Secure Coding for the Android Platform

CERT Secure Coding team, part of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, have recently released secure coding guidelines specific to Java’s application in the Android platform. InfoQ interviews Lori Flynn, one of the researchers who authored them.

Android 4.1.1 Vulnerable to Reverse Heartbleed

Google announced last week that Android 4.1.1 is susceptible to the Heartbleed OpenSSL bug. While Android 4.1.1 is, according to Google, the only Android version vulnerable to Heartbleed, it remains in use in millions of smartphones and tablets. Android 4.1.1 devices have been shown to leak significant amount of data in a “reverse Heartbleed” attack.

Facebook Open-Sources PlanOut, a Framework for Online Field Experiments

PlanOut is Facebook’s language for online field experiments supporting “A/B tests,” factorial designs, and more. According to Facebook, PlanOut makes possible to separate experimental design from application code and allows experimenters to concisely describe their designs. Facebook claims to be using PlanOut to run over a thousand experiments each day that involve hundreds of millions of people.

Google Releases First Development Kit for Project ARA, its New Modular Smartphone Platform

Google has released a Module Developers Kit (MDK) for Project Ara, an initiative that aims to develop a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. The MDK defines the Ara platform for module developers and provides reference implementations for various design features. Main goals of the ARA platform are being low cost and creating a rich module ecosystem.

Facebook Launches App Links To Make Deep Linking Between Apps Easier

At its F8 developer conference, Facebook announced App Links, an open, cross-platform solution for app-to-app linking aiming at making it easier for developers to link to other applications from their own apps. Besides Facebook, many companies have announced their support for App Links, including Parse, Dropbox, and Spotify. Android, iOS, and Windows Phone are currently supported.