MobileSyrup.com » Mobile News

Sony Tablet S rooted, reminds us it still exists

Daniel Bader — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:24:48 +0000

The Sony Tablet S was one of my favourite Honeycomb tablets of 2011, with its curved paper-like design, gorgeous 9.4-inch screen and intriguing Playstation Network inclusions. But since its debut in September, it has yet to develop a hacker community, owed to the fact that it had a locked bootloader and could not be rooted.

Today, the latter of those requirements has been achieved as an Android developer known as djrbliss has managed to root the Tablet S.

Currently only compatible with Windows, and there is a slight chance you may lose your personal data, the exploit is executed in a tidy .bat file. The author claims that he does not know whether the exploit will be patched when the tablet is updated to Ice Cream Sandwich later this year, but for now you are safe.

Head on over to XDA-Developers to read the instructions and download the applicable files.

(Thanks Alex!)

Dell introduces Dell Voice powered by Fongo, free Canadian phone number and long distance

Daniel Bader — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:34:36 +0000

The mobile VoIP app industry is awash in competition these days as every telco is trying to cash in on the action. The mobile carriers have an incentive to keep its customers using voice minutes, while companies like Skype, Vonage and now Fongo, through a sponsorship with Dell Canada, is next in line.

Today Dell and Fongo are launching Dell Voice, a mobile VoIP app that allows you to obtain a Canadian phone number and make free calls to numbers in 30 large metropolitan areas, including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, as well as hundreds of smaller cities. Incoming calls, regardless of location in Canada, are always free. International calls can be made by purchasing credit, and countries like the U.S. and U.K. are 2c/min, 0.7c cheaper than Skype.

The service offers things for free that its competitors charge for, including call display, call waiting, voicemail and, surprisingly, 911 emergency service.

The interface is sparse but usable (though a little clunky on Android), but call quality is good over 3G and even better over WiFi. The company claims that one minute of calling uses 1MB of data, so beware those long calls home to mom and dad. It’s likely the high bitrate codec used that accounts for the extreme bandwidth usage. While I was able to hear the person on the other end as clearly as a regular call, my recipient told me I sounded distant and muffled.

One of the advantages of Dell Voice, on Android at least, is that it can be integrated into the existing Dialer app, which means you can force all outgoing calls to use your Fongo number; for those without a long-distance plan, this could be a godsend. As well, if you’re so inclined you can port your existing cellphone number over to Fongo for $25 and take advantage of the free local calls and low-cost international rates.

An issue I encountered on Android is that it doesn’t appear the app can be killed. This is not entirely true, though: to exit the app, head into the Settings/Account tab, and use the menu button to Exit or Log Out. A bit convoluted, but at least it’s available.

Dell Voice is available for Android, iPhone and, soon, BlackBerry. There is also a Windows desktop version. Check out the website for more information.

Source: CNW

Will Path’s privacy transgression teach the industry, or discipline the users?

Daniel Bader — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:04:14 +0000

Yesterday the internet was astorm with vitriol directed firmly at mobile darling Path, the life journal app for Android and iPhone designed to make it easy to share quickly with your closest friends.

The upshot is that, in order to facilitate the automatic and immediate ability to find people in your contact list across the budding network, that list in its entirety is uploaded to Path’s servers as a .plist file in plain text, with no apparent encryption.

This is not the first time such scorn has been aimed at a company for surreptitiously defying not only industry convention but Apple’s policy of not transmitting sensitive user data without a user’s consent. In the latest Path update for Android, the company added an opt-in feature for friend suggestions by updating the permissions necessary to use the app. Company CEO Dave Morin claims similar changes are coming to the next iPhone update.

Naturally, users and non-users alike are furious. But such accusations have been heaped on a small app development team before. In November 2010, when Kik Messenger was proliferating like algae, it came under fire for suggesting other users across its network by uploading a local copy of a person’s contact list to its servers. But that was part of its magic: with no local input, friends just “showed up,” ready to chat. How else could this have happened if not by uploading some private information?

At the time, Kik’s CEO Ted Livingston went onto Quora to say, “As part of the Kik service, we suggest people you “may know” who are already on Kik. We do this by doing a one time scan of your address book to see if there is anyone already on Kik. Nothing is ever shared or stored (we need to update our privacy policy!)” Indeed, the subsequent changes to Kik (an opt-in for address book matching) has been met with reproachful acceptance, but the fervour has died down.

Arguably, Path is in a similar position. There is no doubt that they are not using this data maliciously; it is unlikely anyone is even looking at it. But now that the knowledge is out there, such information would be a prime target for hackers. That dire conclusion aside, the fact that Path did all this without our consent is reproachful.

Dave Morin has responded to the claim by apologizing, but also reinforcing that the service is necessary for frictionless sharing:

We actually think this is an important conversation and take this very seriously. We upload the address book to our servers in order to help the user find and connect to their friends and family on Path quickly and effeciently as well as to notify them when friends and family join Path. Nothing more. We believe that this type of friend finding & matching is important to the industry and that it is important that users clearly understand it, so we proactively rolled out an opt-in for this on our Android client a few weeks ago and are rolling out the opt-in for this in 2.0.6 of our iOS Client, pending App Store approval.

What’s absent in that statement is an explanation for why the feature was implemented in the initial release without a user’s consent. More importantly, it reinforces the practice in the industry, and begs the question: is convenience tantamount to forgoing privacy? We expose much of our life, and its sensitive data, every day on the web. Companies like Facebook and Google ostensibly provide our “anonymized” data to advertisers to better predict our buying patterns, much like telemarketers obtain our home phone numbers through questionable means.

If everyone stopped using Facebook tomorrow, or questioned Google’s integrity and logged out of their services for good, the industry would be no better, since those companies proved a method of targeted advertising that has worked. Moreover, as much as the brouhaha over Path’s indiscretions has alighted concerns over its, and similar services’ privacy, much of the population will not hear of it. If that is the case, what will we learn from this? Probably not much, except that Path can fix what’s broken and continue to use our sensitive data to make our lives more convenient.

Rogers and Fido Galaxy Nexus dropping to $50 on a 3-year this week

Ian Hardy — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:25:28 +0000

Over the past few weeks the Samsung Galaxy Nexus has seen a slight price drop from $159.99 to $99.99 on a 3-year term at Best Buy, this was for all carriers (Rogers, Fido, Bell and TELUS). However, now that the device has been out for a few weeks we’ll see the price continue to fall – point being this flyer that shows Rogers and Fido will sink to a new Canadian low of $49.99 on a 3/yr term. We’ll soon be at $0, folks. If interested, this starts on Friday and Best Buy states that there are Limited quantities. No rainchecks.”

Microsoft OneNote now available for Android

Daniel Bader — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:57:02 +0000

Microsoft seems to be cognizant of the fact that their mobile software would have a much wider reception being available across platforms. Not so long ago they introduced OneNote to iOS, and now they’re bringing the cloud-synced note-taking app to Android.

Supporting Android 2.3+ devices (though there is no explicit tablet support) the app allows you to take 500 notes for free before paying $4.99 for an in-app purchase. Features include bulleted lists, highlights, check boxes, and even photo notes. You can create to-do lists and edit tables that have been synced from the desktop app, though you cannot create tables natively.

OneNote meets lots of competition in the excellent Evernote, the ever-improving Springpad and the growing Catch Notes, among others.

Check it out in the Android Marketplace

Source: Microsoft Office Blog
Via: Engadget

LG shows off the 5-inch Optimus Vu (Video)

Ian Hardy — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:09:11 +0000

LG has uploaded a video to their YouTube channel of a device called the “Optimus Vu”. It’s a beast running OS 2.3 Gingerbread (hopefully upgradable to OS 4.0), massive 5-inch display with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Going through the vid shows it to be incredibly thin, but no word on how many millimeters it is. In addition, there’s the usual ports, buttons, volume rocker, headphone jack and camera button. Unconfirmed reports also indicate that the Vu will come with a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 8-megapixel camera, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage and possibly LTE capabilities. LG will probably officially announce this at Mobile World Congress in a few weeks.

Source: YouTube
Via: The Verge

Chrome for Android will not support Flash, ever

Daniel Bader — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:51:21 +0000

In a move no one didn’t see coming, Adobe has confirmed that Android’s new hot browser, Chrome, will not support Flash. Ever.

It’s not surprising considering that the company has ceased development of the mobile plug-in, and is only supporting it on an as-needed bug fix basis. While the regular Ice Cream Sandwich browser will continue to support Flash, it seems that future versions of Android will not be so lucky. Instead it will focus on improving HTML5 support through the WebKit standard, like what iOS is doing with the Safari Mobile browser.

In another development, it would seem that Google will integrating Chrome for Android into future versions of the operating system, but as a stand-alone “Google App” and not as a part of the core operating system. This could mean that users building Android from source, via the Android Open Source Project, could be without a stock browser unless they have access to the “GAPPS” bundle that comes with Marketplace certification.

Source: Adobe
Via: The Verge

Galaxy Nexus now available at Videotron

Ian Hardy — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:06:28 +0000

Look at all those happy Android robots above! Quebec-based Videotron has added the Galaxy Nexus to their lineup, it’s their first Android OS 4.0 powered device. As for the prices: $159.95 on a “reduced price” (new activation with a $40/month plan or more), or $599.95 outright. Make sure you check out our full review here of the Galaxy Nexus.

Source: Videotron

Good Cause: Bell Let’s Talk Day is today

Ian Hardy — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:15:28 +0000

Bell’s “Let’s Talk Day” is happening today. It’s a day in which they hope to raise awareness and also raise funds to support mental health. For every text, long distance call made today by Bell customers (Bell and Bell Aliant only), Bell will donate 5¢ to mental health programs. The goal is to beat last years total of $3,303,961.80.

Update: Bell will also donate 5c for every Retweet (RT) on Twitter today too.

Source: Bell

Public Mobile has 199,000 subscribers

Ian Hardy — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:56:33 +0000

Public Mobile launched their wireless service in 2010 and majority of people, including myself, who follow the Canadian wireless industry were hammering down on the new entrant. They had invested over $50 million into G Band spectrum that nobody ever touched, wanted or thought would work. Public Mobile’s CEO Alek Krstajic has always stood by his word to bring “hard-working Canadians” value. Since going live the low-cost entry-level carrier has expanded their Toronto and Montreal coverage areas, set up roaming agreements (Canadian and United States), and launched data devices (two Android handsets).

A couple months ago we let you know that Public Mobile had successfully sign up 150,000 subscribers since launching. Now for something really amazing and truly remarkable. According to a report in Reuters, Public Mobile, who operates in 2 core cities, increased their Q4 subscriber base by a stunning 45,000 to reach a total of 199,000 subs. 199k in 2 markets! It’s also been revealed that their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) $25.27 (most likely in Q4).

To keep up with their competition, Public Mobile will be increasing their Unlimited Talk plan by $4/month February 9th to $19 per month. The talk/text and data plan is still on a promo for $35/month for 6 months.

Source: Reuters