Blackberry's New Plan To Save The Company Is... A Square Phone

Blackberry's New Plan To Save The Company Is... A Square Phone

Kerry Flynn

The Huffington Post 

If you're tired of rectangular smartphones for some reason, you're in luck: on Wednesday, BlackBerry released the 4.5-inch, very square BlackBerry Passport to the public.

The new device, which has a physical keyboard that overlays a touchscreen, is currently available through ShopBlackberry.com and Amazon for $599 as unlocked phones that must then be taken to wireless carriers. So far, only AT&T has signed on as an official carrier, though BlackBerry anticipates others will follow suit by the end of the year. AT&T has yet to reveal when it will start offering the phone or at what price, but BlackBerry expects carriers to sell the Passport for about $249 with a new contract.

The phone's square shape might be hard to get used to at first, but it's pretty similar in size to other "phablets" on the market. In fact, it's actually more compact than the 5.5-inch iPhone 6S. The Passport also boasts a 30-hour battery life (the iPhone lasts about 10 hours) and a screen that fits 60 characters per line (the iPhone fits 40 characters).

BlackBerry chief executive John Chen took a shot at the new iPhones Apple released last week, noting at a media event on Wednesday that the Passport doesn't bend. iPhone users have complained that their glitzy new devices were permanently damaged by bending in their pockets. On Tuesday, a gadget reviewer uploaded a video to YouTube that showed him bending an iPhone 6 Plus with his bare hands.

"I challenge you to bend the Passport," said Chen.
The square style was inspired by actual passports, a designer said. According to BlackBerry's official blog, the new phone is meant for "the working professional," and mentions uses for architects, mortgage brokers, doctors, investment bankers and writers. In BlackBerry's view, a square model makes sense for those who spend their days typing emails and viewing spreadsheets.
"The BlackBerry Passport will take you to new places on the best business trip you’ve ever had," the company proclaimed in the blog post.

At the event, BlackBerry said users type four times more accurately with the Passport than with the previous model, the BlackBerry 10. The Passport's keyboard is wider and has enlarged keys.
“We designed it for somebody who’s looking for a durable product, a reliable product, and a beautiful product,”Alison Phillips, managing director of industrial design at BlackBerry, said in a video about the design.

This article originally appeared in The Huffington Post

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Apple Apologizes For iPhone Update Bug And Releases New iOS 8.0.2

Apple Apologizes For iPhone Update Bug And Releases New iOS 8.0.2

Darrell Etherington

TechCrunch

Apple has moved quickly to release iOS 8.0.2, the update that fixes iOS 8.0.1’s problem of zapping cellular reception on iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices. It also includes all the fixes listed in iOS 8.0.1 originally, including a fix for the HealthKit bug that held up release of compatible Health apps in iOS 8.

It also addresses a problem whereby third-party keyboards wouldn’t stick when activated in apps, meaning it would default back to Apple’s stock keyboard. Apple released the following statement alongside the update:

iOS 8.0.2 is now available for users, it fixes an issue that affected iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users who downloaded iOS 8.0.1, and includes improvements and bug fixes originally in iOS 8.0.1. We apologize for inconveniencing the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users who were impacted by the bug in iOS 8.0.1.

Apple says that less than 40,000 iPhone and iPhone 6 Plus devices were affected by the bad release, which was up for just over an hour until the company pulled it to investigate.
To get the update, simply plug your phone in and check for updates in iTunes or navigate to Settings>General and tap Software Update.

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Emma Roberts Designs a Totally Shoppable New Jewelry Line

Emma is wearing the Sapphire Seer Strand necklace, $48

Credit: Courtesy of BaubleBar 

Emma Roberts pretty much has our dream wardrobe, and now we're one step closer to snagging the stylish accessories right out of her luxurious jewelry box. The actress designed an awesome jewelry line called As Told By Emma for BaubleBar, and the pieces look like glam red carpet gems at much more affordable prices.

Emma is wearing the Stargirl Ear Adornment Set, $38

Credit: Courtesy of BaubleBar 

Not only are Emma's designs jaw-droppingly gorgeous, she had a total blast creating them! "I was so excited," she told InStyle of the process. "I was jumping around the house and my boyfriend was making fun of me because I was trying everything on at once–I was running around the house and I was like a little kid again." Her pieces feel just as fun!

Emma is wearing the Saphire Cascade Bib, $68

Credit: Courtesy of BaubleBar 

Credit: Instagram

Emma is wearing the Chanterelle Drop Earrings, $32

Credit: Courtesy of BaubleBar 

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Katy Perry Dyes Her Hair Electric Pink

Katy Perry Dyes Her Hair Electric Pink

Katy Perry showed off a brand new hair makeover that made us roar with excitement: she dyed her locks an electric pink shade! The singer compared her shocking new hairdo to the vibrant pink fur one of our fave Muppets, Animal! She shared the cutest side-by-side photo of herself with her rock-and-roll style muse on Instagram when debuting her new look.

Katy's new look also gives us some major Halloween hairspiration! 

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Does Justin Bieber Need Surgery

GETTY IMAGES

It's safe to say that Justin Bieber likes to take some risks. After all, he did freak his fans out once after he posted a video of himself cliff diving but now, it seems like the singer's daredevil behavior might land him in the hospital!

Justin took to Twitter to tell his fans that he hurt himself cliff diving and as a result, he might need surgery!

Having surgery done is not something to take lightly. But he doesn't want his fans to worry too much about him. He quickly assured us that he's not letting this ear problem get in the way of his new music.

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Find Out the Real Reason Ariana Grande's Best Friend Quit

When we heard that Ariana Grande's choreographer/life coach quit, we were definitely surprised. But when we found out that this person was Isaac Calpito, the singer's BFF, we were totally shocked! Originally, there were claims that the "Break Free" singer's diva antics were to blame for Isaac's departure, but now, more details have emerged about the real reason he stopped working for his former bestie.

After he took to Twitter to explain why he no longer works for Ari, a source close to the "Break Free" singer spoke to Radar Online. Apparently, Isaac left because he was under an investigation for inappropriate conduct!

“He was suspended, and then they did a thorough investigation with an independent investigator,” the source said. "Basically, the result of the investigation demonstrated there were serious issues, and he chose to step down.”

Yikes! It seems like Ariana was not happy with Isaac's behavior so she decided to take some action, which shows she was being responsible and taking care of her other employees. Doesn't sound like something a diva would do to us!

“Isaac is fueling a lot of nonsense about Ariana,” the source continued. "There is no reason for him to want to attack her, and in fact, he’s the one who actually has something to hide.”

There is a lot of drama circling this story, but we hope now both Ariana and Isaac will be able to find some peace with the situation.

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New iPhones run into software, bending complaints

New iPhones run into software, bending complaints

BRANDON BAILEY AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple's newest iPhones ran into some glitches Wednesday after users complained that a new software update blocked their calls, and a video circulated to suggest that the larger of the two new models is vulnerable to bending.

Apple said it would stop providing the software update, which it began distributing Wednesday morning to fix several issues in last week's iOS 8 operating system for iPhones and iPads.
The decision to pull the update came after some people complained on Twitter and in Apple user chatrooms that the update, dubbed iOS 8.0.1, rendered their phones unable to make calls and caused problems with a feature that lets people unlock their phones with their fingerprint.

By midday Wednesday, Apple announced that it was investigating the reports and would issue advice to users "as quickly as we can." Users are still able to the upgrade older phones to last week's version of iOS 8, which Apple said has already been downloaded to nearly half of all iOS devices.
Some tech blogs reported the update only seemed to cause problems for the latest phone models — the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. It's not uncommon for new software to contain bugs that have to be fixed with subsequent releases.

Meanwhile, social media sites were buzzing on Wednesday with reports that the aluminum shell of the iPhone 6 Plus is vulnerable to bending. Some Twitter users claimed their phones showed a slight curving at one end after several hours in a pants pocket. With a 5.5-inch screen, the iPhone 6 Plus is slightly longer and thinner than other iPhone models.

It's not clear how widespread the complaints are. One YouTube video showed someone bending an iPhone 6 Plus by applying extended pressure with his hands — not from normal sitting.

Both the iPhone 6 and the 6 Plus were given high ratings in a recent "breakability" test sponsored by SquareTrade, a San Francisco firm that sells protection plans to consumers for their electronic devices. That test did not include bending, and SquareTrade plans further tests.
Apple did not comment on the reports of bending.

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Drones left out of air traffic plans

 Drones left out of air traffic plans

JOAN LOWY

Associated Press 

WASHINGTON — Designers of the ambitious U.S. air traffic control system of the future neglected to take drones into account, raising questions about whether it can handle the escalating demand for the unmanned aircraft and predicted congestion in the sky.

"We didn't understand the magnitude to which (drones) would be an oncoming tidal wave, something that must be dealt with, and quickly," said Ed Bolton, the Federal Aviation Administration's assistant administrator for NextGen, as the program is called.
Congress passed legislation creating NextGen in 2003, and directed the agency to accommodate all types of aircraft, including drones.

The program, which is not expected to be completed for at least another decade, is replacing radar and radio communications, technologies rooted in the early 20th century, with satellite-based navigation and digital communications.
The FAA has spent more than $5 billion on the complex program and is nearly finished installing hardware and software for several key systems. But the further it progresses, the more difficult it becomes to make changes.

Government and industry officials have long maintained that drones must meet the same rules that apply to manned aircraft if they are to share the sky. That is changing, however, said Chris Stephenson, who represents the National Air Traffic Controllers Association on several U.S. and international unmanned aircraft committees.

"It's becoming painfully apparent that in order to get (drones) in there, there is going to have to be a fair amount of accommodation, at least in the beginning," he said.
Michael Whitaker, the FAA's deputy administrator, acknowledged that drones "weren't really part of the equation when you go back to the origin of NextGen."
The NextGen plans for the next five years do not address how drones will fit into a system designed for planes with pilots on board, but the agency will have to consider whether to do that, Whitaker told a recent meeting of the NextGen Institute, a nonprofit association sponsored by the FAA so that industry can assist with research.

Most of the initial demand to fly unmanned aircraft came from the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, which wanted to test military drones or use them to monitor U.S. borders.
Later, interest began to build around potential uses for smaller drones, especially by police departments, but also for those wanting to spray crops, monitor pipelines and inspect offshore oil platforms. These drones can weigh anywhere from a few pounds to several hundred.
More recently, commercial demand has soared — from wedding videographers and real estate agents to Amazon and Google, eyeing potential package deliveries.

The FAA bans commercial drone operations with a few, limited exceptions. That ban, however, is undermined almost daily by frustrated small drone operators.
Bolton, also addressing the institute, said the NextGen office is working closely with a drone research team at the FAA's technical center in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

FAA officials are under pressure from Congress and industry to loosen restrictions on smaller drones. The agency is expected to propose safety rules in November for businesses that want to operate them.
Smaller drones are less an issue for NextGen because the FAA is expected to limit their altitudes to less than 400 feet. Air traffic controllers generally don't separate aircraft at such low altitudes, except near airports.

But there is also concern about potential traffic and collisions with low-flying smaller drones. NASA researchers are working with the FAA and industry to develop an air traffic control system for aircraft flying at 500 feet or lower. There is no such system today except around airports.

Medium to large drones that are eventually expected fly in "Class A" airspace — over 18,000 feet, where they must be able to avoid collisions with other aircraft — are more of a problem for NextGen.
They will be controlled by a ground pilot, who will be able to see where the drone is on a computer screen and can communicate with controllers. But there won't be a pilot on board who can look out and adjust course to avoid a collision.

There are other differences as well.
Pilots who fly in Class A airspace file flight plans identifying their routes. But some larger drones are expected to stay aloft at high altitudes for days or weeks at a time, and their flight plans will be much more complex.

ERAM, a NextGen computer system that controllers use to guide high-altitude air traffic, won't be able to handle such voluminous flight plans and will have to be adjusted, aviation experts said. ERAM is already over budget and years overdue.
A greater concern is that drones fly much slower than other planes in Class A airspace, Stephenson said.

Planes at high altitudes are supposed follow designated highways in the sky to avoid collisions. A typical airliner on that highway might fly at over 500 mph, while a drone at the same altitude might fly at only 175 mph, he said. The more drones, the worse the traffic jam.
"Some people think you won't be able to see the sun anymore because of all the (drones) that are going to be up there," Stephenson said. "Other people say, 'No, it's just going to be a few. It's no big deal.' "

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The $5 Lineable Bracelet Tracks Your Kids When They Wander Away

The $5 Lineable Bracelet Tracks Your Kids When They Wander Away

John Biggs

TechCrunch

The Lineable, the unfortunately named tracking bracelet for kids, aims to make it easier for parents to keep tabs on their little ones thanks to the magic of beacons. Essentially a wearable iOS-compatible beacon, the device notifies you when your child is too far away and it allows other iPhones to become a sort of ad hoc GPS system that can track your little one through the dark, scary woods (provided he or she is also surrounded by Lineable users.)

Created by Tyler Moon, a former Samsung developer, the Beacon and Bluetooth 4.0 compatible device that will cost a mere $5. To use it parents will slap it on their wee ones. When the wee ones leave the Beacon tracking area, the parents get a notification. Then, when the baby is too far from home, other Lineable users get notifications when the kid is near. This mesh network obviously depends on the popularity of the product, but I could see it being useful in bigger schools or playgrounds. The bracelet battery lasts a year and, interestingly, it features a patent-pending method to engage the battery when you’re ready to use the device, thereby preventing run-down while in storage.

A “multiple children” mode will allow teachers to keep tabs on multiple kids at the same time.
“Lineable connects all Lineable app users globally and use their smartphones to track lost children,” said Moon. “Lineable will utilize the resources of other nearby smartphones with Lineable apps to track its locations and this could expand globally as well.”

What inspired the product? “As Beacon and Bluetooth 4.0 are out in the market, Lineable thought of using these technologies in various areas,” said Moon. “Narrowing down the focus in a specific area, we decided families and children needed help and also children going missing are one of the biggest social issue that United States face as well.”

The project has hit $16,000 on Indiegogo, more than halfway to its $30K goal. The bracelet should ship in February 2015.

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These Japanese robot cheerleaders could help save lives on the road

These Japanese robot cheerleaders could help save lives on the road

Sam Byford

The Verge

 

Murata Boy rides a bicycle.
Murata Girl rides a unicycle. But
the Murata Cheerleaders

, the latest iteration of androids from Japan’s Murata Manufacturing, are another proposition entirely — an army of small robots that balance on metal balls, dancing and flashing lights in unison.
The Cheerleaders use gyroscopic sensors with inverted-pendulum control to stay upright which, Murata’s Koichi Yoshikawa assures me during an interview in the company’s Tokyo headquarters, is a significant challenge in itself.  It appears to work well enough — I played with a Murata
Cheerleader that was spinning on a desk in a conference room, and it managed to hold its position even when I nudged it with a fair amount of force.

But in order for a group of the robots to dance together, they need to be outfitted with ultrasonic microphones and infrared sensors to detect objects around them and work out their relative positions.  Technology developed in collaboration with researchers from Kyoto University helps communicate each robot’s location and allow them to perform in synchronization. While the routines are pre-programmed so far, Yoshikawa says that a system enabling real-time editing is in development.
The robots' location tech could be used for traffic control

Despite Japan’s affinity for cheerleader-style pop idol groups, Murata has no plans to make its latest robots commercially available. Instead, the project is designed to demonstrate the company’s technological expertise, with the possibility of adapting the principles to other industries. Murata says the technology that helps the robots ascertain their physical location could, for example, be used in traffic control networks with a view to reducing accidents. Similar V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle) systems are being developed by companies including Ford and GM. "We believe that the wireless communication of sensor data could become a core infrastructure for the advanced integration of people and objects in smart societies," says Murata SVP Yuichi Kojima in a press release.
But beside the future implications, Yoshikawa tells me that another goal for Murata is simply to produce something entertaining that might get people interested in robotic technology. He contrasts the Murata Cheerleaders to the more

realistic robots produced by the likes of Hiroshi Ishiguro; rather than pursuing the far-off target of replicating the human form outside of the uncanny valley, Murata wants to create accessible, appealing robots that might inspire the next generation of creators.
That's why the Cheerleaders' distinctive bob "hairstyle" follows both form and function, for example — it's made out of the same foam that typically covers microphones, in order to let the ultrasound and infrared signals through, but also makes the robot friendlier and more approachable. It’s a trend we’ve seen accelerating in recent years, with SoftBank’s Pepper set to be the biggest commercial example yet.

Will Murata succeed? I might have a better idea after seeing the Murata Cheerleaders’ first public dance performance later this morning.

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Duh: Of Course the iPhone 6 Plus Can Bend in Your Pocket

Duh: Of Course the iPhone 6 Plus Can Bend in Your Pocket

Christina Bonnington

Wired

Some iPhone 6 Plus users are discovering their handsets do something Apple isn’t advertising: Bending. Yes, a few phablets are
bowing slightly after being kept in back pockets and then sat upon.

You could say it’s a pocket-sized controversy, and you’d (mostly) be right. Considering the device is just over a quarter-inch thick and made largely of aluminum, a flexible metal, the fact this jumbo iPhone will bend when great pressure is placed on it for extended periods is a bit of a well, duh . It’s something that happens, albeit rarely, to iPhone 5s and iPad owners.

If you do manage to torque your spendy, bendy new iPhone 6 Plus, there could be consequences. Batteries and displays are not meant to bend, unless they’re designed to do so from the outset, like the curved LG G Flex smartphone (which even has special curved batteries to accommodate its form factor).

“LCDs are made with delicate front and back glass panels. Even if they don’t break, putting mechanical stress on them could affect the critical alignment between the front and back glass layers, which would then significantly affect the display performance and image quality,” said Raymond Soneira, a display expert and president of DisplayMate. Soneira recently published a detailed analysis of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus’ displays compared to other leading mobile displays on the market.
If your display panel gets damaged, you could experience issues like brightness irregularities at the edge of the screen, dead pixels, or colors striping across the screen.

In particular, lithium-ion batteries cannot withstand the stress of repeated bendings and will explode if you say, bent your iPhone back and forth over and over and over again. One kid did just that in 2011. But iFixit’s Kyle Wiens says iPhone 6 Plus owners shouldn’t have to worry about this because there’s a metal plate between the display and the battery.

Soneira agrees, saying that for minor stresses, the phone’s display assembly should hold up just fine thanks to its metal rear casing. Third-party device insurer SquareTrade did find the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are Apple’s most durable iPhones yet . But, as with dropping any phone, sometimes even a minor fall can create the wrong kind of stress.

If you insist on sitting on your iPhone 6 Plus, Soneira recommends placing it in your pocket with its back facing your backside. “The cover glass [on the display] should do a good job of protecting the frontside from whatever you are sitting on,” Soneira says. But considering your new phone cost at least $300 , why take the chance? Take it out of your pocket before sitting down, or invest in a new blazer or jacket that has a dedicated smartphone pocket.

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Is Justin Bieber Trying to Be an Actor

SPLASH NEWS

Justin Bieber showed off his acting skills in his music video for "As Long As You Love Me," but we never thought the Bieber had any serious acting plans — until we saw him on set with acclaimed actor David Hasselhoff! But according to the Daily Mirror, he was actually shooting a music video for his collaboration with Cody Simpson.

"It came about because Justin is a huge fan of The Hoff. He thinks he's a legend," their source said. "He put the idea up and then the video writer loved it."

Back in 2010, the singer appeared on an episode of CSI, but he hasn't really pushed an acting career since. However, his new music video definitely seems like a mini-action movie. We wonder if he caught a taste of the acting bug now that he's with Selena Gomez. She does both!

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