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THE INQUIRER got a look at Ubuntu for Android at MWC, and we were told it might come to market later this year.

The operating system was preloaded onto a Motorola Atrix 2, which has a dual-core 1GHz processor, HDMI connectivity and plentiful memory to cope with the 2GB size of Ubuntu.

When using the device in your hand it runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but as soon as it is plugged into a larger display via a HDMI dock, the Ubuntu desktop immediately starts up, giving you access to a PC desktop.

The Linux kernel runs Android and Ubuntu at the same time, so you can also use all the features of Android such as phone calling and apps whilst the device is docked.

Ubuntu Linux vendor Canonical is in talks with device makers to have the software preloaded on Android handset as it requires deep integration. Talks have been positive so far, Canonical said, and handsets could ship later this year. µ

MOBILE PHONES running the Android mobile operating system are putting their users’ data at risk and compromising security, says a security analyst outfit.

The warning comes from UK security firm MWR Infosecurity and is timed to coincide with the start of Mobile World Congress, an event where man plus dog will be showing off smartphones based on the Google operating system.

“Android mobiles are being compromised daily exposing users to a real security risk,” said Ian Shaw, MD at MWR InfoSecurity, as he chided manufacturers for not doing enough to protect their users from a wide range of attacks.

“The increasing lack of security controls on the phones are exposing users to fraud and other criminal activity,” he said.

“Manufacturers must spend more time looking to see how they can safeguard users. Many seem to forget that they have a duty of care. The problem is that many users just don’t realise how vulnerable they actually are. Criminals can steal personal details like bank passwords and other personal information.”

MWR Infosecurity keeps itself fairly busy in its hunt for Android security issues, and so far has found ten on Samsung’s smartphones and tablets. It said it had warned the firm about these and had been assured that it was working on them. µ

TAIWANESE PHONE MAKER HTC has confirmed that it will launch a group of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones in April as part of its ‘One’ range.

The One X is odds-on to be the fanboi and developer favourite as the polycarbonate unibody chassis will feature a large 4.7in HD 720p display, the Nvidia quad-core Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM.

There will be 32GB of internal memory and users will also be eligible to receive 25GB of free storage from Dropbox for two years. This has been provided because the device will not come with microSD card support.

In terms of wireless connectivity, the One X will come with NFC and DLNA capabilities. HTC will be offering a wireless HDMI dongle accessory so that users will be able to stream content directly from their device to an HD display.

Other hardware features include a micro SIM card slot and an 8MP camera, which HTC is touting as a key feature. The Taiwanese phone maker has included a f2.0 lens and a BSI sensor so the device will take better pictures, faster than previous handsets. The firm has also added an image chip so pictures will adjusted in their raw form before being converted to JPG, to help boost quality.

Graham Wheeler, director of product commercialisation told journalists at a pre-brief that the camera on the One X is capable of loading up in 0.7 seconds and carrying out auto-focus in 0.2 seconds or “faster than the blink of an eye”. Users will also be able to take pictures whilst the camera is recording, and activate a burst mode by holding down the camera button.

Meanwhile, the One S device is set to come with a 4.3in HD display with a 540×960 resolution and will be powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor. HTC has used micro-arc oxidation process to make the unibody frame scratch resistant. The chassis will also be only 7.9mm thick, which will make it the firm’s thinnest device to date.

 

True to their word, Acer is announcing the availability of the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for their recently launched A200 tablet. We posted the PR blurb about the A200 in early January, and we were able to get some hands on time with the A200 at CES 2012. The quick summary is that Acer has trimmed a few features from the A500, like the rear-facing camera and HDMI port, but they also changed up the industrial design. While the plastic exterior may not sound as impressive as the aluminum shell of the A500, the reality is that in hand the textured plastic actually feels better (at least in our opinion).

As far as the Ice Cream Sandwich update, while Acer’s press release states that they’re updating all of the Iconia line to Android 4.0 (including the A100, A200, and A500), the reality of the updates isn’t quite so impressive. The update is currently being pushed to Iconia A200 customers (it’s not clear if you can get it faster by checking for a system update or not) and should be completed over the coming week. A100 and A500 users eager to get the ICS update on the other hand will have to wait a while longer—April to be precise.

Besides all the Android 4.0 goodness, there are a few features that are unique to Acer. Chief of these is their Acer Ring, allowing you to navigate directly to apps from the lock screen. While the idea is nice, in practice we haven’t found the Acer Ring to be necessary and at least the one time I looked at it, it felt a bit chunky and sluggish to launch and navigate (though I could say the same for Android 3.x in general on Tegra 2 hardware). The only other extra feature Acer mentions is an improved weather widget.

You can read more about ICS in our Galaxy Nexus review, though obviously there will be some differences when running on a Tegra 2 tablet. It should provide a better UI experience on Tegra 2 tablets, but unfortunately unless you’re one of the users that purchased an A200, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. The A200 8GB is currently selling for 0 while the 16GB model goes for 0. However, at this late stage in the life of Tegra 2, we wouldn’t recommend buying a new tablet running Tegra 2 hardware unless the price is under 0, especially considering Tegra 3 tablets are expected to hit sub-0 prices in the very near future.

Gallery: Acer Updates Iconia Tablets to Android 4.0

It has finally happened; Google has officially released Chrome for Android. In typical Google fashion, the browser is currently in beta and requires Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to run.

Chrome for Android has been designed from the ground-up for mobile devices with focus on speed and simplicity and a lot of the features from the desktop version have made their way into the Android version.

Some of the main features include a minimalist UI optimized for smaller screens and support for intuitive gestures such as flip and swipe to manage an unlimited numbers of tabs. Google compares this to holding a pack of cards in your hands, but I doubt it would be the same for a 10” tablet.

Of course, Chrome for Android also inherits the same speed and performance from its desktop sibling with super-smooth scrolling, background loading of top search results and some other under-the-hood tweaks for a speedy browsing experience on your mobile device.

To get an idea of how Chrome for Android compares relative to other Android browsers, we've run some quick SunSpider tests on a Motorola Xoom running Android 4.0.3:

As with the desktop versions, Chrome trails Firefox in raw SunSpider speed, though of course it should be noted that Chrome is a freshly-released beta and Firefox for Android has had a few product cycles to mature. Chrome is also slightly slower than the stock Android browser, but the same footnote applies – Chrome for Android is still a work in progress.

Chrome for Android also features the Incognito mode and as Google calls it, some “fine-grained” privacy options. Some other nifty features include Link Preview, which makes selecting the right link easier on a cluttered page.

The sync feature is an attempt by Google to unify your browsing sessions at home and on your mobile devices. There an option to view the open tabs on your desktop and even get autocomplete suggestions for the most visited websites on your computer, displayed right on your phone or tablet. Bookmark syncing is obviously a given. While these features are extremely handy, I see potential for abuse in every single one of them, especially if you lose your phone.

Android for Chrome is now available on the Android Market, and as usual, Google would greatly appreciate your feedback. We will follow up with a more in-depth benchmark run soon.

Update:

Some further testing on one of our Galaxy Nexii running 4.0.4 reveals that in some cases the version of V8 bundled in Chrome for Android winds up being slightly faster than that of the stock browser application. This is quite possibly due to the different instruction sets supported between Tegra 2 on the Xoom as shown above and OMAP4460 in the Galaxy Nexus, the largest difference being inclusion of NEON.

Interestingly enough, Chrome for Android also includes an about pane that includes the JavaScript V8 version – 3.6.6.18, and WebKit version – 535.7, which is the same version of WebKit as the stable branch of desktop chrome runs. In addition, this marks the first time that I've seen Android running a newer version of WebKit than iOS, which as of 5.0.1 is still 534.46. 

User Agent String Comparison

Browser

WebKit Version

UA String

MobileSafari in iOS 5.0.1

534.46

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3

Stock Browser – Android 4.0.4

534.30

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.4; en-us; Galaxy Nexus Build/IMM30B) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/534.30

Chrome for Android

535.7

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.4; en-us; Galaxy Nexus Build/IMM30B) AppleWebKit/535.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) CrMo/16.0.912.75 Mobile Safari/535.7

When it comes to HTML5test, the newer version of WebKit in Chrome for Android also handily outscores both the stock Android browser and the latest version of MobileSafari on iOS. This is a definite step forward for true parity between the desktop and mobile browsers.

The HTML5 Test

Test

MobileSafari in iOS 5.0.1

Stock Browser – Android 4.0.4

Chrome for Android Beta

OS

iOS 5.0.1

Android 4.0.4

Android 4.0.4

WebKit Version

534.46

534.30

535.7

Total Score

305 (and 9 bonus points)

261 (and 3 bonus points)

343 (and 10 bonus points)

Parsing rules

11 (2 bonus points)

11 (2 bonus points)

11 (2 bonus points)

Canvas

20

20

20

Video

21/31 (4 bonus points)

21/31

21/31 (4 bonus points)

Audio

20 (3 bonus points)

20 (1 bonus point)

20 (4 bonus point)

Elements

22/29

23/29

23/29

Forms

77/100

57/100

87/100

User Interaction

17/36

17/36

17/36

History and navigation

5

5

5

Microdata

0/15

0/15

0/15

Web applications

15/20

15/20

17/20

Security

5/10

5/10

5/10

Geolocation

15

15

15

WebGL

9/25

9/25

10/25

Communication

32/36

12/36

32/36

Files

0/20

10/20

20/20

Storage

15/20

15/20

20/20

Workers

15

0/15

10/15

Local multimedia

0/20

0/20

0/20

Notifications

0/10

0/10

0/10

Other

6/8

6/8

8/8

In spite of not being compatible with Flash (which isn't a surprise given Adobe's previous statements) far it's looking like Chrome for Android is almost everything that Android users were hoping for. In addition, uncoupling the core OS version from the browser is a huge step in the right direction for ensuring that users are using the latest and most secure browsers online instead of being saddled with the incredibly slow carrier-approval update cadence. 

Gallery: Chrome for Android Gallery

Source: Google Chrome Blog

THE SMARTPHONE MARKET in the US was dominated by Google’s Android operating system (OS) last year, which took nearly half of the mobile OS market share in the last quarter.

According to Comscore data 97.9 million people in the US owned smartphones during the three months ended in December, representing 40 per cent of all mobile subscribers. Google Android ranked as the top smartphone OS with 47.3 per cent market share, up 2.5 percentage points from September.

Meanwhile, Apple maintained its number two position, growing 2.2 percentage points to 29.6 per cent of the smartphone market. RIM ranked third with a 16 per cent share, followed by Microsoft with 4.7 per cent and Symbian with 1.4 per cent.

The study found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.3 per cent market share.

It was followed by LG with 20 per cent market share and Motorola with a 13.3 per cent share. Apple took a 12.4 per cent share of total mobile subscribers, up 2.2 percentage points, while RIM just made it into the top five with a 6.7 per cent share. µ

Another week, another release regarding Ice Cream Sandwich by another manufacturer. This week, LG announces their first group of phones will be updated sometime in Q2 of 2012. This first batch includes the LG Optimus LTE, Prada phone by LG 3.0 (pictured above), the LG Optimus 2X, the LG Optimus Sol, the LG my Touch Q and the LG Eclipse. The LG Optimus LTE and 2X are better known in the States as the Nitro HD (on AT&T) and G2x (on T-Mobile) and with the myTouch Q, are the only phones in this first batch currently available in the US. The second batch of phones will start receiving their updates in Q3 of 2012, and includes the LG Optimus 3D (Thrill 4G on AT&T), the LG Optimus Black, the LG Optimus Big, the LG Optimus Q2 and the LG Optimus EX.

LG has had far more success in Asia than in the US, though their stable of phones has been growing among the big four US carriers. The unnamed LG skin used on their phones contributes to the development time for these updates, and it remains possible that further delay will be caused by carrier testing and validation. It'll be interesting to see which companies meet their timelines, and what impact, if any, that has on their sales performance. In the meanwhile, stay tuned for our Galaxy Nexii review.

MOBILE SOFTWARE HOUSE Google has started rolling out Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) to the Samsung Nexus S smartphone.

Much to the delight of its users the Nexus S is receiving an upgrade to ICS just in time for Christmas. The announcement means that the handset is the first to be bumped up to the most recent version of Android.

Google said, “We’re rolling out Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, to GSM/UMTS Nexus S devices over the coming month, starting today. Enjoy the tasty update! Once you get the update, check out some tips and shortcuts for getting started at the Android 4.0 Help Center.”

The Nexus S was previously running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, so Google has helpfully detailed some of the changes to help users avoid getting confused. ICS is a mash-up of Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Android 3.x Honeycomb.

Google warns that some apps might need upgrading before they will work with ICS and suggests that users upgrade to the latest version of Flash. We heard at the beginning of the month that the firm was testing out ICS on employees’ Nexus S handsets so we suspected that the upgrade might come this month.

If you have a Nexus S smartphone but haven’t received the upgrade automatically then you can go check for it manually to get your festive treat. µ

MOBILE LITIGATOR Apple has won something of a victory in its campaign to destroy its Android competition or, that is, protect its patent portfolio.

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has sided with the fruit themed firm (PDF) on some of its complaints against HTC and has ruled that indeed, some of the technology in Android smartphones is covered by an Apple patent.

It was only a partial victory, however, as the ITC found that HTC had infringed only one patent out of the 10, and later six, put forward by Apple. However, this is enough for the ITC to issue a ban against infringing devices. This will start in April next year.

HTC will be allowed to import refurbished handsets to replace any that have failed under warranty, the ITC added, until 19 December, 2013.

There was talk that HTC would face a ban on its handsets in the run up to Christmas, but it does seem to have been spared this.

We have asked Apple and HTC to comment.

Update
Apple did not have a specific comment to make on this case, but told us, “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

HTC countered with its own response, which is not quite so snappy.’This decision is a win for HTC and we are gratified that the commission affirmed the judge’s determination on the ‘721 and ‘983 patents, and reversed its decision on the ‘263 patent and partially on the ‘647 patent,” it said.

“We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the ‘647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon”. µ

 

For a while now we've been using Basemark ES 2.0 in our smartphone reviews and SoC discussions to gauge OpenGL ES performance. For end users however, getting the same benchmarks has been difficult if not impossible, making comparisons and verification somewhat of a challenge for enthusiasts. The alternatives to the big industry-standard benchmarks in the Android market sometimes are poorly documented and ill-maintained as well. As time goes on we'll see more of these industry-standard benchmarks start showing up in all the app marketplaces for each platform. 

Today RightWare is launching Basemark ES 2.0 Taiji Free on the Android market, which contains (as the name suggests) the Taiji subtest of Basemark ES 2.0. The version being launched supports both Android and iOS for comparison purposes, though the iOS version will launch at a later date in Q1 2012. Taiji is the first of the two game benchmark scenes inside Basemark ES 2.0, the second being Hoverjet.

In conjunction, ES 2.0 Taiji Free also will feature an online result browser component called Power Board. This online result browser component aggregates and allows for comparisons of both user-submitted and in-house tested scores much the same way GLBenchmark and others do. It appears that Power Board will also aggregate data from the rest of Rightware's benchmarking portfolio, including Basemark GUI. Information and device details such as SoC, GPU, and resolution are all provided as well on Power Board for comparison purposes.

Gallery: Rightware Power Board

This is a big step in the right direction toward depreciating some of the enthusiast community's reliance on some of the poorly documented or ill-maintained benchmarks like Quadrant and others. 

Source: Rightware, Power Board, Android Market