Stories by: John Cox

A new security tool lets enterprise IT groups set access and share policies for employees, including mobile users, who are working with the online Google Apps suite.

Enterprise coders can now use an open source Web application that lets them consolidate software vulnerability data from a range of scanning and test tools. With a centralized view, and reporting and management tools, ThreadFix speeds the work needed to fix software bugs and vulnerabilities, including those in proliferating mobile apps.

Even as the Patriots' hopes and dreams were strangled in the Super Bowl, the iOSsphere rumours for iPad 3 mounted anew on wings like eagles.

Over the past 12 months, mobile access to the Internet nearly doubled to 8.5%, not counting tablets, according to data released this week by StatCounter, a Web analytics company.

Qualcomm this week revealed a key step in enabling voice calls over LTE handsets. Working with Ericsson, the chipmaker says it recently completed the first voice call handover between LTE and 3G networks, and will showcase the achievement later this month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

That noise echoing through the iOSsphere is the sound of Chinese workers clamoring to be allowed to build the Next iPhone.

Turning points don't come very often. But iPad 3, still unannounced and as-yet-unglimpsed and un-picked-up-in-a-beerhouse, is going to be one for sure and the iOSsphere is getting ready for it.

Many IT departments are struggling with Apple's "take it or leave it" attitude, based on discussions last week at MacIT, which is Macworld|iWorld's companion conference for IT professionals.

The exponential rise of mobile platforms represents the eclipse of the PC era, but it will be a gradual eclipse.

A Reliable Source emerges this week to whisper sweet nothings in the quivering ear of the iOSsphere. Expectations flame.