An anonymous reader writes "Apple has released a software update (iOS 4.3.3) to fix the much-talked-about iPhone Location Tracking bug. Apple faced a lot of criticism over the issue — iPhone and iPad secretly tracks users' locations and saves them in the device's cache as well as in a hidden file which is copied to the PC whenever the computer gets synced with device."

Lanxon writes "Designer Dominic Wilcox has come up with a Pinocchio-style 'finger-nose stylus' that lets you use your phone hands free, reports Wired. He came up with the design after he found that he wanted to use his touchphone in the bath. A wet hand is not a good touchscreen navigation device, so he found himself using his nose to scroll, but found it hard to see precisely where his nose was touching the screen. The solution was to create a nose extension 'finger' that would allow for navigation while holding the phone firmly in his one dry hand."

mask.of.sanity writes "The first dynamic Android firewall, dubbed WhisperMonitor, has been released by respected security researcher Moxie Marlinspike. The firewall will allow users to stop location-tracking apps and restrict connection attempts by applications. Marlinspike, whose company created the application, designed WhisperMonitor in response to the incidence of location tracking and malware on Android platforms. It monitors all outbound connection attempts by applications and the operating system, and asks users to permit or block any URLs and port numbers that are accessed."

iluvcapra writes "Google, in its continuing struggle to provide phone carriers (if not its end users) with an open platform, is now banning tethering apps from the Android market. These apps haven't disappeared and can still be sideloaded, insofar as your carrier doesn't lock this functionality or snoop on your packets."

BogenDorpher writes "It looks like Apple will be using Intel as a main processor manufacturer to power the iPad, iPod touch, and the iPhone. Apple, who currently uses Samsung, will focus on making a switch to Intel within a year."

The Digital Foundry blog took a detailed look at gaming on Apple's recently released iPad 2. While most reviews of the device focus on the tablet's size, accessories and software features, this one puts the new A5 processor through its paces, finding "anything from a 4x to 7x leap over what was seen in the original version of the tablet." The authors suggest that it has boosted mobile gaming to a point where Apple could be preparing for a much bigger entrance into the gaming market. "Either we are looking at a company looking to consolidate its iron grip on the mobile games market by combining its existing unparalleled developer support with state-of-the-art technology, or else iPad 2 represents the first stages of a plan to expand iOS' reach from mobile phones and MP3 players through to tablets and perhaps in the near future, home games consoles. ... Technical and hardware challenges aside, there's no doubt whatsoever that Apple is extremely well-placed to expand its reach in the games market and launch a new, disruptive assault on the status quo every bit as effective as its mobile offerings have been. There have been plenty of creditable attempts at claiming the multi-purpose set-top box market, but there has been no outright winner. Arguably, Apple has the brand presence, the games, and the music/video services to actually make it happen."

racquetballguy writes "As part of a December 2010 settlement agreement, NVIDIA agreed to provide all owners of laptops containing a defective NVIDIA GPU with a laptop of similar kind and value. In February, NVIDIA announced that a $279 single-core Compaq CQ56 would be provided as a replacement to all laptops — from $2500 dual-core tablet PCs to $2000 17" entertainment notebooks. Ted Frank, from the Center for Class Action Fairness, filed an objection to the court, which was overruled by Judge Ware today. Once again, the consumers of a class action lawsuit lose."

adeelarshad82 writes "RIM announced two new BlackBerry phones with high-res touchscreens, 1.2GHz processors and a new OS that offers better graphics than BlackBerries had before. The new BlackBerry 7 OS brings the 'liquid graphics' ability and offers '60 frames per second performance with instant UI action/response.' What's unfortunate about the new OS is that rather than being entirely new, BlackBerry 7 is just an upgrade to the existing BlackBerry 6 OS."

MojoKid writes "Google recently launched Google Talk with video and voice chat for Android phones. With the service, users will be able to video or voice chat with their friends and family directly from an Android phone. Calls can be placed over 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi connections. According to Google, the new features will first roll out to the Nexus S phones over the next few weeks as part of the Android 2.3.4 over-the-air update. Google Talk with video and voice chat will launch on other Android 2.3 and higher devices in the future as well. The video demo in the article shows it in action."

An anonymous reader writes "The crazy guys over at crowdflow.net are begging you for the location data that your iPhone collected without you being aware of it. All your data will be anonymized, and the whole combined data set of all donations will be shared under an OpenDataCommons license. Those people are data and visualization geeks and create beautiful visualizations like this from the data. They previously did a visualization of data retention caused by the German 'Vorratsdatenspeicherung.' Please consider donating your location data. ...and be fast, too, since the upcoming iOS software update (see Apple press release) will prevent further evaluation of the collected data."

An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Dobb's has a three-part blog (all three parts are up; this is part 1) about using App Inventor. The focus isn't so much on the technology but rather the discussion of 'can visual development let anyone program?' If so, is App Inventor really visual development? And should we be teaching real programmers about visual development. Most of the conclusions are in part 3. As a byproduct, they show you how to put App Inventor output on the Market and there are two games on the market (free) that resulted from the articles." Here's part two, to round out the trilogy.

angry tapir writes "Yet another problem has cropped up preventing some Windows Phone 7 users from getting two software updates, adding a new chapter to the update saga that started in February."

MojoKid writes "Adobe last night announced the release of Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablets and it is available for download in the Android Market. Eventually, this could prove to be a big deal, but it looks as though a Honeycomb update is needed to take full advantage of the Flash Player 10.2's new features. It's not certain if it was intentional or not, but Adobe's statement points to an updated Honeycomb release, Android 3.1. According to reports, the new Android build is coming out soon for currently shipping Honeycomb tablets like the Xoom and Eee Pad Transformer."

GMGruman writes "Android smartphones have overpowered the iPhone in market share, yet Android tablets barely register in sales versus the iPad. Android tablets are as competitive in most respects against the iPad as Android smartphones are against the iPhone. So why the difference in success? Galen Gruman examines five theories for the gap, and concludes the reason is that Android tablets' real competitor is in fact not the iPad."

nonprofiteer writes "After all the location tracking drama, Verizon tells Congress that 'it's going to start slapping a surgeon-general-type warning on the phones it sells: Using this device could be hazardous to your location privacy, and may result in your being tracked!' The actual warning (PDF) is a little drier — illustration with story."

jfruhlinger writes "After the announcement of disappointing BlackBerry sales last quarter, RIM shares started to plummet. Blogger Chris Nerney wonders if this isn't the beginning of the company's death spiral, with the exodus away from RIM's BlackBerry platform too far along to stop and the company too small to compete with huge rivals like Apple and Google."

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes of the growing unease among consumers around mobile data privacy, and how this distrust will impact mobile app development. 'When every week seems to bring another news story about a data breach resulting in the theft of customer data, customers are growing increasingly jealous of their privacy. Given the unique nature of the data to be found on smartphones, it's only natural that they have begun to view mobile apps with a skeptical eye. If you're developing apps that use customers' mobile data, you need to do more than recognize these realities. You need to develop a policy that places secure, ethical, and appropriate handling of user data at the core of your application development process.'"

angry tapir writes "Nokia will outsource its Symbian software activities to Accenture, transferring 3,000 employees to the company in the process, as it moves its focus to making phones running on Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system. The Finnish phone manufacturer will also close some of its research and development sites and eliminate a further 4,000 jobs by the end of next year. Last week Nokia announced the signing of a definitive agreement regarding their global mobile ecosystem partnership."

orenh writes "Google has released a Google Docs application for Android, which includes the ability to create documents by OCR-ing photos. I tested the application's OCR quality and found that it's mediocre under the best conditions and poor under real-world conditions. However, I believe that this poor performance is caused in part by an intentional decision by Google."

suraj.sun writes with this unhappy news, as reported by Ars Technica: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that AT&T — and indeed, any company — could block class-action suits arising from disputes with customers and instead force those customers into binding arbitration. The ruling reverses previous lower-court decisions that classified stipulations in AT&T's service contract which barred class arbitration as 'unconscionable.' ... In cases where an unfair practice affects large numbers of customers, AT&T or other companies could quietly settle a few individual claims instead of being faced with larger class-action settlements which might include punitive awards designed to discourage future bad practices."