Yes, drivers in the US could be affected by a move to ban mobile phones while driving, and we are not taking about blatantly engaging in a call with the device to your ear, we are talking about engaging on twitter, texting, updating to facebook, etc.

National Transportation Safety Board cite smartphone increase as reason:

The National Transportation Safety Board has raised their concerns after pointing out that the increased functionality of smartphones has lead to more people feeling the need to use their device when they should be more concentrated on the road ahead.

Ban on texting, tweeting and even calling on bluetooth?

I am not one for rash decision making when it affects a persons overall freedom and criminalizes more for stupid errors.

But, I can see how texting and tweeting and generally meddling with a phone while driving could be dangerous.

I do however strongly object to anyone criminalizing a driver for talking using bluetooth, otherwise it would surely have to be law that you would also have to drive without talking to your passenger, or changing your air temperature or dials for volume etc and how dangerous would that be!

In fact I would argue that excessive noise while driving was more dangerous than talking on bluetooth due to the lack of awareness that is created when deafened by loud music.

Growing concern over gadgets in general:

NTSB chairwoman Deborah Hersman has stated that they are worried about devices in general:

“Every year, new devices are being released, people are tempted to update their Facebook page, they are tempted to tweet, as if sitting at a desk. But they are driving a car.”

Not likely to be adopted:

There are no statutory obligations for states to adopt the recommendations, and initial polls appear to show that no state will.

But a seed has been planted, and I dare say that some measures suggested will be implemented in time.

Perhaps the economic misery of the US may have more of a say right now rather than seemingly “draconian” measures to reduce road accidents.

Current law situation on driving in the US:

Unlike the UK which banned talking on a mobile while driving years ago (Bluetooth/Hands-Free is OK), the US only sees 9 states with the same ban on talking while driving, and 35 states have made texting and driving illegal.

As a last statement against the naysayers to these proposed laws, the National Transportation Safety Board say:

“We’re not here to win a popularity contest. We’re here to do the right thing. This is a difficult recommendation, but it’s the right recommendation and it’s time.”

While many believe that the move will not be a vote winner in general, the fact that a ban on in car communication via mobiles could hurt industry in the US in terms of manufacturing products for cars and general consumer devices, seems to be one of the other main reasons that these measures will not be adopted any time soon.

International pressure mounts:

In 2010, Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, had looked to address the culture of multitasking while driving. And, some 30 countries have laws restricting the use of mobiles while driving, including complete bans in Germany and Portugal, so is the US being slow in looking after its Citizens or is the rest of the world being overly cautious with full bans?

We have recently covered a possible link between the delayed release of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and NFC issues between Google and Verizon related to security and general competition.

And we have discussed the Google Wallet NFC technology way back when we started in June this year, so here is an update on the Google Wallet security issue.

Thanks to a recent research paper from Viaforensics, we can report that recent research seems to suggest that despite everyone’s hatred of Verizon for delaying the US release of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, they may have had their reasons and perhaps Google may need to buck their ideas up when it comes to the security of their new NFC mobile payment technology.

Google do not have the best track record for security in their App marketplace:

This comes after many issues that relate to security and Malware found on apps in their own Android marketplace.

So, should Google be trusted with more of our credit card details? Or should they just stick to providing information for free and making shed loads from adverts and stop selling actual products and services?…of course this is a joke.

Google Wallet does not encrypt credit card details safely:

So what could be the problem with Google Wallet?

*Note that these tests were done on a “rooted” device.

The report suggests that Google Wallet does a really good job in storing passwords safely, but with no encryption on the credit card number, balance and other info, the report does hint that things could be improved here.

However on top of this, the additional findings by ViaForensics in a report titled “Forensic security analysis of Google Wallet” suggests that further data stored in the SQLite databases in an unencrypted way includes:

[arrowlist]

• Name on the card
• Card limit
• Expiration date
• Transaction dates and location
• The last four digits of your card

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Oh yes, that just about covers it.

And so it seems, like pretty much everything that you need to steal a persons details, in order to do fraudulent purchases will be available in this database, unencrypted, to be used with “relative” ease.

The testing on a rooted phone did mean that the researcher had root or privileged control of the phone. And the actual credit card number was not accessible at this level as it is stored in the NXP chip.

*I must stress I am not a mobile security expert but do want to point out that there are differences between a rooted device and a non rooted device with increased difficulties associated with the non rooted device which was not the subject of these tests.

Image of credit card recoverable from cache:

The research method uncovered an option to create a recoverable PNG image of the credit card which had some of the details from the researchers card within the image and could have been used, according to the report, for social engineering attacks.

Most of the files were pictures of blank cards however one of the cards had been updated to reflect some of my credit card information. While this was an initial and small finding, before I could complete this article Google pushed out an update to Google Wallet and the card image no longer contained the data. While very little data was exposed, the most problematic was the card expiration date which is a key piece information needed for Card Not Present (“CNP”) transactions.

In summary the researcher concluded by saying:

While Google Wallet does a decent job securing your full credit cards numbers (it is not insecurely stored and a PIN is needed to access the cards to authorize payments), the amount of data that Google Wallet stores unencrypted on the device is significant (pretty much everything except the first 12 digits of your credit card).

Scary stuff, or a report based on unlikely events?

With users of smartphones and tablets growing in huge numbers, research company Marketo has released convincing data that shows that content marketing strategies need to pay more attention to mobile users.

With companies expected to spend a huge $56 billion on mobile web marketing by 2014, this ties in with a growing need to re-purpose content for a number of mediums in order to maximize a marketing campaigns effectiveness when so much access to content is now via so many differing mediums.

No longer is the issue of Internet explorer the only concern to web developers and designers, companies using social media management services need to make sure that all content that is produced is accessible by as many people as possible even when they are using a smartphone, tablet, PC, Mac, or indeed any other popular mobile internet capable device.

B2B marketing for mobile

Morgan Stanley have backed up the report by stating that access to the internet from mobile devices will surpass stationary access by 2015

Content marketing is paramount to a successful social media marketing strategy and this is why it is starting to become key to ensure that mobile users are engaged as well as traditional internet users with content that is “fit for purpose”.

With users accessing more and more data on their mobile devices a real opportunity is growing for marketeers to harness this always on connection to ensure that they are speaking to their old and potentially new clients in ways that were perhaps more difficult to do in the past.

B2B marketing for mobile is the future, but it is still unclear exactly how it will look!

One thing is for sure, Google are in a prime position to scrape up location based marketing and services but how this will all pan out is unclear at this stage.

Apple and Samsung have leapfrogged Nokia to become the Worlds largest manufactures of smartphones.

The findings only go to show just how much Nokia has fallen from grace in the last few months and years.

Apple has had a quite remarkable rise from being a one time PC manufacturer to becoming a global leader in modern mobile communication devices.

“Just four years after the release of the original iPhone, Apple has become the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume,”

Apple consolidates a healthy 2010 smartphone market share:

Apple now has a market share of some 18.5% this is up from 13.5% last year and is the reason that Apple are now sitting at the top of the Global smartphone market.

The continued rise is not looking likely t abate for some time as analysts have shown that Apple has remained string in the emerging markets of China and Asia, a key territory for any smartphone manufacturer to conquer if they are to remain in the number one spot and something Nokia failed to capitalise after disappointing smartphone product lines were eclipsed by Apple and Samsung offerings.

Samsung sees biggest smartphone rise in market share in 2011:

Samsung saw a huge rise of 12.5& from last years market share and sees them sit pretty with on 17.5% of teh global smartphone market by volume of sales, managing to shift some 19.2 million units compared to Apples 20.3 million units and Nokia’s 16.7 million units.

Nokia slump to third place with 15.2% market share:

Nokia have seen their market share fall from a lofty 38.1% in Q2 2010 to a 3rd ranking 15.2% as we see the smartphone market become dominated in almost equal terms by the power three of Apple, Samsung and Nokia.

Nokia spokesman Doug Dawson spoke recently stating:

“This is a tough year for the company,”

Samsung saw an increase of 520% in the second quarter of 2011 compared to 2010 and with the release of the Samsung S2 eagerly anticipated in the US in August, the likelihood is that Apple and Samsung are going to be at each others ankles for the rest of the year.

Nokia meanwhile need to prey that the marketing budget they are putting behind the release of a new line of Windows enabled phones, is going to be enough to turn peoples heads and more importantly live up to the hype!

Nokia report only second quarterly loss since 1998

The figures right now just do not add up for Nokia, as they recently posted a shortfall of some 368 million euros down from a paltry 227 million operating profit last year, times are not rosy in the Finnish land of Nokia.

Moody’s downgrade Nokia debt

It would seem that more people are paying attention to Nokia’s current woes than just their accountants and shareholders as Moody’s the rating agency downgraded Nokia’s debt by a factor of two notches this month, with the loss in market share being the main reason behind the move, they also stated that this might not be the only move that happens if things do not improve at the firm.

Doug Dawson – Nokia spokesman said:

“We’re in a transition, but it’s a necessary one to put down the foundation for a stronger Nokia,”

Nokia’s Trojan Horse?

With the recent arrival of Stephen Elop as new CEO of Nokia from Microsoft, a shock decision to abandon Nokia’s Symbian operating system for a Windows/Microsoft collaboration had many people wondering what the future was going to hold for Nokia.

The truth is know one is quite sure just yet. But the arrival of Windows Sea Ray could see Nokia really start to claw back the market share that they have lost by shear virtue of having a second class operating system eclipsed by Android and Apple iOS and also Apple and Samsung phones.

Windows “Sea Ray” and “Mango” to the rescue?

Nokia will eventually release their Windows based phone running a Windows 7 Mango update. The phone will be codenamed Sea Ray and will look virtually identical to the N9 , and it is likely to be a success, the only worry I have is that Nokia have confused people so much over the last few years that they will not fully understand that their new O/S of choice (Windows Phone 7/8) will be a worthwhile look in when they are already very happy with Apple and Android O/S.

I think they need to move fast to catch current mobile device drifters, as once a few (three or so) O/S’s enter the market I am unsure there will be room for many more once people get settled with the new options that smartphones offer (apps, video, location based services), so Nokia need to be involved now….and while I am no Microsoft lover, they do have a beast of a games console in the Xbox that could be a great selling point for the new Nokia Windows enabled mobile devices.

So keep your eyes peeled for more news on Nokia’s current ups and downs!