Hasta La Gadget!

That pool looks cool and refreshing, and all of the kids are having the time of their lives. Problem is, it’s in an exclusive club, leaving you to stare at it longingly from the opposite side of a chainlink fence. We know the feeling, and it ain’t fun — yet, the state of LTE in the US over the last year has had just a pinch of elitism due to its high cost of entry and exclusion from most rural areas. Devices running on the near-miraculous speeds haven’t exactly been cheap, with handsets like the Samsung Droid Charge and Motorola Droid Bionic at an asking price of $250 to $300 on contract. Needless to say, lots of customers have felt the underlying feeling of inadequacy because their wallets may come up a Benjamin or two short.

The Pantech Breakout is the fifth phone in Verizon’s LTE lineup, and the first clear departure from the piggy bank-busting prices that its predecessors command. With Big Red boasting a 4G lineup full of monotonous 4.3-inch behemoths, we’ve been anxiously awaiting something different. Something — anything — that could likely appease a different set of customers eager to take advantage of this speedy network. The 4-inch Breakout certainly is capable of appealing to a wider demographic, but with an uncharacteristically low $100 price tag with a two-year commitment, does it ooze cheapness or is it a fair bargain? Follow us after the break to find out.

Continue reading Pantech Breakout review

Pantech Breakout review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Smartphone obsessives in Canada will be getting their hands on some snowy Galaxy S II goodness sooner rather than later. Yes, Samsung’s dual-core bestseller has been leaked with an October 7th launch date on Bell, with prices matching the dark original: CAD$599.95 off-contract or CAD$149.95 for three years. And we know all phones look better in white, right?

White Galaxy S II gets not-so-festive October launch in Canada originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Kindle Fire won’t be out til November, but it’s already giving off some strong pre-order smoke signals. According to digital marketing firm eDataSource, Amazon’s first tablet has generated enough buzz to pick up just under 100,000 orders — an estimate based on a sample of 800,000 e-mail users. Even with these rosy estimates, however, Amazon still has a long way to go before it catches up with Apple, which sold 300,000 iPads on its debut. But we’re guessing that the Fire’s $199 price tag probably won’t hurt its chances.

Kindle Fire pre-orders heat up, reportedly reach 95,000 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC's Sense-skinned phones will blab to just about anyone who asks. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

HTC’s skinned version of Android contains a serious security flaw which allows any application access to a huge trove of your personal information, according to mobile blog Android Police.

HTC’s proprietary Sense software — which runs on the company’s EVO 4G and Thunderbolt smartphones, amongst others — contains almost everything that happens on your phone in a data file, including GPS location information, phone numbers, SMS data (plain numbers and encoded text), and more. Any app can get access to this data simply through a permissions request.

The problem is due to logging tools that HTC recently added, which gather a huge amount of personal info and usage data. HTC hasn’t provided a reason for adding the tools.

Here’s the process, as described by Android Police:

any app on affected devices that requests a single android.permission.INTERNET (which is normal for any app that connects to the web or shows ads) can get its hands on [the data.]

Worryingly, there is an off-by-default VNC server included in the OS. This could possibly allow remote access, according to Artem Russakovski at Android Police.

Out of all the currently available mobile operating systems, security issues and exploits plague Android the most by far. Because applications submitted to the Android Market are not vetted by Google in advance, malware and insecure applications have a far greater chance of slipping in undetected. In August, McAfee released a report citing Android as the “most attacked operating system,” with Android mobile malware attacks jumping 76 percent in a three month period. In May, the popular Skype app for Android was also discovered to contain a security vulnerability, which could allow malicious apps access to personal data.

But as Android Police says, the Skype loophole pales in comparison to HTC’s security issues. Whereas Apple could deploy a quick fix just a week after its GPS-gate affair (which was little more than location data being cached in the iPhone and not being encrypted during backups), Android OS updates are notoriously slow to roll out. Because the carrier takes care of the updates, it can be months before they are pushed to customers, if at all.

Tech savvy users can root their phones and remove the HTCloggers apk file. The majority of Android users will have to wait for this update.

Massive Security Vulnerability In HTC Android Devices Exposes Phone Numbers, GPS, SMS, Email Addresses [Android Police]

See Also:

• Skype's Android App Could Expose Your Personal Details
• Amazon App Store Requires Security Compromise
• Android App's Data Collection Raises Mobile-Security Questions …
• Google Flips Remote Kill-Switch on Android Apps
• Android Malware Found in Angry Birds Add-On Apps
• Android Malware Explodes, iOS Remains Safe

Google went through a lot to buy ITA and its travel software, and we saw the acquisition first bear fruit in the form of Mountain View’s web-based Flight Search. Now the partnership has produced version 1.2 of the OnTheFly airfare booking app for Android, iOS and BlackBerry. What’s new? Flexible date searches that let you peruse departures 35 days at a time, plus a price graph that shows the most fiscally prudent times to travel. Additionally, globetrotters can access their itinerary search history and see price changes for those fares throughout the year. Nice job fellas, now let’s work on bringing bargain-basement fare finding for the final frontier in the next revision.

Google and ITA’s OnTheFly app update puts flexible flight planning in your pocket originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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