In April 2007, Google launched a feature that, for the time, was very nifty: a free, fully automated 411 service called Goog-411 that would accept verbal commands to look up business listings. Today, after over three years of dutifully doling out free information to millions of phones, Google is announcing that it will be shuttering the service on November 12.

As Google alludes to in its blog post, the 411 service didn’t exist solely because Google wanted to help people out — it also gave Google a vast amount of voice data, allowing it to improve its speech recognition technology for the voice services that are now present throughout Android and on many other phones, including the iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia S60, and Windows.

In the blog post, Google also hints that we’ll be seeing much more voice functionality on the way:

Our success encouraged us to aim for more innovation. Thus, we’re putting all of our resources into speech-enabling the next generation of Google products and services across a multitude of languages.

Here’s how the service was described back when it first launched.

Goog-411 can be accessed by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411. The product is completely automated and there is no way to talk to a human for additional or clarifying information. You tell it your city and state, and then ask for a specific business or business category. In my tests the product was excellent. Although the voice recognition was only working at about 70% efficiency, I just said “back” and retried when it didn’t understand what I said. Results are spoken back or text messaged back to you, and you are automatically put through to the phone number requested.

It will be sad to see it go, as I used it quite a few times before Android phones were around. So it seems this will be for the best… so farewell GOOG-411.

If you’ve ever worried about being phished or having your password hacked, Google’s new “Two-factor authentication” could be your best friend — because it makes it much, much harder for a hacker to break into your account. Today, Google is announcing that it’s bringing the security feature to its millions of users: the feature will be rolling out first for Google Apps Premiere, Education, and Government edition customers, with plans to bring it to all Google users (even those who aren’t using its Apps suite) in the next few months.

Google's new two step authentication!

So what exactly is two-factor authentication? Most of the login systems you’ve probably used are only ‘one-factor’ — you enter one password and you’re in, but if that password gets compromised, you’re toast. More secure systems are common in large businesses, and often require both a password and a physical card or dongle to login — these are called ‘two-factor’ systems, because they require both your password and another key, and are far more secure because a hacker probably isn’t going to have that physical token. Unfortunately these security systems are generally quite expensive. But Google is bringing one to the masses.

Google’s system doesn’t require a physical keycard. Instead, it relies on your mobile phone. First, you need to activate the optional feature from your settings page (again, this is only available to certain Google Apps customers at first). Then, when you go to sign in to your Google account, you’ll first be asked to enter your password as usual. Next, you’ll be brought to a screen asking for a verification code (see the screenshot above).

The verification code comes from your mobile phone, which you’ve previously linked up to your Google Account. Google has built a ‘Google Authenticator’ application for Android, the iPhone, and Blackberry — fire up the application, and it will give you the six digit verification code that you enter back into your browser (the system can also send you a SMS message or give you the code via voice call).

Coming soon to mobile devices!

That’s it. The entire process only takes a minute or so, but it’s much more secure because anyone wanting to access your account will also need access to your mobile phone. You can opt to require this two-factor authentication all the time, or you can elect to only require it one time per computer (in other words, you’ll only need to enter it once on your home PC and/or work computer).

Like I said, this may not sound sexy, but it’s a big deal. Given how much data users are storing on Google, and the fact that plenty of people still fall prey to phishing scams on a regular basis, this is a major step in helping keep users secure. This is all optional (unless your Apps administrator sets a policy requiring it), but I suspect Google will be making a push to urge users to take advantage of the new system as it begins rolling out more broadly.

The news will also make Google Apps an even more tempting proposition for security-conscious businesses (Google notes that prior to this release, it was also the first company to receive FISMA certification in the collaboration/document sharing space). To make this more appealing to businesses, Google is also open-sourcing its authentication apps, so businesses can create their own custom-branded versions.

Gmail on the iPhone.

I’d wager that you’d be hard-pressed to find an iPhone user that doesn’t use Gmail on the device. And yet, it’s an awkward relationship. Why? Because Gmail run through the iPhone’s native mail client is a crippled experience. Set aside for a second that you cannot star anything (well, aside from moving an email to the “Starred” folder, which is ridiculous), more importantly, there is no push support. This means you cannot get your email in realtime. Instead, you have to ping Gmail’s servers (either in set intervals or manually). Both Yahoo Mail and MobileMe mail have full push support. It’s ridiculous. Google finally made a move to fix that today. Well, sort of.

With the latest version of their Google Mobile App, you can set up your iPhone to receive Push Notifications each time you get a new Gmail message or when you have a Google Calendar alert. No, Push Notifications on the iPhone aren’t technically the same as full push support for mail, but it will do. Essentially, you’ll now but getting a notification when a new message comes in and this will alert you to open your Mail app and retrieve it. It’s two more steps than regular push would require, but whatever.

What’s interesting is that Google is using Apple’s Push Notifications servers to enable this service. All of these Push Notifications are served up by Apple Push Notification Service (APNS). So yes, Google is using Apple to overcome their own shortcoming (which may or may not be Apple’s fault, who knows what is going on between the two at this point).

Perhaps even stranger is that you can actually set up Gmail to do proper push — but you have to use Microsoft Exchange to make that happen. Or you’ve been able to use a number of third-party apps like Boxcar for some time now that allow you to get Gmail push notifications — this new Google app simply cuts out this middle man, but works the same way.

There’s something else interesting about this Google Push Notification support as well. When it pops up the notification letting you know that there’s a new message, there’s a “View” button which will open Gmail in the iPhone’s web browser. So not only is Google bypassing Mail’s lack of Gmail push support, they’re feeding you back to their site. While they don’t do it yet on the iPhone experience, they could presumably show you ads here — something they can’t do on the Mail app on the iPhone. I’m fine with that as the iPhone-tailored version of Gmail in Safari is great.

Something else interesting in all of this is that Apple and Google have still presumably been working together to improve the Gmail/iPhone experience. With iOS 4, we finally got the ability to archive (instead of delete) in the Mail app. And you can now sync notes with your Gmail account. Why there still is no real push support is anyone’s guess. I’m sure each side will blame the other one.

Also interesting to think about: will Google start using this same Push Notification feature to make Google Voice easier to use on the iPhone? Everyone is still waiting for the App Store approval of that app.

International management, I.T. consulting and technology firm PA Consulting Group claims that the so-called “iPhone death grip” (the method of holding the iPhone 4 to degrade antenna performance) is a problem unique to the new iPhone. After performing tests, the firm confirms that the phone’s wireless performance was generally in the same range as other smartphones except when held in the “death grip” – then, it performed significantly worse than its competitors.

According to Simon Tonks, the consultant who led the testing, “Our tests indicate that the ‘death grip’ issue is real, and is worse for the Apple iPhone 4 than for other smartphones.”

The death grip issue is aggravated by the fact that the radio performance on the iPhone 4 was already fairly poor, the firm reports. “The iPhone 4′s radio performance was also found to be generally at the lower end [of the range],” said Tonks. “This means it will tend to drop calls earlier than other phones and may suffer more in areas of weak signal. Though, overall it’s still within the normal performance range for similar products.”

In addition to testing iPhone 4 signal strength itself, the firm also compared the iPhone 4 to other leading devices, including the Blackberry 9700 and the HTC HD2. The results of the tests were recorded in a snazzy YouTube video which features an upbeat rock n’ roll track, padded test rooms and humorous clips of people attempting to use the iPhone 4 by taping it to their head or augmenting the signal strength with a wire coat hanger.

The silliness of the video (at least until the halfway point) may detract from what are actually legitimate tests from the firm, an award-winning group known recently for its work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce methane emissions, work with the Butan government in using biometrics in border control, its design and development of the first disposable medical injectors for automated injections and its work in saving companies millions through supply chain optimization, among other things.

The group’s experts confirm that ultimately, the iPhone 4 represents a trade-off between product design and innovative features versus ensuring a product works effectively. They also noted that a rubber band placed around the antenna provides a significant performance improvement.

While reporting on the iPhone 4 “death grip” seems a bit like beating a dead horse at this point, considering that Apple has already acknowledged the issue and announced it would offer free bumpers to iPhone 4 owners, it’s notable at least for the fact that these iPhone complaints have now gone worldwide (PA Consulting Group is UK-based). This news confirms that the issues with the antenna aren’t just a problem primarily affecting U.S. users dealing with AT&T’s poor network performance, but also affect iPhone 4 owners in other countries as well.

Steve Jobs talking at the Apple Press Conference dealing with the antenna problems.

Are antenna grip problems universal among smartphones? Even if they are, handset makers RIM, Nokia, and HTC are not happy with Apple for insinuating that the iPhone 4 isn’t alone in suffering from signal loss when gripped in a certain way.

During a press conference on Friday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs called media coverage of the iPhone 4′s antenna problems overblown. Jobs said that reception issues were something common to all smartphones, playing a video that showed smartphones from HTC, Samsung, and other manufacturers dropping signal when held in various ways.

Apple’s attempt to paint other smartphones with the same wide brush didn’t sit well with RIM, makers of the BlackBerry. Calling the whole saga “Apple’s self-made debacle,” RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie didn’t mince words. “Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation,” they said in a statement obtained by CrackBerry. “RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage.”

The co-CEOs also slammed Apple for its free case program, pointing out that all BlackBerrys can maintain “proper connectivity” without having to resort to cases and bumpers. They concluded by criticized Apple for shirking responsibility for its design choices by accusing other hardware makers of making similar antenna tradeoffs.

HTC was more restrained, even though a Droid Eris was shown dropping from four bars to zero during Apple’s video. Instead, HTC highlighted user satisfaction and a corresponding lack of complaints about the Eris’ design. “We have had very few complaints about signal or antenna problems on the Eris,” a company spokesperson told Pocket-lint. He said that only about 0.016 percent of Eris owners have complained to the manufacturer about dropped calls and signal weakness, compared to 0.55 percent of iPhone 4 owners.

Jobs also singled out Nokia, highlighting models from the Finnish company that ship with stickers on the reverse saying “don’t touch here.” Nokia defended itself, saying on its corporate blog that it considers antenna design a “core competence… for decades.”

Nokia says it designs its phones to account for real-world usage, including a variety of grips. “In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held,” the company said. “That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.”

In the same way that widespread user and media criticism of the iPhone 4 antenna problem touched a nerve within Apple, the iPhone maker’s saying that its latest gadget is just one of many smartphones with signal loss problems has aroused the ire of its competitors. All handset makers are faced with antenna design challenges, but only Apple has managed to bring its antenna design decisions so spectacularly into the public consciousness. That’s not something Cupertino should feel good about.

Consumer Reports confirmed yesterday what many new iPhone 4 owners already new – that the phone indeed has a reception issue when held in the now famous “iPhone 4 Death Grip” – and made news by recommending against purchasing what it says is otherwise the best smartphone on the market. Today, Mac-centric tech blog Cult of Mac is reporting that a hardware recall is inevitable and looks to be on the horizon.

With word of the iPhone’s reception woes travelling well beyond the blogosphere, it surely looks like a software fix will do little to stop the bleeding.

When Apple released its iPhone 4 late last month, users quickly began reporting reception issues when the phone was held a certain way. At first, the company played off the glitch as user error, telling owners not to hold it that way. When it realized the issue wasn’t going away, Apple admitted there was a problem, but pointed at a software rather than hardware issue. The company said that its software had been mis-reporting signal reception all along and that a retroactive patch to all iPhones would correct the issue. As we reported then, however, an independent analysis by the popular hardware news site Anandtech.com seemed to directly contradict this explanation.

Now, Consumer Reports agrees, stating that “It’s official. Consumer Reports’ engineers have just completed testing the iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception.” According to the review, testers tried several phones, bought at different locations, and compared results with other phone models. The results contradicted Apple’s claims that the reception issue was one that was “true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones.”

While many early adopters and tech watchers were well aware of the issue, Consumer Reports’ non-recommendation brings the problem to the mainstream. It’s no longer just a topic for the tech blogs and the back pages of newspapers, but rather an oft-repeated mantra of the five o’ clock news, mainstream media and talk radio. Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney spoke with several public relations experts who agreed that an iPhone recall was “inevitable” in order to preserve “its brand image, its crown jewels, at all cost.”

Aside from the reception issue, however, Consumer Reports says that the iPhone 4 “sports the sharpest display and best video camera we’ve seen on any phone, and even outshines its high-scoring predecessors with improved battery life and such new features as a front-facing camera for video chats and a built-in gyroscope that turns the phone into a super-responsive game controller.” But before the magazine will issue a recommendation, it says, “Apple needs to come up with a permanent–and free–fix for the antenna problem”.

The number of malware and spyware programs found on smartphones has more than doubled in the past six months — and some types of malware are more prevalent on certain smartphone platforms than others.

New data gathered from users of a free smartphone security tool shows the bad guys are increasingly going after smartphone users. According to Lookout, which offers a free lightweight mobile client with cloud-based security, backup, and anti-theft features, there were about nine pieces of malware and spyware per 100 smartphones as of last month — more than twice as many as in November 2009.

Even more worrisome is how rapidly these threats are hitting smartphones in comparison to the desktop: What took 15 years to evolve with the desktop machine is happening practically overnight in mobile handsets, security experts say. “We call this the 1999 factor: It feels like about 10 years ago in terms of prevalence of threats. There was a tipping point between 2000 and 2002 [for PC threats] that was driven by broadband” and more consumers going online, according to John Hering, CEO and founder of Lookout, formerly Flexilis. “The same trends are going to hold true here [with smartphones].”

Tyler Shields, senior security researcher with Veracode, says he has seen a definite uptick in malware arriving for smartphones during the past few months. “It’s coming at a much faster rate now. It’s difficult to quantify the amount of growth,” however, he says. Shields earlier this year developed and released proof-of-concept source code for a spyware app he created that forces a BlackBerry to hand over its contacts and messages. The spyware can also can grab text messages, listen in on the victim, as well as track his physical location via the phone’s GPS.

Spyware is the main type of malware Lookout sees being created for BlackBerrys, while Windows Mobile phones suffer more from traditional malware, and Androids from a little of both, according to Lookout’s data. “We’re seeing a pretty equal spread [of the threats] across these platforms,” Lookout’s Hering says. The firm doesn’t yet support the Apple iPhone in its app, so data on the iPhone isn’t included.

Why mostly spyware on the BlackBerry? Veracode’s Shields says it might be due to the heavy corporate use of BlackBerrys, which would make any data lifted from them more easily monetized. “The type of data on a BlackBerry generally is going to be corporate-centric and could be of interest to attackers,” he says.

A recent malware attack against Windows Mobile phones basically took an existing, legitimate smartphone app and booby-trapped it with malware: The 3D Anti-Terrorist app game for Windows Mobile was rewritten with auto-dialer malware, according to Lookout’s Hering. The app basically fires up the auto-dialer malware when the user runs the game. “It sits dormant for hours or days, and then wakes up and calls numbers at a premium rate — from Somalia to the South Pole,” for instance, he says. “The victim is then incurring charges but doesn’t notice until [he] receives the phone bill.”

A Windows codec and poker app also were hijacked, copied, and repackaged with malware. The apps are being distributed via typical mobile download and app store sites, such as sharewareplaza.com, geardownload.com, myzips.com, and top4download.com. “We’re seeing the same evolution on mobile as on the desktop: It’s going from notoriety [purposes] to trying to profit,” Hering says.

The malware attack vector being used against smartphones isn’t the SMS or email spam that was all the rage in the early days of mobile attacks. Instead, it’s following smartphone user behavior trends and exploiting downloadable applications, experts say. “Users are downloading apps at a huge pace,” Hering says.

And smartphones are actually more “personal” than PCs. They include GPS location, payment information, email, text messages, and records of who a user communicates with. Hering says today’s smartphone malware is all about grabbing personal information and, now, attempting to monetize it. “On the spyware side, you can imagine an app grabbing personal data that you’re unaware of [occurring] and transmitting that to a third-party location” where it can be resold, for example, he says.

Meanwhile, enterprises should be aware of the risks of breaches via their smartphone users. “They should be worried about this,” Hering says.

But the likelihood of another Operation Aurora-scale targeted attack isn’t as likely to hit via the smartphone just yet: “At this point in time, the PC [attack] model is so much easier and faster. I don’t foresee that level of coordination to target mobile devices at this point,” Veracode’s Shields says.

A good friend of mine is developing an application that helps keep track of all your spendings. He is currently in a contest to help when some much needed prize money to help with its development. To help all you need to do is vote for him HERE and to learn more about his application, continue reading.

rugalFay is a application to help you keep track of your spending. Services like Mint.com are great but all they do is provide a general idea of how much money you have. This only helps if when have plenty of money or rarely spend it. Being a college student, I know swiping your card over and over again, writing a check here and there, and borrowing money from a friend can be very hard to keep up with unless you write it all down. Who carries around a ledger to document their spending? Grandma, maybe… rugalFay is nothing but an account ledger that can be used with almost any phone, not just a smartphone.

Some features are:

• SMS enabled, use text messages to record transactions and check balance
• Mobile version of site compatible with mobile browsers
• Native App for Android and iPhone
• Main site provides reports and charts to see how you are spending money

rugalFay accurately keeps track of your spending.

and yes…rugalFay is frugal in Pig Latin

How he plans on using the money:

I plan on using the money for the following:

• To promote and advertise
• Bring in another developer to help with native mobile applications
• Equipment such as phones for testing
• SMS fees
• Graphic Design

About the Developer:

His name is John Hiott. He is a 23 year old real estate agent. He is currently selling real estate while he finishes his 4 year degree in Computer Science. His passion has always been development. He started developing software on a Tandy his grandfather gave me when he was 10.

Lately it seems as though people are finding ways to do more and more with their iPhones. Well I am starting to believe this statement as it seems that there has been a successful port of the 2.6 Linux Kernel working on the iPhone! Although they haven’t gotten all of the drivers functioning yet I can bet that it will only be a matter of time before they get more and more stuff working which is simply amazing in my book. Even more cool this works on both generations of the iPhone as well as the first generation of the iPod Touch! If I can ever get around to getting my hands on one of these suckers I defiantly plan on trying it out since I have become somewhat of a Linux fan as of late!

What we have:

- Framebuffer driver
- Serial driver
- Serial over USB driver
- Interrupts, MMU, clock, etc.

What we have in openiboot (but hasn’t been ported yet):

- Read-only support for the NAND

What we don’t have (yet!):

- Write support for the NAND
- Wireless networking
- Touchscreen
- Sound
- Accelerometer
- Baseband support

Here is a video of a short demonstration:

Here is a LINK to download the files needed! Also, here is a LINK to the readme.txt if you would like to try it for yourself! So enjoy!!

For some time now there has been little bits of talk here and there about Google possibly in the works to developing a mobile phone. Just more recently some better details have come into the light about this phone and what all exactly it plans to be able to do! With these details starting to surface about the phone and some of the details, the room for rumors and such have sky rocketed with all kinds of websites reporting on stuff they have heard or seen about the new upcoming phone. What seems to interest me more than most of the other things people are saying about this phone is the fact that they have been developing their own Operating System to go with the phone.

This really gets my gears turning as to what they can produce, being as big as they are, I am sure they have the man power and resources to put together something huge and very good looking. I recently (in May) got my first smartphone that is now running Windows Mobile 6.1 and have loved all that it can do so far. With there only being a few minor problems that I have been able to find with it, I can only imagine what Google is going to be able to do  with their phone’s OS.

With Google doing so much lately in almost every side of the game… one can only imagine what they have up their sleeve for this new phone. If they are in the works of creating data centers that operate from boats using wave power… I have to hand it to them that they are pretty creative and only time will tell what they are going to throw at us with this new smartphone!

Links to some News Posts covering this new Google device!