immersion corporation makes retro gaming experience richer on tablets #mwc12

Reporting live from mobile world congress from Barcelona for Orange Live

Immersion is a San Jose based company which was set up 18 years ago in order to develop force feedback controllers for joystick and other gaming equipment manufacturers such as Sony, Logitech etc. Immersion is now moving into mobile gaming and is working with mobile and tablet device manufacturers in order to add force-feedback into mobile gaming.

Fancy playing Grand Theft Auto on your Android tablet with the same kind of user experience as you used to have on a console or personal computer? Well, this is possible and I even tried it and it works. Immersion, a Nasdaq listed company based in San Jose, Cal. has developed drivers which make it possible for old games like Sonic or GTA to be played on Android tablets with a richer experience. Thanks to the technology developed by immersion, one can get force feedback when slamming the doors of a car or bumping into cars or buildings (don’t try this in real life!). The device is no longer passive and therefore you can have the best of both worlds: the mobile world and the retro game world.

The company is more or less in “stealth mode” to put it in the words of the person I interviewed on the stand, hidden behind large manufacturers of Android tablets that wish to use retro gaming as a means to attract consumers to their Android-based tablets. “Android is open source” the immersion representative said “and therefore, one can gain a lot of control on the platform”.

a new haptic experience

This new haptic experience is made possible through the registration of 1,200 patents, the immersion representative declared. “The software is free” he added, as “we want developers to be able to use it and develop on it; they produce good content and that makes it possible for us to partner with manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, Toshiba, Fujistu to name a few”.

As Glenn Le Santo pointed out in his story on the Live Orange Blog, the mobile world congress is not just about large brands but also a myriad small companies which are part of this ecosystem and make it thrive.

mobile world congress pictures day 3 #MWC12

Yesterday was even more hectic than Monday at mobile world congress. We had a number of meetings up and down the Fira (the name of the venue in Barcelona) including a very lively press conference organised by Eugene Kaspersky. What I found most amazing though was a sculpture which I hadn’t quite noticed on the first day. It is a winged horse (Pegasus) which was set up outside the Huawei tent. When looking a bit closer I then realised it was all made of phones. A very clever piece of Art and let’s admit it, very beautiful too.

album link: MWC-day three

Kaspersky: “we will soon witness cybercrime explosion in the mobile world” #MWC #MWC12

This post was originally written for the Orange Live Blog, reporting live from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

On Tuesday February 27th, I had the opportunity to attend a Press conference organised by Kaspersky security. Eugene Kaspersky himself was present for this big announcement in mobile security. The firm is already widely known for its PC protecting suite and today it made a few important announcements related to its release of parental control suites for mobile devices as well as an advanced protection suite for Android devices. In a flamboyant presentation by one of the Press’s preferred showmen of the software industry, the Russian expert and businessman highlighted the risks that mobile users are facing in the near future. Yet, there has also been criticisms in the industry for scare mongering on the part of security software editors …

Cybercrime will soon be too big to be ignored

15 years ago, Personal computer users didn’t have a clue about cybercrime. Viruses didn’t exist, or were in limited supply, and when they did exist they tended to be rather harmless. Similarly, as of today, many users are still wondering whether cybercrime is real or not when it comes to mobility. Nowadays, PC users aren’t questioning that “malicious software” (aka malware) exists nor that it is a real threat. We all know it’s there and that having a proper antivirus installed and regularly updated is a must-have.  Such was Eugene Kaspersky’s introduction, meaning to announce that cybercrime is just about to soar in the mobile industry.

”IT will split into 2 environments : Android for the home environment and Business with the Windows environment” Kaspersky announced, even though Windows and Nokia my prove him wrong soon as it happens; but we understand what he is hinting at: open environments like Android are easier to pry into and are the prime targets for cyber criminals. “No safe zone will subsist” he added.

Going back into the history of computing, viruses like Chernobyl in 1998 were  so fierce that they made infected machines unusable. The virus would go and reprogram the BIOS (the basic software below Windows which makes your machine work) and damage it beyond repair. This virus and others like Melissa or “I love you” changed people’s minds about cybercrime for ever Kaspersky rightfully remarked.

Cybercrime is moving into mobiles

The Russian expert’s theory is that mobility is going the same route as computers a few years ago because, in his mind, “there are fundamentally no differences between computers and mobile devices”.

“The number of computer threats has reached a plateau” he went on, so there are few or no new players in the PC cybercrime space or otherwise, they would  need to be extremely professional. The computer crime scene is therefore mature enough and there are also other non malware related scams which work well in that space (SPAM, phishing, pharming being the most frequent ones). “Online banking only started in 2001-2002 and this is the reason why crime soared too after those days”, now that mobile equipment is booming (in 2012 there will be more than 484 million smartphones worldwide) “we will witness mobile ‘malware’ explosion” Kaspersky warned while showing us a chart (see picture above) with some very worrying numbers.

“75% of malware is targeted at Android”

“Cybercrime in the mobile industry started as soon as 2005” he added, and Android is now becoming the dominant mobile malware platform. (sign of the times, Android went through 1199 modifications in Dec 2011 because of security threats). Eugene Kaspersky said that he was expecting this to happen and he is now “sure that the trend will follow that of computers in 2000 and beyond. “This is bad news for smartphone manufacturer who will need to add extra processing power to cater for security” he said and added facetiously “this isn’t my fault!”. As the above chart shows, things started to get very bad in 2010 and mostly in 2011. And it’s not just mobile devices and tablets he concluded but all connected devices such as TV screens namely.

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR DEVICE

But it wouldn’t be right to scare all mobile and tablet users without giving them good and straightforward advice with regard to the protection of their devices. And apart from the security suites sold by Kaspersky (and its competitors), common sense is a good method for keeping your mobile data out of harm’s way. Here are Kaspersky’s recommendations:

1. lock your mobile screen
2. use security software (of course, you would expect that coming from a security software editor)
3. back up your mobile data
4. use encryption whenever possible
5. beware of what you install and don’t click on dodgy websites
6. do not jailbreak your device as you would enhance the capability of malicious software to damage the core of your mobile device
7. do not connect to untrusted Wi-Fi points
8. do not skip updates of your OS when they are available
9. do not assume that your mobile device is safer than your PC

2012 predictions

Kaspersky and his teams fortunately do not predict that a mobile IT apocalypse will take place in 2012 but they are pretty certain that Android will be the main target for massive attacks and that 2012 will see the rise of the first massive worms for Android as well as ‘malware’ in official market applications.

“scareware for charlatans”?

A critique of software security companies’ approach to malware protection on mobile devices (not just Kaspersky’s) was fuelled last November by Chris DiBona, leader of open-source software at Google. Kaspersky’s Denis Maslennikov dismissed DiBona’s claims by saying that Google had launched their own anti virus solution soon after. A complete thread of the Kaspersky/Google story is available at this url. It’s a bit early to tell who is right and who is wrong however even though there may be a bit of truth on both sides. Time will tell.

About Kaspersky security

The Russian federation is known for its high concentration of online crime perpetrators but also for being the home of some of the world’s most revered security experts. Kaspersky, named after its founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky, a math lover who used his skills to make surfing safer is one of the leaders in that space. You can find details about their offerings at Kaspersky.com

mobile world congress pictures days 1 & 2 #mwc #mwc12

Day one for me was Sunday 26th and included a tour of the Showstoppers event with a preview of what was to happen at mobile world congress. I didn’t have much time to visit the Sagrada Familia but had a chance to take a few pictures on my way to the University area.

De MWC-day one

Day two was a lot lore hectic. The crowd was huge and gave all its meaning to the world globalisation. Already 20 posts were published on our blog yesterday. z

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-1l8FKkcbGt0/T0vEIvJzB1I/AAAAAAAACf8/71hrgx3bwRk/s400/DSC_0017.JPG

You can keep abreast of everything that’s happening here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona by using the http://oran.ge/mwcorange short URL.

Is Innovation In The Room? #MWC12

It may seem strange but somehow, I’m not entirely certain that innovation is always where you think it is. Sometimes it hides in corners, or even is conspicuous but you were looking in another direction. Perhaps that’s what happened at showstoppers on February 26th (a preview event before MWC in Barcelona) when I was looking and interviewing stand owners and had failed to spot that gentleman with a camera on his hat, filming the show. Now that’s innovation for you!

Today at Mobile World Congress, we’ll find out more about some of the innovations on display. Stay tuned …

first few slices of technological innovation at #mwc12

reporting live from MWC2012 in Barcelona

You certainly know you are in Spain when you can spot the Patanegra at a buffet, but the motivation for the happy few who were present and invited act the showstoppers event in Barcelona today, didn’t quite come for the quality of the cured ham. Press pass bearing delegates (including bloggers) were indeed allowed in after a short wait a little after 4pm on Sunday 26th and therefore I was able to spend two hours looking at some of the innovations which were on display. Here is a selection, enhanced with a few pictures .

It all started with Nuance, the makers of Dragon NaturallySpeaking – the voice recognition giant of which I am a faithful user and (even unofficially) behind Apple’s SIRI technology – who are into the development of the next generations of set top boxes, ones which will understand you thanks to natural language recognition. For instance, you will soon just say “show me a film in which Tom Cruise is playing” and you will be shown a selection of films starring the famous actor. We’re not there yet, but it may well mean the end of EPG (Electronic Program Guides) browsing.

The next stand at which I stopped was that of Gracenote, a system mainly know by users who wish to digitalise their – legally purchased – music on their computers. Gracenote is a database containing minute details about music albums but also films. Yet, Gracenote – now part of Sony for 5 years – is making money on its APIs, not on the database itself (which is updated and maintained collaboratively by its users). The most interesting thing they showed was what they called Moodgrid which lets you choose music according to your mood as shown on the tablet of the above picture. Other potential applications exist, namely for car music systems.

A third innovation I found particularly interesting was … not really an innovation but a way of showing that sometimes, older is better than new! The company is called Emporia and is Austrian. It has been operating for 20 years but has only been active in the mobile sector for 6 years. Everything happened when Dr Albert Fellner, the CEO of Emporia, realised that each week when he visited his Mom he had to explain to her how her phone works. It had nothing to  with dementia but really with the fact that the product isn’t suited to elderly persons. So he decided to build special phones, with special features of which:

• a torch is always made available on the outside of the handset and is operated at the touch of a button
• a simple alarm button (black button hence less conspicuous)
• a simple lock button (a real button, not a complex combination of key strokes)
• a simple charger base (see picture above)
• very large buttons which elderly people can press easily. The company even works with Cambridge university on the usability of their phones

A very clever design which shows that innovation isn’t always equal to modernity.

Last but not least, I stopped by HZO’s stand, a company which is working with handset manufacturers in order to equip all phones with thin protective and invisible layers one can add on the motherboards in order to protect phones from water. Their demo was amazing as they showed phones in perfect working order which had spent up to five hours in a bowl full of water. This innovation should equip new handsets progressively, in the next 2 years according to HZO representatives who aren’t selling their solutions to the public though.

With innovations like these, should never be afraid anymore of flushing your phone through the toilets!

>> see a demo on this online video