Access your files anywhere with Mozy Android app

Hot on the heels of its iOS counterpart, online backup service Mozy just released an app for Android. That's a major perk for anyone already using the service to archive their data.

Mozy, of course, is the quiet desktop tool that automatically copies your critical files to the cloud. I've been a user for years, and just this week I had to take advantage of it after a sudden system failure. Worked like a charm.

The app, which is free, enables you to access your files on the run. You can, for example, retrieve Word and Excel documents, view photos, and even play MP3s and certain kinds of videos.

Mozy also lets you share files via e-mail, or download them directly to your phone or tablet. (To access these options, you simply tap and hold any file. Unfortunately, you can't do likewise with folders.)

Mozy for Android is virtually identical in form and function to Mozy for iPhone, so I recommend reading Lance Whitney's coverage of the latter if you want to learn more.

I do share his opinion that navigation could be better; drilling down through a folder structure is a less-than-ideal way to find the file(s) you want. At least there's a search option. (Lance noted that it didn't work with entire data sets, only individual folders, but in my tests that wasn't the case: you can indeed search from the top level.)

If you're already using a service like Dropbox or SugarSync to access files on the go, I'm not sure there's much point in switching to Mozy. But if you're a Mozy user, it's a no-brainer: grab this app. (If you're not a Mozy user, I can't recommend it highly enough--especially the free 2GB MozyHome account.)

RIM to Support Apple and Android Phones

In a tactical ploy to increase their market share and point out the flaws in Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS systems, Blackberry makers RIM have announced that it will offering businesses security management tools to supports its rival OS’s as well as its own.

Spectators say that the increased usage of non-Blackberry phones in business environments has forced Blackberry into accommodating rival smart phones in its BlackBerry Enterprise Server rather than loosing business to third parties such as Zenprise which manages all OS’s.

One executive for a pharmaceutical company boasting the use of around 15,000 Blackberry’s thinks the move could benefit Blackberry, saying “by extending support to other devices, RIM will expose the limitations of some of the other platforms.”

Many are seeing the move as Blackberry finally accepting its dwindling presence in the Smartphone market but reiterate that the move can only be a good move for the company.

Google fixing Android security flaw

Google is rolling out a fix that addresses a security flaw found in over 90 percent of Android phones.

Last Friday, German researchersfrom Ulm University found a flaw in the Android platform for versions

 2.3.3 and earlier that made it possible for a hacker to access and edit a user’s Google contacts and calendar on open WiFi networks.

About 99.7 percent of Android users were still running earlier versions of the platform, the researchers said.

For users running these earlier versions, the services use an unencrypted http connection to request an authentication token from Google. In later versions of Android, the services use a secure https connection to request an authentication token from Google.

The company issued a statement Wednesday saying, "Today we're starting to roll out a fix which addresses a potential security flaw that could, under certain circumstances, allow a third party access to data available in calendar and contacts. This fix requires no action from users and will roll out globally over the next few days."

Researchers also found that synchronization with Picasa, Google’s photo album service, is not encrypted. Google is still investigating this issue.

TuneWiki for Android gets overhauled

(Credit: Screenshot by Joshua Goldman/CNET)

TuneWiki was already a favorite music player for Android, mainly for its timed, subtitled lyrics (available translated into more than 40 languages), displayed while keeping the album art on screen and not navigating away from the player controls. The application got a major update today, getting a new interface and enhanced social-networking and music-discovery features.

The interface is now broken into three sections: My Music, Discover, and Connected. My Music is exactly what it sounds like, the music living on your device. Discover houses all the social-networking options. Tapping the Map button, for example, brings up a Song Map to see what people near you or around the world are listening to with TuneWiki. Find someone with similar tastes and you can choose to follow them, making them a Muse. You can also add people from your Facebook and Twitter networks as Muses. Whatever a Muse listens to ends up in your Songbox where you're able to preview and purchase tracks. You can also discover more music from an artist by seeing the songs you own as well as those you don't, with the option to immediately sample, buy, or watch a music video for those songs.

The last section, Connected, is for accessing streaming radio apps such as Shoutcast, music videos, on-demand services like Rhapsody and TuneWiki's Lyric Legend game, which requires you to tap word-filled orbs in time with a song. There's lyric support for streaming audio and video, too.