ANDROID is going from strength to strength. Around 600m of the nearly 2 billion smartphones ever sold use Google’s mobile operating system, estimates Horace Dediu, the boss of Asymco, a mobile-analysis firm. How odd, then, that nearly three-fifths of those that remain in active use, both old and new, rely on outdated versions of it. That is partly because old gizmos do not have enough oomph to run the latest iteration, called Android 4, and partly the outgrowth of Google’s choice to exercise only loose control over its operating system after each new version is released. The worrying consequence is that a vast number of phones do not receive software fixes, known as patches. Worse, many cannot be patched even if the owner wants to, says Rich Mogull, boss of Securiosis, an independent security-research firm. (..) As a result, tens of millions of phones run the version of the operating system with which they were shipped, perhaps with one or two minor tweaks. Even phones with the chips and memory to handle upgrades often do not receive them because of the support costs: handset-makers and carriers prefer to have consumers buy new phones than to provide technical support for old or outdated models.
In its Community and Brand Trust Survey, B.C.’s Concerto Marketing Group shows a difference in the trust Torontonians and Vancouverites have for the institutions around them, from banks to mayors. “Right off the bat we see that people in Toronto, pretty much across the board, are more trusting than people in Vancouver,” said Rob Dawson of Concerto. He said this reflects an independent, populist, Western mindset. “Our model shows that trust isn’t formed just one way, it’s formed through a variety of factors coming together, and if something happens to break that trust or shift it, it does take time to build it back up again.” He said that the theory behind the survey — HuTrust, short for “human trust” — is a model that “not only measures trust but also explains how trust is formed,” by breaking it down into six factors that respondents are asked to judge: relationship, vision, innovation, competence, practical value and stability. If somebody wants to build trust, Mr. Dawson said, “they need to really focus on each of these six drivers, through their messaging, through their actions.” (via Canadians trust Google more than Stephen Harper, survey shows | Canada | News | National Post)
