Nokia Lumia 920 pricing is higher than Galaxy S3: still worth to buy the Lumia?

According to the news from CNET, now we have known that Nokia has priced its new Lumia 920 smartphone up to 25 percent higher than strong competitor Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S3, giving a surprise to all of the consumers. Many analysts were expecting the new Nokia Lumia 920 to be priced somewhere below Samsung Galaxy S3, in order to catch the Competitor, such as Apple, Samsung.

Nokia unveiled the Lumia 920 few days ago, and will have a November release date. So far at least, the Nokia Lumia 920 might be the most interesting choice when it comes to picking up a soon-to-be-launched Windows Phone 8 device, beat the Samsung and HTC window 8 phone device.

A lot of people were confused that why the device is more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S3?  "Hardware-wise they are pretty similar, it would be hard for Nokia to justify that extra cost to consumers," said Ovum analyst Nick Dillon. Windows Phone is still largely an unknown to consumers - they would probably expect to pay less if they are taking a risk."

According to the report on Reuters, Swedish carriers will sell the new phone for a price estimated to be $860 per unit, excluding subsidies, as compared to the Samsung Galaxy S3, which goes for about $681, at one of the leading online phone stores in Europe. In Italy, the new Nokia Lumia will be trading at $770, while Samsung Galaxy S3 will trade at the same price as Sweden.

So here let’s try to give an answer to this problem by compared the two superphone, including the Specs and features comparison.  

Display (Screen): Nokia Lumia 920 is measured with a 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ display, resolution of 1,280x768 that boasts a much higher ppi and sharper colors, and weighs 185g. For Samsung, their Galaxy S3 device features a 4.8-inches Super AMOLED HD display. The resolution stands at 1,280x720, and weighs less at 133g.  Winner:  Nokia Lumia 920 

Processor, RAM: The processor in the Samsung Galaxy S3 is the quad core Exynos 1.4GHz Cortex A9 in the international version. In the US version this is the Snapdragon S4 dual core at 1.5GHz. This is around the same clock speed as the processor in the Nokia Lumia, 920 the Qualcomm MSM8960 dual core Snapdragon 1.5GHz Krait processor. 1GB RAM is there on both the models. Winner: Draw

Camera: The camera on Samsung Galaxy S3 is 8 megapixels, while Nokia is 8.7 megapixels. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has the edge in regards to the front camera at 1.9 megapixels, while the Lumia 920 has a 1.3 megapixel front camera. But with the PureView technology, the Lumia 920 rear camera performs better in low light shots. Winner: Nokia Lumia 920

Storage: The Samsung Galaxy S3 has support for SD card up to 64GB while the Nokia Lumia 920 lacks this option. Internally the S3 comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions while the Lumia 920 has just the 32GB option.  Winner: Samsung galaxy S3

Battery: The Lumia 920 has a 2000mAh battery and the Samsung Galaxy S3 a 2100mAh. The winner here is the S3 by a slight margin. But Nokia Lumia 920 uses wireless charging, which other smartphones have never used before.

Both of the devices have support for 2G and 3G and also 4G LTE, NFC.

Overall: 

By comparison, it seems the Lumia 920 offers more to the consumer. In fact, there are even news form CNET consider the Lumia 920 is better than the iPhone 5. May be that’s why Samsung galaxy S3 is cheaper than the Lumia 920. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2: a better human design with the S Pen

Apple on Monday just announced that iPhone 5 sales topped more than five million over its first weekend, hit a sell record compared to iPhone 4s, which have a four million opening weekend sales. But at least seen from now, it has no obvious effect on Samsung.

Samsung Galaxy S3 has sold more than 20 million already, and the Note 2 is attracting a lot of attention thanks to its better hardware and comes preloaded with Android Jelly Bean with new features. The most appealing feature of the Galaxy Note 2 is the addition of the S Pen. 

Compared to Galaxy Note, The new S Pen on Note 2 has been further improved. The new S Pen is slightly thicker and longer than the previous one. The Pen shape upgraded to an elongated cylindrical shape, thereby increasing the grip surface.

Another new feature is Air View.  It lets you hover the pen over the screen (without touching) to activate previews, such as looking inside an album in the picture gallery. The technology used with the S Pen allows it to be recognized even when it's a few millimeters away from the screen, That is to say you can browse the content without click the icon. For example, you can hover the pen over an email, and you'll get a preview of the first few lines.

With Easy Clip technology, It's also possible to draw around anything you see on the screen and cut it out to paste elsewhere. Simply pull out the pen and you'll be able to scribble stuff down in seconds.

Here is more information about Samsung Galaxy Note 2: 

• 5.5-inch Super AMOLED HD touchscreen display with 1280 x 720 resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio
• Size: 80 x 151.1 x 9.4mm thin – thinner than its predecessor
• Weight: 180 grams
• 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos processor
• 2GB of RAM
• 16/32/64GB on-board memory
• microSDHC support of up to 64GB of additional storage
• 8-megapixel rear-camera with Auto Focus, LED flash and HD video recording
• 2-megapixel front-facing camera
• HSPA+ support
• 4G LTE connectivity (in selected markets)
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Wi-Fi Direct
• USB 2.0 support
• A-GPS and Glonass support
• 3,100mAh removable battery with faster charging – bigger capacity than its predecessor
• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean on board out of the box with TouchWiz UI on top
• Colors: Marble White and Titanium Grey

The device is scheduled for launch in Germany September 27th and Italy on September 28th, and will be available in most European nations by the first week of October.

HTC Windows Phone 8X vs. Nokia Lumia 920: Camera and more

Within a month, Samsung and Nokia have released its flagship product of the new system WP 8.There is no doubt that the Windows phone 8 battle is heating up. On August 30, Samsung launched the world's first Windows Phone 8 device- ATIV S; then on September 5, Nokia released the Lumia 920, Lumia 820. Two weeks after Nokia unveiled the Lumia 920, HTC just announced its high-end HTC Windows Phone 8X ,which looks like the Lumia 920 and mid-market HTC WP 8S.

Thanks to Microsoft, Nokia didn’t have much success with its Lumia 900 even with all the hype it invested in promoting the phone, which can’t upgrade its windows phone 7.5 to Windows phone8. So maybe this is the last chance for Nokia to get its market share back.
Now HTC is the latest handset maker to commit to the Windows Phone 8 platform. Since then, there are a great competitor to Nokia, put threaten to its superphone. 

Now we compare the two head-on, HTC Windows Phone 8X vs. Nokia Lumia 920.

Camera Comparison in detail 

The HTC Windows Phone 8X, the next Microsoft superphone with a great front camera has the upper hand over Nokia's 1-megapixel contribution. Shutter lag is virtually nonexistent, and photo quality is very high. On the other hand, Nokia's 8.7-megapixel shooter could be great, with a PureView camera.  

Carrier and pricing

Right now, HTC has the benefit of enlisting carriers to help rally customers to the 8X. The phone has a price ($199.99) and not one but three carriers to help lead the charge: AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

But Nokia hasn't yet announced U.S. carriers, though there are plenty of rumors that point to an October or November Lumia 920 launch on AT&T. So Nokia should take care of this.

Totally, By compared these differences between HTC Windows phone 8x and Nokia Lumia 920, it's easy to know that the Nokia Lumia 920 is better than HTC 8X.

Which phone would you prefer? Leave your comments below.

Related articles:

• Nokia try to keep up with Samsung and Apple in the Smartphone market with Lumia 920

7 Google Chrome Extensions to Make You More Efficient

This summer, Google Chrome became the most popular web browser in the world; beats the Microsoft IE browser, according to StatCounter. 

Chrome’s success is largely due to its speed, security, and flexible address bar. Since September 2008, Chrome released more than 20 versions to improve their products, in order to obtain a good user experience and a good reputation effect. By contrast, Microsoft's spends five years to upgrade from IE6 to IE 7, thanks to the competition with Google now IE10 appears. 

In addition to these core strengths, Chrome's extension of the large cache is another great park. Be honest, sometimes we're not as efficient as we need to be at work. Then you may needs plenty of Chrome extensions to help you to be more focus on work, Here are a few of which I like best.

1.Rapportive:  When you enter an email address into Gmail, it will pull up the recipient's LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts in a sidebar, with recent tweets, photo, work history, and any past email correspondence between the two of you. It suit for people those who are in sales, business development, public relations or other fields.

2. Boomerang: This allows you to schedule emails to be sent at a later time or date. It is extremely useful when you are going to have a vacation. It also allows you to save template replies for quick messages later.  I know we've all sent the same information multiple times to that same person before.

3. Chrome to Mobile: Chrome to Mobile allows you to send webpages on your computer to your Chrome browser on other devices like tablets or smartphones. It’s an easy way to take information from your desktop or laptop and instantly transfer it to a mobile device. ther devices like tablets or smartphones. It’s an easy way to take information from your desktop or laptop and instantly transfer it to a mobile device. smartphones. It’s an easy way to take information from your desktop or laptop and instantly transfer it to a mobile device.

4. Explain and Send Screenshots: Pretty self-explanatory, but how cool is this?  You can take a screenshot and then edit it with text and color to get your point across.  You can also save it as a file or receive a URL to share on Social Media.

5. PanicButton:  It is a great app to have when you need to quickly hide all of your tabs. With one single click, a user can hide all open tabs, and with another click, restore all tabs.

To check out all the other extensions for Chrome, read "7 Chrome Extensions to Make You More Efficient".

In fact, Chrome Browser for Android Gets Security Boost, Patches, and Chrome browser develop rapid in iOS platform. So it seems a good idea for you to use the Chrome browser on your iPhone and other smartphone. 

If you have other Chrome Extensions to recommend, we are very happy if you leave them below.

6 apps you should not miss in the app store

There are new Apps updated every day in the app store, people feel tough to keep up with all the new apps release every week. Thanks to mashable, which take care of that for you, creating a roundup each weekend of our favorite new and updated apps.

Here is the new and updated apps earlier recommend to you.

1.  Better Homes and Gardens Launches ‘Paint Anything’ App

Paint is one of the easiest ways to refresh your home. This “How to Paint Anything” app is packed with 50+ step-by-step painting projects -- from accessories to wall art to furniture. These fun projects will bring do-it-yourself flair to your home decor. Learn how to revamp old dressers and cabinets with colorful paint, or how to turn plain dishware into something unique and fun, and even how to make plain curtains into custom window treatments. 
Plus, you’ll discover plenty of tips, advice, and videos on painting techniques, tools, and choosing colors. 

2.  BlackBerry Updates Facebook App to Support Birthday, Event Alerts

Facebook® for BlackBerry® smartphones makes it even easier to connect with friends and share your news while you’re on the go. Discover all the great ways Facebook works with your BlackBerry smartphone to help you stay connected and on top of your social life.
What’s new:
• Facebook Events and Birthdays Support
• Enhanced Calendar Integration for Birthdays 

3.  City Guides, Offline Maps

Android version  , iPhone version  
Apps can be great when it comes to traveling, but many require you to be connected to the web to really take advantage of them. Stay.com’s City Guide, Offline Maps offers travel suggestions for over 120 cities offline. Available for iOS and Android, when you are connected to the web the app also offers travel advice from other users and your friends, and has Facebook integration so you can connect with buddies about your travels.

4.  St. Louis Rans Fisher Stache

Android version , iPhone version

New Rams head coach Jeff Fisher doesn’t just bring 147 career wins, a Super Bowl XXXV appearance and a wealth of football knowledge with him to St. Louis: He also brings along an epic moustache. Available for iOS and Android, the Fisher Stache app lets you get in on the Ram’s celebration by getting a moustache of your own.

5.  Sonar for Android

Find friends and like-minded people nearby. Have more fun navigating the world!
The best way to connect and share with friends and like-minded people nearby, Sonar has been called a “Must-Have” by CNN and an “Essential Tool” by WIRED Magazine. By alerting you to friends nearby and other interesting people, Sonar reveals small world moments you’d have otherwise missed.

6.The Hunger Games Adventures

Already a successful game on Facebook,The Hunger Games Adventures made its way to iPad this week. The adventure game has you embark on an adventure outside the gates of District 12 and includes all your favorite characters from the movie and book as well as some new ones.

If you have some good apps to recommend to us,welcome to leave your opinion below.Thanks  advance. 

Related article: 

• 5 best free Android QR code scanners for you

Samsung Galaxy S III to Get Android 4.1 Update in October

Samsung‘s flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S III, will be updated with the latest version of Android in October, the company announced. Before that, Apple's iOS 6 will release on 19, September.

Android 4.1 or Jelly Bean brings numerous improvements, including smoother user interface, improved accessibility, expandable notifications, improved camera and voice search, among other updates.

Samsung confirmed that the update will become available in October, but did not specify an exact date. The 4G version of the device, however, will come with Jelly Bean as standard, according to CNET.

This version will soon become available to UK customers through internet service provider Everything Everywhere, which recently promised to bring the first LTE network to the state.

News from engadget says Samsung Galaxy S III drops to $99 on Amazon for a 'very limited time only'. Everyone know that it is in order to compete with the new iPhone which have released on Wednesday. Maybe now you can go to have a check.

Are you excited for the Galaxy S II to be updated with Jelly Bean? Tell us in the comments below.

This news originally published on mashable.

Apple unveils iPhone 5, open the door for Nokia, Samsung

September 12, 2012 by Christopher Fuller

Apple finally took the wraps off its latest iPhone- a thinner, taller, faster iPhone 5 in San Fransisco on Wednesday. The company also announced two new iPods-upgraded iPod Touch with Siri, New iPod Nano. 

Compares to the iPhone 4s, iPhone 5 offers a larger screen size with 4 inches, 4G LTE speeds, and a terrific camera. At the same time, Apple said the iPhone 5's processor speed is twice as fast as the previous version, with the new "A6" chip.

According to Apple, The device, which is 18% thinner and 20% lighter than the iPhone 4S, is the thinnest smartphone in the world, easily defeated the Samsung galaxy S3.

But no matter how good the iPhone 5 is, it lacks the knockout feature that Apple followers have come to expect. The phone lacks of the appearing features what we have never seen before, make people who have fall in love with Apple disappoint. Perhaps a better battery life like Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD or an innovative camera feature that lets you drag and drop subjects around the screen which may give more attention to others. Maybe Cook is just Cook, not Steven job. Apple unveils the iPhone5, finally, and then opens the door for Nokia, Samsung. CNET have list the features which we didn't get from iPhone 5.

Nokia unveiled the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 windows8 phone at simultaneous events in New York and Finland on September 5, 2012, in order to compete with the new iPhone. The Lumia 920 also took better pictures and video with PureView camera technology, especially in low light, than any other phone camera.  The Lumia 920 is even built-in wireless charging . Also, Nokia Maps, Nokia Transport and Nokia Drive all upgraded with new features for the two devices. May be compares to the iPhone5, many iPhone fans will switch to Lumia 920 windows phone as Lumia have so many new features.

Another big competitor to Apple, everyone knows, that is Samsung. Samsung put pressure to Apple with its Galaxy Series, like Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2 and also the tablets 10.1. Although Samsung loss the patent battle to Apple, it have never give up. News from CNET says that Galaxy S3 sales will to surpass 30 million this year. Rumors now said Galaxy Note2 with windows phone8 is coming in order to compete with iPhone5.

It is said that the new iPhone5 will go on sale in the U.S. and eight other countries next Friday, Sept. 21. While at the same time, Rumors have said Nokia is aiming to release the Lumia 920 on November 2 with AT&T. Whether Nokia can get its magic back in the smartphone world or not, and how far will Samsung go, everything will see in the near future, including No NFC，No radical new design，No higher-capacity memory model,etc .

Whether you are an Apple fan or Android fan, If you have some good idea for the new iPhone or the article, leave your comment below is welcome. 

Nielsen: Young Adults,Teens Lead Smartphone Owners

Apple is set to have one of its classic big announcements on Wednesday, widely expected to announce the new iPhone, and before, Nokia release of two new smartphones include Lumia 920 and Lumia820 last week. Nielsen took a survey into who’s buying the most smartphones and, more importantly, what kind of Operating system they use.

The report released yesterday show that Young adult between age 25 and 34 leads smartphone ownership. 74 percent said they owned smartphones in July 2012, compared with 59 percent in July 2011. 

“Among most age groups smartphones represent the majority of U.S. mobile subscribers, but American teens were the age group adopting smartphones the fastest,” said Nichole Henderson, a Nielsen analyst. ”As teens increase in their share of smartphone owners, mobile carriers and manufacturers should consider how to market to this growing group.”

Report also says that Android handsets continue to lead the smartphone market, with both a majority of smartphone owners and recent acquirers (those who obtained their handset in the last 3 months) now owning a phone that runs on the Android operating system. Apple’s iPhone followed closely with a share of 34 percent of smartphone owners and 33 percent of recent acquirers choosing an iOS handset. BlackBerry handsets decreased to an 8 percent share of the U.S. smartphone market and only 3 percent of recent acquirers.

Samsung Mobile, Apple’s biggest smartphone rival, is doing well in the sales department. According to ABC News, Samsung has confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy S3 has attracted 20 million customers in just three months (with a remainder of few days). Thanks to Samsung and other carriers, Android may will still dominate in the smartphone market. 

But with the upcoming of Windows phone8, including the world's first Windows Phone 8-Samsung Ativ S, amazing ideas will come to a lot of people: Is it time to adopt Windows Phone?

Nokia also try to keep up with Samsung and Apple in the Smartphone market with Lumia 920 and 820,like Nokia Maps, Nokia Transport and Nokia Drive all upgraded with new features for the two devices, but is it enough to make Windows Phone and Nokia successful? The Windows phone 8 operating system, which will launch soon, comes with a lot of improvements, including a better Start screen, near-field communication support and new mapping features that are designed to help folks not only find out where they’re going, but also locate points of interest. But the problem is that how to make the consumers switch to the Windows phone8? 

What do you think? Is the anticipation surrounding Apple’s new iPhone halting sales, or are dedicated Apple gurus heading over to Android or the Windows phone8? The X-Factor here is, as always. Let us know in the comments below. 

LinkedIn Spam, exploits and Zeus: Revisited

In my post from June this year, I already reported on an excellent recipe for a cybercrook:

1. Hacking LinkedIn's password (and possibly user-) database.
2. Sending an email to all obtained email addresses, which is urging you to check your LinkedIn inbox as soon as possible.
3. A user unawarely clicking on the link.
4. An exploit gets loaded. Malware gets dropped. Malware gets executed.
5. User's computer is now a zombie (part of a botnet).

You can find that post back here:
LinkedIn spam, exploits and Zeus: a deadly combination ?


Seems this scheme is still being successfully employed, as well the usage of the latest Java exploit (CVE-2012-4681).

Let's clearly divide this clever trick into the 3 parts.


Part 1 - the spam email:


So called reminder from LinkedIn


Example subjects of this email:
Communication LinkedIn Mail
Connection LinkedIn Mail
Contact LinkedIn Mail
Immediate LinkedIn Mail
Invitation reminders LinkedIn
Link LinkedIn Mail
LinkedIn Updates
PENDING MESSAGES - LinkedIn Mail
Relation LinkedIn Mail
Relationship LinkedIn Mail
Rush LinkedIn Mail
Signaling LinkedIn Mail
Urgent LinkedIn Mail



First part of the whole set-up or scheme is of course letting the user click on a malicious link.

This is your typical social engineering trick: it seems you have pending messages from LinkedIn and you can check your inbox by clicking on the link.

Note that the other links also trigger the exploit.


Part 2 - the -in this case Java- exploit

When clicking on one of the links, you are redirected to a website which is hacked and is hosting a Javascript file:


Malicious Javascript

This Javascript is not very malicious, it just redirects to another website (again) where the exploit is hosted:


Location of the actual exploit


Eventually, you'll get on a webpage which contains heavily obfuscated Javascript. Note that the Blackhole exploit kit is responsible for this one. Here's a small part:


Small part of the code; you can see a file called Leh.jar and 2 of its classes



Leh.jar classes, which contains CVE-2012-4681 exploit code

There's an excellent article over at the Immunity blog which takes a closer look at the classes used in this exploit. Remember the classes are just a name, they don't indicate something particular (as far as I know):
Java 0day analysis (CVE-2012-4681)


Here's a link to the fully obfuscated Javascript on PasteBin:
http://pastebin.com/5FeC02UM

...and here's the same file, deobfuscated:
http://pastebin.com/P1Jy2qt1




Part 3 - the Trojan - Zeus/Zbot


I have used Revelo to deobfuscate the malicious Javascript, which now neatly shows our Trojan as well:


File called 3Wcg.exe will be downloaded and executed


When executing this file....:


...it crashed. Badly coded or Sandbox/VM aware

As you can see from the figure above, the sample crashed upon execution... Not much to do here.

Most probably your banking credentials and/or passwords would have been stolen, or you would be sending spam.

Some more information on the associated files:

bv6rcs3v1ithi.htm

Result: 13/42

MD5: 25b67f22490800881c4e13b15f7ac477

VirusTotal Report

Leh.jar

Result: 17/42

MD5: ddf9093ceafc6f7610dcc3fcf2992b98

VirusTotal Report

ThreatExpert Report

3Wcg.exe

Result: 26/41

MD5: df79dfd605eed6d578063089a48d670b

VirusTotal Report

ThreatExpert Report

Malwr Report

Conclusion

Same as one of my previous posts in regards to exploits:

Patch your third-party applications. In cases of Java and Adobe, remove them if unneeded.

Use an antivirus which has or uses behavioural technologies and/or exploit prevention.

Always check the URL of a link. you can verify this by 'hovering' over the URL to check what is really behind.

If you really have messages waiting for you on LinkedIn, and you're curious, just go directly to it by typing it manually in your browser. Delete emails from unknown senders and never open any attachments from them!

Use the add-on NoScript (Firefox) or NotScripts (Chrome) to prevent automatic loading of malicious Javascripts.