Subcom Limited

Not a great deal’s known about Sony Ericsson and Nokia’s upcoming attempts to build an iPhone Killer, a mobile phone with full touchscreen access, that will put the Apple offering in its place. But let’s take a look at what IS known…

Nokia Tube - Series 60 goes all touchy-feely

Nokia have a long history of building smartphones on the great UIQ Series 60 interface. When you look though the list of previous mobile phones that use that, it’s both long and impressive, with a lot of names you may well recognise:. N91… N80… N95… N82… N73… well, the list goes on, but what’s clear is that it IS a beautifully slick and user-friendly interface. But it’s never been able to support touchscreens…

Until now, that is, because Nokia recently officially announced that they’re working on a fully touchscreen mobile phone, powered by a brand new Series 60 ‘Touch’ interface. And it will be called the Nokia Tube. The look of the interface will be instantly recognisable to anyone who’s used a Nokia before, but with bigger icons, it’s going to make it a doddle to use with your finger. It’s rumoured that’s not QUITE an iPhone beater, but we’ll have to see…

Sony Ericsson Superphone - so good, no-one even knows what it’s called!

Meanwhile, the other competition for the iPhone Killer crown comes from Sony Ericsson. But the thing is, y’see, no-one actually knows what the new mobile phone’s called. All we know is that it WAS known recently as the Sony Ericsson Maria, although that name seems to have gone by the wayside. But, it’s as good a name as any, for now! It’s alleged to run the newest version of the UIQ touchscreen interface, optimised for finger control and multitouch, and will take the fight straight to the iPhone. Just a shame, that Sony Ericsson won’t tell us about it, and no-one knows what it’ll look like. I’ll hazard a guess, though. Like an iPhone.

I first used an electronic voting machine in 2006. I inserted my magnetic voter card and entered my votes on the touch screen, one time accidentally selecting the wrong candidate and backing up to change that vote. When I finished voting, I verified all my votes on the touchscreen. After that, the machine printed all my votes on a piece of paper for me to verify. When I was done, I returned my voter card and the paper tally to the proper boxes. I had created 2 separate records of my vote: one electronic, one paper. Piece of cake.

Electronic voting machines that produce a paper trail are a tremendous leap forward in vote security because these machines provide redundant vote counts. The electronic tally should always be compared against the paper trail tally and any discrepancies rectified to determine the final vote count. In order to corrupt these redundant vote counts, a crook must corrupt both the electronic tally and the paper tally, which is significantly more difficult than corrupting just one count, be it electronic or paper.

Redundant machines provide a significant improvement in vote security over either paper ballots or an electronic counts alone. But because of a study showing that these machines can be hacked, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has dictated that every county using voting machines also supply paper ballots in the March primaries, even though paper ballots can’t stop a hacker. She is also asking the legislature to outlaw voting machines before the 2008 presidential election.

It shouldn’t surprise anybody that voting machines can be hacked. Any computer can be hacked. Corrupt officials can corrupt voting machine counts just like they can corrupt paper ballot counts. That’s why officials develop procedures and penalties to make corrupting vote counts difficult and expensive. Electronic machines with a redundant paper trail are inherently more secure, and refining procedures to monitor the machines, electronic keys, and their printed results will make it virtually impossible to corrupt vote counts.

Mrs. Brunner did extensive work in election law in the age of paper ballots, so this great leap backward puts her in her comfort zone and appeases Democrats who either don’t want vote security or don’t want to move forward. Moving backward in security and technology instead of moving forward and improving technology, procedures, and security for the future undermines voter confidence and disenfranchises voters.