To date, mobile phones have been relatively safe from cyber attacks when compared to PCs. Security systems have been able to block most viruses on cell phones, but the mobile industry foresees risks coming from the open software platforms that are looming in the near future. Google is backing the Android open source software which is in competition with LiMo Foundation’s Linux software.

“If Android becomes a fully open platform … and when such a platform becomes more common, risks are greater than with the current platform kings such as Symbian,” said Mikko Hypponen, head of research at security software firm F-Secure.

Apple is planning to open its platform to third party developers this month, which creates potential risks for the iPhone.

“Apple has dealt very elegantly in the past with security issues. There will be issues. Apple will fix them,” said Jan Volzke, global marketing head at McAfee’s mobile unit.

According to research firm Canalys, 65% of all smartphones sold in the fourth quarter used software from Symbian. Apple was the fourth largest vendor with 7% of market share, following Microsoft and RIM.

F-Secure and McAfee are leading security software vendors for the mobile industry. The risk of a cell phone getting infected is small but thousands of phones have seen problems.

“Although the first problems were already quite extensive and appeared all over the world, current smartphones from the largest device makers, particularly Nokia, have got rid of these problems,” said F-Secure’s Hypponen.

Infected phones would shut down or have huge phone bills as the device would make unwanted calls or connected to expensive services.

Users fear that their handsets are open to attack. (See: Rare Mobile Phone Viruses Feared by Public). The perception of safety is a concern for the mobile industry as handsets become more complicated so as to provide more services to the public.

“Concerns about specific mobile security risks or … reliability of services is a crucial issue for operators, particularly in mature markets,” Victor Kouznetsov, senior vice president at McAfee’s mobile unit, said in a statement.

“Consumer fears are growing in tandem with increased mobile functionality,” Kouznetsov said, adding this puts at risk the potential revenue from new services.

T-Mobile announced that it will be dropping Google and picking up Yahoo as its preferred mobile search provider in Europe. This is a minor victory for Yahoo, which is in direct competition with Google and Microsoft to put its search engine on mobile phones that can access the Internet. When T-Mobile partnered with Google, it was heralded as one of the first partnerships between a mobile operator and a search provider.

“Well done Yahoo for knocking Google off the Web n Walk home page,” wrote John Delaney, an analyst for Ovum, commenting on the announcement. Web n Walk is T-Mobile’s mobile Internet offering.

Starting this March, T-Mobile customers in 11 European countries will see Yahoo’s mobile oneSearch become the default on their phones. OneSearch is crafted to make it easy for mobile users to get relevant search results and navigate through different categories within search results. Other Yahoo services are also planned, including Flickr, Messenger, Mail, Weather and Finance. Yahoo has 29 mobile operators as oneSearch customers.

The market for mobile branded search services is still young, with no clear leaders. Search providers like Yahoo and Google are betting that there will be strong growth in mobile Internet usage and are willing to spend money trying to become the number one provider.

A survey released at the Mobile World Congress today reports that 72% of those surveyed feared a virus may infect their handset. The poll was conducted by IT security specialist McAfee, and based on 2,000 people in Britain, the United States and Japan. Only 2% of respondents actually had a virus in their mobile phone.

Nearly 12% said they knew someone who had a virus, while 86% of people said they had never heard of anyone with a mobile phone virus. But 72% said they were concerned about security. Japan showed the highest fear, where 89% of those surveyed said they were worried about viruses.

Japan has the world’s most developed mobile phone market, where subscribers use handsets to carry out transactions, email and browse the web more than in the other countries surveyed.

Security and the perception of security is a concern for network operators. They want consumers to feel safe from viruses so subscribers are more likely to access the Internet, download applications and make transactions using their mobile phones

I popped by the LogMeIn booth today take a look at their RescueMobile package for smartphones. Essentially, the service lets technicians take control of a smartphone remotely, accessing all of its functions and repairing it over the air.

LogMeIn Rescue+Mobile simulates a remote smartphone on a support technician’s local computer, who can then manipulate the screen, use its keypad, and control it as if it were in his own hands — all over the web. Rescue+Mobile supports all Windows 5 and 6 mobile devices, with full phone simulations available for many popular models.

It seems to have been around for a while but this is the first I’ve seen of it. Anyone tried it?

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I lost quite a bit of this video but here’s a look at GestureTek’s EyeMobile system that uses a phone’s camera to create a gesture-based experience for maps and games. It worked really well and could be a way to add interesting interactivity features without adding an accelerometer to the package.

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Engineer and all-round-nice-guy Marty Cooper told some gathered reporters and industry folks that he likes the iPhone… and Samsung and Motorola phones, but for different reasons. He did, however agree that it’s not as good as everyone says but he does enjoy using it.

He was talking about the future of mobile and his point was fairly simple: have faith. Things can and will get better with better and easier access to high-speed data over the air and a potential 10-fold decrease in prices. As he pointed out, the only way to make networked mobile gaming as popular as something like World of Warcraft is to offer gamers 1 gigabyte of data transfer a month for something like $10 — something you’d be hard-pressed to offer right now. With the introduction of open platforms and the eventually movement away from handset and to “networked tool,” he sees true non-voice-centric mobile networking as a true and potent force for change.

The world’s largest handset maker, Nokia, announced today that it will integrate the Google search engine with the Nokia Search application. This plan was released at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Google search will be available in more than 100 countries on a variety of handsets. The first Nokia products to be loaded with Google will be the Nokia N96, N78, 6210 Navigator and 6330 classic.

The combination of Nokia applications and Google search can “provide an excellent overall experience,” said Google Vice President Vic Gundotra. He added that the “fast, relevant and comprehensive search experience” will be familiar to people who use Google to search the Web from their desktop.

The deal doesn’t make Google the exclusive search engine on the Nokia phones. An analyst with the research firm IDC noted that the on-device search is controlled by Nokia. When a user wants to search the Net, Google appears along with Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search. But those who are used to using Google on their PCs may be more likely to use Google on their Nokia phones.

“Nokia is only allowing all of these search engines to compete on a Nokia device, said Chris Hazelton, IDC analysis. “Nokia still maintains the platform ownership.”

This is where Nokia wants to be, Hazelton said. It is the world’s leading mobile-device manufacturer, he added, “but they want to transform themselves into a software and services company, because that’s where they see the future going.”

This move makes it easier for both companies to utilize Google’s open-source platform, Android. Google wants to get its platform on as many mobile devices as it can and Nokia wants to be able to provide its customers with software applications without investing money in a competing platform.

I’ll have to try this out when I get home but it seems like a fairly compelling solution. Basically it’s a text-to-voice system that translates all of your emails and some RSS feeds to voice. You call a number and it will start reading you your messages while you drive or are otherwise occupied and it supports most enterprise systems like Outlook and Domino.

You can also reply to emails, make calls, and even create appointments over the phone. It’s basically a virtual personal assistant without all the sexual tension.

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Setting up office PBX systems is hard. GoHello is easy. It’s basically a virtual telephone system with a dedicated receptionist’s application for taking notes, sending SMSes, forwarding calls, and taking voicemail. You can try it free for 30 days and you get a dedicated number — gold numbers (aesthetically pleasing numbers like 5551212 or 5556666) are also available — and it basically offloads all of your office calls to a remote system and routes calls to mobile phones.

The idea is compelling — turnkey PBX deployment — and it has quite a few group features that managers will love. It even has a follow-me system that lets the system call individuals in a group until someone picks up. Better than yelling “Someone in the deli pick up the phone!”

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We will hold tomorrow’s TC/CG/MC meet-up at the Cafe del Sol, Av Paral.lel 182, right down the street from the Fira. I’ve received quite a few emails already but RSVP with the subject line “BCN MEET-UP” to john @ crunchgear.com so I can put together a head count. Apparently a bunch of strangers in a law office wasn’t quite a good idea.

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This spring Starbucks will brew up a mix of free and paid wireless Internet service in more than 7,000 of its U.S. coffee shops this spring. The new service will be done in tandem with AT&T, which ends a six-year partnership Starbucks had with T-Mobile.

Customers that use the Starbucks purchase card will get two hours of free wireless access per day. After that, access will cost $3.99 for a two hour block of time. Monthly memberships can be bought for $19.99 and includes access to any of AT&T’s 70,000 Wi-Fi hotspots. Users who already use AT&T as their Internet service provider will have unlimited access at Starbucks.

Starbucks

Greystripe, a distributor of ad-supported mobile games, announced the results of its two-month U.S. ad campaign for Yahoo!’s oneSearch mobile web portal. The ad campaign was run in tandem with a ten question WAP survey administered by Grail Research to determine campaign effectiveness, specifically focused on brand lift and ad recall.

The ad campaign started on May 19th and ran through July 13th, 2007. Three unique advertisements, created and powered by Greystripe, averaged an overall ad click-through rate (CTR) of 4.2%, which is considerably higher than the average rates for mobile WAP-based advertisements of 1%-2%.

Grail Research found that the Yahoo! oneSearch advertisement more than doubled brand awareness to 76% in the test group over 33% in the control group, an increase of 127%. Among those who remembered seeing the ad, the keywords “best”, “better”, “search” and “results” were more prominent among the test panel than the control panel respondents. Greystripe increased consumer interest to try Yahoo! oneSearch among the test panel respondents, with 18% saying they “definitely will try”.

“We are proud to share these results with the industry because it highlights the success that brands can have in mobile,” says Erica Chriss, VP of Strategy and Business Development, Greystripe. “It also highlights that the ad-funded model for mobile content is clearly a sustainable business. Consumers appreciate the free content and are receptive to the right kind of sponsor messages.”

Greystripe

Just got onto the Mobile World Congress grounds and will be posting here — on the service side — and on CrunchGear [RSS] for gadgets and phones. I’ll try do lots of cross-posting but expect some juicy Mobile 2.0 news soon.

If you need to contact me, SMS me at +972543563127 or email john@crunchgear dot com. The meet-up is still on Wednesday at 6pm, location TBD. Merci!

Just a quick note to mention that MAXRoam.com is a really great service. Essentially it’s a reduced rate pre-paid SIM card that lets you add multiple numbers to the same SIM. For example, I now have a SIM card with four international numbers in Spain, Poland, Germany, and the US and they all work seamlessly in almost any phone. It basically lets locals call you at local rates and you call at almost local rates when in country.

The card costs 29.99 euro with a 5 euro call credit and new numbers cost 5 euro a month. The plan is fairly simple: you buy the SIM and make calls. Then, when you travel, you add a new number to the SIM for a month or so and take it off when you’re done with it. MAXRoam has a web-based system for topping up and adding numbers. A bit pricey but it works very well.

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Each week MobileCrunchArcade compiles the biggest news from the world of mobile gaming.

If you are able to break away from your mobile games long enough to see the news from time to time, you may be aware that there is a presidential election in the United States this year. Political junkies like me have known about this upcoming event for a few months now. Following a national election is a lot like watching soap operas. The names change but the candidates seem to all come from a writer’s stock-character folder. To combat this tedium, Gamloft will launch Battle for the White House: a Bipartisan Mobile Game this month. The game has a classic boxing mode, which has been around in political mobile games for awhile. But it adds a dirty-tricks mode. You can command your favorite candidate to sabotage the competition, break-up protestors like a veteran Storm Trooper, and stuff the ballot box like a Chicago political machine. Your favorite candidate may have bowed out by now but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a little satirical fun.

If you have been holding your breath, waiting for Nokia to launch it new N-Gage gaming service, you are dead by now. The starting date for N-Gage has had more missteps than a barefoot drunk on an ice rink. But this week Nokia announced that a new N-Gage is here and now finds its home under the Ovi brand. Owners of Nokia’s N81 multimedia phone will now be able to download games carrier by Nokia. When asked about the N81, Nokia spokesman Damian Stathonikos said, “It’s the most gaming-optimized device.” (Some enthusiasm for the N81 must have been lost in translation). If you don’t have one don’t fret, in the near future other Nokia phones will be able to carry Ovi games.

Don Ryan of Oberon Media spoke at the Casual Games Association this week. He thinks there is a gap in the mobile gaming market that can be filled by creating casual games that target women. I don’t mean targeting women in a creepy way, but target women by creating casual games they want to play. I’ll let someone else explain what a casual game is, and you’ll have to ask mom the difference between boys and girls. All I know is that if more people are playing mobile games the better the world is.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and wish you could play some SNES games on your handset, now you can. The good people at ZodTTD have announced the release of snes4iphone v1.0.0 application. This application is based on the PocketSNES emulator written by paqpark for the Pocket PC. Just link to snes4iphone to get started playing all those wonderful old titles on the small screen.

If you have been waiting for Gothic 3: The Beginning, stop waiting and get playing. There are hundreds of monsters to kill, tons of NPCs to talk to and forbidden magic to learn. The game takes place 140 years before the first installment of the Gothic series. You play Xardas, who has been chosen by Innos to capture and return magic rune stones. If you enjoy this type of RPG, get a copy and start opening those chests to find some treasure. Don’t forget to answer your phone as you slash your way through all those baddies. You’re boss may be calling asking where that first rune stone can be found.

That is this week’s mobile gaming news roundup. Remember to exercise those thumbs, recharge the battery and never take your eyes off the screen.

Handset shipments from manufacturers based in China grew greatly in 2007, moving 229 million units for the year. This growth is 76% over the 2006 numbers of 130 million handsets shipped. According to iSuppli Corp this growth rate will slow down dramatically in 2008. It is predicted that around 274 million units will reach the market from China, which means a growth of nearly 20%. These figures presents iSuppli’s forecast for total handset shipments from manufactures based in China for the period 2006 through 2008.

“There were two major drivers for the fast growth in China’s handset industry during 2007,” said Kevin Wang, senior analyst, China research for iSuppli Corp.

“One was the continuous increase in domestic demand from first-time buyers and the replacement market. The other factor was the significant increase in export shipments from Chinese handset manufacturers. Domestic OEMs, such as Huawei and ZTE, doubled their export shipments. Furthermore, domestic gray market suppliers shipped millions of handsets to developing countries.”

The Chinese market is expected to slow this year because of an in crease in the Consumer Price Index, an increase in housing prices and major fluctuations in the Chinese stock market. Handsets that support the Global Positioning System or mobile TV will remain popular but other features shouldn’t fuel new sales. Therefore, the replacement market will show little growth in 2008, as customers are willing to stick to their old mobile phone features.

iSuppli

ARM, a British chip designer, may reveal a prototype of a mobile phone based on Google’s open-source Android next week at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona. The showing could come as early as Monday. Google and ARM have declined to comment on this, so don’t book a flight to Spain unless you’re willing to gamble on this rumor.

Taiwan’s High Tech Computer Corp. and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile both plan to offer phones based on Google’s Android software platform. Google is touting Android as a software system that may shakeup mobile telecommunications. Android is designed to make the Web as accessible from mobile devices as it is from PCs.

Android is supported by the Open Handset Alliance which is in direct competition with the LiMo Foundation. As MobileCrunch reported earlier this week, the LiMo Foundation (plans) to Launch (its) Phone Platform in March. By showing its wares at Barcelona, the Open Handset Alliance may be trying to show that its system is ready for a handset while LiMo has yet to launch its platform. If this kind of race interests you, it looks as though the match has gone from the theoretical to the practical.

Research firm Strategy Analytics predicts that Android will be in 2% of smartphones by the end of this year.

Modu, an Israeli startup company, has contracted with three mobile phone carriers to sell the tiny mobile module called Modu. The Modu is a micro cell phone that pops into interchangeable jackets or into other devices that want to connect to the Internet. The Modu will be launched on October 1 of this year with the help of Telecom Italia Spa in Italy, OAA Vimpel Communications in Russia, and Cellcom Israel Ltd.

Telecom Italia Mobile and Cellcom are the largest cellphone carriers in Italy and Israel, while VimpleCom is the second largest service provider in Russia. All three companies are hoping Modu’s versatility catches on in the telecommunications market.

The Modu weighs 1.5 ounces and is smaller that an iPod Nano. It has a small color screen and a limited keypad. The device can be used on its own as a mobile phone but is able to plug into jackets and other devices to make the Modu more than a rudimentary phone.

Different jackets can be bought that will make the Modu look and work like standard cellphones. Modu founder Dov Moran said that the Italian carrier is excited about the concept because it can make cell phones more like fashion, tempting consumers to update their looks every few months.

“This allows you to make a summer collection and a winter collection,” Moran said.

“The carriers really are interested in having more and more customers coming through their stores, rather than signing up and coming every two years to sign a new contract and get a new phone,” said Daniel Amir, a chip analyst at Lazard Capital Markets in San Francisco. He called the Modu a potential “game changer” in the cell-phone industry.

The first Modu only uses General Packet Radio Service, or GPRS, for data transfer. While GPRS is widely deployed, it is a slow technology which is similar to dial-up speed. Moran said his company is working on upgrading Modu to use High-Speed Download Packet Access, a 3G (third generation) technology used by AT&T and others.

Modu hasn’t talked to any U.S. carriers yet. Moran said he expects Modu to talk with American carriers in the hope to launch the phone in 2009 at the earliest.

Modu isn’t the only mobile phone manufacturer looking at the module concept. Sony Ericsson has a patent on a modular phone, but Modu is the furthest along in its plan and has support from large carriers.

Modu

Only 9.4% of Americans who bought new mobile phones last quarter recycled their old handsets, a survey from iSuppli Corp’s consumerTrak service says. This is double the number of phones recycled in the third quarter of 2007 but well below the numbers hoped for.

“iSuppli’s fourth-quarter survey indicated that while U.S. consumers increasingly are recycling their old handsets, there’s still plenty of room for improvement,” said Greg Sheppard, chief development officer for iSuppli.

“More U.S. consumers were motivated to recycle their handsets by the rising awareness of green issues when it comes to disposal of electronic waste. Wireless companies are promoting the recycling of old phones, making it easier for consumers to do so. For example, Verizon Wireless’ HopeLine program collects old phones at its stores and then refurbishes them for sale, or recycles them in an environmentally responsible way.”

You may be asking yourself, “What is being done with all those old mobile phones?”

“More than one third of all old handsets, 36.8 percent to be precise, were stored away in the fourth quarter of 2007, and now are collecting dust in closets throughout America,” Sheppard noted. “Consumers keep their old phones because they perceive them to have some residual value. However, all too often, those handsets end up in the trash when spring cleaning comes.”

The survey indicates that 15.5% of U.S. consumers gave away old handsets to friends or family members in the fourth quarter. Around 8.5% of consumers donated their handsets to charities, while 5.7% returned their old mobile phones to the retailers where they bought them.

Just over 10% of those surveyed said they either threw away their old handsets, or had them stolen or lost. Sheppard thinks this may create an environmental hazard.

“Simply throwing away a mobile handset is not an environmentally responsible action,” Sheppard noted. “Mobile handsets include hazardous materials, including mercury and lead. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates Americans discard 125 million phones each year, creating 65,000 tons of waste. All this toxic waste can pollute air and groundwater.”

If you are interested in recycling your mobile phone, ask the place you bought it from whether they participate in a recycling project. At least eleven companies — AT&T, Best Buy, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Office Depot, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Sprint, Staples and T-Mobile, have all promised to collect mobile phones and hold recycling events. The EPA has a list of cellphone drop-off centers at EPA.gov.

The Wall Street Journal Digital Network announced today a free, downloadable application for Windows Mobile phones that provides users access to WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com and Barrons.com.

The service was developed with help from Action Engine Corporation, a mobile application platform provider. While on-the-go, users will be able to read financial news, mange their personal stock portfolio, track the market, watch videos and listen to streaming podcasts.

“We recognize that today’s busy professionals need continuous access to top business and financial news, and we can now ensure they have it anytime, anywhere,” said Matt Goldberg, vice president of franchise development and partnerships for Dow Jones & Company. “By offering this mobile application that consumers can download directly onto their phones, anyone – not just Wall Street Journal subscribers – can receive instant access to news, stocks, videos and information across our suite of news sites.”

“The Wall Street Journal Digital Network mobile application offers an exciting development in usability for delivering information to the wireless device,” said Scott G. Silk, president and Chief Executive Officer of Action Engine. “By offering three of the most well-respected news properties in a single, multimedia-enabled service, we are showcasing the innovation that ensures anytime access for news-hungry consumers.”

For a list of supported mobile devices, or to download The Wall Street Journal Digital Network mobile application, please visit: www.wsj.com/mobiledownload.