Ever since Gizmodo broke the news about that iPhone 4G that was left in a bar, it seems everyone wants to know more about the next generation Jesus Phone from Apple. But at what price?

How does free grab you? Well that’s the promise that’s been spotted by security experts Sophos appearing in both Twitter and email-based spam scams. An email is doing the rounds which offers the (un)lucky recipients the opportunity to test and ultimately keep an iPhone 4G. This despite the fact that it has yet to be released, and Apple has yet to officially say anything about it other than ‘give us our prototype back’ either. The scam, of course, being that anyone wanting to sign up for the free testing deal has to hand over personal information in order to do so and the spam is really just a clever phishing exercise.

The Twitter scam is equally sinister, using the accounts of apparently sexy young women to offer free iPhone 4G handsets for users who click on a promotional link. A link that, of course, takes them to a personal data harvesting website.

As Graham Cluley of Sophos says “some internet users might blindly hand over their personal information in the belief that they will get a preview version of what will be one of 2010’s hottest gadgets”. I’d take issue with that statement, in that there is no ‘might’ about it and some users will, for sure, do just that. Be it as a result of living in a freebie society where people happily expect to get something for nothing, or maybe it’s the effect of junk food on the brain, but there are certainly plenty of people who will fall for this scam.

While I don’t imagine for a minute that the average IT Pro reader falls into this bracket, it might be worth letting your friends and family know that the price of an iPhone 4G right now is just too high to be worth risking that mouse click upon.

There’s a joke going around technology media circles at the moment: a Microsoft employee dropped a Kin prototype phone in a Californian bar, nobody noticed. It has a certain resonance, not least because Microsoft would quite likely happily kill for the sort of publicity being generated for Apple by the iPhone 4G dropped in a bar story currently on every newswire but which started over at Gizmodo.

While Apple has now apparently asked tech site Gizmodo, which supposedly purchased the prototype iPhone 4G from an individual who ‘found’ it in a bar, to give it’s phone back. Of course, Gizmodo is likely to be more than happy to oblige no matter how much it paid for the phone. Even if it paid $10,000 which is at the upper end of the guessing game scale (most sources suggest $5000 is nearer the mark) the site will have seen a huge return on investment in terms of the on-site advertising revenue on those pages breaking the news but also the longer term impact of the reputational kudos. The only spoiler has been some lingering doubt, much of it spread by other sites which one has to assume are jealous at not getting the thing themselves, over the provenance on the device. Some are claiming it is just another fake, one more hoax in the long history of iPhone development misdirection. If Apple want it back, and according to Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell it most certainly does, then it must be the real thing, no?

Meanwhile, Microsoft can only dream of the kind of media hysteria that has been unleashed over the last week as a result of that dropped prototype. The best it has managed so far, in relation to the badly named Kin phone (as in who would want that Kin Microsoft phone, speak it out loud for the full effect) has been some rather lame controversy concerning a promotional video showing some bloke taking photos of his man-boobs to share with the world. It encourages sexting, cry the usual suspects, and if it were a woman doing the up-blouse videoing then everyone would be up in arms about it. Of course, it wasn’t a woman, so nobody really cares that much. A bit like the Kin itself. No joke.

You might think that, given the sheer number of business applications available for the iPhone, the answer is a resounding yes. However, it does rather depend, of course on how you approach the question in the first place. If you enter the question arena from the door marked security then things take on an altogether different light. I have lost count of the number of security consultants who have been warning that one of the biggest dangers facing the average enterprise in terms of data loss and security impact potential is that posed by the rise of the smartphone.

Take the recent survey conducted by endpoint data leak prevention outfit DeviceLock, which took over seven months to compile. It asked whether more than a 1000 businesses had taken any steps to secure themselves against the security threat of iPhone usage. Less than 40 percent could confirm that they had, with an alarming number of people admitting that any iPhone threat is treated most definitely as a back burner security issue right now. In Western Europe and North America things were even worse, with 75 percent currently ignoring the iPhone security threat. Compare and contrast with Eastern Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific businesses where close to 60 percent had taken action already.

“While this website-administered poll has inherent limitations, the results do suggest that the iPhone threat to data security is being generally underestimated” said Ashot Oganesyan, DeviceLock CTO and Founder, who concludes “the variation in how the well-developed IT markets of the West view the iPhone threat versus the emerging IT markets of the East may be because Enterprise IT planners in the West are relying on the already-entrenched vendors, such as RIM and Microsoft, to ‘have their backs’ and not introduce such a device without the necessary security hooks in place for device-related policy enforcement and encryption”.

Whatever, history shows us that the most effective enterprise strategy for dealing with any mobile media is simply to establish clear policies with regard to these new devices and enforce those policies using whatever tools are available to them. It ain’t rocket science, but without it I fear that the continuing use of iPhones (and other smartphone devices) within the enterprise could quickly see iPhone security become a stellar security problem.

File under ‘Stupid Decisions of the 21st Century’ as Microsoft confirms that there will be no cut and paste function in Windows Phone 7 series.

According to a question and answer session at the MIX10 Microsoft Developers Conference during which Microsoft stated that clipboard operations would not be supported in Windows Phone 7 Series, thatwould appear to be the case.

Now you may be thinking, no big deal as it took Apple years to get cut and paste onto the iPhone. But wait a minute, this is different isn’t it? This is Microsoft we are talking about, a company whose Windows Mobile software has included cut and paste forever. Heck, it’s an integral part of how people who have a Windows Mobile powered handset work.

Work being the operative word, on so many levels. If Windows Phone 7 Series is to be aimed at the work market, then surely cut and paste is somewhat vital to get quite a lot of work tasks completed? Not according to Microsoft which has apparently said that most Office users don’t need clipboard functionality.

Ah, right.

Just one more reason why Windows Phone 7 Series devices will remain on my do not touch with a very long barge pole list then…

So a press release lands on my virtual desk this morning, informing me that I have ’so much freedom’ in my pocket and extolling the virtues of sharing the mobile 3G Internet. There is just one thing wrong with this enthusiastic release for a 3G router so I can share my mobile broadband connection around between friends, family and colleagues - and that’s the real world.

“The new Wireless Mobile Router 300N X2 enables the user to easily share wireless mobile 3G internet at any location such as a hotel, conference room, café or camping site” the email from the PR begins, and the release itself continues with such classic lines as “ideal for mobile users, who want to share mobile 3G internet with multiple users at any location”.

I particularly liked the optimism shown by Sitecom, whose product this is bigging up, when talking in terms of sharing ones “3G internet subscription with colleagues in a conference room or on a business trip, with fellow students at school or with family on the camping site”.

Have these people never actually bought a mobile phone, or indeed a 3G mobile broadband access dongle and used it for Internet related stuff? Have they never looked at the terms of the contract? Or do they live in some fantasy world where the words ‘usage cap’ and ‘monthly data limits’ have not been invented perhaps? Accessing the Internet courtesy of your mobile device is great, but exceed the monthly limit and you’ll find yourself either dumped into the world of no access (or at least no vaguely usable access) or the world of the ‘now the network provider can charge you at the truly exorbitant per Mb rate’ which is even worse.

I am fortunate in that pretty much everywhere I go my 3G connection is rubbish, meaning that I can stay within my monthly data cap. That said, when armed with a netbook and a 3G dongle in an area of decent reception and given a day with nothing better to do I am like most nerds in that I can do some serious damage to it by way of streaming video and some monster downloading sessions or perhaps a bit of chatting via Skype even.

Look, I am willing to admit that this mobile router looks impressive on paper: “two Internal High Performance Antennas to strengthen the range of the wireless network” which “reduce dead spots and guarantee expanded coverage at any location” and comes complete with 802.11n and WPA2 support via a one-button setup system.

But, and it’s a huge J-Lo booty sized but, why would anyone in their right mind want to share their 3G Internet access with anyone? Seriously, if you are on a camping trip with me bring your own Internet enabled mobile device. Honestly, if we are at a conference and your mobile phone won;t connect to the Internet well tough, should have bought a better mobile phone. And as for fellow students at school, gee whizz, if ever there’s a case for a stupid argument in a press release getting some kind of award then that has to be it.

Here’s the bottom line: buy your own 3G dongle, buy your own 3G mobile phone, use a WiFi hotspot.

So, to conclude, nice looking bit of kit which falls squarely into the for use by millionaires, tech philanthropists and idiots only.

OK, I admit that it doesn’t have quite the same immediate appeal as a fat man eating more sausage rolls in a minute than I could manage in a month, or a bunch of lithe students squeezing into a very small car. However, as record breakers go it’s still a pretty interesting one if you are a network tech professional.

Huawei informs me that it has set a new data record for a downlink dual carrier test for Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution (EDGE) of 564Kb/s. To put that in some kind of sausage roll eating perspective, 564Kb/s is twice as fast as existing EDGE networks and could mean that 2G users could soon see 3G services such as live video over their GSM networks.

The Huawei EDGE+ technology has, I am informed, been able to lower network latency at the same time as increasing data rates and delivering improved quality of service. What does that mean? well, it means that it becomes possible for mobile phones to receive real-time streaming media from the Internet with lower latency. Nice. The fact that network operators are able to migrate from EDGE to EDGE+ by way of relatively straightforward, and therefore very cost effective, software updates is also worthy of note. What does that mean? Well, that means the costs to the user are unlikely to be prohibitive. Nicer!

There’s no mention of how networks will cope with the increased demand that such services would bring, of course. I suspect not very well if the built-for-purpose ones such as the O2 3G network can fail so spectacularly with delivering iPhone data traffic for example.

Huawei spokesperson He Gang says “this milestone demonstrates Huawei’s continued commitment towards driving GSM evolution, the world’s most widely deployed technical standard with the largest mobile subscriber base. Huawei’s advanced EDGE+ technology enhances flexibility for operators building their 3G networks and provides a seamless high-speed data service experience”.

We have already been looking forward to the Nexus Two here at IT Pro, but it seems that the Nexus One hasn’t actually done as well as the Google publicity machine would have us believe.

Despite all the hype and the almost Apple-alike media circus that followed the launch of the Nexus One, sales have not exactly set the world on fire. As Vodafone reports that it delivered an impressive 50,000 iPhones to customers on the first day of sale here in the UK, so we can reveal that market analysts are claiming Google could only shift an estimated 20,000 Nexus One units in the first week.

OK, I appreciate that this is not apples and apples being compared here, if you’ll excuses the pun, but the argumental swing is surely in favour of Google on this occasion. After all, the iPhone is nothing new, and has been available in the UK for an absolute age. All that is new here is that someone other than O2 is selling it. For Vodafone to shift 50,000 units into an already pretty well saturated market in just 24 hours is nothing short of miraculous.

For Google, on the other hand, to launch what was widely expected to be an iPhone killer into an eager market of early tech adopters keen to get their hands on the first ever real Google phone and then only shift 20,000 units in a whole week is dire. In fact it is more than dire, it is a bloody big FAIL.

Flurry, the market analyst making the sales figure claims on the back of monitoring Android app usage, blames a lack of true wow factor as well as the distribution/marketing model. “Google chose to market and sell the device to consumers directly through its own website” Flurry explains, concluding “while this distribution strategy is among the most innovative facets of the Nexus One launch, and a threat to carrier control of the consumer relationship, a series of customer service and other mistakes reveal Google’s lack of retail experience”.

Google has yet to confirm or deny the sales figures.

We’ve had the battle of the apps and now it’s the battle of the handset. But after all the hype, it has not been the greatest start for Google and the Nexus One phone - maybe we should be looking forward to the Nexus Two and all that might bring with it?

After all there has been the family of the late author Philip K. Dick apparently talking about suing Goggle for intellectual property infringement over the use of the name Nexus. Dick wrote the book ‘Do Androids’s Dream of Electric Sheep’ upon which the film Bladerunner was based, Any self-respecting geek will know that the replicants in the novel are Nexus 6 model androids. What with the Google Android OS and all, the link seems somewhat coincidental despite claiming it was used in the generic and original sense of the place where things converge. I doubt that Google will have much trouble in making any legal action go away, to be honest. However, it may have more trouble making some of the bad feeling of early adopters vanish.

It would appear that Google is learning the hard way that there is quite a difference between being a new media giant and a mobile phone supplier. Reports are coming in of forums being flooded with unhappy customers looking for support, and unfortunately often finding it. Unlike mobile operators which are well geared up to dealing with customer complaints and queries, Google is discovering that it just doesn’t have the kind of support setup that is required when selling this kind of hardware direct to the public. People are, it seems, unhappy about the email only support especially when it can take between one and two days to reply. People are also unhappy about the confusion over support when they approach their mobile network operator or the handset manufacturer, HTC, which seem to be playing a game of support switcheroo - referring customers to each other for help which isn’t forthcoming.

But some Americans are now getting a little hot under the unhappy collar because it has been rumoured that the European version of the Nexus One will be getting the multitouch support that has been much requested, and much moaned about in its absence. A reviewer in Germany is said to have been given a review model with just such support, in the form of iPhone-alike pinch-zooming, and even though this has been denied by Google on one Google Mobile help page it does point towards what we can expect to see in the Nexus Two.

Indeed, the Next Generation Nexus could also look to take on more than the iPhone if some reports are to be believed. Techwhack suggests that the Nexus Two could be aimed at taking on the Blackberry market by being enterprise ready and even come complete with a physical keyboard to replace the rather criticised virtual version found on the Nexus One.

Whatever shape and form the Nexus Two does take, I would suggest it needs to be a significant step up and offer something much more innovative that the Nexus One which has, to be honest, turned out to be just another Android from HTC albeit one carrying a Google logo on the back. Think of this as being just the first step towards speeding up Android hardware adoption, getting the Google branding out there in the mobile handset market. The Nexus One is no iPhone killer in any shape or form, but given the success in terms of both sales and media coverage I imagine that the Nexus Two and Nexus Three will arrive in fairly quick succession and Google will, as always, learn from its mistakes.

The big question is, of course, what would you like to see in terms of truly innovative functionality for the Nexus Two that might encourage you to actually buy one.

Usually the kind of crystal ball rubbing industry predictions that start arriving at this time of year are fairly upbeat affairs. Not so when it comes to the batch announced at the telecoms and media Industry Outlook event in London which, to be honest, were pretty depressing on the whole.

Heck, you know it’s not going to be a fun ride when the press release includes in the strap line “2010: a year of slow recovery” and mentions “cost control” in the same breath.

The organisers of the annual Industry Outlook event, Informa Telecom & Media, and specifically the Chief Research Officer Mark Newman who, speaking at the event, insisted that it had “selected the most compelling and critical predictions from across all our research areas”. Mark if these are the most compelling then I recommend anyone working in these sectors put up the barricades, make sure they have enough tins of baked beans to last a year, and take 2010 off.

If you are feeling just a little too happy for a freezing cold, grey and dismally wet Sunday lunchtime, read on and prepare to be brought back down to a suitably depressing level.

Let’s start with: Mobile LTE commercial launches will slip to 2013/2014 but LTE’s role as a provider of rural broadband connectivity will gain momentum. Apparently, 2010 will be a “year of further LTE trials” but “progress towards commercial services is likely to be slow”.

Or how about: Operator app stores will struggle to compete with handset-manufacturer initiatives. Informa predicts that operators will be “unable in most cases to compete with Apple and other vendors in global reach, brand coolness and agility”.

This one is a bundle of joy as well: Mobile operators will make small steps towards a de facto functional separation in order to position themselves to address the demand for 3rd party connected devices and applications. The use of the words ’small steps’ in a prediction is always a giveaway that things are not good, as they are often used in place of phrases such as ‘going down the pan’ or ‘missing the boat’ in my experience. Informa says that unless operators “give full autonomy to wholesale units, we believe they will be too slow to succeed in shifting internal mindsets”.

I also liked: Fixed broadband operators will experiment with new business models in a bid to end the “arms race” of increasing speeds and declining prices. As Informa notes, operators have to address the need to grow revenues in saturated markets, pointing out that a major effect of declining prices and increasing bandwidth has been “the emergence of mass markets for the consumption of on-line video and music, which other players are now better placed to profit from”.

There was some good news in the predictions though, such as the continued importance of widgets in harnessing the power of the mobile web, open Internet apps being embraced by IPTV operators and an extension of coverage and reduction of costs through network sharing and outsourcing being on the cards.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and cheer myself up by reading some Kafka while listening to Radiohead…

It was inevitable that the iPhone would eventually fall victim to the bad guys, and that inevitability has been realised as users of Jailbroken iPhones are starting to report being infected with an iRickRolling worm.

The ‘ikee’ worm was first spotted over the weekend in Australia, with users posting to online forums that their Jailbroken 3GS iPhones had changed from the default wallpaper to pictures of 80’s pop singer Rick Astley, he of ‘Never Gonna give You Up’ fame and the very same man who was the focus of the RickRolling Internet meme that started in 2007 and spread like wildfire during 2008.

One iPhone user reported that the wallpaper was actually accompanied by the text: “ikee is never going to give you up”.

Although there are, as of yet, no confirmed reports of the worm spreading outside of Australia, security researchers are sure it is perfectly capable of spreading to any Jailbroken iPhone as long as the default password has not been changed after installing SSH to the device.

Graham Cluley of Sophos says “Once in place, the worm appears to attempt to find other iPhones on the mobile phone network that are similarly vulnerable, and installs itself again”.

Unfortunately, analysis by researchers at Sophos Labs would suggest that there at least four variants of the worm code so far, the latest looking to hide behind a filepath which might suggest it is connected to the Cydia application.

Nothing about the worm suggests it has been written with malice in mind, and comments in the worm code itself tend to support this, and the whole Rick Astley thing is annoying rather than malicious. However, it must not be forgotten that this worm is accessing a device without permission and changing data upon it without permission, and breaking the law in many countries as a result.

It should also not be forgotten that as code variants continue to appear it is only a matter of time, and probably not that much of it, before a malicious party uses it to deliver a payload that is a whole lot more troublesome than Rick Astley.

There is no danger to iPhone users who have not Jailbroken their devices, nor to those who have changed the password from the SSH default of Alpine.