comScore: Android widens its lead on iOS in the US

comScore have tallied the numbers and have come up with a report on phone usage in the US for the three month period that ends in August. They surveyed 30,000 people for the report of the 234 million American phone users over the age of 13.

Let's start with the smartphone OSes. According to comScore, Android is the leading platform by a wide margin. A margin that keeps growing no less. Apple's iOS is a solid second and is the only other OS that saw its share grow in the US.

An old time favorite, BlackBerry OS saw a 5% drop over the three month period. Microsoft's mobiles OSes combined mustered up only 5.7% and the barely there Symbian OS fell to 1.8%.

Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
	May-11	Aug-11	Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Google	38.1%	43.7%	5.6
Apple	26.6%	27.3%	0.7
RIM	24.7%	19.7%	-5.0
Microsoft	5.8%	5.7%	-0.1
Symbian	2.1%	1.8%	-0.3

Apple is fourth by number of phones in the US market, counting feature phones and smartphones. They jumped from 8.7% to 9.9% over just three months. Samsung is holding fast to the first place and saw a 0.5% increase in market share.

All others lost market share. Motorola for one will soon be in danger of losing its third place to Apple, as the buffer between the two shrunk with 2.2%.

Top Mobile OEMs 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	May-11	Aug-11	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Samsung	24.8%	25.3%	0.5
LG	21.1%	21.0%	-0.1
Motorola	15.1%	14.0%	-1.1
Apple	8.7%	9.8%	1.1
RIM	8.1%	7.1%	-1.0

comScore also studied how people in the US use their phones. Changes were pretty small, but it's interesting to note that all categories grew - which suggests that Americans are spending more and more time on their phones.

Mobile Content Usage 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	May-11	Aug-11	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Sent text message to another phone	69.5%	70.5%	1.0
Used browser	39.8%	42.1%	2.3
Used downloaded apps	38.6%	41.6%	3.0
Accessed social networking site or blog	28.6%	30.9%	2.3
Played Games	26.9%	28.5%	1.6
Listened to music on mobile phone	18.6%	20.7%	2.1

Jobs leaves app mark on Indians

Rohit Singal, founder of Sourcebits, one of India's biggest mobile app developers, estimates that at least one-tenth of the 500,000 apps in the Apple App Store have been done in India.

He himself has done over 300, and some of them have been roaring hits. One called Night Stand, an alarm clock for iPhone and iPad, went to the No. 2 spot on the entire App Store within three days and had over 3 million downloads over the next three months.

Steve Jobs has had a profound impact on India's developer community. Many who did development work for PCs have switched to development of mobile apps, thanks to the mobile app revolution begun by Jobs' App Store. Many new entrepreneurs have emerged to take advantage of what analysts see as another big wave in outsourced development.

US-based market research firm World Mobile Applications Market estimates that the mobile application marketplace will reach $25 billion by 2015, up from about $7 billion in 2010. The driver for this is the growing adoption of smartphones and tablets, both led by Apple (iPhone and iPad) in most geographies, lower-cost mobile data plans, and the ability for publishers to offer free and low-cost apps supported by ads.

Indian developers are able to do mobile apps at about one-sixth the cost that a US developer would charge. And many do complex apps. Bangalore-based Aquilonis has a mobile app development and management platform that has been used by Fortune 100 companies and the US government. "Complex apps can take 6 to 8 months to do. And our platform can be licensed by users to make any changes in the apps that they want at any point," says Rahuldev Rajguru, co-founder of Aquilonis.

X-Cube Labs, founded by Sridhar Muppidi and which has its major development centre in Hyderabad, has done over 400 apps, more than 250 of that for the iPhone. The company, which has clients like Intel, GE, Hasbro and SouthPeak Games, says many of its apps have hit the top of the charts in the Apple App Store.

Wirkle in Gurgaon, founded by Varun Khurana, Sunil Goyal and Lomesh Dutta, has done some 10 iPhone apps, including a popular one called Friendthem, that allows you to use your phone to send a friend request to someone you just met.

Sourcebits' Singal says Apple's culture of focusing on user experience has stood out over everybody else he's met. "It's not easy to cultivate. And we had to do that within our own company," he says. Sourcebits had revenue of $6.5 million last year, with clients like GE, Coke, Hershey's and P&G. In a mail sent to his employees on Thursday, Singal wrote: "I owe by past and future success to Steve Jobs."

SpyEye Trojan Targets Online Banking Security Systems

Researchers have discovered a new attack by a popular malware program, the SpyEye Trojan, that is aimed at cracking security schemes that use text messaging to send confirmation codes to consumers so they can confirm transactions from their accounts.

The research team at Trusteer said the attack allows the thieves to change the mobile phone number in a consumer's online banking account and reroute text messages to the criminal’s phone. That allows them to perform transactions on the consumer's account without their knowledge.

According to the researchers, the attack works like this:

The malware first compromises the login information to the consumer's account. That allows a thief to access the account without being detected by the bank or consumer.

Next, a bit of social engineering needs to be employed to obtain the confirmation code originally used to activate the consumer's mobile phone number with the bank.

That's done by the malware injecting a phony page into the Web browser on the consumer's phone. The page, which looks like an one from the consumer's bank, says a new security system is being implemented by the bank. All customers are being issued a unique telephone number, it says, and will receive a special SIM card in the mail.

However, to participate in the mandatory program, a consumer must register with the bank. Part of that registration process includes typing the original confirmation code into the webpage where, of course, the Black Hats can capture it.

Armed with that code, the bandits can log in to the consumer's account and change the cellphone number associated with it. Once that's done, they can divert funds from the consumer's accounts until the consumer logs in and sees the unauthorized withdrawals or expenditures.

"This latest SpyEye configuration demonstrates that out-of-band authentication systems, including SMS-based solutions, are not fool-proof," the researchers concluded.

"Using a combination of MITB (man in the browser injection) technology and social engineering, fraudsters ... buy themselves more time since the transactions have been verified and fly under the radar of fraud detection systems," they continued.

"The only way to defeat this new attack once a computer has been infected with SpyEye is using endpoint security that blocks MITB techniques," they added. "Without a layered approach to security, even the most sophisticated OOBA schemes can be made irrelevant under the right circumstances."

How Your Old Browser Threatens Your Security

For most of us, the Web browser is the first application we use when we turn on a computer. It's how we check email, read the news, chat with friends and do just about everything.

What many users don't realize, however, is that the Web browser is the most important security defense our computers have — and yet 60 percent of the browsers accessing the Internet today are outdated. An outdated browser ends up impacting everyone's security, privacy and performance.

To help users understand the importance of the browser you use, the Online Trust Alliance (OTA), a Web-industry trade group based in Bellevue, Wash., that promotes security and trust in online marketing and commerce, recently unveiled the "Why Your Browser Matters" initiative.

"The 'Why Your Browser Matters' initiative provides users overall recommendations to upgrade their out-of-date and legacy browsers for a more safe, more private and more compelling online experience," said Craig Spiezle, executive director of OTA. "The Initiative is all about communicating with computer users to make them realize that an updated Web browser is one of the most important security steps you can take. It's as important as running anti-virus/anti-malware software."

Spiezle is quick to point out that while there is no magic bullet when it comes to computer security, the browser is on the front line of defense because it is used so frequently.

"Modern browsers detect malicious websites and phishing URLs, analyze downloads and support a broad suite of privacy features," Spiezle said. "It's critical to have these at your disposal when it comes to protecting yourself online, as well as protecting your machine in general."

How new browsers protect you

Modern browsers try to provide security for users in three different ways, explained Roger Thompson, chief emerging threats researcher for ICSA Labs in Mechanicsburg, Pa.

For example, said Thompson, all modern browsers have "blacklists" of known malware sites and try to prevent users from visiting them. This method works well if the malicious sites are well-known, but online criminals try to move websites around by changing domain names and IP addresses faster than security researchers can update the blacklists — so sometimes this doesn't work.

Some browsers, such as Google Chrome, also run applets and executable code in a "sandbox," meaning that the code and applets can't affect other parts of the browser or the operating system. Again, this doesn't always work.

And all modern browsers have a somewhat regular patch cycle, in which developers fix vulnerabilities to prevent direct attacks.

A good illustration of how a browser can act as the first line of defense is with regard to shortened URLs, or Web addresses.

URL-shortening services such as bit.ly, tinyurl.com or is.gd are handy to use when including links in instant messages, text messages or Twitter posts. Unfortunately, URL shorteners also mask the actual URLs they lead to, and give no warning that links might be drive-by downloads or exploits waiting for unsuspecting victims.

Fortunately, some enterprising software developers have created a way to find out where you're going.

"There are plug-ins available for Chrome and Firefox that will automatically expand short URLs to their actual address when viewing pages containing such links," said Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9, a Web security company in Waltham, Mass. "These are useful when using Facebook or Twitter from a browser, common places where malicious links are hiding in short URLs."

How to protect yourself

As Thompson pointed out, browser vendors are good about providing updates and patches that improve security by fixing vulnerabilities that bad guys exploit. But after that, it's up to the user himself to take action by actually downloading the updates, or upgrading the browser to the latest version.

You can check the version number of your browser by going to the Help button on your browser's menu and checking the “About” section. (On a Mac, click the name of the application next to the apple icon in the upper left of the screen.) Often, the "about" pop-up window will prompt you to check where there might be updates available.

For those who use Internet Explorer, Spiezle has this important piece of advice: "If it says Internet Explorer 6 ... run, do not walk to the nearest free download of Internet Explorer 9."

(If you're still running Windows XP, update to Internet Explorer 8, the latest version you can install.)

Internet Explorer 6 has been the target of a number of malicious attacks over the past decade; newer versions of Internet Explorer are much more secure.

Does it matter which browser you use? Spiezle and Thompson disagree on that question.

While Thompson said that today's browser upgrades have leveled the playing field when it comes to security, Spiezle pointed out that there still are differences among them, and each user has to assess which is best for his own uses.

"You need to look at not only the security features, but also privacy features, as well as support for the latest technologies," Spiezle said.

Sony Falls After Report on Buying Stake in Ericsson Venture

 Sony Corp., Japan’s largest exporter of consumer electronics, fell after a newspaper reported the company is close to an agreement to buy Ericsson AB’s stake in their mobile-phone venture.

The shares declined 3.1 percent to 1,424 yen as of 9:54 a.m. in Tokyo, the biggest drop in Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average, which gained 1.3 percent.

The two companies held regular discussions in recent years about the ownership structure of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, though they may fail to reach an agreement, the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing people familiar with the matter. The 50 percent stake could be valued at 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to 1.25 billion euros, the report said, citing unidentified analysts.

“The deal could amount to a huge financial burden on Sony,” Hideki Yasuda, a Tokyo-based analyst at Ace Securities Co. in Tokyo with a “neutral” rating on Sony’s stock, said today by phone. “On top of that, there could be a costly fee for using patents reserved by Ericsson.”

Shiro Kambe, a spokesman for Tokyo-based Sony, Ola Rembe at Stockholm-based Ericsson and Holly Rossetti at London-based Sony Ericsson, all declined to comment.

Full control of the venture would add smartphones using Google Inc.’s Android system to Sony’s device business, while freeing Ericsson to concentrate on sales of wireless transmission equipment and services. Sony Ericsson already makes a smartphone with a slideout gaming keyboard that has functions similar to Sony’s Playstation game system.

‘No Point’

“This would make sense for both Ericsson and Sony,” said Haakan Wranne, a Stockholm-based analyst at Swedbank Markets, who said a deal may value Ericsson’s 50 percent stake at as much as 1.4 billion euros. “The current venture doesn’t maximize the potential of Sony’s presence and assets in gaming, and is diluting what could be a bigger-profile Sony offering.”

“‘There is no point’’ for Ericsson to ‘‘remain involved and bear the risk of having to pay additional funds to the joint venture,’’ said Pierre Ferragu, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein.

Ericsson and Sony formed the joint venture on Oct. 1, 2001, giving themselves five years to dethrone Nokia Oyj as the world’s biggest mobile-phone maker. Nokia is still the biggest handset maker by units, while Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. passed it in the smartphone market in the second quarter, according to Strategy Analytics.

Rating Cut

Nomura Holdings Inc., Japan’s biggest securities brokerage, cut its target price for Sony by 41 percent to 1,650 yen and lowered the rating for the stock to ‘‘neutral” from “buy” in a report yesterday, citing macro-economic pressure on earnings and difficulties for Sony in reducing costs further.

Nomura also lowered its industry outlook for the Japanese consumer electronics industry to “neutral” from “bullish.”

Macquarie Group Ltd. also lowered its target price for the stock by 11 percent to 1,600 yen yesterday.

Sony Ericsson reported its first quarterly loss in more than a year on July 15. Chief Executive Officer Bert Nordberg said at the time the company was ramping down its feature phone business as the worldwide market for handsets without smartphone software was “collapsing.”

The company’s efforts to replace its aging smartphone portfolio with updated models such as the Xperia Arc were dented by supply-chain disruptions following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March. The company shipped 7.6 million handsets in the second quarter, falling short of the 9.1 million estimated by analysts.

Sony Technologies

The company’s phones use Sony technologies produced in northern Japan, such as camera sensors, displays and batteries.

Sony Ericsson was the world’s 10th-biggest handset manufacturer in the second quarter with a 1.7 percent share, according to market researchers Gartner Inc. It had a 3 percent share a year earlier. Bigger competitors in the Android segment include Samsung, HTC Corp., and Motorola Mobility Inc., which was acquired this year by Google for $12.5 billion.

Ericsson can’t expect “to get anywhere close to that amount,” Swedbank’s Wranne said. Google was keen to get Motorola’s intellectual-property holdings “and was prepared to pay up for it.” Sony is also the only realistic buyer for the stake and Ericsson therefore “doesn’t have the opportunity to play this one out.”

Sony Ericsson has more than 4,000 of its own telecom patents and has a license to all the Nortel Networks Corp. patents that were auctioned this year, Gustaf Brusewitz, a spokesman for the joint venture, said in August. Both Ericsson and Sony were part of a group, which also included Apple and Microsoft Corp., that agreed in July to pay $4.5 billion for a portfolio of patents from the breakup of Nortel to keep them out of Google’s hands.

Google Earth downloaded more than 1 Billion times

How large is one billion? One billion hours ago modern humans were living in the Stone Age. One billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was flourishing. If you traveled from Earth to the Moon three times, your journey would measure one billion meters.

Today, we’ve reached our own one billion mark: Google Earth has been downloaded more than one billion times since it was first introduced in 2005. That’s more than one billion downloads of the Google Earth desktop client, mobile apps and the Google Earth plug-in—all enabling you to to explore the world in seconds, from Earth to Mars to the ocean floor.
We’re proud of our one billion milestone, but we’re even more amazed at the way people have used Google Earth to explore the world. When we founded Keyhole, Inc. back in 2001 (the company was acquired by Google in 2004), we never imagined our geospatial technology would be used by people in so many unexpected ways. At www.OneWorldManyStories.com, we’ve collected stories from people all over the world who use Google Earth to follow their dreams, discover new and distant places, or make the world a better place.
Visit www.OneWorldManyStories.com to learn about people like Professor David Kennedy of the University of Western Australia, who’s used Google Earth to scan thousands of square kilometers in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Professor Kennedy has discovered ancient tombs and geoglyphs dating back at least 2,000 years, all without leaving his desk in Perth. Architect Barnaby Gunning, after the April 6, 2009 earthquake near L’Aquila Italy, encouraged his fellow citizens to start rebuilding the city virtually in 3D. Their online urban planning will aid city planners and architects. Retired English teacher Jerome Burg created Google Lit Trips, which uses Google Earth to match places in famous books to their geographical locations, encouraging students to create connections between the stories they read in school and the world they live in.

We hope you enjoy the site, and that it illustrates how some of those one billion downloads of Google Earth have been making a difference. You can explore these stories right in your browser with the Google Earth plug-in or download the KML files to view in Google Earth.

If you have a Google Earth story you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. If you don’t have Google Earth, download it now and be part of the next billion stories. While it’s inspiring to see how Google Earth has touched the lives of so many, we know the best is yet to come. 

India launches "world's cheapest" tablet computer

India launched what it dubbed the world's cheapest tablet computer Wednesday, to be sold to students at the subsidized price of $35 and later in shops for about $60

Most of India's 1.2 billion people are poor and products such as Apple Inc's iPad are beyond the reach even of many in the fast-growing middle class.

"The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide," Telecoms and Education Minister Kapil Sibal said.

The government is buying the first units of the lightweight touch-screen device, called Aakash, or "sky" in Hindi, for $50 each from a British company which is assembling the web-enabled devices in India.

A pilot run of 100,000 units will be given to students for free, with the first 500 handed out at the launch to a mixed response. It supports video conferencing, has two USB ports and a three-hour battery life but some users said it was slow.

India has a reputation for creating affordable products that are easy to use and sturdy enough to handle its rugged environment -- from Tata Motors' $2,000 Nano car to generic versions of pharmaceuticals.

Two years in development, the paperback book-sized Aakash may help the government's goal of incorporating information technology in education, although critics were doubtful of its mass appeal.

Despite being a leader in software and IT services, India trails fellow BRIC nations Brazil, Russia and China in the drive to get the masses connected to the Internet and mobile phones, a report by risk analysis firm Maplecroft said this year.

The number of Internet users grew 15-fold between 2000 and 2010 in India, according to another recent report. Still, just 8 percent of Indians have access. That compares with nearly 40 percent in China.

The Aakash is aimed at university students for digital learning via a government platform that distributes electronic books and courses.

Testing included running video for two hours in temperatures of 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit) to mimic a northern Indian summer, said DataWind, the small London-based company that developed the tablet with the Indian Institute of Technology.

Rajat Agrawal, executive editor of gadget reviewers BGR India, said the 660 mhz processor from U.S. company Conexant Systems was "decent" for the price, but warned the machine seemed slow and the touch screen not very agile.

"Because of the price there is a lot of excitement," he said. "People might use it initially but if it is not user friendly they will give up within a week."

After first giving them out for free, the government aims to sell them to students for $35 next year. A retail version will be sold in Indian shops for about $60.

The device uses resistive LCD displays rather than a full touch screen and connects via wireless broadband. DataWind CEO Suneet Singh said future versions would include a mobile phone connection, making it more useful in rural areas.

The launch last week of Amazon's Kindle Fire shook up the global tablet market, with its $199 price tag and slick browser a serious threat to Apple's iPad.

Like the Kindle Fire, the Aakash uses the Google Android operating system.

Some of the mainly middle-class technology department students at the event said it needed refinement but was a good option for the poor.

"It could be better," said Nikant Vohra, an electrical engineering student. "If you see it from the price only, it's okay, but we have laptops and have used iPads, so we know the difference."

Some 19 million people subscribe to mobile phones every month, making India the world's fastest growing market, but most are from the wealthier segment of the population in towns.

Bose Bluetooth Headset Series 2 Launches

Bose has more than a few Bluetooth devices in its line. Last month we talked about the new SoundLink mobile Bluetooth speaker. Bose has announced that its new Bluetooth headset called the Series 2 has now launched and is available for purchase online. The headset has noise cancellation tech inside and has a mic that rejects outside noise like wind so the caller can be heard clearly. There is one strange thing about the Bose headset though; it comes in dedicated right or left versions.

You can’t buy one headset and use it in either ear. The device has the Bose TriPort acoustic structure and Bose Audio Adjustment tech to allow it to adjust sound with the noise level around the user so they don’t have to mess with controls. The headset also has Bose StayHear tips that are made for comfort and stability.

The headset will work with devices supporting A2DP and Bluetooth hands-free profiles. Bose ships the unit with a zippered case, a one foot USB cable for charging, power adapter, and three different ear tip sizes. The Series 2 sells for $149.99 and is available directly through Bose or its retailers.