Locket app places ads on your lockscreen, pays you to swipe them away

Hate advertisements with a passion that burns brighter than ten-thousand suns? Then Locket is not the app for you. On the other hand, if you really aren’t bothered by the idea of being served advertisements on your lock-screen, the folks behind Locket are more than willing to pay you to take a look at their ads.

The Locket app turns your lockscreen into an advertising zone and promises real cash each time you swipe-to-unlock your phone. Unfortunately, we are talking pennies here – literally. For every swipe, you’ll earn one penny. The catch is that you will be limited to just 3 swipes per hour.

So what can you do with the money earned? You can always cash it out, turn it into a gift card, or even donate the funds to charity.

Doing the math, IF you were to unlock 3 times each and every hour, 24/7 for an entire year, you’d only manage to bring in $262.80. In reality, you will likely earn considerably less when you factor in sleep and – you know- your real life.

Still if you are looking for a few spare bucks and don’t mind ads, Locket promises an experience that is much less invasive than Kindle’s approach, giving users the choice of whether to engage with the ads or not. Locket also promises to be discriminate in the advertising partners it accepts, ensuring that what you are seeing isn’t just pure junk.

So what can you do with the money earned? You can always cash it out, turn it into a gift card, or even donate the funds to charity if you prefer.

What do you think, would you ever consider downloading such an app, or are the few pennies earned not worth the trouble?

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Security hole allows anyone to bypass and disable Galaxy Note 2’s lockscreen [video]

 

One of the ways to protect your smartphone from the prying eyes of others is to set a secure lockscreen; be it with the PIN, pattern, or password lock. But then again, they might not be good enough if you own a Samsung handset running Android 4.1.2, or in this particular case, the Galaxy Note 2.
Terrence Eden has opened our eyes last week about the security flaw on the Note 2 that allows well-informed individuals to bypass the phone’s lockscreen. Now, a similar lockscreen bug has been discovered.

All they have to do is place an emergency call from the lockscreen, enter any bogus number, hit the green dial button, dismiss the error message, and press the back button. That’s all it takes for someone to gain access to your homescreen – albeit only for a split second.
However, his video demonstration shows how those windows of opportunity – considering that the process can be easily repeated over and over again – were more than enough to let him access Google Play, do a Voice Search on a lockscreen disabler app, install and run the app, and ultimately defeat the system.
It took some persistence, but he pulled it off in less than 3 minutes.
Eden has contacted Samsung about the bug and the South Korean said that a software patch should be on its way soon. In the meantime, you may want to be extra careful with where you place your precious phone. Better yet, keep it safe with you at all times.

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