“Given what we believe is going to happen in mobile in the next few years, we’re certain the need for security on our devices is going to become much more important,” said NQ Mobile CEO Omar Khan, a former executive at Samsung and Motorola, in an interview at D: Dive Into Mobile. “The No. 1 concern for most CIOs these days is security and mobile device management.”

More so, because security isn’t always a top priority for their employees — or for consumers in general.

“We recently conducted a survey,” Khan said. “And one of the questions we asked was, ‘Do you have security enabled on your mobile device.’ I think 53 percent of consumers answered that they did. But we know statistically that’s not true.”

And for those consumers for whom it really is true, the security precautions they’ve taken might not be as secure as they believe.

“Consumers misinterpret things like lock-screen codes as foolproof security, but they’re not,” Khan said, adding that a pattern of fingerprints on someone’s phone screen is potentially enough to threaten the security of their device.

And that needs to change. “We really need to develop a broader awareness around mobile device security,” Khan said. With malicious hackers increasingly targeting our smartphones, the stakes here are simply too high not to.

“Think about the types of information we carry — photos, geolocation data, passwords, credit card information,” said Khan. “We have very intimate relationships with our smartphones.”

And the sooner more people realize that, the better — for consumers, and for NQ Mobile, as well. Said Khan, “Sometimes we joke that we’re the largest mobile security company in the world, and no one’s heard of us.”

Bin Lin is the co-founder and president of the upstart Xiaomi smartphone maker, which in the last year has become a massive phenomenon in China for selling Android-based phones online — straight to consumers — with top-of-the-line components for a price that’s less than half of an iPhone. Lin will be visiting us right after the launch of his company’s second device, the Xiaomi Phone 2, which has specs to drool at, but a price of only $310.

Lin co-founded Xiaomi in 2010 after leading Android development in China as an engineering director at Google. Before that, he was at Microsoft for 11 years, in Beijing and Redmond.

Omar Khan is the co-CEO of Chinese mobile security company NQ Mobile.

Khan is also a familiar name to many who follow the smartphone scene, having held a top strategy post for several years at Samsung, before leaving that post to head up mobile efforts at Citibank. Prior to joining Samsung in 2008, Khan had served as a vice president at Motorola. So, suffice it to say that he knows the mobile landscape well.

Juliana Rotich co-founded Ushahidi in 2008 as a citizen journalism platform map of reports of post-election violence in Kenya. Since then, the nonprofit has developed open-source information collection, visualization and mapping software that continues to be relevant as new crises, disasters and activism happen all over the world.

Based in Nairobi, Rotich serves as executive director of Ushahidi. She has a degree in information technology from the University of Missouri, and previously worked in the telecommunications and data warehousing industry.

The best part is that you can still attend the conference in person, if you register soon.

Khan has been named co-CEO of Chinese mobile security company NQ Mobile, known until today as NetQin. Khan will lead the company along with current CEO Henry Lin.

Among Khan’s new duties will be helping lead the company’s international expansion — including increasing its presence in North America as well as in areas including Latin America, Europe, Japan and Korea.

“They are already the largest mobile security company in the world,” Khan said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “I’m excited about helping take their technology globally.”

Khan, who will be based in Dallas and starts the new gig on Monday, said that although NetQin has been known for its consumer products, there is a big opportunity in helping businesses deal with all of the workers who want to access corporate data on their smartphones.

Another part of his role will be helping beef up the company’s small team in the United States.

Khan joined Samsung in 2008 as senior VP of strategy and before that was a vice president at Motorola. Although he was at Citi for only six months, Khan said the company had accomplished a lot in a short time and was well positioned in the mobile arena.

“I think Citi has a tremendous opportunity ahead of them as well,” Khan said. “They were very good to me.”

Kim will be a general manager on the Windows Phone team, Microsoft confirmed to AllThingsD on Monday.

“I will be responsible to help set the future direction for the Windows Phone platform and to accelerate Microsoft’s trajectory to win the hearts and minds of consumers, carriers, device manufacturers, developers and partners,” Kim said in an interview with Boy Genius Report, which broke news of the move.

It’s the latest of several departures at the U.S. subsidiary of the Korean phone maker. Kim was one of two executives at Samsung to take over when Omar Khan left the company in July to take a job at Citigroup. Also last week, Samsung Mobile announced that its U.S. spokesman, Kim Titus, was leaving the company.

Kim’s hiring also comes at an important time for Microsoft, which is just launching a new wave of marketing efforts designed to coincide with the launch of new phones based on the Mango update of Windows Phone 7. Earlier on Monday, Microsoft staged a series of events from a giant functional Windows Phone in New York’s Herald Square.

Samsung confirmed Khan’s departure in a statement on Monday morning.

“Omar Khan was a valued member of the Samsung Mobile US team but has decided to leave Samsung Mobile to pursue another opportunity,” the cellphone maker said. “Omar is not leaving to join a competitor to Samsung, and we anticipate having a continued relationship with him once he settles into his new role.”

As for Khan’s duties, most of them will fall to Tim Rowden, Samsung said, while the job of being the public spokesperson for the Korean firm’s U.S. arm will be assumed by Nick Dicarlo and Gavin Kim.

Khan joined Samsung Mobile in 2008 as Senior VP of strategy, leaving a post as a vice president at Motorola.

Word of Khan’s departure was first published Sunday evening by Android-related site The Droid Guy.

What is the right size for a tablet–7 inches? 8? 9? 10?

Now, you don’t have to decide. Well, except that you do.

Samsung introduced the 8.9-inch and the 10.1-inch super-thin tablets, which will release this summer. The 10.1-inch tablet will be available June 8. A sixteen gigabyte Wi-Fi version will cost $499. The 32GB version will cost $599. The 8.9-inch version will cost $469 for 16GB, and $569 for the 32GB. No word on when this size will launch, except that it is coming this summer.

In the end, there will be a mind-boggling number of options.

Both models will also have the option of 4G connectivity, WiMax or LTE, which is promised to be priced very competitively, according to Samsung Mobile’s SVP Omar Khan.

The announcement, which was made at CTIA this morning in Orlando, included a few user videos, featuring ideal users for the different sized tablets. The filmmaker preferred the larger screen to view video, and the travel writer preferred the more portable size to stay in touch with friends while on the go.

The hardware, which is both insanely thin and lightweight, is also robust. Both Samsung Galaxy Tabs have a 1GHz dual-core processor, a long-lasting battery and cameras in the front and back.

The tablets will also come with Samsung’s entire array of software, including Readers Hub, Social Hub, Music Hub, and its Touchwiz 4.0 software overlay, which will include live panels that can be customized on the home screen. They both will be running Honeycomb, Google’s latest Android operating system.

The topic of tablet size can be quite polarizing since Apple believes that the iPad’s nearly 10-inch screen is the ideal size.

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs went on a tirade back in October, saying that the seven-inch screens that Samsung and other Android vendors originally launched were going to be dead on arrival.

He went as far as to say that users will have to sand down their fingertips in order to use the touchscreen effectively. “Apple has done extensive testing on how close you can put elements on the touchscreen, and 10 inches is a minimum size to create great tablet apps,” he said.

It appears that Samsung took Apple’s user research to heart.

“Samsung has always been about choice, and building products that fit the unique needs of our consumers,” Khan said.