colinneagle writes "This week, the team at Digia rolled out the first alpha release of Qt 5.1, which is slated to have the first round of support for Android and iOS, with full support coming in 5.2. The goal is to make 5.1 completely usable for building complete, shippable apps for both mobile platforms. That means Qt can now be used to build native, smooth applications on Linux, Windows, Android, iOS, MacOS X and even BlackBerry 10, all with an excellent integrated development environment – QtCreator. Coming with version 5.1 is also something called 'Qt Quick Controls' — which is a set of nice, reusable user interface controls. Currently, it is focused on Desktop applications, but is expanding to add touchscreen-specific features. And, importantly, this release also brings 'Qt Sensors' into play. 'Qt Sensors' are pretty much exactly what they sound like — access to hardware sensors on devices where they are available, with built-in motion gesture recognition. Definitely a big plus for Android and iOS applications."

redletterdave writes "The new BBM in BlackBerry 10 has the option to automatically share what music you're listening to as one's status update. As it turns out, this BBM feature in BlackBerry 10 can actually share anything you're listening to with your BBM network, including videos. Therefore, any videos viewed in the BlackBerry Z10 browser or media player will be displayed for all of one's BlackBerry contacts to see, even if you don't want your network to know you're watching certain videos."

Nerval's Lobster writes "Last week, research firm IDC issued a report suggesting that Windows Phone shipments exceeded those of the iPhone in seven countries around the world, including Argentina, India, Poland, and Russia. The data startled some people — Daring Fireball's John Gruber, for example, blogged his skepticism. As the story gained a bit more momentum, The New York Times' Nick Wingfield reached out to IDC analyst Kevin Restivo for a bit more clarification: 'IDC's numbers also reflect only the official number of cellphones imported into the countries,' he wrote. 'Mr. Restivo said that in some countries, like Argentina, high government taxes mean there is a very significant gray market in cellphones, which IDC doesn't track.' Now new survey data from Kantar Worldpanel uggests that Windows Phone is indeed gaining some sort of momentum in some parts of the world: Android was responsible for 51.2 percent of smartphone sales in the U.S. for the quarter ended February 2013, followed in second by Apple's iOS with 43.5 percent, with Windows Phone edging up into third place with 4.1 percent. BlackBerry trailed in fourth with 0.7 percent, down significantly from its 3.6 percent market-share last year. That doesn't mean that Windows Phone will prove any sort of champion in the near term, but maybe the platform isn't totally on life support."

jrepin writes "Coffice is a new project that tries to make KDE's Calligra office suite available on mobile platforms like Android, Blackberry 10, Jolla SailfishOS and Ubuntu Phone. Calligra already has some presence on smartphones, since document viewer on Nokia N9 is based on it. The first release brings Calligra Words viewer for OpenDocument Text documents and is currently available for Android only. Plans for later releases include viewers for spredsheets and presentations. Editing and saving as well as support for proprietary Microsoft Office formats are coming later."

Nerval's Lobster writes "Of late, there's been a number of crossovers between technology and entertainment, including the rash of creative directors at brands like Polaroid (Lady Gaga), Intel (Will.i.am) and BlackBerry (Alicia Keys). It's a much rarer thing, though, for rock stars to invest in infrastructure, rather than serve as the 'face' of a brand. But that's exactly what three members of the rock band Live, which sold 20 million albums in its '90s heyday, are doing as their second act: investing in a company that plans on building a 100-Gbit fiber link across Pennsylvania to four data centers. That company, United Fiber and Data (originally known as United Federal Data), will build out a network between New York City and Ashburn, Virginia — providing a low-latency data pipeline that connects offices in Virginia to data centers owned by Wall Street. Supposedly in the name of security, the network will avoid the traditional I-95 corridor, a more direct route used by many other networks."

Trailrunner7 writes "A vulnerability exists in some components of BlackBerry mobile devices that could grant attackers access to instances of the company's Enterprise Server (BES), according to BlackBerry, which issued an alert and released a patch for the vulnerability last week via its Knowledge Base support site. BES, the software implicated by the vulnerability, helps companies deploy BlackBerry devices. The high severity advisory involves the way the phone views Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) files, specifically the way the phone's Mobile Data System Connection Service and Messaging Agent processes and renders the images. An attacker could rig a TIFF image with malware and get a user to either view the image via a specially crafted website or send it to the user via email or instant message. The last two exploit vectors could make it so the user wouldn't have to click the link or image, or view the email or instant message, for the attack to prove successful. Once executed, an attacker could access and execute code on Blackberry's Enterprise Server."

drdread66 writes "Reuters reports today that Research In Motion co-founder Jim Balsillie dumped his entire stake in BlackBerry at the end of 2012. While it's common to see high-level executives sell some of their shares to gain some liquidity, it's unusual to see them exit their positions completely. This has to be seen as a massive vote of 'no confidence' from someone who was on the inside long enough to know what's going on in the company."

An anonymous reader writes "Ars has an extensive review of the newly-released BlackBerry 10 operating system. Since it's such a late entry into the market, the tech community has been eyeballing the new operating system with trepidation — would all that time go to waste with a poor offering, or would BlackBerry 10 be a reasonable alternative to iOS and Android? Well, it seems BlackBerry (the company formerly known as RIM) actually put the time to good use. The review finds most of the UI innovations to actually be.. innovative. "BlackBerry took a lot of time to see what the competition is doing, and then it worked to refine its operating system. It essentially had an excellent cheat sheet, filled with everything that has worked wonderfully and all the things that have bombed. That said, BlackBerry still has to mold its product for its two huge core audiences: the business-oriented multi-tasker and the developing smartphone markets. To that end, it has included all of the essential features and apps to appeal to both of those parties. The corporate user has his or her share of content to watch on the train ride to work, games and apps to help keep busy when not entrenched in a meeting, and the perfect Hub for messaging (not to mention the literal split between work and personal environments)." However, the review also notes that the system is not really designed to make people drop their Android or iOS devices, so uptake is going to be slow at best. The question for the platform's success (and the company's) is no longer 'Is it any good? but 'Is it too late?'" There's also a review of the z10 smartphone itself.

judgecorp writes "Fears that mobile phones cause cancer have never had strong backing from scientific research, but Israeli startup Tawkon is using those fears for an interesting business model. Its free app (banned from Apple's App Store, but on Android, BlackBerry and unlocked iPhones) tracks how much radiation your phone is emitting. This lets concerned users hold their phones away from their heads or whatever — but it also gives Tawkon a useful map of cellphone coverage around the world, which is the real asset it is monetizing — for the benefit of everyone, it says."

coondoggie writes "When it comes to relatively new technologies, few have been developing at the relentless pace of mobile. But with that development has come a serious threat to the security of personal information and privacy. The Federal Trade Commission has issued a report (PDF) on mobility issues and said less than one-third of Americans feel they are in control of their personal information on their mobile devices. 'The report makes recommendations for critical players in the mobile marketplace: mobile platforms (operating system providers, such as Amazon, Apple, BlackBerry, Google, and Microsoft), application (app) developers, advertising networks and analytics companies, and app developer trade associations. ... The report recommends that mobile platforms should: Provide just-in-time disclosures to consumers and obtain their affirmative express consent before allowing apps to access sensitive content like geolocation; Consider developing a one-stop “dashboard” approach to allow consumers to review the types of content accessed by the apps they have downloaded; Consider offering a Do Not Track (DNT) mechanism for smartphone users.'"

Nerval's Lobster writes "The company formerly known as Research In Motion—which decided to cut right to the proverbial chase and rename itself 'BlackBerry'—launched its much-anticipated BlackBerry 10 operating system at a high-profile event in New York City Jan. 30. Meanwhile, Microsoft is still dumping tons of money and effort into Windows Phone. But can either smartphone OS — or another player, for that matter — successfully challenge Apple iOS and Google Android, which one research firm estimated as running on 92 percent of smartphones shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012? What would it take for any company to launch that sort of successful effort?"

judgecorp writes "Yesterday's BlackBerry 10 announcement did not mention the company's tablet, the Playbook, but users will be relieved to know it will get an update to BlackBerry 10. It's not a huge surprise, since BB10 is based on the PlayBook's QNX operating system, but PlayBook users may have been worried since the company did not even mention the struggling tablet in passing at the event." Hopefully the Playbook's camera is better than the one in the new BB10-based Z10 phone, the low-light performance of which Gizmodo describes as "four-years-ago crap."

Nerval's Lobster writes "Research In Motion has whipped the curtain back from BlackBerry 10. The revamped operating system is widely perceived as RIM's best chance at staying relevant in a smartphone market dominated by Google Android and Apple's iOS. Once a significant player in mobility, RIM watched its earnings and market-share crumble over the past few years. BlackBerry 10 abandons the longtime BlackBerry user interface, centered on grids of icons, in favor of one built on the same QNX technology that powers RIM's PlayBook tablet. The BlackBerry 10 home-screen offers 'live tiles' that dynamically refresh with updated information, and RIM is playing up how users can move between apps and alerts by swiping and flicking the screen. Other features include BlackBerry Balance, which divides the 'personal' and 'corporate' sides of the phone, as well as an updated BlackBerry Messenger. More details in the article." RIM also announced they are rebranding themselves as BlackBerry. If you like pictures, omfglearntoplay sent in an article that delivers. Gimmicks of the launch include hiring Alicia Keys as their "Global Creative Director."

adeelarshad82 writes "With the BlackBerry 10 launch just around the corner, there is a lot of pressure on RIM's CEO to provide a 'Steve Jobs Moment.' However, given BlackBerry's 1.1% percent market share compared to the combined 92% share between rivals Android and iOS, it's a long road back. To add to the struggle, no other first-generation smartphone leader has been able to pull off this kind of rebirth. Palm and Symbian are dead and Microsoft is struggling. But, as one mobile analyst explains, RIM has a chance to carve out its own market with tomorrow's launch of BlackBerry 10 given that they get a few things right. They need to heavily promote their devices to CEOs, heavily promote the top apps to users, and most of all, they need to be able to explain why people should give it a look."

judgecorp writes "China's Lenovo could take over RIM, according to Lenovo chief financial officer Wong Mai Ming, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. The Canadian authorities might object, and so might BlackBerry users, after what ultimately happened to the ThinkPad brand under Lenovo's guidance. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said, 'It’s something that we would look carefully at. We always look at foreign investment in Canada as a cause for reflection. We have to look at intelligence concerns.'"

Bennett Haselton writes "Here are three hacks that I adopted in the last few weeks, each of which solved a minor problem that I had lived with for so long that I no longer thought of it as a problem — until a solution came along, which was like a small weight off my shoulders. None of these hacks will help impress anyone with your technical prowess; I'm just putting them here because they made my life easier." Read on for the rest of Bennett's thoughts.

CWmike writes "It's starting to look like the BlackBerry store will be well stocked with apps when Research In Motion launches BlackBerry 10 (see YouTube preview) at the end of this month. The company held an event over the weekend where it offered app developers incentives to port their programs to the BlackBerry 10 platform and managed to attract 15,000 app submissions. 'Well there you have it. 37.5 hours in, we hit 15,000 apps for this portathon. Feel like I've run a marathon. Thanks to all the devs!' wrote Alec Saunders, vice president of developer relations at RIM, in a Twitter message. The 'port-a-thon' event was held in two parts: One aimed at Android developers and the other at apps written in other platforms, including Appcelerator, Maramalade, Sencha, jQuery, PhoneGap and Qt. RIM was offering $100 for each app ported and subsequently approved for sale in the BlackBerry 10 app store, up to certain limits. Developers could also win BlackBerry 10 development handsets and a trip to RIM's BlackBerry Jam Europe developer event." It's hard to believe that many current iOS or Android users are leaping toward Blackberry, though. If you're in one of those camps, is that so crazy?

ErichTheRed writes "Here's an interesting editorial piece about the ThinkPad over at CNN. It mirrors what many ThinkPad devotees have been saying since Lenovo started tweaking the classic IBM design to make the ThinkPad more like a MacBook, Sony or other high-end consumer device. I'm a big fan of these bulletproof, decidedly unsexy business notebooks, and would be unhappy if Lenovo decided to sacrifice build quality for coolness. Quoting: 'Before doing anything drastic, Lenovo would be wise to review the spectacular rise and fall of Blackberry-maker Research in Motion. The mobile handset manufacturer tried to take on Apple by launching a number of products aimed at the retail consumer after the launch of the iPhone. It released the devastatingly bad Blackberry Storm as a response to the iPhone and later the Playbook to take on the iPad. The Storm failed because it was hastily put together in a mad dash and lacked the signature Blackberry QWERTY keyboard ... The Playbook failed because the Blackberry ecosystem had at the point of its launched more or less collapsed, making the Playbook just another iPad clone no one wanted. Meanwhile, the original Blackberry was left to wither away as the company focused on chasing Apple and wasn't updated in a meaningful way, making it look just old and tired.'"

Hugh Pickens writes writes "If you still have some last minute Christmas shopping to do and are looking for cool gifts for the tech nuts in your life David Pogue has put together a list of twelve cheap tech gifts and gadgets that real-world people can give to real-world friends, bosses, employees and family members — nothing over $100. How about a Zapped edition of Monopoly for $25 where there is no paper money in the game. You put your iPhone or iPad in the middle of the Monopoly board — and each player gets a fake credit card. You pay or collect money from the bank electronically, just by placing your card briefly on the touch screen. Or how about a Sound Oasis Sound Therapy Pillow for $38? The speakers are in the pillow, you don't feel them, and you can drift to sleep with music playing without disturbing whoever is trying to sleep next to you. Then there's the Tagg Pet Tracker ($100, plus $8 a month after three months) that snaps onto your dog or cat's existing collar. You can use the pettracker.com Web site to find your pet on a map, using your phone or computer. Our favorite is the Cirago iAlert Tag for $50. If you walk away from your smartphone (iPhone, Android phone or BlackBerry), your key chain beeps to alert you and it works the other way, too. If you leave your keys somewhere, the phone beeps to alert you as you walk away! But the weirdest and most memorable of the suggestions are the Necomimi Brain-Powered Cat Ears for $100. It's a headband with fluffy white cat ears attached that perk up, flop down and otherwise turn, cutely and catlike, in sync with your brainwaves. There's a good deal of debate online about just how much the ears' motion is, in fact, governed by your brainwaves but one thing the Necomimis do extremely well is get attention, start conversations and make your holiday gift memorable. Now go start wrapping."

Today Nokia announced an agreement with Research In Motion to resolve all patent legislation between the two. The companies have been fighting over patents for almost a decade, most recently over devices with wireless LAN capabilities. The terms of today's agreement were not disclosed but it involved a one-time payment from RIM as well as ongoing payments. This agreement comes shortly after RIM's announcement that it pulled in $9 million in profit last quarter, down 97% from the $265 million they earned in the same quarter the year before. The company has pinned its hopes on BlackBerry 10, scheduled to launch next month: "So this is RIM at the end of 2012: losing subscribers and revenue, facing significant opponents, but with more cash on hand and at least one long-running lawsuit settled. If nothing else, it means the way is clear for RIM to launch its Hail Mary pass: BlackBerry 10."