Hackers, IT units focusing on smartphone security

Mobile phones, long seen as safe amid rising threats to computer security, have become a key target for hackers and an increasing worry for corporate IT departments. While the first mobile virus dates back to June 2004, risks from hackers remained limited because of the relatively small size of the market.

But this has changed recently with the surge in the smartphone segment, which this year outgrew the PC market, and the new dominance of Google's Android software.

Protecting emails from phishing attacks (Image credit: Getty Images)

The emergence of mobile payments, which allows shoppers simply to swipe their phones at a cash register, is whetting the interest of hackers and data thieves. "Mobile security has become a major concern since smartphone transactions are now of much higher value, including corporate data access, managing personal finances and online purchases," said Steven Nathasingh, chief of U.S. research firm Vaxa Inc.

Most consumers have not protected their smartphones. Fewer than 5 percent of smartphones and tablets are installed with security software, according to Juniper Research. The research firm expects to see a surge in demand with the total annual market for mobile security software growing to $3.6 billion by 2016.

"With more and more mobile devices being hijacked without the owner's knowledge, the risk of identity theft and personal financial loss is intensifying," said Peter Davin, chief executive of Cryptzone.

A study by consultancy Deloitte this week showed that companies in the technology, media and telecom sector expect data stored on staff mobile devices to be their biggest security headache in 2012.

"Employees should be made aware that using a personal device to access corporate data may also have personal implications," said Cryptzone's Davin. "For example if the device is lost, stolen or clandestinely taken over, the organization may decide to wipe data."

In the United States alone, 113 mobile phones are lost every minute, according to research firm Gartner.

For most attacks criminals would need to install software on a victim's phone. But at a hackers' convention this week Karsten Nohl, a well-known expert on mobile phone security, demonstrated how to get remote control of a phone and sent text messages and made calls from phones to which he had no access. Nohl used a vulnerability in the GSM network technology -- which is used by billions of people in about 80 percent of the global mobile market -- which operators can patch in their networks, but which is not done by most carriers.

Samsung smartphones leading in India

Though the popularity of Nokia is declining, it has played a key role in introducing the Indian terrain to mobile phones. The Finnish player has now been taken over by Samsung in India. According to TOI, in November the volume market share and value share were 38 percent and 35.2 percent for Samsung as per GfK research firm. It is for the first time that it has exceeded these figures to overtake Nokia.

Sneaky Samsung

Samsung Mobile and IT country head, Ranjit Yadav said, "At Samsung, we believe in offering our consumers innovative smart mobile devices across different operating systems and different price points, and giving them more choice. This has helped Samsung emerge as the preferred brand in the smartphone market in India."

Samsung witnessed the highest share in October in value, while Nokia was leading in terms of volume. In India, we saw a surge in the market as the month of November contributed 6 percent of the overall phones of the year. Reportedly, CyberMedia Research claims that smartphone shipments reached 7.9 million units from January to September in 2011. It also says that Samsung appears as the market leader with larger value share in September. Nokia has been striving to bounce back and this year we saw it put forth the Lumia range.

Apple Head of Design, Jonathan Ive gets knighted

Apple's head of design, and arguably Steve Jobs's partner in crime, Jonathan Ive has been made Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE). According to the BBC, he has been honoured for excellence in form and function that are seen in Apple gadgets like the iPhone and the iPod. He was raised in Chingford in the U.K. Ive says he was interested in design from the young age of 14 and decided to attend Northumbria Polytechnic. which is now Northumbria University. Upon graduation, he started a design company with three friends and one of their clients was Apple who were so impressed with his work that they gave him a full time position. This was before Steve Jobs came back to Apple and the company was still in turmoil. However, as is well known, Jobs coming back was what Apple needed and being known for his attention to detail and design, Jobs described Ive as his spiritual partner.

Apple's Head of Design gets knighthood

Of course, there were the bad times when Jobs took the credit for Apple's gadgets' designs, which hurt the design team. Furthermore, the slack the company faced upon the release of the iPhone 4 with
antennegate did not fare well for the design team. However, Ive has been with Apple for 19 years now and has built up relationships that Deyan Sudjic, director of The Design Museum, calls "very rare". This is the second time Ive has been recognized by the British government. In 2005, he was made Commander of the British Empire (CBE).

Gadget of the Year 2011 - Home Theatre Systems

One of the most expensive product categories in the market today is the home theatre. The Indian market ...

One of the most expensive product categories in the market today is the home theatre. The Indian market is slowly opening up, and will continue to as more homes start using large high-definition TVs and projectors. There’s a demand for equally impressive audio systems and simply desktop speakers don’t cut it anymore. The enthusiast class of amplifiers and speakers have arrived and we’ve tested quite a few of these over the year. Here’s a list of some of our favorite ones. Harman Kardon BDS 700 The Harman Kardon BDS 700 aren’t as thorough as, say the JBL Studio One. For one, it has been priced at a more affordable Rs. 59,990, which includes taxes. The BDS 700 includes a lot - a Blu-ray player and a home theatre system. The Blu-ray player works well and the video quality was good.  The audio playback wasn't very impressive, but the speakers were loud. The speakers lack the punch you get from woofers in larger home theatre systems. The system needed to be tweaked to get the maximum out of it.  An affordable setup for those who want features It looks just fine, but it is in a way, as massive as, say the Wharfedale Obsidian 600 setup or the JBL Studio One. It offers a decent set of features and the speakers aren’t too weak, either, but out of the box, they lacked the quality expected.  JBL Studio One The JBL Studio One wasn’t the most expensive of the home theatres that we tested this year. In fact, it was made for price conscious who didn’t want to a complicated setup, but a simple solution-in-a-box setup. The JBL Studio One is a mix of several components from JBL and Harman Kardon. The Studio One sound crisp and clear, and sound just right for metal and rock genres of music. There are a few complaints and there’s definitely no jarring or distortion at higher volumes. There is some tone abnormalities - upper mids sound heavier. The woofer as impressive in looks as it is, in quality and power output.  A great all-in-one solution The JBL Studio one is priced at  Rs.72,500 in India, which includes the amplifier-receiver, two large floorstanders, a centre channel and smaller rear satellites. It does sound like a fair bit of money, but considering that you get everything you need in that sum, and it being an easy-to-setup solution, it makes a lot of sense.  Our only complaint is that the amplifier lacks a few features, keeping in mind its performance, while playing music and movie viewing, it’s pretty impressive for the performance it offers. If you have a bigger budget, we would recommend you look for the same speaker setup, but with a better amplifier. Wharfedale Obsidian 600 and Diamond SW150 We reviewed the Wharfedale Obsidian 600 and Diamond SW150 months back on a Denon AVR-1912 receiver. While these products aren’t sold in a single box, they complement each other really well. They’re massive, tall floorstanders and a pair of rear satellites with a centre channel, all of them very neatly polished to go with the theme. These speakers are priced at roughly the same size as the JBL Studio One, but they offer much more. The superior Denon AVR-1912 is a key part of this setup and offers all the features expected from a modern, high performance amplifier-receiver. The Obsidian 600 is impressive as a set of speakers, by themselves. The bass is punchy by itself, but the Diamond SW150 woofer added to the setup makes things much better. It does wonders for movies, but tweaking of the SW150 woofer is also critical. This is where you might need some help setting up, in case it’s your first time setting up such speakers. As far as performance, the setup doesn’t disappoint. Distortion isn’t audible and the speakers perform well across all genres of music ranging from rock to metal to even classical.  Massive power, massive style When it comes to high-performance audio quality, it does come at a price. The Obsidian 600 and SW150 woofer unit sells together for roughly Rs.70,000 in India. This setup is for the more serious audiophiles amongst us. This means, you should ideally have a house with good room acoustics, high quality audio sources and the rest. Assuming you have that, this price isn’t a lot to ask for. Don’t forget to consider the additional Rs. 40,000 or so for the Denon AVR-1912. These are some of the best speakers we’ve heard and we’ve giving it our stamp - Gadget of the Year 2011 for Home Theatres.

Intel Sandy Bridge-E platform Review

Intel has held the absolute performance lead ever since its Core series CPUs launched, and AMD has just not been able to keep up. AMD’s Bulldozer was supposed to have been able to provide some competition, but it barely keeps up with even Intel’s previous generation, so there’s no surprise in the fact that Sandy Bridge E, the architecture inside this new Extreme Edition CPU, is the fastest thing we’ve ever tested—by a wide margin.

Hands on preview with the Intel Sandy Bridge E

In fact, Intel seems to have gotten a little complacent over the past few years, causing mild headaches for high-end PC buyers. It launched its last set of Extreme Edition CPUs, the Bloomfield XE i7-9xx series in late 2008 and the Gulftown i7-9xx refresh in early 2011. These series were set apart from the mainstream Core line-up by the use of their own socket and chipset, LGA1366 on the X58, which allowed for exotic triple-channel memory configurations. In the meanwhile, the mainstream CPU line-up was replaced by the Sandy Bridge generation, which often matched the older XE CPUs in terms of performance, but drastically undercut them in price. In effect, high-end buyers were left without much of an upgrade path, despite their massive initial investment. That changes now, with Sandy Bridge E.

The CPU and Chipset

The Core i7-3960X is now the fastest consumer desktop CPU in Intel’s line-up. The 2.27-billion transistor chip has eight cores, but the models being launched at the moment use only six of them. These six cores can execute two threads each, and there’s a 15 MB cache to keep them all occupied. The 3960X’s nominal clock speed is 3.3 GHz, but this goes up to 3.6 GHz on all cores or 3.9 GHz on a single core, when Turbo Boost kicks in to speed up demanding applications.

The six-legged beast

The TDP is 130W, which is in line with previous Extreme Edition parts. Perhaps aware that enthusiasts in this price range won’t ever use a simple cooler, Intel has chosen not to bundle one. Instead, for the first time, Intel is offering an optional liquid cooling kit, custom made by Asetek. This adds to the overall cost of a Sandy Bridge E system, but neatly avoids the wastage of the kind of solid copper cooler that would have had to be bundled, and also allows for a bit more adventurousness when overclocking

Intel's water-cooling solution

On the memory front, each of the four memory channels can be filled with 1600 MT/s modules (with the possibility of higher speeds supported unofficially), allowing for a whopping 51.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth. A number of X79 motherboards tout support for XMP (Xtreme Memory Profiles), a new Intel buzzword that involves certifying motherboards and memory modules that take advantage of certain optimizations above and beyond official DDR3 specifications. XMP squarely targets gamers and overclockers, who will be looking to squeeze even more power out of their systems. Simple XMP settings made via software or the EFI BIOS will do away with the need to tweak individual speeds and frequencies.

A breakdown of the new chipset

There’s no onboard graphics subsystem, but no one who buys a CPU of this caliber would want to pair it with anything less than a top-range graphics card, anyway. Rather than graphics, Intel has moved the PCIe controller from the chipset to the CPU package. PCIe 3.0 was supposed to have been part of the specification, and many early X79 motherboards boasted of PCIe 3.0 compatibility, but Intel has labeled its controller as PCIe 2.0. Even so, multi-GPU configurations are supported in a variety of modes, including two x16 plus one x8 and one x16 plus three x8. With so many functions moving to the CPU, there isn’t much left for the chipset to do, and the X79 Express is a mixed bag. All the usual boxes are checked: 14 USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, HD audio, additional PCIe lanes, and SATA. On the downside, there’s no USB 3.0 (although every X79 motherboard should still ship with USB 3.0 ports added via a third-party controller), and only two of the six SATA ports support the latest 6 Gbps standard. Also interesting is the fact that there’s no Smart Response caching—the ability to use a small 20GB SSD to speed up access times on mechanical drives—which is still the headlining feature of the Z68 platform which now occupies a lower rung on Intel’s ladder.

Performance

We tested the 3960X on the reference Intel DX79SI motherboard with 8GB of G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3- 2133 RAM and an AMD Radeon HD 6870 graphics card. For the gaming tests, though we used a HD 6970 2GB. There really isn’t much to say about this CPU’s performance—it blows everything out of the water. We recorded scores of 270 Mpix/s and 28.22GB/s in SiSoft Sandra 2011’s processor multimedia and memory bandwidth tests, as compared to 175.11 Mpix/s and 20.6GB/s for a Core i7-2600K.

Performance is good but not across the board

POVRay took a mere 11.1 seconds to render our test scene, whereas the older Core i7 CPU took 16.71 seconds. Notably, we saw only marginal improvements in gaming scores, suggesting that the graphics card could be the bottleneck.

Sandy Bridge E in action!

As for the temperatures, our standard testbed air cooler did a decent job even with continuous heavy loads. However, we suggest going in for a large tower-type cooler for better heat dissipation, or a liquid cooler for peace of mind while overclocking. If you are going to invst in this sort of a setup then it's best you settle for a good water cooling solution. The stock Intel water cooler does a pretty decent job as it's made by Asetek. 

Verdict

When comes to raw performance and number crunching abilities, the Core i7-3960X is in a league of its own. When it comes to video encoding, the CPU gets to stretch its legs as it puhes past the 2600K. While all this power is great fun, other than a few areas, it doesn't seem to be all that faster than Sandy Bridge in the real world. Even if you are a hardcore gamer, there's no noticible performance boost in gaming. Quad-channel memoryis good for boasting about, but again, real world applications seldom benefit from it. The elephant in the room, however has to be the price, which is US $999 (Approx. Rs. 52,000) and if that wasn't bad enough, the Intel reference board itself costs Rs.22,800, thus arriving at a grand total of Rs.74,800. More than an enthusisat, you need to be bleeding rich to afford a setup like this.  For most of us though, including hardcore gamers and enthusiasts, it's just overkill. 

Technology in 2012 - What lies ahead

Looking back at 2011, one cannot help but notice that the year was full of contrasts, lots of hits and misses ...

Looking back at 2011, one cannot help but notice that the year was full of contrasts, lots of hits and misses. While some managed to sell like hot cakes, there were some others who failed to live up to the hype. But, all things taken; one thing's for sure, it has left us all hopeful for the new year. We, at Tech2 have listed down the products, or trend that we would like to see happen in 2012.  Next generation Apple products This year, we saw the Apple iPad 2 garner an overwhelming response with its slim form factor, camera, faster processor, etc. However, when it came to the iPhone, Apple was supposed to launch a device that had a completely different design. Instead, they unveiled the iPhone 4S, which, virtually had the same looks, although the internal hardware was beefed up to quite an extent. We expect the next-gen iPad to retain its slim form factor, but feature a high resolution display akin to the iPhone’s Retina Display. Apart from this the battery, it is believed that Apple is bumping up the battery to 14,000mAh, which is double the size of the battery found on the present iPad. There are rumours floating around that an iPad mini could also be in the work to battle against the popular Kindle Fire. Will they go beyond a 3.5-inch screen? Image Source With the iPhone 5, we expect it to feature an aluminum unibody design similar to that of the iPod Touch and the iPad. We had seen covers leaked in the past from a reputed manufacturer, which confirms this speculation. Apart from this, Apple may add a larger Home button or may do away with it, altogether. The screen size is also expected to be increased to 4 inches and the handset will come in nano-chromatic colours, the same found on Apple’s iPod Nano PMPs. As with most things Apple launches, the excitement levels are certainly going to be high and who knows, maybe Apple may throw in the iTV as well, next year. Multi-core mobile computing to be all the rage Blame it on competition, blame it on technology scaling or simply blame it on poor optimization, quad core technology is going to rule the roost in 2012. Dual core phones were supposed to set a new benchmark in 2011, and they did. But, in 2012, dual core will merely be a standard most manufacturers will have to take for, as a given. 2012 will feature quad core phones and tablets, alike and the Transformer Prime is a living example of that. When two cores just wont do What does this mean for consumers? Simply put it, a faster (if it wasn’t quick enough, already!) experience on your phone at speeds which could be comparable to your current desktop PC. Extra horsepower means games can render more graphics, your phone can support heavy apps (Photoshop, anyone?) and more processes will be able to run simultaneously on your smartphone. What this also indicates is that battery life will stutter greatly, unless they get more powerful batteries onto the market. Whatever the scene may be, one thing is for sure, quad core will be the marketed keyword on every manufacturer’s phone and tablet in 2012. Hooplas on internet censorship and free speech Towards the end of this year, we had two big events, one global and one local, that would affect the way we consumed content and expressed ourselves on the internet. Censorship blues One was SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is still in debtate in the United States. The other is Kapil Sibal's request to the social networks to prescreen content before it is put up on the social network. While bigger companies like Facebook and Twitter will not prescreen content, they most likely could set up a stricter method of punishment for offensive content. Currently, in India, a common form of punishment for posting offensive content is lodging an FIR, but if Facebook develops their own punishment system, the Indian judiciary can focus on bigger problems. Mobile Commerce NFC made its way to many phones, but it can be argued that it will become mainstream once it hits the iPhone. However, even though the next iPhone can only be expected late next year, we can expect more development in NFC on a global scale. Payments made easy Currently there are apps for banking using NFC where mobile users can transfer money to and from accounts, as well as make certain deposits into their accounts. NFC, at least, on a global level and not just in India is expected to grow and mobile users will be able to carry out more types of transactions like making bill payments as well as transfering information from one phone to another.Samsung Galaxy S III Samsung is all set to dish out the successor to its renowned Samsung Galaxy S II which is expected to make an appearance in February 2012. Smartphone enthusiasts can look forward to the mighty device dubbed Galaxy S III. The all-new Galaxy S III is set to raise the bar of high-end smartphones with an array of next-gen features. It is speculated to run on the Samsung brewed quad core processor. The spec sheet is likely to feature 1280 x 720 Super AMOLED display, support for LTE support and the latest Android flavor - Ice Cream Sandwich. Moreover, this time around, Samsung has apparently roped in a 3D display for the device. Windows 8 Windows 8 should be the next big thing for PCs and there's a lot banking on it. The Windows operating system has seen decades of development and there's a lot depending on it in 2012. Tablets are the latest craze and smartphones are likely to grow some more this coming year. This is where Microsoft needs to make its presence - by delivering a solid product that caters for both, traditional desktop and tablet users. The next best thing? Windows 7 and previous versions haven't done too well on the tablet and a strong OS for ARM-based devices is required. With a strong presence of the Metro user interface, somewhat similar to the one found on the Windows Phone and the right partners, Microsoft should be catch up with the competition - iOS and Android. Another area where Windows 8 should find success with is with Ultrabooks. Intel has been pushing hard for these low-lower, ultraslim notebooks and many of its partners will be launched Ultrabooks based on Intel's hardware running Microsoft's Windows 8. The next variation of Windows Phone might also be based on it. A new Windows release arrives every couple of years and if Microsoft gets it right, 2012 should be looking great for them. Ultrabooks Thin is in, and this wave is going to rise higher than ever in the world of notebooks, next year. With the netbooks fading away into history, Intel has jumpstarted a new trend that’s only going to swell in 2012. Ultrabooks or ultra compact notebooks is changing the way we look at notebooks, and it’s high time as well. How often do you use your DVD drive? do you really need Ethernet with Wi-Fi now almost commonplace? And how many of you have actually used the Express card slot on your notebooks? Chuck away all these things and you’re left with a slimmer, more portable computing device with all the basic components you need, nothing more, nothing less. As slim as they come With the first phase of Ultrabooks already out, we are most eagerly awaiting the send phase which will be based on Intel’s Ivy Bridge CPUs. This 28nm die shrink of Sandy Bridge should improve performance and power draw but more importantly drive the costs down as it would be cheaper to manufacture. Another feature we would really love in Ultrabooks is provision for a 3G SIM as standard. This is just more convenient rather than having an ugly dongle sticking out of the side and it also brings the functionality of Ultrabooks closer to tablets. Aakash tablet The launch of the Aakash tablet was easily among the most spoken about launches, this year in India. Revolutionizing the humble education system of the country, the Aakash tablet made heads turn with its surprisingly low price tag, and the specification list that came along for that price. The tablet's early version earned itself a decently-sized fan following across the country, and some admirers abroad. Early this month, the tablet was put up for sale online, and within a week it was SOLD OUT!. Getting better in 2012 Now, an upgraded version of the tablet is being prepped in the labs for a February 2012 release. Needless to add, the upcoming version is being rumored to pack a punch. For a price tag of Rs.2,999 the upgraded version will offer Android 2.3 OS, 7-inch display, Cortex A8, 700 Mhz processor with HD Video co-processor, Connectivity with GPRS & Wi-Fi, among others. It wouldn't be an exaggeration here, if one would say that Aakash is only going to grow bigger in the coming times. That's it form all of us at Tech2 for this year. We hope you'll enjoyed reading about the various technologies as much as we did writing about them. We like to wish all our readers a very Happy New Year and here's to a splendid 2012. See ya'll on the other side!