android
Android Users In China Receive The Most Malware Attacks
A rather interesting report by NetQin Mobile has discovered that 64% of all mobile attacks on Android devices in the first quarter of 2011, affected those in China. Coming very far behind in number 2 position would be the US at 7.6%. So why is it that China seems to be receiving the brunt of all these attacks? Well taken from the press release:
According to NetQin, about 2.53 million Android users were infected with mobile viruses or malware in the first quarter of 2011, with most of them occurring in China, which is partly due to the easy availability of “white box” phones (open phones that are not tied to particular carriers) and a general lack of mobile security awareness among mobile phone users. “White box” phones often run outdated versions of mobile software and are not provided with security support from legal carriers. The lack of mobile security awareness further adds fuel to the flames, as users often ignore protective measures when engaged in mobile activities, such as using mobile payment channels, web browsing or clicking on URLs from unknown sources, thus allowing more mobile viruses and malware to intrude their mobile devices.
It also seems that the majority of these attacks happen to users running on Froyo 2.2 versions of the Android operating system while 16% of the attacks occur on Gingerbread 2.3 users. I guess all these issues can be attributed to OS fragmentation of the Android system and the lack of quality control of the apps that come into the Android Market. With such shocking statistics Android users out there be careful of what you download!
The Fairphone 2 was first unveiled in June earlier this year, where this particular handset carried a modular design while featuring majority of its components that have been sourced from conflict-free mines. It seems that this particular handset that you can purchase with a clear conscience has begun to ship to those who happen to live across Europe.
Fairphone announced in a blog post, “It’s been almost two years in the making, and some of the earliest buyers have been patiently waiting since July to receive their new phones. As community manager, I want to personally welcome the new batch of Fairphone owners to our community.” The initial 1,000 units are tipped to ship this month, before the other pre-orders follow in January 2016.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Fairphone 2 will run on a Snapdragon 801 chipset, has a 5″ 1080p screen with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, with Android 5.1 Lollipop in tow. It will be a dual SIM capable handset with a microSD memory card slot and plays nice with 4G LTE networks, retailing for approximately €525 a pop.
It looks like the upcoming flagship model from Xiaomi will feature NFC support, at least based on a document that was released by China UnionPay. Just in case you are scratching your head and wondering who China UnionPay is, they happen to be the only domestic payment gateway supplier and card organization, and hence, to see them offer detailed support concerning the newly released NFC-based payment system points to the very real possibility of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5 featuring NFC capability.
After all, the Xiaomi Mi 3 was also mentioned on the list, which so happens to feature NFC, and there is no mention of the Xiaomi Mi 4 which does not come with NFC. Still, such a new payment system would be the ideal tool to see the reintroduction of NFC to the flagship model.
OnePlus did make an announcement in the previous month that the Ceramic variant of the OnePlus X will be released on November 24. True to their word, they did exactly that – although only a pitiful number of units were made available, and not only that, this was through a charity auction. Thankfully for the rest of the masses who are on the lookout for this device, it has gone on sale officially already.
Needless to say, this particular variant is available only by an invitation, although do bear in mind that standard OnePlus X invites are not good here – you will still need to snag yourself a specific Ceramic variant invite before you make a purchase. OnePlus is also on the lookout to offer additional methods of picking up this smartphone, although no further details were revealed.
The OnePlus X Ceramic will be available only in select markets, where among them include Europe, India, and Hong Kong. To date, we do know that OnePlus had made only 10,000 units of the handset available. A case of the early bird getting the proverbial worm here?