SCIENCE BOND

The problem affects voice-over-internet-protocol (Voip) phones, commonly used by businesses.  Just by running a couple of lines of code on a website visited by the phone user, the researchers demonstrated how premium-rate calls could be made.  A security expert said such bugs could make "millions" for the perpetrators.  By exploiting the fact that Voip phones and desktop computers are connected to the same internet network at many organisations, attackers are often able to access the phones themselves and operate them without the owner becoming aware.  "It's incredibly easy to do," said security researcher Per Thorsheim, who was involved in the demonstration by fellow researcher Paul Moore. 'Pay to be eavesdropped' Mr Thorsheim explained that the phone could be compromised if the user visited a web page containing a couple of lines of Javascript web code,  This code was designed to launch the attack on a device made by phone hardware manufac...

Russia's federal anti-monopoly service said that Google abused its dominant position by requiring mobile firms to install the apps. Apps for YouTube and Google's photography and maps services were at the center of the row. Google said no operator was compelled to install its apps and there was plenty of competition for its services.When it reached its decision in September, the anti-monopoly watchdog gave Google until 18 November to change its contracts with phone firms so its apps were not favored. The firm could face penalties of up to 15% of its 2014 revenue in Russia if it did not change its practices.  Google has not complied with this decision and has now published comments on its official Russian blog explaining why. "We intend to challenge the decision in court and explain why we believe it to be unfounded," said Google (link in Russian).  It laid out five reasons why it believed there was little evidence that its own Android ap...

LG has revealed a phone that takes wide-angle selfies and an updated 4G smartwatch, now running on Android.  The high-end V10 phone has not one but two front-facing cameras allowing the device to take 120-degree shots.  It also has two screens - one as an inset display above the main one, which can show information such as the date, weather or battery life at all times.  An Android smartwatch, the first to feature 4G connectivity, has also been announced.  The V10's dual cameras on its front each has a five megapixel sensor. They are capable of capturing 80-degree selfies or wide-angle ones,  of 120 degrees, with one shot. For this, the phone actually takes two pictures at once which are then stitched together by an algorithm.  The ability to take group selfies without a selfie-stick has never been easier," LG said in a statement .  The smaller of the two screens on the V10 has a 2.1 inch (5.3 cm) display designed to show useful information ...

Apps that regularly check for updates consume about 30% of the battery power an Android phone loses when in that mode, say the researchers. They have created a free Hush tool that lets only the most-used apps check in while the phone is off. Hush can cut power loss from the apps by almost half, say the team. Hush was created by engineers from Purdue University in Indiana after they carried out a large-scale study of energy use on Android smartphones. The analysis of power-consumption patterns on 2,000 handsets found that a lot of energy was wasted by badly written apps that did not let a phone go back into a sleep state after they checked for updates, said Prof Y Charlie Hu from Purdue. "They are not letting the phone go back to sleep because of  software bugs and, specifically, due to the incorrect use of Android power control application programming interfaces called wakelocks," he said in a statement. The first versions of the Hush tool did a better job of handlin...