One of the positives, and at the same time negatives, of Google's Android Market has been the "anything goes" style of app acceptance into the Market. That's been criticized more and more, as more malware writers target the Market with infected apps, some of them taking legit apps and lacing them with trojans.
Google has come up with a fix that doesn't go as far as Apple or Amazon.com (for its Appstore), meaning as far as curating apps, but at the same time cures the Market of its "Wild Wild West" problems. It's called Bouncer.
Bouncer is a service that Google has been working on for some time. Just announced on Thursday, Bouncer scans the Android Market for potentially malicious software automatically. With Bouncer, Google can protect users against malware while still removing the (some call draconian) application approval process of the App Store from the equation.
To detect malicious software, Google looks for known signatures as any antivirus might do, but also runs apps on a simulator in the cloud. The company also analyzes new developer accounts to help prevent repeat-offenders from returning.
What's interesting, though, is that Google said that Bouncer has been running silently, sans publicity, for some time. The company was vague, and said "for some time," but they also indicated that from their estimates, Android malware is declining.
The news was met with approval, but also criticism, as some had been calling for Google --- if it wasn't going to curate apps --- to scan them, instead, since the Android Market opened.
Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer at Lookout, one of the more highly regarded mobile security firms, said "We think it is great that Google is working with the Android community to provide an alternative to a manual curation process, allowing developers to innovate quickly while also increasing the baseline level of security for Android users."
We have security software on all our Android devices, but not as much for protection against malware as for protection against loss or stolen devices. The software we use allows remote lock, location, and remote wipe, to protect against instances when our devices --- with all our important data --- might be lost.
If you have a rooted Android phone, and are attached to an unsecured wi-fi network, you could --- if you so desire --- drive other users on the network crazy with this Android app. The app, Network Spoofer, is free in the Android Market and has a 4.3 star rating.
It's been in the Android Market since August of 2011. However, it seems to just now hitting the popular apps section of Appbrain, which means a lot of people are suddenly picking up on it.
Did we mention it was free?
Since it's somewhat malicious, we'd have to think that it's popularity, as well as publicity such as this, whether wanted or unwanted, may end up with it being booted by Google. Thus, if you want it, get it now.
The app works by performing a "man in the middle" attack, tricking victim computers into thinking that the phone is the router, and tricking the router into thinking that the phone is the victim's computer.
With that, the app can flip images, change Google searches, redirect websites, and even rickroll victims' computers.
Notably, if you have security software on your Android phone, it may pick up this app as a virus ... it's somewhat malicious after all, and uses root heavily. Reportedly, it uses a lot of battery, as well.
Still, the overall reaction to the app is favorable, although we assume that's only for the people running the app, and not the victims.
We personally don't believe you should download and run this program --- seriously --- as we'd hate to be victimized ourselves. What it does show, however, is how vulnerable you are at an open wi-fi hotspot, which is why we are writing about it.
If you're looking for something iDevice-related to give to someone for the holidays, you could consider the iArm, a forearm mount that allows you to carry a tablet on your arm, just as it sounds. Or you could give them the iDrive, which is away to attach a tablet onto your steering wheel. Or you could give them neither, as the boxes exist, but not the products themselves.
The idea is that you fake out your gift recipients with the boxes, and then enclose something else inside. It would be interesting if the giftee was disappointed in not receiving an actual iDrive.
The boxes come via the company PrankPack.com. They appear to contain gifts that range from the above two gifts to things like the PetPetter, which ... well, pets your pets.
Meanwhile, the Blankeez is like a Snuggie that can handle up to eight people. This one might be believable considering all the publicity (good and bad) around the Snuggie.
Among other faux tech gifts are Toe Tunes, which is supposed to be slippers that double as a pair of wireless speakers.
The PrankPack boxes are $8 each, or 3 for $20. Shipping is $5 flat rate, no matter how many faux gifts you buy.
A song written and sung by Dhanush for the film “3″ has been leaked on the net and the makers have now decided to release it as a single track.
Sources close to the project say that they plan to tweak the song, composed by debutant Anirudh and that the audio will hit the shelves soon.
“The song is in both Tamil and English and will appeal to the youth,” said the sources close to Aishwarya, who is directing the film.
The film created quite a sensation when the daughters of two veterans of southern cinema decided to team up for it. The film, which is directed by Rajinikanth’s daughter Aishwarya and stars Kamal Haasan’s daughter Shruthi in the feamle lead is gaining more publicity after the “leak” episode.
A song written and sung by Dhanush for the film “3″ has been leaked on the net and the makers have now decided to release it as a single track.
Sources close to the project say that they plan to tweak the song, composed by debutant Anirudh and that the audio will hit the shelves soon.
“The song is in both Tamil and English and will appeal to the youth,” said the sources close to Aishwarya, who is directing the film.
The film created quite a sensation when the daughters of two veterans of southern cinema decided to team up for it. The film, which is directed by Rajinikanth’s daughter Aishwarya and stars Kamal Haasan’s daughter Shruthi in the feamle lead is gaining more publicity after the “leak” episode.
Name: Zhu Songhua 朱松花 Date of Birth: Jan 31, 1980 Height: 168 cm Weight: 50 kg Measurements: 33 26 35 Weibo:http://www.weibo.com/1758971192 About:Zhu Songhua 朱松花 or also known as Yuhua 雨花 became famous online with Netizens wildly spreading her graceful bodied, delicate faced, sweet smiled, fashionably and sexily dressed pictures but most surprised by her identity - Zhu Songhua is an elementary school teacher teaching Chinese language in the First Primary School of Jiangsu Nantong (江苏南通师范第一附属小学).
Zhu Songhua became popular in September of 2010 after appearing in the popular Jiangsu TV show "Happy Late Name" 幸福晚点名. During and after the show, Zhu Songhua immediately garnered much attention. Her pictures were quickly spread online and China Netizens dubbed her as the "China Most Beautiful Female Teacher" and "China Most Sexy Female Teacher".
With all the media attentions and her past modeling pictures circulating around, it brought tremendous pressure to her. She has experienced great popularity on the Internet but at the same time has also suffered criticism and skepticism. This award winning teacher said, "I'm just an ordinary person who just want to live a normal life, not trying to gain publicity."
Her colleague expressed, Zhu Songhua loves teaching and has always been exceptionally talented amongst the teaching staff. She normally does not dress and make-up herself like what is seen in her pictures online. Zhu Songhua definitely revolutionized the image of teachers in my mind and for once, I'm willing to study again! Anyway, only the best of Zhu Songhua available here, all filtered by http://dailylenglui.blogspot.com.
Casey Anthony was released from jail on Sunday, and although her life is sure to be a media frenzy and already include tons of death threats, how would you like to be a 43-year-old Pennsylvania man named Casey Anthony? The answer is: you wouldn't.
Casey Anthony not only isn't the same gender as the famous 25-year-old Casey Anthony acquitted recently in the death of her daughter Caylee, he's not the same race, either. After the trial ended, the African-American man began seeing hundreds of friend requests, messages, wall posts, and because his profile included his number, phone calls.
He said, “I can't change my name, ladies and gentlemen. After the verdict that day, it went crazy. It was like everybody wanted to know and wanted to comment on this Casey Anthony situation.
“They were making comments about the verdict; who am I to take a child’s life. And then I’m sitting back like, excuse me? I’m not the Casey Anthony you think.
“It went from being comical and scary to just being outright, make you mad as ... you know. Cause these people don't even know you, they don't have a clue."
After the first few Florida area code phone calls came in, Anthony just stopped answering his phone. Hopefully, it's not his cell phone number that he "publicized" on Facebook, as most people would hate to have to change that number.
Sadly, his family is suffering as well. He has two sons that also have the name ... Casey Anthony.
There are dozens of Casey Anthony Facebook accounts. Many of them are spoof accounts, and some were put up in reference to the trial. Casey Anthony (the man) is experiencing the result of privacy settings that aren't quite up to snuff. He could have made sure his information was only shared with friends. Considering the publicity over the trial, he probably should have been expecting this.
On the other hand, since most people include photos in their account, it's surprising that folks didn't look at his image and know the difference. Watch a local TV station's video report below.
Facebook Friend Exporter, which has gotten a lot of publicity over its ability to enable the export the information of your Facebook Friends to other services (especially Google+) is now in a seesaw battle with Facebook. Facebook noticed, as we figured it would, and has begun blocking it's use.
Facebook is trying so hard to not allow you to export your friends. They started to remove emails of your friends from your profile by today July 5th 2011. It will no longer work for many people.
New version with a different design is currently deploying. You might have to do exports daily. It uses a different approach, and I will maintain this version. Just bear with me.
Facebook Friend Exporter wasn't designed with Google+ in mind, and it was first released in November of 2010 as a method to export your Facebook Friends to Gmail. The spike in usage as Google+ began to roll out to a "select few" was not unnoticed by Facebook, however.
Mansour explained how Facebook is blocking his extension. Facebook implemented a throttling mechanism: if you visit any friend page five times in a short period of time, the email field is removed. Email addresses were critical to the original design of his extension. Mansour said:
“Facebook is actually hiding data (email) from you to see when your friends explicitly shared that to you. Making it really hard to scrape because the only missing data is your emails, and that is your friends identity. Nothing else is.”
To be clear, the extension violates Section 3.2 of Facebook's terms of service, which could get you banned. Section 3.2 states,
"You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission."
However, Facebook's stepped thus far have just annoyed Mansour (to be honest, we're surprised Facebook hasn't banned him). He said, in a Google+ post:
I am bloody annoyed now, because this proves Facebook owns every users data on Facebook. You don't own anything! If I were you, I would riot this to the media outlets again.
Too much publicity can be a bad thing, apparently. It was publicized on Monday that Toyota had started an ad campaign on Cydia. Well, since Cydia is the repository for apps for jailbroken iDevices, Apple took Toyota aside and spoke to them, and they are now pulling out.
Once a device is jailbroken, Cydia is installed on their device, and an end user can then search for, browse, and install apps that Apple has rejected from the App Store. In this case, the ad in question was a Cydia theme that was Toyota-centric (above).
Not only has Toyota requested the theme be pulled from distribution, it also contacted the site ModMyI's founder Kyle Matthews, and pulled their advertising campaign from his site. ModMyI had been hosting Toyota’s theme and promoting the theme.
Reportedly, ModMyI had been hosting Toyota’s theme for two months, but it wasn't until Monday that the news spread around the web. Once that happened, according to Toyota, Apple asked them to remove the app when they found out:
The reason Velti [Toyota ad agency] listed for the removal request of the theme emailed through our dev portal was "Toyota’s making us take it down ..." Toyota had agreed to do so to "maintain their good relationship with Apple," our Velti contact told me on the phone.
It's not surprising. Although jailbreaking has been made legal by a DMCA exemption, it still voids your warranty, and Apple will do everything it can to discourage it.
Actress Sonam Kapoor since last night and day was working. Whose effect on his health are beginning to look. So because of exhaustion he was admitted to Bombay Hospital Kokilaben.
According to sources Sonam Thank you three movies at the moment, the weather and the player shooting and engaged in publicity and so much fatigue Mahsssu busy schedule because they had been.
Well Sonam fans are praying for his recovery is quick.
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