Before we get to the apps today, I have a couple of news items to tell you about. First, there is a sale right now for the game I wrote about in last week's post, Space Miner: Space Ore Bust (was $4.99; now $1.99). I really can't recommend this game enough (I'm still playing whenever I get a chance), so if you were waiting for the price to come down, now is the time to pull the trigger.

Also, a new Apple patent application, reported by AppleInsider, suggests that a future handheld device will have a forward-facing camera. Whether it's planned for a later version of the iPad, or one of the new features on Apple's next iPhone in June, a forward facing camera might mean you will be able to make and receive video calls. In the diagram, you can also see a different treatment for what is traditionally the Home button on iPhone handsets that appears to be a nod to older iPod controls. Though we can't put too much stock in rumors and patent applications, this diagram certainly adds fuel to the ever-growing Apple rumor fire. Hopefully, as we get closer to the next iPhone launch, more new features will be unveiled.

This week's apps include an alarm clock app that wakes you at just the right time and a tower defense game where you use plant units to defend against shambling undead.

Sleep Cycle alarm clock (99 cents) claims to use your natural sleep patterns to wake you up during your lightest sleep phase, leaving you feeling more rested. The app requires that you sleep with your iPhone face down on your mattress so that it can detect your movements. When it gets within 30 minutes of your designated wake-up time, the Sleep Cycle analyzes your movements to predict the precise moment you should be woken. The app comes with instructions for use, information about sleep patterns, and an alarm clock (with several relaxing alarm tones) you can set for your preferred wake-up time. With this latest version, you also get a detailed graph of your sleep patterns through the night that you can then compare with other nights. Obviously, you'll want to have your iPhone attached to the charger to ensure your iPhone won't run out of charge before the alarm goes off.

Sleep Cycle alarm clock is certainly an interesting concept, but I've only been able to try it once, and I'm not yet convinced it works as advertised. My main problem is figuring out where to place the iPhone so I don't knock it off my bed in the middle of the night. In my first night with Sleep Cycle, the iPhone managed to stay on my bed, but I wonder just how reliable it will be. I hope some of you will try the app and report back in the comments so we can all compare notes on how effective Sleep Cycle alarm clock really is.

Plants vs. Zombies ($2.99) is a tower defense game that first gained popularity on Mac and Windows machines, and was just released for the iPhone. In this game, you're charged with defending your house from an onslaught of zombies by planting defensive plants to eliminate the undead before they reach your house. There are 49 different defensive plants to choose from and 26 different types of zombies. Like many tower defense games, you'll have units that shoot projectiles, units that slow the advance of enemies, and specific units that are more effective against certain types of enemies. To plant (or buy) new units, you'll need to collect sunlight by tapping your finger on falling sun animations and planting sunflowers which generate sunlight on their own. You'll also find coins while killing zombies that you can spend on upgrades supplied by your crazy neighbor. The game offers two game modes: Adventure mode, which serves as a tutorial game to familiarize yourself with the many plant units, and a quick play mode you'll need to unlock by playing through the Adventure mode.

Plants vs. Zombies is quickly becoming one of my favorite tower defense games just with the enormous amount of possible units you can use to defend your house. The different zombie types also add further challenge, with some that vault over your obstacles, for example, and others that block your shots for a certain amount of time before you can inflict any real damage. The graphics are not the most complex you'll find on the iPhone, but the cartoon-like zombies and cute but deadly plants make the game both charming and extremely fun to play. There are also minigames within Adventure mode that will have you bowling objects to take out incoming zombies and others that challenge you to use randomized plants as they come off a conveyor belt. Overall, with the amazing amount of possible units and several different strategies you'll need to learn to fight different zombie types, Plants vs. Zombies is an excellent addition to your gaming app collection. If you're a tower defense fan or just want a time-waster with a lot of variation, this game is a great choice.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Do you think the forward facing camera will appear on the next gen iPhones? What's your experience with the Sleep Cycle alarm clock? What do you think of Plants vs. Zombies? Let me know in the comments!

A recent update to Digsby, a controversial multiple-protocol instant-messaging client, focuses on enhancements specific to Windows 7 and tweaks several social-networking features.

Given the problem it had last year with its CPU cycle-grabbing shenanigans, one would think that Digsby would hold back from adding another service requiring those who don't want it to go through a post-installation opt-out process. But Digsby build 76 beta, released February 11 and announced broadly on Thursday, does just that with a OneRiot trending-news service it automatically added to users' social feeds. Users can disable the service in the General & Profile menu under Preferences.

The Windows 7 features include jump-list access to basic tasks, such as initiating a new instant message, setting your global status, and accessing Preferences. Interestingly, it also will add your most frequently messaged buddies, based on the size of their chat log. Notifications and unread conversation counts are also accessible in the taskbar.

The Windows 7 skins are a series of themes designed to work with the default Aero colors. These basically match the background of the friend pane to the Windows toolbar color. Somewhat annoyingly, Digsby has mapped the CTRL+S hot key combo to bring up the skins pane, though it's the default for saving in nearly every other program in existence.

Social-networking changes in this build of Digsby include adding a "dislike" button to Facebook, bringing commenting to updates from MySpace friends, and revamping Facebook notification pop-ups. In the blog post discussing the changes in this update, Digsby revealed that the next public build will include per-character formatting so that users can italicize or make bold selected parts of an IM, not just the whole thing, as well as group chat. The company also acknowledged that it will be spending more time on porting the program to Mac and Linux, which has been discussed for several years.

Like the love child of Barcode Scanner and Google Goggles, Google's new Shopper app for Android (rated review) uses the smartphone's camera to find you deals and steals.

Although you can scan any barcode, Google is positioning Shopper as an entertainment tool to identify CDs, DVDs, and video games from scans of their covers. Google also links up its voice search engine, so you can speak your way into Shopper's database. There is, of course, the arcane typing method, too.

Shopper, a product wrought from Google Labs, predominantly sources its price comparisons (in US currency only) from online stores and large chains like Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target. The app lets you star favorites and share them online or via e-mail, and it winningly saves a history of your selections for offline referencing.

However, as a tool for converting the scan into a sale, Shopper for Android falls flat. Unlike many other shopping and barcode-scanning competitors for Android (like ShopSavvy, for one), Shopper stops short of pointing out local sources of the item, essentially abandoning you in your quest of acquisition.

It would be so easy for Google to drop in its excellent map and reliable directions engine. And why isn't Google Shopper using the Android phone's built-in GPS to help determine where you are and which brick and mortar stores lurk nearby? The app should--at the very least--sort results from cheapest to priciest, add various other sorting filters, and hyperlink to online stores so you can suss out the competition yourself, or even attempt to buy online right then and there. We know that Google Shopper is in its early stages, but it's a thin showing from a company with so much to offer mobile consumers.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Problem: You've just been handed a stack of papers that need to be signed and returned--and there's no fax machine in sight.

Problem: You've got a pocketful of receipts you're tired of carrying around--and no place to file them.

Problem: You need to convert a printed document into a PDF.

The solution for all these predicaments is Scanner Pro ($4.99), which turns your iPhone into a mobile scanner that connects to everything from Dropbox to Evernote to MobileMe.

Here's how it works: Find the most well-lit setting you possibly can, run the app, then point your iPhone's camera at a document. Assuming you're happy with the capture (a handy Retake button is available if you're not), tap Done, and Scanner Pro converts the page into a PDF.

From there, the sky's the limit--or make that the cloud. With a few taps you can upload your page(s) to any/all of the aforementioned services, as well as Box.net, Humyo, and WebDAV-compatible online storage.

Scanner Pro also lets you e-mail and print your scans (though the latter requires third-party app Print n Share, which costs $6.99). What you can't do is mark or annotate them; the app's only editing controls are for contrast, brightness, and color/grayscale.

If you just want to copy scanned documents to your PC, Scanner Pro provides an always-on network-drive capability; just point your browser to the IP address shown on the app's main page and presto, you've got files.

I have just two real complaints with the app. First, it's hampered by the limitations of the iPhone's camera. My autofocusing 3GS did a pretty decent job of capturing letter-size pages, but I wouldn't call the text razor-sharp. And you really do need a ton of indirect light to get good results.

Second, Scanner Pro's interface can be a little confusing at first, and the built-in help is scant at best. Novice users may find themselves frustrated until they learn their ways around.

Despite these limitations, I will confess to some serious love for Scanner Pro. Just today I used it to capture and e-mail a few signed pages; the convenience was astounding.

While we're on the subject of camera-powered apps:

• Camera Dialer: Point-and-shoot phone dialing
• Barcode Reader app compares prices on the fly
• Five seriously fun photo apps for your iPhone
• iPhone app turns business cards into contacts

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Mozilla has released fixes for five security holes in older versions of Firefox, while a security company has warned of a zero-day flaw in the latest version of the popular browser.

Mozilla issued patches Wednesday for versions 3.5.8 and 3.0.18 of the browser, sending out fixes for the latter even though it had said it would stop supporting Firefox 3.0 in January. In its security bulletin, the company said the vulnerabilities had previously been resolved in Firefox 3.6, which was launched on January 21. The five flaws addressed by Mozilla included three the company rated "critical." Those three flaws involve an error in handling out-of-memory conditions; stability errors in the Gecko rendering engine; and a bug in the way Mozilla's implementation of Web Worker handles posted messages.

Separately, Secunia reported Thursday an unpatched bug in Firefox 3.6, the most recent version of the browser. The security firm warned that the software contains a bug that could be used to execute malicious code on a user's system.

Read more of "Firefox suffers critical bugs" at ZDNet UK.

Originally posted at News - Security

Windows systems that crashed during the latest Microsoft security update last week did so because they were infected with a rootkit program that made changes to the operating system kernel, Microsoft said late on Wednesday.

"The restarts are the result of modifications the Alureon rootkit makes to Windows Kernel binaries, which places these systems in an unstable state," Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, wrote in a blog post. "In every investigated incident, we have not found quality issues with security update MS10-015."

The patch addresses a vulnerability in the 32-bit Windows kernel that could allow elevation of privilege that was disclosed last month.

The Win32/Alureon family of malware can modify DNS settings, hijack searches, and fraudulently click on ads, Microsoft said in a post on its Malware Protection Center Blog. Last year, versions appeared that infect the miniport driver associated with the hard disk of the operating system, the post says.

Microsoft will not offer the patch through Automatic Update for 32-bit Windows systems until a solution is available, but 64-bit versions will be offered.

Anyone believed to have been affected by the Alureon rootkit can visit https://consumersecuritysupport.microsoft.com. Those in the United States can contact Customer Service and Support at no charge using the PC Safety hotline at 1-866-727-2338 (PCSAFETY). Those outside the United States can find local contact numbers at http://support.microsoft.com/international.

Customers who choose not to install the update can implement the workaround or install the update manually as outlined in the MS10-015 bulletin.

"A malware compromise of this type is serious, and if customers cannot confirm removal of the Alureon rootkit using their chosen anti-virus/anti-malware software, the most secure recommendation is for the owner of the system to back up important files and completely restore the system from a cleanly formatted disk," Microsoft said.

For instructions on how to back up your files in Windows, visit this page. For instructions on how to reinstall Windows, visit this page.

Originally posted at InSecurity Complex