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Oonagh Reidy

Is This Moto X-Rated Phone?

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Pics have leaked of a supposed ‘render” Motorola X Phone, tipped a killer device.
The images revealed by GSM arena from a “a person close to the team.”

Tipped as Google-owned Motorola’s next superphone, which “allegedly” has 4.7″ 1280 x 768 display, a potent Snapdragon 800 quad-core chipset and long-life 4000 mAh battery.

The version seen by GSM has Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with  “very few customizations job by Motorola” but may not even be the real deal, according to the report.

Image credit: GSM Arena

Is is believed ‘X’ phone, 100% masterminded by the Android creator, may be unveiled at Google I/O conference in May.

Earlier this year, a Telstra exec told us the new Moto was a “game changer that will put pressure on Samsung and Apple”.

“It has software features and capabilities that are not available on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone or Apple iPhone. The software is really powerful and it pulls together Google services like no other manufacturer has done in the past,” a source told SmartHouse.

This is exactly what HTC and LG recently said at the launch of thier ONE and Optimus G phones in Australia, as the mobile companies looks to capture the hearts and minds of phone users, looking to gain the edge over the ‘duopoly’ Samsung Galaxy and iPhone.

Moto’s X factor phone is set to be sold from July.

Mass Riots Outbreak iPhone 5 Plant

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Riots have broken out in an Apple factory in China, forcing a temporary closure of the plant.


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The plant owned by Foxconn involved 2000 workers at a site in Northern China at Taiyuan, Shanxi, reports Dow Jones newswire.

40 workers were injured in the brawl late Sunday and an astonishing 5,000 police were called to the scene to bring it under control, according to Reuters.

The new iPhone 5 is being produced at the plant, the report states. 

The fight involved two different employee groups in a dormitory over a personal issue, which then spread into the factory, forcing the plant to close for the day.

It took several hours for police to get control of the situation and a number of arrests were made at the plant, which employs almost 80,000 workers.

“The cause of this dispute is under investigation by local authorities and we are working closely with them in this process, but it appears not to have been work-related,” a Foxxconn rep said.

There are still a number of police believed to be at the scene.

It was recently reported Foxconn workers were forced to work huge hours overtime in order to fill mass orders of Apple’s new smartphone, which went on sale on Friday.

 

Foxconn, Apple’s largest contract manufacturer, is no stranger to controversy following accusations of flouting labour laws, poor working conditions, low pay and a spate of suicides by workers at various factory locations in China.

It is not known what other devices are made at the Taiyuan based plant.

This is the latest setback for Apple’s iPhone 5 after its new in-house maps system was panned and Facebook integration with iOS 6 said to be woeful.

Grays Gobbles OO.com

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Online auction house nabs OO.com.au.

Grays acquisition of the South African owned oo.com.au is a move to consolidate the online business, a Grays spokesperson told SmartHouse
The purchase makes Grays Australia who already own e-retailer brands Grays Online, Grays Outlet and Grays Escape, the largest e-commerce player in OZ with over $350m in combined turnover. 
It will now have access to a database of over 3 million customers.  
Recent figures from NAB show Australia’s Internet sales grew 19% in February, although still accounts for just 6% of all
retail sales but is set to soar in the coming years. 
The two companies will keep their stand alone websites but introduce new categories and additional investment in the popular OO.com.au site.  

oo.com.au is “incredibly strong” on electronics, homewares and toys while Grays is a big seller of wine, but flogs everything from pink diamonds to AV gear, often stock from companies gone into liquidation. 

“We’re hoping some OO customers might try some wine, and there are products on OO that we might bring over.” the Grays rep said. 
Business efficiencies and website enhancements will also provide customers with a better overall shopping experience.
The company will merge into one at the back end including warehousing, call centres, infrastructure, but the websites will not be rebranded.
Vendors are being contacted about the acquisition, announced today. 
Rolf Krecklenberg, the current CEO who will continue to manage the business, said “I am looking forward to expanding our range, entering new categories and leveraging the Grays infrastructure so that we can offer our customers even better value. We have an exciting future ahead.”

The OO warehousing and staff will relocate from their 9000 sqm Rosebery site to Grays 30,000 sqm headquarters at Sydney’s Homebush over the next three to six months. 
Cameron Poolman, CEO for Grays says, “the extra scale provided by this acquisition will ensure our ongoing profitability using a sustainable business model.” 
“Both businesses have profitably operated on proven business models.” 

‘Operation Avenge Assange’: Mastercard & PayPal Anonymous Hacker Charged

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A 22 year old British student has been charged with offences relating to the Anonymous hacking of credit card operations in December.


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This followed Mastercard’s decision to stop processing payments to the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks. PayPal, Visa and Amazon were also among the victims of cyber attacks by the online rogue hackers. 


British police yesterday released details about Peter David Gibson, 22, a student, of Castleton Road, Hartlepool, Cleveland, who has been charged with conspiracy to do an unauthorised act in relation to a computer, intent to impair the operation of any computer or prevent or hinder access to any programme or data held in a computer or to impair the operation of any such programme or the reliability of such data – contrary to Sec 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977.

He is due to appear on bail at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 7 September.

Gibson was arrested by officers from the Met’s Police Central e-Crime Unit in connection with an investigation into Anonymous, following allegations of DDOS attacks by the group against several companies. 

UK Police have now arrested six people in total as part of the Anonymous hacking campaign known as “Operation Avenge Assange” referring to Wikileaks leader Julian Assange. 

The five other males -all British- are aged between 15 and 26, arrested under the Computer Misuse Act in January, while in the US 16 others have been arrested.

 

The FBI said to be working through a list of around 1,000 names from an IP list identified by PayPal, according to the Guardian.

Amazon Ahoy! EMI Lose MP3 Battle, Major Victory For Cloud Music

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Music mogul EMI has just lost a major legal battle with cloud music.


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Image: Popcrush

EMI Capital Records along with 14 other companies slapped MP3Tunes with a lawsuit, making a string of allegations (33,000) against the fledgling cloud music service, claiming it infringed music rights by sideloading songs from the net directly to personal lockers (like Google Magnifier and Amazon store is doing). 

The giant also alleged its storage method of deduplication – running a music search engine and linking directly to songs online – was also infringement and alleged the music service didn’t do enough to stop repeat infringers. 
EMI also said playing back songs from a locker was a public performance which requires a license. 
However, these allegations were thrown out by the US federal courts in a verdict delivered on Monday last. 
 The Court ruled that “MP3Tunes qualified for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbors, and copyright holders, not the service providers, must police for and give specific notice of copyright infringement.”
The record companies had claimed the music service has violated 33,000 of its works, but the court ruled a mere 350 of these were valid. The verdict “is definitely a victory for cloud music and MP3tunes. 
“The Judge OKed our core business of storing and playing music in our cloud-based service,” Michael Robertson, MP3 founder, declared. 
Music service like Amazon, Google, Grooveshark and Dropbox can have “renewed confidence in offering similar unlicensed services,” he added. 
Users can also have confidence that they can to store, play cloud-based music services, without fears of breaking copyright laws, he added. 
“Few companies have been able to stand up to the record labels attacks and get rulings from the court on key issues relevant to the future of the internet music.” 
The ruling will set new precedent if it remains standing,” Robertson believes and doesn’t anticipate any changes to how his cloud based service operates. 
 

He also insisted his service was operated in a responsible manner which is why the court rule in his favour for 99% of the claims. 

 MP3tunes allows syncing of music down to PC and an open API, one of the only such cloud services to do so.

To BYOD Or No?

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It’s the multibillion dollar question CIO’s are asking themselves as they struggle to manage the dizzying amount of iPhones, iPads and other devices workers are using on a daily basis.


BYO isn’t all its cracked up to be, say analysts.

Increasing numbers of IT managers are feeling the pressure to support numerous tabs and smartphones, according to an IDC report just published.

Introducing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies is being viewed as one answer and 50% of all organisations look set to introduce such policies in  the next 18 months, says IDC analyst Amy Cheah.

However, there appears to be a “disconnect” between the expectations held by Chief Information Officers (CIO), IT managers and employees when it comes to consumer technologies, with just 20% of workers  wanting to use their own device for work and personal use.

This means corporate devices are still desired by the majority, says Cheah.

Bring-your-own-device has been flagged by analysts including Gartner as one of the hot IT trends in 2012 and is said to boom as the consumerisation of technology continues unabated.

Players including Cisco are now looking to get a piece of the BYO action.

But widely publicised and high-profile BYOD case studies are further adding to the peer pressure, says Cheah.

One in every two organisations in Australia are intending to deploy official BYOD policies, on pilot, or partial- to organisational-wide rollouts, in the next 18 months, according to IDC.

13% of Aussie org’s already have BYOD policy in place, and a further 27% are pilot testing, while 10% have a policy for a percentage of the workforce.

For companies intending to deploy BYOD strategies, the result is likely be a broader range of devices and operating systems (OS) connecting to the corporate network at a frequent rate.

And its a lot of work, it seems: a bring your own strategy also also mean more frequent upgrades of OS’s and the need to ensure application performance while upgrades occur.

“Whilst many expect BYOD to help reduce costs, these shorter life cycles will need to be managed carefully in order to mitigate any blowouts in support, application modernisation, and lost employee productivity,” Cheah added.

Unless BYOD strategies are fully supported by the majority of employees, the deployment of such a policy may be simply problem shifting.

 

IDC’s report, “Analysing the Bring-Your-Own-Device Trends in Australia and New Zealand”  also found that device policies that are flexible and accommodating of all parties’ preferences are more likely to be successful.

In other words, “choice” will be a defining characteristic of successful device policies in the future.

Ouch! OZ Hit By ‘$93m’ Scams

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O crap! Where DID $93 million go?!

Aussies lost millions to scams last year. An eye-popping $93 million, in fact. 

There’s also been a phenomenal (65%) jump in online shopping scams in 2012. 
Scammers asking for advance fee/up-front payment is the top con job in OZ – accounting for over 30% of reported scams,  according to the consumer watchdog’s new ‘Targeting Scams’ report. 

The ‘Microsoft’ computer virus scam continued to “heavily target” Australians, as did a ‘scareware’ scam, where con artists posed as Australian Federal Police. False billing, job and dating scams were among other scams highlighted in the report.  

The consumer watchdog, ACCC, received 84,000 contacts from consumers about cons in 2012 – and have warned about the worrying increase in online shopping scams – Aussies lost over $4m to Internet scams alone. 

Last week, Victoria’s consumer affairs minister warned of fake websites posing as genuine well known technology retailers, and shut down several including directdiscountwarehouse.com.au. 
Web scams account for one in three scams, but phone/text is still the No. 1 way to be conned out of cash – constituting over half (56 per cent) of all reported cons.

“Nowadays, it can take just the click of a button to fall victim to a scam,” warns ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard.

However, the $93m losses are just “the tip of the iceberg” as scam victims are often “too embarrassed” to report when they’ve been conned. 

New South Wales (23.5 per cent), Queensland (21 per cent), Victoria (18 per cent) were the most scammed states. 

 

“Scammers continue to find sophisticated methods to deliver scams, taking advantage of new technologies and communication methods to try and slip under your radar,” Rickard added. 


The launch of the report marks the beginning of National Consumer Fraud Week 2013, with this year’s campaign, ‘Outsmart the Scammers!’, which focuses on shop safely online.

The ACCC’s 2012 Targeting scams report is available from www.accc.gov.au or contact 1300 302 502. For info on common online shopping scams, visit www.scamwatch.gov.au/outsmartthescammers.

Watchdog Chases Vacuum Retailer Dodgy Sales

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The consumer watchdog has taken on Lux vacuum retailer alleging “unconscionable conduct” in selling vacuums to the elderly.


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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said it has filed proceedings in the Federal Court against Lux Distributors, alleging unconscionable conduct in relation to the sale of vacuum cleaners to elderly consumers.

The ACCC alleges that between 2009 and 2011,  a Lux sales rep called five elderly consumers under the premise of a ‘free vacuum cleaner maintenance check.’

The consumers, some of whom were aged over 90, were then allegedly subjected to unfair sales tactics pressuring them into purchasing a vacuum cleaner costing as much as $2280.

This contravened section 51AB of the Trade Practices Act 1974 and section 21 of Australian Consumer Law.

Lux distributes domestic vacuum cleaners in Australia and primarily markets through in-house demonstrations.

The watchdog is seeking an injunctions and the payment of pecuniary penalties and costs from Lux, as well as the implementation of a trade practices compliance program.

The matter has been filed in the Federal Court’s Fast Track List and due to be heard before Justice Dodds-Streeton in Melbourne on 6 July 2012 at 10:00am.