Corporate and legal

BlackBerry CEO likes tablets, just not as they are

ORLANDO, Fla.--OK, so is BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins a fan of tablets, or isn't he?

Heins, who made waves last month when he said he didn't see a place for tablets in five years, made some seemingly contradictory comments on tablets when he spoke on Tuesday during a Q&A session with the media while at the BlackBerry Live conference.

"We believe in a single element of mobile computing: one on your hip," Heins said.

Roughly 15 minutes later, Heins said BlackBerry was looking at the future of tablets and investing R&D … Read more

Square unveils Stand for Register merchants

SAN FRANCISCO--Aiming to help Square Register merchants who have had no standard hardware, Square today unveiled a stand meant to hold an iPad and make for an easy and common point-of-sale experience.

At a press event across the street from Square's office, the mobile payment company's CEO, Jack Dorsey, and Jesse Dorogusker, who leads the Square Register team, showed off Stand, its new hardware intended to give merchants a streamlined way, and a single aesthetic, to accept payments.

The problem, said Dorsey, is that merchants have had no single method to take payments using Square Register. Around the … Read more

BlackBerry takes on Twitter with BBM Channels

ORLANDO, Fla. -- BlackBerry wants to take on Twitter by creating its own social network through its BlackBerry Messenger service.

The company on Tuesday unveiled BBM Channel, which allows users and brands to create a BBM profile that other users can follow, similar to how people can follow brands and users on Twitter.

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, speaking at the BlackBerry Live conference here today, touted the strength of the BBM network, which has 60 million users, and 10 billion messages sent and received each day.

More importantly, Heins said that half of the messages received are read within 20 … Read more

BlackBerry Live by the numbers: 120,000 apps available

ORLANDO, Fla. -- BlackBerry needs to convince developers that they aren't wasting their time working on its platform.

So what better way to state its case than by throwing out a few impressive statistics? BlackBerry spent the better part of Tuesday morning during its BlackBerry Live conference attempting to drum up support and enthusiasm for its platform.

Oh, and the venerable handset maker also used the occasion to unveil its BlackBerry Q5 phone, a device intended for emerging markets that will arrive sometime this summer.

Here are the highlights from BlackBerry on how well it's doing:

Number of … Read more

BlackBerry Q5 debuts with budget buyers in mind

ORLANDO, Fla. -- BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins on Tuesday unveiled the BlackBerry Q5, a budget phone designed for emerging markets.

The phone will launch in the summer around the world, Heins said during its BlackBerry Live conference here today. The company said in a blog post that the Q5 would launch as early as July in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. There's no word on pricing yet.

Taking a cue from other handset vendors, BlackBerry will offer the device in multiple colors, including black, white, red, and pink.

BlackBerry was widely expected to unveil a … Read more

Apple looks to add Galaxy S4 to Samsung lawsuit

Although a federal judge has requested that Samsung and Apple pare down the number of infringements in their lawsuit in California, the iPhone maker actually wants to pile on.

According to FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, Apple on Monday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh allow it to add the Samsung Galaxy S4 to the list of Samsung products that Apple believes violates patents it owns. Apple currently has 22 products that it claims violate its patents. The Galaxy S4 would be added to that list.

According to Mueller, Apple analyzed the S4 and "has concluded that … Read more

FCC again balks on telephone network shutdown

Six months after wireline telephone operators and trade groups asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to begin shutting down their aging switched networks, the agency responded late Friday, calling for further study.

In a public notice (PDF) issued by an agency task force created in December 2012, the FCC reiterated the importance of accelerating the transition from switched networks to native IP infrastructure. But rather than approving limited trials to test technical and regulatory obstacles to a full conversion, the agency instead raised more questions about the trials and called for more rounds of comments.

The task force also … Read more

Break up Sony, hedge fund chief urges

An American hedge fund billionaire has called for the breakup of Sony, in a bid to tighten its focus on the electronics division.

The call on Tuesday came from Daniel Loeb, founder and CEO of hedge fund Third Point, known for its role in ousting Yahoo's former CEO Scott Thompson and enlisting Marissa Mayer from Google to run the company, the New York Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Sony's entertainment arm includes one of the biggest film studios in Hollywood and one of the largest music labels in the world.

Loeb also signaled he would … Read more

Microsoft's new 'deep tech' team hopes to lure developers

Just because a company builds a bunch of new frameworks and services doesn't guarantee developers will immediately flock to them. The current-day Microsoft -- in the midst of trying to win over brand-new non-Microsoft developers while keeping loyal ones in the fold -- knows this well.

Rather than simply sit back and wait for devs to (hopefully) embrace its growing set of new technologies, the Redmondians have decided to go proactive. On May 13 -- just over a month ahead of Microsoft's Build 2013 developer conference -- Microsoft is launching a new "deep tech" team inside … Read more