At this weeks Black Hat security conference held in Las Vegas, researchers, Collin Mulliner and Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators, have demonstrated an effective attack on an iPhone using a flaw in the way the iPhone handles SMS or text messages.  Your iPhone hacked via SMS!  By sending hundreds of special SMS control messages that are not normally visible to the iPhone owner the attacker can gain complete access to the iPhone until it is rebooted. At the moment there is no patch from Apple to fix the problem despite Apple being notified over six weeks ago regarding the problem. For you Windows mobile users you are not immune as the the attack can work against your devices as well.

I recently had a chance to talk with Matt Swezey creator of StreetMavens.com I asked a few questions like what inspired him to create StreetMavens, how does it make itself unique among social media sites and where does he see it developing in the future.  I was very please to hear what he had to say.  Feel free to connect with me on StreetMavens: http://streetmavens.com/user/feed/493 Matt Swezey's responses: The idea behind StreetMavens was simple.  We observed all of this real-time user generated information streaming in from various social networking sites, but found non of it particularly useful in its raw form.  We thought the best way to organize it was on a local level, allowing people to see what others around them are doing in real-time.  StreetMavens is focused on small / local business and is all about spreading a message on a city wide level.  Unlike other social media sites, you are not required to have a large "following" to get your message out to massive amounts of people.  You may post information in any city that is available on our site.   Our main goal is to be the go to source for live information about what is happening in your city!  We are ...

Last week Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo came to an agreement on a new link element that will help clean up duplicate URLS of sites.  What does that mean? For the general public this will mean less duplication during searches. Web publishers will like this as Canonical Links will condense all incoming traffic to a single site URL.  How this works: A link similar to: <link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/page.html"/> is inserted into the head section of web pages. Regardless of the URL a search engine uses to visit a web page the one indicated in the canonical link is the URL that will be indexed. Concerns: Pages may use the Canonical Link to direct traffic to another page or site in hopes of increasing page rank or other standing. You can read more about it on Matt Cutts Blog, Google Software Engineer. You can also find implementations for popular blogging and content management tools here.

Amazon opened up the Kindle 2 pre-orders today.  The original Kindle did not capture my attention, but this slimmer and more powerful version has me very interested.  What changed my mind?  Running into e-paper out in the wild (Esquire 75th Anniversary issue).  Epaper is electronic paper that is as easy on your eyes to read as newspaper. Although the contrast of epaper is not quite as good as newsprint it is significantly better than try ing to read an active display, be it LCD or CRT. So what makes the new Kindle 2 better than the original version? Amazon has this to say about their new Kindle: Slim & Lightweight: Just over 1/3 inch and 10.2 ounces Books in under 60 seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for crisp images and text; even reads well in bright sunlight Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns Read-to-Me: Text-to-Speech feature means Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud. No Wireless Bills: No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments. ...

  The Obama Inauguration app displays the days remaining until the inauguration of the new president. Aside from that it is  an advertising application, displaying random iTunes artist advertisements or advertisements for other applications created by the same company

I came across Tipjoy a few months back and was intrigued with the concept of leaving people tips for web content. Well Tipjoy has finally expanded into Twitter.  After you link your Tipjoy and Twitter accounts, tweeting the following: p @kestrachern $1 because Tipjoy will match payments for Charity!  would send $1 from your tipjoy account to @kestrachern.  Best part is that Tipjoy and Betaworks (their investors) will match up to $10K of donations to Charity:Water through Twitter payments.  Tipjoy was started by Abby & Ivan Kirigin as a way to make it easy for people to leave tips for things they love online, and easy for content owners to be rewarded for making the stuff people love. And now it can be easily done via Twitter! If you don't yet have a Twitter account (Srsly?), you can also try the original non-Twitter enhanced version:

The WordPress iPhone app is a great way to keep your blog up to date when you are on the go. The first time you run the app you will need to add your blogs.  A very straight-forward process needing only URL, username, and password.   One caveat is that for self hosted blogs XML-RPC remote publishing is enabled.  That is a simple as checking a box in the "Writing" section of the Settings tab on your blog. Once all your blogs are set up you then choose the one you want to explore from a list on the app's home screen From there you get the choice to view or edit existing posts or create a new post.  When creating a new post keep in mind that you are working in an HTML format not WYSIWYG editor.  You do have the option to preview the post and in your blogs theme, which does help make up for the present lack of a  WYSIWYG editor.  You can add photos either from your iPhone's photo library or taking a new one.  The photos already included are displayed via thumbnail at the top of the screen.   I really like the app overall and it does help me when I get ...

Ask Urbanspoon the question “Where do we eat?" and give your iPhone a shake watch the reels spin and soon you have a destination in hand.  Need to be cautious about how much you are spending or want to try a new Thai restaurant, lock one or a combination of the three reels and shake shake shake. Urbanspoon works with the GPS location feature on your iPhone to give you a list of restaurants nearby your location.  To find a restaurant you can either shake the iPhone, browse though a list of local eateries, or review a list of places you have already visited Urbanspoon brings up location, phone number, and any user added information.  You can even add the restaurant to a wishlist to hit at a later time. You can add reviews and other information like photos and menus about the places where you’ve eaten.   I like the fun amusing way that the Urbanspoon iPhone app takes the drudgery out of finding a place for dinner.  Now all I need are more people to join me on culinary explorations, when your ready  find me as kestrachern on Urbanspoon.

Lightsaber Unleashed - It all started a long time ago in an the mind of a developer (probably) far far away from where you are now.. the Lightsaber iPhone app was born.  It was enjoyed immensely by the fans. Lucasfilms stepped in and asked that the app be taken down. Cries went up from the masses. And it came back, as Lightsaber Unleashed. More options more sounds more fun, more advertising. Well yeah. Lucasfilms did a beautiful job in remaking the application. You now have choices in the color and type of lightsaber.  You choose from preconstructed models by clicking on Darth Vader portrait to bring up the menu of options with a click on the empty portrait to design your own. Music can be turned on and off and there are two different "activation modes" for the lightsaber, one with the full lightsaber started by clicking almost anywhere on the screen and the other a zoomed in cross section of a lightsaber.  Sounds and light flashes are activated by the accelerometers in your iPhone. Lightsaber Unleashed is probably the most fun app I have for my iPhone. As you never know when you will need to defend or accost the Old Republic.

Zhiing is a new application that allows you to easily send directions to your location to anyone who has a mobile phone. Although an app is available for the iPhone, Blackberry, and Nokia N series, I have only experimented with the iPhone version of the app. You are also able to send Zhiing's to any mobile device as long as it accepts SMS messages. What is a Zhiing? When you open the application your top choice is to send a Zhiing to another person. Clicking on that link reads in your location from the GPS and gets it ready to send to your choice of recipients. Click on the address book, make your selection, then add a brief message and hit send. Off it goes. The recipient gets the message in their Zhiing inbox as well as an SMS notifying them of the incoming Zhiing. Clicking on the incoming Zhiing automatically maps from your location to the location where the Zhiing was created. Instant directions... and each recipient receives personalized directions at that. Now there is also the SMS direction function, but I have not been able to test that out as of yet..   ...