Another malicious worm jumps on jailbroken iPhone

A latest detected worm targeted jailbroken iPhone can allow hackers to control the phone from remote terminal. The worm could plague the illegally modified (jailbroken) iPhone by spreading through the Wi-Fi network with iPhones sharing the same Wi-Fi spot. It is reported that the worm only affects jailbroken iPhone, because the user modifies the phone system to allow for unauthorized code execution.



Users jailbreak their iPhone in order to install some cool applications from third-party developers, applications that are usually not approved by Apple. Some immoral authors would sneak harmful codes or Trojans in the seemingly safe application to exploit the loopholes. Since the iPhone's security measures are disabled after jailbreak, the phone is very vulnerable to security breach in a circumstance that user may not be aware of.

Similar offenses have been revealed before. Ikee, which behavior is employed by this latest unnamed worm but not malicious, only changes the wallpaper on affected iPhone to a picture of 1980s pop star Rick Astley, who sang the 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up." The prediction over a new stronger morph of Ikee coming on heel is now completely proven. This morph comes with botnet functionality that will hand over the phone control to the hacker on the remote side beyond the user's consciousness.



Fortunately, the worm for the moment only knocks down iPhones that has SSH installed and default password "alpine" unchanged. Those who get infected are living in Netherlands and bank with ING Direct. But anti-virus experts voiced the possibility that this worm could spread to other regions.

The only safe solution is not to let your iPhone run unauthorized codes. With more hackers exploiting loopholes by taking advantage of unauthorized code, the future worms or Trojans on iPhone will become more and more difficult to detect and isolate. Experts suggest that user should upgrade their iPhone OS to date and not jailbreak their iPhone if they don't necessary need to.

2012, the near perfect art of disastrous cinematic creation

As of today, I have heard people talking much about the latest masterpiece of disastrous film, 2012. It represents the state-of-the-art cinematic technology to create real-world scenes out of digital works. As a fan of disastrous film, I couldn't help wait but catch a chance to see 2012 in theater yesterday. The visual effect is fabulous. The impact is so incredibly strong that you can almost believe the world would collapse like that in the film. I hereby strongly recommend you to see 2012. If you are a disastrous film fanatic, 2012 is an eye candy for you. If you are a curious fence-sitter, 2012 can immediately raise your interest in disaster ventures. If you are just a passer-by, 2012 can pull you into the thought of what would happen three years from now.

All in all, 2012 is catching eyeballs around the world for its near perfect cinematic creations. The film embraces quite a lot of disastrous mayhems: volcano eruption, earthquake, tsunami, meteor rain and hurricane. We can see how weak our grand civilization is when challenging natural forces. The city with million populations is broken into several pieces and sinks into the ocean. Powerful and formidable as it is, an aircraft carrier is subdued by a huge wave and perishes together with the White House. Himalayas, the highest mountain in the world is flooded by gigantic tsunami. All of these special effects are made come true by the advanced digital technology. They have reached an incredible level of reality compared to the old popular disastrous film Judgment Day and The Day After Tomorrow.

Though the earth in 2012 is heavily damaged, the one in reality has not yet. So don't be too immersed into the scenario the film depicted, neither ignorant of the problems we have had. The Mayan calendar ending in 2012 is not necessarily referred to the end of the world. In fact, the global warming, air pollution, forest destruction, heavy population and food shortage among many other problems are the most emergent ones we should begin to fix immediately. If we do not act to protect our earth now, it will very likely be destroyed by ourselves rather than the natural disasters.

Watch out - smoking might render your Applecare warranty invalid

A post from Consumerist suggests that smoking can not only harm your health but probably void your Applecare warranty. This curious incident rose as two Apple customers were declined to have their Mac machines repaired under their active warranty because of smoking tar found on their machines.

The two separate Apple customers were refused at Apple's care center when they were requesting repair for their damaged Mac machines. They were both told later the repair would not carry out because the machines were contaminated by hazardous substances, namely, smokings. As was explained by the stuff of Apple's care center, Apple deems repairing a contaminated machine is hazardous to its employee's health thus forbids it. The two customers were advised to repair their machines somewhere else at their own expense.

The two customers admitted smoking when using the machine but found no terms in Apple's warranty to block smokers from warranty coverage. They then wrote letters directly to Jobs's office to appeal the case but the act was in vain.

It is reasonable for Apple to safeguard the health of its employees by preventing them from working on hazardous machines and it seems Apple does a stiff carry out of this rule. Anyone who wants to avoid being in the same case would have to consider no smoking while using Apple's products, for example, iMac, Macbook, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, etc.

But it is not clearly known how it could be considered voiding the warranty by smoking. So watch out, smokers. If your Apple machine carries obvious residue of smoking, you will be very likely to go into big headache when your machine is out of work.

iPhone OS 3.0 sports high extensibility on hardware component

Lately, a physical scientist from NASA has announced success in creating and connecting an external chemical sensor to iPhone at OS ver 3.0. The sensor is a piece of chip circuit board at a size of a postal stamp. It is connected to iPhone via its 30-pin dock connector and communicates with a dedicated application run on iPhone OS 3.0. The sensor is said to be able to detect several chemicals such as ammonia, chlorine gas and methane.

iPhone has been adding up credits on its flexibility on software and hardware extensions. Besides over 20,000 game and entertainment apps available via Apple App Store, third-party software makers are flocking to contribute multifarious programs for this all-purpose handset. iPhone's superior multi-touch design, stylus-free 3.5" wide screen, optimal programming environment and easy extensibility are the stimulus for the creative and innovative ideas sparked towards it. We have seen people on the bus, in the street playing iPhone as a game device. We may be not surprised with the fact that iPhone's dear twin iPod is frequently favored by the U.S. Army as a field translator in local Iraq. But we may be interested in some odd occasion where iPhone is used. It is like English famous painter David Hockney who developed his inspirations drawing on his iPhone. And now it seems it will reduce the need to manufacture expensive chemical sensor devices and iPhone is just equally functional with just a compact chip plug-in.

We may now all bear the same question: where will iPhone go? Since it is so universally welcomed with ingenious design in its blood, I am sure it will collect more usability and become more like an infinite transformable device in the future.

Film review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

As the sixth sequel of Harry Potter films, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince seems like a transition rather than an intriguing promotion upon its predecessors to meet expectations.

Unlike the previous sequels, the plots of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince develop in quite a loose style, like a glass hitting the ground, which compromises the cohesion to the key plot, the relations between Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The story continues in this sixth sequel featuring the adolescent life of Harry Potter, Malfoy's undercover conspiracy, the memory about the early age of Tom Riddle (Voldemort) and Dumbledore's adventure to vanquish the devil, seemingly in no connection with the theme. It is not until the end of the film has Professor Snape declared his true identity as Half-Blood Prince, reminding the audience of the film title. This could really enrage fans of Harry Potter with such a perfunctory plot design. In fact, the sixth volume of Harry Potter series does need to shed more lights on the stories that are going to make sense for the finale in the seventh volume. So it turns out with fewer curiosities this time which can probably be regarded as the most ordinary sequel of all Harry Potter film so far.

However, we are still happy to see the grown up of the three magical youngsters in this sequel and tap into their love affairs at school. Despite the plotting, I think Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is still worth our time to sit back and watch.

For special watch on portable players like iPod/iPhone, Zune, PSP, I recommend you use Leawo Video Converter to customize the video to the best visual enjoyment.

Leawo Video Converter customize feature guide:

1. Audiovisual effect enhancement
2. Cut video segment
3. Remove video black margins
4. Add watermark
5. Capture video screenshot
6. Fine-tune video codec settings

iPod touch hits the game market hard and force Nintendo DS to find another way out

Originally being recognized as a long award-winning portable music player, iPod touch has now made its way into game player market where it will be in direct competition with Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. Nintendo has expressed concern on the future on its DS player if iPod touch would decide to attack its market share.

How has iPod touch become a game machine more than a music player? It has to say even the music player maker didn't know the direction they would ride in. They are somehow embarrassed by iPod being a gaming machine rather than proud of it, and they wished it was something else.

It is the similar design to iPhone that makes iPod touch completely capable to run all game titles on App Store after sync via iTunes. The hardware specification endows the latest model of iPod with excellent performance to run multifarious applications. People who have owned an iPod touch are benefited from the abundant game and entertainment titles numbered 21,179 on App Store, looking down at 3680 titles for the Nintendo DS and 607 for the Sony PSP. It can't deny the fact that people are happy with the prolificacy of the player maker.

Nintendo DS reached its peak in market share over the last two years by its innovative and interactive control design. Now it seems iPod touch along with iPhone is going to be threat which has cut DS's sales by half. Nintendo's CEO remarked Nintendo must work to stand out from devices like iPhone/iPod touch.

Leawo iPod Converter 2.1 refreshes with FLV to MP4 capability

Good news for iPod fans who would very much want to enjoy FLV videos on their iPods! Leawo iPod Converter, which is designed to convert all kinds of video formats to ensure 100% playback on iPod/iPod Touch, is now able to convert FLV videos. There has been a vacancy for FLV to iPod function in Leawo iPod Converter before ver 2.1. Now this recently released ver 2.1 has finally brought this long expected FLV to iPod conversion support. Ver 2.1 ensures consistent good output quality and 100% compatibility for video playback on iPod. With matured decoding and encoding technology, Leawo iPod Converter ver 2.1 can turn almost any videos to iPod MP4 formats easy and fast. Leawo Free iPod Converter ver 2.1 is also released as a free option for simple video playback demands.

Brief on what's new in Leawo iPod Converter ver 2.1.
1. Support FLV to iPod MP4 conversion.
2. Boost Xvid and H.264 conversion speed.
3. Renovated menu bar style.
4. More smooth and stable in conversion.

If you are new to Leawo iPod Converter, feel free to see its introduction on Leawo's website and product page, or download to have a trial.
For more information on Leawo release news, visit Leawo's official blog.