Samsung will supply Vodafone Group with new mobile phones that use Qualcomm’s modem chips, Samsung said on Wednesday. The new phones will use high-speed downlink packet access technology that allows subscribers to use multimedia services such as Internet access and video sharing at higher speed and lower costs.

In a bid to curb rampant spam and growing fraud conducted over mobile services, China will require all mobile phone subscribers to register using their real names next year, the official Xinhua news agency said. Such registration has sparked protests from operators such as China Mobile and China Unicom who complain the shift will require a mountain of extra paperwork. Others say it will impose on individuals’ privacy. The move is aimed at curtailing a burgeoning tide of cell phone-related fraud and spam, most conducted over cell phones using text messaging, Xinhua quoted Wang Xudong, head of China’s Ministry of Information Industry, as saying.

Microsoft’s reporting a new and very nasty exploit. Patch your systems, update your antivirus, and be careful. This could be a nasty one. We’ll tell you more once we know more from Microsoft. Damn!

PCWorld has published their take on the 50 greatest gadgets of the past 50 years. They rated each gadget on its usefulness, design, degree of innovation, and influence on subsequent gadgets, as well as their “cool factor.”

David Beers has posted an interview with former PalmSource linux programmer Mary Fouts. In the article Marty talks about Linux as a mobile device OS and the challenges it faces as an embedded system, the GPL software development process and Linux development tools.

A virus masquerading as a new beta version of Microsoft’s MSN Messenger has begun circulating, antivirus company F-Secure said on its blog Tuesday. The virus, which F-Secure calls Virkel.F, comes as a file called BETA8WEBINSTALL.EXE that can be downloaded from a Web site. Running the program installs not a new MSN Messenger beta, but rather a virus that sends download links to a computer user’s MSN Messenger buddies. The virus falsely labels the link as “MSN Messenger 8 Working BETA.”

Imagine anti-virus software for handhelds that’s less than the size of a typical PowerPoint file, needs no yearly subscription, yet it can protect mobile phones, PDAs, iPods or any other smart devices from not only known viruses but also all future unknown viruses and other malware. It may sound too good to be true, but that’s a new anti-virus product, an Indian software company based in Madras called Sanrasoft claims to have developed, which will hit the U.S. markets in 2006. Sanrasoft, which announced last week a breakthrough anti-virus technology christened Rudra that right now is available only for Windows-based PCs, told UPI that a handheld version is already under development in its lab that will be launched in the United States a few months after Sanrasoft launches the PC version in April 2006.

Software has been developed that enables deaf people to have real-time text conversations using a mobile phone. But the charity that has created the service says some mobile operators have yet to fulfill a legal obligation to make their services accessible. The Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID) says only Vodafone has a relay service that uses the technology. Landline users can already make such calls using the Typetalk facility.

As mapping technologies proliferate on Web sites, in mobile devices, and inside automobiles, the work of modern cartographers is essential. Developers of map applications can then apply their own touches, such that directions offered by Yahoo between the same two points may differ from MapQuest’s, even though both use the same data from Navteq and its main competitor, Tele Atlas NV. No longer satisfied with driving directions, consumers are also demanding information on a neighborhood’s restaurants, public transportation options, and even real-time traffic conditions. People generate maps on mobile devices for hikes and errands, and they want maps for locations outside North America and Western Europe, too, where coverage can be spotty. All that translates into greater demand on Navteq and Tele Atlas to make their databases even more accurate and complete.

Several online merchants reported record sales during the holiday shopping season, including online retail giant Amazon.com, which said popular items were iPod music players, video games, coats and jewelry. Amazon said it had its best holiday sales season ever, with more than 108 million items ordered. The company’s holiday statistics cover the period from Nov. 1 through Dec. 21. The busiest day for the world’s largest online store was Monday, Dec. 12, when more than 3.6 million items were ordered, or 41 items per second. The most expensive item purchased during the period was a pair of diamond earrings worth $94,000.