A security hole has been found in Twitter that allows any user to force anyone else to follow them, without the follower giving any kind of permission at all.

By sending the word "accept" into the web interface, followed by the username of the person you want to follow you, you can tap into a defunct system that Twitter once used to operate the site. We've tested it on a dummy account and found that yes - it works, and yes - it's instant. We imagine it'll be patched out of existence rather quickly.

Still, it's a massive security hole, and there'll no doubt be legions of celebrities and big-name Twitter users up in arms about their feeds being flooded with unknown users. It's as yet unclear if it gives access to feeds that are "protected", as the following/not-following mechanism is separate from that.

Until Twitter manages to fix this problem, keep an eye on your Twitter feed to weed out any undesirables and spammers.

UPDATE: It seems that Twitter is on the case already with all Twitter users showing 0 followers and 0 following tallies. We will keep you posted.

UPDATE 2: Twitter has issued the following statement: "We identified and resolved a bug that permitted a user to “force” other users to follow them. We’re now working to rollback all abuse of the bug that took place. Follower/following numbers are currently at 0; we’re aware and this too should shortly be resolved. Update (10:18 AM PST): Of note: protected updates did not become public as a result of this bug".

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Tags: Software Online Twitter Social networks

Twitter security hole lets you make anyone follow you originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 17:58:29 +0100

Media molecule, the creator of Playstation 3 hit Little Big Planet, has announced that it's got a sequel to the title in development, surprising a grand total of no-one. We've embedded the trailer above.

The forthcoming sequel, which still stars the original's Sackboy, will apparently feature "so many new tools and objects in here that will grant you ultimate creative power to build amazing things, not just vastly improved levels, but entire games too". That last point, in particular, sets it apart from its predecessor.

Media Molecule added: "We've also built a grand adventure of our own, using the very same tools you’ll have, and filled it up to the very brim with new characters, stickers, objects, things, wotsits and fluff, all spread generously across a set of themes that’ll take you all around the cosmos and back, as you try to save creator curators everywhere from a mysterious giant hoover-type thing!"

If that sounds like your cup of tea, then stay tuned for more. We'll bring you all the detail as it arrives in our inbox.

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Tags: Gaming little big planet Little Big Planet 2 Media Molecule PS3 Video

Little Big Planet 2 announced originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 17:39:01 +0100

Music tracking and personalised radio service Last.fm has rolled out a new page on its website that allows you to see which music festival lineup is best suited to you, depending on your music taste.

If you use Last.fm's "scrobbling" system to record the music that you play, then it'll compare your most-played artists to those that are on the lineup of most major music festivals across the world, and then give you a "compatibility rating" for each, ranked with the most suitable at the top.

It doesn't have absolutely every festival on it yet, we couldn't find Latitude for example, and it recommended us the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Reading festival when our most-played band is Yo La Tengo (who happen to be headlining End of the Road). Still, it's a noble idea, even if the algorithm needs tweaking a little.

Does it work for you? Let us know in the comments.

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Tags: Audio Websites Lastfm Music Online

Last.fm adds festival recommendations originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 17:08:42 +0100

An enterprising modder has turned his retro NES console into a media centre PC that would rival some of the most advanced models on the market.

On the outside it looks like a regular NES straight out of the Eighties, albeit with the requisite PC connectors on the back. Inside, however, it's a different story. There's a dual-core Intel Atom N330, Nvidia ION graphics, and 2GB of RAM (compared to the original NES's 2KB of RAM).

The one thing it doesn't have is an internal hard drive, but it comes with a flash drive with Linux and XBMC installed, so you can get cracking immediately if you want to. It's got an Ethernet port, and there's n-standard Wi-Fi compatibility, along with six USB 2.0 ports, one optical and one coaxial digital audio out, one eSATA port, HDMI/DVI/VGA connectors, and the usual range of analoge audio connectors. 

It's available from Etsy right now for $475, which comes out at about £316 at current exchange rates. There's only one available, though, so if you want it then get your skates on.

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Tags: Home Cinema Gaming NES Media players Modding Hacking

NES turned into media centre PC originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 16:21:46 +0100

Yet more wisdom, straight out of the mouth of Steve Jobs. Well, out of his hands, rather than his mouth, because the iPhone doesn't have the Nexus One's speech-to-text capabilities just yet. Turns out that printing is coming to the iPad.

Jobs revealed the information in response to an email query from a customer, sent to sjobs@apple.com. The customer asked "Why not printing on the iPad? What gives?", to which Steve replied, simply: "It will come", signing off with his usual "Sent from my iPhone", showing that the Apple boss isn't afraid to flaunt his company's gadgets.

It's not yet clear how iPad printing could be accomplished - whether it would only be able to access network printers, or whether there'd be some way of hooking up older printers that don't have wireless connectivity. Perhaps Apple will rope in Google's forthcoming "Cloud Print" offering. Either way, it seems unlikely that you'll be able to plug one straight into the iPad camera connection kit's USB port.

The statement substantiates prior rumours that iPad printing was something the company was working on. In the meantime, there's always this quick shortcut...

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Tags: Hardware Tablet PCs Steve Jobs iPad Printers Apple

iPad printing "will come" says Apple CEO originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 14:52:46 +0100

Sonos is planning to roll out a software update for its iPhone app and wireless remote which will mean that a pair of its all-in-one S5 speakers to could used as a so-called "Stereo pair" - where one outputs audio from the left channel and the other outputs audio from the right.

The software update, which brings the version number up to 3.2, will mean that the already-powerful speakers could be used to pump up the volume further than is currently possible. At the moment, each Sonos S5 contains a left and a right channel already, so putting two together would mean L and R channels coming out of both sides.

The update isn't yet available, but we're hearing that it should be launched at some point during May. Good news for those who already own a pair of S5s, but those who don't are facing a bill of more than £700 to get their home wired up to take advantage of the new features.

UPDATE: Sonos has now issued an update which includes the following new features:

- iheartradio on Sonos - Sonos customers in the U.S. can now enjoy the iheartradio service for free, providing instant, computer-free access to more than 750 of America’s favorite local radio stations as well as exclusive digital stations like Christina Aguilera Radio, CBGB Radio, Radio Weezer, AT40 with Ryan Seacrest, Jim Rome, Dr. Laura and much, much more. 

- Crossfading - Customers can create smooth transitions between songs just like the DJs do. You can select the crossfading playback mode from the Now Playing screen for any tracks in your music library, plus select music services including Last.fm, Napster, Pandora, and Rhapsody.

- S5 Stereo Pair setting – This innovative audio feature allows customers to use two Sonos S5s in the same room with one S5 serving as the left channel and the other as the right channel.

- Japanese and Simplified Chinese language support – Customers using the Sonos Controller for iPhone , the Sonos Controller 200 and the Sonos Controller for Mac or PC can now control Sonos in 9 languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, and Swedish.

- New alarm settings – Sonos customers can now customize alarms for different days of the week.  Wake up to your favorite radio station on one day and a Pandora station or playlist on another. Set the room, the time and the music for any or every day of the week.

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Tags: Audio Sonos Sonos S5 Speakers Software updates

Sonos patch lets you use S5 as a stereo pair originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 14:25:00 +0100

The scientists in Fujitsu's research department have managed to come up with a new version of the company's colour e-paper that offers a significant upgrade on the previous generation.

It'll be shown off at the company's Fujitsu Forum exhibition in Tokyo, Japan, and allows for a much brighter screen than its predecessor, as well as a contrast ratio of 7:1. While that might not sound like much, that's three times the contrast of prior versions of the e-paper. The benefits are thanks to a new liquid crystal being used, which has more reflective properties.

Compared to a regular screen, e-paper takes longer to write an image, but that's balanced by the fact that once an image is on the display, it requires no power to stay there. Older versions of Fujitsu's e-paper took nearly 1.5 seconds to refresh a page, but the new version only takes 0.7 seconds - it's been chopped in half. 

However, what Fujitsu's e-paper doesn't have yet is a product. It's likely it'll make its way into an e-reader of some sort before long, so when it does, we'll be sure to tell you.

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Tags: Gadgets e-Paper Fujitsu Research

Fujitsu to demonstrate improved e-paper originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 13:00:26 +0100

Google has given its RSS feed reader product, Google Reader, a bit of an overhaul. The company has sprinkled a dusting of minor changes over the whole thing, but there's no significant new features.

Support for HTML5's Audio and Video tags have been added, so that mobile devices are able to view any multimedia content that you put into your blog posts. There's also now a "Not interested" button at the bottom of recommended items, so that you can give Google a little more feedback about the kinds of articles that you enjoy.

Google Reader Play has been granted some new features - you can press the space bar, or shift-space to move forward and backwards between items. You can also append a few words to the URL to make it do certain things - "?welcome=0" will skip the home screen, "?autoplay=1" will start Reader Play in autoplay mode, and "?#feed/URL" will open a specific feed only.

Lastly, there's the usual pile of performance updates. The "Home" view loads rather faster than it did before, and the "Send To" functionality shouldn't get stopped in its tracks by pop-up blockers, as it once did when you wanted to send content to Twitter or Facebook.

Are there any other features you'd love to see Google implement into Reader? Tell us in the comments box below.

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Tags: Software Online Google Google Reader Software updates

Google Reader gets tweaked originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 12:16:03 +0100

Facebook has been known to be planning some interesting location-based functionality for a while. But the full extent of the plans hadn't been revealed, until now.

Digging through the Javascript on Facebook's "Touch" website shows a function called "Places" that doesn't appear in the live website just yet. Investigating further shows that Facebook is going to launch a version of its website that uses HTML5 to determine your location, and then give you the option to "check in" to local businesses, just like Foursquare and Gowalla.

It doesn't just record your location, it also grabs your altitude, heading and speed - perhaps to prevent some of the cheating that occurs on the aforementioned networks, where people driving along a road can check into all the places along it super-quick. However, for now it looks to only be launching on the mobile version of the website.

We'll bring you more as we hear it.

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Tags: Software Websites Facebook Online Social networks Java

Facebook's check-in functionality discovered originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 10:39:41 +0100

Researchers in Japan have managed to get a quantum computer working, and have shown that it delivers results thousands of times faster than a traditional transistor-based machine.

The computer, which has been built from a single Iodine molecule, was given a discrete Fourier transform to calculate as a proof-of-principle test. A Fourier transform is a simple calculation used in a number of research fields, including spectral analysis and data compression, and is often used as a test of computing abilities.

Here's the science bit. Quantum computers work by analysing the vibrations between a pair of atoms in a molecule. The inputs are encoded into a series of vibrations which are sent through a molecule that's been "excited" at known intervals, and the results are picked up on the other side. The process takes a few 10s of femtoseconds - about a quadrillionth of a second.

While quantum computers are still a long way away from your study, they're now starting to deliver measurable results. The technology still needs to be refined a little to make it simpler and more accessible, but it's likely that once Moore's law in traditional processors breaks down, quantum computers will be the next step.

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Tags: Hardware Quantum computing Research PC

Quantum computer tested, delivers impressive results originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 10 May 2010 09:40:57 +0100

Nokia has chosen picturesque Wisconsin to file a sharp lawsuit against Apple, with accusations of infringing five patents related to the 3G variant of the iPad.

It's the second US lawsuit in recent history, and the fifth pending legal action across the world, suggesting there's not much love lost between the companies.

It claims that Apple infringes patents related to "enhanced speech and data transmission, using positioning data in applications and innovations in antenna configurations that improve performance and save space, allowing smaller and more compact devices".

The lawsuit's been filed in a district that's reputed for its quick turnaround of cases, so it's possible that Nokia wants to use a quick judgement to gain an edge in other pending litigation.

However, no doubt, Apple will rapidly file a countersuit. Unfortunately with technological development outpacing the speed of legal action considerably, by the time a judgement is delivered it often fails to impact a company's product line.

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Tags: Hardware iPad Tablet PCs Nokia Apple Patents Lawsuits

Nokia sues Apple over iPad patents originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 17:48:48 +0100

Here's some exciting news for subscribers and former subscribers of Blizzard's monster-hit MMO, World of Warcraft. The first videos of the forthcoming "Cataclysm" expansion have appeared, showing of the changes that are to be made to human capital Stormwind and the Orcish city Orgrimmar.

While Stormwind hasn't been significantly altered too much, with the exception of the area around the castle and the lake nearby, Orgrimmar has undergone a massive reinvention that will see former leader Thrall leaving the horde in the hands of one of his generals, who promptly makes some rather extravagant changes.

Cataclysm will tell the story of the dragon Deathwing, who represents the biggest threat to the world of Azeroth following the defeat of Arthas the Lich King. It'll see huge changes all across zones that haven't been changed in 5 years, as lava erupts across the world. The level cap is being raised to 85, and there'll be new professions, too.

Cataclysm is targeted at a release date around Christmas.

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Tags: Gaming World of Warcraft Video World of Warcraft Cataclysm MMORPGs

First videos of WoW: Catacylsm released originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 17:17:59 +0100

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has waded into a minor row brewing on the site over whether pornographic content should be hosted on Wikimedia Commons - the place where all Wikipedia images are hosted.

Wales said in a post on his usertalk page: "Wikimedia Commons admins who wish to remove from the project all images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests have my full support. This includes immediate deletion of all pornographic images. We should keep educational images about sexuality - mere nudity is not pornography - but as with all our projects, editorial quality judgements must be made and will be made - appropriately and in good taste".

While there's been no official word from the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs both websites, Wales said to expect a statement on the matter soon. He also restarted the Commons: Sexual Content page, which keeps watch for images of a pornographic nature and keeps track of discussions about how encyclopaedic they are.

It's likely the Wales' statement is a knee-jerk reaction to allegations of hosting child pornography from co-founder Larry Sanger, who went to Fox News and the FBI with the details. A storm's brewing, and we'll keep an eye on it. 

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Tags: Software Websites Wikipedia Porn Jimmy Wales Online

Jimmy Wales plans Wikipedia porn purge originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 16:14:30 +0100

Do you feel like you haven't got enough plastic in your living room? Are you not at all concerned about the state of the north Pacific gyre? Then you're probably a potential purchaser of Firebox's new Wii Fit accessories.

There's two on offer. A set of 1kg weights that attach to your remotes so that using them pumps up your muscles while retaining access to all the buttons, straps and infrared facilities, and a set of feet for the balance board which adds 3 inches of height - making the step game a little more challenging than it is normally. Don't fall off it, though.

Both bits of plastic cost £20, and are available right now from Firebox's website. Alternatively, if you're feeling handy, gaffer-tape a couple of bags of sugar to your Wii remotes, and stick some old books under your balance board. Cheaper, and you won't be contributing to the proliferation of useless bits of plastic in the world.

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Tags: Health Fitness Nintendo Wii Firebox Wii Fit

Firebox to sell Wii weights originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 15:37:39 +0100

Ricoh has announced that it's going to be releasing a camera bearing the confusing name of the Lens P10. It's one of Ricoh's modular GXR models, which let you swap out both the lens and the sensor in one.

This particular module includes a 10.7x optical zoom, 28 - 300mm wide angle lens and a sensor with the ability to capture RAW images at 5 frames per second. It can also manage 1280 x 720 pixel resolution high-definition movies, and a dynamic range double-shot function for capturing HDR images.

You can either buy the LENS P10 by itself, or get it with a GXR body included. The lens on its own will cost £250, but it's not yet clear exactly when it'll be available to buy. We'll keep you posted if we find out.

Tags: Cameras Ricoh Ricoh LENS P10 Compact cameras Digital cameras

Ricoh unveils LENS P10 compact camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 15:21:49 +0100

Back at the end of April we saw a hacker, David Wong, who'd installed Android on an iPhone 2G. At the time he said that getting it onto a 3G should be trivial, and he's managed it within weeks.

Hit play on the video above to see it in action. It's not quite as "finished" as the 2G port was - there's no audio support so far - but it can access the Web with no problems, and it can send and receive SMS messages over the cell radio. There's also better Wi-Fi support than the original 2G hack.

On the table for the next version are the aforementioned audio support, as well as improved power management and control over the backlight. Wong says: "The hope is that you should soon be able to carry around your first-generation iPhone or iPhone 3G running Android and use it just as normally as you would any other Android phone".

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Tags: Phones Mobile phones Android Software iPhone Apple Hacking Video

Android now working on iPhone 3G originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 14:34:14 +0100

Western Digital has announced that its WDTV Live media player is getting a firmware update that enables a host of new features, including compatibility with Windows 7.

That Windows 7 compatibility means that it can take advantage of the platform's "Play to..." feature, which allows users to right-click a media file in Windows and send it to a device connected to a home network. There's support for a wide range of file formats, and the ability to play back 1080p content.

Owners of the device will need to install a firmware update to get access to the new functionality. Full instructions can be found on Western Digital's website, but you'll need a USB stick, some time, and a little bit of fiddling around on a computer. If you've got a Windows 7 home computer, and a WDTV Live media player, then the upgrade seems like a no-brainer.

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Tags: Software Western Digital Windows 7 WDTV Live Media streamers

WDTV Live now compatible with Windows 7 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 13:05:19 +0100

The BBC has penned a post on its "The Editors" blog saying that the corporation's website has been slammed with massive traffic following the results of the UK's 2010 general election, which has ended up in a precarious hung parliament.

The BBC says: "As the story of the election continues to unfold, we're seeing unprecedented levels of traffic to the BBC News website - it's looking like more than five million users since midnight according to the data we have so far, and thousands of searches every minute on our constituency result pages".

"For such high usage, it's all been working pretty smoothly on the technical front, and we're working hard to make sure it stays that way. If the site is a bit slower for you at any time today, that's why".

We've found the constituency checking map to be a little unresponsive, but the site to broadly be standing up to the traffic. How are your favourite news sites coping with the increased level of traffic looking for the latest on the election?

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Tags: Software Websites Online BBC Politics

BBC website seeing "unprecedented" traffic originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 12:17:49 +0100

ViewSonic has announced a monitor that might suit those among you who demand the very fastest response times from your displays. The company claims that it's the first in the world to offer a 27-inch display with a 1ms response time.

That means that it'll be useful for pro gamers, and those who work with a lot of video editing and graphic design tasks. There's multiple HDMI and DVI inputs, and a 1080p resolution, along with a 100,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and 300 nits brightness. It also has a pair of 2W speakers built-in, along with four USB ports.

ViewSonic's James Coulson told Pocket-lint: "Until now users wanting a larger screen experience have had to compromise by buying a TV with data capability. The VX2739wm is a data monitor first, and has been specifically designed to work optimally with computer based sources, delivering far higher response times and picture clarity than that currently offered by consumer TVs".

The ViewSonic VX2739wm is going to hurt your pocketbook to the tune of £240 plus VAT. No word on when it'll become available, but we've asked Acer and will update this post when we hear back.

Update: It goes on sale on 1 July.

Tags: Hardware Viewsonic Monitors ViewSonic VX2739wm

ViewSonic VX2739wm monitor offers record response time originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 11:42:27 +0100

Google has published a few statistics about its Latitude geolocation service, which allows you to share your location with friends, and see where they are too. The company revealed that more than 10% of Android owners have activated it, resulting in 3 million users worldwide.

At the Web 2.0 Expo, Steve Lee from Google told attendees that the service has three times the userbase of Foursquare, despite the relative lack of attention it gets among observers of the sector. It's rather an achievement, considering that the service has almost zero iPhone support - thanks to the inability of the iPhone to run applications in the background.

However, Google also reported that at least a quarter of Latitude users have zero friends on the service, only using it to keep track of their movements. With Google planning a revamp of its location history offering, however, and the rapid growth of the Android platform, that might not prove such an issue in the long term.

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Tags: Software Android apps Google Google latitude Car And GPS GPS Statistics

Google Latitude has 3 million users originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 10:50:45 +0100

While the UK wakes up to a hung parliament in the wake of May 2010's general election, many commentators are suggesting that none of the main parties achieved much electoral success. That includes one of Britain's newest and geekiest parties - Pirate Party UK.

It's a triple issue party, focusing on privacy, freedom of speech, and reform of the copyright and patent systems. However, it's gained most press for the latter of the three - pledging to legalise non-commercial file sharing, and fix copyright to recognise the realities of the internet age.

But with 9 of 10 results announced, it became clear that the Pirates weren't going to emulate the success of their Swedish and German brethren. None of their candidates rang up more than 250 votes, with the best result - 0.6% share of the ballot - in Manchester Gorton, a Labour stronghold. On the other hand, though, the Green's first MP, Caroline Lucas, has pledged to legalise file sharing too.

The Pirate Party's leader, Andy Robinson, gave the result a positive spin, saying: "0.3% swing to Pirates - pretty amazing for a party less than a year old, well done all! Under PR that would be 2 MPs!", and the official PPUK Twitter account added: "Less than a year after formation, with barely a fraction of the campaign funds of main parties. We did as well as could be expected".

Did you vote Pirate? Would you have if they'd stood in your constituency? Tell us in the comments below.

Tags: Software P2P Filesharing Politics Pirates Pirate Party UK Digital Economy Copyright

Pirate Party fails to score electoral success originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 10:17:08 +0100

Google has announced that one of Android's flagship apps, Google Goggles, has been given an upgrade that offers auto-translation facilities to users.

All you need to do to use it is point your phone's camera at the phrase in question, draw a box around it on the screen, then hit the shutter button. If Google can read the text and translate it, then the appropriate translation will pop up on the screen. It's available to users running Android 1.6 or above, so HTC Hero owners are out at the time of writing.

Currently, the app can recognise English, French, Italian, German and Spanish, and translate them to many more languages. Google is working on other Latin languages, but says that its ultimate goal is to extend support to non-Latin languages too. Other improvements in Goggles include better barcode recognition, the ability to scan local images, better UI and the ability to recognise more products and logos.

Google said, in a blog post, "Computer vision is a hard problem. While we are excited about Goggles v1.1, we know that there are many images that we cannot yet recognise. The Google Goggles team is working on solving the technical challenges required to make computers see. We hope you are as excited as we are about the possibilities of visual search".

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Tags: Software Android apps Google Goggles Translation Augmented Reality

Google Goggles can now translate originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 07 May 2010 09:42:53 +0100

The first web addresses to not be written in a latin-based script have gone live on the Internet, beginning with the Egypt's Communications Ministry.

As a result of the Web's Western roots, domain servers were previously only able to accept addresses written in the Latin alphabet, but that policy was altered in a meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in late 2009, which voted to accept any script.

Egypt, Saudi Arabi and the United Arab Emirates were first in line to get their domain names, meaning that residents can now register addresses in their native script. "All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left", said Kim Davies of Icann in a blog post.

More than 21 requests from other countries have been received by ICANN, who'll be sifting through them individually and working out which to activate. Requests have been made in 11 languages, including Chinese, Russian, Tamil and Thai.

Tags: Software Online ICANN Websites

First non-Latin web addresses go live originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 06 May 2010 15:15:10 +0100

Motorola has announced on its Facebook fan page that it's released the Android 2.1 update for its Milestone handset. The update brings a host of new features, security and performance enhancements, and better compatibility with newer applications.

In a brief post, Motorola said: "UK Milestone owners - At last, the 2.1 upgrade rolls out today. Thank you for your patience and we hope you enjoy enhancements such as Speech to Text, live wallpapers, up to 9 home screens, and added security for exchange server users". The company then linked to the download page.

That's good news for Motorola Milestone users, but with Android 2.2 looming on the horizon, the joy could prove short-lived. Let's hope that Motorola gets its skates on there and is able to roll out a further update at a pace that matches Google's delivery of new software, rather than falling behind like rival HTC.

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Tags: Phones Mobile phones Software Android Gingerbread Software updates Motorola Milestone

UK Motorola Milestone gets Android 2.1 update originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 06 May 2010 12:47:28 +0100

Motorola's co-CEO, Sanjay Jha, is a big believer in mobile companies owning the software platform that they release their handsets on. That's why we're sure it's no co-incidence that Motorola has acquired mobile OS makers Azingo.

In a recent earnings call, Jha said: "I've always felt that owning your OS is important, provided you have an ecosystem, you have all the services and you have an ability and the scale to execute on keeping that OS at the leading edge. And I continue to believe that at some point, if we have all of those attributes, that owning our own OS will be a very important thing".

Azingo Mobile is based on Linux, and includes a webkit browser, web runtime, full development tools, and - notably - support for Adobe Flash. It's not clear whether Motorola will use it to replace its own MotoBlur OS and Android skin, or merely use Azingo's expertise to augment it - but judging by the quote above, we suspect the former.

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Tags: Phones Mobile phones Mobile phone industry Motorola Azingo

Motorola buys mobile OS makers Azingo originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 06 May 2010 12:21:07 +0100