HTC is the latest smartphone maker to acknowledge a vulnerability in their software that allows a user’s Wi-Fi password and SSID to to be stolen by a malicious application runnning on the phone according to Bret Jordan’s blog that first revealed the issue.

Thankfully, HTC has rolled out an update to several phones. Some phones, however, will need to be manually updated. HTC promises more details on the update next week according to PC Mag.

Chris Hessing and Bret Jordan were the first to report the vulnerability to CERT. The CERT Web site describes the vulnerability as such:

Any Android application on an affected HTC build with the android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE permission can use the .toString() member of theWifiConfiguration class to view all 802.1X credentials and SSID information. If the same application also has the android.permission.INTERNETpermission then that application can harvest the credentials and exfiltrate them to a server on the Internet.

The vulnerability affects only a certain number of HTC phones including the Desire HD, Glacier, Droid Incredible, Thunderbolt 4G, Sensation Z710e, Sensation 4G, Desire S, EVO 3D and EVO 4G. The MyTouch 3G and Nexus One are not affected.

If your phone is one of those listed above, you can download an update starting next week from the HTC help page.

HTC just can’t seem to catch a break. We reported last December that HTC had many of their phones banned from being sold in the U.S. after a successful patent lawsuit from Apple. HTC had to remove the offending feature from all of their phones.

Once again, these kind of problems will always come up with smartphones as they move towards being more computer-like. People will attempt to exploit their weaknesses while manufacturers will attempt to patch them as they come up. Just remember to be smart and safe with your smartphones by not storing a lot of personal information, like Wi-Fi passwords, on them.

The Carrier IQ scandal broke in early December following a YouTube video by Android app developer Trevor Eckhard purported to show Carrier IQ’s software – which he called a “rootkit” – accessing a wide variety data on an Android phone. His demonstration showed the software intercepting web traffic, location data, keystrokes, and even SMS messages. Carrier IQ insisted that they had no interest in users’ personal data, and that their software was nothing more than a diagnostic tool for carriers to collect data on handset and network performance.

The scandal blossomed into a full-blown ordeal as the software was discovered on Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile phones. The scandal spawned several lawsuits and drew the attention of Al Franken, the FTC, and the FCC. As more information became available and cooler heads began to prevail, it began to look more and more likely that Carrier IQ’s protestations of innocence were right, and that their software really was simply a tool for diagnosing network and handset performance. Which means that in all likelihood Sprint and HTC are removing Carrier IQ from their handsets in order to replace it with something else, since they need the kind of data Carrier IQ likely gathered.

Now it looks like RIM may be getting desperate. Citing “trusted sources,” BGR is reporting that the company is shopping around for buyers. Whether they plan to sell off individual divisions or the entire company is apparently still up in the air at this point. If BGR’s sources are to be believed, the company is ready to sell whatever they can to whoever will buy. The asking price for the whole company would probably be in the $10-12 billion range, though whether anyone would be willing to pay that is unclear. Samsung and HTC have been floated as potential buyers, but there is little solid information at this point.

RIM unveiled updates to their BlackBerry and PlayBook operating systems at CES last week to generally positive reviews. Nevertheless there have been increasing signs in recent months that BlackBerry was on the way out. In November they announced BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, which would allow BlackBerry’s vaunted security and IT management platform to work with iOS and Android devices. The move was seen by many as RIM’s acknowledgement that BlackBerry had lost hegemony in the business world. Then, late last month, there was another report from inside RIM claiming that the launch of the much anticipated BlackBerry 10 phone was being delayed because RIM couldn’t get a decently functional prototype of the device.

All in all, it looks like we may be moving quickly toward the last days of RIM, at least in its current form. Whether the company is sold off piecemeal or all at once, there are certainly big changes on the horizon.

HTC announced at CES their first Windows-based phone to run on a 4G LTE network and it is a beauty. The kicker, however, is that it comes with a 16-megapixel camera. That’s truly ridiculous for a phone’s camera and makes the HTC Titan II easily one of the most compelling phones on the market for the camera alone.

“HTC’s history of innovation in 4G technology includes delivering the first 4G-powered devices to each major carrier in the U.S., so it is exciting today to continue that leadership with our first 4G LTE Windows Phone, the HTC TITAN II,” Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corp., said. “This full-featured smartphone combines HTC’s design with AT&T’s high-speed 4G LTE network and Microsoft’s powerful Windows Phone software, giving people more of what they crave.”

The phone is equipped with a 4.7-inch super LCD capacitive touchscreen that looks to provide a great viewing experience for movies, games and more. Of course, with it being a Windows Phone, it will also offer Xbox LIVE which has always been the most compelling part about the Windows phone software.

The phone also features 720p HD video recording with the rear facing camera and video chat over Wi-Fi with its 1.3 mega-pixel front-facing camera.

Now about that amazing 16-megapixel camera, it’s almost as if HTC and Microsoft want to replace digital point-and-shoot cameras. It features a wide-angle lens, autofocus, dual LED flash, red eye reduction, image stabilization, a backside-illuminated sensor and a physical camera button. It seems like HTC made a camera and decided to throw a smartphone on top of it.

The phone’s hardware will feature a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S2 processor and a decent battery that will provide plenty of longevity before a recharge is required.

The Windows phone software is also looking pretty good and could be a serious contender for iOS and Android devices. With this new amazing camera that happens to be a smartphone, Windows phones could be a market disruptor. If Windows phones can keep getting hardware this good, I don’t see why not.

The HTC Titan II will launch exclusively with AT&T in the coming months.

The patent in question deals, in a nutshell, with the way a phone scans displayed content for certain kinds of data and offers the user the ability to take certain actions related to that data. In other words, when your Sprint Evo 4G or your Verizon Droid Incredible detects a phone number or an email address on a web page and creates a hyperlink allowing you to call that number or send an email to that address, it infringes Apple’s patent.

The ITC’s “limited exclusion” is only a ban on importing the offending devices, rather than a total ban on their sale. Those that are already in the US can continue to be sold. Moreover, the ban does not go into effect until April 19, 2012, with an exception allowing the import of refurbished phones for warranty services until December 2013.

Requests for comment to Apple and Google have not yet been answered, and HTC could not be reached. However the company spoke to Financial Times early this morning and claimed that the ruling was actually a victory for them. While the ITC found infringement against one of Apple’s patents, Apple had originally sued over ten patents. Moreover, the infringing element is a a small feature of the user interface, which HTC said they plan to remove soon.

[Hat Tip: The Verge]

Take YouTube user ThatSpecialGuy. He (presumably) likes to play video games but he also has a pet Bearded Dragon Lizard that he must attend to, as well. Normally, these two responsibilities might not overlap if not outright conflict with each other, but take a look at what wonder the marriage of technology and nature has produced:

Indeed, you just watched a Bearded Dragon Lizard play a pretty deft game of Ant Crusher on an HTC smartphone (judging by the looks of it in the video). It’s really hard to grasp how someone finds out that their lizard will play video games on a touchscreen phone, but I’m glad they did. It’s also a pretty fascinating testimonial of what kind of force must be behind the projection of the lizard’s tongue. I can’t get my smartphone to do respond at all when I’ve tried to press buttons with my knuckles or elbows (don’t ask) so that lizard must be punching that screen with some serious power.

Personally, I’ve never played Ant Crusher so I have no idea how difficult this game really is but now that I’ve seen a reptile do a knock-out job of playing it I’m a little hesitant to find out if I can do any better? What would that mean if I didn’t reach the watermark that the Lizard has set with that awesome score? These are questions I don’t really want to ask myself.

The ongoing controversy over Carrier IQ’s hidden software has taken an unsurprising turn as class action lawsuits were filed yesterday against Carrier IQ, along with handset makers Samsung and HTC.

The lawsuit claims that the companies violated federal wiretapping laws by including Carrier IQ’s software in their phones. On Monday Android app developer Trevor Eckhart posted a YouTube video in which he demonstrated that the software records an alarming amount of information about the users of phones on which it is installed. The app tracks users’ location, as well as intercepting web traffic and SMS messages, and logging keystrokes.

The controversy has also drawn the attention of Senator Al Franken, who sent Carrier IQ a letter in which he asked the company about its data collection practices and some of the seemingly contradictory statements the company has made.

In response to an initial posting by Eckhart calling Carrier IQ a rootkit, the company sent a cease-and-desist letter in which they threatened legal action. When the EFF took up Eckhart’s case, however, Carrier IQ withdrew the threat and apologized. They also posted a statement on the company website claiming that the software was nothing more than a diagnostic tool employed by carriers to gauge the performance of their devices. In turn, Eckhart posted his video demonstration, which caused enormous controversy as more and more phones were found to have some version of the Carrier IQ software installed.

In the U.S. carriers have been somewhat slow to respond to the scandal. Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile have issued statements saying that they use the software only for network and device diagnostics, and nothing else. Meanwhile Verizon and UK carriers Vodafone and O2, as well as handset manufactuerers Nokia and RIM, have denied that the software is installed on their devices at all.

In many respects Apple has come through this scandal relatively clean. Although the software is present on iOS devices, it appears to only be active when the device is in diagnostic mode. Moreover, Apple issued a statement yesterday that they stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5, and that a future software update will remove it completely from all iOS devices. Apple’s statement also asserts that the data collected by the software is encrypted and sent anonymously.

For Android users who want to know if they have Carrier IQ installed, app developer François Simond has developed an app to detect the software. For iPhone users the process is somewhat more simple, as a simple settings change allows users to disable the collection of diagnostic data. From the Settings App, tap General, then About, then Diagnostics & Usage.

Continue to check back with WebProNews for more on this story.

Over at Amazon Wireless, the details of the sale are discussed, which are as follows:

For a limited time only, all phones from Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T with a new line of service are on sale for a penny and include standard FREE Two-Day Shipping. Offer valid between midnight PDT November 21, 2011, through 11:59 p.m. PDT November 28, 2011, while supplies last. Plus, if you buy an eligible hotspot-ready smartphone and activate the hotspot feature, you’ll get a $100 Amazon.com Gift Card.

There are a number of Android-powered handsets as well as BlackBerry. However, for those of you wanting to grab a new iPhone 4S during Amazon’s sale, sorry, no Apple devices are included in the one cent blowout. That being said, the DROID RAZR 4G (from Sprint) is available, as is the BlackBerry Torch. The HTC Thunderbolt falls into Amazon’s sale, and there are a few Samsung handsets as well.

Basically, Amazon’s smartphone sale carries just about every phone except the iPhone. If Amazon’s list is comprehensive, there are almost 97 phones featured in during the one cent sale, which, according to Amazon’s disclaimer, is “valid between midnight PDT November 21, 2011, through 11:59 p.m. PDT November 28, 2011, while supplies last.”

Phones purchased during the sale are required to have a two-year contract, which is the same stipulation issued for AT&T’s one cent sale. As for the iDevice family, Apple is also having a Black Friday sale. Unfortunately, there are no one cent iPhones or iPads, although, the tablets are scheduled for an apparent markdown.

Vivid Entertainment Group, the U.S. porn studio that brought you the Kim Kardashian sex tape, has sent a cease a desist letter to HTC. It claims that their new phone infringes upon their trademark. According to TMZ, Vivid thinks that customers could get confused and “think Vivid is behind the phone.”

Apparently, the letter threatens a lawsuit if HTC doesn’t change the name of their device by Monday, November 21st.

This isn’t the first time that HTC has come under fire for trademark infringement. Earlier this year, their Facebook-enabled phone the HTC ChaCha drew the ire of ChaCha Inc, the company that provides real-time answers to queries via text and internet search.

TheVerge has received a response from HTC regarding the issue:

We are reviewing the complaint and don’t expect to have any further comment until it is resolved.

So there. The complaint is real, and is something that HTC is probably going to have to take seriously. I mean, who wants a giant porn producer riding their ass?

Best Buy will be giving away an HTC smartphone to anyone who purchases the game, given that you do the whole contract thing. So if contracts aren’t your thing, this isn’t the deal for you. But if you were planning on signing up for a 2-year plan anyways, and love shooting people in the face with sniper rifles – this is your lucky day.

Participants will have three smartphone options: The EVO 4G for Sprint, the Incredible 2 for Verizon or the Inspire 4G for AT&T. The deal also includes a free case as well as a bonus MW3 package that lets players tack on more experience points at the outset for stuff like weapons upgrades.

In recent years, you probably noticed all the mobile sections popping up inside your local Best Buys. That’s because the company has been trying for years to set itself up as the go-to place for mobile. This holiday season, they are planning a huge campaign through TV, social media, and print ads to hammer home Best Buy Mobile.

A $25 million ad campaign, according to CNET.

“We want to get customers to realize there is a better way, and that better way is Best Buy,” said Allister Jones, head of marketing for Best Buy Mobile.

You can expect more promotions like this MW3/HTC one in the upcoming weeks.

Modern Warfare 3 hits the shelves on November 8th.