Security Alert : The GSM encryption algorithm was broken December 29, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.Tags: gsm encryption broken, security
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Not enough that we have to deal with email spam and now this…..Put your tinfoil hats on – GSM
encryption has been broken. This means that Evil Doers can listen in on your calls and read your SMS messages. Law enforcement agencies already have that capability, so this doesn’t change things if Big Brother eavesdropping is what worries you.
The encryption algorithm used in the GSM network is called A5/1 and was developed in the distant year of 1987. There is a new standard called A5/3, which is much more secure, though not used by most carriers yet.
The published materials are not actually a complete wire-tapping tool – releasing that would be illegal. But it’s a step away from becoming one. For about $30,000 you can buy hardware that would allow you to listen in on a call in real time. If real-time eavesdropping is not required, the price falls down to a few thousand dollars.
Of course, any sort of wire-tapping is illegal in most countries, as the GSMA was quick to point out, but that’s like saying you can’t buy a car that can go over 50 kilometers per hour because that would break the speed limit.
Still, wire-tapping hasn’t been demonstrated (the researches don’t want to go to jail and what not), so it’s not clear how easy it would be to actually pull off in practice. The researchers claim that their main motivation is to push carriers to update to the new encryption algorithm and they just might – if they get enough bad publicity.
And before you actually put on a tinfoil hat and stop using your mobile phones keep two things in mind: 1) no one will pay 30 grand to listen to you talk to your mom and 2) phone scams are a much bigger security threat than breaking the GSM encryption.
Series 40 is getting touchscreens, dual-SIMs and QWERTY keyboards December 29, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.Tags: nokia series 40
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Nokia has big plans for all three of its platforms. Despite the huge growth of affordable smartphones, the S40 platform will go on, getting touchscreens, dual-SIM and QWERTY keyboards, while Symbian and Maemo will get new interfaces with improved speed and multi-touch.
Nokia sees Maemo taking up a big portion of the number of devices sold by 2011, compared to the current niche status of the platform. When Maemo 6 hits it will bring along multi-touch support as well. Both Maemo and Symbian will get new interfaces in 2010 – Symbian^1 should be out in the first half of 2010 and Symbian^2 by the end of 2010.
As for Series 40, there have been attempts to make an S40 handset with a QWERTY keyboard but that didn’t catch on. Touchscreens and dual-SIM phones is breaking new ground for Series 40.
These new and improved S40 devices will begin appearing in 2010 along with the new Symbian and Maemo devices. Nokia maintains that Symbian is their smartphone platform of choice, keeping Maemo to high-end “mobile computers”. S40 is here to stay as well according to Nokia’s strategy – multiple platforms to cover all the market segments for mobile phones, instead of stretching one platform from the low end to the high end.
A new interface for Symbian sounds great (the S60 5th edition specifically needs a lot of attention), but for S40 they say in 2010 they will “bring touch interaction on top of Series 40′s recently renewed user interface“. That sounds a lot like what the touch-enabled Symbian was at first (and arguably still is) – a non-touch UI with touch capabilities added.
That may be an oxymoron, but S60 was designed to be operated with a keypad, so merely adding touch capabilities resulted in a subpar touchscreen experience, which attracted a lot of criticism.
Logic Wireless Logic Bolt packs a projector, two SIMs and a TV December 29, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.Tags: Logic Bolt, Logic Wireless
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Both Samsung and LG are testing the waters for a mobile phone with a projector but there’s a third underdog competitor – Logic Wireless and their Logic Bolt, which recently got updated with slightly improved specs.
The Logic Wireless Logic Bolt v1.5 offers quad-band GSM support with not one but two SIM cards. It has a 2.6″ QVGA screen, which might or might not be a touchscreen – the Logic Wireless website is very stingy and ambiguous when it comes to information.
For example, the “TV & FM Radio” section of the features page says “Watch TV and play FM Radio”. This video presentation is a bit more affirming, claiming both a touchscreen and Analog TV:
We know what you’re thinking – dual SIM and Analog TV and those looks equate the likes of the exquisite NOKLA brand. Strangely enough, Logic Wireless is actually a small 19-member team based in Arizona.
Anyway, the Logic Bolt has a built-in projector (unlike LG GW820 eXpo, where the projector is an addon). The projector has a VGA resolution and the projected image is between 34″ and 64″ in diagonal from a 1-2m distance. The 1200mAh battery is good for 2 hours (info from the site) or 1.5 hours (info from the presentation). Like we said, ambiguous.
Logic Wireless Logic Bolt v1.5 • Logic Bolt v1
The Logic Wireless Logic Bolt offers Word, Excel, PowerPoint and a PDF viewers, a 3MP main camera and a 1MP video call camera, up to 3 hours of talk time and up to 250 hours of standby. T
Sony Ericsson U5i passes FCC tests December 28, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.Tags: Sony Ericsson U5i
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There’s something strange going on – the Sony Ericsson U5i passed FCC testing a few days ago, but that model number was tossed around as the Sony Ericsson Kurara model number, though this U5i seems to be a different device.
The Sony Ericsson Kurara leaked a while back – a Symbian powered phone with a 3.2″ nHD touchscreen and 720p video recording. The Kurara CPU is supposedly a Cortex A8 running at 600MHz and the phone touts 3G with HSPA and Wi-Fi.
The Sony Ericsson U5i that passed the FCC testing however was tested for just two GSM and EDGE bands (850/1900). They also tested 802.11b/b Wi-Fi, but there’s no 3G in sight in the test report.
A post on Cellpassion indicates that the Sony Ericsson U5i is indeed 2G only. The other specs they mention is the Symbian OS and nHD screen resolution (no screen size though), oh, and a 2MP camera. Maybe those initial rumors were wrong about the Kurara having the U5i model number.
So, the Sony Ericsson U5i seems to be targeted at the same crowd as the Nokia 5230 and the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic.
Update: It seems that thing about the U5 having only a 2 megapixel camera is not correct. Obviously Cellpassion have taken that spec from a wrong place in the U5i XML file. As it turns out, U5i may still be Kurara (or vice versa) but that doesn’t answer why the FCC didn’t test any 3G frequencies on their test unit.
The announcement of the U5i (be it Kurara or not) should be expected in Q1 2010 as the Sony Ericsson confidentiality request to FCC expires in the end of March. Of course, we expect a few more leaks before then, but if you know something, do let us know.
GooglePhone “Nexus One” Fully Spec’d Out and Available for Preorder at Celluloco.com! December 28, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.Tags: google nexus one, google nexus one specifications, google phone
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The Nexus One has quad-band GSM/EDGE support and 3G with T-Mobile frequencies (900/1700/2100). The 3G comes in 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA flavor. The rest of the connectivity options are duly covered as well – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP, GPS with A-GPS and a digital compass and finally a microUSB port.
The phone is well equipped for multimedia as well – a 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash, 4GB microSD card in-box with support for up to 32GB cards, H.264 video decoding, and a 3.5mm audio jack. And of course the big AMOLED screen of the Nexus One should make for a great viewing experience.
That’s one rich spec sheet
The physical aspects of the phone are quite enticing as well. The Nexus One measures in at 119 x 59.8 x 11.5mm and weighs 130 grams with the 1400mAh battery. The back cover is Teflon-coated (think HTC Hero) and there’s a second mic at the back of the phone for active noise cancellation.
A reminder of what the Nexus One looks like
There are some more interesting nuggets of information – in addition to Cell-ID positioning, there’s “Wi-Fi positioning” (something like Skyhook like on the iPhone’s Maps app maybe?) and the trackball serves as a notification light with a tri-color LED glowing under it.
So, it all sounds like an Android fanboy’s dream but getting your foot in the door as an early adopter might be a challenge. To get the Nexus One you’ll need an invite, just like all beta Google services upsofar.
Google Nexus One caught on video, teases with more pics December 28, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.Tags: google nexus one, google phone, googlephone google mobile, htc nexus, htc nexus one
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The Nexus One just can’t resist showing off at various occasions and places. This time the Google phone is caught on video and we are able to see parts of its user interface along with several new shots of the device itself.
The last time we enjoyed a series of leaked Nexus One photos and we also reported its rumored specs sheet. The Android 2.1 powered Google phone is rumored to sport the same hardware Here is another batch of Nexus One live pictures, including its possible retail box. as the HTC Bravo – 3.7″ AMOLED display, 5MP camera, Snapdragon CPU.
New photos of Google Nexus One
Samsung M5650 Lindy goes official, live photos inside December 28, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.Tags: Samsung M5650 Lindy
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Now this will hardly shock you, especially if you are among the lucky Portuguese who already purchased it but the Samsung M5650 Lindy is now officially announced. The press release doesn’t go much further than confirming the Lindy to be a slightly bigger and vastly more powerful Corby cousin.
Samsung M5650 Lindy tops its affordable relative with 3G with 7.2Mbps HSDPA and video calling plus Wi-Fi. It also packs a 3-megapixel autofocus camera instead of the 2 MP excuse of a shooter on the Corby’s back.
Samsung M5650 Lindy
The Samsung M5650 Lindy is currently available at Celluloco.com for sale.Since we had the chance to play with a Samsung M5650 Lindy last week here go go some live shots of the device. You can expect our review article in the following weeks.
Samsung M5650 Lindy at ours
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 and HTC HD2 both available at Celluloco.com before anywhere else on the web again! December 28, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.Tags: HTC HD2, sony ericsson xperia x10
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Two Snapdragon-powered phones with large touchscreens are taking the first steps to the pockets of T-Mobile US consumers. Yep, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 passed through FCC testing and it and the HTC HD2 both are on their way to T-Mobile USA.
The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 has obviously passed through the scrutiny of the Federal commission, but the interesting part is the 3G test. The tested UMTS bands were I, IV and VIII, or in other words 900/1700/2100MHz. That definitely points in T-Mobile’s direction.
WMExperts bring the second bit of good news for T-Mobile customers – they got the ROM image for the US HTC HD2 and it seems heavily bound for T-Mobile as well. They also share some of the versions of the apps that will be available inside – ROM version 2.01, Windows Mobile 6.5 build 21896, Opera Mobile 9.7, TeleNav GPS navigation 5.5.34 and Teeter 2.0 (hooray!).
The rumored release date for the HTC HD2 in the US is March 2010. The release date for the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 on the other hand is anyone’s guess but Celluloco.com already has them both on private sale at their site.
Android OS versions breakdown and updated mobile Google web apps, HTC releases own widgets December 28, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
The Android family keeps growing with more and more handsets, so Google has just launched the device dashboard. Their mobile web apps are also now better, faster, stronger, and HTC released new Sense UI widgets for the Hero and Droid Eris.
Android devices graph shows OS versions shares
The newly released Android devices graph is based on devices, which have accessed the Marketplace within the last two weeks and will be updated periodically. As you can see the 1.5 devices have a share of more than a quarter of all devices but the main target for developers should probably be version 1.6.
Android 1.6 devices account for more than half the market. But ver. 1.6 smartphones do not share one and the same displays and they vary from QVGA up to WVGA resolution.
Google tweaks its web apps for speed
Today Google also updated their mobile web apps and now it should load up to three times faster for certain devices. The new Gmail features include full label support, swipe to archive, smart links, faster address auto-complete, outbox, enhanced refresh and auto-expanding boxes. Google claim they’ve pushed the mobile web browser capabilities and HTML5 to the max. To try it, just head on to www.google.com on your mobile browser and hit apps.
GMail on iPhone
And HTC jumps up and offers some free Sense UI widgets
Meanwhile HTC made another move for differentiating their Android devices. They’ve released a few new widgets compatible with the HTC Hero and the CDMA-based HTC Droid Eris. The available widgets for download are Tip Calculator, Today in History, Dice and Battery.
Samsung Omnia II gets white and enjoys some hacked Sense UI December 28, 2009
Posted by celluloco in Uncategorized.Tags: Samsung Omnia II, Samsung Omnia II white
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The Samsung I8000 Omnia II has just been updated with HTC Sense UI by a hacked firmware. We also spotted the first shots of a ceramic white version of this uber-phone, so HTC HD2 might just have lost an edge here.
Truth be told, we knew this will happen sooner or later, but now was probably the best time (or worst, depending on which side of the barrier you are), with the Christmas shopping spree peak coming up.
From the Twitter client to the Footprints app – you can get it all on your Omnia II, thanks to a helpful hacker from ModaCo forums. And the Italian HDblog has just uploaded a live video of the home-backed ROM in action.
We’ve got some more good news for the potential Samsung I8000 Omnia II owners. If the black styling wasn’t much to your liking you know have a second option available. The Ceramic White version of the Omnia II will be more appealing to a lot of people, helping the Omnia II reach a wider audience.
So far there’s nothing official, but those Samsung I8000 Omnia II live shots we found over at PDAMobiz seem pretty legit. You gotta give it to them, that Ceramic White version is quite a looker.
Samsung I8000 Omnia II live shots
South Koreans have been enjoying pink and white versions of Omnia 2 ever since August, but it’s only now that we see a GSM version of Omnia II get snow white. Perhaps it’s something about this season?
South Korea already has the Samsung Omnia II dressed in White and Pink, but that’s the CDMA double
