Hasta La Gadget!

BlackBerry CEO John Chen has been doing a good job of keeping the company in the news. Last year all we heard about the company was either related to its declining sales or precarious financial situation, not much was being said or written about its future plans. Ever since the new management took hold of the reins, they’ve spun the media machine to focus on the devices that BlackBerry will launch in the coming years. At a reporters’ roundtable recently CEO John Chen said that Bold loyalists can expect to see more full QWERTY handsets in the future.

Chen doesn’t seem to be putting all eggs in one basket like the previous regime, which bet everything on BlackBerry 10 hoping that it would help them regain lost ground. It didn’t. Chen said that at least for the next 2-3 years “the only people we can really interest are the prosumers.” Despite the fact that it has also lost a lot of corporate clients the company is desperately trying to hold on to those that have not yet shifted.

To appease QWERTY loyalists, the company announced that it will resurrect the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and start production once again until its Q10 successor is ready. Dubbed BlackBerry Classic, it will feature a trackpad and function key belt like BB devices from the past, though it isn’t expected to hit the market until fiscal 2015.

While Chen says that majority of the company’s phones will be touting keyboards, they won’t kill touchscreen models. Its very likely that Foxconn, under its five year deal, will continue to manufacture touchscreen BlackBerry phones. The first fruit of this partnership is the BlackBerry Z3 which is yet to be released. BlackBerry has already confirmed that it will only build high-end devices itself, so it may only make full QWERTYs from now on.

BlackBerry Will Shift Focus To High-End QWERTY Handsets , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, BlackBerry, John Chen,

For those of you watching the Google Ara developers conference live feed, today you may have seen a momentary glance at a slide which describes how the devices will be … Continue reading

It looks like the iPhone 5s isn’t the only smartphone whose fingerprint reader can be fooled by fake digits. SR Labs has just posted a video (shown below) showing that Samsung’s just-launched Galaxy S5 is susceptible to the same trick: as long as you…

I am quite sure that wind turbines do have its advantages and all, but it is not every single day that one is able to fix a wind turbine right there and then. A new study that was shared by the University of Delaware showed that high-altitude wind turbines which were tethered to the ground in the same manner as that of kites might carry the potential of generating adequate clean, renewable electricity for the whole world to use. Researchers did target regions where “wind speed maxima” would enable airborne wind energy (AWE) devices to churn electricity at full capacity.

At the intermediate density of airborne turbines, it is said that the electricity generation could actually surpass the 7.5 terawatts mark, making it triple the current annual electricity demand worldwide. With over 20 companies right now that are in various stages of developing AWE technology, we are also witness to more than 100 patents filed in the United States alone. Google has their prototype which is known as Makani Power, although it must be noted that commercially viable airborne wind farms are a few years away still. Just how high must these turbines be deployed? We are talking of heights of between 656 feet and 1.86 miles.

Airborne Wind Turbines Another Possible Avenue To Harvest Energy , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Green, science,

Office for iPad was finally launched recently. Even though the apps are available to download free of cost, they only allow viewing of documents. To unlock editing and creation features users have to get an Office 365 subscription. Last month Microsoft announced that it will offer a cheaper subscription package called Office 365 Personal. Today the plan goes live. Its great for individual users as it also opens up all features of Office for iPad.

A conventional Office 365 subscription costs $9.99 per month or 99.99 per year. It allows access to Office on five PCs or Macs as well as five tablets. Office 365 is a cheaper option. For $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, users can access the full power of Office on one PC or Mac as well as one tablet, which includes the iPad.

With both subscription plans customers get 20GB additional storage on top of the 7GB free online storage they already receive. Though on the Personal plan its only available for one user, whereas 20GB storage is offered for up to five users with a conventional Office 365 subscription. By offering two different plans Microsoft positions Office to deliver the most bang for the buck to a broader range of households, whether its a family of five or just one individual.

Once a subscription has been purchased, regardless of whatever plan they choose, users will also be able to edit Microsoft documents on smartphones, including iPhones and Android devices.

Office 365 Personal Makes It Cheaper To Unlock All Features On iPad , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Tablets, Microsoft, office, office 365, Office for iPad,