Phone Keyboard Preferred

The Finnish phone manufacturing company Nokia recently conducted a survey that appears to show that most consumers still prefer keyboards on their personal phones even though the market for modern smart phones is currently dominated by touch screen-only devices. When the recent Nokia online poll asked participants to indicate their preferred cell phone input method from the choices of keyboard, touch screen, number keypad, and voice command, it showed that the good old Qwerty-style keyboards were the surprising favorite for nearly half of all respondents with 48.64 percent choosing keyboards. The more modern touch screen method did come in as the second most preferred method of data input, but trailed 15 percent behind the old keyboard method with 34.69 percent of the respondents choosing screens. Number keypads came in a distant third place with just 8.91 percent of the respondents choosing that method, and voice command was the least preferred method of data input with only 7.75 percent of users choosing voice input.

Although Nokia keyboard equipped phones have not sold as well as the more modern touch screen phones offered by competitors in the last several years, and the Finnish manufacturer is currently promoting two new touch screen phones (Nokia Lumia 800 and 900), the results of the online survey definitely show that there is still a solid spot in the marketplace for the older Qwerty-style keyboards. The results of the Nokia survey are very surprising considering that the new cell phone market has shifted heavily toward touch screens, and touch screen devices are currently outselling keyboard phones in most countries today.

Discussion of the recent poll on the Nokia Conversations blog pointed to the fact that although touch screen phones are very good for looking at photos, browsing the web and watching videos, they may not be the best method of data input. It appears that many users still prefer the older Qwerty-style keyboards because that is the data input method that most people are the most familiar with and that there is the something uniquely satisfying about using a keyboard with those familiar old buttons. Some observers have commented that perhaps a combination of data input methods that can successfully integrate push-button keyboards along with touch screens in new smart phones may be the best answer and give consumers the most options, but it appears the old Qwerty keyboards will still have a solid place in the market for a while to come.

The information security landscape was the main topic at the recent Black Hat 2012 conference in Las Vegas where a series of technical information security conferences were presented to an audience of leaders from corporate, government and academic sectors. One topic at the conference of particular interest to many attendees was the subject of Near Field Communications (NFC) hacking through mobile phones. It was demonstrated that when malicious NFC devices were placed close to an unsuspecting user’s phone they can result in a complete compromise of the phone through remote code execution. One presentation by Dr. Charles Miller titled “Don’t Stand So Close To Me: An Analysis Of The NFC Attack Surface” looked closely at the problem of malicious phone hacking as related to NFC devices and Dr. Miller showed the extreme vulnerability that can arise when the devices were compromised.

NFC is designed for use in close wireless communications with the largest application today being wireless payments through mobile phones. It was shown that the NFC devices are very similar to RFID in design, but can exchange much larger sets of data. Because NFC communications are typically only employed at very close-range, the problem of hacking them is not yet a widespread problem. However, hackers are working on extending the range of their malicious NFC devices and it is estimated that they will eventually be made to work as far as a few feet away from a user’s phone.

One problem compounding the issue is that on Android devices, if your phone is on and awake, the NFC system is always active. If your Android phone is asleep and locked, any hacker who knows the phone number can wake it up with a simple SMS message. Google has looked at the problem and partially addressed it in the newer Android 4 system by turning NFC off when the phone is locked, and it can only be activated with the appropriate pass-code. In particular, it was shown that any device that exchanges rich data sets can be exploited by malicious software that looks for the attack surface, which is the part of a software system that is the most vulnerable to hacking. Dr. Miller’s presentation showed that the vulnerability is exponential and the more complex a program is, the larger the potential attack surface will be.

Although the NFC hacking problem has been partially addressed on Android 4, unfortunately most users are still on earlier versions of Android and quite vulnerable. It was also shown that a standard app in Android 4+ that allows peer-to-peer exchanges over NFC can also be a source of trouble when pushing web pages over to other Android devices. Hackers can use this weakness to exploit a separate vulnerability in Webkit, the browser engine behind Google Chrome and many other browsers. Until these problems are fully addressed, users will remain vulnerable until Google makes changes to the system and starts to display the URL being beamed to a phone and allow the users to decide whether they want to open it or not. In the meantime, users will have to keep their phones turned off or keep a close eye on suspicious strangers in their near vicinity.

AT&T’s recently released second-quarter earnings report shows that its wireless business is expanding beyond all expectations with some 5.1 million new smart phones activated between April and June of this year alone. That number proves there are no worries over at AT&T for its long-term profitability as the second quarter of 2012 shows that the tech giant racked up its best-ever margins with huge growth in average revenue per user (ARPU), and gaining new customers across every segment of the wireless phone industry.

The earnings report showed that AT&T generated revenues of $31.6 billion during the second quarter and pulled down $3.9 billion in net income. Both numbers are huge compared to all previous quarters, and at the same time, it shows AT&T’s wireless component generated 52% of the company’s total revenue while wired-line voice and data service units combined to generate less than half (46%) of the company’s cash. The massive numbers of newly registered smart phones in the second quarter of 2012 pushed its total smart phone customer total to a massive 43.1 million people. According to AT&T’s data, 61.9% of all its post-paid customers are now using smart phones. Looking at it another way shows that nearly 14% of all Americans are using a smart phone on AT&T’s wireless network. In contrast, AT&T’s wireless competitor Verizon’s smart phone penetration just recently surpassed the 50% mark of all its post-paid customers.

The AT&T report reveals that smart phones represent 77% of all postpaid device sales, and that about 88% of its smart phone subscribers were on FamilyTalk or business plans. This clearly shows that tiered data plans are becoming more popular as AT&T added 496,000 tablets, laptop dongles, mobile hotspots, and other tethered devices, for a grand total of 6.3 million hardware devices using its data network. This supports the theory that nearly two-thirds of all smart phone subscribers in the nation are using tiered data plans.

Looking at the individual branded smart phones sales shows that Apple’s iPhone continues to be the leader as of the 5.1 million smart phone sales during the second quarter, Apple’s iPhone accounted for 3.7 million, or 73% of all smart phones the company sold between April and June. Android and Windows smart phone sales combined together sold about 1.4 million, with approximately 1.1 million of them being Android models and just 0.3 million for Windows Phones. The data clearly shows that business at AT&T is quite healthy as the company managed to sell twelve times as many iPhones as Windows Phones, and more than three times as many iPhones as Android smart phones. Any way you slice the numbers, they represent a gigantic and successful market that shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

A new report released by the World Bank and its infoDev technology innovation program suggests that the number of mobile phones in use worldwide will soon exceed the total number of people on the Earth. The World Bank’s report was funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Government of Finland, the Korea Trust Fund for ICT4D, and UKaid, and features reference tables for over 150 different economies around the world that show the latest available data and indicators for the rapidly expanding mobile phone sector. The report also includes tools for examining the relevant performance indicators for each country’s mobile phone sector in order to assess their current mobile capacities relative to those of other countries today.

According to the World Bank and infoDev, around three-quarters of the world’s inhabitants now have access to mobile phones and mobile communications in general are moving into a new level that is more about the many different ways those phones are used. The report indicates that the number of mobile subscriptions now in use worldwide, both pre-paid and post-paid, has grown from under 1 billion in 2000 to over 6 billion today, with nearly 5 billion of those subscriptions being in developing countries. Because ownership of multiple mobile phone subscriptions is becoming so common, the World Bank report predicts that the number of mobile phone subscriptions will soon exceed that of the human population.

Adding to the ubiquitous presence of mobile phone usage is the fact that over 30 billion mobile applications, or “apps,” were downloaded last year alone in 2011. Those apps have quickly extended the capabilities of mobile phones to adapt to a wide variety of uses including mobile wallets, navigational aids and price comparison tools. The fact that the citizens of developing countries are increasingly using mobile phones to create completely new livelihoods and enhance their lifestyles and the governments in those developing countries are also using them to improve service delivery and to create better citizen feedback mechanisms is only increasing their attraction.

Rachel Kyte, the World Bank’s Vice President for Sustainable Development summed up the situation when she said “Mobile communications offer major opportunities to advance human and economic development from providing basic access to health information to making cash payments, spurring job creation, and stimulating citizen involvement in democratic processes, the challenge now is to enable people, businesses, and governments in developing countries to develop their own locally-relevant mobile applications so they can take full advantage of these new opportunities.”

Most celebrity divorces result in an endless string of reporting on the many varied and messy details surrounding the split of the couple in question. However, the recent Katie Holmes/Tom Cruise divorce seems to have been settled in record time, and without a lot of fanfare in the press. Reports in the news do indicate that Katie Holmes had anticipated a long and drawn-out divorce experience once she decided to dump Tom, but the reports also show that it was Katie’s carefully planned use of the telephone that enabled her to plan and execute much of the divorce along with its messy details without Mr. Cruise, his many attorneys, or the press learning about it in advance.

Reports in the Los Angeles Times indicate that Katie employed the use of “disposable” pre-paid cell phones to communicate about the event in secret with her attorneys to ensure that Cruise would be unable to trace or track the conversations. Because Holmes used various “new” phone numbers for very short time periods and switched them frequently, it would have required a lot more than just a simple reverse phone number lookup service to discover his wife’s secret divorce agenda.

The reports indicate the actress’s lawyer father was the person who advised her to employ the disposable phones to build her case on the sly and surprise Cruise and his attorneys with the news she was ready to end their five year marriage. The disposable phone tactics allowed Holmes the time and privacy to move into a new downtown Manhattan apartment and hire three different law firms in three different states to represent her. Most of the articles in the press have also indicated that Cruise was taken by complete surprise by the secret preparations. The covert phone tactics allowed Holmes to get her and Cruise’s lawyers to settle just one week after she filed for the divorce, and she was also able to get primary custody of her 6-year-old daughter Suri in one quick, behind-closed-doors divorce settlement. Tom Cruise will still have visitation rights but Holmes will be the one who decides how Suri will live and be educated, which is an important factor in the split considering Cruise is a prominent Scientologist and Holmes was raised as a Catholic. However, the disposable cell phones were the real stars in what has turned out to be one of the quickest celebrity divorces on record as the entire affair was over just 11 days after Holmes filed her divorce papers.

There is a new and potentially deadly form of prank phone call emerging in the U.S. these days called “swatting.” The nefarious practice is so new that most people have not heard of it and description of it are only just now beginning to appear widely on the Internet like the new Wikipedia entry that says “Swatting is an attempt to trick an emergency service (such as a 9-1-1 dispatcher) into dispatching an emergency response team. The name is derived from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), one type of such team. Such action places law enforcement and citizens at risk and are criminal actions. In addition it reduces law enforcement officer (LEO) coverage and costs taxpayer money.”

Swatting is now appearing in news reports as some Internet bloggers say they are being terrorized by the prank calls that bring a wave of armed police to their doors in search of fake criminals, in retaliation for their blog posts. Most recently, two conservative Internet bloggers reported being victims and in one of the incidents, the caller claimed to be the resident of the home and confessed to shooting his wife. Naturally, that call brought an instant and potentially deadly swarm of police to the home in a totally erroneous response.

That victim was Patrick Frey, a deputy district attorney at Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, who runs a blog called Patterico’s Pontifications that apparently rubbed someone the wrong way. The other incident involved Erick Erickson of Macon, Georgia who runs the Red State blog. After an anonymous caller reported “I shot her, my wife” to 911 dispatchers, Erickson’s home was raided, police ordered him at gunpoint to get outside, and then handcuffed him until completing a search that revealed his wife and children were actually safe inside.

In both incidents, authorities now have suspects they are looking at, but the cases may be hard to prove in court and the incidents of “swatting” appear to be on the rise nationally. Tricking the authorities into responding to an address with a SWAT team to an emergency that doesn’t exist is a frightening, costly, and potentially deadly form of crime that starts with a phone call. It would certainly be nice if the FBI could simply employ a reverse lookup phone number search to discover the identities of the swatting callers, but it doesn’t look like solving this new form of telephone crime will be quite as easy as that.

The Reuters new agency along with the Ipsos global independent market research company are not content with simply reporting the news, and they are now making news after conducting a recent poll asking respondents if they would choose to give up their mobile phone or give up their computer, if forced to choose between the two. The poll sampled nearly 20,000 adults from 25 different countries, and is considered accurate with a margin of error of just plus or minus 3.1 to 4.5 percentage points. The goal was to force people to choose between two important things, and see what conclusions it led to concerning values and priorities today.

The researchers found that 65% of the citizens in 25 countries would choose to give up their mobile phone if forced to choose between the phone and their computer. Just over one third (35%) said they would give up their computer, if forced to choose between the two. The poll also found that if forced to choose between social networking and television, 58% said they would give up social networking and just 42% said they would give up watching TV instead. The poll asked a surprising number of related questions including whether people would rather give up their mobile phones or sex. The answer to that query was that 78% of the respondents said they would give up their phones while just 22% would choose to give up sex.

The Ipsos poll also revealed significant differences in responses among people of different ages and sexes, with women and young people under age 25 being far less willing to give up using their cell phones. Choosing between the computer and theior phones, 40% of women said they would give up their computers first. The number of men who would do the same was only 31%. The numbers for people under 25 were about the same as those for the women, with just over 40% of younger people saying they would give up their computers in order to keep their phones.

The research backs up the notion that younger people put more priority on new technology in their lives and are more addicted to their cell phones. They are more likely to own advanced-capability smart phones, and the participation in social networking is much higher among the young demographic. It is interesting to note that the poll also uncovered similar variations in the results from the respondents in different countries. The numbers show that Canadians chose their computers over their phones by a margin of 80% to 20%, and that only 49% of Saudi Arabians would do the same. The numbers from South Africans were just about divided in half, with 52% choosing their computers over their phones. Surprisingly, the respondents in Great Britain and France were the most likely to choose watching television over using the computer for social networking. Conversely, people in China and Turkey were the least addicted to their televisions, and preferred the computer and social networking. The take-away from this recent poll seems to suggest that the results of choosing between giving up sex or phones reflected the presence of established cultural stereotypes of sexual progressiveness versus conservatism that varied according to the regions the respondents lived in.

Distracted driving causes far fewer car accidents than alcohol use, but the Department of Transportation still says phones in cars should be outlawed across the entire country.

Although a reverse lookup phone number search allows you to learn who a phone number belongs to and delivers the information behind anonymous phone calls, if U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood gets his way, you will not be performing any number searches from inside your car. LaHood has been a supporter of state laws that ban cell phone use while driving in the past, but his agency has never before called for a federal law banning it altogether. Even though 38 states already have laws restricting or outlawing the use of electronic devices while driving and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that distracted driving was the cause of just 3,000 fatal traffic accidents nationwide last year, a number that is far less than the number of fatalities caused by alcohol-related traffic accidents, Secretary LaHood now says he thinks texting and talking on a cell phone while driving should be outlawed across the entire country. LaHood is calling for tougher federal legislation to deal with what he calls the “national epidemic” of distracted driving and maintains that law enforcement officials should have the ability to write tickets when people think they can use a cell phone and text and drive.

LaHood’s position is a bit unusual when you consider that the U.S. Department of Transportation reported just last year that only 9% of highway fatalities in 2010 were caused by distracted driving, compared to the 31% of deaths linked to alcohol use. The agency has also reported that the number of highway fatalities have been dropping since the 1980s and in 2010 they fell to the lowest level since 1949, a time when Americans drove much less and obviously used far less technology in their cars too. Despite the low numbers, many people feel that distracted driving is still a big problem because tests have shown that using a cell phone while driving delays a driver’s reaction time exactly the same as having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08.

Critics of the laws banning cell phone use in cars contends that more laws are unnecessary because there are already many other laws covering the many different possible aspects of inattentive driving. One critic, Gary Biller, president of the National Motorists Association, said “”It shouldn’t matter if the driver is distracted by a conversation with another vehicle passenger, tuning the radio, eating a snack, or talking on a cell phone, existing laws cover all those distractions and more.” However, Mr. LaHood and the Department of Transportation have switched gears and now say stronger laws are needed to criminalize the activity so that people will stop doing it. The National Transportation Safety Board goes even father in the debate and is now recommending banning the use of hands-free phones while driving too. Until now, the Department of Transportation had not recommended a ban on hands-free phones, but LaHood said the agency is researching the use and effects of hands-free devices and has begun talking to the car manufacturers about the overall practice of installing Internet-connected features into cars. If LaHood and his agency get their way, your 2012 automobile might a lot more Internet connected and distracting than your disconnected 2015 model will ever be.

The National Do Not Call Registry is a consumer protection law created
to help American consumers maintain their privacy and limit incoming
telemarketing calls. Signing up for the program is easy and your phone
number will remain on the list permanently unless you take direct
action to remove it. The Registry is a free service provided by the
U.S. government, and any telemarketers who violate the law may be
subject to hefty fines.

Although the National Do Not Call Registry has been in effect since
2004, many Americans are still a bit confused as to what it is and how
to utilize it. The registry was originally conceived as a law that
would help U.S. consumers limit the number of unwanted and often
annoying telemarketing calls they receive, but it has taken the public
a while to make use of the program and many people who could probably
benefit from it, still don’t use it today. The way the law works is
fairly straightforward, and all consumers need to do is simply call
the program and register by telephone. Although the Do-Not-Call law
does prevent direct phone solicitation from most types of
telemarketers, it does not cover the growing phenomenon of political
“robo-calls” that fall under a separate group of regulations.

Because it falls under the category of consumer protection, official
management of the National Do Not Call Registry is handled by the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Signing up for the Registry is super
easy and all consumers need to do is to call 1-888-382-1222 from the
phone number that they desire to register in the system, or they can
sign up online on the program’s website at donotcall.gov. Consumers
who register by telephone don’t need to take any further action,
however those people registering online will need a working email
address. After registering online, the Registry will send a response
to the email address with a link that must be clicked on within 72
hours in order to complete a new registration. As soon as your number
is registered, your phone number will show up on the registry list the
next day and the clock starts ticking for the telemarketers who have
just 31 days from the registration date to stop calling you
altogether.

The National Registry is supposed to be used for personal phone
numbers only and business phones and fax numbers will not be allowed
to register. Personal cell phone numbers are covered under the
Registry as well. Thanks to the passage of the Do-Not-Call Improvement
Act of 2007, your personal phone number will remain permanently active
on the Registry and will not expire unless you take direct action to
remove it. You can remove a phone number from the Registry by calling
1-888-382-1222 from the telephone number you want to delete. Other
factors can affect your Registry status though, and if your number is
disconnected for any reason, and then reconnected, you will have to
re-register it. Changes to the telephone plan you are on can also
sometimes affect your registry status, and if you have changing
calling plans or changing the name on the billing account, you may
have to register the number again.

Although the Do-Not-Call Registry will stop most calls that solicit
the sales of goods or services, it will not prevent calls from
political organizations, charities, and telephone surveys. It also
will not stop calls from companies that you already have an existing
business relationship with, or any business that you have given an
express agreement in writing that it is OK to receive their calls.
Third-party telemarketer calls are covered though, and if a
third-party telemarketer tries to get around the Registry by calling
on behalf of another prohibited party, that telemarketer could be
subject to a fine up to $11,000.

If your telephone number is on the Registry and you do receive an
unwanted call from a telemarketer, you can lodge a formal complaint by
contacting the registry’s website or by calling them directly at
1-888-382-1222. All that is required to file the complaint is the name
or telephone number of the company that called, and the date they
called you. There is really no reason to be receiving unwanted
telephone sale pitches these days when the Do-Not-Call Registry is a
free and simple service available to anyone with a personal phone
number.

Although a reverse telephone number lookup service allows users to trace the
origin and source of any call and takes the anonymity away from random
callers, putting the power of information back into your own hands, you
can’t lookup a number or call anyone if you die behind the wheel because you
were distracted by the cell phone in your hand.

A recent study of states with laws prohibiting the use of hand-held cell
phones conducted by the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center at
the University of California at Berkley in California shows that the laws
resulted in 22% decline in overall traffic deaths. The study also found that
fatalities of motorists who used hand-held cell phones decreased by 47 %.
The researchers reviewed the records of traffic crashes two years before and
two years after state bans went into effect, and the results seem to show
that the laws banning hand-held cell phone use while driving have had a
positive impact on reducing traffic fatalities and injuries overall.

Fewer crashes overall could also be due to increased law enforcement though,
as the cost of a ticket in California for a first offense is significant at
around $159 and according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles,
there were 460,487 hand-held cell phone convictions in 2011, up 22% from
2010 and up 52% from 2009. A concerted public awareness campaign in
California seems to have successfully educated drivers that that texting and
talking are the biggest safety concerns on California roadways. A full 84%
of survey respondents in California said they felt cell phone conversations
or texting while driving are the most serious driving distractions, and an
opinion poll showed that four out of ten California drivers said they now
talk less with hand-held phones and hands-free phones since the state’s ban
began in 2008.

The observations in California appear to concur with a telephone survey
conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that found 44% of
the drivers in those states with phone/driving bans reported no longer use
any type of phone, hand-held or hands-free, while driving. This is
contrasted by the 30% of drivers who said they will continue to use both
types of phones behind the wheel in those states that do not have
driving/phone bans. It has often been said, as goes California – so goes the
rest of the nation. Often this has been a disparaging remark, however in the
case of driving while using the phone, going the “way of California” may not
be such a bad thing at all.