Meet Hyderabad-born Prem Watsa, the Man who is buying BlackBerry

Hyderabad-born Prem Watsa is the founder, chairman, and chief executive of Fairfax Financial Holdings, the company that has bid $4.7 billion to acquire troubled smart phone maker BlackBerry. Fairfax is also the top shareholder in BlackBerry.

Mr Watsa was born in 1950 and trained as a chemical engineer at IIT Chennai. He moved to Canada in 1972, where he kept a low profile for a long time. For his first 15 years since he took over Fairfax in 1985, he barely spoke to a reporter, and he only started holding investor conference calls in 2001.

Mr Watsa is often described as the Canadian Warren Buffett because he also takes the long view. Mr Watsa is an old hand at looking wrong today and right tomorrow.

Watsa's tryst with BlackBerry:

Just over a year ago, Mr Watsa had said that BlackBerry was a "Canadian success story," a good buy and a likely turnaround story even though its market share was tumbling.

BlackBerry's fortunes have only deteriorated since then, with the latest blow coming on Friday, when Blackberry said it would cut 40 per cent of its workforce.

Mr Watsa stepped down from the BlackBerry board of directors in August, citing a potential conflict of interest, as the company said it was exploring the sale of itself and other options. But as soon as Mr Watsa stepped down from Blackberry's board, speculation grew that he would launch a bid for the troubled smartphone maker.

And that's exactly what he did on Monday. The $9 a share tentative offer will set a floor for any counteroffers that might emerge for Blackberry, which has been on the block since August.

Mr Watsa has suggested that investors looking for a short-term rebound in BlackBerry might be disappointed.

"Is it going to turn around in three months, six months, nine months? No," he told reporters. "But if you're looking four, five years ... We make investments over four or five years."

So far, BlackBerry has not been a turnaround story under Mr Watsa's watch. Since January 2012, a period when Fairfax has raised its stake in the company from a little more than 2 per cent to just under 10 per cent, BlackBerry's share price has slumped.

Fairfax's long road to success:

Fairfax, both an insurance holding company and Mr Watsa's investment vehicle, was on the losing end of bets against the market in the mid-2000s as Mr Watsa waited for the U.S. mortgage industry to collapse.

The company's stock fell by 50 per cent between mid-2003 and mid-2006. But when the market began to weaken in 2007, Fairfax began notching up investment gains, pulling in billion-dollar profits in 2007 and 2008.

Since their 2006 low of C$100, Fairfax's shares have more than quadrupled.

Fairfax has generally not been known as an activist investor, but Mr Watsa has not shied away from a fight, launching a $6 billion lawsuit against a group of hedge funds in 2006, accusing them of conspiring to the drive the company's shares down so they could be shorted. A short position enables an investor to profit when a stock drops.

Apple launches iPhone 5S and $99 iPhone 5C with five colors

The iPhone 5S, which starts at $199, includes the much-expected fingerprint sensor. The iPhone 5C, with retina display, will retail for $99 for 16GB with a two-year contract or $199 for the 32GB version.

Apple on Tuesday unveiled its new flagship iPhone 5S and a new budget smartphone, the iPhone 5C, as it seeks to attract more customers and revitalize interest in its devices.

The iPhone 5S includes updated components, comes in three colors, and includes a fingerprint sensor to unlock the device and make purchases. It will retail for $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB, or $399 for 64GB, all with a contract. The iPhone 5C, which is made of plastic, starts at $99 for the 16GB version or $199 for 32GB with a two-year contact.

Preorders start Friday. The devices will be available in stores on September 20.

"The iPhone 5C is made with all the incredible technology that customers have loved with the iPhone 5, but there's more, too," Phil Schiller said during the event. "It has an incredible new design -- one that's more fun, and more colorful than anything we've made before."

The iPhone 5C will sport a 4-inch retina display, like the iPhone 5, as well as an A6 chip inside with "blazing-fast performance." The battery is larger than in the iPhone 5, and it includes an 8MP iSight camera, with the five-element lens and IR filter as seen on the 5.The budget device has a polycarbonate wrap-around back. It will come in five colors -- green, white, blue, red, and yellow. The screen wallpaper will match the exterior of the phone. For the new iPhone 5C, Apple also designed $29 custom cases made of silicon with a microfiber lining.

Meanwhile, Apple also unveiled its latest flagship device, the iPhone 5S, which it called "the most forward-thinking phone anyone has ever made." It's made of high-grade aluminum and comes in silver, gold, and "a new space gray."

The device also sports a new A7 processor. The A7 chip includes 64-bit capabilities, which makes it on par with PC chips. The iPhone 5S is "up to twice as fast" as the previous-generation system and has twice the graphics performance as well.

Apple also incorporated a chip that it calls the M7. This is a "motion co-processor" that aggregates and monitors accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass data and offloads it from the A7. That enables a new generation of health and fitness apps, such as a new Nike+ Move app. The app keeps track of what users do, tracks their Fuel points, and lets them compete with friends.

Battery life is on par with the iPhone 5. The 5S has 10 hours of 3G talk time, 10 hours of browsing over LTE cellular networks or Wi-Fi, 40 hours of music playing, and 250 hours of standby.

The device also includes a new Apple-designed camera lens with a larger aperture and sensor. When a user takes a picture, it actually takes multiple shots and chooses the sharpest. There's also a "true-tone flash" that analyzes and presents the proper-color flash, as well as other shooting modes.

In addition, the device includes the much-expected fingerprint sensor, dubbed Touch ID. It's built right into the home button. It's still a physical button that a user needs to push down, but there's a metal ring that senses the person's finger. It can be used to unlock the phone or purchase items from iTunes.

The iPhone 5 is going away, but the iPhone 4S will now be available for free with a two-year contract.

The launch comes as the Cupertino, Calif., company faces heightened competition. Apple has been losing market share to rivals, such as Samsung, with its position in the most recent quarter falling to its lowest level in three years. As growth in the high-end smartphone market slows, Apple must find ways to attract new buyers, as well as expand into lower-priced phones.

The iPhone 5C also represents Apple's chance to broaden its market. While its smartphones are popular around the world, the majority of people in places like China can't afford $800 phones. The company plans to host an event in China later this week, where it is believed that Apple will announce a partnership with China Mobile, the world's biggest carrier.

Quick look at Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

An OS goes a very long way in defining the success or failure of a phone, or any computing device for that matter. It’s a symbiotic relationship, as without good software, the hardware is useless and without good hardware, the software can’t really shine. For the past many years, we’ve all loved Symbian as an OS and at any given point, almost all of us have owned at least one S60-based smartphone. It wasn’t the fastest or the prettiest, but we had made our peace with it and conditioned our minds to accept that. It’s only till Apple launched the iOS that we realized there is a better and easier way to use our phones. Then came Android from Google, which was designed to give developers the freedom to go crazy with apps and manufacturers the leeway to customize the OS, the way they saw fit.

Over the years, we’ve seen this OS blossom into a very solid solution and offer support for features that would give even the iOS a run for its money. After many dessert-based updates (Éclair, Froyo, etc), we are now at Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) or Android 4.0. Unlike the earlier updates, which were mostly cosmetic and added a few new features in each cycle, Android 4.0 is an ambitious leap forward as it’s designed for smartphones as well as tablets. Honeycomb is a thing of the past now and from now on all consequent versions of Android will be available for both platforms. The craze to get ICS onto one's phone or tablet is spreading like wildfire. Manufacturers are adding the tag ‘ICS upgradeable’ to all their handsets just to make it more appealing. So, is it just another update or is there something more to it than just a quirky name?

What’s New?

ICS is quite a departure from Gingerbread, as the layout for certain functions have been moved around a bit. If you’ve used a Honeycomb tablet, then you’ll feel a bit more at home, else it’ll take some getting used to. The first noticeable change is the lack of physical or capacitive buttons. Just like Honeycomb, the three navigation buttons are now a part of the display known as the System Bar and will always be present at the bottom, no matter what. This means you will lose a bit of screen space. Older phones with capacitive buttons that receive ICS will not have the System Bar, instead these functions will be mapped to the existing buttons. If the three buttons are only ‘Back’, ‘Home’ and ‘Recent Apps’, then you’re wondering how would I access the ‘Options’ menu? For that, we now have an ‘Action Bar’, denoted by three dots. This can be displayed at the top or at the bottom depending on the app. We didn’t really love this feature, as there’s no fixed place for options and it keeps changing from app to app. Once again, older phones benefit from having a fixed options button.

A fresh new look

You can now access the notification bar from the lock screen itself, so if you have music playing and you need to change the track, you need not unlock the screen. The icons in the notification bar, settings and menu are borrowed from Honeycomb. They also have a very flat look to them as there’s no 3D definition. You’ll see this mostly on the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus S, as most manufacturers will use their own icons. Multitasking once again comes from Honeycomb, showing you the recently used apps along with a thumbnail of the snapshot of the last activity you performed on the app. To close it, you simply swipe it to the left.

Find recent apps easily

The notification bar hasn’t changed and now adds a shortcut to settings. We are really disappointed that Google didn’t add toggle switches for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc., by default as it’s extremely handy. Everyone has it, so we wonder what made them skip this feature. The Google search widget is now a prominent fixture on the home screen and does not move, even if you switch screens. This was quite unnecessary to be honest and should have been a widget like before. Speaking of widgets, you can’t access them through the homescreen anymore. They are now part of the apps menu under a separate section. You can now resize the widgets like Gmail, Calendar, etc, but not all of them, like the clock.

Hardware Accelerated UI

One of the reasons why ICS feels so slick and smooth is that everything is hardware accelerated. Google now uses OpenGL ES to render everything from the built-in apps, to the animations and home screens. Even the stock browser is GPU accelerated, which makes it really quick and responsive. ICS also comes with a special set of Developer options, which let you force GPU rendering on third party apps as well. It’s only a matter of time before developers update their apps to take advantage of this properly.

A new spin on stock apps

Having said this, we did notice a drop in performance with Live Wallpapers enabled. There is a very noticeable jerkiness in the animations, whether you’re switching home screens or browsing through apps. Now since the GPU is constantly working in the background, we feel rendering Live Wallpapers is bit much for the PowerVR SGX 540 GPU in the Galaxy Nexus to handle. We’ll know for sure, if it’s just a bug or not, once ICS hits other phones and tablets with more powerful GPUs like the one in Tegra 3.

A smarter browser

The new stock browser is miles ahead of the previous versions. Not only is it GPU accelerated, so opening pages and switching between tabs is quicker, but also has some neat tricks up its sleeve. You now have the option to open an incognito tab, just like Chrome. Web pages viewed in this tab will not appear in your history. Another new feature is Labs. Just like Google Maps, you can now take advantage of some really cool add-ons for the browser. You only get two - Quick Controls and Fullscreen out of which my favourite is Quick Controls. What this does is it that it removes the Status Bar, address bar and fills the entire screen with the web page. If you need to change settings or switch to a tab, simply slide you thumb from either the left or right side of the screen to bring up a half carousel around your thumb. Then you simply select the option you want. It’s a very clever idea and works brilliantly. For once, we can say with confidence that you won’t need a third-party browser.

New and improved browser

Google has also pulled a major overhaul on the keyboard. The layout is similar to the previous ones, but it's a lot more responsive and easy to type on. The two big changes is the error correction and word suggestion, which are lot more accurate this time. As you type along, the auto-complete will suggest words closest to what you’ve typed so far and present you with three suggestions, the closest match being in the middle. If that's the word you want, simply hit space and it will fill it in. To see more words, long press the middle word for other possible matches. Also, if you’re used to typing in chat lingo (shud, tomoro, ystdy, etc) then you’ll get a prompt asking if you want to save that word in the dictionary. All your custom words are saved in the 'Personal Dictionary' in Settings.

Improved text and voice input

You also get a spell checker, which automatically underlines misspelt words, which you can change with a single tap. If you ever get tired of typing, you can activate the speech to text recognition. Here, you can dictate you entire message, which is typed out in real-time. For it to work properly, make sure you select your countries language and yes, India is there as one of the countries. There is a small delay between you actually saying the word and for it to appear on screen, but the important bit is that it’s very accurate. And you don’t have to speak very loud or enunciate very word precisely, just speak the way you normally do.

Changes in the stock apps

Gtalk finally gets multiple account support! You can now sign-in to different Google accounts and be online on all of them at the same time, something which should have been present ages ago. Gmail app has also undergone some few changes. The Inbox icon is now a lot more prominent and there’s a separate icon for labels down at the bottom. You can also have individual widgets for different labels, for each account on the homescreen.

Multiple accounrs in Gtalk has been a long time coming

The phone dialer also gets a cosmetic update, along with Contacts, which is now called People. You can choose to display contacts from selected accounts and other social media sites. The calendar app also features pinch-to-zoom function making it easier to read or add a memo, especially on smaller screens. YouTube remains pretty much the same. The rest of the apps, like the music, video and camera are covered in the Galaxy Nexus review.

New settings menu and other features

The Settings menu has been shuffled around a bit, but most of the features that we saw in Gingerbread make a comeback. Just like Honeycomb, you get a toggle switch for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. An addition here is Data Usage, which shows you how much of data you’ve used over EDGE or 3G. You can also set a data limit and a usage cycle, so you’ll get a warning, if you’re nearing the limit. You can even set the usage warning limit. I found this to be extremely handy and very good addition to the OS. NFC-enabled ICS phones can take advantage of Android Beam, which lets you share data by simply bumping the two phones together. Unfortunately, we didn't have another Galaxy Nexus or a Nexus S to test this out for ourselves.

A very handy addition

Another new feature is Face Unlock,m which basically uses the front camera to unlock the phone using facial recognition. Setting up doesn’t take too long, but make sure when you register your face, you hold the phone at an angle, which you’ll be using on a daily basis, else it won’t work. The Galaxy Nexus is very quick at recognizing and unlocking the phone, thanks to the 1.3MP camera. Even in low light, it was easily able to detect and unlock it in less than 3 seconds. Finally, we have Developer Options, which is only useful, if you you are developer. It’s still fun to play around with, as you have options for forcing 2D hardware acceleration in all apps, show CPU usage, change the scale of Windows animations, etc.

The bottom line

Looking at the big picture, ICS is a kind of a big deal, after all, as it steps up the game and brings the Android experience much closer to iOS, if not on par. Some of the stand-out features that we absolutely love is the new look and feel, hardware acceleration is now everywhere, new app for monitoring data usage, which is big plus, multiple account support in Gtalk. It could be the new fonts or choice of colours, but ICS does feel new; it feels fresh and a lot more polished, than Gingerbread or Honeycomb. Currently it’s only the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S that are enjoying these benefits officially. Manufacturers like HTC and Samsung will also be bringing out updates for existing phones soon, but they’ll obviously be giving it their own treatment, which sadly will dilute some of the flavour of ICS. Nevertheless, it is an update worth looking forward to and in case you’re one of the unlucky ones, who don’t get it, there’s always custom ROMs.

The Complete Journey of Tech Company Logos

A company's corporate logo is something that becomes a symbol of the company and the company starts getting identified by that logo. It is this power of identity that makes us instantly recognize a brand by just glimpsing at its logo. Corporate logos of almost every technology company have changed over the course of years and that is what we are going to have a look at today.

IBM

IBM as a company was formed in 1911 as the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR) because it was actually a merger of four companies: the Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company, the Computing Scale Corporation and the Bundy Manufacturing Company and hence such a complicated and long name. Therefore, the early logo of this company had the letters ITR, which was a major part. Just after this merger, the logo was changed to reflect the change and it contained both ITR and CTR initials in 1911.

CTR adapted the new name International Business Machines Corporation in 1924, and hence the old logo had to be replaced with a new one. The old logo with the ornate rococo font was replaced by one in which it was written Business Machines in san serif font, written in the form of a globe and the word International as its equator. This suggested a more global role for the company.

With the advent of computing, IBM decided that it was time to change more and adapt to the new technology. It decided to do away with it its punched-card tabulating system and favor computers. The new logo sported a Beton Bold font.

Then in 1956, company CEO Thomas J. Watson, Sr appointed Tom Watson, Jr. as the CEO, before he died. The new CEO had a different vision for the company and so he decided to change the logo one more time. Paul Rand was hired to design the new logo in such a way that it would be subtle and will appear more grounded and solid and exuded confidence.

After this, Paul Rand made one more change to the logo to reflect speed and dynamism of the company. The solid font was replaced by stripes. This logo has been since used in IBM.

Google

The search giant we know as Google was founded in 1996 by two Stanford University computer science graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The name is derived from Googol, which means one followed by 100 zeros. Sergey Brin, who had self-taught the free computer graphics program GIMP, created the first logo in rainbow colored Catall BQ font for his company in this program and later even added an exclamation mark to it to mimic the Yahoo! logo (as Yahoo! was the major search engine of that time).

In 1999, Google hired Stanford's Consultant Art Professor Ruth Kedar to design the now famous Google logo. Ruth Kedar says, "There were a lot of different color iterations. We ended up with the primary colors, but instead of having the pattern go in order, we put a secondary color on the L, which brought back the idea that Google doesn't follow the rules."

The last overhaul that this logo received was in 2010, when it used a typeface similar to the previous logo, but featured a distinctly orange colored "o" in place of the previously yellowish "o". Also, there was a subtle shadow rendered in a different shading style.

Apple

Apple Computer Corporation had its humble beginnings in 1976 when it was established by three individuals - Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and principal investor Ronald Wayne.

At its inception, Apple had a very complicated logo designed by co-founder Ronald Wayne, with a picture of Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree with a phrase from Wordsworth: "Newton 'A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought Alone." This logo was used during the era of Apple-1 and it made Jobs think that the complex logo may be one of the reasons for the low sales of the Apple-1.

Soon they had to prepare for the display at the first West Coast Faire (a technology trade show) and it was important to have a brand new logo that reflected all that Apple stands for - simplicity and great design. A young art director, Rob Janoff was assigned this task.

Since Apple computers were distinguished from the rest by their ability to display many colors, Rob made this new logo of an apple in colorful horizontal stripes of rainbow colors and with a bite taken out of it on one side. Though it is rumored that this bite taken out of the apple was to signify that this is from the world of "bits and bytes", Janoff has stated that he did so to prevent this apple from appearing like a cherry tomato. The apple design was, obviously, taken from the name of the company. The resulting logo was a lot more attractive and eye-catching and it stayed so until 1998.

Apple launched its new iMac in 1998 and with it, they wanted a new logo to suit the sober-looking lineup of its products. While the apple with a bite taken out of it remained, the rainbow color went and got replaced by a gradient chrome silver color which is currently in use.

Canon

Canon had recognized the importance of having a global presence right from the start and that can be seen from its logos from that time. This company actually hired a specialized advertising designer to create its logo and used a typeface that was never used before in Europe or America.

Its first camera was launched in 1934 and named Kwanon, which was the Buddhist goddess of mercy. The logo included the words Kwanon and a picture of the goddess with several arms and flames.

Just like other companies, Canon also tried to simplify its logo and at the same time make it as noticeable as possible. Canon trademarked its new logo in 1935, but it still kept on evolving to make improvements in its design to make it more balanced. This evolution of the Canon logo went on till 1956, when the logo assumed its form that we are familiar with today.

Kodak

Kodak understood the importance of brand recognition as it was the first company to integrate its name and looks into one symbol when it started in 1907. Since 1935, Kodak started incorporating its complete name in its logo which predominantly contained the colors yellow and red to make it eye catchy.

Kodak tried to introduce a flip page as a logo in 1960. In 1971, that logo design was dropped in favor of a complicated design in the form of a box and graphic "K" element. In 1987, Kodak changed the fonts of this logo to make it more contemporary, but retained the overall design.

Following a general trend of companies trying to simplify their logo designs, Kodak too decided to simplify its logo in 1996 by removing the boxes. This 1996 logo was given a slight facelift in 2006 by replacing the "a" and "d" to a more rounded and contemporary form.

Android 3.0 Live : Google Shows Off

Google has showcased the first version of its Android software designed to run on tablets with larger screens and greater computing horsepower, allowing for a sleeker and theoretically faster interface with built-in video conferencing.

The company also introduced a new way for developers to make money by building applications that run on Android.

The changes ratchet up the competition in the fast-growing tablet PC market, for which Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft are also developing rival software.

Analysts said "Honeycomb", while addressing a couple perceived flaws in the operating system when used for tablets as opposed to smartphones, was unlikely to immediately shift the balance of power.

"It closed the gap quite a bit," said BGC analyst Colin Gillis. But, he said "there was nothing there that was going to make me wait in line overnight," referring to the lines of customers who waited outside retail stores when Apple introduced the iPad in April.

Google said at an event at its Mountain View, California headquarters that Android developers would now be able to sell consumers goods from directly within their apps, a key capability Apple introduced more than one year ago.

And it has started a Web version of its applications store for Android devices, which will help developers hawk their software applications to a larger audience. Previously, Android apps were available only through client software on devices.

Still runaway leader
Apple, which some analysts expect will unveil a new version of its iPad later this year, has shipped 14.8 million iPads since April. But it lost its early lead in the smartphone market to Android, which Google gives away to hardware vendors and which became the No. 1 smartphone operating system in the fourth quarter, according to research firm Canalys.

Whether Google can do the same in the tablet market will depend on the support its new "Honeycomb" gets from manufacturers, wireless carriers, and the armies of developers who build applications like games and productivity tools.

Google now has more than 100,000 apps available for Android devices, versus Apple's catalog of more than 300,000.

"There really wasn't much of a competitive playing field so far" in the tablet market, said Soumen Ganguly, a principal at management consulting firm Altman Vilandrie & Co, who noted that previous versions of Google's Android were well-suited to smartphones but not ideal for the bigger-screened tablets.

With the introduction of Honeycomb, Ganguly expected that every major manufacturer would introduce at least one Android tablet by the end of the first half of the year.

Motorola Mobility's Xoom, which Google showcased at the event, is due to ship in the first quarter.

But Display Search analyst Richard Shim said there were still unanswered questions, including the price of Honeycomb tablets.

Shim said his firm expects industry-wide shipments of 55.7 million tablet PC in 2011 and that, even after seeing Honeycomb demonstration, he still expects Apple to hold the majority market share this year.

Is Microsoft Copying The Search Results From Google?

SAN FRANCISCO: Google Inc, owner of the world's most popular search engine, said Microsoft Corp's Bing is "copying" its query results. Microsoft denied the accusation and said the data in question comes from customers.

Google's own testing concluded that Bing was using its search results, Google Fellow Amit Singhal said in an e-mailed statement.

"We look forward to competing with genuinely new search algorithms out there, from Bing and others --algorithms built on core innovation, and not on recycled search results copied from a competitor," Singhal said.

A "small piece" of the information Microsoft uses to build search results comes from customers who choose to share their data -- and that's what causes the overlap, said Harry Shum, corporate vice president at Bing, in a blog post. Microsoft uses more than 1,000 different signals and features to improve search results, he wrote.

"We learn from all of our customers," Shum said in the posting. "What we saw in today's story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers" in some search rankings, he said. "It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we'll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn't accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience."

In a panel discussion today with Google's Matt Cutts at the Farsight 2011 conference in San Francisco, Shum questioned whether Google can say it owns the data when a customer uses its search engine.

Search market share
Google is trying to preserve its lead in search as Bing increases market share. Bing had 12 percent of US searches in December, up from 11.8 percent the previous month, according to ComScore Inc in Reston, Virginia. Google had 66.6 percent, up from 66.2 percent.

"This seems pretty high-profile for them to take such a public stance," said Melise Blakeslee, founder and managing partner of Sequel Technology & IP Law Pllc, a firm in Washington that specializes in software and the Internet. "They're concerned about a competitor taking more of their market."

Website Search Engine Land earlier reported Google's allegation against Microsoft.

'First Hack-Free' Software Developed

MELBOURNE: Scientists have developed what they claim is the world's first hack-free software which can protect systems from failure or malicious attacks.

The 'seL4' microkernel has been developed by a team led by Australia's ICT Research Centre of Excellence's spinout company -- Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs). It is a small operating system kernel which regulates access to a computer's hardware.

Its unique feature is that it has been mathematically proven to operate correctly, enabling it to separate trusted from untrusted software, protecting critical services from a failure or a malicious attack, say the scientists.

In future applications, seL4 could ensure that trusted financial transaction software from secure sources like banks or stock exchanges can operate securely on a customer's mobile phone alongside "untrusted" software, such as games downloaded from the Internet, according to its developers.

It could also provide a secure and reliable environment for mission-critical defence data, operating on the same platform as everyday applications like email. Or, it could protect the life-supporting functions of an implanted medical device, such as a pacemaker, from hacking, they say.

"Our seL4 microkernel is the only operating system kernel in existence whose source code has been mathematically proven to implement its specification correctly. Under the assumptions of the proof, the seL4 kernel for ARM11 will always do precisely what its specification says it will do," lead scientist Gerwin Klein said.

Added another scientist Gernot Heiser, "Verification of operating-system kernels has been attempted since the 1970s -- we pulled it off!"