Symbian news - Page 3

**nauriceprivat** · #21 (**permalink**) 01-31-2008, 07:49 PM

In a video that
looks to create
dollar signs
in the eyes of
sports therapy
professionals and
make sufferers
of carpal tunnel
syndrome even
more uneasy,
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...], makers
of RockNscroll,
are demoing an application that uses the accelerometer inside the Nokia N95 to act as an input mechanism.
I can’t imagine doing this for more than 30 seconds much less all day.
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]

**nauriceprivat** · #22 (**permalink**) 02-05-2008, 07:29 PM

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In the secret Into Mobile staff chat room, where we hatch our world domination strategy, we’ve been wondering how in the world we’re going to get internet access in our apartment during Mobile World Congress. Will and my boss Tom have Windows Mobile devices that they can turn into WiFi routers, [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...], but what about us S60 folk?
Dusan sent me a link to this [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...], which then linked me to this article on [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...], which in turn caused a Google search and brought me to this most awesome development house in Finland called [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...].
They’ve created an application called [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] which turns your S60 smartphone into a WiFi access point, using your 3G connection of course. I’m in the process of testing it right now and will report back in this blog post, definitely excited by this.
Update:
Here is the application running:
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]
Negative things right off the bat: I can’t create an encrypted network.
Here is my laptop finding the network:
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]
I had to crop the signal, but it is full strength!
According to the manual ([Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]) this application only supports http and https protocols. Outlook and Skype may not work, haven’t tested bit torrent since I’m not on unlimited here, but basic internet surfing worked find. I went to a few sites and they popped up instantaneously.
Think of the uses for this. Wireless gaming with your PSP or DS. Browse the internet and check email on your large screen iPod touch.
Update: Buddy of mine [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] used this application to give his iPhone 3G speeds, [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...].

**nauriceprivat** · #23 (**permalink**) 02-05-2008, 08:38 PM

So AAS forum member 'kflyer' emailed me a few days ago, "wondering whether viruses can really affect a current smartphone. I've read your view on this question, but AAS itself has adverts for AntiVirus clients!" As it's a long, long time since my last rail against the fraudulent anti-virus industry, I thought it high time for an update. Read on.

This was all started by some of the 'concept' viruses written for S60 2nd Edition phones such as the Nokia 6630 and N70. These had to be manually accepted, with several confirmations, on each and every phone that could be infected, but in some warez and youth cirlces a few very minor outbreaks were recorded. I wrote a well linked-to [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] (now revised and stripped down to reflect current thinking, by the way) on the subject at the time, but the summary was that with so many user steps to infection and with no 'silent' infection, a la Windows, there was simply no way a mass infection could ever happen.

And I was right. Storm in a teacup, etc. But it made the anti-virus software companies a few dollars, selling prevention software to users who were worried. The ironic thing is that they very users who were worried were the very users who'd be a lot more paranoid about accepting unsolicited beamed in applications and would therefore be the least likely to 'catch' anything....

Fast forward to 2008. Symbian OS 9, implemented behind S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3, has now been in place in real world handsets in their many tens of millions, for at least 2 years. And there's not one, repeat not even one virus for either platform. Symbian OS 9 brought in Platform Security, meaning that any functions that could be used to spread malware or damage the device were restricted to Symbian Signed (i.e. checked) applications. A system that's caused headaches for some developers trying to use low level functions for legitimate purposes but one that's also kept malware utterly at bay.

And yet, as kflyer noticed, there are high profile adverts across the mobile world for F-Secure's 'Mobile Anti-Virus' and 'Mobile Security' products. And F-Secure Mobile Anti-Virus also appears in Nokia's own Download! application on all devices, implying a healthy degree of endorsement. Even a few days ago, F-Secure [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] their official anti-virus solution for UIQ 3, in 'partnership' with Sony Ericsson. Eh?

There's an old saying that 'there's no smoke without fire'. Except in this case, the smoke is being pumped upwards from an artificial smoke machine behind some rocks by the anti-virus vendors. Folks, there's no fire.

The antivirus software industry...

You may remember my original piece on AAS, [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] in 2005 by the mobile antivirus software developers? Let's examine the same scene today.

FB-4 Inc seem to have faded away. Ditto Jamanda. Ditto Fonoinfo, who seem stuck in 2005. SimWorks are still plugging away, advertising that they protect users of (wait for it) the Sony Ericsson P800/P900 and Nokia 6600. Wow. Quote: "With more and more smart phones shipped every year your phone is becoming a lot more attractive to virus writers". Err.... No..... More and more smartphones ARE shipped every year, but they're virtually ALL immune to ANY virus risk (which, if you remember from above was tiny in the first place).

On with the roll call from the original article. TSG Pacific have also faded into obscurity. Are you noticing a pattern here? exoSyphen Studios are still around, seemingly concentrating on writing games (themed around hackers) now. Their exoVirusStop product is still available (advertised as compatible with '3rd Edition'), though the way "Series 60" is used instead of "S60" again confirms that they're stuck in 2004/2005. Their claim for their product is "You will be amazed by the small amount of memory it requires, and its lightning fast scanning engine." Indeed. I'm going to write an app that's smaller and faster though. How many lines of code will it take me to knock up an app that simply prints, on-screen, "Your phone is clean. No virus found!"?

All of which leaves only one of the original companies, F-Secure, of course, doggedly persisting with their (Symbian) mobile security business. From their web page: "Mobile malware such as viruses, worms and trojans have become a nuisance that more and more smartphone users have to deal with. Malware can cause unwanted billing, delete valuable information on the device or make the phone unusable." Well, I guess it could - if it existed and if it was able to spread from device to device. That'll be two 'No's then.

Also from their page: "An integrated firewall combined with virus protection is the next step in content security for mobile devices. Pure antivirus solutions are not sufficient in devices that access open public networks such as Wi-Fi. The new generation of mobile devices are in many ways like portable PC'c and should be protected with a firewall." Just because a modern S60 or UIQ 3 smartphone is as powerful as a PC was 5 years ago doesn't mean it's saddled with the same vulnerabilities! In my testing, I couldn't find a single open TCP/IP port in ANY version of Symbian OS. There's is no need WHATSOEVER for an extra 'firewall' utility.

In the face of complete failure by all other entrants to this market, I can only conclude that there are politics and money at work here. F-Secure is a Finnish company, of course, Nokia is Finnish. And with UIQ being based in Sweden, there's a definite local connection here. So the presence of F-Secure in Nokia's Download! app and their partnership with Sony Ericsson for inclusion on the latter's UIQ 3 smartphones isn't necessarily anything whatsoever to do with their being a need for such software.

In fact, I've (literally) lost count of the number of users who've come to me complaining of a slow smartphone and for whom the solution has been to uninstall the anti-virus solution they helpfully installed. F-Secure's software does seem well written, I'll grant them that - if there actually was a threat then I'd be recommending them - but why install any software utility that's going to sit in RAM, wasting any memory at all and using any processor time at all? Don't we want our phones to be more responsive?

New 'solutions'?

Since the original article, new anti-virus vendors have appeared, eager to expand their desktop offerings. Symantec has brought out Norton Smartphone Security, unbelievably only targetting S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3 (i.e. the secure platforms) and not supporting older vulnerable phones at all. Hey, there's even a flash video showing a geek businessman who 'doesn't want to take chances' with his smartphone - that's why he chooses Norton, etc. But if your smartphone runs any UI on top of Symbian OS 9 then you're not taking chances. So the usual FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) syndrome from Symantec then.

McAfee is the other big entrant, although they've toned down their mobile security pitch since they first launched, presenting a more realistic product that's only advertised for 'large enterprise', i.e. it's part of a big company IT strategy and presumably they're eyeing up Windows Mobile as the main vulnerability here - the only reference to anything Symbian is a 'lose 100 pts for credibility' mention of CommWarrior, one of the oldest trojans for old Series 60 devices.

Speak up!

I wish Symbian would speak up more on this. They go to extreme lengths to break application compatibility in the cause of a new OS that's impregnable and then sit back and watch licensees actively promote unnecessary utility software that claims to defend against a threat that doesn't exist and merely damages performance.

Steve Litchfield, 5th Feb 2008

Addendums

PS. I should sound a small note of caution as a rider to the above dismissal of malware: there's a current craze in the uber-geek world (you know who you are) for 'unsigned' utilities, powerful little brutes of applications that you have to digitally sign yourself. The process isn't trivial (although we [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]) and the signing process has to be done explicitly for every individual handset (different IMEI), but - and it's a very little but - it's possible that a future unsigned 'power utility' could in reality be a 'trojan', a malicious app that does nasty things to your data. Essentially, you'd be saying yes, I'm going through lots of effort to install this on this particular device and grant it full access to anything it wants, knowing that the application might do harm instead of good. Partly as a result of this, and because of the barriers to installation, AllAboutSymbian's policy is to give this unsigned scene a cautious berth. If you're a know-it-all-bleeding-edge geek then go right ahead, but lesser mortals should wait for applications to be properly checked and signed.

PPS. Note that I haven't dignified any of the anti-virus companies with hyperlinks - I'd hate for them to derive extra Google rank and prominence from this AAS article decrying their products.

**nauriceprivat** · #24 (**permalink**) 02-05-2008, 10:21 PM

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Fortinet, the IT and mobile security vendor, claims that a new worm is spreading on the (Series60) Symbian handsets.The worm is apparently being transmitted via MMS, with names like Beauty.jpg, Sex.mp3, or Love.rm - what a cunning set of names……not!

On installation, the worm apparently targets all the phone numbers in the contact list and MMSs them a SIS-version of the worm. In addition, it also sends itself to these numbers - so friends, foes, contacts, and colleagues - beware! The problem supposedly has only been seen in China with one Operator so far, but as we know, viruses spread quickly.

Most likely, this virus/worm represents a re-coding by a script-kiddie of an existing virus - my experience with Mobile AV taught me that variants (rather than discretely different viruses) are what is currently prevalent within Mobile - and unforunately for us S60 owners, S60 is the O/S of choice for attacks.

Whether any real discernable threat/spread will be felt in Europe is another question - certainly numbers of Tier 1 Operators have either implemented or are implementing deep-inspection of attachments at the MMSC level, to stop these sorts of incidents. Fortinet happens to be of the vendors that can do this, and they happen to do it very well - so we should be able to rest easy…..

**nauriceprivat** · #25 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 09:57 PM

[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] service is now available in limited beta. Open Signed Online allows developers and individuals to sign SIS files via an online service. There are a number of restrictions in place during the beta period, but developers may find it useful to familiarise themselves with the service as it provides a quicker and easier way to sign SIS files during development.

One of the restrictions of Open Signed Online is that you must 'own' the SIS file you are signing (the email asscoiated with the UID of the application, if in the protected range, must match that used in the online form). This is because the service is aimed at developers. It is not intended to allow commerical distribution of unsigned applications.

**nauriceprivat** · #26 (**permalink**) 02-08-2008, 11:21 PM

[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]
Phil is out, Saara is in. If you're into S60 you know who Phil Schwarzmann is, he was the former head of [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...], but after the [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] he is now working in the illustrious eMarketing team. Saara Bergström has been passed the torch and as Phil's last voice of S60 podcast he choose to interview and introduce her to our community.
You'll want to [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] to understand why I selected the picture above.

**nauriceprivat** · #27 (**permalink**) 02-10-2008, 01:05 PM

Seth over at ComputerWorld has been watching the nightly Webkit (the underlying browser that Nokia's S60 3rd Edition Web is based on) builds and has [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]. Apple's desktop Safari is an obvious recipient of the new code, and in due course the iPhone. Hopefully S60's Web team can also build in the same code and gain similar (up to three times) speed increases?

**nauriceprivat** · #28 (**permalink**) 02-12-2008, 02:25 PM

Symbian chose to wait until MWC before releasing their own Q4 results for 2007 and the full press release is quoted below. There's also a [Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] to stream if you want to see Symbian's CEO and CFO go through the numbers in person. Standout highlights include the fact that Symbian OS now powers around 7% of all phones being sold worldwide (up from 5%), with just over 22 million Symbian OS-powered smartphones shipped in Q4/2007.

BARCELONA, Spain and LONDON, United Kingdom - 12 February, 2008 - Symbian Limited, developer and licensor of Symbian OS™, the market-leading operating system for mobile phones, today released the following unaudited financial and operational figures for the fourth quarter and the full year ended 30 December 2007:

Symbian Limited unaudited Q4 2007 financial highlights:

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Highlights - Full year 2007, at 31 December 2007

77.3 million Symbian smartphones shipped to consumers worldwide in 2007 - a 50% increase on 2006 (51.7m)
188 million cumulative Symbian smartphone shipments since the formation of Symbian to 31 December 2007
68 mobile phones based on Symbian OS commenced shipment in 2007 through 250 major network operators by 8 licensees including Fujitsu, LG, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson, a 4.6% increase on 2006 (65 models)
Of these models, 49 (72%) were based on Symbian OS v9, 46 (68%) for use on W-CDMA/ HSDPA (3G) and 20 (29%) were GPS enabled
Symbian OS v9.3 is the latest version on Symbian OS to ship in devices (November 2007). Symbian OS v9.3 is optimized for convergence with performance and feature enhancements
8,736 third-party Symbian applications are now commercially available, a 27% increase on 31 December 2006 (6,896 applications) Source: Symbian research, see Notes to Editors

Nigel Clifford, Symbian CEO, commented:

"I am very pleased to report continued growth for Symbian throughout 2007 with a total of 77.3 million mobile phones based on Symbian OS in 2007, 22.4m shipments in Q4 alone. In 2007, Symbian's total revenues grew to £194.3 million - an increase of 17% on 2006.

Symbian aims to grow its share of the mobile phone market by increasingly driving Symbian OS into mid-range phone segments while maintaining the leading high end feature set used in the most advanced phones. Assuming Strategy Analytics' total global phone market of 1.13 billion in 2007, Symbian's share of the market grew from 5% in 2006, to 7% in 2007.

Since the first shipment of a Symbian phone in 2000 the world's leading handset manufacturers have shipped a total of 188 million phones based on Symbian OS. They continue to benefit from Symbian's lead in performance, features and power efficiency for the converged mobile phone market. They are also benefiting from the scalability of Symbian OS, deploying it in mass market phones to help differentiate their devices and deliver faster shipment times-to-market."

2007 - Q4 Shipments and new models

In Q4 2007 22.4 million Symbian OS based phones were shipped, representing a 53% increase on Q4 2006 (14.6m). 20 new models based on Symbian OS commenced shipment in Q4 2007, bringing the total number of models in the market at the end of Q4 2007 to 141 and a total of 222 models shipped since the formation of Symbian. These cover a broad range of market segments and form factors. Some of the new Symbian smartphones launched in Q4 2007 include: FOMA™ D905i, FOMA SH905i, FOMA F905i, FOMA SO905i, FOMA F801i, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia 6110 Navigator China, Nokia E51, Nokia N82, Nokia N81 8GB, Samsung i450, Samsung i550, and Samsung i400, and Sony Ericsson W960i.

There are now 8,736 third party Symbian applications commercially available, an increase of 27% on 31 December 2006 (6,896 applications).

2007 - Technology highlights

During 2007, Symbian announced new Symbian OS technologies aimed at continuing Symbian's position at the leading edge of mobile computing, including:

In January, Symbian introduced P.I.P.S. - 'P.I.P.S. Is POSIX on Symbian' - enabling C programmers to more easily migrate existing middleware and applications, either commercial or open source POSIX libraries on Symbian OS. P.I.P.S. will significantly reduce the effort required to migrate existing desktop and server components, and mobile applications from other platforms, onto Symbian OS. This will help broaden and deepen application development for Symbian OS and help improve developer productivity.
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]
At CTIA in March, Symbian announced Symbian OS v9.5 which offers customers high performance features designed for a richer user experience as well as significant savings to phone build costs, delivering the only truly scalable mobile OS for the global market. Symbian OS v9.5 offers benefits in the areas of performance and power usage: reducing device boot time and start-up time of popular applications such as browser, email and navigation by up to 75%, in addition to significant improvements to high-speed networking and graphics capabilities.
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]
At the Symbian Smartphone show in October 2007, taking full advantage of the increasing convergence of desktop technologies and internet services with Symbian OS devices, Symbian announced new visionary technologies that give the industry the power to create devices that can handle and store large amounts of data, provide a responsive, emotionally engaging user experience, and deliver very high-speed networking while maintaining excellent battery performance.
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...]
- FreeWay is the new and unrivalled IP networking architecture in Symbian OS, designed to deliver the capability for very high speed networks, high quality audio/video streaming and crystal-clear VoIP calls.
- ScreenPlay is the new graphics architecture in Symbian OS which is designed to integrate high definition video content, life-like games and animations and significantly enhance content presentation.
- Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) on Symbian OS will offer exceptional multicore performance for media-rich applications as well as the power efficiency required to continue to deliver industry leading battery life.

2007 - Regional highlights

Japan

Symbian announced in January 2008 that by the end of November 2007, over 30 million Japanese mobile phones based on Symbian OS have shipped in Japan. To date, a total of 69 models have launched in Japan by six of our customers: Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Sharp and Sony Ericsson.

Nigel Clifford continued:
"Symbian's Japanese customers and partners are of clear strategic importance to Symbian. The Japanese market is very advanced in showing consumers the potential of mobile phones."

China

In January 2007 Symbian expanded its sales and marketing presence in Beijing and in August, opened a global R&D center in the city. In November, Symbian completed the transfer of management and software engineers from MoGenesis. The Chinese R&D center is Symbian's fourth with two located in the United Kingdom and one in India. It plays a key role in the Company's continued development of Symbian OS. Symbian has focused heavily on the Symbian Academy program in China with close collaboration with nine local universities. The Symbian Academy is designed to assist and encourage universities creating courses that teach Symbian software development and to introduce a Symbian program into existing computer science courses.

"The new R&D center in Beijing will contribute significantly to the Symbian OS roadmap to meet the needs of our customers today as well as the demands of the global mass market for the next generation of converged mobile devices," said Nigel Clifford.

Symbian Outlook

Analysts are predicting 1 billion mobile phones based on an advanced open operating system will be in the market by end of 2011 - which is excellent news for Symbian's ecosystem and Symbian itself. Symbian considers the overall phone market to be its field of play and is looking to continue to increase its share of the mobile phone market, currently at 7%.

"I am very excited by the potential in this marketplace - in terms of technology, market size, market trends and our position in the market," says Nigel Clifford. "With, insights and commitment from the world's leading handset vendors, continued success in major markets such as Japan and China, and a vibrant ecosystem as demonstrated at the October Symbian Smartphone Show and the November Symbian Tokyo Summit, I am determined that Symbian will continue to lead the smartphone market and grow our share of the overall mobile market."

"We look forward to an exciting year ahead with new innovative, differentiated and attractive phones in the pipeline for many market segments and regions".

- ENDS -

**nauriceprivat** · #29 (**permalink**) 02-12-2008, 02:43 PM

Below the break, there's an interesting video demo of some of the features in the upcoming S60 Touch UI, showing standby screen shortcuts, list scrolling and explaining touch interaction in Web. Good to see so much emphasis is being placed on consistency with existing the S60 3rd Edition platform, too...
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