Today’s mobile news roundup: Nokia and Oracle partnership for Maps; more faults found on the iPhone 5; and Android killer code could also affect SIM.

Nokia and Oracle partnership for Maps

Nokia is getting ready to announce a deal with Oracle at the OracleWorld conference in San Francisco that would give Oracle customers access to Nokia’s  map data and location services.  Nokia executives see the partnership as another way for them to expand their user base, as well as improve their mapping services.  The deal aims to compete with Google’s mapping service, which is currently ranked number one.

“We have strong mapping, we have strong navigation capabilities, but those examples are just the tip of the iceberg on what we believe—and you certainly see it from our competitors as well, what they believe—the future holds as it relates to location-based services,” Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said in a recent interview.

More faults found on iPhone 5

More and more users are finding faults on their newly purchased iPhone 5.  The most popular is the new Maps, then there’s the yellow screen, WiFi issue, easily scratched casing, and the light leakage.

Then some are reporting having issues when they use the camera for taking photos or videos.  Some people report a purples haze when you take a photo near or features a bright light source.  While others experience blurred photos like there’s fog in the room if the light is too bright.  Some say this can be attributed to the new lens, which was changed from glass to sapphire crystal, or it could be because the camera was redesigned and was not properly tested.  Apple has yet to comment on the camera issue.

Then there’s the batterygate issue for iPhones upgraded to iOS 6.  Some report that even if they are not using their iPhone, they feel the device getting warm, like it’s busy doing something even if the phone is just on standby.  Some people report losing 10 percent of their battery juice every hour, so their device doesn’t last the entire day.  Some even report of battery draining from 100 percent to zero in just four hours.

It was thought  batterygate was due to the location awareness feature running in the background of the iPhone 5, but those who complained of excessive battery drainage argued that this feature was turned off.  But the culprit, in my opinion, is the running apps.  Try closing all apps that aren’t currently in use to save some battery time.

Android killer code can also affect SIM

Last week news broke that there’s malicious code out in the wild, with the ability to wipe or restore the Samsung Galaxy S3, S2, Beam, S Advance and Ace, back to factory settings. TouchWiz, Samsung’s user interface for the said devices, is said to allow the killer code to automatically do its business. Samsung was quick to address the issue with an update,† but new reports stated that the killer code could also be used to wipe out a device’s SIM card.  Ravishankar Borgaonkar, a research assistant in the Telecommunications Security department at the Technical University of Berlin, stated that the code can be used to attack a device’s SIM card at the Ekoparty security conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Collin Mulliner, a mobile security researcher who works in the SECLAB at Northeastern University in Boston, stated that the SIM attack happens because of a MMI code that allows changing a SIM card’s PIN (Personal Identity Number) number using the PUK (Personal Unblocking Key).  Mulliner explains that when the code is executed numerous times with the wrong PUK, the SIM gets permanently locked leaving him with no choice but to get a new one.