For everything from family to computers…
That is MESSED up! Â Syrian government has a lot to answer to!
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Children as young as 13 say government forces have tortured them by burning them with cigarettes and pulling toenails with pliers.
from News
According to a new mobile app monitoring startup called Crittercism, iOS apps are crashing at a greater rate than your favorite Android apps. For a 2 month period, a ton of data was compiled and broken down by OS version and in some cases by app, and then into quartiles to give a better representation of the crashes. In the end, there was a clear winner (if you want to call it that), but some of the reasoning for this result is what we need to talk about.
Now, not to bring up that whole ridiculous “fragmentation†argument for the 1,010th time, but just take a quick glance at the chart above. As you can see, Android is not the only leading mobile OS on the planet that has its fair share of older builds floating around on devices. In fact, through this study, Crittercism discovered that there were at least 23 different versions of iOS and 33 of Android.
The second note that was discussed was the reasoning behind these crash rates, that seem to get higher as you get to a higher OS build. The obvious reaction is to assume that because the majority of people run the newest OS that the rate would have to be higher. This study doesn’t ignore that idea, but they also want to toss out the fact that many of the apps we use on a daily basis are simply not updated to be compatible with new releases. I would tend to agree that that is probably issue #1. How often do you find yourself on your Galaxy Nexus asking, “When is <insert favorite app> going to get Ice Cream Sandwich support?â€
Lastly, the overall numbers that were presented are nothing for anyone to be overly concerned about. Sure, we can brag it up for the next few hours to our iOS counterparts about how their apps are less stable, but the truth is that apps on both platforms are crashing at less than a 1% rate. We aren’t talking about apps crashing 10-20% of the time or anything here. Both operating systems are stable, Android just happens to be slightly more stable.
+1 Android! (Sorry, had to.)
Via: Â Forbes
from Droid Life
Moments ago, Google unveiled a security service that has been working behind the scenes on Android for a few months now, codenamed Bouncer. The service allows the Android Market to scan apps that have been uploaded, analyze them for trojans or other malware, and then determine if they have tendencies that would lead them to misbehave. Again, this has been going on for months to protect you, Google is just now letting you know about how successful it has been.
Here is the full explanation from Google:
The service performs a set of analyses on new applications, applications already in Android Market, and developer accounts. Here’s how it works: once an application is uploaded, the service immediately starts analyzing it for known malware, spyware and trojans. It also looks for behaviors that indicate an application might be misbehaving, and compares it against previously analyzed apps to detect possible red flags. We actually run every application on Google’s cloud infrastructure and simulate how it will run on an Android device to look for hidden, malicious behavior. We also analyze new developer accounts to help prevent malicious and repeat-offending developers from coming back.
Also in this announcement for Bouncer, Google managed to take a shot at the anti-spyware and security companies that you hear from constantly in the Android world. During their testing of this new security service, Android Market stats showed a 40% drop in potentially malicious apps being downloaded during 2011. That comes on the heels of numerous reports from anti-spyware companies that malware is constantly on the rise, something many of us have questioned all along.
Here is the exact quote:
The service has been looking for malicious apps in Market for a while now, and between the first and second halves of 2011, we saw a 40% decrease in the number of potentially-malicious downloads from Android Market. This drop occurred at the same time that companies who market and sell anti-malware and security software have been reporting that malicious applications are on the rise. While it’s not possible to prevent bad people from building malware, the most important measurement is whether those bad applications are being installed from Android Market – and we know the rate is declining significantly.
Lastly, Google wants to make sure you understand how Android works on the security front and that it has been designed to make malware less potent. Some of the security measures include:
Feeling safer already?
Via: Â Google Mobile
from Droid Life
Symantec has announced that 13 apps from three developers contain a malicious segment of code called Android.Counterclank. The apps have found there way onto as many as five million phones.
The malware steals user info and runs ads and is reportedly very difficult to remove. On January 16, one user wrote the following review “Deal & Be Millionaireâ€:
The game is decent … but every time you run this game, a ‘search icon gets added randomly to one of your screens. I keep deleting the icon, but it always reappears. If you tap the icon you get a page that looks suspiciously like the Google search page.
The affected apps, many of which have appeared in the Android Market, are published by iApps7, Ogre Games and redmicapps.
Counter Elite Force
Counter Strike Ground Force
CounterStrike Hit Enemy
Heart Live Wallpaper
Hit Counter Terrorist
Stripper Touch girl
Balloon Game
Deal & Be Millionaire
Wild Man
Pretty women lingerie puzzle
Sexy Girls Photo Game
Sexy Girls Puzzle
Sexy Women Puzzle
If you have downloaded and installed any of the games, there is a pretty simple solution.
1. Make sure you have your address book synced with Gmail.
2. Delete any files related to the malware from your SD card.
3. Install Astro File Manager.
4. Open Astro File Manager and backup applications
5. Restore your phone to its factory settings.
6. Re-install Astro File Manager
7. Browse your SD Card contents and reinstall any of the apps that you need from /mnt/sdcard/backups/apps.
The beauty of Android is that it is really easy to get back to where you were before things went horribly wrong. [Gizmodo]
from The UberReview
While I think it is awesome to get biofuel, I just shudder at what could go wrong if E. coli got out to public…
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Biofuels may hold the key to reducing our dependence on foreign oil and cutting down on our greenhouse gas emissions. Ethanol is currently the biofuel of choice, with almost all gasoline bought at the pump in the United States containing 10 percent ethanol. Right now, though, most ethanol comes from corn and sugarcane, and there are concerns that growing our fuel from these crops could drive up food prices (“food versus fuelâ€).
Biofuels made from macroalgae, aka seaweed, avoid this problem. Seaweeds do not require arable land, fertilizer, or fresh water, and they are already cultivated as food (though not a staple crop like corn), animal feed, fertilizers, and sources of polymers. Traditionally, scientists ignored seaweed as a biofuel source because its main sugar component was too difficult to process. A recent paper published by Science describes how researchers genetically-engineered a microbe that is capable of producing ethanol from seaweed.
from Ars Technica
Two security companies today released a joint report describing an ongoing series of attacks against government contractors that have been occurring since at least early 2009. According to the vendors Seculert and Zscaler, attackers are sending firms phishing e-mails with fake invitations to conferences, often in the form of PDF files that exploit flaws in Adobe Reader. The file installs what the vendors call an “MSUpdater” Trojan that poses as a legitimate Windows Update process. In reality, the Trojan is a remote access tool that can steal information from a company’s network for as long as the breach remains undiscovered.
“Foreign and domestic (United States) companies with intellectual property dealing in aero/geospace and defense seem to be some of the recent industries targeted in these attacks,” the report states, without identifying specific attack targets.
from Ars Technica
