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The mobile web is looking a bit smarter lately. AdMob, a mobile ad platform we’ve covered before, put out its metrics for August, and it’s clear that smartphones are quickly becoming mainstream. Drawing on data from the over 5,000 mobile websites the company serves, the numbers point towards smartphones both in the US and worldwide continuing to become more prevalent, but with very different manufacturers dominating internationally versus domestically.

Within the US, smartphones accounted for 23.7 percent of mobile web traffic, up by 3.4 percent from May. While Apple’s iPhone has, unsurprisingly, seen dramatic growth from in the past month, jumping from 5.2 to 7.8 percent of total smartphone traffic, RIM still dominates the market, with 31.2 percent. Still, the iPhone is the fastest growing smartphone within in the US.

Worldwide, smartphones were the source of 25.8 percent of traffic, rising 3.4 percent since May 2008. Outside the US it’s a completely different market, with Nokia absolutely dominating. In every market AdMob studied, Nokia handsets were used for at least 50 percent of total smartphone requests. In total, Nokia has 62 percent of total worldwide traffic — and this is without having a single phone in the top twenty within the US. This is largely because Nokia has had trouble working with US carriers, and chosen instead to focus its efforts on international markets.

With the upcoming debut of Google’s Android, the roll-out of RIM’s Blackberry Bold, and Nokia launching its N96, as well as the continuing consumer fascination with all things iPhone, smartphones will continue to grow in market share.

Still, there’s a significant uphill before smartphones are even close to ubiquitous. The top handset model both worldwide in the US? Motorola’s once chic, now antique RAZR.

Charlie Miller and his team at Independent Security Evaluators managed to hack a MacBook Air in just two minutes yesterday at the CanSec West security conference.  He won $10,000 for the feat in the PWN2OWN contest in Vancouver.

I’ve had a chance to interview Miller on a couple of occasions. He won fame as the first hacker to discover flaws in the iPhone. And he also figured out a way to hack into Second Life and steal the money of avatars by exploiting a (now patched) flaw in Apple’s QuickTime player. He says he has nothing against Apple or the Mac. It’s just unexplored territory.

Miller is one of those people driven by a curious nature to figure out what’s wrong with things. But from the discussions I’ve had with him, it seems Miller has experience walking the fine line between legal and illegal hacking. He can get as deep into the technology discussion of “buffer overflows” and “fuzzing” as anyone.

His company is a security consulting service that helps companies test their own security. He works under the euphemistic title of “security researcher.” But he doesn’t consider himself a “black hat” because he always discloses flaws to companies ahead of time. Granted, he doesn’t always give them a lot of time to fix flaws before he discloses them, but he figures that if he finds the flaws, then users are already vulnerable.

Clearly, Miller is somebody Apple’s security experts want to know and be on good terms with. He’s doing an awful lot of the work that they should be doing themselves. The contest organizer, DVLab, is keeping Miller’s detailed description of the flaw in the Safari browser for the MacBook Air confidential, at least until Apple can start fixing it. Companies and government agencies keep a close eye on conferences like CanSecWest and Black Hat (in Las Vegas in August) because of all the flaws that get exposed at the events.

Apple held an event today at its Cupertino headquarters to go over its iPhone “software roadmap”. While many expected to hear information about the software development kit (SDK) for the device, there were actually quite a few more significant announcements.

The biggest news?
– Microsoft Exchange is available on the iPhone
– The SDK is ready, but there won’t be any consumer iPhone updates to use it until June
– Games are making their first appearance on the iPhone using multi-touch and the accelerometer
– Instant messaging is coming to the device from AOL
– Developers who choose to charge for iPhone apps will get a 70/30 split; developers who release their apps for free won’t be charged
– VC firm KPCB started a $100 million “iFund” to spur independent iPhone development.

Here’s a rundown of how of the event went down with more details:

Big market share. The iPhone took control of 28 percent of the smartphone market by the 4th quarter of 2007. This towers over every other manufacturer besides RIM (maker of the Blackberry), which stands at 41 percent but, of course, has been out for several years compared to several months for the iPhone. The iPhone also accounts for a staggering 71 percent of mobile browser usage.

Microsoft Exchange on the iPhone. Apple has licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft for the iPhone — obviously a big deal considering the two companies’ often contentious relationship. Microsoft has even developed a more advanced architecture for the service to work with the iPhone. It will include push email, push calendaring, push contacts, global address lists, and the ability to do a remote wipe of the data.

The lack of Exchange support was certainly one of the factors that stopped many business customers from crossing over to the iPhone. Today’s announcement could significantly help adoption rates.

Other enterprise announcements. The iPhone will work with the aforementioned push email/calendering etc from Microsoft and presumably others. And it will now support Cisco IPsec VPN and enterprise class WiFi. Security for enterprise data will be a major focus.

Software Development Kit (SDK). Apple is opening up its native API tools to third-party developers, giving developers access to iPhone’s greatest assests: the Multi-Touch, Core animations, h.264 videoplay back, the Accelerometer (which tells the iPhone whether you’re holding it vertically or horizontally).

Developers will be able to build applications on their computers using Xcode, which is the source code editor Apple uses to build both OS X apps and iPhone apps. They will also have access to debugger software and software dubbed “iPhone Simulator,” which, just as its name suggests, will emulate the iPhone on your computer for testing purposes.

Apple has also smartly included an interface building tool so that applications will retain the look and feel of current iPhone applications.

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