Yesterday, Jim posted about some comments made by Google’s Android head Sundar Pichai. There has been a lot of discussion about those comments and what Pichai meant to say about the safeness of Android.

Whatever his intention, the linked article, to me, reflects a less biased point of view.

Kaspersky Lab’s report on the evolution of threats targeting smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices in 2012 was published in February 2013. Our data shows that in 2012 Android became the number-one target among virus writers, and that the number of threats over the course of the year grew steadily. Has this upswing in the number of mobile threats continued in 2013 so far? Indeed it has.

Follow the link for the details, but this sentence sums things up quite well:

A total of 99.9% of new mobile threat detections target the Android platform.

I love the simplicity of this idea.

The team consulted emergency workers from the Haiti and Fukushima disasters and developed a “victim app” and a “seeker app”. “They wanted it simple, unencrypted and smart,” says Al-Akkad.That meant avoiding known problems like low-power, low-range Bluetooth radio links, which often fail to connect – or “pair” – with each other amid the clutter of metallic debris in broken buildings. So they stuck to the much more robust and receivable Wi-Fi radio.

With the victim app a trapped person can write a 27-character message such as “broken leg stuck in bank” or “need help fire on 4th floor” and a seeker app up to 100 metres away can pick it up. The app found two “trapped” people in a large-scale, simulated terrorist attack at a seaside chemical plant in Stavanger, Norway – an exercise organised by the Norway-based research organisation Sintef.

This is the kind of thing that should just ship on every phone.

Three South African investigators are racing against the clock to secure crucial information from Oscar Pistorius’ iPhone 5 before his trial starts on Monday.

The detectives have flown to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California to request help in unlocking the iPhone’s passcode, as prosecutors want to access its SMS and WhatsApp messages as evidence for the trial.

Sure seems like they waited ’til the last possible minute for this.

Oy.

CNN:

A lot of consideration goes into designing a font, but somehow we’re all able generally to accept the typefaces around us, ignoring their subtle design quirks as though they’re as ordinary as air. We read their content but don’t think too much about their form.

One of the people responsible for the popular use of Helvetica, Mike Parker, died Sunday at age 84.

Now would be a good time to watch the 2007 documentary “Helvetica.”

You are being watched.

Film School Rejects:

The “In Memoriam” segment (of the Oscar telecast) is always a must-watch portion of the show, even if its biggest draw isn’t always a desire to honor the deceased talents of Hollywood, it’s to see who leads off and ends the piece, who was left off, and who you totally forgot passed away this year.

But how does one actually land on the list? Not surprisingly, it involves a paper trail, voting, and plenty of hurt feelings.

As expected, the first requirement is “Be dead”.

code:deck:

code:deck is a standard playing card deck sporting a stylish modern design. Each individual card features a code excerpt describing it in one of many programming languages.

Ever heard someone described as a “card carrying geek”? Well now, you can be a card playing geek.

For my part, I have no clue how the code relates to the card it is on.

The Atlantic:

The time that ends up on your smartphone—and that synchronizes GPS, military operations, financial transactions, and internet communications—originates in a set of atomic clocks on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory. Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, Chief Scientist for USNO’s Time Services, gives a video tour.

A little dry (and oddly shot/edited) but still an interesting overview of “the nation’s time keeping”.

This is a fair question. Why did Al Franken write this letter to Tim Cook, but not a peep from him to Samsung? Samsung has clearly bitten off a much larger piece of security exposure with their approach. I smell unfair treatment.

Good job by Yoni Heisler.

Wired.com:

We need to consider the consequences of this latest batch of apps and tools that remind us to contact significant others, boost our willpower, provide us with moral guidance, and encourage us to be civil. Taken together, we’re observing the emergence of tech that doesn’t just augment our intellect and lives — but is now beginning to automate and outsource our humanity.

Leaving aside the juvenile frat boy “bro” word, the app they talk about (which I’m really hoping is a parody app) is offensive because being in an adult relationship means committing to it – not outsourcing it to some app.

Nikon Rumors:

Nikon published a new technical service advisory where they announced a free cleaning and free shutter replacement for all D600 owners, even those with expired warranty. You can send your camera even if you do not have a problem.

If you have an affected D600, go to the Nikon site and schedule your free service. If your D600 isn’t exhibiting any of the (sadly common) dust/oil issues (mine isn’t), hold off on scheduling the service until the first mad rush is over but make sure you definitely do it some time in the next three to six months.

Google’s Android head Sundar Pichai:

“We cannot guarantee that Android is designed to be safe… If I had a company dedicated to malware, I would also be addressing my attacks on Android.”

Those are the first true words to come out of Google in a long time.

Forbes has become the place to write if you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. Such is the case with one of their latest articles, but Zach Epstein at BGR does a good job pointing out the mistakes and reality of the iPhone business.

This is the seventh year in a row.

The developers behind Castro shared some numbers after figuring out a great way to ask for App Store reviews.

Interesting article from Seeking Alpha (free reg-wall) on Apple’s strategic investment in GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT), a company that develops high-grade sapphire. Lots of financial info and comparisons with Liquidmetal Technologies, but this is the part that caught my eye:

The big knock on the use of sapphire in things like mass-market consumer electronics devices has always been cost. With Corning’s (GLW) Gorilla Glass controlling most of the smartphone display market, the volumes have enabled the company to drive-down costs to a level that has created significant barriers-to-entry. With this new arrangement, all signals point to Apple wanting to use sapphire…and a lot of it. Such volume could prove to be the catalyst needed to further get the material down the cost curve and into new mass-market devices.

Barrier to entry is a huge business advantage. Anything you can do to prevent other companies from doing knockoffs is a win. A great strategic relationship for Apple. Interesting analysis.

This is pretty awesome. A solid and complex chain of logic. If anyone knows anyone at Pixar, I’d love to know if this is a true part of the “Toy Story” backstory.

I’m not bashing Google Glass, I certainly see the value of a heads up display that is hands free and connected to the internet. But this situation is inevitable. Who wants to be recorded without their permission?

A San Francisco woman who says she was attacked at a bar on Haight Street after refusing to stop wearing Google Glass has released video footage of the incident that she filmed with the new technology that spurred the confrontation in the first place.

“This is the video that I got on Google Glass at Molotov bar on Haight Street after being verbally accosted and flicked off by the Asian looking girl, I turned on the video, and after I told them I was doing so they got pissed and came after me,” Slocum wrote.

“Unfortunately, I had not extended the video so it cuts out after 10 seconds. Here you can see them — two people, a male and a female — trying to block the camera. The guy waving his hands in my face here later rips the Google Glasses off my face and ran out of the bar,” she wrote.

Not sure if there is a legal difference between this sort of video and the video recorded by unseen security cameras. But I suspect people feel differently about going into a bar with a security camera and being recorded by someone wearing Google Glass. I know I do.

The video in question is below.

Google is lobbying officials in at least three U.S. states to stop proposed restrictions on driving with headsets such as Google Glass, marking some of the first clashes over the nascent wearable technology.

This angers me. If someone is killed because a driver was distracted by something on Google Glass, why is that any different than someone killed by careless texting? If your focus is held by an interaction with Google Glass, your focus is not on the road.

Over the past year or so, there have been a number of stories of iPads school rollouts where kids were finding ways to override the iPad’s intended use (for education), overriding the firewall to gain general access to the internet. The situation became a PR problem for Apple. Sounds like they’ve solved it.

Schools in LA had deployed a large amount of iPads, but had to recall them after students were found deleting the enrollment profiles on their devices. This allowed the students to use them to gasp browse the web as they pleased and install unapproved apps on their personal units. The anarchy would not stand and the district began reconsidering its rollout — which has since resumed. These kinds of high-profile flubs likely didn’t do anything to help the momentum of Apple’s organizational rollouts. This enforcement should allow customization, while preventing circumvention of IT rules.

In short, it should make iPads even more attractive to these markets.

I get the school’s point of view here. General access to the web is a distraction, as well as an invitation for cheating. A school needs to be able to control how a student uses their iPad, at least during school hours. Glad to see Apple learned from this experience. These improvements go well beyond schools, also benefit anyone managing IT for large organizations. Good stuff.

Go and sign-up.

Arizona Governor Governor Jan Brewer on Wednesday vetoed a controversial bill that would have, in effect, legalized wide-ranging discrimination of homosexuals as an extension of religious freedom. Apple, along with a number of other major U.S. corporations, banded together to have the bill shot down.

Good.

Quartz:

At its height, almost three-quarters of American households bought and kept orange juice in their refrigerator. But shifting American eating habits—which stigmatize sugar and leave little time for breakfast—and surging juice prices have done significant damage to American demand.

As a kid, we never had orange juice for breakfast (too expensive) and the only time I ever drink it now is if I go to a diner for breakfast and then I crave it. When’s the last time you had a glass of OJ? For our non-North America readers – was/is orange juice ever a staple of your breakfast?

Fast Company:

Twenty years of wild parties, legendary product launches, and heated controversies: how an unlikely mix of “nerds, rock-and-roll hippie freaks, and business suits” grew into the tech world’s most-talked-about annual gathering.

It’s interesting to read where SXSW came from. Keep an eye on the buzz that surrounds various apps, startups, services and technologies that invariably rise out of the show each March.

Vice Australia:

A coal mine is currently burning the hell up in Australia. For obvious reasons fires in coal mines are especially problematic—the exposed coal face burns, just like coal should, and smoulders through the underground seam where it’s safely protected from any firefighting. if you find yourself in Australia, avoid Morwell. It’s just not a healthy town.

Brings to mind the (still – since 1962) burning coal mine in the now mostly abandoned town of Centralia, Pennsylvania.