geekosystem

There's been a lot of rumblings from Amazon's hardware department as of late. We've been looking forward to new Kindles from the company sometime this year, but now a new report says that we might get a lot more: Amazon phones.

When it comes to buying over-the-top, extremely expensive devices and accessories, you're basically throwing money away and everybody knows it. That being the case, a lot of these higher end devices seem to revel in their lack of features to further de-justify their already ludicrous price point. Look at the new Grand Premier, from Gresso for instance. A $50,000 dollar phone that has buttons. Buttons? I thought we were past this, people.

According to AllThingsD, Facebook is allegedly at work with HTC to create their own mobile device based off the Android OS. If their source is to be believed, the device is code-named "Buffy," presumably to slay the vampires of Apple and Google. Though rumors of a Facebook have been circulating for over a year, this news is the first firm evidence of such a device. Despite Facebook's success, it's fair to ask why they would want to tempt fate and launch their own device.

Some smartphone users have been been put-off by the low-friction feel of multitouch glass. Still others pine for the days of physical keyboards, and insist that buttons be a part of their user experience. These folks might be intrigued by new technology called "programmable friction" that will make touch screens feel as if they have physical objects etched on them. The new screens would be similar to existing "haptic feedback" technology, which uses vibration to make the user feel a response to movements on the screen. The difference is that with programmable friction, the vibrations occur underneath the screen's glass and at specific points and frequencies. As a finger moves over the screen, the vibrations increase or decrease, changing the friction underneath the user's finger. Using this technique, researchers were able to create the sensation of actual movement by objects on the screen.

The Android Police blog is reporting that not only has some nasty malware been released into the Android market, but that it has been downloaded by 50-200 thousand users, all of which may have had their device completely compromised. The attack came in the form of dozens of popular free apps that contained a plethora of nasty tricks. The apps were actually re-packaged free apps from different publishers, presumably to maximize the chance it would be downloaded and minimize the work the ne'er-do-wells would need to spend making their own apps. Reddit user lompolo made the discovery, writing:

I just randomly stumbled into one of the apps, recognized it and noticed that the publisher wasn’t who it was supposed to be. Super Guitar Solo for example is originally Guitar Solo Lite. I downloaded two of the apps and extracted the APK’s, they both contain what seems to be the "rageagainstthecage" root exploit – binary contains string "CVE-2010-EASY Android local root exploit (C) 2010 by 743C". Don’t know what the apps actually do, but can’t be good.

>>>Update: Check out our roundup of changes to Facebook that were announced today.