Is Blackberry Going Android?

BlackBerry Ltd , which has been tight-lipped about its plans to make a mainstream Android smartphone, fueled more speculation about its plans this week when it scooped up two Android-related domain names.

Several blog posts in the last two days have noted that the Canadian handset maker bought the domain names “AndroidSecured.com” and “AndroidSecured.net” this week. That spurred more chatter that it intends to build a device powered by Google Inc’s  Android platform, which powers the vast majority of smartphones sold across the globe.

The purchase of the domain names is particularly interesting since BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen has declined to confirm a June Reuters report that said the company was planning an Android phone.

Speculation that BlackBerry will embrace Android was also spurred this week by a Digitimes report that said the company plans to roll out several models of Android-based phones.

In the past three weeks, however, Chen has said at least twice that he would only build an Android phone if he can “secure Android”.

BlackBerry downplayed the significance of its domain name purchases in an email on Friday, saying: “BlackBerry frequently registers domain names to support the breadth of our cross-platform portfolio. Android is an important part of our cross-platform enterprise software strategy.”

Indeed, one of the domains, “AndroidSecured.com”, currently redirects users to a BlackBerry enterprise-focused site.

But that has not stopped a barrage of chatter on tech blogs about the purchases being part of BlackBerry’s plan to build its own secure Android, going beyond supporting existing Android phones on its BES12 device-management system. BES12 allows corporate and government clients to secure Android-, iOS-, Windows- and BlackBerry-powered devices on their networks.

Under the leadership of Chen, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company has been pivoting toward software and device management as its recent devices, powered by its BlackBerry 10 software, have failed to win mass appeal. Analysts and tech gurus believe a move to Android could give BlackBerry’s device arm a new lease on life.

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HP Unveils 3D Plan

Hewlett-Packard Co will unveil plans to enter the commercial 3D-printing arena in June, saying it has resolved a number of technical issues that have hindered broader adoption of the high-tech manufacturing process.

Chief Executive Meg Whitman told shareholders the company will make a “big technology announcement” that month around how it will approach a market that has excited the imagination of investors and consumers.

Critics have accused the sci-fi-like technology of being over-hyped and still too immature for widespread consumer adoption.

Industry observers have long expected HP, the largest of several printer-making companies from Canon to Xerox, to eventually get into the business. Whitman said HP’s inhouse researchers have resolved limitations involved with the quality of substrates used in the process, which affects the durability of finished products.

“We actually think we’ve solved these problems,” Whitman told an annual shareholders meeting. “The bigger market is going to be in the enterprise space,” manufacturing parts and prototypes in ways that were not possible before.

“We’re on the case,” she said without elaborating.

HP executives have estimated that worldwide sales of 3D printers and related software and services will grow to almost $11 billion by 2021 from a mere $2.2 billion in 2012.

The nascent 3D-printing market is now dominated by a number of smaller players like MakerBot, a unit of Stratasys that is concentrating on selling more affordable devices to consumers.

Contract manufacturers like Flextronics however already use the technology to help craft prototype parts or devices for corporate clients.

“HP is currently exploring the many possibilities of 3D printing and the company will play an important role in its development,” CTO and HP Labs director Martin Fink said in a February blogpost on HP’s website.

“The fact is that 3D printing is really still an immature technology, but it has a magical aura. The sci-fi movie idea that you can magically create things on command makes the idea of 3D printing really compelling for people.”

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Office 365 Goes Yammer

Microsoft has taken the first step in its integration roadmap for SharePoint and Yammer, allowing Office 365 customers to swap SharePoint Online’s activity stream with Yammer’s.

This first, modest integration point will let SharePoint Online users click on the Yammer link and launch a separate browser window where they’re asked to sign in.

Later this year, Microsoft will deepen the integration with a single sign-on and the addition of Yammer to the main Office 365 interface, which will begin to merge the two products’ user experience.

Next month, Microsoft will release a Yammer application for SharePoint that will let users embed a Yammer group feed into a SharePoint site. The application will work both with SharePoint Online and with the on-premises version of the server SharePoint 2013.

Also in July, Microsoft will provide instructions for replacing the SharePoint 2013 newsfeed with Yammer’s.

For now, the first integration step in optional, but Microsoft is strongly suggesting that Office 365 customers make the activity stream switch to Yammer.

“Our recommendation is to use Yammer, since it’s our big bet for enterprise social, and we’re committed to making it the underlying social layer for all our products,” wrote Christophe Fiessinger, a Microsoft Office Division product marketing manager, in a blog post.

Customers should also accompany the technical change with an outreach effort to promote the benefits of using the enterprise social networking features of Yammer, according to Fiessinger.

“To drive adoption and really get the value out of Yammer, you need a strategy, advocates, and openness to the way it will transform the way people in your organization work and communicate,” he wrote.

Microsoft bought Yammer for $1.2 billion in mid-2012 in order to boost the development and availability of enterprise social collaboration features in SharePoint and in other Office and Microsoft business software like the Dynamics applications.

Microsoft makes a convincing case for the benefits of integrating Yammer with SharePoint and its other software to provide a common social collaboration layer, but the process is clearly complicated and will take years.

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Google, which last week created a bit of chaos with the launch of a Gmail application for Apple iOS devices, has decided to put out discontinue its Gmail application for the BlackBerry.

As of Nov. 22, Google will no longer offer technical support to users of the application, nor will it allow people to download it anymore, the company wrote in a blog post.

However, people will be able to continue using it, although Google will put its development efforts on the version of the application for mobile browsers, available at gmail.com.

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Apple Website Is Ripe For Hacking

According to the Ethical Hacking group YGN, Apple’s website for developers is virtually wide open and gives the opportunity for hackers to introduce malware such asphishing attacks to gain access to subscriber’s vital personal information.

One group known as Networkworld identified three holes on Apple’s website that arbitrary URL redirects, cross-site scripting and HTTP response splitting. That said, these holes could allow hackers to arbitrarily redirect to other websites and make phishing attacks against developers login credentials more successful.

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Sony Hacked Again

More than 2000 users of Sony Ericsson’s Canadian Website are impacted by the latest hack attack to hit a battle worn Sony. Sony Ericsson is joint mobile phone venture between Sony and Ericsson. According to Sony hackers made off with e-mail addresses, passwords and phone numbers–but no credit card details. Sony has now shut down the affected site. Around 1000 of the stolen records from the Sony Canadian Website are already online, posted by Idahc, a “Lebanese grey-hat hacker”.

“Sony Ericsson’s Website in Canada, which advertises its products, has been hacked, affecting 2000 people,” a Sony spokesperson told AFP. “Their personal information was posted on a Website called The Hacker News. The information includes registered names, email addresses and encrypted passwords. But it does not include credit card information.”

“Sony Ericsson has disabled this e-commerce Website,” Sony detailed to IDG News. “We can confirm that this is a standalone website and it is not connected to Sony Ericsson servers.” For security, Sony has shut down the Canadian Sony Ericsson eShop page, which currently reads: “D’oh! The page you’re looking for has gone walkabout. Sorry.”

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Microsoft Resumes WP7 Update

Microsoft has begun updating Samsung’s Windows Phone 7-based smartphones again, after earlier technical problems forced a stop to the process, it said in a blog post Wednesday.

The update was initially announced Feb. 21, and doesn’t provide any new functionality, but rather improves the software update process itself, according to Microsoft.

However, after some users of Samsung phones began experiencing problems, Microsoft decided to temporarily suspend the update program.

The problems have been pinpointed and fixed, the blog post said, but it didn’t provide any details on what the issues were. At the same time, Microsoft has continued to update Windows Phone 7-based smartphones from other vendors. Read More…