Russell Beattie

No time to do full posts:

Erik Smartt from Nokia Explains the super new-and-improved Python for Series 60:

...PIM API�s (contacts and calendar), camera API�s, access to system information (like the IMEI number and free disk space), and even a new 2D graphics API for direct-screen drawing. All together this is a LOT of new functionality. But the trouble with adding all these new modules is that someone has to define the new API�s, and this shouldn�t be done in isolation. So before all these new API�s are set in stone, we�re packaging up a pre-alpha build so that everyone has a chance to give feedback and help define how this stuff should work.

Cingular's Data Rates Have Changed:

Pay close attention to �charge for the number of kilobytes� fragment in that sentence. When I checked Cingular�s site on Tuesday the per kb charge was $.02. As of today it�s $.01. Here�s the difference that a penny can make. If I was a Cingular customer, worst case scenario for my data bill this month would have been $150.00 at 2 cents / kb. At their new rate, it would be $75.00. By the way, I only used 7.5mb of data.

As I said, that�s worst case scenario. Best case would be 20 dollars, if I subscribed to their MEdia Net unlimited plan which dropped 10 dollars from 29.99 to 19.99 per month.

Bluetooth Hacked for real this time:

During pairing, two Bluetooth devices establish the 128-bit secret �link key� that they then store and use to encrypt all further communication. The first step requires the legitimate users to type the same secret, four-digit PIN into both devices. The two devices then use this PIN in a complex process to arrive at the common link key.

Whitehouse showed in 2004 that a hacker could arrive at this link key without knowing the PIN using a piece of equipment called a Bluetooth sniffer. This can record the exchanged messages being used to derive the link key and feed the recordings to software that knows the Bluetooth algorithms and can cycle through all 10,000 possibilities of the PIN. Once a hacker knows the link keys, Whitehouse reasoned they could hijack the device.

But pairing only occurs the first time two devices communicate. Wool and Shaked have managed to force pairing by pretending to be one of the two devices and sending a message to the other claiming to have forgotten the link key. This prompts the other device to discard the link key and the two then begin a new pairing session, which the hacker can then use.

Look! Rabble's been launched!:

Rabble is blogging evolved for the mobile consumer: Self-expression and proximity combine to give you a fun and useful tool to connect with other people and the world around you using text, camera phones and location. Rabble enables a new kind of self-expression that informs, entertains and connects people through the media they create. It's like putting virtual sticky notes on the world around you. Through bits of location-tagged media, find and interact with other people and get information you won't find in the yellow pages. Part blogging, part location-based personal networking, Rabble connects mobile consumers with the world around them through a unique and intuitive way by turning users into producers and creating a marketplace for mobile user-generated content.

In the TV world, you sit and watch. In the mobile world, you move around and interact. Information is increasingly personalized. Content creation is migrating to the edge of the network and into the hands of camera phone-carrying individuals (like you!); creating a new category of media. Rabble is a simple tool to enable the creation and distribution of this new kind of media. Every minute of every day something big happens and someone is there to capture it with their camera phone. Rabble is the place they put it for the world to see. So now Rabble users may view a user-generated picture of a natural disaster days before any news team can get to it, but they may also benefit from the insertion of sponsored location-based e-tickets to a concert or sporting event, or just get the hot tip on a cool new bar or restaurant.

I've got a big post coming up this weekend as well having to do with my Mobile Monday presentation. Look for it.

-Russ