Zoom control
- Grid display
- Bulb capture
- Continuous capture
MSi Going To Launch Tablets In India Starts Rs. 15,000
Taiwanese computer firm MSI said it would launch low cost tablets starting Rs.13,999 in the Indian market from Friday. The tablet series - Enjoy - will include two variants - a 10-inch Enjoy 10 for Rs 13,999 and 7-inch Enjoy 7 for Rs 14,999.
Speaking on the company's low cost strategy, MSI India general manager Eric Kuo told IANS: "Our products do not have some prominent features such as 3G and GPS because we do not see enough market for the same in a country like India currently which reduces the cost of the products to a great extent."
"'Enjoy' series has been designed keeping the ultimate end-user in mind, it offers productivity while on the go and provides more ways to have fun and connect with friends," he added.
The android tablets are equipped with dual 2 megapixel cameras, 4 GB internal storage space micro-SD card slot (max 32 GB) and has a battery life of 5 hours.
In the burgeoning tablet market in India, MSI will have to compete with established brands such as Motorola, HTC, Apple, RIM and Samsung.
Tag :
tablet
20 Years Of The World Wide Web (www)
Since it was 20 years ago, on August 6, 1991 that the first website went online.
Tim Barners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, had on this day, two decades back, posted a summary of the World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup and the first ever website http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html became publicly available.
While the Internet had been around for much longer than websites, it was due to websites that our lives have changed so visibly in the last two decades. This is akin to what the graphic user interface did for the mass the popularity of computers.
Most people tend to treat the Internet and the Web as synonymous. They, in fact while being related, are not. Internet refers to the vast networking infrastructure that connects millions of computers across the world and the World Wide Web is only a method of accessing information over the Internet through web pages. The Web uses the HTTP protocol to transmit data and is only a part of the Internet. The Internet includes a lot that is not necessarily the Web.
Today the Web is used for a multifarious purpose, it was initially envisaged as a tool to aid physicists.
Domain names that now form the base of the Web ecosystem, pre-dates the first website by six years. The first commercial domain name symbolics.com was registered on March 15, 1985.
Prior to September 14, 1995 domain name registrations were free as they were subsidised by the US National Science Foundation. Before the browser wars began in the mid 1990s Microsoft founder Bill Gates in an interview with Don Tennant remarked that "an Internet browser is a trivial piece of software." Netscape co-founder Jim Clark, when told about Gates' opinion on Web browsers retorted "MS-DOS is a trivial piece of software." Now we know, and Bill Gates will also acknowledge, that Web browsers is much, much more than a product of little significance.
In an early 1996 interview with the Wired Steve Jobs, who was then with NeXT, expressed his fears about Microsoft dominating the Web. "If the Web doesn't reach ubiquity in the next two years, Microsoft will own it. And that will be the end of it," Jobs said. Thankfully that didn't happen but Microsoft went on to indirectly dominate the Web with its ubiquitous Internet Explorer web browser.
If you dislike Internet users being addressed to as 'surfers', blame Jean Armour Polly. It was she who coined the term "Surfing the Internet".
Archie was the first tool to search the Internet. Released in 1990 it indexed FTP archives. W3Catalog, launched in September 1993 was one of the first Web search engines.
Pornography constitutes a big chunk of the Web for most of its existence, but the first website on the .xxx domain (meant for adult websites) went online in August 2011. According to worldwidewebsize.com, as of August 5, 2011, the Web contains of least 19.68 billion pages. That is more than three times the world's population.
Google Plus iOS Now Supports Apple iPad Also
Google has upgraded its Google Plus app for iOS devices, adding support for both the iPad as well as the iPod touch.
Users can also download the latest version of the Google+ app for iOS, version 1.0.2.1966, at the Apple App Store. The app requires iOS 4.0 or later. Google is pushing out the app upgrade over the next few hours, executives said in blog posts on Google+.
The release notes for the new version of the app note the additions of the iPad and iPod touch, as well as a number of new features. Those include the ability to hide one-on-one Huddles, the mobile chat capability included within Google+. Users can also start new Huddles from within another user's profile page, and set permissions for who can set a Huddle with you.
As PCMag's review of the Google+ iOS app noted, don't expect any Hangouts, the video-chat feature, to make an appearance. Google has reserved those for the desktop version of Google+ at this point.
One of the other more important additions is a feature that Google recently added to its Google+ Mobile app for Android : the ability to monitor the main stream view with input from individual Circles. Google also fixed a bug with so-called "+mentions," or the ability to add a "+" to the user's username to bring him or her into the conversation.
Technology Is Getting Really Worse In 5 Ways
Technology is leaping forward in exponentially massive bounds — if you feel like you're scrambling to keep up, you've got plenty of company. There's not a gadget on the market that doesn't aim to make our lives easier, but now we're tangled up in a strange new world. It's a complex web of tweets and roaming charges in which we we hunt for open power outlets with the urgency of our ancestors foraging for their next meal.
1. Hyper-Connectivity
If you've got a Facebook or a Twitter account, count your blessings that you're not a celebrity or a politician. This is the era of the online gaffe — or worse. One quick-fired mistweet can ignite an unwanted media storm or a full-fledged sex scandal — just look at the cautionary tale of former Representative Anthony Weiner. You might want to delete last night's grumpy Facebook status update, but half of the people you know will likely have seen it before you ever feel a tinge of regret.
2. The End Of All-You-Can-Eat Internet
Unfortunately, the days of an all-you-can-eat internet buffet are drawing to an end. We tend to imagine the internet — and our access to it — as an unlimited resource; as long as you can get online, you're all set, right? Wrong.
Mobile carriers and internet service providers (ISPs) are increasingly dictating just how much web you get for your money. Instead of paying monthly for unlimited access to the web, this new model charges for a chunk of bandwidth — even under some so-called "unlimited" plans.
Sending big chunks of data like movies and music over a web connection can add up fast, drying up a monthly data package in no time. To put it in perspective, you could watch about 17 hours of streaming YouTube video on your phone or tablet before bumping up against a monthly 2GB data ceiling — and streaming Netflix in HD will chew through that even faster.
3. Battery Life Woes
Our gadgets grow more powerful by the day, but at a price — and not just one that will hit you square in the wallet. Whether you've got an iPad, a laptop, or a smartphone, you're likely giving it a technological workout that would have been unimaginable only a few short years ago.
Just like streaming a music video sucks down more bandwidth than sending a tweet, it also consumes more of your battery's charge. Some portable computing devices, like the iPad and many netbooks are built to go the distance, but most laptops will putter out after a couple of hours away from an outlet.
Poor battery life is also a criticism frequently leveled at powerful new smartphones. While a Motorola Razr from 2006 could stay charged for 16 days worth of standby time, 2010's popular HTC Evo 4G can keeping kicking for 6. Even the famously battery-efficient iPhone 4 tops out at about 12. Until battery life can catch up to sheer power, we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for the next spot to charge up.
4. Head In The Clouds
Cloud computing is the next big thing. In fact, between virtual storage lockers and computers built specifically not to store your data locally, the future is now. In the past, a massive external hard drive was the best bet for keeping your computer's treasure trove of files backed up and accessible, but these days storing it on the web (or 'in the cloud') can give you access your photos, music, and videos wherever you go.
While we're big proponents of cloud storage, no method is fail-proof. Storing your data in the cloud is letting it out of your grasp, and placing it directly in the hands of a company you trust.
5. Are Apps Making Us Dumb?
Before the word 'app' became a fixture of our collective vocabulary, the internet was wide open — for better or worse. The advent of the iPhone changed the way we think about the web, and apps continue to explode onto the scene, parceling the internet out to us in small servings — often for a price. Sure you could check the weather for free on the web — or you could pay 99 cents to have it packaged and delivered to your virtual doorstep.
Rather than shuffling through the internet at large to find what we need, we can sit back and let it be served to us, one small square icon at a time. Naturally, that can demand a bit of a sacrifice: With someone else behind the wheel, freedom takes a backseat. And that freedom — the spirit of tinkering and experimentation — is what brought technology this far to begin with.
Tag :
social network,
technology
Hackers Threaten To Expose Law Enforcement Data Everywhere
The AntiSec terrorist forgather has claimed obligation for conciliatory many than 70 law-enforcement web sites in gray states much as Muskogean, Sakartvelo, River and Siouan on July 31. On Sabbatum, the foregather said it is distributing a 10GB stock containing the e-mails, passwords, addresses, Cultural Department numbers, and credit-card info happiness to lawmen affiliated with the affected web sites.
To promote stop law enforcement, the aggroup released what it claims are upbringing files as compartment as touchy assemblage near police informers. According to AntiSec, the exploits were in return for the capture of members belonging to the programmer groups Unnamed and LulzSec.
"We place in support of all those who try against the injustices of the express and capitalism using whatsoever tactics are most impressive -- justified if that implementation breaking their laws in condition to reveal their degeneracy," AntiSec said. "The attacks against the governments, militaries and corporations of the class present act to escalate."
Referenced Exploits
Although individual local law-enforcement officials initially said their web sites had not been hacked on July 31, AntiSec afterwards referenced the exploits by emotional info from its stash of taken law-enforcement proportionality.
"We taunted the sheriffs by responding to their denials by tweeting teasers exposing their SSNs, passwords, addresses and cloistered e-mails," the terrorist unit said. "We need them to experience righteous a secernment of the merciful of misery and excruciation they visit upon us on an familiar supposition."
Masses the initial reservist of AntiSec attacks on July 31, Brooks-Jeffrey Marketing -- which provides hosting services for the figure of the struck web sites -- reportedly responded by aflare all law-enforcement assemblage to a new computer. Nonetheless, the aforesaid indorse entryway that the hackers misused on the model organization were also on the new server, AntiSec claimed.
"In inferior than an period we unmoving their new computer and defaced all 70+ domains time their base soul was noneffervescent logged in and overactive," AntiSec said.
'You Can't Defend an Melody'
Past law-enforcement raids in the U.S. and Aggregation led to the halt of much than a dozen members of the Unnamed meet as well as Diddley Jazzman -- the suspected LulzSec representative famed as Topiary. On July 31, Statesman was effervescent with fivesome e-crime offenses.
Tag :
hackers
North Korea Uses Hackers To Make Money
Golden farming - The practice of generating large sums of realistic money via online games, which is then sold for exchange - is thing new. But time both countries bonk laws in base to penalize those associated with much operations, Northernmost Asian dictator Kim Jong-il took added course. He hired a aggroup of hackers to use the shady effectuation to make money for his own purposes, and they succeeded to the air of over $6 1000000 over 2 geezerhood.
The government-funded hackers, along with like-minded individuals in South Korea and Crockery, spend unnumberable hours in favourite Asian online multiplayer games specified as Kinship. After nurture oversized sums of cash, the money is delivered to officials in Northbound Korea's city, Pyongyang. The New Royalty Nowadays reports that the money may flatbottom be victimised to helpfulness fund the country's thermonuclear efforts.
Several players in massively multiplayer online games equivalent Domain of Warcraft are nearly close with gold line, and immense transaction have been damaged various present before, more of which were situated in Collection. Prc saw such a bold of metallic job groups that it had to officially ban the preparation in 2009, though it did lowercase to cease the organizers from forcing "workers" to pay longer hours making virtual dough.
Tag :
hackers
Hackers Attacks & Spoiled Everything In Vegas
Over the course of five days, the two security conference unleash a firehose of flashy research that's unlike any other, a boatload of tools and techniques that grab the attention of malicious hackers and those defending again them in equal measure.
Several critical vulnerabilities were revealed in Siemens' Simatic Step7 software, which manages the devices that control everything from power plants to mass transit systems, by Dillon Beresford, a researcher with security firm NSS Labs. Beresford had previously delayed his talk to give Siemens more time to fix the flaws, and even at Black Hat didn't share all the details of his attack. But he's also criticized Siemens for downplaying the problem, and claims that the attack could be repeated by even low-resource hackers.
Several critical vulnerabilities were revealed in Siemens' Simatic Step7 software, which manages the devices that control everything from power plants to mass transit systems, by Dillon Beresford, a researcher with security firm NSS Labs. Beresford had previously delayed his talk to give Siemens more time to fix the flaws, and even at Black Hat didn't share all the details of his attack. But he's also criticized Siemens for downplaying the problem, and claims that the attack could be repeated by even low-resource hackers.
Prison door systems could be hacked with vulnerabilities similar to those used by the Stuxnet worm, according to a group of researchers. Security consultant John Strauchs, working with a hacker who goes by the name Dora the Scada Explorer, created an exploit that targets prison systems and could potentially open doors on command or suppress alarms.
Medical devices have been hacked by security researchers before. But this time was personal: Jerome Radcliffe, a diabetic and security analyst, showed that an attacker would be able to take control of his insulin pump to turn it off wirelessly, potentially causing illness or even death.
Mac-hacker Charlie Miller, who has risen to prominence by exposing and exploiting numerous security flaws in practically every new Apple product, debuted a technique to hack an unlikely weakness in the company's laptops: their batteries. As I previewed last month, the attack can reprogram the firmware on the chip that regulates power to those lithium ion chunks, killing the battery instantly or potentially hiding undetectable malware on it.
Tag :
hackers
How E-Readers Can Save Reading
How The Kindle Saved Losing The Ability To Read Books.
I have to second this from my own experience. Until recently, the number of books I was reading per year had also started to inscreased, due in large part to the fact that an ever-growing portion of my daily reading was taking place on the Internet. I found it difficult to concentrate on books, and I was constantly reaching for my phone in the middle of a reading session to check Facebook or my blog visits. A few months ago, though, I received a Kindle as a birthday present, and I've managed to regain my appreciation for longform reading. It was a bit of a process at first - I had a tendency to jump from book to magazine to book and back again. However, I think it was that jumping back and forth - the way I do on the web - that let me transition from the ephemeral reading of the web back to more luxurious book reading.
I regained my capacity for long-term reading, and rediscovered the joy of losing myself in a book. And to keep it that way, I make sure to set aside time every week to leave my computer, turn off my phone, and just focus on a book. One nice feature of the Kindle is that you can load music onto it, which allows me to drown out the outside world that much easier. It's heavenly. Especially when I pair my reading time with a good scotch.
In my mind, the great virtue of the Kindle and other e-readers is the fact that they're dedicated devices with few features. I use my Kindle to read, and to play music while I read -- that's it. That lack of features makes it easy to focus on reading and hard to get distracted. Which is why I'm glad I have a dedicated e-reader rather than a tablet. I can't imagine that I'd have been able to learn to love books again if I could be so easily distracted by email and the web and games. Which is why I fervently hope that in their quest to make an iPad killer, Amazon doesn't leave dedicated e-readers behind.
Now Smartphoines Will Be A New Frontier To Hackers
Last week, security researchers unviels another strain of malicious software aimed at smartphones that run Google's popular Android operating system. The application not only logs details about incoming and outgoing phone calls, it also records those calls. That came a month after researchers discovered a security hole in Apple Inc.'s iPhones, which prompted the German government to warn Apple about the urgency of the threat.
Security experts say attacks on smartphones are growing fast — and attackers are becoming smarter about developing new techniques.
"We're in the experimental stage of mobile malware where the bad guys are starting to develop their business models," said Kevin Mahaffey, co-founder of Lookout Inc., a San Francisco-based maker of mobile security software.
Some 38 percent of American adults now own an iPhone, BlackBerry or other mobile phone that runs the Android, Windows or WebOS operating systems, according to data from Nielsen. That's up from just 6 percent who owned a smartphone in 2007 when the iPhone was released and catalyzed the industry. The smartphone's usefulness, allowing people to organize their digital lives with one device, is also its allure to criminals.
All at once, smartphones have become wallets photo albums & because owners are directly billed for services bought with smartphones, they open up new angles for financial attacks. The worst programs cause a phone to rack up unwanted service charges, record calls, intercept text messages and even dump emails, photos and other private content directly onto criminals' servers.
— Google Inc. has removed about 100 malicious applications from its Android Market app store. One particularly harmful app was downloaded more than 260,000 times before it was removed. Android is the world's most popular smartphone operating software with more than 135 million users worldwide.
— Symantec Corp. the world's biggest security software maker, is also seeing a jump. Last year, the company identified just five examples of malware unique to Android. So far this year, it's seen 19. Of course, that number pales compared with the hundreds of thousands of new strains targeting PCs every year, but experts say it's only a matter of time before criminals catch up.
One recent malicious app secretly subscribed victims up to a service that sends quizzes via text message. The pay service was charged to the victims' phone bills, which is presumably how the criminals got paid. They may have created the service or been hired by the creator to sign people up. Since malware can intercept text messages, it's likely the victims never saw the messages — just the charges.
A different piece of malware logs a person's incoming text messages and replies to them with spam and malicious links. Most mobile malware, however, keep their intentions hidden. Some apps set up a connection between the phone and a server under a criminal's control, which is used to send instructions.
Google points out that Android security features are designed to limit the interaction between applications and a user's data, and developers can be blocked. Users also are guilty of blithely click through warnings about what personal information an application will access.
Malicious programs for the iPhone have been rare. In large part, that's because Apple requires that it examine each application before it goes online. Still, the recent security incidents underline the threat even to the most seemingly secure devices.
A pair of computer worms targeting the iPhone appeared in 2009. Both affected only iPhones that were modified, or "jailbroken," to run unauthorized programs.
And Apple has dealt with legitimate applications that overreached and collected more personal data than they should have, which led to the Cupertino, Calif.-based company demanding changes.
"Apple takes security very seriously," spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said in July. "We have a very thorough approval process and review every app. We also check the identities of every developer and if we ever find anything malicious, the developer will be removed from the iPhone Developer Program and their apps can be removed from the App Store."
A criminal doesn't even need to tailor his attacks to a mobile phone. Standard email-based "phishing" attacks tricking people into visiting sites that look legitimate work well on mobile users. In fact, mobile users can be more susceptible to phishing attacks than PC users.
Tag :
hackers,
smartphones
4G comparison: HTC ThunderBolt vs. LG Revolution vs. Samsung Droid Charge
What is better about Verizon 4G?
I could go into detail, but I already have in our 4G guide. Check it out to learn what makes Verizon’s 4G LTE network different from Sprint’s 4G WiMax network and what separates both of them from the supposed 4G networks of AT&T and T-Mobile. For the sake of brevity though, Verizon’s 4G is currently much faster than any other network because it uses a next-generation technology called LTE.
Verizon’s 4G network has been up and running for a few months and there are currently three different phones to choose from, with a fourth coming soon. The LG Revolution, HTC ThunderBolt, and Samsung Droid Charge can be found at any Verizon retail store and we recommend you try all three out. The Motorola Droid Bionic will be coming at some point in August. Before you make your decision, however, you may want to read our notes on the three phones. These impressions come from hands-on time spent with all three devices.
Android 2.2: Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) updates are finally coming to many devices, but all three of these phones are still running Android 2.2 (Froyo) for now, and that’s no fun. Gingerbread adds some nice polish to Android and seems to manage battery life better as well, among other things. Some of the features of Gingerbread can be found here and here.
Battery life: All three of these phones have been criticized for having short battery life. Most users have learned how to toggle 4G on and off to save battery or have invested in extra battery packs or simply charged their phone more often, but not one of these devices manages power as well as a competitive 3G phone.
Single-core: While many high-end 3G phones are dual-core, all of these phones are single-core, meaning you are working with about as much power as the 1GHz smartphones that came out a year ago. The Droid Bionic, we hear, may be the first dual-core 4G phone on Verizon.
With that out of the way, let’s breakdown the competition.
HTC ThunderBolt
The HTC ThunderBolt was the first 4G LTE device on Verizon and is still probably the most famous and best-selling of the bunch. At one point, Verizon representatives estimated that it was outselling the iPhone 4 on the network and HTC has reported strong demand for the phone.
Price: $250 with two-year contract
Good: HTC’s Sense UI is probably the best of any manufacturer and HTC’s included apps are quite useful compared to the others. We also like the phone’s kickstand, which makes it possible to watch movies on the phone. The ThunderBolt also has a good feel to it, and feels more solid than plastic phones like the Droid Charge. The phone has 768MB of RAM—more than the competition.
Bad: The phone had some random reboot problems, though they have been fixed. The ThunderBolt is also the thickest of the three phones, but not by much. Finally, it has the weakest battery of the bunch at 1400mAh capacity.
Samsung Droid Charge
Having seen the issues arising with the ThunderBolt, Samsung took better care to improve battery life on the Droid Charge, the second 4G LTE phone on Verizon. Read our full review of the Droid Charge to get a complete rundown on the phone.
Price: $300 with two-year contract
Good: For some reason, the Droid Charge seems to connect at even faster speeds than the ThunderBolt (and much faster than the Revolution) in our NYC testing. It also has the largest battery at 1600mAh and gets noticeably better life than the ThunderBolt. It comes with a 32GB MicroSD card preinstalled, which is huge. Finally, the Droid Charge has a great Super AMOLED screen that is brighter than either of the other two phones.
Bad: It’s the most expensive of the three phones, and we don’t like how slippery and plasticy the Droid Charge shell feels. Despite the preinstalled microSD card, the phone only has 2GB of internal storage. Samsung’s TouchWiz interfact is certainly better than some, but we don’t like the color combinations and the whole experience is a bit disjointed when compared to HTC’s Sense.
LG Revolution
LG was the third entrant into the 4G LTE game and when it decided to call its phone “Revolution” it may not have been referring to the 4G. Nope. This is an Android phone that doesn’t have Google services. It runs on Bing.
Price: $200 with two-year contract
Good: The LG Revolution is, by far, our favorite phone to play with, of the three. Its screen has some kind of magical slick coating to it, and the overall construction of the phone is solid. It also has a decent battery and 16GB of internal storage. We also don’t mind the look and design of LG’s custom Android user interface.
Bad: We’d be keen to recommend the LG if it didn’t have one crippling huge flaw: It’s a Google Android phone, but it runs on Bing…yes, Bing. Much like the Samsung Fascinate, LG has taken advantage of Verizon’s ties to Bing and made it the sole search provider for the phone. Not only does this feel like a bit of a slap in the face to Google (they did offer the OS for free, after all), Bing just isn’t as good as Google’s services. You’ll have to dig around the Android Market to save yourself from Bing Maps and use all of the Google services you expect on an Android phone, but no matter what you do, we haven’t found a way to remove Bing as the default search for the phone. How depressing. Aside from that, the camera is 5 megapixels, meaning its slightly less capable than the 8-megapixel cameras on the other two devices. For some reason, the Revolution seems to get slower 4G connections than the other two, at least in upper Manhattan where we tested it.
Our pick: Samsung Droid Charge
The Droid Charge is not the best looking Android phone we’ve seen, but we think it’s the most well-rounded 4G device currently on the market. It gets good enough battery life that you shouldn’t have the itching desire to return it after a week, and the screen is much brighter and more vivid than the other two devices. Samsung’s TouchWiz UI isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either, and the camera on the phone is solid, pulling in good color and with more accurate brightness compared to other manufacturers. It is the most costly of the bunch, but the 32GB memory card helps ease the pain.
Dangerous Hacks Come In Small Packages
Android App Turns Smartphones Into Mobile Hacking Machines
When an app called Anti, or Android Network Toolkit, hits the Android market next week. The program, which Israeli security firm Zimperium revealed at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas Friday and plans to make available to Android users in coming days, is designed for penetration testing--in theory, searching out and demonstrating vulnerabilities in computer systems so that they can be patched. Anti aims to bring all the hacking tools available to penetration testers on PCs to smartphones, with an automated interface intended to make sniffing local networks and owning remote servers as simple as pushing a few buttons.
"We wanted to create a penetration testing tool for the masses, says Itzhak "Zuk" Avraham, founder of Tel-Aviv-based Zimperium. "It's about being able to do what advanced hackers do with a really good implementation. In your pocket."
"Hacking is not for the chosen few," reads one description in the app's documentation, formatted in Star Wars-style scrolling text. "Anti is your perfect mobile companion, doing it all for you. Please remember, with great power comes great responsibility. Use it wisely."
Even in its current form, the app raises the possibility of dangerous, stealthy attacks. A hacker could, for instance, walk into a coffee shop or a corporate office with his phone and start sussing out machines for data theft or malware infection. But Avraham says Zimperium will ask users in its terms of service to limit their hacking to "white hat" penetration testing.
Penetration testers who saw the app at Defcon were impressed. "It's just sick," says Don Bailey, a researcher with security firm iSec Partners. "The way it populates the screen with vulnerable targets...it's really elegant."
Another professional penetration tester for a defense contractor firm who asked that his name not be used called the app a "quick and dirty Swiss army knife for mobile pen testing." "It's so polished it's almost like playing a video game," he says, comparing it to penetration testing suites that cost thousands of dollars.
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