BBM is both essentially cost-free and invisible to police!
As riots continue throughout London, British police have threatened to bring charges against those who use social media to incite looting and violence.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanaugh confirmed that officers were looking at both Twitter and Blackberry Messenger as they investigated the riots, which began after the police shooting of 29-year-old Mark Duggan in the Tottenham section of North London on Thursday.
But some observers have noted that the social media that has really helped "organize" the looting is not Twitter or even Facebook, so central to uprisings throughout the Arab world earlier this year. Many of the teenagers running through London's streets are communicating by BlackBerry Messenger.
Just before Duggan died Thursday, he sent a final message to his girlfriend via BlackBerry Messenger, "The Feds are following me."
Ever since, according to Mike Butcher, editor of TechCrunch Europe, "while Twitter has largely been the venue of spectators to violence and is a handy public venue for journalists to observe, it would appear the non-public BlackBerry BBM messaging network has been the method of choice for organising it."
BlackBerrys cost less than smartphones and BBM is both essentially cost-free and invisible to police. In order to communicate, BBM users must exchange PINs, but their conversations are private. They can spread their PINs via SMS, Twitter or other means.
BlackBerry made a specific effort to market its product among black youth in London, recently sponsoring a "secret gig" in London featuring top U.K. rappers.
Blogger Jonathan Akwue said he didn't quite understand the appeal of BlackBerrys among London teens until his "far cooler 17-year-old nephew" explained that BBM was "the main reason for their popularity." The rioters seem to be as young as the BBM users. More than 200 alleged rioters have been arrested so far, and two thirds of those for whom ages have been given are 21 or under.
Akwue was the first to note that BBM messages had been circulating since the Duggan shooting. "BBM was also the channel used to spread the word that the riot had started," wrote Akwue, "and from what I can tell on Twitter, it appears to be the means by which communications continue to be shared." Both Butcher and Akwue have archived reams of messages in which Londoners use Twitter to talk about BBM's role in the violence and looting, and even to offer to retweet BBM pins.
"Sending out BBM broadcasts about linking ukp at 4 pm to cause more havoc," writes one tweeter. Another says, ":o jd sports Tottenham hale just got robbed go on bbm to see da pics!" Another writes, "People had in their bbm status 'Going Tottenham riot, who's on it" like it was a casual street party. A fourth said, "According to my bbm, now something's starting in wood green."
Most telling perhaps are tweets that say, "BBM Where Ma News of Da Day Comes From" and "The news ain't even showing the extent of what's actually happening on the streets of tottenham? BBM is doing da ting right now!"
Monday, 8 August 2011
Friday, 5 August 2011
Influence of the iPhone Design on Other Mobile Phones Since 2006
Picture yourself back in the 2006 holiday season: if you were a geek, you were most likely struggling with your Windows Vista upgrade (those were the days!) and dreaming of owning that then-brand-new smartphone. More likely than not, it had a physical keyboard, had a rudimentary built-in web browser and definitely not a multi-touch display. When the iPhone first launched, the whole smartphone space was taken into a whole different direction.
As you can tell from the image below, Apple’s competitors have evolved greatly since the iPhone’s 2007 release, but there’s a pattern they all seem to have followed: all of Apple’s competitors now look like the iPhone in one way or the other. Back in 2006, the predominant form factors were clamshells and small screens surrounded by static plastic buttons, yet today most major smartphones don’t even have many physical buttons; in fact, most of their interface is comprised almost solely of a large multi-touch display, much like the iPhone.
Back when the iPhone was first announced at Macworld 2007, Steve Jobs made a sharp comparison between it and the other devices, portraying them as outdated and functionally flawed. After years of arguing for the importance of physical keyboard and dismissing the need for multi-touch functionality, it didn’t take long for all major players to adopt features they had previously criticized. While lousy at first, the tide began turning in 2009 with meaningful "iPhone killers" being introduced, most, if not all of them running Google’s Android operating system. Android, while significantly different from iOS, was clearly built to resemble it in both user experience and functionality with its touch-based interface and fluid web browser. Today, major players who had developed their proprietary operating systems in the past have all jumped on board to develop Android-based phones. Samsung, for example, developed its Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets which has been a runaway success. While Android has been hugely successful, other makers have instead decided to evolve their own proprietary operating systems. This has led to a much more touch-friendly Symbian, which runs on Nokia phones, and a new version of the Blackberry OS that brings some of the features iOS users had been enjoying for quite some time. Of course, all of Apple’s competitors attempt to emphasize the differences they have between each other, but in the end all share 90% of the features. We’ll have to wait until the next trend starts to watch everyone blindly following it. Yet, we can’t deny that touch-screen devices with decent web browsers are better with plastic dumb phones that could barely display Google.com correctly.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
iPhone 5 Prototypes Sent to Carriers for Testing
According to a new report, carriers across the world have received the next-generation iPhone for last-minute testing before the device officially begins being manufactured en masse. This follows many contradicting reports and claims that have surfaced over the last few days, which suggests that the next iPhone release might be imminent.
The news was broken by Charles Arthur, tech editor at the well-known UK publication The Guardian, on an opinion post. There, Arthur claimed he has sources that have hinted at “boxes” that have been shipped to carriers worldwide:
Important indeed: in fact, this is one of the last, if not the absolute last, test that the iPhone 5 will go through before its mass manufacturing begins and is later shipped to customers worldwide. According to Arthur, the phones come enclosed in “black boxes” that are very rarely opened, and only by senior staff. Since the focus of most of the testing is merely to assess last-minute compatibility problems with the device’s connection to networks, very few people actually manage to see the device itself at this stage, or find out about its functionality unless, of course, they really need to know about it. Moreover, the device is likely enclosed in a different case to make it indistinguishable from the iPhone 4, if the next iPhone actually turns out to be different.
Of course, there’s no evidence of whether these mysterious black boxes that are finding their way to carriers actually contain the next iPhone, but since the iPhone 5 has been rumored to come out in about a month, what else could secret packages shipped by Apple with their content strictly locked down could be? It must be the new iPhone, folks.
Rumors of a next-generation iPhone have been ongoing over the last few months. While reports have been confusing at best, the iPhone 5 is expected to include several hardware enhancements, including a larger camera and better processing power, and perhaps slight design changes such as a larger screen. The device is expected to be an announced by Apple at a special event next month.
The news was broken by Charles Arthur, tech editor at the well-known UK publication The Guardian, on an opinion post. There, Arthur claimed he has sources that have hinted at “boxes” that have been shipped to carriers worldwide:
my carrier sources tell me that the boxes in which the new iPhone hardware is encased have been transported to carriers for testing. This is an important step in the release cycle for any phone.
Important indeed: in fact, this is one of the last, if not the absolute last, test that the iPhone 5 will go through before its mass manufacturing begins and is later shipped to customers worldwide. According to Arthur, the phones come enclosed in “black boxes” that are very rarely opened, and only by senior staff. Since the focus of most of the testing is merely to assess last-minute compatibility problems with the device’s connection to networks, very few people actually manage to see the device itself at this stage, or find out about its functionality unless, of course, they really need to know about it. Moreover, the device is likely enclosed in a different case to make it indistinguishable from the iPhone 4, if the next iPhone actually turns out to be different.
It’s very high security, as you could guess; my understanding is that barely anyone inside the carriers gets to open those boxes,
Of course, there’s no evidence of whether these mysterious black boxes that are finding their way to carriers actually contain the next iPhone, but since the iPhone 5 has been rumored to come out in about a month, what else could secret packages shipped by Apple with their content strictly locked down could be? It must be the new iPhone, folks.
Rumors of a next-generation iPhone have been ongoing over the last few months. While reports have been confusing at best, the iPhone 5 is expected to include several hardware enhancements, including a larger camera and better processing power, and perhaps slight design changes such as a larger screen. The device is expected to be an announced by Apple at a special event next month.
Monday, 1 August 2011
iPad Full Permanent Factory Unlock Now Available
Yes! We can now permanently unlock Apple iPad and Apple iPad 2 (any version). All that is needed is the IMEI number, unlock is all done remotely via email.
Service supports the following networks:
New micro glass lens paves way for projectors in smartphones
The smartphones we carry in our pockets are quite versatile devices. They used to be the size of a brick, required a separate battery pack, and only made calls. Now they fit in the palm of your hand, do HD video, surf the web, play games, hold gigabytes of data, and run for days on a single battery charge. Manufacturers continue to add functionality too, with NFC being the latest new tech to slowly be introduced to make them payment devices, and who knows what’s next.
One potential future edition is the inclusion of a projector module. That would allow video to be projected on a wall as a 60-inch HD output, for example, maybe even larger. The problem with adding such functionality is one of size, power, and heat. At the moment the projector components are too big, they require a lot of power, and generate a lot of heat. That makes them unsuitable for inclusion in the tiny, cramped enclosure of an iPhone or Droid.
Alps Electric is trying to solve that problem though, and has just announced the world’s smallest aspherical glass lens. It measures just 1mm x 1mm.
Such lenses are used in high-capacity communication networks. The glass lens is used in optical communication for transmitting light signals to optical fibres, but those same lenses are also ideal for use in projectors.
Alps’ latest aspherical lens is called the FLGS3. Not only is it incredibly small, but it has a high coupling efficiency (measure of light transmission efficiency) of 73% over the previous 68%. What that means is you need less light to gain the same level of brightness. Less light means less power and less heat.
The gains from the new lens mean that palm-sized projectors may no longer require the Peltier device–metal component used to help dissipate heat–therefore making them smaller and cheaper. The savings in power will also mean you can use the projector for longer on a single battery charge.
Even if the savings don’t turn out to be enough for use in smartphones, it should see a reduction in size of new, dedicated palm-sized projectors in future.
Alps has already started production of the new glass lens, and definitely sees them being used in consumer devices as it ramps up production to 100,000 per month by the end of 2011.
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