BlackBerry has released their BBM application for the Windows Phone platform. After being exclusive to the BlackBerry OS since its inception, the app was released on iOS and Android last year but it took its usual time to arrive later on Windows Phone.

But even though the app is on Windows Phone now, you may not be able to download it. BlackBerry, in its infinite wisdom, as decided to keep it a private beta for now, so you will need an invite to be able to use the app on your Windows Phone device. Read more »

South HAMerica is the latest update to Rovio’s Angry Birds Seasons game, which is updated every now and then for a festival or season specific level pack. The South HAMerica update is odd, in that it doesn’t directly relate to any season or festival, and other than some vague reference to the football matches being held in Brazil isn’t as topical as the previous updates.

As usual, you get a pack of couple dozen levels. We haven’t played the regular Angry Birds in a while so we decided to give this a try. Read more »

Audiophiles rejoice. Google will be adding support for USB audio out in the next version of Android, currently known as the ‘L’ release. The feature briefly appeared on screen during the I/O keynote but Google has now closed the issue added on its support forum asking for USB audio that was added two years ago.

For those not aware, USB audio out allows you to connect devices such as headphone amplifiers to the USB port of the phone and get superior audio quality out of it. Most smartphones these days are capable of outputting clean audio through their headphone jack. However, in most cases, there is not enough power from the built-in amp to drive more power hungry headphones. Read more »

When Microsoft announced Windows Phone 8.1 back at its BUILD conference, one of the features that was mentioned included dynamic lockscreens, which would allow developers to make custom lockscreens. Unfortunately, this feature was not included on the test build that was released to developers.

Now, a new video has surfaced that shows one example of customizable lockscreens. The lockscreen has fullscreen album art and music player controls that allow complete control over the playback from the lockscreen. Read more »

Google has released the Android Wear application on the Play Store. Although there is not much you can do with it right now, the app will become useful once those who ordered their Android Wear devices start receiving their orders next week.

Google has also added a new section in the Play Store for Android Wear applications. Note, that these are not exactly separate apps that will run on your watch but your usual apps meant for your phone or tablet but now with Android Wear support to push relevant information on to the device. Read more »

4K video recording has started to become a staple feature of all the flagship Android smartphone these days. But the version of 4K that these phones record in is the UHD resolution, or the ones used by 4K televisions, and is exactly four times the resolution of full HD.

But there is another version of 4K and that is DCI 4K, which is what the professional cinema cameras use while recording in 4K. The difference here is the added width; whereas UHD is 3840×2160, DCI 4K is 4096×2160. But while several smartphones record in UHD, the OnePlus One is the first to record in DCI 4K. Read more »

Regardless of whether you like their products, you can’t deny Apple makes some of the best ads in the industry. Always to the point and with some emotional value, Apple videos are the Pixar movies of the ad world.

The latest ad for the iPhone 5s focuses on parenthood and how people use their phone (or the iPhone 5s, in this case) for help while dealing with their kids. It’s a lovely ad as usual and more than the phone itself it showcases the wide variety of apps that are available for it, which has been a recurring theme of all their recent iPhone and iPad ads. Read more »

Godfire: Rise of Prometheus is a third person hack and slash action game. Based in roughly the same period from where every Greek God game comes from, Godfire features some fancy effects and all your favorite Greek mythical creatures that you’ve seen umpteen times before.

I decided to give it a try to see if it is something original or just another God of War rip-off. Read more »

The ASUS Zenfone 5 is one of the three Zonefone devices that were announced at CES earlier this year. Based on Intel’s x86 Atom processors, the Zenfones run ASUS’ new ZenUI on top of Android.

The Zenfone 5 is the middle one of the three devices and comes with a 5.0-inch 720p display, dual-core Intel Atom Z2560, 2GB RAM and 8 megapixel camera. Let’s see how well it performs. Read more »

If you are a seasoned videographer or someone who regularly uploads gaming videos on YouTube, you’d have notice that the framerate was capped at 30fps, which meant regardless of the framerate of the original video file, once uploaded the video will only playback at 30fps max on YouTube. \

That changes today. YouTube has finally introduced the option of displaying higher framerates up to 60fps, so whether it is a video shot in 48fps or a gameplay video at 60fps, they will playback in all their high framerate glory on YouTube. Read more »

Back at the Google I/O we got a lot of new information and a proper demonstration of the new Android Wear devices, including the LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live. Not just that but both devices also went on sale the same day on the Google Play Store. Unfortunately, the one that most people have been waiting for – The Moto 360 – was nowhere to be seen and will only be arriving later this year.

So while you will be having to wait for sometime before you can get your hands on the Moto 360, Motorola has uploaded a demo video to show how the watch looks like in action. Read more »

Google has released an update for the Search app on Android (v3.5.14), which brings with it a very useful addition.

Earlier, you had to be in the Google Search app to be able to use the “Ok Google” hotword to invoke voice search. With the latest update, you can now use it on any screen on the phone as long as the screen is on. It also works from the lockscreen even if you have a password set on the device. And if you have the device connected to a charger, the screen doesn’t even have to be on to use voice search. Read more »

Yahoo! owned Aviate launcher for Android has been around for some time now but so far it was in the beta stage and more importantly, was only available through invites. The launcher is now available on the Play Store for free for anyone with a supported device to download.

The Aviate launcher has a different appearance than most other Android launchers that mimic the look of the stock launcher. There are no multiple blank homescreens for you to fill with icons or widgets. There are three screens, the leftmost showing your Today view (by default), the middle one showing five of your most used apps (that you chose) and the right one showing other apps that are grouped in different categories. Read more »

When Apple announced iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite at the WWDC ’14 keynote, one of the features listed on one of the slides was Flyover City Tours in Maps.

Flyover City Tours uses the Flyover data for select locations around the world and gives you a bird’s eye view of the major landmarks in the area by zooming in and spinning around. Apple has some highly detailed 3D models of major cities around the world and the City Tour feature makes good use of them. Read more »

Broken Age is a point-and-click puzzle/adventure game that tells the story of two characters from different worlds. The game started off as a Kickstarter campaign and is now a multi-platform game, available on PC, Mac, Linux and the iPad.

Broken Age features beautiful hand-drawn animation and an all-star cast, including Elijah Wood, Jack Black and Wil Wheaton. It’s a two part game, with the second one arriving later. Today we are taking a look at Act 1 of the game. Read more »