Sony has showcased its latest NXT series of Xperia smartphones in Singapore. All are on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) at launch but will be upgraded to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) in the second quarter of 2012.
The Xperia S is already available (S$898 without contract) while the Xperia P, U and sola will be available in Q2 of 2012.
Sony Xperia S - avail now at S$898 without contract.
The Xperia S was first unveiled during CES 2012 as the first smartphone in the new Xperia NXT series after Sony bought over Ericsson’s 50% stake in the former Sony-Ericsson joint venture.
The slew of Xperia smartphones will be able to share content with other electronics devices from Sony – such as tablets, notebooks and smart TVs.
Sony is hoping the ability to leverage Sony’s extensive range of IT and lifestyle devices will be a selling point to attract consumers to the Xperia smartphones sold by the wholly owned Sony Mobile Communications (former Sony Ericsson).
Here are the key characteristic of each model:
Xperia S offers a HD experience boasting a brilliant screen for superior viewing.
Xperia P delivers outstanding screen brightness using Sony “WhiteMagic” display technology.
Xperia U packs powerful Sony entertainment in a stylish and compact design.
Xperia sola allows easy access to apps and quick launch of actions with NFC and Xperia SmartTags.
Sony Xperia P - brighter display with "WhiteMagic".
All the Xperia NXT smartphones are designed with an interesting “transparent element” encircling the base of the phone which illuminates when receiving calls, texts and notifications.
The colour of the element is based on whatever is displayed on the screen so that the entire colour scheme is always in harmony.
Paul Mah, a friend who blogs with CIO.com initially thought the colour was based on the mood of the caller. Now that would be something innovative! Stay away when the phone is glowing red.
A new album, video player and music player will deliver compelling entertainment experiences and the new UI design also allows consumers to access their favourite application direct from the lock-screen.
Xperia SmartTags – Switch your smartphone settings with a single Swipe
Sony Xperia sola
The Xperia S, Xperia P and the Xperia sola are NFC enabled.
The Xperia S and Xperia P and come with two NFC Xperia SmartTags in the box, while the Xperia sola comes with four.
Simply swipe the phones on a SmartTag and the pre-configured profile will be launched automatically.
These profiles can be easily personalised to reflect any taste, designed to save consumers’ time and make their lives easier.
Below are the key features for each of the models.
I took the new Toshiba Satellite U840 ultra book for a ride last week. After a week of bringing it along for meetings and presentations, it proved a good balance between portability and performance.
Toshiba Satellite U840 Series ultrabook - portability and performance.
The Satellite U840 Series of ultrabooks is Toshiba’s first line of 14-inch ultrabooks – after the computer maker’s debut into the ultrabook arena with its 13.3-inch Z830 ultrabook last year.
Side view - only 20mm thin.
Compared with its 1.12kg predecessor, the 1.59kg Satellite U840 is heavier and only slightly bigger, but is considerably more affordable.
The Z830 costs almost twice the U840, which starts at S$1,399.
The Windows 7 Satellite U840 is comparable with other ultrabooks on the market (such as the Samsung Series 5 Ultra and HP Envy 14 Spectre) in terms of appearance and performance.
Most ultrabooks feature similar metallic brushed aluminum casings.
But the U840 weighs lighter because it does not include an optical drive.
The Toshiba Satellite U840 is what an ultrabook is meant to be – a good balance between portability and performance. It has the needed performance to excel in daily business and personal needs; yet is portable enough lug around in a bag without breaking your back (or your bank).
Read on below to find out what I liked and disliked about the Toshiba Satellite U840 ultrabook during the test-drive.
Samsung Galaxy users worldwide will get a full-featured Norton Mobile Security free for 90 days. Usually, a one-year license costs S$19.90.
Complimentary 90-day subscription of Norton Mobile Security for Samsung GALAXY smartphones.
Norton Mobile Security, an application for Android OS, is available in multiple languages.
“With smartphone sales now outpacing PC sales, cybercriminals are devising new threats everyday to steal from mobile users. Consumers need to be protected more than ever,” said Janice Chaffin, group president, Consumer Business Unit, Symantec.Samsung Galaxy users will be able to download it from Samsung Apps.
Norton Mobile Security can be downloaded from the ‘Utility’ category in Samsung Apps or by entering ‘Norton Mobile Security’ into the search query at the Samsung Apps.
Norton Mobile Security supports all Samsung Galaxy Android smartphones, including Galaxy S2.
Norton Mobile Security combines anti-theft features with powerful anti-malware to protect user’s important data from loss, theft, viruses and other threats.
The following are the main features.
Remote Locate — Shows you the location of your smartphone so you can find if it’s lost or stolen.
Remote Lock — Lets you remotely lock your lost or stolen phone via the Internet or SMS to keep critical data safe and block unauthorized access.
Remote Wipe — Lets you remotely erase the data on your phone via SMS, blocking access to your private information. In addition, your phone is instantly locked if its SIM card is removed or replaced, so it can’t be used with another SIM card.
Anti-malware — Scans all files and application updates downloaded to your mobile phone and automatically detects and removes threats without slowing you down.
SD Card Scanning — Gives you the option of automatically scanning SD (Secure Digital) memory cards for threats when you plug them into mobile phone.
Automatic LiveUpdate — Automatically downloads and installs security updates keeping you a step ahead of cybercriminals.
Norton’s suite of security products will be available at the IT Show 2012 in Suntec Singapore at Level 6. Purchases come with free 4GB thumbdrives, Norton Utilities 1.5 or Canon Ip 2770 printers.
Check out security software from Norton by Symantec at IT Show 2012.
Check out Norton’s latest Norton 360 Version 6, or Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus.
You can find them at the Challenger and Courts (Booth 6251), Newstead (Booth 6101) and Cybermind (Booth 6859), all of which are on Level 6 of Suntec Singapore.
Today and tomorrow, prove to the Microsoft Windows Phone crew that your smartphone (of any make and OS) is faster than the Windows Phone and walk away S$100 richer.
The video above is from a similar “Smoked by Windows Phone” campaign in the US, showing challengers with Android smartphones and Apple’s iPhones.
Paul Foster and his Windows Phone crew will be hitting the roads in Singapore looking for challengers to the cash prize. Catch them at the following locations and timings.
9 March (Friday)
11.30am – 1.30pm
Boat Quay / Raffles Place / Chevron House
2.30pm – 5.00pm
IT Show 2012, Level 6, Hall 602, Booth 6441
5.30pm – 7.30pm
Raffles City / Marina Square
10 March (Saturday)
11.30am – 1.30pm
Raffles City / Marina Square / Suntec City
2.30pm – 5.00pm
IT Show 2012, Level 6, Hall 602, Booth 6441
5.30pm – 7.30pm
Bugis Junction / National Library / Sim Lim Square
HP will be at the IT Show 2012 in Suntec Singapore at Level 4, Halls 401-403, Booths 8150, 8245 & 8428. Check out the promotional discounts, freebies and purchase-with-purchase deals for its desktops and notebooks.
HP is at Level 4 at Suntec Singapore during IT Show 2012.
Check out some of HP’s star products at their booths: HP Folio, Omni, ENVY Spectre, Pavilion dv6, and TouchSmart.
Fuji Xerox will be at Level 4, Hall 401, Booth 8468 during IT Show 2012.
Fuji Xerox DocuPrint printers and multifunction printers. Level 4, Hall 401, Booth 8468 at the IT Show 2012.
Fuji Xerox will be offering price discounts and vouchers for its top three best selling printers.
All come with 4-year warranties (2-yr standard + 2-yr limited warranty).
In addition, Fuji Xerox guarantees that your printer will be fully serviced within 1 hour from the time you hand over the printer to the Fuji Xerox engineer.
DocuPrint P205b
Normal price:
$139
IT Show price:
$89
plus vouchers up to $10
A4 Monochrome Printer
Available in three colours: Black/Quartz/Pink
24ppm fast print speed
Only consumable to replace: Toner only (1.1k for $55 only)
4-year carry-in warranty
DocuPrint M205 fw
Normal price:
$349
IT Show price:
$309
plus vouchers up to $30
A4 Wireless Monochrome Multifunction Printer
Available in Black
Print / Copy / Scan / Fax
24ppm fast print speed
Mobile printing (Fuji Xerox Print Utility for iOS)
4-year on-site warranty
DocuPrint CM205 fw
Normal price:
$649
IT Show price:
$609
plus vouchers up to $80
A4 Wireless Colour Multifunction Printer
Available in Quartz colour
Print / Copy / Scan / Fax
12ppm colour /15ppm mono
Mobile printing (Fuji Xerox Print Utility for iOS)
Singapore was one of 12 countries surveyed in a new “Global Study on Mobility Risks” conducted by Ponemon Institute. Out of the overall 4,640 IT and IT security practitioners surveyed, 259 respondents were from Singapore.
Perception of mobile phone use as a threat and presence of security controls to mitigate the risks.
The study was sponsored by content security provider Websense Inc, and is designed to help IT security professionals plan for an increasingly mobile workforce.
“We asked thousands of IT security professionals and found mobile devices were overwhelmingly important to business objectives,” said Dr Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute.Corporate mobile devices and the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon are rapidly circumventing enterprise security and policies.
In Singapore, 45 percent of respondents say that their organizations experienced a data breach due to insecure mobile devices, and 22 percent are unsure.
“However, mobile devices put organizations at risk — risks that they do not have the necessary security controls and enforceable policies to address. It’s also clear that employees are deliberately disabling security controls, which is a serious concern,” Dr Ponemon addedThis is slightly less than the overall proportion of 51 percent for all 12 countries.
Fifty-five percent say that their employees circumvent or disengage security features such as passwords and key locks – versus the overall 59 percent.
Below is the Executive Summary for the survey of IT & IT Security Practitioners in Singapore, which was extracted from the “Global Study on Mobility Risks”.
51 percent of organizations lose data through mobile devices, while 59 percent of employees dodge security controls, according to a new “Global Study on Mobility Risks” unveiled at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, USA.
The “Global Study on Mobility Risks” by Ponemon Institute.
Mobile devices help business, but security is needed to prevent costly data loss.
Corporate mobile devices and the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon are rapidly circumventing enterprise security and policies. This survey defines mobile devices as laptops, USB drives, smartphones, and tablets.
“IT has spent years working on desktop security and trying to prevent data loss over web and email channels—but mobile devices are radically changing the game,” said Tom Clare, senior director of Product Marketing Management.Seventy-seven percent of more than 4,600 respondents in 12 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Mexico, Singapore, United Kingdom, and the United States) surveyed agree that the use of mobile devices in the workplace is important to achieving business objectives.
But 76 percent also believe that these devices put their organizations at risk—and only 39 percent have the necessary security controls to address the risk.
The study was conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by content security provider Websense Inc, and is designed to help IT security professionals plan for an increasingly mobile workforce.
“Tablets and iOS devices are replacing corporate laptops as employees bring-their-own-devices to work and access corporate information. These devices open the door to unprecedented loss of sensitive data. IT needs to be concerned about the data that mobile devices access and not the device itself,” Clare added.The research shows that organizations often don’t know how and what data is leaving their networks through non-secure mobile devices.
Traditional static security solutions such as antivirus (AV), firewalls, and passwords are not effective at stopping advanced malware and data theft threats from malicious or negligent insiders.
Sixty-five percent of respondents are most concerned with employees taking photos or videos in the workplace—probably due to fears about the theft or exposure of confidential information.
Other unacceptable uses include downloading and using internet apps (44 percent) and using personal email accounts (43 percent).
The Websense Security Labs Spam Trap system has detected a variant of Kelihos that is apparently still active.
Google Maps showing geographically how widespread the Kelihos command and control and peers infrastructure is, and therefore how well protected the botnet is.
“Kelihos is yet another example of how botnets shut down and reappear. Malware authors have a motive to get them up and running again. Websense Labs detected this new variant of Kelihos as we are constantly monitoring web and email exploits. More importantly, we are able to join the dots between these different attack vectors and protect against cybercriminals achieving their ultimate goal – stealing data,” said Carl Leonard, Senior Security Research Manager (EMEA), Websense Security Labs.Over the last half a year, the spam engine Kelihos has attracted the attention of many people, including security company researchers and analysts.
Microsoft had partnered with Kyrus Tech Inc. and Kaspersky Lab to take down the Kelihos botnet in September 2011.
However, Microsoft has recently confirmed, on its official blog, a new generation of Kelihos variants derived from the original Kelihos botnet.
Websense Security Labs has written up a detailed account of their investigations into this resilient nuisance.
