Cell Phone Store, Tips and Reviews

Amazon on Thursday updated its Kindle app to support Android 3.0 Honeycomb for tablets, including the Motorola Xoom.

The update adds a new integrated shopping experience designed specifically for tablets, a new Honeycomb-centric layout for newspapers and magazines, and other upgrades that take advantage of the larger screen.

"We've taken all the features customers love about Kindle for Android, and created a beautiful new user interface and a seamless shopping experience tailored to the look and feel of Honeycomb tablets," Dorothy Nicholls, director of Amazon Kindle, said in a statement. "As always, Kindle customers 'Buy Once, Read Everywhere,' so Kindle for Android is the perfect companion for the millions of customers who own a Kindle and a way for customers around the world to download and enjoy books on their Android phone or tablet even if they don't yet own a Kindle."

The new shopping update will provide quick access to personalized recommendations and customer reviews, Amazon said, while the magazine and newspaper updates will include full color images. There will also be the ability to pause and resume downloads at any time, as well as an enhanced word look-up capability via a built-in dictionary with more than 250,000 definitions.

The app is free in the Android Market.

The update also adds German language support in the app and store since Amazon today also launched its German Kindle Store. It provides access to more than 650,000 titles, 71 of the 100 Spiegel best sellers, and over 25,000 German-language titles.

The Kindle publishing platform, meanwhile, is also now available via Amazon.de. It first launched with support in the U.S., UK, and Canada, and is now expanding to Germany and Austria, providing authors with 70 percent of revenue.

Google Inc.’s Android mobile-phone platform faces soaring software attacks and has little control over the applications, according to security firm Kaspersky Lab. Photographer: Tony Avelar/Bloomberg

Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android mobile-phone platform faces soaring software attacks and has little control over the applications, according to security firm Kaspersky Lab.

Applications loaded with malicious software are infiltrating the Google operating system at a faster rate than with personal computers at the same stage in development, said Nikolay Grebennikov, chief technology officer for Kaspersky. The company identified 70 different types of malware in March from just two categories in September.

“The growth rate in malware within Android is huge, in the future there will definitely be more,” Grebennikov said in an interview in London. Kaspersky will offer security on Android in the third quarter of this year.

Hacking into mobile-phone software has become increasingly sophisticated, forcing Mountain View, California-based Google to remove malicious applications that were available from its Android Market store last month. The applications, which were remotely disabled, gathered information about mobile devices and could be used to access personal data.

Google declined 0.2 percent to $524.68 at 10:04 a.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.

Company spokesman Ollie Rickman referred back to the Google’s comment in a blog post last month.

“We are adding a number of measures to help prevent additional malicious applications using similar exploits from being distributed through Android Market,” Rich Cannings, an Google engineer who works on Android security, said in the blog post.

Android will run on 38.5 percent of smartphones sold this year, according to market research firm Gartner. The Google software is moving into cheaper hardware and starting to compete with high-volume, low-margin phones made by companies such as Nokia Oyj. (NOK1V)

“Any time a technology becomes adopted and popular, that technology will be targeted by the bad guys,” said Jay Abbott, Director of Threat and Vulnerability at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

The proliferation of mobile app stores at platforms from companies including Google, Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) and Nokia has made the functions and devices harder to secure, said Richard Overill, a senior lecturer in computer science at King’s College, London

“It is a new frontier,” said Overill, who has been researching the industry since 1992. “It’s been an area that the criminal fraternity hasn’t gone into before because they are doing quite nicely thank you in the computer space.”

Google, owner of the world’s most-popular online search engine, offers Android to handset manufacturers for free and allows developers access to some of its code for writing software. Apple, whose iOS software trails Android in smartphone market share, requires every application to be approved before being sold in its online store.

Android’s open model is “a benefit but equally a drawback,” said PwC’s Abbott. “Anyone can develop anything at any time,” he said, adding that the “model makes it a lot easier for people to exploit it.”

Other experts such as Overill say Android’s model may not make it more vulnerable to attack than a closed platform as its community of users can watch out for and report on any evidence of malware to ensure it gets fixed.

Aad van Moorsel, the director of Centre for Cybercrime and Computer Security at Newcastle University, said that closed systems also face threats. “The fact that Microsoft is a closed system in the personal computing space hasn’t stopped it from being attacked,” he said.

Google removed more than 50 applications containing malicious code known as DroidDream last month, according to San Francisco-based mobile security firm Lookout. The code enabled the software to gain a “substantial amount of control in the infected device,” and could help to install additional applications, Lookout said.

Google doesn’t have antivirus protection on the file level within its operating system, Grebennikov said.

“The malware was not like before,” Grebennikov said. Previously mobile attacks were limited to sending text messages to premium numbers hitting the user with high charges, he said.

Kaspersky Lab, Russia’s largest maker of antivirus software, this year sold 20 percent of its shares to private equity group General Atlantic LLC. The Moscow-based company, founded by majority shareholder Eugene Kaspersky, is aiming to become the world’s largest provider of end-user Internet security software.

Google and Apple risk approving applications with hidden malware. “I worry about what gets rubber stamped,” said David Emm, a Kaspersky analyst. “The walled garden is great unless the wolf gets over the wall and runs amok.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Browning in London jbrowning9@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net