Zothecula writes "It's a given that we will one day be discarding our present laptop computers. It's also a given that e-waste is currently a huge problem, that looks like it's only going to get worse. While most of the materials in a laptop can be recycled, all of those pieces of glass, metal, plastic and circuitry are stuck together pretty tight, and require a lot of time and effort to separate. What is needed are laptops that are designed to be taken apart, for easy recycling – that's why a group of graduate students from Stanford University made one."

NeverVotedBush writes with this excerpt from CNet: "A security firm disclosed holes today in mobile apps from Bank of America, USAA, Chase, Wells Fargo and TD Ameritrade, prompting a scramble by most of the companies to update the apps. ... Specifically, viaForensics concluded that: the USAA's Android app stored copies of Web pages a user visited on the phone; TD Ameritrade's iPhone and Android apps were storing the user name in plain text on the phone; Wells Fargo's Android app stored user name, password, and account data in plain text on the phone; Bank of America's Android app saves a security question (used if a user was accessing the site from an unrecognized device) in plain text on the phone; and Chase's iPhone app stores the username on a phone if the user chose that option, according to the report. Meanwhile, the iPhone apps from USAA, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Vanguard and PayPal's Android app all passed the security tests and were found to be handling data securely."

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla has released Beta 2 of Firefox 4 for Mobile. Some notable improvements over the initial beta release include 'reduced memory usage, improved text rendering and a 60% install size reduction on Android (from around 43 MB to 17 MB).' Mozilla also makes mention that 'actions like panning and zooming are faster and smoother, and page load times are reduced from our previous beta. On Android 2.2, we're now around 25% faster on the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark than the stock browser.' A future beta release will enable GL acceleration, which should further improve the performance of the browser."

CWmike writes "A computer security researcher says he plans to release code Thursday that could be used to attack some versions of Google's Android phones over the Internet. The attack targets the browser in older, Android 2.1-and-earlier versions of the phones. It is being disclosed Thursday at the HouSecCon conference by M.J. Keith, a security researcher with Alert Logic. Keith says he has written code that allows him to run a simple command line shell in Android (video) when the victim visits a website that contains his attack code. The bug used in Keith's attack lies in the WebKit browser engine used by Android. Google said it knows about the vulnerability. 'We're aware of an issue in WebKit that could potentially impact only old versions of the Android browser,' Google spokesman Jay Nancarrow confirmed in an e-mail. 'The issue does not affect Android 2.2 or later versions.' Version 2.2 runs on 36.2 percent of Android phones, Google says"

The lack of Flash in the new MacBook Air may annoy some users, but it has a big upside, too. According to Wired's report (citing Ars Technica) passed on by an anonymous reader, "Having Flash installed can cut battery runtime considerably — as much as 33 percent in our testing. With a handful of websites loaded in Safari, Flash-based ads kept the CPU running far more than seemed necessary, and the best time I recorded with Flash installed was just 4 hours. After deleting Flash, however, the MacBook Air ran for 6:02 — with the exact same set of websites reloaded in Safari, and with static ads replacing the CPU-sucking Flash versions."

snydeq writes "T-Mobile has officially joined Sprint in pushing the promise of '4G' mobile services on consumers, despite the fact that, according to the ITU standards body, neither carriers' offerings constitute 4G mobile technology. In Sprint's defense, it has been advertising its WiMax-covered areas as 4G for nearly a year — technically not a lie because until last month 4G didn't mean anything, InfoWorld's Galen Gruman reports. But now that the ITU has provided a standard against which the FCC and FTC can judge truth in advertising, T-Mobile's new 4G ad campaign is a 'bald-faced lie,' Gruman writes." National ad campaigns take more than a month to coordinate, though — if the term was basically free-floating until last month (with quite a few candidate standards over the years), it seems hard to condemn companies too harshly for using a marketing catch-phrase.

nk497 writes "Microsoft has outlined how it might use the little publicized 'kill switch' in Windows Phone 7 handsets. 'We don't really talk about it publicly because the focus is on testing of apps to make sure they're okay, but in the rare event that we need to, we have the tools to take action,' said Todd Biggs, director of product management for Windows Phone Marketplace. According to Biggs, Microsoft's strict testing of apps when they are submitted for inclusion in Marketplace should minimize kill switch use, but he explained how the company could remove apps from the marketplace or phones, when devices check-in to the system. 'We could unpublish it from the catalog so that it was no longer available, but if it was very rogue then we could remove applications from handsets — we don't want things to go that far, but we could.'"

joshgnosis writes "The CSIRO has unveiled new technology that could bring internet to people in rural or remote parts of Australia using their existing TV antennas. Analog TV signal is set to be switched off in 2013 but this technology could see the spectrum used to deliver internet straight into people's homes through their TV antenna. Gartner expert Robin Simpson told ZDNet Australia that this would make it much easier for companies to get new customers. 'What appeals to me about it is that it re-uses existing infrastructure, all of the competing wireless technologies tend to use high frequencies and therefore require new base stations, new spectrum and new receiving antenna infrastructure as well,' he said. 'The fact that they're re-using the analog TV stuff gives them a much easier market entry strategy.'"

An anonymous reader writes "While the HTML5 and Flash standard debate rages, Apple, a major promoter of HTML5, has allowed its iOS devices to run Flash videos. Apple has given approval to an app developed by Skyfire that translates Flash code into HTML5. According to CNN, when a user clicks on a Flash video the Skyfire app downloads the Flash video on Skyfire's server where the video is decoded and then encoded in HTML5 and is delivered to an iOS device. The app is embedded in the Safari browser."

judgecorp writes "More progress for WiGig, the proposal for 3Gbps wireless links on 60GHz radio waves. The WiGig group has signed a deal with VESA, the display standards group, to include WiGig as a fast wireless option in VESA's DisplayPort standard. As well as letting you use a TV as a display for your phone, without having to connect a cable, it will also make synching and file transfer quicker."

swandives writes "Following on from the iPhone serial port hack, Chris Pollock shows how an iPad will look with a serial port adapter for those who need more screen space. The pictures show a basic prototype, but Pollock expects to have a more attractive alternative up and running in the coming months."

adeelarshad82 writes "According to recent reports, a Google-branded Chrome OS notebook will be launched by Inventec later this month. Acer and HP will be launching theirs a month later, in December. This report is also backed by a source close to Google stating that the company is still on track to launch its Chrome OS by the end of the year, as well as its Chrome app store."

geek4 writes with this excerpt from eWeek Europe: "An analysis of Google Android Froyo's open source kernel has uncovered 88 critical flaws that could expose users' personal information. An analysis of the kernel used in Google's Android smartphone software has turned up 88 high-risk security flaws that could be used to expose users' personal information, security firm Coverity said in a report published on Tuesday. The results, published in the 2010 edition of the Coverity Scan Open Source Integrity Report, are based on an analysis of the Froyo kernel used in HTC's Droid Incredible handset. ... While Android implementations vary from device to device, Coverity said the same flaws were likely to exist in other handsets as well. Coverity uncovered a total of 359 bugs, about one-quarter of which were classified as high-risk."

alphadogg writes "Firesheep, the Mozilla Firefox add-on released about a week ago that lets you spot users on open networks visiting unsecured websites, has given creator Eric Butler more than his 15 minutes of fame. More than 542,000 downloads later, Firesheep has thrown Butler into the middle of heated discussions regarding everything from the ethics of releasing the code to the legality of using it to the need for website vendors to clean up their security acts. Butler, who describes himself as a freelance Web application and software developer, reflects on the past week's happenings in a new blog post that reads in part: 'I've received hundreds of messages from people who are extremely happy that the issue of website security is receiving attention. Some, however, have questioned if Firesheep is legal to use. I'd like to be clear about this: It is nobody's business telling you what software you can or cannot run on your own computer. Like any tool, Firesheep can be used for many things. In addition to raising awareness, it has already proven very useful for people who want to test their own security as well as the security of their (consenting) friends. A much more appropriate question is: "Is it legal to access someone else's accounts without their permission."'"

Ponca City writes "A good deal of polling data suggest that Republicans may win the House of Representatives in today's mid-term elections. However, Nate Silver writes in the NY Times that there are several factors that could skew the election, allowing Democrats to outperform their polls and beat consensus expectations. Most prominent is the 'cellphone effect.' In 2003, just 3.2% of households were cell-only, while in the 2010 election one-quarter of American adults have ditched their landlines and rely exclusively on their mobile phones, and a lot of pollsters don't call mobile phones. Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white — all Democratic demographics — and a study by Pew Research suggests that the failure to include them might bias the polls by about 4 points against Democrats, even after demographic weighting is applied. Another factor that could skew results is the Robopoll effect, where there are significant differences between the results shown by automated surveys and those which use live human interviewers — the 'robopolls' being 3 or 4 points more favorable to Republicans over all. It may be that only adults who are extremely engaged by politics (who are more likely to be Republican, especially this year) bother to respond to robocalls. Still, when all is said and done, 'more likely than not, Republicans will indeed win the House, and will do so by a significant margin,' writes Silver. 'But just as Republicans could beat the consensus, Democrats could too, and nobody should be particularly shocked if they do.'"

dbune writes "Google is not letting a handset application that spies on someone's text messages be sold at its Android App Store. The Secret SMS Replicator developed by DLP Mobile to help lovers find out if their partners are cheating on them violates company policy, according to Google. The app works by secretly duplicating incoming text messages and forwarding these to another mobile phone number."

jcl-xen0n writes "Apparently, some Chinese Kindle owners have discovered that they are able to access banned sites such as Twitter and Facebook without a problem. The article speculates that Amazon may be operating a local equivalent to Amazon Whispernet with a Chinese 3G provider. Professor Lawrence Yeung Kwan, of the University of Hong Kong's electrical and electronic engineering department, told the paper that mainland internet patrols might have overlooked the gadget (perhaps because they consider it solely a tool to purchase books). How long before Kindle traffic is locked down?"

An anonymous reader submitted linkage to a company called 8pen that has a new take on one-handed input. I've attached the video if you click the link below, but it's a strange idea using outward spreading swipes that somewhat mimics handwriting. It ships for Android tomorrow, but even if you don't want to try it out, it's an interesting idea for anyone who is tired of finger tapping on a tiny screen.

nk497 writes "A flaw in the alarm clock in iPhone 4s gave Europeans a bit of a lie-in this morning. While the Apple handsets automatically adjusted to daylight savings time, a bug in the alarm system meant many were woken up an hour later than they should have been, after clocks rolled back over the weekend. Annoyingly, Australia was hit by a similar problem last month, but Apple failed to fix the problem or even warn users. American Apple fans, consider yourselves warned. The iOS4 bug can apparently be avoided by using one-off alarms, rather than pre-set regular wake-up calls."

Earlier this month, we discussed news that Motorola had sued Apple, alleging infringement of 18 patents involving the iPhone, iPad, and other Apple devices. In response, Apple has now launched a pair of lawsuits alleging that Motorola is the infringing party, pointing to a number of patents involving touchscreen displays and multi-touch technology, and also methods for interacting with settings and data on a device. Apple wants the court to award them damages and prevent Motorola from continuing to sell the offending devices, which include the Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, BackFlip, Devour i1, Devour A555, Cliq, and Cliq XT.