Tag: Technology

A Year Late and a Dollar Short

It seems while I was busy on my trip leaked information started becoming available on the next Palm (now HP) phone. Behold, leaked photographs of the Palm Pre 2. If ever there was an uninspired design this thing is it. Although I do appreciate backwards comparability with accessories the Palm Pre’s accessories need an upgrade. For instance it is known through FCC documents that the Palm Pre 2 uses the same underpowered battery as the first one. One of the things the Pre needed most was a larger battery.

On top of that the new Pre is the same sized screen as the old one. Even with the inclusion of a gesture area it would have been nice to see the screen size increased a bit. One of the things I love about my Evo is the huge screen. I do like the fact that the list microUSB port cover has been removed on the Pre 2 which leaves one less thing to break.

Ultimately the Pre failed to get market share and attention. I don’t see how adding much better hardware to the same form factor is going to help improve Palm’s image. What Palm really need is a super phone that is distinct from other phones on the market while distancing themselves from their previous phones. I’m hoping something more exciting is in the pipeline but frankly with all the competition from Android and iOS this new Pre 2 just isn’t going to cut it.

What’s My Excuse

I’m sure everybody who reads this site regularly is wondering what my excuse is for having no real updates for three days. My excuse is simple, my company sent me down to the ASIS International security trade who in Dallas, TX. Let me tell you there was some cool stuff there as well. I talked to representatives from Shot Spotter, Insight, Secure Shield, several bullet-resistant armor manufacturers, and a couple of firearms training companies.

I’m not going to go into detail on everything I learned but I will say the who is very interesting and certainly an authoritarian’s wet dream come true (I’d bet there were more cameras on display there than setup on the streets of London).

Since the Shot Spotter technology interested me most (as that system is setup in Minneapolis) I’ll post what I learned there. First and foremost all this talk about the system being able to tell the difference between a 9mm, .40, and .45 is malarkey. The system can tell the difference between a handgun and rifle but it can’t tell you what caliber was used.

The system also don’t work by detecting sound as I originally thought. The Shot Spotter system detects shock waves emanating from firearms and explosives. When a shock wave is detected the system used 16 criteria (which the company representative wouldn’t go into detail on) to determine what the source of the disturbance was. Shot Spotter also has an API which can be used to tie things such as cameras into. This was recently used in Minneapolis when the system picked up gunfire several cameras in the area were turned automatically towards the source via the Shot Spotter API.

I was surprised at how few sensors were needed to cover Minneapolis. Only 16 (seems to be a popular number with this system) sensors are spread throughout Minneapolis and seem to have good coverage. From what I’ve learned it seems firearms with a lesser shock wave would be more difficult to detect. I’m wondering about rounds that don’t surpass the sound barrier or firearms equipped with suppressors would be detected correctly.

Either way it was an interesting show.

Some Thoughts on the HTC G2

Yesterday I posted a mini-rant on the HTC G2. My problem is the fact that every time you reboot the phone everything written to the /system directory is undone thus preventing a permanent root solution (for now). Of course in a manner of security this concept make a ton of sense.

The great thing about rooting an Android phone is that it allows you to do far more with it (namely free tethering). Of course any exploit used to gain root privileges can be used to maliciously. Root privileges are generally gained on phones by exploiting a security flaw. Any piece of software can potentially do this. By undoing any changes to the /system directory you effectively make any system-level exploit temporary. It’s actually a pretty smart move overall. Of course it also prevents those of us willing to take the risk for easily rooting our devices.

Due to this I have a suggestion, a hardware switch. The NAND memory that the /system directory is stored in is write protected. On the Evo turning the security flag in the radio off disables this write protection. Why not have a physical hardware switch enable or disable write protection? Without social engineering or a very clever exploit there really is no method of turning off write protection via software if it’s controlled by a physical switch. Users who want to root their phones can disable write-protection and take their risks while others can be happen in the added security of a write-protection operating system. Since manufacturers don’t want to support rooted phones the switch could be covered by a “warranty void if removed” sticker to boot.

Just a thought that would make most people pretty happy.

Being Stupid Costs You

Engadget has a story about Best Buy charging customers $30.00 to apply firmware updates to PS3s. Of course if you read the comments people are claiming this is extorting customers’ ignorance. That may be true but honestly I think it’s just further proof that being stupid will cost you money.

Applying a firmware update to a PS3 is dead simple, but some people are ignorant of that. That ignorance just cost them $30.00 and hopefully they’ll learn a lesson and figure out how to update their own firmware.

Being stupid is costly so do yourself a favor and learn everything you can.

A Great Idea Ruined by Execution

One of the things I have despised about the iPhone from day one has been the locked down nature of the device. Google promised to provide an alternative solution that would be more open in the form of Android. Sadly ever since Androids initial release on the G1 handset manufacturers and carriers have been locking Android down more and more. It seems this locking down has gone to the next level on the new HTC G2.

When you reboot the G2 all the contents of /system are rewritten to factory defaults. This means any root acquisition is temporary until the phone is rebooted. The good folks over at XDA Developers have a thread talking about rooting the G2 and currently the issue mentioned in this post.

I must say this is a little ridiculous. It’s understandable that manufacturers don’t want to support Android devices that have been rooted. A lot can go wrong with you root a device including turning a fancy phone into an expensive paper weight. Reasons like that make a policy of voiding warranties on rooted phones likely and understandable. With that said if somebody is willing to void their warranty to root a phone they should be left to doing it.

This behavior seems to countermand one of the bigger selling points of Android which is the fact it’s not as locked down as the iPhone. Frankly as Android becomes more and more locked down I’m failing to see much reason why people should chose it over the iPhone. Currently it seems the most open phone on the market is the Palm Pre which could completely change if HP decide to remove the ability to easily activate developer mode on future devices.

4G Baby

Well it seems I now have 4G coverage at my apartment. What does that mean? It means I most likely have one more G than you!

Honestly I’m rather impressed with how quickly Sprint has been rolling out their WiMax 4G service. Compared to the rate at which other carriers are rolling out faster data services Sprint seems to be trucking right along. Of course with that said there is one thing about Sprint’s 4G service I’m not very impressed with, penetration. WiMax seems to be awful at actually penetrating buildings. I noticed this when I was at DefCon. While outside of the Riviera I had an excellent 4G signal but it dropped rather drastically once I entered any building. The deeper into the building I went the faster it dropped. From inside there were only a couple of rooms where I could actually get 4G service. This is a limitation of the spectrum being used of course but it’s still something to point out.

More Android 2.2 Fun

I mentioned that the recent Evo 4G update fixed quite a few annoying bugs that were driving me up a wall. Well I’ve come across a new bug and once again it’s with the media layer (this could be a pre-patch bug and I just never encountered it before). If you’re playing an audio file, pause it, leave the application, and come back after an indeterminate amount of time (the amount of time seems random) the audio file will not pick up where you paused it. Instead it resets to the beginning of the file.

This is extremely annoying when the primary audio you listen to are long podcasts and lectures. I’m getting into the habit of looking at the time the audio file is at before leaving an application expecting to have to fast forward to it when I come back to the application. I think Google really screwed the pooch with their sudden switch to the new media layer known as StageFright.

What’s sad is that Android 2.1 worked damn well but most new software being released (at least by Google) requires Android 2.2 to work. I know Google loves to play it fast and loose but when we’re talking about a phone operating system I think they need to spend a little more time testing before release.