By Aldo Panessidi

As mobile devices become increasingly integrated into our lives as an extension of the personal computer; the same threats posed to our PCs creep into our day to day mobile phone and tablet usage.

According to a research paper released by the North Carolina State University, certain Android vendors including Motorola, Samsung, and HTC) are not following Android’s best practices for pre-installed apps.  An undesired side effect of this negligence is that those applications access to send SMS messages, wipe a phone’s data, or even read your address books. In effect, they are able to do all of the aforementioned tasks without your knowing. This is stark contrast to Apple iPhone and iPad tablet propietary applications / OS practices which may be on your list of considerations.

As a Google prodigy, these Android vulnerabilities are not quite so present on Google phones such as the Nexus One and Nexus S. There are unfortunately some symptoms of an underlying weakness in the Android platform. This shortcoming points to an inherent flaw in the OS for its permissions-based exploits. Luckily today’s marketplace offers a variety of smart phone OS and device options.  Discover the innovative protective solutions and premium electronic accessories from the industry’s most leading brands.

Google and Motorola (now a subsidiary of the internet giant) have both acknowledged these issues. Interesting enough, HTC and Samsung have presented considerate difficulties for researchers in terms of reporting these issues. An interesting delineation between manufacturers, it may be in a consumer’s best interest to review unlocked phones for security purposes before locking into a contract with an unsecure smart phone.

The silver lining is that it is the likelihood of these soft spots being exploited is low. This is due to the necessity of side-loading an app on the device to interface with the permissions of the pre-installed applications’ weaknesses. But buyer bewares – the potential for serious privacy infringement is there. Be an informed and engaged consumer and take precautions when downloading applications from the Android Marketplace.  Ensure that you are downloading apps from trustworthy sellers and take a few moments to read over reviews, protection, smart phone and tablet accessories and additional smart phone options at online retailers such as puremobile.com.

So Samsung has finally annouced the I7500.  This is going to be there first Android phone and a lot of people are eagerly anticipating the new phone.  The new phone looks rather impressive actually.  It will carry all the standard phone goodies like being a quad band phone, 5 MP Camera, MicroSD support, but it will also have some extras like 8GB of internal memory, Wi-Fi, and even hand writting recognition.

One cool feature the phone will have is geotagging.  This is a feature that allows you to take a photo and then “tag” the location of where it was taken.

This will be Samsung’s first attempt at a Android phone.  There is going to be some stiff competition as almost all major manufacturers are planning on releasing an Android phone this year.

The Samsung I7500 so far has been anounced for O2 in Europe but it does support T-Mobile 3G (1700Mhz band) so it does give a suspecion that T-Mobile in the US will be getting it somewhere down the line.

For now the expected release is some time in June 2009.  Keep checking back our blog for a full review as soon the Samsung I7500 is out for a full review.

From the weird files.  So CTIA has come and gone this year and we came across this interesting story over at gearlog.com

So it turns out that a big surprise to a lot of people was the Fujitsu booth.  They were showing off a cell phone that was water proof.  Turns out Sanyo and Fujitsu both make serveral waterproof phones to cater to the Japanese market.

Gearlog.com says

Apparently, in Japan, folks spend a lot of time in the bath. Japanese bathtubs are much deeper and larger than American tubs, and they’re more conducive to lounging around. Japanese folks swear by the health benefits of long, hot, frequent baths. Also, in a crowded society, the bath is one place you can get perfect privacy, and some peace and quiet.

It’s actually really interesting because Gearlog.com goes on to say

[That] an entire waterproof offshoot of the consumer-electronics industry has popped up: waterproof TVs, waterproof cell phones, and of course, waterproof cell phones with TV capability. Because why should you have to stop a nice, long soak to answer the phone? Makes perfect sense…

It’s really interesting that people actually are like this.  You rarely see this in North America.  Most people take a quick-ish shower and go on with their day, but Japanese people not only like taking baths but they also like features on the phones.  So as soon as phones started appearing being water proof it became a standard feature most people wanted