Carrier IQ is a software that runs on more than 140 million mobile phones (according to information on the Carrier IQ website). It is a monitoring software that can track user activities and data, including their personal information, locations, network communications, phone calls, messages and a lot more.

A few aspects make the software especially suspicious from a consumer perspective. Carrier IQ is not listed as a running application on the phone. The software furthermore cannot be stopped or deactivated on standard phones.

The Carrier IQ company stated that the Carrier IQ software “delivers Mobile Intelligence on the performance of mobile devices and networks to assist operators and device manufacturers in delivering high quality products and services to their customers”.

How can you find out if Carrier IQ is running on your phone?

It’s almost impossible for users to find off switches, user interfaces, policies, or references to IQRD anywhere on the phone. Using standard functionality, the only place you can see that the application is installed on the phone is in Menu -> Settings -> Manage Applications -> All, then scroll down to IQRD. This application has a non-descript icon and offers no information about itself. Even on old devices, IQRD runs continuously because it’s set to start automatically at boot. The only option you have to stop the application is to select “force stop”—which does nothing. The application continues to run.

The only option to remove Carrier IQ is to root the phone:

The only choice we have to “opt out” of this data collection is to root our devices because every part of the multi-headed CIQ application is embedded into low-level, locked regions of the phones. Even if you unlock your device and remove the base application with a sophisticated removal method, neutered, leftover code called from other applications will likely throw an error each time an old action is triggered.

It’s almost impossible to fully remove Carrier IQ. The browser is modified to send to Carrier IQ daemon, as is almost everything else. The application is so deeply embedded in our devices that a user must rebuild the whole device (system.img and boot.img) directly from source code to remove every part of CIQ.

Eckhart only looked at Android devices, but it is likely that other phone manufacturers are also making use of Carrier IQ.

I suggest you take a look at the YouTube video that is a live demonstration of the Carrier IQ software by the security researcher himself.

I suggest you read the two detailed articles (What is Carrier IQ? and CarrierIQ Part 2 for a deeper understanding of the situation.

My opinion? I’d stop using a phone immediately if it would run the software and would not give me an option to opt-out of it. What’s your take?

Update: Carrier IQ has also be confirmed running on Apple’s iOS. Read the blog post here for detailed information.

The first consideration is probably the price. While iPhones are likely to be the more expensive, it’s not certain which phones offer the best value for money. The tens of thousands of apps that can be downloaded to extend its usefulness for example enhance the iPhone, making it an even more useful device. While the Blackberry has a similar scheme, its app store is lightly stocked compared to the iPhone. So although you may consider a Blackberry to save a few bucks, this might actually be through serious compromise to functionality.

We should also consider the Blackberry OS7 operating system that the new RIM handsets will run on. This is a definite improvement over previous operating systems, but it’s actually not that much different to OS6 found in last year’s original Blackberry Torch phone. The new operating system was originally called OS6.1, but RIM revised this to the OS7 with claims that the upgrade was so big it deserved to be labelled as a brand new operating system. Whether this is true or not, RIM could be accused of using marketing techniques to sell it’s devices based on inflated software advances.

Regardless of whether RIM actually did create a new operating system, or merely upgraded an existing one – it really doesn’t matter that much, because it won’t be around when RIM move to their new “next-generation” OS called QNX. This software is already in use on the Blackberry PlayBook tablet computer, so it won’t be long before it replaces OS6, OS6.1 or OS7, whatever they want to call it. So, buying a Blackberry today may seem almost like buying old technology.

Meanwhile the Apple iPhone seems to just gain in popularity, despite blunders from Apple. A few years ago, when boarding a train or a bus, every other person had a Blackberry. It was the in thing to have for a businessperson. But now, the roles have reversed and now everyone is sporting a new iPhone 4, complete with its seemingly easy to use interface and multiple exchange server connections. No longer is the Blackberry a work phone and the iPhone a mere plaything. The iPhone has become a full-blown need to have device for many executives.

So has RIM fallen behind the times with its Blackberry phones? Have they failed to move ahead with technology quick enough? Some seem to think so, and even the die-hard Blackberry fans of old are seriously considering whether they are planning to be true to their faith, or whether they are willing to jump ship and sail off to new frontiers.

At the event held in New York, Google executives also demonstrated their newly invented technology and made transactions with it using a Google Nexus smart phone. They also introduced the e-coupons and executives were hopeful that one day you would be able to stop carrying cards altogether and carry everything from your driver’s license to your insurance card on your smartphone.
The Smartphones that can be used as eWallet are equipped with NFC technology, which is based on NXP PN65 chip from NXP Semiconductors.

Google’s representatives claimed that eWallet is completely secure and that there is an exceedingly small chance that your credit card information can be compromised. The NFC chip can only be turned on when the consumers wants it to be. This means that hackers won’t be able to sniff the personal information associated with your eWallet.

Google is partnering with CitiBank, Mastercard, Subway, Macy’s, American Eagle and Sprint for their new NFC Technology. Google also called upon other big guns in the industry to partner with them in order to provide this service to a wider array of consumers.

Trials of Google eWallet began Thursday in New York and San Francisco initially, but according to sources they will be expanded to other cities soon.

Mark Beccue, senior analyst at ABI Research, said that the groundbreaking part of this announcement is that Google’s committed to moving NFC forward, but there’s no single NFC standard yet.

Initially, it works on Samsung Nexus phones with Android OS and can only be used with a MasterCard credit card. Some sources claim that Google is trying to get other Credit Card companies to come on board as well, to extend the services and also as an effort to serve a larger consumer base.

Google eWallet is compatible with MasterCard PayPass as well, which is widely accepted throughout the world. To be a part of Google’s venture, the retailer must have a MasterCard PayPass hand held device as well, and there are about 120,000 which retailers have it in US.
To pay their bills, the Google eWallet users would just have to tap their phone when the cashier asks for payment. For any purchase above $100, you will have to enter a confirmation code which would be sent to you via text message or email. The reason for this security check is to prevent unauthorized usage of your eWallet in case the original owner loses it.

On Thursday, Google also announced Google Offers, e-coupons for shopping. eWallet is expected to enter into full fledge service by 2013.

What do you think of this newest technology? Is it just a natural extension of the smart phone, or is it an opportunity for more and more invasion of our privacy from the big names?

There can be no doubt that the smartphone market is still growing and has some space to grow into for the next few years.  There is also no doubt in this commentators’ mind that there’s more than enough space in the market for Android, Windows Phone and iOS with all parties concerned making healthy profits.  Frankly, variety like this should be encouraged.  Whenever I’ve gone to upgrade to a new handset I’ve always looked for something different both in the hardware and OS as a break from what I’ve been living with for the last two years, but now I can see those days coming to and end which is a shame.

As consumers we should continue to support all three of these mobile OSes (plus Blackberrys and even Symbian and WebOS if Nokia, Sony Ericsson and HP get their collective acts together).

For these reasons I frankly have little interest in what Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer or anybody else in the tech industry called Steve has to say about these figures.  It’s great that Android is flourishing in the same way that it’s great that both iOS and Windows Phone are selling really well too.

To me the smartphone market is a reminder of the home computer revolution of the early 1980′s when you could pop down to your local electronics store on a Saturday morning to be wowed by all the different types of operating system and the different ways of doing things, from the Vectrex console to the Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64 and the wonderful little Oric 1 with its explode command.

Since the beginning of mass adoption of the PC all the innovation of the 80′s has been homogenised into a single, and rather dull, way of working.  Thus I urge all of you to continue to buy iPhones and Android handsets and to continue evangelising about them to your friends and on social networks and blogs for as long as you can.  For me, I’m getting a Windows Phone… ‘cos it’s best  :P

A modified phone on the other hand does not have those restrictions. It is possible to select another mobile phone carrier, and install apps from other stores and locations.

New US government rules announced on Monday allow mobile phone owners to legally jailbreak their phones.

The exemptions were granted as part of a statutorily prescribed rulemaking process, conducted every three years to mitigate the danger the DMCA poses to legitimate, non-infringing uses of copyrighted materials. The DMCA prohibits “circumventing” digital rights management (DRM) and “other technical protection measures” used to control access to copyrighted works. While the DMCA still chills competition, free speech, and fair use, today’s exemptions take unprecedented new strides towards protecting more consumers and artists from its extensive reach.

Putting legalities aside, which were never the problem in the past, Apple and other mobile phone companies usually deal with jailbroken phones by voiding the warranties, and by issuing new updates that disable jailbroken phones. That means that owners of such phones still need to be careful about updating their phones after jailbreaking them. It could also mean that they won’t have access to feature upgrades if they cannot upgrade their phone.

Additional exceptions have been announced on Monday as well:

• Computer users may now bypass external security devices if they do not longer work and cannot be replaced..
• Phone owners may break access controls on their phones to switch to another wireless carrier.
• It is now allowed to break video game protections to investigate or correct security flaws.
• allow college professors, film students, filmmakers and producers of non-commercial videos to break copy-protections on DVDs for educational purposes, criticism or commentar.
• allow blind people to break protections on electronic books so that they can be used with blind-suitable software.

Especially the exception to break access controls on phones to select another carrier should be more than welcome by phone users in the United States, who often had no choice but to select the one carrier that was offering the phone exclusively.

In this piece I will do my best to try to predict what is in store for Linux and open source. Of course, as with any prediction, nothing is for sure; but hopefully these predictions will give you an idea where FOSS software is heading.

Linux takes over mobile market

This prediction is one of the more certain to come true. With more and more powerful phone arriving on the market with the Android operating system and the netbook hardware gaining more power and more Linux-based options (Moblin and Chrome OS for example), the mobile space seems ripe for a Linux takeover in 2010. Of course there have been many who would argue that netbook sales have declined, it has been predicted that netbook sales will top 50 million by 2012. But to this I would suggest that (although I am not a huge fan) cloud computing is going to even further enhance the Linux netbook sales. Because the Linux operating system was made to be networked, it is a perfect candidate to serve as the operating system the cloud will reach out to. And finally, although Windows 7 is proving itself to be an outstanding release, it is not the best fit for the netbook space. The modularity and flexibility of Linux, on the other hand, is perfectly matched for the smaller, portable form factor.

More consumer-level support

I started seeing this growing in 2009. A lot of big vendors are now seeing the viability of Linux and open source. From mobile phones, netbooks, laptops, and desktops – the makers of hardware are finally catching on. 2009 saw the rise of companies like System76 who sell Linux (and only Linux) machines. This trend will continue and catch on with bigger and bigger vendors to the point where we should start seeing Linux machines sold in big box stores near the end of  2010.

Firefox and Chrome become the dominant browsers

It’s already happening. Firefox has slowly become one of the most popular of all the browsers. And with good reason. But Chrome has proven to be a different beast all together. With no other browser able to match its speed, Chrome will make serious headway into the browser-space. And Chrome should also benefit when the Chrome OS starts shipping on netbooks! So, between these two browsers, the landscape will be completely changed and Internet Explorer will finally plummet from the top of the browser war. Once that happens, the battle between Firefox and Chrome will seriously heat up.

GPL and LGPL will do battle

It has already begin. When Miguel de Icaza stripped all GPL code from the Monodevelop tool, the FOSS community lashed out. He did this with good reason – so that third-party add ons could be introduced to the tool without having to GPL the code of the add ons. But to the open source community, it’s all or nothing. This is going to start an ugly battle that will most likely end with a new variation of the current GPL v2 (no one wants to deal with GPL v3). I predict more and more larger open source projects will be releasing under the LGPL, causing the GPL to be seriously rethought. The Richard Stallmans of the FOSS community will most likely be dealing with high blood pressure this year.

GNOME 3 will ruffle feathers

Remember when KDE 4 was released? The Linux community was dramatically split into those that hated the new version and those who loved the new version. GNOME 3 is going to have the same effect – but with a different conclusion. When GNOME 3 is finally released (even in beta), it will be far less buggy than was KDE 4′s initial release. GNOME 3 will be a bit of a paradigm shift for the Linux desktop, but that paradigm will at least work well. The GNOME developers have always had the big picture and the users in mind when developing (except for that Spatial behavior in Nautilus). So, although the radically different GNOME 3 (for information on GNOME 3 check out the 3.0 website.) looks like it could be one of the most exciting releases to come from the GNOME developers, the user community is in an uproar. This uproar is due, in part, to the KDE 4.0 fiasco. Fear not, GNOME users, the GNOME developers have learned from what transpired with KDE 4.0 and will not release a GNOME 3 that is less than functional.

Open source video drivers equal proprietary drivers

We already saw this happening with the release of Ubuntu 9.10 and Intel on board graphics chips. The open source drivers necessary for Intel graphics now match the proprietary solutions feature for feature. The Linux 2.6.33 kernel will greatly boost support for ATI and NVidia graphics chipsets. With the holy-trinity of graphics card support in place, Linux video issues will be a thing of the past. The next step? Unsupported wireless drivers.

Final thoughts

I have been saying (and hearing) this for a long, long time; but I do believe that 2010 will finally be the year Linux and open source receives the support and acceptance it deserves. Not all of my predictions will come true, but many of them will. Do you have a prediction for Linux and open source software? If so, share it with your fellow Ghacks readers.

The mobile phone market in Japan is different from that of the rest of the world as Japanese mobile phone companies control the software on the mobile phones meaning it would be very unlikely that these measures, if agreed on, would be introduced in other markets as well.

The article fails to address several difficulties of such a system. The most important ones are the following:

• What happens to songs that have been ripped from legally bought CDs? Won’t they be played at all? (this assumes that it is legal in Japan to rip CDs)
• What happens if no connection is available currently? (Will it be possible to play songs without net connection?)
• Who pays for the traffic that the song checks create?

Please post your opinions in the comments.

FLASH: At the top of my list is flash. For those of you who think flash is only there to watch Youtube and Redtube videos, think again. With estimates running at 60% of all websites have some sort of flash embedded, it is imperative that we get this and get it soon. We’ve had Javascript for some time and that’s nice, but nothing can beat good old flash.

For this to happen though, we are going to need faster chips in our phones. So I suggest to Smartphone manufacturers to start looking to Snapdragon and Tegra as viable options. At least Palm and Apple aren’t too bad in the specs arena but a 1GHz chip would be much better.

Not to worry though, Adobe is working on bringing Flash to Windows Mobile, Palm, Android and Nokia by October of this year. No word on Blackberry and Apple though.

OLED Displays: VGA, WXVGA and LCD are so yesterday. It’s time that we move forward and embrace new technology. As it currently stands, OLED technology is pretty cheap (Sony has a 32GB walkman with one of these stuck in it for only $400). I was ecstatic when I heard the rumors that the iPhone 3GS would be getting the OLED treatment, only to have my hopes shattered. But its not too late, more Android, Palm, Blackberry and Window’s Mobile devices are due in the near future, lets see which one of them decides to blaze the trail.

And while I am on the issue with the screens, it would be nice to have bigger screens. The iPhone and Pre do an excellent job of navigating webpages, but 3 inch screens are tight on the eyes. Someone must be able to create a flip out 4 or 5 inch screen in the near future.

Better Productivity Programs: As the saying goes, if I cannot edit my presentation, it’s not a smartphone. But seriously doc, spreadsheet and presentation editing are standard now. Its time to innovate and what better way to start with some mobile apps that tackle such things as photo and video editing, database management, server management and not to mention full desktop control.

Some of these have been imitated but so far nothing has come close to doing justice to the situation. I’m not asking for much here. I wouldn’t expect a full fledged mobile version of Photoshop but at least allow me to insert an iPhone into President Obama’s hand. We do have progress though, as the iPhone 3GS made the first move in this direction with the ability to edit video clips.

HD Video Recording: Every month cell phones become a little more advanced in the digital photography arena by adding more megapixels and better CMOS to their specs. But we’re still stuck with the same old VGA video shooting. It’s time for someone to break the norm and bring us HD video shooting. I’m not asking for full 1080p. I would be satisfied with 720p or even 480p to begin with but don’t tell me its impossible because the Mini HD flip is just a little bigger then most Smartphone’s and its packing midrange HD capabilities.

In terms of chips and processors, Atom, and Tegra are two mobile chips that are more then capable of handling this feature and they are not that expensive to stick into a mobile phone. Its about time I am able to view videos recorded on a mobile phone without and properly distinguish a head from a trash can.

More Wireless Features: For a device that was built around the premise that we should have less wires in our lives, our cell phones sure do require a lot of wires to operate. There has been some progress in this area but it is slow. Such things as software updates, tethering, charging, printing etc. are things that should all be done wirelessly. Thankfully these options are all available now but in different models so no device carries it all.

Hopefully if Bluetooth 3.0 makes it out on schedule, a lot of these will begin to make their way to the mainstream—that is if the service providers will allow it.

So what are some of the things you require from a smartphone that currently isn’t available? Let me know in the comments below.

I, too, was torn. I vowed never to buy an iPhone, on account of their price and lack of certain features (saying that, I too vowed never to run Windows XP but I ended up using XP about 3 years after its release, in 2004). I was strongly considering a Symbian-based smartphone, generally seen as a phone of someone a little more tech-savvy than an iPhone user. When I got my iPhone, I was shocked. iPhones are actually very good.

Whilst they do have many little annoying flaws, such as the fact you can’t use a landscape keyboard to compose an email or SMS (not until the next version of iPhone OS, anyway), they are remarkably user-friendly and after a little jailbreaking pretty flexible. I have yet to find something I would like to do, but I can’t do.

LCARS theme on iPhone

Another popular complaint people have with the iPhone is the lack of hardware keys. However, I soon became accustomed to the touch screen, because it has somewhat of a LCARS feeling – especially after you install a LCARS theme! There are some hardware keys though: volume control, a switch to turn it on or off silent mode, the ‘home button’ and a lock button.

Still, the most popular complaint is the price. I find myself paying 35GBP a month and about a 100GBP lump sum. For that, 600 minutes and 500 texts. Pretty expensive, but I am quite satisfied with the data plan that is also included in that price.

So, do you have an iPhone? If not, why not?

Nokia Map Loader can be used to download selected maps directly to the cell phone using a computer’s Internet connection. The maps come in different sizes ranging from a few Megabytes to 20 and more Megabytes. The size of all maps offered exceeds 3 Gigabytes which would cost a fortune when downloaded over the air directly.

Some user had problems using the Nokia Map Loader application. They did experienced interrupted downloads and criticized that they could not delete single maps once they were downloaded to the cell phone. That’s where the direct download links to all Nokia Maps come in handy. The download links point directly to the files on the Nokia servers and can be downloaded with download managers or directly in the web browser. The page does contain instructions on how to add these maps to the Nokia cell phone as well.

Update: The third party program to download Nokia maps to the local system without Nokia Map Loader is no longer available. There does not seem to be a free alternative available at this time. The only option for users is to use the official Nokia Map Loader application linked above to download maps to their computer that they can then transfer to their Nokia pone.

One of the best resources for an owner of a video-enabled phone is Vuclip. Formerly called blueapple.mobi, this site is like YouTube for mobile phones. Users can stream video clips from different video-sharing sites directly to the phone via the site’s search function or just browsing different categories.

As a bonus, Vuclip lets you save videos directly to your phone without any format or codec conflicts. When you see a video you like, just enter your name and phone number and click the ‘send to phone’ button. Vuclip will transcode the file to the necessary phone format and send it to your phone so you are saved the hassle of converting the file format yourself. Registered users have access to additional features like creating cliplists and video alerts among others.

Vuclip claims to produce videos that are compatible with 2,000 different phones from various brands. In addition, the Vuclip service is available for more than 130 countries. The only downside is that although the service is free, users might still have to pay for accessing the internet from their phones as well as for data transfer. Of course this depends on a user’s service provider and the type of billing plan.

What do you think of Vuclip? Would you use this site and its services? What features would you like to see the site offer? Let me know in the comments.

But some cell phones do not provide this opportunity yet. One way for owners of such cell phones is to use a free cell phone ringtone creator to create the ringtone. The website My MusicRings does require registration but does not send a verification email on the other hand and is therefor perfectly suited for creating a free ringtone in no time.. The service itself could not be more straightforward.

The user uploads an mp3 from his hard drive to the ringtone creation service in step 1. He will then have the option to select 29 seconds of the song for his ringtone by moving a slider on the waveform back and forth.

All that’s left is to pick a title and artist for the cell phone ringtone. The ringtone will be created and the option to download it to the computer or to send it to the cell phone is given on the final page of the process.

An url for cell phones is provided as well which can be used to access the page with the cell phone directly. Interestingly enough the pages can be shared with friends which also means that anyone can access all previously created cell phone ringtones by manipulating the url of the service.

Changing the ID from 4900 to another number will load the ring tone with the corresponding number.

Update: The site is no longer available. A good alternative with free ringtones is Cellsea.

The Nokia PC Suite is the standard set of software for managing your phone and multimedia and was recently updated to version 7.0 which was a marked improvement on the previous version. While it’s an improvement I would describe the software as ‘adequate’ rather then good. It does the basics, sometimes a little more but generally does little to impress, especially the media management tools and performance.

What Nokia has been working on however which is fairly impressive is the Nokia Ovi Suite which has been designed from scratch and will eventually replace PC suite totally I presume. I think it’s only being released in a few countries at the moment, if it’s not released in yours you may have to change your system language settings.

Ovi is a great example of the ‘software + services’ concept going through most of the technology industries and inspired by the success of Apple’s iPod + iTunes system.

Ovi includes all of the PC suite functions and features while having additional features and generally improving substantially upon everything including predominantly a far more intuitive and attractive user interface. The software is also connected to the online Ovi services for uploading, download and sharing media such as music, images and games.

If you’re currently using PC Suite I would really recommend giving this a try, it is an improvement in every way, even including performance.

One of the popular reasons to connect to the Internet is to catch up on the latest news. This can be done by browsing to websites and reading the news there or by installing an RSS News Feed reader and use its interface to read the news. The advantage of the latter method is the concentration of news in one application, the notifications of new messages and reduced bandwidth costs.

The iRSS mobile phone RSS News Feeds reader is just one application that can be used to read rss news feeds on a mobile device. One advantage of it is the compatibility with lots of different devices like smartphones, mobile phones and PDAs.

The news reader can store up to five feed groups and one hundred RSS News Feeds which should be sufficient for mobile usage. It supports rss, xml, atom and rdf feeds and is compatible with RSS 0.91, 1.0 and 2.0 feeds. It also comes packed with a few popular feeds like Yahoo Technology News or Youtube Recently Added Video News.

In case you are wondering, HandyWi is the application that can be installed on many Nokia mobile phones including the Nokia N78, Nokia N95 and the N93. A list of supported devices can be found at the developers homepage.

The process is pretty simple. The HandyWi software has to be installed on the mobile phone which will alert the user whenever a free WiFi spot has been discovered. The user can then connect to that spot and start using services like VOIP or Internet surfing for free.

This works pretty well in combination with Notebooks as well especially if your Notebook’s wireless card is not supported by the usual applications like Netstumbler or Easy WiFi Radar.

HandyWi features:

• Filtering of hotspots, separated view for public WLAN networks
• HandyWi clearly shows which access point is secure and which is not
• Single internet access point (HandyWi APN) for all applications (mail, web browser, char etc.)
• Easy account management, several user accounts possible (scratch card, prepaid etc.)
• Access to the location based media information, loaded each time you connect (works on selected WLAN networks only)
• Automatic hotspot discovery and alert feature
• Automatic connection to the hotspot which has stronger signal
• Secure RSA encrypted communication with HandyWi server
• Automatic application startup after install and on boot

HandyWi works pretty well and can be installed directly or by downloading it to the PC first.

It gets even better. The Nokia N95 has a special version of that application that uses the phones accelerometer to rotate the video on screen if you rotate the phone to change between portrait and landscape mode. The emTube applications makes it possible to play Youtube movies either from the local flash memory of the phone or by downloading / streaming videos to your phone instead.

Videos can be browsed on Youtube and several comfort settings, like configuring the number of search results or if you want to start the video manually or automatically, make emTube a wonderful application that looks really promising.

via Tech Yard

As we all know, Google Calendar has the option to send free SMS reminders of tasks. Now all you need is to set up a calendar for your significant other using your own phone as a reminder, and one for yourself, with his/her phone number. Set the default reminder to SMS, for 5 minutes before the event takes place

Now if you want to send her an SMS, just create an event, and write the text as the “What” text. Set the event about 10 minutes ahead to be safe, and save. Sadly only 60 characters will be shown in the SMS, but this is still enough for a quick message. You can create events 1 minute apart and have 3 events span a single SMS if you want. You will have a “reminder” sent to your partner, quickly and for free!

He can either download the books to his computer and transfer them afterwards using the normal means of connecting his mobile phone to the computer or he can connect with his mobile to the Internet and download the books directly. The second option is probably only advisable if you have a free data contingent.

The books are optimized for mobile phones, some of the features are:

• Adjustable font size settings. Make the letters bigger or smaller according to your personal preference.
• Night-vision mode. Makes it easy to read in a dark room.
• Chapter navigation. Navigate the book by chapter.
• Pause & Auto-resume function. Automatically pauses and resumes to accommodate incoming calls.
• Auto-bookmark. You never have to remember where you’re up to in the book.

I would say the books are mostly classic literature books from authors such as Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Joseph Conrad and Sir Walter Scott. All books are out of copyright in the United States which means it is perfectly legal to download those books to your mobile phone.

Two versions are always offered. The first offering a better reading experience but requires a modern phone while the other does work on older phones as well. I would try the first version and see if it is supported by the phone and only if it is not supported I would download and use the second version.

Read More:

Books in my phone

There are however lots of mobile phones affected, here is the full list of phones that could be effected:

Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60, Nokia Wireless GPS Module LD-1W, Nokia Wireless GPS Module LD-3W

A lot of phones, don’t you think ? Not all of the phones are affected, it depends on the type of battery that is placed in the phone. Only the BL-5C battery model is affected, take a look at the screenshots to find out if your phone uses one of those batteries.

The first step would be to turn the mobile phone off, take the battery out of the case and check the battery model. The battery model is shown on the screenshot below. If the model is not BL-5C you are finished and save.

If it is one of the affected battery models you need to look at the back of the battery and enter the battery identification number on a Nokia Advisory website to check if your battery is affected.

If you answered the last question with yes read on. I found a website on the internet that generates the unlock code for your Nokia mobile. You enter this unlock code in your phone (with the sim card taken off) and voila your phone is unlocked. (if the code is working of course).

The procedure is pretty straight forward, you need to know your IMEI number which you recieve when you enter the code *#06# in your phone with the SIM card not inside the phone. Enter the unique number into the websites form field, chose your operator and country and the Nokia model. After that click generate code and a code will be shown that unlocks your mobile.