The VA's mobile security chief offers IT leaders five excellent tips for securing mobile devices.
Like many federal agencies, the Department of Veterans Affairs has embarked on the journey of integrating iPhones and iPads as mobile solutions. The agency currently has 20,000 mobile devices that includes iPhones and iPads along with some BlackBerries and a small number of Android devices. Despite the range of devices, the VA has been very active in trying to eliminate mobile data breaches and, according to the VA’s director of Mobile and Security Assurance Donald Kachman, the agency’s campaign has been extremely successful.
Kachman credits encryption technologies with as a major factor in that success – 99% of all VA data is now secured around the clock on mobile devices and desktop PCs. The security approach is one that can be a model for any organization.
Apple just laid a royal beat down on Samsung in the U.S. court system over patent infringement. You’d easily think that the two companies are huge enemies that would gladly rip out each other’s hearts and drive over them with a steamroller.
Truth is, even though they’re enemies in the smartphone market, Apple needs Samsung’s components to build iPhones and iPads, and Samsung needs Apple to keep buying their parts to make money. Samsung products comprise 26 percent of the component cost of the iPhone, so to keep their smartphone and component manufacturing businesses separate, Samsung has created a strict ‘Internal Firewall’ to try to avoid conflicts.
The iPhone is probably the best fitness accessory around. Photo Yutaka Tsutano/Flickr.
There are a ton of ways to get fit and lose weight. And there are even more stupid books and fad diets that may or may not help you to slim down and get healthier. But there are really only two things you need to do: eat less and do more.
Of course, it isn’t easy. Luckily, those of a certain nerdy bent will find all the motivation they need in gadgets and apps. I have been doing just that for the past few months, and I thought I’d write a little about how to get thinner and fitter by using your iPhone.
Almost all of your friends probably own smartphones by now. If they don’t own an iPhone they probably have an Android phone, which is fine because it seems like everyone nowdays could use a personal computer in their pocket.
Smartphone adaption rates have been ridiculously high in the US and other companies over the past five-years. Flurry, a mobile application analytics company, decided they wanted to know just how fast iOS and Android devices are growing, so they compiled some data and found that the smartphone revolution is bigger than any other digital revolution in history.
Using an iPhone or iPad for work can result in some truly nasty bills.
While bring your own device (BYOD) programs that encourage employees to use their personal iPhones, iPads, and other devices in the office increases productivity and employee satisfaction, the trend is also turning those employees into workaholics. That’s not entirely a new realization – we’ve covered the potential impact of the BYOD trend on the work/life balance before (including a recent study that showed that BYOD programs actually improve that balance for IT professionals).
The latest research on BYOD’s impact on workers shows two additional insights – a significant number of employees are footing the bill (sometimes a very big bill) for mobile data service while on the road for work.
You’re probably going to see a lot of stories like this in the coming weeks. Apple stock opened at a record $680 a share this morning, on the first day of trading following the Cupertino company’s massive victory over Samsung on Friday. This surpasses its previous record of $674.88 a share, which was hit last Tuesday, August 21, and it pushes Apple’s market capitalization to a new high of $637 billion.
Symbols work better than swear words, unlike real life.
Got a spare five minutes? Want to do something fun. Then take a quick look at Gutenberg Variations, a free iPhone app which takes your typed text and turns it onto sheet music. And then plays it.
Here’s an interesting theory from Macotakara, riffing on photos highlighted by Apple.pro last week: the square chip seen at the top of the next iPhone, to the right of the built-in iSight camera, could be an NFC chip. In fact, it looks exactly the same size as one.
If you needed any more confirmation that the next iPhone is launching during the second half of September, look no further. Verizon has put a vacation blackout in place for its employees starting September 21st, and now TechCrunch is reporting that AT&T has the same blackout in place from September 21st to the 30th.
Apple is expected to announce the next iPhone on September 12th with pre-orders beginning on the same day. In-store availability would then begin the next Friday, September 21st.
Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a fantastic text editor called Drafts, which has quickly become my favorite on iOS. We’ve also included a great alternative music app called Ecoute; the latest Facebook app, which has been rewritten from the ground up; and a third-party web browser that prides itself on being super speedy.
For the past several months it’s been thought that Apple will unveil the next iPhone and rumored iPad mini in September. This past week it was suggested that Apple would instead hold two separate events for each product, with the first taking place on September 12th and the second in October.
Today a new report from the reliable AllThingsD “confirms” that Apple will indeed hold a separate iPad mini announcement in October following the release of the new iPhone.
Apple’s critics generously assign a variety of motives to Apple for filing lawsuits.
Apple sues because it wants to control the market, overcharge for its products, exclude competitors from the market or punish competitors for daring to not think different. It’s all part of Apple’s “quest for global tech domination.
But these aren’t actual motives. These are appeals to emotion. They’re legitimate perspectives, but expressed to negatively encapsulate spectacularly complex technical, legal and ethical issues into sound bites that make you want to agree with the author that Apple is bad and wrong.
Apple has only one motive for patent lawsuits, and I’m going to tell you what that motive is.
Headlining this week’s must-have iOS games roundup is an awesome new platformer called Mikey Shorts, which offers its own unique style of play focused on speed. We also have The Simpsons: Tapped Out, which makes its App Store debut for the second time; VOTE!!!, the latest title from Infinity Blade creators Chair Entertainment; and a great space-age building game from Gameloft.
Apple won the patent infringement trial against Samsung and received a huge damages sum.
Apple’s victory in its patent trial against Samsung is already a few hours old but the shock of the damage tally is still hard to shake off. The final figure of $1,049,393,540.00 is a staggering rebuke of Samsung’s design and manufacturing process and may force the company toward more original ideas.
The completed jury verdict form, released late Friday night and attached below, reveals the Korean company maybe never really had a chance to win the case.
Apple has won a massive damages sum of nearly $1.05 billion in the patent trial against Samsung and the reaction from the technology community has been vast and swift.
In an email immediately following the verdict, Forrester Research Principal Analyst Charles Golvin told us the main takeaway from the verdict is the focus on innovation. Companies will now be forced to create legitimately different products, or at least engineer some without extravagantly similar features:
The jury particularly vindicates Apple’s software patents and their decision has implications not just for Samsung, but also for Google, other Android device makers like LG, HTC, and Motorola, but also potentially for Microsoft who employs features such as pinch to zoom, bounce on scroll, etc. These competitors are now forced to go back to the drawing board and come up with substantively different designs — or seek settlement terms with Apple. Since many of these controls are now built into the expectations of customers in how they work their phones, those are substantive challenges.
Gartner analyst and VP of Mobile Research Van Baker agrees the redesign of products in the long term is an issue but that it won’t affect any products anytime soon.
This is a clear win for Apple but it will have little impact on the market in the near term as it is highly likely that there will be an appeal so we will have to repeat the process. If sustained it has the potential to force Samsung to redesign a number of products and it will apply significant pressure on all smartphone and tablet makers to avoid trying to emulate the Apple designs as they bring new products to market.
Earlier, the two principals in the case immediately followed the shocking judgement with their own statements.
Cult of Mac's Buster Heine is clearly the Instagrammer of his generation.
Let’s be honest: you think you’re an Instagram aficionado. You know the rule of thirds. You know how to use tilt-shift to perfectly accentuate that leaf. Your shots of coffee shops balance lights and darks perfectly. You can capture the magic of a beautiful sunset unlike any other (X-pro II, am I right?).
To get to the next level of your Instagramming career, you need to start getting your photos out there for the world to see. If the popular page won’t give you love, consider slapping a Creative Commons license on your pics.
You're forgiven because you're beautiful and use a good smartphone, Kate.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 launch event happened in New York City last night, and celebs like Sports Illustrated covergirl Kate Upton were in attendance. Given Samsung’s high-profile legal feud with Apple, it’s particularly unfortunate that a shot of the beautiful Upton depicts her sitting next to her white iPhone.
You’d think that Samsung would have the due diligence to at least give its paid guests appropriately-branded phones. Oh well, at least it gave us an excuse to post it on Cult of Mac.
Tim Cook has been very busy running Apple the past 12 months. There have been a lot of changes and new products that have helped make Apple the most valuable company ever. There have also been a lot of controversies, and headaches along the way. The road hasn’t been all smooth sailing, but we think Tim has done a great job in his first year as CEO of Apple.
Here are eight things that have kept Tim busy in his first year as CEO:
We love Readdle’s productivity apps here at Cult of Mac, especially when they’re going cheap. The company is currently holding a Back to School campaign that sees a number of iOS apps that “are indispensable for studying” reduced. Those included are ReaddleDocs for iPhone, ReaddleDocs for iPad, and Remarks.
Just as we had predicted, the iPhone mod that aims to turn your iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S into an iPhone 5 — which we told you about yesterday — has been pulled by Apple. The site selling the kit has received a letter from a third-party who is “authorized to send notice and takedowns on behalf of Apple,” and it will stop selling in 48 hours.
Today, Eufloria was released in an iPhone-only version for three dollars, while the five dollar universal version has been updated to include support for the iPhone 4S, Retina graphics for the new iPad, iCloud saves, and game session saving (for when you hit the Home button by accident).
For months rumors have been saying that Apple is getting ready to launch two major, new products this fall: the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. Both of these names are placeholders for what will be the sixth-generation iPhone and a 7-inch version of the current iPad. Everyone pretty much agrees that the new iPhone will be announced on September 12th, but opinions are split on the possibility of Apple also announcing the iPad mini during the same event. While it’s nearly 100% confirmed that a unibody iPhone 5 will be announced on the 12th and then ship on the 21st, specific dates have not surfaced for the elusive iPad mini—we haven’t even seen so much as an incriminating part leak.
While some think that Apple will announce both the new iPhone and iPad mini at its September event, it actually makes more sense for Apple to hold two separate media events this fall for each product. Here’s why.
Ordering and paying for food using a mobile app or website has hit the mainstream.
Many fast food and restaurant chains now offer iPhone apps that facilitate ordering for delivery or pick up. A number of services, like Splick-it and Grubhub, also help facilitate such orders through an iOS app, offering independent restaurants to compete with the chains. Beyond apps, there are web-based services like Mealeo that offer the same functionality. Despite being a relatively new phenomenon, online and mobile ordering has become a serious business – over two-thirds of Americans use such services on a regular basis.
In fact, of those two-thirds of Americans, most say they tend to order more from a mobile or web service than they would over the phone or in person.
iPhone and iPad video recording is fast becoming a standard way of sharing the view of our world these days. With the new HD video options in the iPhone 4S and the new iPad, of course, the videos are getting even larger. What’s a budding videographer supposed to do with these huge files when sending them to our friends and family?
Turns out, you can trim the videos down right on your iOS device using the Trim feature. Here’s how.
If you want to power your bike’s lights and charge your iPhone as you pedal, you should have specced a dynamo hub when you got the wheels built. But either you were too cheap (like me) or couldn’t see the point. Don’t worry! There’s hope for both of us in the form or the ECOXPOWER generator, an aftermarket power and lighting system for your bike.
