At Defcon.

As the researchers demonstrated in their talk, this gives the attacker access to the Android phone’s SQLite database, allowing them to view, for example, a victim’s texts or contacts. It’s also possible to remotely read the device’s current GPS coordinates and to make outgoing calls without this being shown on the display.

Disclosure: I use AppBrain.  I find it very useful to browse apps online & then easily sync/install on my Captivate.  Looks like they’ve been pretty hard at work filtering out the crap, though, & have some interesting things to say on the state of the Android Market.  Apparently, out of the total 70,000 apps that Google states are available, the number of craptacular apps has risen from 30% in March to 50% today.  Yep, 20% increase in 4 months.  Thankfully, they’re working to improve their search algorithm to filter these spam-tastic apps from their search results.  My question is: why isn’t Google taking up the lead on this?  Kudos to AppBrain for their efforts.

Microsoft’s Mobile World Congress is just about four weeks away now, & WMPowerUser is heavily speculating (along with many others) that Windows Mobile 7 will be announced at the annual conference.  That’s announced, mind you; I don’t see any devices showing up with it on board until Q4.  Though WMPU has quite a compelling list of reasons, DigiTimes (which is known for being accurate on these sorts of things) is saying that it won’t be the new version 7 that will be trotted out, but yet another interim release, version 6.6.

Seeing as how we’ve just seen 6.5.3, plus its threaded email glory, hit the interwebz, & that DigiTimes says that 6.6 will be the same ol’ plus capacitive touch screen support, I can definitely see this line of thought playing out.  The disheartening bit in the DigiTimes piece is that WM7 may be sloughed off till 2011… but would anyone really be surprised about that at this point?

Guess we’ll see in four weeks….

Today’s the day that Google is expected to officially announce its Nexus One Android phone, custom built by HTC.  The details & rumors have been swirling for over two months now, & Google is expected to make some waves today, just two days before CES kicks off.  According to the link above, the press conference is scheduled to begin at 10am PST, so to tide you over until then, why don’t you read Engadget’s official review?  Lots of good stuff in there, including a side-by-side-by-side web browser loading times with the Droid and iPhone.

WordPress 2.9 has been in the works for a while now, and in beta for a couple months.  I’m happy to announce that it has been officially released!

Some notable new features:

1. Global undo/”trash” feature, which means that if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave (i.e., the Trash). This also eliminates those annoying “are you sure” messages we used to have on every delete.
2. Built-in image editor allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images to show them who’s boss. This is the first wave of our many planned media-handling improvements.
3. Batch plugin update and compatibility checking, which means you can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one, and we’re using the new compatibility data from the plugins directory to give you a better idea of whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress. This should take the fear and hassle out of upgrading.
4. Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release).

Get your asses over to the WordPress download section or use the update feature to get yourself some 2.9 sweetness. WordPress is a very light-weight script for a normal blog account, you won’t be needing any best dedicated hosting providers.

Google started testing a new look for Google Search … Perhaps a sign that everything Google will soon look like Wave?

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I hope this “upgrade” in styling becomes a Google-wide phenomenon — although I guess I’m still left wanting.  Google has had a tendency to stick with minimalism in their design, but I’ve also found their products to feel a little too utilitarian – cold and functional but missing the form.  I’m not saying that Google’s design is ugly … well, yes I am.

If you’d like to check out this new look for yourself, you can enable the wave style look and feel by adding a cookie to your browser.  Just head over to google.com and paste the following JavaScript in your browsers address bar:

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

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I love a good apocalypse movie, and 2012 is hyped up to be a great one.  I just hope it lives up to the hype of advertisements like this one.

Sadly — I doubt an ad like this one would fly in the States.

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TechCrunch has a full run-down on the Google Nav application that will ship with Android 2.0 (Eclair), along with a demo video.  If you couldn’t tell by the screenshot alone, this is one killer navigation app.  It includes plain English search, as you can see in the video below.  Oh yeah, & did I mention that it’s a free application to boot?  When, o’ when, will AT&T pick up some Android phones….?

[youtube width="640" height="480"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHrA3hn7lnw[/youtube]

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Those lucky ninjas at BGR have had their Droid in-hand long enough to post an exhaustive “preview.”  I guess it really can only be considered a preview because the unit has yet to hit retail.  I mean, they cover pretty much everything there is to know about Moto’s new handset, & even give a conclusion.  If you were ever wavering about buying one of these bad-ass handsets, you’ll be fully on-board after you read this article.

DigiTimes is reporting that ASUS plans to launch an Android-based handset by the end of the year.  No details other than a fourth quarter launch.  Will it make it to the US?  What bands will it support?  Will it have a slide-out QWERTY?  More questions than answers at this point, but having another major OEM like ASUS entering the market will only mean a brighter future for Google’s smartphone OS.