Symbian aims downmarket with smart phone software
Symbian puts renewed emphasis on security with low-cost phones

By Peter Sayer, IDG News Service
February 02, 2005

Symbian is taking its operating software for smart phones downmarket with a new focus on high-volume, low-cost phones for the mass market, and a renewed emphasis on security, it said Wednesday.

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The new software could appear in phones in the second half of this year, and will help manufacturers lower costs and bring new models to market quicker in a number of ways, Symbian said. Intel (Profile, Products, Articles) is building reference hardware designs specially for the new software, which will simplify phone manufacturers' work, according to Symbian. In addition, manufacturers will be able to squeeze extra battery life and multimedia performance out of their designs with no change in hardware, Symbian said, thanks to the design of the software and a new compiler from Arm, the developer of the StrongArm chips on which Symbian OS runs.

Version 9 of Symbian OS can help improve security by preventing applications from sending text messages, making calls or accessing personal information on the phone unless specific permission has been granted. However, the details of the implementation are left up to the phone manufacturer, which may choose to request the permission via an on-screen dialog with the user, or simply hide the dialog and grant it automatically, according to Symbian's Vice President of Product Management, Morton Grauballe.

Earlier versions of Symbian software used such security dialogs to prevent the installation of rogue applications -- but the permissions system is no defense against users who will agree to any security question they are asked when installing software of doubtful origin, Grauballe said.

Symbian's image has been tarnished of late by reports of Trojan horse applications such as Gavno which, if installed on a phone running Symbian software, could stop it from functioning. This malware did not exploit any security flaws in Symbian OS, but instead relied on misleading users into agreeing to the installation, the company said.

The company has another strategy to combat the problem of users not paying attention: its Symbian Signed program. This aims to encourage users only to install software that has been digitally signed by an authorized application developer.

Among the other new features in Symbian OS version 9 is support for Bluetooth stereo cordless headphones, and the addition of audio mixing and playback functions -- all of which should appeal to music fans -- as well as the latest copy prevention systems for commercial music files, which should appease the record labels.

The software also gives network operators or employers more remote control over phones running the software. The previous version of Symbian OS introduced over-the-air control of device settings. The new version adds support for other management functions, including the ability to remotely examine which applications are running on it and how they are configured, and even to install new applications, Grauballe said. A digital certificate stored in the phone is first used to authenticate the identity of anyone seeking remote access, then the user is asked whether they wish to grant permission to the remote visitor to enter, he said.

For business users, the new software also offers improved e-mail capabilities, such as the ability to accept meeting invitations sent by colleagues using applications such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) Outlook. Version 9 also adds support for Java Community Process standards for personal information management, the company said.

12:39:48 PM    

Slate on the State of the Disunion

S.S.  S.O.S.  B.S.
By Eric Umansky
Posted Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005, at 12:42 AM PT

Everybody leads with the State of the Union, during which President Bush offered a few details on his plan for partially privatizing Social Security: Starting in 2009, most workers 55 or younger should be able to put up to a third of their payroll tax into government-controlled market accounts. Those older than 55 wouldn't see any changes. People who opt into the proposed plan would have their defined benefits trimmed in some still-undefined way.

The president also seemed to acknowledge—as a White House official said in a background briefing earlier in the day—that partial privatization won't do anything to shore up Social Security, so some of sort additional cuts will be needed. Bush said he's open to suggestions—except for raising taxes in any way. (He also said, inaccurately, that Social Security is projected to be in "bankrupt" in 2042.)  

Slate's Mickey Kaus sees Bush's untangling of privatization from the funding shortfall as a way for the president to cover his tush should the privatization plan get pummeled. Kaus isn't the only one. "Oh my god," one GOP politico told the Los Angeles Times. "Politically, the White House has made a lot of Republicans walk the plank on this. Now it sounds like they are sawing off the board.'

The New York Times' Page One Social Security piece takes some serious swings, past the jump: "The president did not address the cost to the government of paying full benefits to retirees for decades while tax money was being diverted into private accounts. Nor did he say how much this would increase the annual budget deficit. There was no mention of what would happen to workers who become disabled, or the minor children of workers who die. No one in the administration mentioned how workers who retired when the market was in a slump would be protected financially." And that's just a partial excerpt.

The Wall Street Journal does a "lessons learned" from the roughly 20 countries that have partially privatized their state pension systems. One: Don't give workers too many choices; they'll screw it up. Another: Going private can add lot of debt, helping to explode the economy. (See Argentina and Bolivia.)

Bush also proposed a big increase in aid to Palestinians, to $350 million. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas announced they're going to hang for a summit in Egypt next week.

The Washington Post fronts, and others stuff, GOP leaders' interestingly timed sacking of the chair of the ethics committee after he showed some independence and went ahead with rebukes of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Two other Republicans were also appointed to the committee, both of whom have contributed to DeLay's defense fund.

The NYT's Dexter Filkins says on Page One that with Iraq's Sunni turnout appearing to be "quite low," as one "western diplomat" put it, they still might try to participate in politics, namely by killing the constitution. Under current rules, that happens if any three provinces vote against it. And Sunnis are a majority in three provinces. (A report from the well-regarded non-profit folks at IWPR quotes one Sunni leader saying, "We are part of Iraq, so we have the right to reject" the constitution.) The WP has a different angle: "SUNNI CLERICS OFFER THEIR COOPERATION."

According to early morning reports, 12 Iraqi soldiers were killed near Kirkuk.

The NYT notes that in January the Marines (just barely) missed their monthly recruiting goal, the first time that's happened in a decade.

The WP says inside about 700,000 Iraqis have fled to Syria since the war began.

Back to SOTU ... A number of the papers solidly compare and contrast the president's talking points with reality, especially on Social Security. The LAT's piece is particularly good. But the most unvarnished fact-checking by the papers, not surprisingly, isn't actually in any of them. Post associate editor Robert Kaiser was asked in a Web chat, "Anything [the president] said strike you as objectively untrue?" He responded, in part:

Yes. Bush often describes a world whose features are all highly debatable, if not simply invented. He proposes "a comprehensive health care agenda" that will leave perhaps 50 million Americans without health insurance. Is that comprehensive in any meaningful sense? He promises big economic benefits from legal changes, "tort reform," that independent economists say cannot have more than a small economic effect even if enacted, which is not likely. [And] he promises to increase the size of Pell Grants, not noting that they have shrunk far below the level he promised when he came into the White House.

Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@hotmail.com .

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