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Currency Trading at $5 Trillion a Day Surpassed Pre-Lehman High, BIS Says

Currency Trading at $5 Trillion a Day Surpassed Pre-Lehman High, BIS Says

By Anchalee Worrachate and David Goodman.

Currency trading may have risen to a record $5 trillion a day in September, surpassing the peak reached before Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ) Holdings Inc.'s collapse in 2008, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

Trading then declined to about $4.7 trillion a day in October and is likely to have fallen considerably in early 2012, the Basel, Switzerland-based bank said in a report. The BIS said it derived its estimates from supplementing the data in its foreign-exchange survey, which is undertaken every three years, with information collected from central banks and electronic- trading platforms.

The surveys found currency trading kept increasing in the first year of the financial crisis, climbing to about $4.5 trillion a day in September 2008, shortly before Lehman's collapse, Morten Bech, a senior economist at the BIS, wrote in the research paper. Average daily trading volume then plunged to $3 trillion in April 2009, he wrote.

"By mid-2009, global foreign-exchange activity had started to pick up again and it rose to $4 trillion a day in April 2010," Bech wrote. "Our measure shows the foreign-exchange activity may have reached $5 trillion a day in September 2011, before dropping off considerably by the end of the year."

Trading Surges

Foreign-exchange trading has surged as central banks including the Federal Reserve flooded markets with cash to combat the global financial crisis. Japan intervened to help its exporters after a record earthquake and tsunami a year ago, while the Swiss central bank imposed a cap to stem franc strength in September. Efforts to boost growth by protecting exports started a "currency war," Brazil Finance Minister Guido Mantega said in September 2010.

The dollar traded at $1.3109 per euro at 8:42 a.m. in London, up 0.1 percent from last week. The greenback slid 0.3 percent to 82.24 yen after rising to 82.65 on March 9, the strongest since April 27.

Bech said the recent data showed London remained the center with the highest volume of foreign-exchange trading, followed by New York.

"The turnover in the United Kingdom dwarfs that of any other market center," he wrote. "At slightly over $2 trillion per day in April 20111, its reported volume was larger than the other surveyed markets put together."

Volatility

Implied volatility of three-month options on Group of Seven currencies as tracked by the JPMorgan G7 Volatility Index (JPMVXYG7) climbed to 26.6 percent on Oct. 24, 2008, the most since Bloomberg began compiling the data in 1992. The gauge reached a 15-month high of 15.8 percent on Sept. 23 before falling to as low as 9.71 on Feb. 24.

A lower figure makes investments in currencies with higher benchmark lending rates more attractive as the risk in such trades is that market moves will erase profits.

The BIS report differs from its triennial currency survey, with the next one scheduled for April 2013. In the previous survey published in September 2010, it said the average daily trading volume increased 20 percent from 2007 to $4 trillion.

The BIS supplemented its survey data with information taken from central-bank sponsored industry groups in the U.K., North America, Canada, Singapore, Japan and Australia. It also took data from electronic-trading systems operated by EBS and Thomson Reuters, Hotspot FX and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

The BIS also used data from CLS Bank, the New York-based operator of the largest currency-trading settlement system. CLS handled an average of $4.5 trillion per day in 2011, compared with $2 trillion in early 2005, according to the BIS report.

"While good and timely data are available on prices of foreign-exchange instruments, the same is not true for trading activity," Bech wrote. "In this article, I show how it is possible to leverage alternative sources of FX activity to obtain a timelier grasp of turnover developments."

The BIS was formed in 1930 and acts as a central bank for the world's monetary authorities. It has published the triennial survey since 1989.

UPDATE 1-Nokia to shut Indian mobile money service

March 12 (Reuters) - Nokia will close down Nokia Money, a financial service it runs in India, as it continues to narrow its focus on its phone business and location-based services.

"The mobile financial services business is not core to Nokia so we plan to exit the business," said a spokesman for the company.

After regional launches Nokia opened the India-wide service only late last year and was planning to expand it into several other emerging markets.

Financial services are seen as one of the major business opportunities in the wireless industry but so far have become a big business only in Kenya and the Philippines, as tight regulations and the lack of a business model have restricted take-up elsewhere.

Telecom operators, banks, credit card companies and technology firms like Nokia have been fighting to get a piece of the potentially lucrative business.

"The market is crowded and the role of Nokia in that business was questionable," said John Strand, head of mobile consultancy Strand Consult.

Nokia is in the midst of revamping its operations under Chief Executive Stephen Elop, who was hired in September 2010 to turn the company round.

The company has closed down most of the mobile services launched under previous management and has also cut thousands of jobs as it continues to battle falls in its market share. (Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by David Holmes, Greg Mahlich)

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26.03.2012. u 05:03 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^

China Slowdown May Portend Easing as Asia Considers Options for Stimulus

China Slowdown May Portend Easing as Asia Considers Options for Stimulus

By loomberg News.

China's economic growth slowed in the first two months of the year, with both exports and domestic demand moderating faster than analysts had forecast, building the case for Premier Wen Jiabao to accelerate stimulus measures.

The world's second-largest economy had the biggest trade deficit last month in at least 22 years, the weakest January- February factory-production gain since 2009 and retail sales below the median economist estimate, government data showed March 9 and 10.

Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said today that the nation has large scope in theory for lowering banks' reserve requirements, and the yuan tumbled after officials weakened the reference rate. Moderating inflation and Europe's faltering export demand may encourage the government to loosen credit and pause on currency gains, with the yuan down 0.5 percent this year against the dollar after climbing 4.5 percent in 2011.

"We are likely to see another cut sometime soon" in the required-reserves ratio, Brian Jackson, a Hong Kong-based economist with Royal Bank of Canada, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "If you look at the January and February numbers combined, whether it's trade, whether it's industrial production, it all shows a pretty clear picture of things continuing to slow down since the start of the year."

The yuan fell 0.2 percent to 6.3239 as of 12:11 p.m. in Shanghai, the biggest decline since Jan. 20, after the central bank weakened the daily reference rate by the most since August 2010. The MSCI Asia Pacific index of stocks fell 0.6 percent as of 2:20 p.m. in Tokyo.

Vietnam Cuts Rates

In Asia, officials are weighing the need to preserve firepower for any deterioration in Europe with controlling inflation. Vietnam cut benchmark rates today, reducing the refinancing rate to 14 percent from 15 percent. India last week unexpectedly reduced its cash reserve ratio and Australia's central bank said it has scope to lower rates, while South Korea and Indonesia held off from stimulus.

Speaking at a briefing in Beijing as part of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, Zhou said changes in capital flows and foreign-exchange reserves were key factors in decisions on bank reserve ratios, cut in February for the second time in three months. He said that such reductions were not an indication of policy loosening.

In a statement, the central bank reaffirmed a "prudent" monetary policy, to be fine-tuned as needed, and said "new ideas" will be used in managing the world's largest foreign- currency reserves of $3.18 trillion.

European Data

Stocks around the world rallied at the end of last week as Greece's private creditors agreed to a debt swap, the U.S. reported job growth that exceeded forecasts and China's data spurred talk of new stimulus. The U.S. Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.4 percent on March 9.

In Asia, a Malaysian report today may show that industrial production growth slowed in January, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists, while Japan reported better-than-estimated machinery orders for January.

In Europe, Italy may report today that gross domestic product shrank 0.7 percent last quarter from the previous three- month period, confirming a preliminary estimate, according to another survey of analysts. In the U.S., the Treasury Department may say the government's budget deficit widened in February.

China will keep the exchange rate "basically stable at an appropriate and balanced level," Wen, 69, said in the opening speech to the National People's Congress on March 5. He announced an economic-growth target for 2012 of 7.5 percent, down from the 8 percent goal in place since 2005.

Appreciation in the yuan will be "difficult," said Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist for Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd., who previously worked for the International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.

Rate, Ratio Cuts

Zhang Zhiwei, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong, is forecasting an interest-rate reduction this month and lower reserve requirements starting in April.

Zhou, 64, said inflation-adjusted interest rates may remain negative for some time and that a too-rapid increase in the benchmark one-year deposit interest rate, now at 3.5 percent, would lead to large capital inflows, given that "some developed countries are implementing very loose monetary policy and global liquidity is quite ample."

He didn't discuss how so-called real interest rates turned positive for the first time in more than two years with last week's report of 3.2 percent inflation in February.

In China, the February trade shortfall of $31.5 billion reported March 10 by the customs bureau in Beijing was the first in a year and four times the size of the previous largest deficit. Exports (CNFREXPY) rose 18.4 percent from a year earlier, while imports gained 39.6 percent.

No Conclusions

Zhou cautioned against making any conclusions from the deficit, saying trade has seasonal distortions at the beginning or end of the year. "We may need a relatively long time to observe it," he told reporters.

Data in the first two months are distorted by the timing of a Lunar New Year holiday, which fell in January this year and February in 2011. Analysts forecast a 31.1 percent increase in overseas sales and a 31.8 percent rise in inbound shipments, according to the median estimates in Bloomberg News surveys.

The rise in China's consumer prices in February was the least in 20 months. Industrial production gained 11.4 percent in January and February, less than forecast.

Retail sales rose 14.7 percent in the first two months from a year earlier, below the median economist estimate of 17.6 percent. New local-currency loans in February were 710.7 billion yuan ($113 billion), the People's Bank of China said March 9, lagging behind the median forecast of 750 billion yuan.

'Timely' Adjustments

Wen, in his work report to lawmakers last week, said the government will "carry out timely and appropriate anticipatory adjustments and fine-tuning" of fiscal and monetary policies.

Suntech Power Holdings Co., the largest maker of solar panels, said increased competition and government subsidy cuts will lead to a first-quarter drop in shipments, according to a statement March 8 from the Wuxi, China-based company. Deliveries in the first quarter will decline by about 30 percent from the fourth quarter, it said.

"Clearly, exports are still not strong enough to shore up 8 percent to 9 percent growth for China," said Ken Peng, a Beijing-based economist at BNP Paribas SA. "More policy support is necessary in coming months to ensure sufficient funding for investment."

--Zheng Lifei and Li Yanping in Beijing, with assistance from Shamim Adam in Singapore. Editor: Paul Panckhurst

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26.03.2012. u 04:55 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^

Stocks Drop for First Time Four Days as Commodities Decline on China Trade

Stocks Drop for First Time Four Days as Commodities Decline on China Trade

By Lynn Thomasson and Jacob Adelman.

Stocks (MXWO) fell for the first time in four days, commodities slid and the yuan weakened after Chinese exports grew at a slower pace than forecast. Indian shares advanced as the central bank unexpectedly cut reserve requirements for banks.

The MSCI All-Country World Index (MXWD) dropped 0.2 percent as of 8:06 a.m. in London. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 0.2 percent and Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures slipped 0.2 percent. The yuan fell after China's central bank weakened its daily fixing for the currency by the most since August 2010. Yields on German 10-year bonds fell two basis points to 1.78 percent. The S&P GSCI gauge of 24 commodities lost 0.4 percent, led by natural gas and silver.

China reported the biggest trade deficit in at least 22 years on March 10, adding to data last week on factory output and retail sales that signaled slowing economic growth. European finance ministers will meet in Brussels today to sign off on the 130 billion-euro ($170 billion) aid package for Greece and discuss Spain's budget-cutting efforts.

"All the economic data point to a slowing trend" in China, said Wu Kan, a Shanghai-based fund manager at Dazhong Insurance Co., which oversees $285 million. "Investors are expecting the government to loosen monetary policy, though whether the government moves fast enough to satisfy those expectations remains to be seen."

Reserve-Ratio Cut

The BSE India Sensitive Index, or Sensex, gained 0.5 percent after the central bank on March 9 reduced the amount of deposits lenders need to set aside as reserves to ease a cash squeeze in the banking system. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index slipped 0.4 percent and South Korea's Kospi Index (KOSPI) lost 0.8 percent.

The MSCI Asia-Pacific gauge slid 1 percent last week, ending a record run of 11 weekly advances. The valuation for the equity benchmark reached 15 times estimated earnings in February, the highest level in almost two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index (HSCEI) declined 0.3 percent and the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.2 percent. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will close an annual gathering of the legislature this week. The nation cut its 2012 economic growth target to 7.5 percent on March 5, down from 8 percent over the past seven years.

China Exports

Exports from China rose 18.4 percent last month from a year earlier, while imports gained 39.6 percent. Analysts forecast a 31.1 percent increase in overseas sales and that inbound shipments would rise 31.8 percent, based on estimates from Bloomberg News surveys.

China Railway Group Ltd. (390), the country's biggest builder of train lines, tumbled 5.4 percent in Hong Kong. A 300-meter section of an unopened high-speed railway collapsed in central China's Hubei province following heavy rains, Xinhua News said, citing local authorities.

The yuan lost 0.22 percent to 6.3245 per dollar for the biggest drop since January. The daily reference rate was set 0.33 percent lower at 6.3282 per dollar. The currency can move 0.5 percent either side of the fixing.

Brent oil for April settlement slid 0.5 percent to $125.39 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Hedge funds reduced bullish bets on oil for the first time in five weeks as concern about a conflict with Iran decreased. Large speculators cut wagers on rising prices by 7.3 percent in the week ended March 6, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Oil, Cotton

"The data from China is a downside pressure on the oil market," said Ken Hasegawa, a commodity-derivative sales manager at Newedge Group in Tokyo. "The trade deficit is much bigger than expected."

Cotton futures dropped as much as 0.9 percent to 88.01 cents a pound in New York. India, the world's second-biggest cotton producer, scrapped a one-week-old ban on exports of the fiber after protests from growers, traders and China, the nation's largest customer.

The cost of insuring bonds against non-payment in Asia rose, according to credit-default swap traders. The Markit iTraxx Asia index of 40 investment-grade borrowers outside Japan increased 2 basis points to 159 basis points, Barclays Plc prices show. The measure is headed for its highest close since March 7, according to data provider CMA.

Yields on Australia's 10-year government bonds declined nine basis points to 3.92 percent. Ten-year Treasury yields fell one basis point to 2.01 percent.

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26.03.2012. u 04:52 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^

Dell Seeks Edge on IPad With Business-Focused Windows Tablet

Dell Seeks Edge on IPad With Business-Focused Windows Tablet

By Aaron Ricadela and Emily Chang.

Dell Inc. (DELL) Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell said there's growing demand for tablet computers that can run the next version of Windows, which may help his company siphon away corporate customers from the iPad.

Dell is developing a business-friendly tablet that works with Windows 8, and the company will start selling computers running the new Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) software "on the exact day" it becomes available, the CEO said yesterday on the "Bloomberg West" television show. Windows 8 is due later this year, though a release date hasn't been set.

The goal is to entice business customers by running Microsoft's Office applications -- something Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s tablet isn't designed to do -- and letting the device connect securely to corporate networks. Dell is seeking an edge over the latest iPad, unveiled yesterday, which sports a faster processor, sharper screen and speedier wireless service.

"Having a secure Windows tablet that works with all the Windows applications -- we're hearing a lot of demand for that and we think that will be quite attractive," Dell said.

Still, the iPad is making its own inroads in the corporate world. Apple is on pace to sell $10 billion worth of iPads to businesses this year, according to Forrester Research Inc. (FORR), succeeding in a market that has traditionally been Microsoft's strength.

Apple's Lead

Tablet makers will sell a total of 103.5 million devices this year, with Apple accounting for two-thirds, Gartner Inc. predicts. The figure will rise to 326.3 million in 2015.

Shares of Round Rock, Texas-based Dell rose 1.1 percent to $17 at the close in New York yesterday. The shares have climbed 16 percent this year.

Dell aims to "lead the market" in Windows 8 tablets, Amit Midha, president of Dell's Asia division, said at a briefing in Hong Kong today. The company will continue to offer tablets and smartphones based on Google Inc. (GOOG)'s Android technology, he said.

"Both the tablet and the smartphone form factors you'll see us participating in, but the tablet side is a much higher priority for us," Midha said. He declined to disclose details about products being planned by Dell.

Dell also will sell a range of personal computers running Windows 8 as soon as the software debuts.

"We'll be there right on the very first day that Windows 8 is available," Michael Dell said yesterday. During a conference call with analysts last month, he said there was "great excitement" in the corporate market over the new software.

Dell will continue to diversify beyond PCs by investing in acquisitions and research spending, he said on "Bloomberg West."

"You'll see us continue to be active," the CEO said.

At hacking contest, Google Chrome falls to third zero-day attack

Google's Chrome browser on Friday fell to a zero-day attack that pierced its vaunted security sandbox, the third such attack in as many days at a contest designed to test its resistance to real-world threats.

A teenage hacker who identified himself only as PinkiePie said he spent the past week and half working on the attack. It combined three previously unknown vulnerabilities to gain full system access to a Dell Inspiron laptop that ran a fully patched version of Chrome on top of the most up-to-date version of Windows 7. He spent the past three days holed up in hotel rooms and conference areas refining the attack so it would break out of the sandbox, which was designed to prevent code-execution attacks like his, even when security bugs are identified.

"These kinds of things are finicky" PinkiePie told reporters as he finished a blueberry yogurt just minutes after making his booby-trapped website display a picture of a pink pony wielding a medieval axe. He said he "got lucky" because he found a way to break out of Google's sandbox relatively early and then spent the rest of the time identifying vulnerabilities that allowed him to remotely funnel code through the system.

PinkiePie said all three of the vulnerabilities resided in code that's native to Chrome. That meant it qualified for a $60,000 prize, the top reward for the Pwnium contest Google sponsored at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver. Members of the Chrome security team started analyzing the exploit and vulnerability details within minutes of the hack. Less than 24 hours later, Google put a fix into its distribution pipeline.

"Congratulations to PinkiePie (aka PwniePie) for a beautiful piece of work to close out the Pwnium competition!" an advisory accompanying the update for Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of Chrome stated. Referring to an exploit unleashed on Wednesday, it continued: "We also believe that both submissions are works of art and deserve wider sharing and recognition."

Additional details will be published once other WebKit packages that might also be vulnerable are patched.

Google is offering prizes of $60,000, $40,000 and $20,000 under the competition in an attempt to learn new strategies for fortifying Chrome against attacks that expose sensitive user data or take control of user machines. PinkiePie is only the second contestant to enter the contest. Both have demonstrated attacks that allowed them to take control of Chrome users' machines when they do nothing more than browse to an attack site.

On Wednesday, a Russian researcher named Sergey Glaznov bundled two vulnerabilities into his own remote code-execution attack. Less than 24 hours later, Google shipped an update fixing the holes. At the separate Pwn2Own contest a few feet away, a team of researchers successfully exploited Chrome on Wednesday.It's now almost certain that attack relied on Adobe Flash to break out of the safety perimeter.

The five vulnerabilities exposed during the third and final day of the contest are miniscule compared to the overall number of bugs Chrome's security team fixes each year. A member of the team said the value of Pwnium isn't in the number of bugs that come to light, but rather in the insights that come from watching how a reliable exploit is able to slip through carefully crafted defenses.

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26.03.2012. u 04:50 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^

Android Dodges Apple iOS Address Book Debacle: But not by Much

Android Dodges Apple iOS Address Book Debacle: But not by Much

By Daniel Ionescu.

Apple is eating dirt over how iOS apps share your data with publishers, primarily personal address books harvested by a certain company named Path. But is Google any better with the way Android apps behave? We asked the app experts.

The verdict? "Yes" with a gaping caveat.

For the record, Apple vows to fix the leaky-app-data problem with new rules for iOS app makers to follow regarding app behavior and clear permissions for access to personal data stored on iOS devices. But didn't happen before Washington lawmakers weighed in on the controversy. Soon iPhone and iPad apps won't be able to use your address book without your permission.

Android Any Better?

Are Android users safe from such problems, and is Apple's proposed fix a better implementation than Google offers? Let's investigate.

Unlike Apple's system, which simply allows apps to access your contacts without any prompt or prior permission (note some iOS developers are now implementing voluntary dialogue boxes), Android apps that want to use such privileges have to ask for them in a dialogue box before you install the app. This means that if you don't want a certain app to have access to your contacts (or location or sites you browse on your phone), your only option is not install the app.

Android's explicit disclosure of what parts of your smartphone an app wants to access is also enforced when you select automatic updating for apps. If an app changes permissions in a new version, it will be automatically be marked as a manual update. That means you'll have to review and accept the new terms the same way you did when you first downloaded the app. However, the Android method has its own weakness.

Android's Fatal Flaw: User Ignorance

"A lot people blindly click through the permission requests when installing Android apps," says Greg Plumbly, managing director of Portable Pixels, a London-based mobile apps development firm. "It's a bit like on Windows when these warnings popped up so often people just got in the habit of clicking OK," he adds.

In the desktop software environment, a measly two percent of people read the end-user license agreements (EULAs) shown during software installations, according to a 2009 study by Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab. (You can read the PDF version of the study here) Shame on us computer and Internet users. Not paying attention to EULAs can bite you in the rear end with vengeance.

Does pre-installation permission request make Android less susceptible to apps uploading your contacts to remote servers without your consent? Not really, because you already agreed to it when you installed the app, along with a bunch of other requests, and there is no granular control over which permissions you give to apps-- it's a case of all or nothing for Android users.

It's still unclear how Apple might implement more transparent app disclosure along what type of granular opt-in and opt-out controls iOS users have.

Peter Harrison, CTO at UK-based mobile security firm BlackBelt SmartPhone Defence, agrees: "The Android approach is certainly safer than no prompt at all. Unfortunately you cannot agree individual permissions--either you give the app everything it wants or you don't give any permissions.

"However, the big weakness is that most users simply agree to permission requests without thinking about it, possibly without even reading the requested permissions. They certainly don't think about whether the app really needs the requested permission," Harrison adds.

"The proposed Apple solution to prompt in a similar way than it already does for location-based services and push notifications, in order to access address book info is a good one, and probably should have been in place some time ago," Portable Pixels' Greg Plumbly says. This way, users get granular control over access to their address book, every time an app requests it, making you aware when the app actually uses such data.

But this approach has its own perils, BlackBelt's Peter Harrison warns: "Prompting for individual address book requests could be safer but the same risk exists--many users may simply agree to the request without thinking about the consequences. This particularly applies if the user sees the prompt regularly. The user may get into the habit of simply acknowledging the requests without checking which app is requesting permission."

Can Apple do a better job than Google? Will Apple now be just as good as Google? Can the other 98 percent of the human race be trained to read EULAs? Hmmmm.

RIM: BLACKBERRY APP WORLD MORE PROFITABLE THAN ANDROID MARKET

By Lindsay Welnick.

While Research In Motion's BlackBerry App World is not on the scale of Apple's App Store, it is making progress.

BlackBerry App World hit 60,000 mobile apps and has become the second most profitable app store behind Apple's App Store, Research In Motion said this week, according to a report by TechnoBloom.

RIM based it's profitability on the greater number of apps customers must pay for in BlackBerry App World, versus the mostly free apps in Google's Android Market. Still, the BlackBerry App World is a long way from first place.

The Apple App Store has approximately 550,000 mobile apps and 170,000 alone for the iPad, while BlackBerry only offers about 60,000 mobile apps for all of its devices.

While BlackBerry does not have the app inventory that Apple does, new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins sees opportunities for the company to maintain global market share. Sixty-five percent of Europe still uses feature phones, which is a great opportunity for companies like RIM to pick up market share, Heins said in the report.

Most analysts remain skeptical of RIM's chances to compete in the global market. Even in the enterprise, large companies have started transitioning away from the BlackBerry and toward either the iPhone or Android. The delay of BlackBerry 10 devices until the second half of 2012 isn't helping. RIM's smartphone market share has been plummeting over the past couple of years and shows no immediate signs of recovery.

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02.03.2012. u 04:57 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^

Most Motorola devices won't get Android 4.0 update anytime soon

Most Motorola devices won't get Android 4.0 update anytime soon

By Athima Chansanchai

If you own a Motorola phone and are waiting for the upgrade to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, get ready for disappointment: A handful of tablets and phones will be upgraded by this summer, while the hottest models, such as the Droid Bionic or Droid Razr and Razr Maxx, have no slated upgrade rollout dates.

Motorola unveiled the schedule (or lack thereof) in its Owners' Forum under Motorola Android Software Upgrade News.

For phone models, Motorola's Ice Cream Sandwich rollout begins in "Q3," that is, sometime between June and September of this year. For now, that only includes the Atrix and Photon. When it comes to tablets, only the U.S.-based, Wi-Fi Xoom has received the new software; the other three versions of Xoom will have to wait until April to see ICS, while the Xyboard and Xoom 2 get it in the summer.

When the big moment does arrive, Motorola customers can follow these instructions:

In most cases, consumers will receive a notification on their device that the OTA upgrade is available. An available upgrade or update may be rolled out over a period of time in order to best manage the deployment volume and experience. At times, a small testing group is provided the upgrade before it's made available to a larger group. On your Motorola Android Phone or Tablet, you can go to Settings -> About Phone/Tablet -> System Updates to manually check for an OTA upgrade. All estimated release dates are based on available information and are subject to change.

That bit at the end about being "subject to change" may be something Motorola would do well to heed. This schedule reveals delays that may not sit well with its consumers, who may fall behind Sony, LG and HTC, which all have planned ICS rollouts by early this year.

Motorola should learn from the Samsung snafu that kicked up in December, when the company that regularly plays tug-of-war with Apple as the world's biggest smartphone vendor announced that its popular first-generation Galaxy S smartphones would not be getting Android 4.0. In doing so, they deprived 10 million customers from having ICS.

And even when they do get ICS, the upgrade may arrive right on the heels of the next Android rollout, 5.0, apparently bearing the "Jelly Bean" moniker. There's only been one report of that upgrade coming out in the spring, so we're not going to start salivating yet, but it's certainly poor coordination on the part of Google and its newly acquired mobile handset maker, and it's no way to treat customers.

The newest Android OS is the best thing to happen to that platform since it started to beat the iPhone in global marketshare. Here are the features that make this frozen treat hot - and the lucky phones that will first get the update.

Motorola's Android OS Upgrade Timeline Is Mostly Bad News

By Jared Newman.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream SandwichMotorola has promised to upgrade many of its smartphones and tablets to Android Ice Cream Sandwich, but not any time soon.

So far, Motorola's Xoom Wi-Fi is the only device that has received Android 4.0, and the Xoom Family Edition is the only U.S. device scheduled for an update in the first half of the year. Five other Motorola devices will get Ice Cream Sandwich in the third quarter, including the Atrix 4G, Atrix 2, Photon 4G, Xyboard 8.2 and Xyboard 10.1.

Meanwhile, rumors have it that Android 5.0, codenamed "Jelly Bean" may arrive this spring.

Ice Cream Sandwich is a major upgrade for Android, combining Google's phone and tablet software into a unified platform. In addition to the new look, ICS includes hardware acceleration to make the interface smoother, a face unlock feature, better voice dictation, built-in photo editing, a redesigned contacts app, and the ability to answer a call with an automated text message, among other features. It's also the only version of Android that supports Google's Chrome browser.

So far, only 1 percent of Android users who have recently accessed the Android Market are running Ice Cream Sandwich.

Motorola has promised that its latest phones will get Ice Cream Sandwich, including the Droid Bionic, Droid Razr, Droid Razr Maxx and Droid 4. But those devices, along with nine other U.S. phones and tablets, are listed as in "Evaluation and Planning," with no release timing given.

A post on the Motorola owners' forum has complete upgrade details for all the company's Android devices. That, at least, should be applauded, considering that most Android phone makers don't offer one place to get all of this information.

Details for upgrades for all of Motorola's Android devices.

But the lack of upgrade timing for Motorola's latest phones is a letdown. The wording in Motorola's press releases for the Droid 4 and Droid Razr--"to be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich"--suggests that the company at least had upgrade plans in place. The actual timeline tells a different story, with all the latest phones still in the evaluation phase.

Motorola recently tried to blame slow Android upgrades on hardware, telling PCMag that "multiple chipsets and multiple radio bands for multiple countries" were to blame. Conventional wisdom holds that software modifications by device makers and wireless carriers also slow down the process, because of the time it takes to merge their code with Google's.

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02.03.2012. u 04:51 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^

Motorola's Messy Ice Cream Sandwich Speaks Volumes On Android

Motorola's Messy Ice Cream Sandwich Speaks Volumes On Android

BY Eric Zeman.

Motorola says that many owners of its most popular devices will have to wait as long as six months for Android 4.0 updates. The Android update model is clearly broken.

Android system updates have been a contentious issue for as long as the platform has existed on more than one device. The newest system available from Google, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, was announced in October, and Google released the code to its manufacturer partners in November. So far, only one smartphone--the Galaxy Nexus--is shipped with Android 4.0 on board.

Motorola has brought a number of new smartphones in the last few months to market, including the Droid Razr, Razr Maxx, and Droid 4. All three phones, sold by Verizon Wireless, were sold with the promise that they'd be updated from Android 2.3 Gingerbread to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

According to Motorola, those updates won't arrive until the third quarter of this year.

The company provided an update to its update schedule on Wednesday, and the outlook is bleak. The vast majority of Motorola's Android smartphones are looking at a four- to nine-month wait for the latest system software to become available. In the meantime, smartphone makers will begin to bring Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones to market and they'll be in numerous supply by the time the third quarter comes around.

Other manufacturers, notably HTC and Sony, have committed to slightly less awful time frames for updating their devices to Android 4.0, but we're still looking at months and not weeks before those updates show up.

The pattern is repeating. The same thing happened when Android Gingerbread arrived in December 2010. Smartphone makers promised to update Android 2.2 devices to Android 2.3. Guess what, those updates are still being delivered 14 months later. You can bet the bulk of Android phones that ship during the first half of 2012 with Android 2.3 won't see Android 4.0 until late in 2012 the earliest.

Why does this take so long? As Motorola explains, the process is not a simple one. First, it has to decide exactly what devices are going to be updated, evaluate whether they can be updated, and then make the necessary plans to devote the resources to make it happen. Only then do developers get to work writing the code. Now, the code needs to be tweaked for different screen sizes and resolutions, for different processors and baseband radios, for different chip makers, and on and on.

Once the code is complete, it goes to wireless network operators for testing. This step in the process can take months. Only after carrier testing is complete is the software offered to customers. The whole process, from start to finish, can take three to six or more months, and, according to hardware makers, can cost almost as much as developing the original system for the device.

I have to ask, why the hell bother at all?

Don't get me wrong, I want the latest and greatest system software on my phone, too. But considering all the time and resources it costs the manufacturers--which could otherwise be spent on developing new products--the effort hardly seems worth it. Moreover, by the time the updates are available, the devices and even the software itself has been outdated by newer, better stuff.

The Android update model is clearly broken. It doesn't serve anyone: not the handset makers, not the carriers, and least of all not the owners of Android devices who are stuck waiting ages for the updates to arrive.

Although I'd argue that every smartphone deserves the best and newest software, the idea has its practical limitations. We appear to have reached them.

I say bag the whole system-level update thing. Device makers and carriers do need to provide maintenance and security updates to keep smartphones running their best and safest, but I think smartphone owners need to simply get used to the idea of owning outdated software. If you want the brand-newest mobile platform, buy a device that has it installed from the get-go. Otherwise, don't get upset if it is almost a year before your device is updated.

The other alternative: Google needs to devise a way so core system updates can be provided independently of manufacturer and carrier control.

Massive Surge in Android Malware

By eSecurityP.

In the last seven months of 2011, malware targeting the Android platform jumped 3,325 percent.

According to Juniper Networks' Mobile Threat Report, malware targeting the Android OS grew by 3,325 percent in the last seven months of 2011.

"Android malware accounted for about 46.7 percent of unique malware samples that targeted mobile platforms, followed by 41 percent for Java Mobile Edition," writes eWeek's Fahmida Y. Rashid.

"The explosion in Android malware is a direct result of the platform's diverse and open marketplace where developers are free to post their apps as well as growing market share, according to Juniper," Rashid writes. "Google's market share in the mobile space, at 46.9 percent, is statistically the same as the proportion of Android malware detected by Juniper."

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02.03.2012. u 04:44 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^

Malware loves Android, but iOS users could be at risk too

Malware loves Android, but iOS users could be at risk too

By Lance Whitney.

A new study from Juniper finds that Android is the hardest hit by malicious apps but says iOS could be vulnerable as well.

Android has gotten a lot of negative buzz for its susceptibility to malware. But a new study from Juniper Networks suggests that iOS could also be at risk.

Scanning hundreds of thousands of applications across the mobile landscape for its 2011 Mobile Threats Report, Juniper uncovered more than 28,000 pieces of malware last year, a rise of 155 percent from 2010.

As expected, Android was the post popular target.

Malware aimed at Google's mobile OS surged to 13,000 samples at the end of last year from only 400 in June, an increase of 3,325 percent. The platform's leading market share and the lack of control over the apps found in Android app stores have attracted more malware writers.

Before 2011, most mobile malware was targeted at Nokia's Symbian and Java ME, which runs on feature phones. But since then, Juniper has witnessed a huge shift toward Android.

Juniper's database didn't include malware samples for iOS, not necessarily because none exist, but because Apple doesn't release such data or open its platform for such analysis.

"While malicious applications on the iOS platform are limited in large part due to Apple's closed application marketplace and stringent screening model, it does not necessarily make it fundamentally more secure," Juniper said in its report released on Tuesday. "For one, when a user 'jailbreaks' their device by removing the limitations on the operating system, the device can be susceptible to malicious applications downloaded from third-party sources."

In fact, an IOS security flaw was discovered in November that allowed apps to download potentially malicious unsigned code. Apple patched the flaw with its iOS 5.0.1 update. And an app exploiting this type of flaw would've been rejected during Apple's approval process. But the incident did show that even iOS isn't invulnerable.

Further, Apple doesn't provide developers with the tools to create anti-malware apps, according to the report. The company may feel secure and justified in not allowing such development. However, such a policy could prove problematic should any risky apps manage to sneak through Apple's approval process.

"This lack of software protection and a competitive security market leaves users with little protection if malware were ever to make it through Apple's application vetting process," Juniper noted. "In the long run, this could create a false sense of security for Apple users and prove to be an even bigger risk than Android's open model."

Android Market alone has seen its share of misbehaving apps. But Juniper uncovered a large number of malicious apps from third-party Android app stores, which aren't protected by Google's new Bouncer service, a tool that can scan Android Market for malware.

Google's open-source platform for Android also means that it's up to device makers and carriers to push out security patches, a process that can take a long time.

"Many device manufacturers build customized versions of the Android operating system and, as a result, certain devices do not receive - or must wait months to receive - security updates," Juniper said. "This means that even patched security vulnerabilities and new security features may not get pushed to all devices, making them less secure and more vulnerable to malware."

The bad guys themselves became more sophisticated last year, tricking Android users into downloading their dirty work. DroidKungFu sneaked past detection by using encrypted payloads, while Droid Dream masqueraded as a legitimate app.

Google itself was kept quite busy last year removing malware from Android Market and from mobile devices.

The company has tried to keep up by jettisoning the malicious apps as quickly as possible. But the discovery process can sometimes take days, Juniper noted, leaving more than enough time for the payloads to infect smartphones and tablets. That's one key reason why Google has implemented its Bouncer scanner.

More malicious code written for mobile

VIA:centerbeam.com.

Hackers are coming out to play in the smartphone market, and it wont be fun for anyone but them. Businesses will soon start to see employees bring their own devices into work, if they already haven't, which could open the door to potential security vulnerabilities if the devices aren't properly managed. To maintain control of how the devices are used, companies need to invest in a mobile device management solution and institute a mobile use policy as soon as possible.

Juniper Networks' Mobile Threat Center reports that the amount of malicious code for smartphones rose 155 percent in 2011. In that same time, the report said malware shifted away from Java ME devices and over to the Android operating system.

"It's a direct result of consumer demand," said Bob Dix, Juniper's vice president of government affairs and critical infrastructure protection. "This is a phenomenon we couldn't have seen even a few years ago."

Users may not necessarily be aware of the data dangers associated with smartphones, as the mobile devices aren't thought to be a big attraction for viruses, but with a big shift in companies allowing employees to use their mobile devices, it may be a smart move for businesses to bring in mobile device management to help protect against security breaches.

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