Blackberry expands BBM chat app to Android and iOS

The Blackberry Messenger (BBM) app is to be offered as a download to run on rival platforms.

Blackberry said it would initially offer texts, photo messages and group sharing functions on devices running Google's Android and Apple's iOS operating systems from "the summer".
It added it planned to roll out screen sharing, voice and video calls - all without charge - later in the year.
The move could prove disruptive to Skype, Whatsapp and other rivals.
Blackberry chief executive Thorsten Heins revealed the surprise news at the end of his presentation at the firm's annual developers conference in Orlando, Florida.
The company said that more than 60 million Blackberry owners already used BBM at least once a month.
But Mr Heins played down the idea that offering the feature to rival devices would harm sales of the Canadian company's own handsets.
"You might ask the question why is Blackberry doing this now," said Mr Heins.

What does BBM offer?

Future iPhones may have invisible buttons

"Apple has recently been granted a patent dubbed “disappearing button or slider.”

 

NEW DELHI: While there is a lot of talk about Apple losing its innovative streak after its visionary founder Steve Jobs passed away, the company seems to have a few tricks up its sleeve after all. The maker of the revolutionary iPhone has recently been granted a patent dubbed "disappearing button or slider." Tech grapevine is now abuzz that future iPhone models may have invisible buttons.

iPhone 6 news, rumours, specs and release date

Introduction

The iPhone upgrade cycle used to run like clockwork. Every year we get a new iPhone, and this year we’ll see either the iPhone 5S or the iPhone 6. But when will it arrive?

Will the iPhone 6 be the Apple phone of 2013, or 2014? We don’t know as yet. But here’s everything we do know about the next iPhone to date.

This article is based on rumour. We'll update it as more information becomes available.

Updated March 2013

iPhone5 upgrade makes an iPhone6 flaw inevitable?

Analysts at Canaccord Genuity and Topeka Capital both say that their checks indicate that a late summer or early fall release of an iPhone 5S is likely.
Wow, really? Why are they upgrading the iPhone 5, when consumers thought the iPhone iOS 6.1.3 was the fix for the bugs in the iPhone 5 in the first place?
According to analysts at Canaccord Genuity and Topeka Capital Markets, Apple will likely refresh its iPhone5 and release it this summer or at least by the third quarter of this year.  Both companies released reports to investors this week.

iWatch: Is it time for wearable computers?

This concept for the iWatch by designer Pavel Simeonov is one of many cirulating on the web (Copyright: Pavel Simeonov)

We have gradually accepted more and more intrusive forms of technology. Is the smart watch the next logical step?