Technology news in brief

— Android apps a target of malware SAN JOSE, Calif. - Lurking among the flood of games, tax guides and other mobile applications being downloaded onto mobile devices using Google’s popular Android software is a fast-growing array of apps that can slap the gadget’s owner with unanticipated fees, rifle bank accounts and cause untold other problems.

Known instances of Android-related malware - “virtually all” involving apps - have jumped steadily month by month from 400 in June to 15,507 in February, according to Sunnyvale, Calif., security firm Juniper Networks.

So far, hundreds of thousands of phones and other devices have been infected.

“I see the problem getting significantly worse before it gets better,” said Dan Hoffman, who heads Juniper’s mobile research center.

Apps for Apple devices also can be targeted, but security experts say that in general, they are more secure.

In August, San Francisco-based Lookout Mobile Security reported that “an estimated half-million to 1 million people were affected by Android malware in the first half of 2011,” all from apps.

Amazon gets hands on robot maker

Amazon.com Inc. said last week that it was acquiring Kiva Systems, a maker of robots that service warehouses, for $775 million in cash.

Amazon, a Kiva customer, is buying the robotics company as it builds out its vast network of warehouses and tries to improve its margins.

“Amazon has long used automation in its fulfillment centers, and Kiva’s technology is another way to improve productivity by bringing the products directly to employees to pick, pack and stow,” Dave Clark, Amazon’s vice president for global customer fulfillment, said in a statement. “Kiva shares our passion for invention.”

Kiva, based in North Reading, Mass., builds robots to help retailers manage their inventory and fulfill orders.

Founded in 2003 by its chief executive, Mick Mountz, Kiva serves many large retailers, such as Gap, Staples and Saks. Its investors include Bain Capital Ventures, the venture capital arm of Bain Capital, and Meakem Becker Venture Capital.

Small rise in PC shipments expected

NEW YORK - Worldwide shipments of personal computers will pick up in the second half of the year with the debut of a new Windows operating system and the broader availability of notebooks that are thin like tablet computers, according to the research group IDC.

IDC expects growth in PC shipments this year to be a modest 5 percent. In healthier times, PC shipments had double-digit percentage growth. IDC’s forecast, released last week, is in line with other recent estimates.

The research group said PC shipments worldwide grew less than 2 percent last year. The growth came from emerging markets, while the industry saw a 9 percent drop in mature markets such as the U.S. and Western Europe. A weak economy and consumer interest in tablets were to blame.

IDC Vice President Bob O’Donnell said consumers continue to hold off buying PCs as Apple Inc.’s iPad and other tablet computers “are proving to be a powerful distraction.” It’ll take new products - Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 8 and so-called ultrabooks from PC makers - to change that.

“Windows 8 and ultrabooks are a definitive step in the right direction to recapturing the relevance of the PC,” Jay Chou, a senior research analyst at IDC, said in a statement. “But its promise of meshing a tablet experience in a PC body will likely entail a period of trial and error.”

App creators to test new BlackBerry

Research In Motion Ltd. plans to give software developers prototypes of a new BlackBerry in early May, signaling that the company is a step closer to the debut of a handset it’s betting on to revive slumping sales.

As many as 2,000 of the BlackBerry 10 test models will be given out to developers at Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Jam conference in Orlando, Fla., and they are designed to allow developers to build applications using the underlying operating system, Alec Saunders, vice president of developer relations, said Friday.

The company is counting on the BlackBerry 10 lineup, based on software called QNX it bought in 2010, to revive sales that have slumped in recent quarters, particularly in the U.S., its biggest and most competitive market. The company’s market share has dropped as consumers abandoned the BlackBerry for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and touchscreen devices built on Google Inc.’s Android software that offer a wider range of consumer apps.

Saunders said the design of the test model and the screen’s look and navigation will be very different from what eventually goes on sale to consumers. “We are holding that back to create the interest around that at launch time.”

Research In Motion has said the first of the new phones will go on sale in the “latter” part of 2012.

Business, Pages 20 on 03/26/2012

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