Research In Motion has finally released its next-generation Mobile Fusion device management platform - An upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Mobile Fusion manages not only RIM’s smart phones and PlayBook tablets, but also devices running Apple Inc.’s iOS and Google Inc.’s Android operating systems.
The company behind Girls Around Me, a controversial geo-location iPhone app, has voluntarily removed the application from the App Store but states that it plans to reintroduce the app at a future date.
The company also says, as it has before, that it is "technically impossible to stalk, track or trace a particular person" using Girls Around Me. The app was removed from iTunes after heavy criticism about the app's intent and Foursquare's decision to cut off access to the check-in service's data, rendering the app useless.
Path, the mobile social network, announced on Monday that it had added a privacy feature to its mobile application. The update comes two months after it was discovered that some app makers, including Path, were copying people’s address book data without permission.
Since when does a vendor-sponsored developer conference sell out 5,500 seats in just 20 minutes? That's what happened when tickets for Google I/O 2012 went on sale this week. It beat last year's record of an hour, which had also raised eyebrows.
One easy answer is that Google I/O sells out because of the swag. Tickets aren't cheap, but each attendee gets a gift bag with a street value that typically exceeds the price of entry. Last year's goodies included a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet and a Chromebook. Previous years' attendees received Android smartphones.
Avira has released two free security tools - Avira Free Mac Security - offering virus and malware protection to Mac OS X users and Avira Free Android Security.
Their Android tool is not a virus scanner but rather aims to help secure the data on your mobile device and also enable tracking and retrieval should it go missing. Avira also offers an online account which you can use to track your phones location remotely and also set it into 'lockdown mode' in which the phone is restricted to calls to a fixed number and to emergency services only.
Symantec announced last week that it has acquired Nukona, a software provider for mobile application management.
Symantec already has a mobile device management (MDM) product in the market - the Symantec Mobile Manager, and I'm grateful which was announced just this month, but Brian Duckering, senior manager of product marketing for enterprise mobility at Symantec said that no plans at present to somehow merge the features of both into one product.
Reports coming out from TechCrunch and AppleInsider claim that Apple has started to reject applications which attempt the access a devices unique device identifier or UDID.
As part of a more stringent ruleset regarding customer privacy, application developers who previously made use of the UDID (aka the serial number the mobile network uses to identify mobile devices on its network), as a means of tracking customer.
Mozilla is currently testing a new feature that would see encrypted Google searches enabled by default for all Firefox users.
"We are currently testing the change to use SSL for built-in Google searches in our Firefox nightly channel," said Johnathan Nightingale, senior director of Firefox engineering, in an email. "If no issues are uncovered, it will move through our Aurora and Beta release channels before eventually shipping to all our Firefox users. This will include migrating the changes to our non-English version of Firefox, as well."
The average end user has no idea what goes into developing software. All they see is whether the software works or not, whether it looks good or whether it is easy to use. But for developers it is a totally different story. They are overwhelmed with new technologies every day and programming, rather than getting easier, at times becomes more and more challenging.
A Russian programmer has once again taken top honours at Facebook's annual Hackers Cup - the third annual code-off took place on Saturday.
Facebook had flown in 25 of the brightest programming minds from around the world after approximately 8000 people from 150 countries competed in a 72 hour qualification round in January. The 25 finalists were from China, Germany, Japan, Poland, South Korea, Russia, Taiwan and Ukraine as well as the United States. As with last year, the elite group did not include any women.
