UPDATE: Blackberry Messenger coming to your Android this summer

Hot off the heels of the BlackBerry Live developer’s conference that happened today a version of BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iOS has been announced. Later this summer, the new service will be offered free of charge.

The BlackBerry Messenger, BBM for short, is considered very popular and handy tool among BlackBerry users and has often been praised for its safety and reliability. As of this summer, there will be a version of BBM ported over for iOS and Android, with planned updates for advanced features such as group chat, split screen and channels.
As a provider of business solutions, Blackberry is especially keen on security and this would be a driving point that would help score points with users across the different operating systems. However, will Blackberry and BBM have what it takes to take on established services such as Whatsapp? Only time will tell.
What do you think? Is this something that will sway you away from Whatsapp and similar messaging apps?
UPDATE on June 6th, 2013: 
Confirmation of the date that Blackberry Messenger will be arriving to Android and iOS devices has dropped on T-Mobile UK's twitter page. Users of both operating systems can look forward (?!) to trying out the popular messenging service on June 27th, so just three weeks away.

Users will need to be running Android 4.0 and higher or iOS 6.0 to be able to use Blackberry Messenger on their device. While it's been a long time in coming, the once ridiculously popular messenging application that was unique to Blackberry devices faces strong competition against the likes of Whatsapp and Viber.

Transform your smartphone into a laptop

The concept of having a dock-style laptop that can run off your smartphone makes certain people, myself included, salivate at the possibilities. However, the price tag associated with the latest proposed concepts, such as the Padfone by ASUS, is still pretty high for most people’s standards. But what would happen if we were to tell you that you would be able to get a similar product at a much lower price point?

A still from the video test of Casetop using the Sony Xperia XL 

The concept that has been showcased on Kickstarter this last little while showcases something a little more simple. The Casetop permits an Android, iOS, or Blackberry 10 device (hurray for multi-platform compability!) to be transformed into a laptop very easily.

All the components of the Casetop 

So, how does it work? Casetop is composed of a 11.6 inch screen in a high definition resolutions (720 is available now, with 1080p being a stretch goal of the Kickstarter project), a keyboard, two 1 watt high fidelity speakers, a 56 watt/hour battery pack, and all the necessary connections you would expect in a laptop: HDMI, microUSB, mini jack, and a USB 2.0 port.
Your smartphone slides in near the keyboard, near where you would usually find the touchpad mouse on normal laptops. So, not only does your smartphone act as the main processing unit of the laptop, but also as the touch sensitive mouse you will use to control it. Check out the following video to see a presentation of it in action!

And with all the rave reviews that the Casteop is receiving, one of the biggest advantages is the battery. When you plug in your smartphone to the Casetop, it automatically starts charging it and so usage of the Casetop does not drain the battery of your smartphone. Not only that, thanks to the portability of all of the required components, you come out with a large screen and tactile keyboard without having to carry around a cumbersome laptop along with your smart-phone. And when you’re done, your coworker or friend can plug in their phone into Casetop and use it themselves.

Close up of the Casetop dock 

Check out the entire Casetop project and follow it’s progress on kickstarter.com.
Personally, this seems like a great idea. As someone who carries around their smartphone with them at all times, it would seem like a no brainer to have something inexpensive that I can bust out when I want to compose a few longer e-mails or notes on the run. Does this concept seem like something you would use? Why or why not?

What does your smartphone cover case say about you

Your smartphone home screen, like we say in our past report, is like a peep hole into your personality. The same could be said for the protective casing that you've chosen, which is also an identification of who you want to present yourself as. After the study we undertook about the various home screen stereotypes, it's now time to check out what your cover case has to say about your character. Whether you're the Playboy bunny teenie-bopper, the hipster, the hoity-toity swankster, the belt-holder type or mother nature's child, at the the end of the day, it's easy to recognize all of types. What does your smartphone case say about you?

Here's another round of ''which type are you?'' © Illusive Photography/flickr.com/AndroidPIT

Mother Nature's Child

You love freedom and like to keep it real, whether it be regarding hairy armpits or your smartphone! You love keep your phone ''au natural'' and cover-free because it just feels so much more ''organic''. Truth be told, you're the only type who actually really takes advantage of the headset's manufacturer design. According to your lifelong philosophy, you aren't high maintenance and that goes for your smartphone as well. Living on the edge is your motto. Who cares if it drops? That's what tape is for. At some point in time you can send your kids Rainbow, Star Dust and Unicorn to go work for you so that you'll have enough money to get the Samsung Galaxy....S16.

You're the Robinson Cruise of smartphones with a animal skin loin cloth and a broken smartphone. © Jardín Botánico Nacional, Viña del Mar, Chile/flickr.com/AndroidPIT

The Playboy Bunny Teen

You haven't yet reached the age of 18, but you're young, happy and live for today. Your passions include fake tans, looking absolutely fabulous all the time and Justin Bieber. Also, as a Paris Hilton mini-me, you are convinced that sticking rabbit ears, devil horns, penguin fins or bunny tails on your case will perfectly show off your own individual personality. If there's something that could describe you and your life, that would be ''YOLO'' or whatever other term is now all the rave.
At the moment, you're living your teen years to the motto of the Lana Del Rey Song ''Young and Beautiful'' but in three or four years when you look back at old pictures you will differently shake your head and say ''what was I thinking?'' By that time, your playboy bunny case will have landed in the garbage long ago.

Teens angst isn't an issue for you like others going through puberty because you are just oh so fabulous with your Playboy bunny case. / © Avarty/flickr.com/AndroidPIT

The Retro Hipster

It's important for you show the world how ''oh so 90s'' you've remained (even if you were born in 2000+). That is precisely why you decided to deck yourself in retro technology and your phone looks more like a game boy, NES controller, a cassette or any of these praised objects that you cling on to for dear life. If your hair looks like you last washed it in the 90's and your pants are tight and full of holes as if mom bought them for you when the Backstreet Boys were cool, then shouldn’t your expensive smartphone also need to play the part as well? I guess authenticity does have its limit after all.

The Retro Hipster lives in the past like no other. The fact that this person just spent over 600 dollars on the new Samsung Galaxy S4 is kept on the down-low for the fear of ''selling out''. / © David Fisher/flickr.com/AndroidPIT

The Hoity-Toity Swankster

For your smartphone case, it must absolutely look as if something died first because for you this signifies something deep, meaningful and of high-value. Whether it be the big anaconda, the American buffalo, the Bengal tiger or a baby robin, you aren't too choosy. And if there isn't an animal skin stuck to your phone, then you at least have some African diamonds from Wal-mart, sorry, Swarovski which are intricately sewn unto silk made from a million silk worms who had the honor to give up their lives for this noble cause. Thankfully, you aren't really that heartless like your case suggests since you actually only buy imitations. For the original stuff and the necessary material, you don't actually have enough money nor the callousness: that's your own little ''secret''.

The Hoity-Toity Swankster loves haute couture and design and would die for that anything Dior. But all that dies in the end is common sense. / © Fashionista's/flickr.com/AndroidPIT

The belt-holder guy

Order and efficiency is the end all and be all for this dude. If we could take a time machine back a few years when you were still a young lad, you already had your Nokia mobile phone strapped onto your belt for safe-keeping. At the time you felt like John Wayne when in front of the mirror practicing flipping out your phone from your belt to your ear in one sexy and smooth move. As other kids in the bus laughed about your Batman-like belt packed full with phone, Swiss army knife, pen set and first aid kit, you thought it was quite the handy-dandy nifty thing. At the time, you already felt a little too old to be cool. Now you're the CEO of a company and nobody can laugh at your awkward ways.

Get inside your favorite movies with Google Play

“What’s his name again? Wasn’t he the guy in that movie with the battle of the bands?” Now, while you're watching a movie on Google Play, you can find out that it’s Jack Black (of course!), who was born in Hermosa Beach and is 43 years old. And with one click you can search the web and learn the fun fact that his parents are both rocket scientists.

We’ve added info cards to the Google Play Movies & TV app so you can easily learn more about the actors, related films and even what song is playing in many of your favorite movies. When you’re watching a film on your tablet, simply press pause and cards will pop up with information about actors on screen. You can tap on an actor’s face to learn more about him, like his age, place of birth, his character in the movie, and his recent work, or scroll through the info cards to learn more about the movie or soundtrack. When you resume the movie, the cards will disappear.

This new feature is offered for hundreds of movies in Google Play and we’re adding more every day. If you’re in the U.S. and have a tablet running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and higher, download the latest version of the Google Play Movies & TV app to check it out. We hope to bring info cards to more movies in more countries and devices soon.

Windows 8.1 to let you secure folders with your fingerprint

Windows 8.1 will have a couple of tricks up its sleeve for people who use fingerprint readers.

One of Monday's sessions at Microsoft's TechEd conference highlighted the support that Windows 8.1 will offer for fingerprint recognition, as described by The Verge. Prior versions of Windows handled fingerprint readers through third-party software. But Windows 8.1 will be the first edition of Windows to natively support the technology.

Users will be able to log into their PCs via a Microsoft Account, purchase apps, and open different programs with a swipe of the finger. They'll even be able to lock down certain folders so they're accessible only through a fingerprint.

Microsoft is "working very closely" with two or three manufacturers to outfit Windows 8.1 with the necessary fingerprint support, according to The Verge. The company is also asking more manufacturers to outfit their laptops, tablets, keyboards, and mice with fingerprint readers.

"You'll begin to see these be more pervasively available just to make it that much easier to log in to Windows," Microsoft's Stephen Rose said, The Verge added.

Google Shopper 3.0 - New features to help with your holiday shopping

As you hit the mall this holiday season, chances are you’ll be accompanied by a reliable personal shopping companion: your mobile phone. Four out of five mobile phone and tablet owners plan to use their device for holiday shopping - for comparing prices, locating nearby stores, and searching for coupons. Today, with the launch of Google Shopper 3.0 for Android, you can easily browse for gift ideas, research products, and locate great deals on the go. 
Search for products and get gift ideas on the redesigned home page
The app’s redesigned home screen features a bigger search box for easier navigation. When you browse curated gift ideas and latest trends on the home page or search for apparel and accessories, larger photos let you view product designs in more detail. 

                  

Find great sales and special offers
Shopper now makes it quick and easy to find great deals at local and online stores. From the new Sales page, you can view weekly circulars from nearby stores, along with a handful of featured current promotions which you can redeem online or in person. Shopper also shows you store promotions, such as ‘30% off’ or ‘free shipping’, as you search for products in the app.  

       

Use GoodGuide rating to Identify healthy, safe, and eco-friendly products 
Whether you shop with a conscience or would like a reason to start, Shopper now features GoodGuide ratings, a rating system that indicates on a scale of one to ten whether a product is healthy, safe and environmentally friendly. When GoodGuide ratings are available for a product, you can view these by scrolling down the product detail screen, as shown below. You can learn more about the GoodGuide rating system here.  

You can download Shopper 3.0 for your Android device from Google Play.

New in Google Currents: Scan through your favorite categories, editions and breaking news

Keeping up on the news out there can be overwhelming. That's where Google Currents comes in—an app that allows you to discover, share and read your favorite news outlets, blogs and online magazines (what we together refer to as “editions”) on your smartphone or tablet—even when you’re offline. Currents is filled with great editions like The Los Angeles Times, CBS Sports, Android Central, The Guardian,Shortlist, and Forbes. Today, we’re revamping Currents to make it even easier to scan through all your favorite categories and specific editions with just the swipe of a finger. And, we’re using some of the technology behind Search to bring you breaking stories on those celebrity scandals, that fiscal cliff negotiation or hottest holiday gift.

Scan through categories 
We’re now grouping editions into categories to help you keep track of your existing subscriptions and discover new ones. Check out editions related to your interests through categories like Entertainment, Sports, Lifestyle and more. All of your content will be grouped in these categories, accessible from a sidebar. And you can organize your editions in each category with favorites on top.

We’ve also made it easy to quickly browse through top articles from all your favorite editions in a category—just swipe horizontally. If you subscribe to more than a dozen News editions like The Atlantic, ABC News and The Telegraph, you can quickly swipe through the entire category and dive into editions with articles of interest.

 

Scan through editions 
We’ve also made it easier to scan headlines in a particular edition—just swipe vertically. Want to see what’s new in Popular Science? Just swipe through through the headlines. After you view a story we’ll mark it as read, so it’s easier to see new content each time you use Currents.

Scan through breaking stories 
To help you stay up-to-date with the latest news, Google Currents now uses some of the technology behind Search to deliver the hottest breaking stories in categories such as World, Entertainment, Sports, Science and more. You’ll find new articles from hot topics that interest you, while discovering existing Currents editions you can subscribe to. Breaking stories are customized to your country and language—so we’ll only show you relevant news.

Currents optimizes editions to look great on whatever type of device you're using. Now articles shine, with larger images and layouts that are intelligently optimized for your device, whether you're on a phone or a tablet. Check out some of our newest featured partners like Cars.com, Voice of America News and New Scientist.

Back in April we expanded Google Currents internationally. Since then millions of readers around the world have downloaded Currents, reading over 700 publisher editions and tens of thousands of self-produced editions. The updated app is now available for download on Google Play and coming soon to iOS. We hope that today’s updates make keeping up with the latest news fast, easy and fun no matter where you are or what device you’re using.

The World’s Languages in Your Pocket (No Internet Required)

Have you ever found yourself in a foreign country, wishing you knew how to say "I'm lost!" or "I'm allergic to peanuts”? The Internet and services like Google Translate can help—but what if you don't have a connection? 

Today we're launching offline language packages for Google Translate on Android(2.3 and above) with support for fifty languages, from French and Spanish to Chinese and Arabic. 

You can select [Offline Languages] in the app menu to see all the offline language packages available for download. To enable offline translation between any two languages, you just need to select them in the offline languages menu. Once the packages are downloaded, you're good to go.

  

While the offline models are less comprehensive than their online equivalents, they are perfect for translating in a pinch when you are traveling abroad with poor reception or without mobile data access.

  

So go out and explore another language or another culture without worrying about Internet access. There’s a whole world offline out there.