In a CNET News story yesterday, our very own Josh Lowensohn explored Apple's recent patent application for an interesting touch-screen concept. The patent details separate smaller displays outside of the regular iPhone touch screen. According to the patent filing, these separate displays could be used in tandem with the main iPhone touch screen or used by developers to show added information in apps and games. Josh is careful to point out that patent applications don't necessarily mean a company will use an idea in a future product, but they are nonetheless interesting to consider.

Obviously, adding separate screens would open up all kinds of options for apps, but I wonder if these areas would be used by Apple for showing things like battery life, current time, camera information, or other more generic smartphone-related uses. But if these added touch-screen areas could be used by app developers, it would open up a huge number of possibilities for more interesting on-screen controls and other information widgets related to what's happening on-screen.

Even without knowing whether this will come to light, what sort of uses can you envision for extra displays around the main iPhone screen? Let me know your ideas in the comments.

This week's apps include an app for star gazing that uses augmented-reality technology and an app that lets you play classic arcade and console games from the golden age of gaming.

SkyView (99 cents) lets you use your iPhone camera view to create an augmented-reality view of the sky complete with constellations, planets, and satellites. Simply launch the app and point your iPhone camera skyward to see constellations and other celestial bodies where they are in real time. You also can touch planets, stars, and constellations to get more info and history at the bottom of the screen.

While you can spend plenty of time simply pointing in different directions and viewing celestial bodies, SkyView offers a few more handy features for finding what you want. You can use the search tool to quickly bring up an alphabetized list of celestial bodies, with buttons across the bottom of the interface to narrow your search to planets in our solar system--stars, constellations, or satellites. The search results let you know which celestial bodies are above or below the horizon in your location, making it easy to find things you can actually see.

Another extra lets you enter the date and time to see what's in the night sky. This acts as a sort of time machine, letting you view the position of stars and planets on a specific day and determine whether you'll be able to see a planet as it passes closer to Earth, for example. But even just using the current date and time, SkyView lets you "scrub" forward on the moon's path, for instance, to see where it will be positioned later that day.

Overall, by using augmented reality, the iPhone accelerometer, and gyroscope technology, SkyView is an excellent way to identify celestial bodies, satellites, and constellations right from your iPhone. If you've ever wanted to know what you're looking at in the night sky, this app is the perfect stargazer's companion.

Atari's Greatest Hits (free with in-app purchases) lets you relive the early history of video gaming, giving you tons of old-school arcade and Atari 2600 hits on your iPhone. But it's not without flaws. Games like the original Asteroids, Tempest, Gravitar, Crystal Castle, and many more are available via in-app purchases packaged with their associated Atari 2600 games and some extras. In other words, the Atari Greatest Hits app itself is free, but if you want to play Tempest, for example, you'll need to buy the Tempest pack (99 cents), which comes with Tempest, Tempest for Atari 2600, Outlaw (2600), and Video Cube (2600). You also have the option to buy all the packs in one shot for $14.99 giving you more than 100 old-school games.

Upon first launch of an old favorite, you're bound to be excited to see the same graphics and hear the same sounds you may remember from the classic days of gaming, but once you start playing, that initial excitement will probably wear off quickly.

The problem with playing these old games on the iPhone is the small screen size and limited control schemes for each game. As an example, Tempest, which was originally played with a spinnable knob and a fire button in the stand-up version, is controlled using a vertical slider on the left side of the screen and a fire button on the right. Even after a few plays, I was never able to get the slider to move the way I wanted it to, forcing me to try over and over to move around the board on levels I used to be able to beat easily in the original. Unfortunately, most of these classic games share similar issues.

Overall, Atari's Greatest Hits offers somewhat stunted iPhone versions of the old classics, along with several Atari 2600 titles. Sadly, after playing these old greats the new way, you might find your rose-colored nostalgia tainted. Certainly, some of the more popular titles like Adventure, Combat, and other Atari 2600 hits will be fun to play a couple times, but for the most part, the control schemes and dated games seem to be more for nostalgia than for actual lasting entertainment.

Around the Web, I've noticed that Atari's Greatest Hits is being reviewed fairly favorably, but for me--a gamer who used to load my quarters and tokens up at the arcade machines of old--this collection is ultimately a disappointment to play, if a cool novelty. I should point out that my CNET colleague, Christopher MacManus agrees in his first take, but suggests that the iPad versions are much more palatable.

What's your favorite iPhone app? How do you like using augmented reality to see the night sky? Am I being too hard on Atari's Greatest Hits? Let me know in the comments!

One of Firefox's most popular features is its add-on support, with its accompanying deep add-on catalog. The new Firefox 4 Mobile for Android (download) and for Maemo devices (download) also support add-ons, so we've got a collection of Firefox mobile add-on essentials for you that covers the bases, from useful ad blocking to interesting, mobile-specific password helpers.

The best-known add-on that's a must-have is Adblock Plus (download), ported by the developer from Firefox desktop to mobile. If you're not familiar with it, it blocks ads by using blacklists to filter out the ads. Once installed, the extension guides you to a list of filters you can install. It will recommend a filter based on which country you're in. If you do want to see ads on a particular site, you don't have to uninstall the add-on. Tap the favicon of the site you're on and an option will appear in the drop-down to toggle ad blocking for that site.

Unfortunately, the mobile version of the excellent JavaScript blocker NoScript isn't ready yet. However, there are other effective security tools for Firefox 4 Mobile.Tapsure (download) is one of those; it provides you with a pattern-based system for typing passwords. Instead of typing out a lengthy password that can be cumbersome to get through on a mobile keyboard, Tapsure lets you associate your passwords with rhythm-based tap patterns.

Another good mobile security extension is Less Spam, Please (download). It creates a partially randomized e-mail address that's both disposable and reusable, thus keeping your primary e-mail free of potential spam and clutter, and lessening the likelihood that your main account will get hacked. The add-on relies on Web mail services like YopMail, MailCatch, Humaility, or Mailinator to create the e-mail address on the fly. Then, until you delete that account, your log-in to that Web site is associated with the new dummy e-mail.

Other mobile add-ons focus on Web site access and readability. URL Fixer (download) autocorrects common typos in the URL bar, so that when you type ".cmo" it knows you meant ".com". There's an option in the add-on to have it ask you to confirm autocorrections before applying them, providing a level of protection against improper autocorrects.

The add-on Bigger Text (download), perhaps unsurprisingly, makes the text of the Web site you're viewing bigger, and it does it in two different ways. In the add-on's Options menu, you can set a new default font size larger than the standard one. It also adds a "Bigger Text" button to the site menu, accessible by tapping the site's favicon. Tap the Bigger Text button and a site's font automatically gets bigger.

Based on the code that powers Readability, Reading List (download) lets you save pages to read for later. It adds a book icon to the toolbar (viewable when you drag your finger from the right edge of the screen to the left), and a Save for Later option to the site menu. Tap the favicon and then the Save for Later button to save a page, and tap the aforementioned book icon to access your sites.

Personally, I find this a bit superfluous to just using the bookmark star, but I know that a lot of people like the Readibility-style features and separate organization of sites to read later from their regular bookmark lists.

There are some excellent add-ons to extend Firefox Mobile's feature set, too. Phony (download) lets you fake a browser's useragent header, which is the piece of code that Web sites use to determine whether you see the mobile or desktop version of a site. This can be useful if, for example, you want to see the Mac version of Download.com instead of the mobile version.

Mobile Profiles (download) is a simple little add-on that helps you create multiple browsing profiles in Firefox Mobile. This could be very useful for families and other people who share devices, so that each person's browsing information is kept separate. Meanwhile, Lazy Click (download) could wind up being a sleeper hit of an add-on. It fixes missed screen taps by applying them to the closest clickable link or button. The options let you customize the radius of error, and users who've found their Android touch screens to be inaccurate are likely to get the most out of this.

Got a favorite Firefox 4 Mobile add-on that I didn't mention here? Tell me about it in the comments below.

There's a new twist with some fake antivirus scareware that has cropped up. It accepts payment via SMS, according to antivirus firm CyberDefender.

Typical rogue security programs infect the system first, then display pop ups warning that the computer is infected, and request payment to clean it up. The new programs are seemingly more genteel, asking for the money before the program is installed and infects the system, said Achal Khetarpal, threat research director at CyberDefender. Of course, a payment does nothing to "fix" a system and means criminals now have your money and possibly your credit card information.

When a potential victim happens upon a Web site hosting the malware, a dialog box pops up that looks very much like an installer window for a legitimate antivirus product, according to screenshots from CyberDefender. It says "Welcome to" and names a popular antivirus software and suggests closing other applications. If the victim falls for the ruse, it then displays a message that says "To complete installation, you must go through activation" and offers several ways to pay, including SMS (Short Message Service), WebMoney, and credit card.

If you click "cancel," the program won't install, compared with typical fake antivirus programs that have already infected the system by the time the victim realizes what is happening and keep displaying the annoying pop-up messages, even after reboot, Khetarpal said.

The company has seen five versions of the rogue security programs masquerading as software from Avast, Norton, McAfee, BitDefender, and RootKitBuster, and they, as usual, target Windows systems.

Khetarpal could not say how widespread the malware is but said he has seen it in a "lot of Web sites" and in relation to search results for popular and trending topics.

Fake AV scammers aren't the only ones to hop on the SMS payment bandwagon. Scammers were found to be seeking payment by SMS for fake browser updates earlier this year, according to GFI Labs.

Originally posted at InSecurity Complex

Web-page speed guru Steve Souders, putting to use the latest in a string of useful tools he's created, has found that the top 17,000 Web sites have eased off use of Adobe Systems' Flash Player in the last half year.

Specifically, Souders has started showing data collected by his HTTP Archive project, which logs a wide range of statistics about a collection of 17,000 top Web sites. He began logging data last year but only announced the HTTP Archive at the end of March.

The site lets people compare statistics about how Web sites are built from two points in time. One figure that's interesting, given Apple's high-profile attempt to wean the browser world from its reliance on Flash, is a 2 percent drop in Flash usage from 49 percent on November 15, 2010, to 47 percent on March 29.

That's not a huge fraction, but it is probably notable given that it took place over only four and a half months. I'll be keeping an eye out to see if a trend emerges, but I'm hesitant to be too conclusive at this stage; for example, Flash usage actually increased to 50 percent for the December 16 HTTP Archive data.

The archive is fun to poke around, but it's also a handy tool for engineers seeking real data about the Web. Souders hopes it'll be useful for improving Web page performance, which is a very big deal.

That's because people on the Web abandon sites that are slower to respond and spend more time with those that are snappy.

Google, which makes money when people spend more time on the Web, is working to improve performance not only of its own sites but of the Web overall. It's got tools for measuring page speed, the Chrome browser that makes speed a top priority, and technologies such as SPDY and Google Public DNS that it's trying to promote to speed things up.

Souders, a Google employee with the unusual title of performance evangelist, calls the archive a tool in cultural development as well as performance improvement. He describes the HTTP Archive thus:

Successful societies and institutions recognize the need to record their history - this provides a way to review the past, find explanations for current behavior, and spot emerging trends. In 1996 Brewster Kahle realized the cultural significance of the Internet and the need to record its history. As a result he founded the Internet Archive which collects and permanently stores the Web's digitized content.

In addition to the content of web pages, it's important to record how this digitized content is constructed and served. The HTTP Archive provides this record. It is a permanent repository of web performance information such as size of pages, failed requests, and technologies utilized. This performance information allows us to see trends in how the Web is built and provides a common data set from which to conduct web performance research.

The 17,000 Web sites are a combination of several collections including the top 10,000 lists of Alexa and Quantcast and the Fortune 500. They're scoured by a computer set to look like Internet Explorer 8 using a DSL connection in Dulles, Va.

Peter-Paul Koch, a consultant and close watcher of Web site practices, lauded the HTTP Archive as useful in a blog post this week.

"Once it's been gathering data for a year we'll have a fascinating insight into what works, what doesn't, and what clueless Web developers do," he said.

And who doesn't want more data? For example, Koch focuses heavily on mobile phone use of the Web right now. It "would be interesting to see what happens when we change the UA [user-agent identification] string to a mobile browser," he said.

Among other changes from November to March:

• The average size of images across the collection increased from 415KB per page to 450KB per page; the average size of scripts increased from 113KB to 123KB; and the average size of Flash content dropped from 90KB to 84KB.

• Use of the jQuery library of JavaScript tools increased, from its use on 39 percent of pages in November to 43 percent of pages in March. The Google Analytics JavaScript library increased in usage from 61 percent of Web pages to 62 percent, while Quantcast's decreased from 15 percent to 14 percent. Facebook saw an increase from 12 percent to 17 percent and Twitter from 2 percent to 3 percent.

• Among image formats used, JPEG was level, accounting for 43 percent of the images. PNG rose from 16 percent of graphics to 18 percent, and GIF dropped from 41 percent to 38 percent.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Microsoft will release 17 bulletins next week to fix 64 vulnerabilities across a swath of products including Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer, the company said in its Patch Tuesday preview.

Of the bulletins, nine are rated "critical" and eight are "important," the company said in a TechNet blog post today.

In addition to all versions of Windows; IE6, IE7, and IE8; numerous versions of Office for Windows and the Mac, affected software includes Visual Studio .NET and Visual C++, according to the advisory.

"This month we'll be closing some issues that Microsoft has already previously spoken to, including the SMB Browser (Critical) issue publicly disclosed Feb. 15. Microsoft assessed the situation and reported that although the vulnerability could theoretically allow Remote Code Execution, that was extremely unlikely. To this day, we have seen no evidence of attacks," the company said in its blog post.

"We are also planning a fix for the MHTML vulnerability in Windows, rated Important," the post said. "We alerted people to this issue with Security Advisory 2501696 (including a Fix-It that fully protected customers once downloaded) back in late January. In March, we updated the advisory to let people know we were aware of limited, targeted attacks."

The release represents a large number of bulletins and vulnerabilities addressed at one time for Microsoft. The company issued 17 bulletins in December and plugged a record 49 holes in October.

"Microsoft is planning to release 17 bulletins and a whopping 64 CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) this month, a new CVE record," said Andrew Storms, director of security for nCircle. "That seems like a huge number of bugs but it's actually about what we expected. Ever since the middle of last year Microsoft's bulletin releases generally hit double digits every other month."

Originally posted at InSecurity Complex