iPhone manufacturer fixes mass suicide within the workforce

 

Apple on Wednesday commended Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn for setting up a 24-hour care center, installing large nets on buildings and other measures that have "definitely saved lives" after a spate of suicides at manufacturing facilities in China last year.

Foxconn, which assembles iPhones, iPods and other gadgets for Apple, came under scrutiny last year after a string of at least 13 suicide attempts at its production facilities in China, many of which occured at a sprawling complex in Shenzhen.

The company was pilloried in the media over allegations of poor working conditions and bad management.

Apple reported no such issues in its Apple Supplier Responsibility 2011 Progress Report, published Wednesday. The company requires its manufacturing partners to live up to specific standards of conduct and regularly investigates and issues a yearly report on its findings.

The company sent COO Tim Cook and other Apple executives to Foxconn's Shenzhen factory in June of last year to better understand conditions at the site and see what measures Foxconn was putting in place to prevent further suicides. Apple also set up its own team of suicide prevention experts to work with Foxconn and offer guidance for further improvements.

"The team commended Foxconn for taking quick action on several fronts simultaneously... [and] found that Foxconn's response had definitely saved lives," Apple said in the report.

The team also suggested several areas for improvement, such as better training for hotline staff and care center counselors, as well as better monitoring to ensure effectiveness, the report says. Apple also noted that Foxconn is expanding manufacturing operations to other parts of China so its workers can live closer to home. Foxconn has said workers want to live closer to home instead of traveling long distances to live and work at its factories.

Foxconn is the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, and it's size often puts it in the spotlight. In addition to Apple products, it assembles the PlayStation 3 for Sony, the Wii for Nintendo, PCs for Hewlett-Packard and Dell, and mobile phones for Nokia.

The company put several measures in place to prevent suicides last year, including pay raises for workers throughout China, inviting Buddhist monks and psychiatrists to provide counseling, and more. It also strongly defended its conduct.

Despite the media frenzy around the suicide issue, blaming Foxconn is a tricky issue. The national suicide rate in China is 15.05 per 100,000 people, according to a Nov. 2008 study published in The Lancet medical journal. Foxconn employs over 540,000 workers in China and only 10 of the 13 suicide attempts at its China facilities last year were successful. Although tragic, the figure is far below the national average.

Foxconn is the trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, which operates a number of companies under the umbrella of the Foxconn Technology Group.

Apple cited other problems with suppliers in the yearly report.

Wintek, a Taiwanese company that manufactures screens for Apple products, caught global attention when 137 workers were sickened through the use of a chemical, n-hexane, last year. Apple required the company to stop using the chemical and put a better ventilation system in place.

Apple censured a number of companies for issues ranging from health and safety violations to the use of underage workers, failure to pay correctly and the use of hazardous materials or materials from conflict regions last year.

The U.S. electronics giant conducted audits of 127 facilities around the world last year, revealing 37 violations serious enough to warrant an end to their business relationship.

After further investigation and discussions with management at those facilities, Apple terminated its business with three companies; one for the use of underage workers, another for falsifying payrolls and one for bribery, according to the report.

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Keep your Online Reputation in Check

There's no doubt that social networking sites such as Facebook are fun, but do you exercise caution before you post? More than likely you don't. However, you could be damaging your career and your online reputation when you post risqué content.

Here are 13 ways you can improve your online reputation (if it needs it of course).

1. Double-check privacy settings

A lot of people compartmentalise - using LinkedIn as their professional network for colleagues and clients and Facebook as their network for family and friends, said Richard Binhammer, responsible for conversations, communities and communications at Dell.

"That's fine, you can compartmentalise that way, but the fact is both of them are searchable, so if an employer wants to go to Facebook and search you and find those things, well they can unless you've protected them from being found," he said.

2. Don't neglect your social network accounts

Letting an account go stale is a big concern, said Paolo Pasquini, spokesperson for consumer and online at Microsoft.

"What happens when you join the LinkedIn community and then you neglect it because you're busy with your Facebook pages or your blog site...your LinkedIn [shows] two companies ago where you used to work and it may have a contact or profile or personal information that's no longer relevant," he said.

If you have several accounts, Pasquini suggested using an aggregator that makes it easier to create content once and publish in multiple places. For example, Windows Live recently announced a partnership with Facebook and already maintains partnerships with LinkedIn and Twitter," he said.

3. Maintain a consistent personal brand

"When you realise that you can't control all your personal information... you embrace the ability to surrender some of that privacy so you can have this proactive brand online. I like to tell people to think of it as your personal corporate logo. When people think of me, what do I want them to get? That should be consistent across all the places where you are actively socialising," said Pasquini.

4. Honour transparency

"Some folks at Dell are active on social media sites... they are much more comfortable saying, 'I am always going to be a Dell employee'. Every time I speak or say anything at all, it's always going to be me as a Dell employee," said Lionel Menchaca, chief blogger at Dell.

"I'm part of that other crowd, where there's a value of having both a balance between my personal interests and being a representative of Dell... the only rule we've got is you need to be transparent in that if you're talking about an industry issue or providing a Dell perspective, you're making it clear that you are an employee of the company," he said.

5. A personal website acts as your home base

"People say websites are old hat, but at the end of the day, even if you go on Twitter, you still have to have somewhere to send somebody. I think a website is still good for that," said John Carson, social media consultant at Echo Communications.

Websites are also a good starting point for someone to find you, Carson continued, which can be as simple as an online resume that tells who you are and where you've worked.

6. Optimise search results with a blog

"It's not that hard to manipulate results in search engines to skew them in your favour, if you know how to do it properly," said Carson. Get your own domain name, start a blog, put tags in there, get testimonials from people, ask them to link back to you, and if you want to really expand - post guest articles from top influencers in your field, he suggested.

If you have a blog, it should contain your full bio page, resume, all your recommendations and testimonials and anything else you can think of, suggested Michael O'Connor Clarke, vice-president at Thornley Fallis Communications.

"Even if you're fully and happily and comfortably employed and been in the same job for 20 years, who knows what could happen in this market? Update it now," he said.

7. Gather testimonials & recommendations

Hiring managers who dig behind the search results will try to speak to former colleagues, Carson pointed out. "If you're a hiring manager, you have to look at that person as a brand and see what people are saying about them, if they've recommended them for work, if they've got testimonials. You have to do your homework," he said.

Ask people to write a little one paragraph reference or just a little testimonial, suggested Clarke, who did so for his own blog. "They're still up there as a way of proactively marketing myself...that's something anybody can do. We've all got people in our network," he said.

8. Participate in online communities

"You don't have to have a blog, but you should certainly be out there engaging in the social media world," said Clarke. "If you see stuff that is genuinely of interest to you or stuff you're knowledgeable about, well why aren't you commenting on those things? What aren't you building something of a footprint, a trail that demonstrates your experience and expertise?"

"It's one thing to RSS a bunch of people and read blogs and stay current, but a very powerful thing that a lot people don't take advantage of is getting engaged and getting into the community and talking within the community. That's another way to mange that brand," added Pasquini.

9. When in doubt, back off

"It's harder to erase bad information once it's out there, rather than get good information out there in the first place," advised Carson. "If you're unsure about that, it's best not to go out there too much because there have been so many case studies where people have said the wrong thing or an employee sent an email to the wrong person."

10. Your Facebook account is important

Adopting the 'If I don't do it, it won't touch me' attitude is one of the worst things you can do, according to Pasquini. "If you're not actively managing and proactively managing your brand online, then you're doing yourself a disservice and potentially others are doing it for you and that might not be what you want either," he said.

For example, if you don't have a Facebook account, you run the risk of others tagging photos of you that you don't like or don't want to be associated with, he said - such as photos of you at the Christmas party of a competitor to the company you now work at.

11. Keep active and current

Be proactive and create that positive online brand, because if you're not, someone else is, warned Pasquini. "This activity is very high within the IT workforce, because these are the people driving a lot of this innovation, so it's important to stay active and current."

12. Monitoring is the least you can do

"On the web, things happen so fast now. You could be a hero on the Friday and by Monday your name could be mud. You have to be very careful about how fast information can move on the Internet and keep a check," said Carson.

Google yourself regularly and if you find something you wouldn't want a hiring manager to see, ask the source to remove that information, suggested recruitment agency Robert Half.

The IT staffing firm also advised signing up for tracking services like Google alerts to receive an email notification every time your name is mentioned online, and BlogPulse or Technorati track online conversations about you or your sites.

"I'm a big fan of monitoring and keeping track of what's going on, even if you don't take part, at least you know what's happening for when you do want to jump in or promote yourself a bit more," said Carson.

13. Remain cautious...and practice discretion

"My number one tip for people using social technologies in the world out there today is to be cognitive of the fact that when you publish or openly speak out in the web space, you are speaking to the entire world and therefore what words you put down will be your legacy and tracked and tied back to you," said Chuck Hamilton, virtual learning programme manager for IBM.

"In my view as an IBM professional, I'm an IBM professional whether I'm in the workplace or external. I have to always maintain that level of professionalism. If you don't, I think you're opening yourself up to criticism and misinterpretation of your ideas and points of view," he said. Guidelines for IBM professionals became publicly available last year.

"Today's web crosses the line between personal and professional and people need to bear that in mind," reminded Binhammer.
"People don't go running down the street screaming in the middle of the day when they're out for lunch at work. I wouldn't do that on the web either. If you're out in front of your office building, all of a sudden drinking and having a great time and jumping up and down, people are going to talk, right?"

"We need to be aware that the internet does not forget," advised IT manager at IT World Canada, Matt Panchalingam. "With Google, and the internet time machine before that, everything is cached unless the webmaster specifically codes their site to not be indexed by Google...anything you ever posted on the internet can be found forever."

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Online Reputation

If you own a small or medium business, a good reputation - online and offline - is clearly key to your success.

 

The stakes are also high for individuals, who can win or lose jobs based upon how they appear in web search results.

The internet can overwhelm users with information, so anything negative - especially if it appears high in search results - can have a drastically harmful effect on your success and how people see you.

Among US recruiters, 70 percent have rejected candidates based on their online reputation - and yet only seven percent of Americans believe that their online reputation can affect their job search, according to a 2010 study by Microsoft and Cross-Tab Market Research. A potential customer who searches for your business online is a lot like a recruiter, trying to find the best company for the job.

Ignoring how you or your company appears in search results and on ratings websites has arguably never been more perilous.

One significant figure in the recently altered relationship between businesses and search engines is Vitaly Borker, owner of retail eyewear website DecorMyEyes.com, who told the New York Times in November that his unconventional search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy worked like a charm: Borker harassed customers, directing them to vent on the internet. His website thus climbed higher in Google's search results, bolstered by the many links from established review websites.

Google immediately reworked its code and buried DecorMyEyes along with other businesses it deemed 'bad'. Now that Google no longer rewards bad customer service with top spots in searches, it's a good time to examine how your business can get more positive attention in legitimate ways.

Should you pay for online reputation management?

Deciding to take control of your online reputation is a daunting task, and you may be tempted just to hire someone to do it for you. Online reputation management companies abound on the internet - claiming everything from 100 percent success rate (or your money back) to a 'special technology' that reorders search results.

Such companies may be worth looking into, but there is no magical way to erase content from the internet. Once something is uploaded to the web, it's impossible for you or a third party to remove it without help from the administrator of the website where it appears.

It's even harder to remove content from search engines (like Google) that cache their results and enable surfers, with the click of the Cached link, to view content that has been 'removed'. In addition, the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine stores records of websites dating back to the 1990s.

Organisations such as ReputationDefender, RemoveYourName and Integrity Defenders offer business packages to help you take on your online reputation. Essentially, however, these services focus on two tasks: requesting that negative information about you or your company be taken down, and helping you create new content to displace the negative content.

ReputationDefender, which is perhaps the best-known reputation-oriented service, charges between $3,000 and $10,000 (£1,900 and £6,375) to monitor your reputation. RemoveYourName and Integrity Defenders are a bit cheaper; their packages start at $3,000 (£1,900) and $630 (£400), respectively. Often the quoted prices are just a starting point. ReputationDefender charges extra, for example, for helping you get rid of unsavoury remarks that they uncover.

Here are some key points to remember if you decide to hire an online reputation management company:

Weigh any negative reviews of the company more heavily than you normally would. Remember, these companies are in the business of defending and rehabilitating reputations; if 10 'bad' reviews of their own service get through, imagine how many others they may have buried.

• No company has the magical power to automatically remove negative reviews from the internet.
• Consider the benefits of a service that charges monthly versus a flat-fee service. Monthly services, such as BrandsEye, will constantly monitor your reputation. Flat-fee services, such as RemoveYourName, will spend as much time as it takes to get results. If you're looking to remove specific negative reviews, a flat-fee service might be best for you; but if you just want someone to monitor your reputation, a monthly service makes more sense.
• It's entirely possible that a reputation-monitoring service won't be able to help you, or that the service's efforts may backfire. In the case of Ronnie Segev, ReputationDefender and a blog called The Consumerist ended up in a spitting match after ReputationDefender requested that an article about Segev be removed.

Manage your online reputation yourself

If you don't have room in your budget for professional reputation management - or if you've decided that the service doesn't justify the price -you can take on tracking and managing your online reputation by yourself.

Track your online presence
1. Perform a search for your company name in a general search engine, such as Google or Bing. Be sure to search not only for your company's name, but also for related keywords, possible misspellings, and phrases (utilising quotation marks). Note any negative reviews and where your company's website appears in relation to them (higher or lower). Cross-check your search on other search engines. For tips on effective ways to perform more-detailed searches, see '28 Time-Saving Tricks for Google, Facebook, and More'.

2. Run site-specific searches on relevant websites, including social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, review websites like Yelp and Kudzu, and consumer advocacy sites such as GetSatisfactions. To perform a site-specific search of reviews of cupcake makers on Yelp, for example, type the following into Google 'cupcake site:yelp.com'

3. Search for individuals if you want to track the information available about you or your colleagues on people search engines such as Spokeo. Though most of these sites simply grab information that's publicly available from other sources, you can try contacting them directly to request that they not present all the data to the public.

4. Sign up for alerts from search engines. Google Alerts allows you to track search terms by type. The service will send any new mentions of your search term to your inbox daily, weekly, or in real time.

5. Consider using BrandsEye or a similar service. This is one part of the process where paying for a service can definitely be useful. BrandsEye, which costs about $100 (£63) per month, not only tracks your online presence, but analyses it, too. BrandsEye weighs each mention of your company as coming from an important or unimportant source and gauges how much effect each mention has on your overall reputation (similar to the way the Google search algorithm supposedly works).

Address the issues
1. Read the reviews, both negative and positive. People usually spend more time reviewing services they feel strongly about, whether that feeling is love or hate. You can thus use negative online reviews constructively, especially if reviewers bring up legitimate complaints.

2. Contact websites if you encounter any false or unnecessarily vindictive reviews, and request that they be removed.

3. Respond to customer complaints by apologising and offering your side of the story. Then if someone later sees the negative comment about your company, they'll also see that you're committed to fixing and fostering good relationships with your customers. No matter how tempting it is, never trade insults with the customer - it's harder for potential customers to identify with you than with a fellow consumer.

Connect and create content
1. Connect with your customers via social networking websites. It's not enough to have a Facebook page or a Twitter account that you post dry, business-related updates to - you have to engage your customers and help them get to know you, your business, and your brand. Content should be interesting - now is not the time to pitch your business or products - and try to encourage feedback from your followers.

2. Create original content for the search engines, to displace any negative content that is currently popping up. This may take the form of anything from blog posts to informative articles to contests.

3. Never 'astroturf' by posting fake reviews, no matter how web-savvy you are. If you're found out, you'll lose the respect of your customers, and you could also face legal trouble.

Online reputation management might seem like a full-time job, but that's not necessarily the case. If you take the steps to gauge the general tone of your brand's online presence and discover that you're doing a pretty good job, retaining a professional reputation defence company to obliterate one or two bad reviews makes little sense.

If, on the other hand, your brand has a less-than-stellar reputation on the internet, be aware that there is no one-step route to a rehabilitated rep; slow and steady relationship building is the most effective way to gain the reputation you desire. In most instances, a small business's marketing teams should be able to handle online reputation management, since much of the task involves basic social networking and website upkeep, along with reaching out to the clientele.

Unfortunately, bad things have a way of snowballing - or 'going viral' - on the internet, so it's possible that a bad hit to your reputation can become a big deal if you handle it poorly or fail to handle it at all. In these situations, having someone - whether it be a professional company or a full-time staff member - dedicated to protecting your reputation can be very helpful. If your online reputation is getting too hot to handle, for whatever reason, bringing in professional help should remove some of the stress. But no matter how professional a company or individual dedicated to online reputation management may be, ultimately they can't do anything that you couldn't do yourself with enough time and persistence.

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New Facebook Messages Service

Back in November 2010, Facebook announced plans for a 'social inbox' – a place that would serve as a hub for all communications that people use online or via mobile phones, ranging from text messages and chat messages to email messages, too.

 

This week Facebook began releasing Messages to more users and will continue to do so over the next few months. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he intends Messages to make communications more "seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple, minimal and short".

Subscribing to Messages might not be for everyone - after its announcement, Facebook users expressed skepticism over its promise to simplify communications and cited Facebook's flawed privacy track record. Experts, however, say that while the adoption of Facebook's take on unified communications will be slow, it is a growing trend.

Here's a detailed look at Messages and its features for when you gain access, and a few cautions before you sign up.

Before you start

When you sign up for the new Facebook Messages, you're assigned a Facebook email address. All messages sent to this address will appear in your Facebook Messages inbox. How you use this email address and inbox is up to you - for some, it may become your primary account where you receive retail offers, emails from friends and family or even bank statements. But for others, it will probably become a convenient way of keeping all communications with Facebook friends - whether it's a message, chat, email or text message - in one spot.

It's important to note that anyone who knows your @facebook.com address can send an e-mail to that account, whether or not they're a Facebook user. When someone sends you an email from external systems, such as Gmail or Hotmail, they're formatted to look like your messages on Facebook, complete with your name and profile picture.

Also, consider this: many Facebook users have probably checked out a handful of apps, whether they're games, photo-altering apps or business-focused apps. When you use these, you grant the applications permission to access certain information and message you. That means these applications will now be able to message you via your Facebook email address.

Finally, note that once you set up a Facebook email address, it will always be valid - you cannot deactivate it. You can, however, change its privacy settings. The strictest setting allows only your Facebook friends to contact you via the email address, all other e-mails will receive bounce-back replies.

Getting started

When you gain access to Messages and log in to your Facebook account, you'll see a pop-up notification offering to upgrade you to it.

Clicking on 'See What's New' will prompt you to activate your Messages email address, which is your Facebook URL @facebook.com. If your Facebook URL is facebook.com/johndoe, your Facebook email address will be johndoe@facebook.com. After your email address is activated, you'll be brought to the Messages home screen.

Set your privacy controls
Your new Facebook e-mail address is not viewed publicly on your Facebook profile. If you do wish to share your e-mail address with your Facebook friends, choose My Account > Settings > Change Email. Here, you can change your default email address and add your Facebook e-mail address if you wish to make it public.

Do note, however, that since your email address is the same as your publicly viewable Facebook URL, anyone who can see your username (such as in a search) will be able to figure out your Facebook email address. You can change who can search for you on Facebook under your Privacy Settings.

Navigate the interface

The Messages home screen is populated with conversation threads you've sent and received via the original Messages since you joined Facebook. Clicking on a friend's name will display the message history. Also from the homepage, you can change the status of a message to 'read' or 'unread' by clicking on the circle next to the message's date, or delete the message thread entirely by clicking the X.

Sending a new message
To create a new message, click the button at the top. To send this message to a Facebook friend, begin typing his or her name (it will autofill). To send a message externally, type in the email address.

The message form also lets you attach a file, take a picture or video, or send the message via SMS. Once you send the message, it will be visible in a conversation thread under the recipient's name.

Adding and removing people from a conversation
If you start a conversation with more than one person, Facebook gives you the option of later adding people to the conversation. If you do this, the person you add to the conversation will be able to view the entire conversation thread. To add a person, click on the Actions drop-down menu and choose Add People.

If you have previously started a message thread that you want to add people to, note that you may not be able to do so until all of the people involved in the conversation have switched to the new Messages.

Similarly, if you were engaged in a conversation with multiple people and no longer wish to receive updates to the thread, you can choose Leave Conversation from the Actions drop-down menu.

When you sign up for the new Messages, Facebook gives you 10 invites that you can extend to your friends. Access these by scrolling to the bottom of your Messages homepage and choosing 'Invite Friends'.

Understanding the two inboxes
When you use Messages, you have two inboxes: the main one, called Messages, which stores the communications with your Facebook friends, and another called 'Other', which collects messages deemed 'less important', such as Facebook Groups you belong to and external email addresses that you have not yet approved.

If you wish to have correspondences from contacts sent to your regular Messages inbox rather than Other, open the message and choose Move to Messages from the Actions drop-down menu. The next time you receive a message from this address, it will be sent to your main Messages inbox.

Set your privacy controls: If you want to modify who can send you Facebook messages and email, visit Privacy Settings, then View Settings and choose 'Everyone', 'Friends of Friends' or 'Friends Only'. All other messages will receive bounce-back replies. Changes to this setting may take up to 24 hours to take effect.

Turning on text messaging

When you sign up for a Facebook email address, you're also prompted to turn on text messaging. You'll be asked for your country and your mobile carrier, then to text the letter 'F' to 32665 (FBOOK). When you receive a confirmation code, enter it in the space provided. Be wary that the 'Add this phone number to my profile' box is automatically checked, so be sure to uncheck it if you don't want that information public. But before you choose to add your mobile number, here are a few things to consider.

Once you turn on text messaging, the texts you exchange with friends are incorporated into your conversations along with your message and chat history. Friends can check the 'Send to Phone' option when they send you messages. If they do, their message will be sent to your phone, and a copy will remain in your Messages inbox as part of the conversation. If you reply to the message via text, your response will also appear in your Messages inbox.

To send a new message to a friend via text, use the following format: enter 32665 as the mobile number, then 'msg (person's name) (and your message text)'.

Set your privacy control
If you turn on text messaging, visit your settings to preview and change permissions. Do this by visiting Account Settings > Notifications. Here you can check and uncheck whether you receive texts when someone sends you a message, adds you as a friend, posts on your wall and more.

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Nokia to partner with Microsoft

Finnish phone giant Nokia is to team up with Microsoft to bring us the ultimate phone range. Phones will be manufactured by Nokia as usual, but will not be using the old Symbian Operating system it has been using for years. They will in adopt Windows Operating systems, instead of trying their new MeeGo Operating System.

 

In the World of phones being just used for “making calls” makes no sense. The people want phones to replace their desktop Pc at work, their laptop while on the road and the ability to “make calls”, all from one device. So they will now have Microsoft Windows Mobile OS on their smartphones to enable better functionality than what the Nokia Smartphones with Symbian could give. Symbian will not be totally scrapped. They will keep this OS for the low end phones, so they can still capture all levels of customers ability to get on the mobile ladder.

In the last 24 hours Steve Ballmer from Microsoft and Stephen Elop

joined partnership, which hopefully will bring both companies to the top of the mobile industry. 2 of the biggest IT Giants in the World join hands to beat their rivals Apple and Google. We all know that Microsoft have been competing with Google for years for dominance in the search engine sector, but now they want some dominance in the mobile phone market, (“Cell phone” if you are American!)

Nokia Interview with Microsoft. From Niall Mulrine, Pc Clean, www.pcclean.ie

Microsoft has tried to gain momentum recently again with the Windows 7 Mobile phone but did not get the rev reviews and sales, that was expected. Also, Nokia has fallen off the mobile market against the likes of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android based phones from HTC, Samsung, Motorola and LG.

From Nokia website, this is the summary of what the collaboration will bring to the Nokia phones.

“• Nokia will adopt Windows Phone as its primary smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.

• Nokia will help drive and define the future of Windows Phone. Nokia will contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.

• Nokia and Microsoft will closely collaborate on development, joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.

• Bing will power Nokia’s search services across Nokia devices and services, giving customers access to Bing’s next generation search capabilities. Microsoft adCenter will provide search advertising services on Nokia’s line of devices and services.

• Nokia Maps will be a core part of Microsoft’s mapping services. For example, Maps would be integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine and adCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience.

• Nokia’s extensive operator billing agreements will make it easier for consumers to purchase Nokia Windows Phone services in countries where credit-card use is low.

• Microsoft development tools will be used to create applications to run on Nokia Windows Phones, allowing developers to easily leverage the ecosystem’s global reach.

• Microsoft will continue to invest in the development of Windows Phone and cloud services so customers can do more with their phone, across their work and personal lives.

• Nokia’s content and application store will be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience.”

 

What do you think will happen? Will you look forward to this new device????

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Can we get virus on our phones?

I have talked before about phone viruses, it was said ah no, it will only occur on Smartphones.

Think again and read this article that i pasted

“Did you know that only 16% of mobile phones are smartphones? The other 5 billion are "low end" basic phones, also called feature phones that can perform only a few other tasks like send text messages, play games, or play back MP3s. Just in case those 5 billion users felt left out when comes to the ability for their cell phone to be attacked, researchers from the Berlin Institute of Technology have come up with "SMS-o-Death."

Although feature phones are harder to attack, two students found a way to send malicious text messages via short message service (SMS) and force cell phones to shut down. Collin Mulliner and Nico Golde, from the Security in Telecommunications department at the Technische Universitaet Berlin, took advantage of SMS protocol that can transmit small programs called binaries that are most often used by network operators to change setting remotely on mobile devices. These researchers were able to create malicious SMS messages for all popular feature phones such as Nokia, LG, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Micromax. The attack could abruptly shut down cell phones and knock them off a cellular network.

Technology Review reported that because feature phones are so common, Mulliner says, such an attack "could take out a large percentage of mobile communications." To target a specific victim, an attacker would need to know the make and model of the victim's mobile phone -- since each platform requires a different malicious binary message. Mulliner says that attackers could get around that and "easily knock out large numbers of phones by sending a set of five SMS messages -- targeted to the five most popular models -- to every device on a specific network."

There's not much that can be done to thwart these attacks. Mulliner said, "The only people who can defend against this attack are the network operators." It require non-smartphone owners to update firmware on existing phones. Many feature phone owners either don't know how to update via USB or fear the update will be buggy. Another approach might be filtering out the text messages, but filtering software is most commonly used to catch spam and is not optimized to catch binaries.

Charlie Miller, a security researcher who is well known as "I'm that Apple 0day guy," has discovered security flaws in iPhones and other mobile devices. "Smart phones are sexier targets, but the masses still by and large use feature phones," Miller said. Because most cell phones are feature phones, the SMS-o-Death could affect billions of people, yet be unlikely or very difficult for attackers to steal personal information. SMS vulnerabilities in iPhones and Windows Mobile-based HTC devices allow attackers to steal personal info and take over phones, Miller added, citing research he and Mulliner had conducted a few years ago.

SMS-o-Death does not permanently kill a mobile phone, but the problem could prove very difficult to fix and its tricks could exasperate targeted people to no end. It adds up to be a very annoying prank by shutting off the phone without the owner's knowledge or knocking the phone off the cellular network .

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10 tips: how to get online, anywhere

If you're a regular when it comes to working on the go, then you'll probably have experienced the frustration when it's impossible to find an internet connection, whether it's through a 3G dongle, or even your smartphone. Here are 10 road-tested tips for getting your work done by any internet connection necessary.

Picture this: You're sitting down in between meetings on a business trip, and you need to send a few quick email messages and an image or two.

You pull out your handy 3G internet dongle, but no luck. Undaunted, you start looking around for an open Wi-Fi network, but there are none. Even your smartphone internet is mysteriously down. Is this a nightmare? Nope - just another day for a business traveller lost in the wilds of mobile internet.

Don't let this happen to you. Check out our 10 road-tested tips for getting your work done by any internet connection necessary.

Don't rely on one network for mobile internet access

If you absolutely must have always-available internet access, don't limit yourself to one cellular network. Check the coverage maps and pick a pair of devices from different carriers to maximise your odds of getting a good connection.

Switch spots

Slow mobile broadband? Try switching spots - even if you're getting a great signal. Getting five bars on your mobile-broadband signal doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get the best data speeds, especially if you're in an area with lots of cellular-network traffic. Although the signal-strength indicator does tell you how strong your connection is to the nearest signal tower, it doesn't tell you how busy that tower is.

That means that you (and everyone else in the area) could have a splendid connection to a tower that is so overloaded it can't send data along the network fast enough. Oddly, sometimes your signal strength will be worse, but your overall speeds will be better since you're connecting to a tower that's less busy overall.

Bring your own gear for hotel-room Wi-Fi

Hotels love to advertise their free in-room Wi-Fi. However, the mere existence of Wi-Fi doesn't guarantee that it will work at the level you need it to. If you want to ensure that your room is covered, you'll need to bring your own Wi-Fi router and insist on a room at a hotel that is wired for ethernet. Don't forget the plug board, too, or else you might have to choose between wireless internet access and your room's lighting.

If lugging all of that gear around doesn't appeal, remember this: Your room's ethernet could be a one-foot-long cable sticking out of the landline phone. You might be able to get your work done with your laptop on your bedside table, but your back will never forgive you.

Test your speed before uploading large files

If you need to send a few large files back to home base, try out a few different services before starting the upload in earnest. After all, your mobile ISP or hotel IT administrator might have blocked or throttled certain services. Another concern: What seems like the most direct file-transfer method (uploading to your company's FTP server, for example) might actually be bogged down with unnecessary intermediaries such as a VPN connection that could reduce the overall speed.

While uploading a video file from a hotel ethernet connection, I found that I got only 20kbps from our FTP server, while Dropbox bumped me up to 50kbps and MediaFire managed 80kbps. Even though I wasn't directly transferring the video to the home office, using MediaFire instead of our in-house FTP saved time for everyone involved.

Use protection on open Wi-Fi hotspots

The time you save by logging in to the first unencrypted Wi-Fi hotspot you encounter doesn't compare to the risk you take if someone shady sniffs your password or hijacks your Gmail session and steals all your personal info. You can reduce your risk by using utilities such as Hotspot Shield and configuring your Web apps to use HTTPS whenever possible, but you need to take those steps before you log in to the unprotected Wi-Fi spot. Read 'How to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi' for more security tips.

Come down from the cloud

It's easier than ever to keep your work in the cloud without disrupting a traditional work environment - that is, until someone pulls the plug. Make sure to have a solid set of offline tools so that you can still work when you're disconnected, and keep local copies of anything business-critical (your schedule, for example). Maintaining a record can be as simple as saving a Google Doc as a Word doc, or taking a quick screenshot of your to-do list on your smartphone before you head to the airport.

If you depend on Google services, grab Google Gears. Even though Google effectively abandoned it more than a year ago, it still allows you to access your Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar and a few third-party apps like Remember the Milk without an internet connection. It's already built into Chrome, but it also supports Firefox and Internet Explorer in Windows, and Firefox in OS X.

Bring a better Wi-Fi stumbler

Still using Windows' built-in Wi-Fi panel in the taskbar? Before you hit the road, pick up a more powerful utility such as NetStumbler or InSSIDer. Unlike Windows' built-in Wi-Fi signal meter, these apps will give you a good look at which networks have a consistently strong signal over time, which networks are on overlapping channels, and so on. This information is particularly useful when several usable networks are in the area and you want to know which one will give you the best reception without having to try them all out one by one.

Try to find the Wi-Fi access point

Even the fastest Wi-Fi cards can't help you if you're too far from the access point itself. Try to find the actual hardware access point itself, and sit near it. In public spaces, check near any labelled 'charging station' areas and scan the ceiling for any boxes labelled with networking equipment brands (Cisco, D-Link, Netgear, and so on). Coffee shops often have them in plain view near any phone/ethernet wiring. If you can't find it, you can use the Wi-Fi scanners mentioned above to check your signal strength while walking around the room, though you'll look like you're using your PC to dowse for water.

Plan your trip with internet in mind

An easy way to avoid getting stuck without Internet access: Do your homework. Don't book your hotel reservation without checking the HotelChatter blog's most recent Annual Hotel Wi-Fi Report, which provides listings of free, paid, and free-with-membership hotel Wi-Fi access.

Starbucks is your best friend

Regardless of what you think about the chain's coffee, you'll be elated to find a Starbucks when you're desperately hunting for internet access. The same goes for McDonald's, and pretty much any hotel lobby. Even public libraries usually have free Wi-Fi--whether they're open or not. You can check out free Wi-Fi databases such MyHotspots.com before you leave for your trip, but the listings aren't always accurate or up-to-date, so you're probably better off just noting where your coffee-shops-of-last-resort are. If you're really worried, invest in a membership with some of the more common Wi-Fi providers

created by pcworld uploaded by Niall Mulrine, Pc Clean, Navenny, Ballybofey, Co. Donegal, Ireland
www.pcclean.ie
sales@pcclean.ie
086-2377033 Pc Clean for Computer repairs, Laptop Repairs, Virus repair and removal service, callout services, network issues, printer problems in the Stranorlar, Letterkenny, Donegal Town, Lifford, Castlefinn, Donegal Area.  Computer Training, Social network for your business, online marketing,