Leaked: Blackberry 10 screenshots

Alleged screenshots of Blackberry 10 have leaked through Vietnamese website Tihnte, which shows the system is getting a complete overhaul. The new UI design and features brings the OS more in line with competition like Windows Phone, iOS, and Android. RIM will apparently be adding a voice-activated assistant that is quickly becoming a staple with smartphones. The screenshots also show the BlackBerry 10 Hub, which is promised to be nexus for all social networks. Hit the source links to view more images.

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Famed political operative Mark Penn to 'bulldoze' Google

Political operative Mark Penn, who worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns, has been hired by Microsoft for ‘strategic and special projects’, which means targeting arch rival Google, says a report. Since Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its perch atop the lucrative Internet search market. Penn created a holiday commercial, in which Microsoft criticizes Google for polluting the quality of its shopping search results with advertisements. “Don’t get scroogled,” it warns.

According to the New York Times, the campaigns are part of a broader effort at Microsoft to give its marketing the nimbleness of a political campaign, where a candidate can turn an opponent’s gaffe into a damaging commercial within hours. They are also a sign of the company’s mounting frustration with Google after losing billions of dollars a year on its search efforts, while losing ground to Google in the browser and smartphones markets and other areas, the paper said. Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on Microsoft’s actions, the paper said. But she said that while Google also employed lobbyists and marketers, “our focus is on Google and the positive impact our industry has on society, not the competition,” the paper added. -ANI

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Instagram 'verbally agreed' to $525 mln Twitter deal before $1 bln Facebook acquisition

Photo-sharing app Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom had verbally agreed to sell his photo-sharing company to Twitter Inc for 525 dollars million in March, weeks before he accepted a one billion dollars offer from Facebook, it has emerged. According to a report by the New York Times, Twitter executives had handed Systrom a term sheet outlining the details of the proposed deal.

But Systrom later told California state regulators under oath that his company had not received any ‘formal offers or term sheets’ from potential buyers aside from Facebook. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ultimately acquired Instagram after pushing through a cash-and-stock deal just weeks before Facebook''s May initial public offering. Relations between Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have soured since Facebook successfully swooped for the photo service, Fox News reports. Earlier this month Instagram shut off a functionality that allowed Twitter to display Instagram pictures, while Twitter introduced its own photo color-filters to compete with Instagram. -ANI

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Smartphone application downloads hit 81bln mark: Report

Mobile application storefronts have collectively distributed a total of 81 billion smartphone and tablet apps as of end-September 2012, according to a report. The recent market study from ABI Research showed that out of those, 89 percent were downloaded from native storefronts that come with the device’s operating system.
 
“The current status quo is based on storefronts that the operating system vendors provide as part of the OS experience, and there is no evidence that this would change in the future,” Enterprise Innovation quoted Aapo Markkanen, ABI Research senior analyst, as saying. “A year ago it still looked like that, for example, mobile operators could find a viable business case in the curation of Android apps, but that opportunity evaporated once Google got its storefront act together,” he added.

According to the report, Markkanen said that it makes sense for operators to distribute apps only under special circumstances, such as the those springing up in China. Similarly, it’s unlikely that the universal, catch-all nature of app distribution would start breaking up into smaller niche storefronts. “Running a user-friendly app distribution channel is expensive. Besides the adequate hosting and billing systems it takes quite a lot of human labor, since successful app discovery requires some form of editorial approach,” Markkanen said. “The opportunity for smaller storefronts built around selected categories is therefore limited,” he added. -ANI

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Nokia Lumia 505 now official, runs Windows Phone 7.8

Nokia’s Lumia 505, spotted earlier was recently officially announced in Mexico. It looks quite similar to the Lumia 800, but and there are a few key differences between the two.

The Lumia 505 sports a 3.7-inch AMOLED clear black display of WVGA(800x480 pixels) resolution and runs Windows Phone 7.8 right out of the box. It has an 8 megapixel EDOF camera with autofocus and the device is likely powered by an 800MHz Snapdragon S1 processor.

In terms of the connectivity it supports 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and GPS/A-GPS. The Lumia 505 has 4GB of internal storage, expandable memory via a microSD card and 256MB of RAM. It is equipped with a 1,300 mAh battery.

The Nokia Lumia 505 will come in Black, Pink and Red colors and it will be heading to Telcel in Mexico. It is still unclear whether the device will launch in other regions. The pricing and availability is yet to be announced.

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Google hires famed futurist Ray Kurzweil as Director of Engineering

Internet search giant Google has hired Ray Kurzweil, the famed inventor and futurist, to work on ‘some of the hardest problems in computer science’. Kurzweil announced that he would join the tech firm officially on Monday. According to the Wall Street Journal, Kurzweil is best known for his theories about “The Singularity,” or the point in the future when technology becomes so advanced that it starts outsmarting humans on its own.

The hiring of Kurzweil builds on existing ties between the author and Google, the report said. Google has partly funded Kurzweil’s Singularity University, an academic program launched a few years ago in Silicon Valley to prep students for a tech-heavy future and such concepts as nanotechnology and robotics, it added. According to the report, Kurzweil described his new title at Google as Director of Engineering. “In 1999, I said that in about a decade we would see technologies such as self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions, and people criticized these predictions as unrealistic,” he wrote on ablog post. “Fast forward a decade–Google has demonstrated self-driving cars, and people are indeed asking questions of their Android phones,” he added. -ANI

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Lava Xolo A800: A dual-SIM for Rs.12K

Lava has released a new dual-SIM model of Android phone, called Xolo A800 that is currently retaining through online merchants for about Rs.11,999. The phone’s dual-SIM system supports GSM as well as CDMA networks, which is something uncommon in this category. The display is an IPS-grade screen of 4.5 inches and 960X540px resolution.

The phone runs-off a dual-core processor from MediaTek that has been clocked at 1GHz, and 512MB of RAM. Other specs include 8MP/VGA cameras, 1600mAh batteries, 4GB onboard storage, microSD card reader, and connectivity over 3G, Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi.

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Karbonn release a 6-inch Android phablet

Online retailer Saholic has a Karbonn A30 listed for a release on December 17, with a price-tag of Rs.10,990. The A30 gets Android ICS, 1GHz dual-core processor, 8MP/1.3MP cameras, and 2500mAh. Since we haven’t yet heard from Karbonn about this phone, there is limited information about its specs. What is known is that the phone will be capable of connecting over 3G, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi; and that it will ship in silver and white colors.

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