If you’re having problems with dropped calls on your new 3G Apple iPhone, you’re not alone.

From New York to Stockholm, 3G iPhone owners are complaining loudly about connection failures - sometimes repeatedly - during calls.

The problem typically occurs when the device attempts to move from 3G to another network.

According to people familiar with the matter, the culprit appears to be the 3G chipset provided by Infineon Technologies, a German chipmaker. Sources declined to be identified because they are not authorized to talk about the problem publicly.

According to these sources, AT&T and Apple are working on a software fix. The fix, which will be available remotely via iTunes, could be ready as early as next week, they said.

Infineon “chipsets” - a group of chips designed to work together - allow the iPhone to jump from one network to another. The handoff is supposed to be seamless.

The dropped-call problem is global, says Roger Entner, senior vice president at Nielsen IAG.

“Apple has had the same problem in every market where the (3G) iPhone is sold,” he says.

Translation: AT&T’s 3G network isn’t to blame.

“It’s probably the device,” Entner says.

The iPhone is sold in more than 20 countries, including Italy, France and Finland. New markets are added constantly.

Apple declined to comment.

Infineon did not respond to e-mail and phone inquiries seeking comment.

AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel declined to say whether the chipset was a problem, saying only that the 3G device “overall is working great.”

Siegel says AT&T, as a matter of routine, urges iPhone users to sync often to ensure that they have the latest software.

Francis Sideco, a senior wireless chip analyst at semiconductor researcher iSuppli, says the problem could be in the Infineon chip or it could be something else.

Given the complexity of the iPhone - it’s basically a miniature computer - the possibilities are endless. “It could be something as simple as a solder joint,” he says.

Cellphones use many components to turn a person’s voice into a digital computer signal and transmit it over a network.

These components are typically manufactured by different suppliers, then cobbled together on a circuit board in a factory.

Chipsets are usually subjected to rigorous testing prior to shipping. But Sideco says chips can get damaged in the manufacturing process or in transit.

The good news, he says, is that big carriers such as AT&T have testing equipment that can identify dropped calls and pinpoint the manufacturer of the failed part.

The bad news: If a simple software fix isn’t feasible, Apple could be forced to issue a worldwide recall. Such a step would be costly and time-consuming.

It would also leave Apple, inevitably, with a prominent black eye, Entner says.

That said, Entner doesn’t think it will come to that.

“In all likelihood, they won’t have to do a product recall,” he says, adding, “It depends how big the problem is.” -USAToday

A spokesman for Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s German parent, declined to comment on the launch date for the device which is made by mobile phone maker HTC.

According to a report in the New York Times, the phone will hit the stores in the United States before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.

The new device will have a touch screen like the iPhone and other smartphones that use software from firms like Palm, Microsoft and Nokia to allow users to access the Internet.

But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard, the New York Times report said.

T-Mobile is the number four operator in the United States as well as number one in Germany, Europe’s biggest market. It is also present in Britain, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Poland.-AFP

I found Panda Security Malaysia in the exhibition of Microsoft Tech.Ed 2008.

Now I am using the Panda Internet Security 2008 with Mega Detection, thanks to Panda for the complimentary 1 year user license.

Although it takes up more RAM on my notebook, approximately 300 MB, I believe it has a very good firewall.

The Panda Internet Security 2009 that is currently in Beta 3 is expected to be released in September next month.

Currently, the Panda Internet Security 2008 for 3 PCs cost around RM260 while the Panda Anti Virus 2008(up to 3 PCs) cost around RM 140. Users purchasing the 2008 version will receive a free upgrade to the 2009 version when it is launch.

For those who don’t know, there is also a Panda protection for Linux Workstation that cost around RM 150.

More info- Panda Security Malaysia

P.s: It seems that you are unable to buy online on the Panda Malaysia website, few countries are also affected.

Do you see what I see?

Look like Low Yat is about to offer LowYat TV.

I believe this will be a video sharing site where users can post up videos.

A DNS check shows that it is hosted on the same server as Lowyat.net:

ns3.solurix.net
ns1.solurix.net [202.190.197.144]

Let’s see what it has to offer!!!

The nation of 49 million people was third in the medals table as of Tuesday night, with five golds. It also has six silvers and one bronze medal.

Park Tae-Hwan, dubbed “Marine Boy,” has become a national hero after winning the country its first-ever gold in swimming in the 400-metre freestyle on Sunday. He followed up Tuesday with a silver in the 200-metre freestyle.

Koreans follow the events at work, or during bus and subway journeys, on palm-sized TVs or mobile phones equipped with digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) systems.

JoongAng Ilbo newspaper recounted the case of Nam, a typical young office worker, who left her desk and locked herself in a washroom cubicle with her mobile phone Monday to watch Park compete in the heats.

She shouted with joy when he qualified — and realised she was not alone when similar shouts erupted from other cubicles.

South Korea, an IT powerhouse, has more than 14 million DMB terminals.

Samsung Electronics said handsets with DMB accounted for 33.5 percent of all its mobile sales last month, up from 23.1 percent in May.

“Thanks to the Olympic Games, the proportion of DMB phones is likely to rise further this month,” a spokesman told AFP.

Thousands of company employees also secretly watch the Games online, with fingers poised to click back to a work-related window when bosses appear.-AFP

On Friday, a Russian physicist demonstrated that the emergency fix to the basic Internet address system, known as the Domain Name System, is vulnerable and will almost certainly be exploited by criminals.

The flaw could allow Internet traffic to be secretly redirected so thieves could, for example, hijack a bank’s Web address and collect customer passwords.

In a posting on his blog, the physicist, Evgeniy Polyakov, wrote that he had fooled the software that serves as the Internet’s telephone book into returning an incorrect address in just 10 hours, using two standard desktop computers and a high-speed network link. Internet experts who reviewed the posting said the approach appeared to be effective.

The basic vulnerability of the network has become a heated controversy since Dan Kaminsky, a Seattle-based researcher at the security firm IOActive, quietly notified a number of companies that distribute Internet addressing software earlier this year.

On Wednesday, Mr. Kaminsky described the vulnerability to a packed room at a technical conference in Las Vegas. He said that it could affect not just the Web but also other services like e-mail.

The general risk of such a flaw had been known for some years within the insular Internet technical community. But in the last month security engineers have repeatedly stated that it is only a matter of time before financial organizations and others are attacked by computer criminals seeking to exploit the now-public flaw. One expert says this is happening now.

“We have already been seeing attacks in the wild for the past two weeks,” said Bill Woodcock, research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit technical organization. Some of the initial attacks focused on distributing malicious software, he said, and more recently there has been evidence of so-called phishing attacks aimed at stealing personal information.

It is now almost certain that there will be an escalating number of attacks, Mr. Woodcock said. Before the patch, which has now been distributed to more than three-quarters of the affected servers in the world, it would have taken as little as one second to insert false information into the address database. Now, even with the patch, attacks will be possible in a matter of minutes or hours, he said.

Mr. Polyakov carried out his attack using two fast computers, but the same attack could be carried out more quickly. There is now an intense debate over how to find a more permanent fix for the system’s weaknesses.

“We’ve bought some time,” said Paul Mockapetris, the software engineer who devised the original D.N.S. system and is now chairman of Nominum, a firm that makes a version of the D.N.S. software that is not vulnerable to the current flaw. Mr. Mockapetris described the patch that is now being put in place as the equivalent of “playing Russian roulette with a gun that has 100 bullet chambers instead of six.”

“The point,” he said, “should be to take the gun out of people’s hands.”

The root of the problem lies in the fact that the address system, which was invented in 1983, was not meant for services like electronic banking that require strict verification of identity.

“They are relying on infrastructure that was not intended to do what people assume it does,” said Clifford Neuman, director of the Center for Computer Systems Security at the University of Southern California. “What makes this so frustrating is that no one has been listening to what we have been saying for the past 17 years.”

A number of Internet security engineers point out that if a solution is found for the deeper problem of identity and authentication on the Internet, it will go a long way toward stopping many of the identity-related crimes that are now commonplace.

Some experts are proposing an encryption-based solution known as DNSSEC. It would give Web users high confidence that the Internet address they are being sent to is correct.

So far several governments, including Sweden and Puerto Rico, have adopted DNSSEC, and the United States government is likely to deploy the system for its .gov domain this year.

“DNSSEC is not an overnight solution for the Kaminsky problem, but it’s the right solution in the long run,” said Richard Lamb, a technical expert at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit organization that oversees Internet security and stability.

Others remain skeptical that the more secure approach is practical for the wider commercial Internet, because it requires more computing power and because it would be hard to get the whole world to adopt it.-NYT

One technical expert, Daniel J. Bernstein, a University of Illinois mathematician who has also developed a version of D.N.S. that does not suffer from the current flaw, said DNSSEC “offers a surprisingly low level of security, while at the same time introducing performance and reliability problems.”

A US intelligence office Friday warned Americans traveling to the Beijing Olympics or elsewhere to expect cyber spies to surreptitiously compromise their laptops, cellphones, and other electronic devices.

The unusual advisory issued by the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) did not single out China by name, but the head of the office did in a press release and a television interview.

“Somebody with a wireless device in China should expect it to be compromised while he’s there,” Joel Brenner, head of the NCIX, told CBS television.

Brenner said the Chinese public security services can activate a person’s cellphone or Blackberry when he or she thinks it is off, and use it as a microphone.

His suggestion is to remove the battery. Or better yet leave it at home.

“If you can do without the device, don’t take it,” his office’s advisory said.

A press release quotes Brenner as saying the security advice “applies to travel to virtually any overseas destination, from a Mediterranean beach to this month’s Olympic Games.”

The advisory said travelers should have no expectation of privacy in Internet cafes, hotels, offices or public places, adding that phone networks and hotel business centers are regularly monitored in many countries.

All information sent electronically — by fax, personal digital assistant, computer, or telephone — can be intercepted, the advisory said.

“Wireless devices are especially vulnerable,” it said.

Security services and criminals can then insert malicious software wirelessly, it warned.

“When you connect to your home server, the ‘malware” can migrate to your business, agency, or home system, can inventory your system, and send information back to the security service or potential malicious actor,” it said.

Malware can also be transferred through USB sticks and computer disks.

“Corporate and government officials are most at risk, but don’t assume you’re too insignificant to be targeted,” the advisory said.-AFP

I am in the process of getting my hands on the HP Mini-Note from HP Malaysia.

There will be a reveiw soon on this blog.

In the mean time……..

I am deciding between the Asus EEE PC 901 and the Asus EEE PC 1000H. Either one, I will be comparing it to the HP Mini-Note.

Stay Tuned!!

Yahoo has struck an agreement with LucidMedia in a move to enhance contextual display advertising on its Right Media Exchange, the companies announced Tuesday.

The arrangement comes as Yahoo and its competitors, which rely heavily on ad revenue, face a challenging environment as the economy softens and advertisers pull back. With the agreement, Yahoo is seeking to grab market share from Google and Microsoft.

Under the agreement, Yahoo’s Right Media will support buyers and sellers that use LucidMedia’s contextual advertising engine ClickSense. The arrangement will allow Right Media users to categorize their display advertising inventory, using targeted tags for any of Yahoo’s more than 60 vertical channels, such as automotive, finance, and sports.

“LucidMedia’s ClickSense technology will significantly help increase the prospective yield of a publisher’s available inventory and improve an advertiser’s ability to contextually target ads to relevant content and categories through the Right Media Exchange,” Bill Wise, Right Media general manager, said in a statement.

Contextual advertising has caught the attention of advertisers and, as a result, the companies that rely on advertisers for revenue. Microsoft, for example, is reportedly conducting a test to expand its AdCenter engine to allow small publishers to use contextual ads from the software giant. Google, meanwhile, operates AdSense.-CNET

Ars Technica cited an internal memo sent by Jobs to employees that acknowledged MobileMe had flaws and was released too soon. In the memo, Jobs said the launch of the service could have been handled better, the article said. He also acknowledged the service was “not up to Apple’s standards.” And he said the individual MobileMe services could have been launched slowly instead of all at once.

“It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” Jobs said in the e-mail, according to Ars Technica. “We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.”

MobileMe is the next evolution of Apple’s .Mac service. It’s essentially a cloud storage solution that allows subscribers to synchronize e-mail, calendars, contacts, photos, Safari bookmarks, Dashboard widgets, and more, among Macs, the iPhone, and the iPod Touch. It allows for 20GB of storage on Apple’s servers, and it even cooperates with Outlook on Windows computers. Because it is Web based, subscribers can access the online applications from any Web browser.

But from its launch on July 10, MobileMe had problems. Most notably subscribers had trouble accessing the site, and some even lost e-mail.

In a blog started by Apple to keep subscribers up to date on the status of MobileMe, the company acknowledged that some people lost 10 percent of their e-mail between July 16 and July 18 during the height of the outage.

That said, Apple asserts that only 1 percent of MobileMe users were affected by the e-mail issues, which were apparently caused by a “serious problem with one of our mail servers,” according to the Apple blog.

MobileMe subscribers also had problems accessing calendars and contact information, which was caused by a misjudgment in demand, according to the Apple blog.

In this most recent memo to employees, Jobs urged them to learn from the mistakes and move on.

“The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services,” Jobs was quoted as saying in the memo. “And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.”-CNET