Apps, Android App | featured news

Could this be the deadliest smartphone app ever? A German security consultant, who's also a commercial pilot, has demonstrated tools he says could be used to hijack an airplane remotely, using just an Android phone. Speaking at the Hack in the Box security summit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Hugo Teso said Wednesday that he spent three years developing SIMON, a framework of malicious code that could be used to attack and exploit airline security software, and an Android app to run it that he calls PlaneSploit.

Introducing the note pad Google Keep, a combination Web site and app for Android phones. Wait, that sounds like Evernote.

In the myriad of things to be thankful for on this fine American holiday: family, friends, home, the ongoing generosity of volunteers continuing to push through to provide mutual aid in the ongoing devastation of Hurricane Sandy.

Is Google in a hurry to get 2012 over with? Probably not. But that didn't stop the snarky headlines after it was discovered that a buggy app in the new version of Google's mobile operating system omits the month of December. The People app lets users bookmark friends' birthdays and other important dates on a calendar. But some users of Android 4.2, the system's newest update, are complaining they can't note December dates in the app because its calendar skips from November to January. December simply does not exist.

App developers have turned cellphones and tablets into powerful tools, spawning a multibillion-dollar industry but making huge sacrifices in the process.

Google has launched Google Now, a new search interface which improves the search results based on the time and location of the search. It is available as part of Android Jelly Bean, the latest iteration of its mobile OS, and works by using the time, search history and location data to provide better search results.

Google has beefed up security on its Android mobile-device software to better prevent "malicious" software from residing in its app store.

More than 10 billion apps have been downloaded from Google's Android Market store, says the search giant.