During the second leg (the first leg was dedicated to PC browsers) of this year’s Pwn2Own hacking contest, Google’s Android as well as Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 mobile operating systems (OS’) were left unscathed by competition entrants. Apple’s iOS and RIM’s Blackberry OS though, weren’t so lucky.

 

Following the competition, RIM posted a security warning on its site, concerning the contest-discovered exploit within the new browser of its BlackBerry OS 6-operating smartphones including the BlackBerry Torch 9800 and BlackBerry Bold 9780.  

 

It has advised users to disable JavaScript within the browser. A software fix might also be looming, since the Canadian company stated that it is investigating the matter further in order to settle on the best route forward to protect BlackBerry smartphone users.

 

 

On the topic of BlackBerry, Microsoft has announced via its Office 365 blog that it will be reducing the pricing structure for hosted BlackBerry Service for Exchange Online, making this service available for free.

 

“Starting today [16 March], BlackBerry mobile e-mail for new Exchange Online customers is now free through our Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). For existing customers, we expect to be able to provide more information later this month on how you can take advantage of this change.”

 

The Microsoft post also revealed that a hosted BlackBerry service will be available for free with Office 365 (the company’s cloud-based productivity suite), after it launches later this year. Blackberry holding company Research in Motion (RIM) will be introducing this new BlackBerry cloud-based service later during 2011.

 

 

According to the androidandme tech blog, new image renders of the as yet unannounced HTC Pyramid smartphone have surfaced, along with some accompanying specs. This device is expected to be the first Android-running smartphone to employ a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. Some of the specs include the 1.2 GHz processor, 4.3" Super LCD display with a whopping 960 x 540 resolution, an 8 MP rear-facing camera as well as a 1.3 MP front-facing camera and 768 MB of RAM.

 

 

 

 

 

HTC’s Pyramid wasn’t the only leaked smartphone to hit the World Wide Web this week. Photos of Motorola’s next Droid (or Milestone to South Africans) smartphone, the Droid 3, have also made their appearance. It reportedly boasts an improved five row QWERTY keyboard, an HDMI port as well as a 4" qHD (that’s 960 x 540 resolution) display. 

 

 

 

 

Nokia recently adopted Windows Phone as its primary smartphone OS, pushing Symbian, as well as its Linux-based OS that it created with Intel, dubbed MeeGo, to the fringes. The Finnish manaufacturer will, however, still be bring out a device running on MeeGo, which consists of a combination between it's own Maemo OS and Intel's Moblin OS, later this year.    

 

Nokia has now revealed that it will also be releasing a Maemo 6-powered device during 2011. According to the MeeGo Conference (set for 23-25 May in San Francisco) session summary, the company will be releasing a product (not stating whether it will be a smartphone or tablet PC) later this year.

 

The Maemo 6 OS codenamed Harmattan is API compatible with MeeGo 1.2. Nokia stated that the relationship between Harmattan and MeeGo will only be clarified during the MeeGo Conference, as well as revealing what the final name of the OS will be. 

 

The last device Nokia released that ran on Maemo (version 5) was the Nokia N900 smartphone.