How Apple let a hacker remotely wipe an iPhone, iPad, MacBook

Gizmodo's Twitter account was recently hacked, after a former employee's iCloud account was breached, and all his Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air) were remotely wiped. It turns out the hacker didn't even have to get the password: he just tricked Apple's tech support.


To read more...

 http://www.zdnet.com/how-apple-let-a-hacker-remotely-wipe-an-iphone-ipad-macbook-7000002141/

LG Display Pays Most in LCD Price-Fixing Settlement

LG Display Co. LPL +5.08% agreed to pay the largest sum among defendants to settle a U.S. case in which it and numerous other manufacturers were accused of price fixing in the liquid crystal display market.

LG Display was one of three defendants that agreed to settle Wednesday the class-action case before the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, according to court documents. LG, which is the world's second-largest producer of LCD displays by sales after Samsung Electronics Co., agreed to pay $380 million in damages, including civil penalties to state governments of $19 million.

AU Optronics Corp. AUO +5.65% and Toshiba Corp. 6588.TO +1.97% had also agreed to settle, at sums of $170 million and $21 million, respectively....

 To read more 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304373804577523743169182030.html

Samsung involved in customer Fraud and got caught

Samsung, LG, and carriers fined for price fixing by Korean FTC

Summary: The $40.2 million fine was divided among Samsung, LG and Pantech, as well as Korean carriers SK Telecom, KT Corp and LG Uplus.

South Korea's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has fined Samsung, LG and Korea's carriers $40.2 million for price rigging and consumer fraud.
The FTC found the companies guilty of working together to fix prices and defraud consumers. The companies had apparently inflated the prices of phones and then advertised them as improved special offers.

To read more in Zdnet click the below link

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/asia/samsung-lg-and-carriers-fined-for-price-fixing-by-korean-ftc/1328

 

 

 

Samsung S3 buyers beware - Jelly Bean is here and Samsung S3 is not having Jelly Bean now

 We just put in a descriptive title so that people are aware of what it is immediately.

 Samsung introduced its Galaxy S3 model with Android Icecream Sandwich. And we here at Claqueurs have enough details to believe that it would be a very long time (read loooooooooooooong time,yes really that long) before you can taste jelly bean.By that time a new android OS would have arrived and you still would be stuck with a version of software that is 2 generations behind.

 Let us see for example:Samsung galaxy S2 was introduced in US last year(September 2011) with gingerbread.Android icecream sandwich was introduced in October 2011. And in february Sprint is the first carrier that promised icecream sandwich in S2 devices. Its june now and there is no ICS yet.But they are introducing S3 with ICS.

 To increase the sales of the S3 they have stopped the upgrade.T-Mobile is the only carrier that has given the ICS update to S2.

 So if you buy S3 its a big question when you will receive the jelly bean update.

 So to avoid frustration stick with apple who at least are as nice to upgrade the old phones with new versions as they become available.

 We at claqueurs are a support group for open source,but this samsung thing makes us irritable and made us switch to apple (iphone).

 We still have high praise for android and not for samsung any more.

Samsung did it again !!!

If you are planning to buy Samsung galaxy S2 from any of the US carriers (Sprint,ATT,T-Mobile,Verizon) Hold it.
 They are all running the ginger bread version of Android. And Samsung announced that it will update it to ICS(Ice cream sandwich) in February. Its mid-May and there is no update in the horizon.

 They have updated all the foreign carriers who carry the S2.

 In the mean time samsung has released its galaxy S3 with ICS. So there probably won't be an ICS update for the galaxy s2 owners in the US.

 Again I repeat if you are in the market for a new android phone and looking at Galaxy S2 Hold it.

Either go with the ones that has the ICS or wait till you get the galaxy s3.By the time US gets the S3 google will come with a different version of android and you will be stuck with the obsolete version of android.

 Better go with iphone.(I really didn't want to say this but I said it).

 Here are few pictures of the galaxy s3.

How does Sprint prevent people from reading Bad reviews?? -- remove the option

 So I was browsing sprint website and looking for a phone to buy.Since I was so disappointed with my present Samsung Transform I have decided to read the reviews before I make my purchase decision.

 I clicked the user reviews and see that the positive reviews are at the top.I want to see the reviews with 1 star or the negative reviews.I was searching for that sort option but all I found was Featured ,Newest, Highest Rated, Most Helpful.

 There is no way you can sort the reviews with one star or negative or the most critical ones.

All you can see is the praising ones unless the newest ones happen to be negative.If not you will be spending a lot of time searching for a negative review.


 Its like telling people you can rate us with the following 3 options.

1.  Good
2. Better.
3. Best

Here is the screen shot:

This is not good sprint.

Apple looses its iphone.... Again!!!

 So again this year apple has lost its iphone 5 prototype in a bar.Surprising????

 How could such a thing as losing in a bar can take place successively?

 There is a subliminal marketing involved in the loosing of the phone.

 Last year when the expectation of iphone 4 was less or people didn't think much of iphone as they were already satisfied with the iphones they had.

 At that time sprint came up with the fast 4G with HTC EVO.4G had 7 mbps speed.And the phone itself was cutting edge.It had 4 inch screen.Its the first wimax phone.The phone itself can act as a router (tethering) and can connect up to 5 devices.

 So everyone started to talk about the happening thing.And were expecting the EVO.Apple didn't even had the plans to release its phone.Seeing peoples expectation about the EVO apple started to worry.It thought the the demand for the iphone 4 would decrease if most of the people who were planning to switch switched over to the EVO.

 It needed some news of the iphone to come out.So what would it be?It can't be anything related to the feature of the phone.

 So the news of the lost iphone came out.People started to talk.Now iphone is on their attention again.

 History repeats again this year.

Another apple employee looses his upcoming iphone 5 in a bar and then again securities and the police officers search for it again.Here you go they have your attention again. Just increasing the tempo of their release.Had it not be lost we wouldn't care and there would be no news.

 Now there is news all over.

What does Samsung Conquer bring to the table.

  Samsung has introduced another android phone in Sprint called Samsung Conquer. So what does Samsung Conquer bring to the table.

 According to Cnet:


 The good: The Samsung Conquer 4G is affordable and offers 4G capabilities. The Android 2.3 Gingerbread device also has a next-gen 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a front-facing camera for video calls, and mobile hot-spot capabilities.

The bad: The smartphone has a lower-resolution display. Camera and speakerphone quality could be better.

The bottom line: Though you sacrifice some higher-end features, the Samsung Conquer 4G gives Sprint customers a solid 4G smartphone at an affordable price.

But one has to remember that the review by cnet is not a users review but it is a reviewer's review.These reviews are done for a day or 2 with a brand new phone.So everything will work perfect.

But only a users review will tell you what the actual story is.And that too not an immediate one.You have to wait at least 3 months.That review would be the best.

When samsung transform came out it had similar kind of reviews.Now read about my experience with samsung transform.

Whenever samsung brings something that is advertised as affordable or mid range then you have to be very careful in considering that.

Anyway below are the features for Samsung Conquer:

Connectivity Ultra-fast 4G connectivity with simultaneous voice and data capability (peak download speeds of more than 10 Mbps; peak upload speeds of 1 Mbps; average download speeds of 3-6 Mbps) 3G data speeds (EVDO Rev A.) in areas not yet served by 4G (peak download speeds of up to 3.1 Mbps; peak upload speeds of 1.8 Mbps; average download speeds of 600 kbps-1.4 Mbps) Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g/n) for accessing home and corporate networks as well as hotspots while on the go. Built-in mobile hotspot functionality allows up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices to share the 3G or 4G experience on the go with a laptop, camera, music player, game unit, video player, or any other Wi-Fi enabled device. Next-generation Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity backward compatible with older Bluetooth-enabled peripherals and includes stereo audio streaming. Onboard GPS for navigation and location services Google Integration Android 2.3 OS (Gingerbread) Android Market for browsing and downloading thousands of free and paid apps Preloaded Android apps: Browser, Calculator, Calendar (Google or Corporate), Camera, Clock, Contacts, Email, Gallery, Messaging, Music, News & Weather, Phone, Settings, Video Player, Voice Dialer, Voice Search, YouTube Google applications: Gmail, Google Search, Google Voice Search, Google Latitude, Google Maps, Google Places, Google Talk Google Maps Navigation with spoken turn-by-turn directions showing real-time traffic and 360° views of the destination Communications & Internet Full HTML Web Browser with Flash 10.1 Support Virtual QWERTY keyboard Full messaging capabilities including SMS text, MMS picture/video and IM instant messaging Personal and corporate e-mail access with support for Exchange ActiveSync as well as personal e-mail accounts (Google push, Yahoo!, POP3, IMAP).

Hardware 1 GHz Snapdragon single-core processor speeds up everything--from playing games to watching shows to opening files from work. 3.5-inch multi-touch display (320 x 480 pixels; 26 million colors). MicroUSB port Removable battery Camera 3.2-megapixel rear camera with flash, auto focus, and 4x digital zoom. Video capture capabilities 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for easy video chats. Multimedia Music player compatible with MP3, WMA, and AAC/AAC+ Video player compatible with MPEG4, H.264, H.263 Memory Pre-loaded 2 GB microSD memory card Memory expansion up to 32 GB via optional cards. More Features 3.5mm headphone jack Organizer tools including calculator, world clock, stopwatch, countdown timer, and memo Hearing Aid Compatibility: M4, T4

Verizon and Google Motorola takeover

 As I mentioned in my previous post ,Verizon also feels the same way that Google's takeover of Motorola may bring stability to disputes.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Verizon's Senior VP and Deputy General commented on Google bid for Motorola Mobility Holdings stating, "At first glance, to the extent that this deal might bring some stability to the ongoing smartphone patent disputes that would welcome development."

 Even thought verizon's words are comforting for Google and android it is not.Verizon's ultimate aim is to promote iphone.Actually it is pushing apple for releasing iphone 5 sooner.And when it is released verison will use all its advertising resources to promote and push the iphone and where as leaving the motorola android phone promotion on the company itself.

 Had google hadn't taken over motorola that would be a greater hit for motorola.Since google has the android market and other advertising resources it will use them to promote the android based motorola phones.But this will take up some of the advertising revenue.

 On the other hand apple will be enjoying free advertisement from verizon.If apple releases its phone on the other two networks(sprint and t mobile) and if verizon advertises for iphone then it will be a free advertisement for sprint and t mobile as well for the subscribers who dosen't want to switch.

 We have to wait for a month to see how this is all played.

Google acquiring Motorola Mobility Inc. What does that mean to us?

 A couple of years back Apple and Google were hand in hand friendlier companies.Then Google CEO Eric Schmidt was on the board of Apple.

 Then apple decided to enter into the cellphone market and introduced iphone in 2007.Even then google and apple were in friendlier terms.But when google introduced android 1.0 in september 2008 the relationship kinda broke.

 But in an important note google acquired android even before iphone was released.Android was acquired in the year 2005.

 What is android?

 Before being acquired by google android is a small company which was in development of a unix based operating system for the cell phones.It is the name of the company as well as the name of the operating system.

Within 2 years of introduction of android it over took iphone in sales.

 Then all the patent fights started.

 Apple sued Samsung.Samsung sued apple.Nokia sued apple and won.Apple sued HTC.

 Mostly apple sued Samsung and HTC for the UI(User Interface) and the design of the phone.I am not sure why samsung didn't sue Apple for its iphone 4 resembling Samsung Instinct.Here is the link where I discuss the resemblance of iphone 4 and samsung instinct.

 Basically android is a linux based mobile OS(Operating System).And it is an open source system,meaning anyone can download the OS and customize it according to their needs.

 Thats what Samsung and HTC did for their phones.And apple sued.

 So it is time for Google to step in.But how?

 Google is not an electronics manufacturer nor does it have the mobile patents.

  When Google tried to acquire Nortel networks patents few months ago apple and microsoft together out bid google to acquire them.Apple and Microsoft together. :).

 So by buying out motorola mobility Inc google is acquiring a lot of patents that Motorola holds.Which puts google in a very good position for not only defending the phone manufacturers who use android as their OS but also for improving android based phone's hardware.

Here is the excerpt from the Google press release:

The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said, “Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

 Now that google has their own hardware they can bring more bells and whistles to android and the phones that they are going to manufacture.

 And Motorola has been manufacturing a series of products.So google will be trying to implement android in all the products.

 Imagine the cable box that we have also delivers google tv without the need for buying a seperate equipment.That would be awesome. 

 Also the android version for the tablets can be improved a lot since motorola has its own tablet.It can be optimized for a dual core machine.

 So in short google acquiring Motorola is a very good news for us.And we can expect a lot of equipments to have android and everything integrated to your gmail account.Send and receive emails from your tv and no need for a computer.Shop through your tv or mobile phone.The possibilities are nearly endless.

Samsung Galaxy SII Soon to be released

 When I wrote about south Asian language support in android the pictures I have posted actually were the Samsung SII galaxy.The model number as usual according to Samsung is I9100.

 I have given the specification at the end of this post.

 I hear from my friends at Samsung that the phone is going to be released in the United States on August 29th.Its a monday :).

 There were a lot of reviews around the web for this Samsung SII galaxy.One might wonder how is that possible to have reviews months before the release in the united states.Thats easy US is the last country to get this phone.

But if you are going to jump on this phone wait for the real review.The one review by the user and not a reviewer. See my post on samsung transform.The reviews by users come after months of usage and not the initial looks and features.

 I really not able to understand why samsung does this for all their gadgets.

 I had a samsung mp3 player and they released a firmware for multiple options and user interfaces.As expected united states is the last country to receive the update.

So in the case of Samsung Galaxy SII ,Samsung did it again.

Please post your thoughts about Samsung releasing most of its products in the US very late in the comments section.

Anyway according to the specs the phone looks attractive,But I would wait for the reviews by actual users.
I have given some more pictures of the phone after the specs.

 The specifications are:

Some more pictures of the Samsung Galaxy SII.

Tamil (South Asian Language) support in Android

 My friend informed me from India that he is able to see Tamil(South East asian language) fonts in his latest updating of the android OS in his samsung galaxy phone.

 I thought that it is a good news for all the Tamil people living around the world.

 But as usual Samsung has released the build version of android particularly for people in Asia.As far as I know that this build is for Samsung galaxy phone.

 The official update of Gingerbread is  Asia specific 2.3.3 DDJV9.

So people who have samsung galaxy series in India and want to see tamil fonts in their phones please update your phone through KIES (a software through which samsung updates your phones in India).

I was also notified that  you are able to save your contacts in Tamil.

I hope this firmware update brings the same language support for all the other Indian languages like Telugu,Malayalam,Hindi,Kannada etc as well.

I am not aware of the other regional specific features.If you guys know post it here in comments.

Samsung Transform – The phone that transformed my phone habits.

 After I wrote about Samsung Instinct.I received a lot of mails both positive and negative about Samsung.

Readers of my blog were asking does Samsung always better phones. Etc.

My answer to them is No. Take for example my present phone the Samsung transform. It completely changed my phone habits.

When I had my Samsung Instinct I used to use the phone for everything right from emails to gps to hearing music and of course to talk and that’s a lot.

When the Samsung instinct died I wanted another Samsung which doesn’t burn a hole in my pocket.

Samsung came with 2 phones at that time. One is the Samsung Epic 4G (Sprint)
( galaxy ) the other is the Samsung Transform (Sprint)
.

Samsung Epic is their flagship phone this time with 4 inch amoled screen and a 1 GHz processor etc.

Because of its size I decided to go against the Epic and chose the transform. Moreover the transform was just introduced and the reviews were good. It had a sliding keyboard a nice addition. I immediately ordered the phone.

Once I got the phone the first looks were good. Then after 3 days I inserted my headset into this phone and I was not able to hear anything.I tried contacting sprint and Samsung may be I had a faulty set.They were of no help.But sprint accepted my return. And sent me another phone.When the phone is on my way I was scheduled to go abroad for a month and half after a week.

Now I have only one week to see if the phone is right for me. The transform came. The first test I did was obvious J .I inserted my headset into the phone.

Hurrah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am not able to hear anything this time as well.But I don’t have time to send this phone back and get a replacement as well.

I thought what the hell I am not going to listen to any music and let me go ahead with the phone. The phone was heavier than the instinct but that was ok because now I am having a SMART PHONE. So it will be heavy. The day before I was scheduled to fly, I was not able to pick any calls in this phone. I can only see who is calling me and I have to call them back and say that I missed their call.

I went ahead with my trip and came back after a month and half. I didn’t switch the phone on in the mean time.

Now the fun starts.

The phone was extremely slow. Slow means it is really S-L-O-W.

A lot of times I miss the calls. Some of the apps don’t run. And some of the  apps run very slowly.

I was told that everything will be alright once they upgrade the phone to Android 2.2.

I was reading through the forums. When I bought the phone it had Android 2.1 OS. Samsung was supposed to upgrade to Android 2.2 in January. But it didn’t .Few of the forum readers contacted Samsung and they said they had some issues with the upgrading of Android 2.2 in Epic phone.

What the hell!!!

We were talking about Samsung Transform not the Galaxy. But the rep said that since the Epic is their flagship phone they want to upgrade all the galaxies first and then they would come to their lower end models.

I received the upgrade end of April. Now I am running Android 2.2 in my phone. According to people now my phone should be able to do everything faster.

I will give you one example of fast.

IT TAKES ME 2 TO 4 MINUTES TO MAKE A CALL.

People may argue that since I got the lower end of Samsung I got what I paid for. When I got the phone Epic was selling for $200 and transform for $150. And instinct was not advertised as the lower end.It was told as the mid level phone.

Let me for argument sake accept that the transform is the lower end phone.My question here is does all the lower end phones are slow and not able to make calls?

Transform has a 800Mhz processor and my friend has the LG optimus S which has 600Mhz processor.The Optimus S is faster that the instinct.

Here are some reviews on the instinct.I am experiencing all the cons they have said in their review.

So the verdict on this one is If Samsung makes a flagship phone just go for the flagship phone so you will get enough support and the product will be good.If you choose anything lower than the flagship then you are Royally screwed.

Iphone 4g , does it resemble the Samsung Instinct

I first bought Samsung instinct when it was released in sprint.It was their flagship phone to compete with iphone.

When I bought the phone I thought that it can't compete with iphone in any way.It just had a touch screen and there ends the similarity between samsung instinct and iphone. But there were a lot of positives about the phone.Since it was samsung's flagship phone they really had built the phone in a very good way.

The phone was sturdy.It is flat on the front and back(iphone was curvacious on the back at that time).

 The phone took real beating from me.I had the phone for 2 years exactly.I have dropped it many times.It was still working.It does not integrate with Outlook except if you have outlook web access.Even then I was not able to look into the subfolders created by me.Only the inbox.But that sufficed my purpose.
It had a 2gb micro sd card.And it had a music player.The phone was compact.The screens are not customizable.I had a gps.And the battery life is very good.

If you lay the phone on a table it would lay flat.And the edges of the phone are curved. Does this hardware design ring a bell :). Yes it is the latest iphone 4g.
I have attached a picture of the samsung instinct.Compare that with the iphone 4g just the outside hardware design.You decide.