What to do with a broken Android screen - CNET

Dropped your Android device? Here are you options for fixing that cracked screen.
by Sarah Jacobsson Purewal via CNET How To

WhatsApp working on desktop apps for Windows and OSX

WhatsApp wants to expand its availability from mobile devices to desktop. While the messenger platform already offers up a web-based variant,  the company is apparently working to bring a native application to end users. Much like Hangouts and Facebook offers.  The popular cross platform messenger app is tipped to be working on native desktop apps for Windows and Mac.

 

According to a series of screenshots posted by WABetaInfo on twitter,  WhatsApp seems to be working on clients for Windows and OS X.  The screenshots show alleged translation requests by the WhatsApp team, pointing at the upcoming release of the apps.

The details however, are not confirmed at the moment. Although there is no way to confirm the authenticity of these images, it should not be a difficult task for the company as it already has a Web interface. It might also be that WhatsApp is just testing the idea, which we might not even see. The Facebook owned popular instant messenger service has over 1 billion active users and offers apps for various platforms like Windows Phone, BlackBerry OS, Nokia and Symbian devices. Also, Whatsapp did confirmed last month that they are ending support for BlackBerry and Symbian device come December. Not a huge deal since Blackberry has moved on to utilize Android as its base operating system. However, it will make those who are stock piling the dying BB OS devices will soon find themselves out of luck.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for native clients in the next few months. Let’s hope they become official soon.

Source:-WABetaInfo, via

The post WhatsApp working on desktop apps for Windows and OSX appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

by Onkar Soundankar via AndroidSPIN

Rumor: Samsung Galaxy Note 6 to come with USB Type-C and 5.8-inch Display.

After Samsung’s success with the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, we all know that the South Korean smartphone giant will launch its Galaxy Note 6 next. The Galaxy Note 6 is rumored to launch in July with Android N on board. There’s no doubt that Note 6 will give direct competition to the upcoming iPhone.

We also know that it will be water & dust resistant as is Galaxy S7. We now have information that it will feature a USB Type-C port, reversible connector and all. We don’t know whether it will be USB 3.1 or an older standard. USB 3.1 supports USB Power Delivery 2.0 for faster device charging and the ability to carry HDMI or Display Port video signals. While we knew some of the configurations, few of them are heard for the first time.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 6’s configuration was leaked out on Weibo earlier and offer up much of what we all are expecting from the next Note series. The Note 6 will be carry a 5.8-inch screen (5.77 inches, to be precise), and the resolution should also be the typical 2K. The camera might support IR autofocus, which, combined with the 12MP dual-pixel Galaxy S7 camera, will focus faster in low light and more. The Note 6 will indeed have 6GB’s of ram. This device will be supported by Samsung’s DRAM production line, hence production capacity and supply should not be any problem. Also there is rumour that a new GEAR-VR will follow the devices launch. Even  based on rumour, it wouldn’t surprise me if they are switching to USB Type-C, the current Gear VR model won’t work with it. We will have to wait to see more details as the day’s past.

Source:- Sammobile

The post Rumor: Samsung Galaxy Note 6 to come with USB Type-C and 5.8-inch Display. appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

by Onkar Soundankar via AndroidSPIN

How to Turn Off the LED on Your Sonos Player

Bright white LEDs have progressively made their way onto all kinds of electronic devices. If you own a Sonos player, you’re already aware that they too come with a bright white LED on top, which can be distracting in dimly-lit rooms.

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by Matt Klein via How-To Geek

How to Set Custom Ringtones for Specific Contacts in Android

Everyone likes to know who’s calling before they actually pick up the phone, and the easiest way to achieve that is with custom ringtones for specific callers. That way, when your phone starts blasting “Cherry Pie,” you know it’s your wife. Or when it’s “Roll Out (My Business),” you know it’s your boss. Fortunately, this is a simple process in Android. Here’s how to do it.

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by Cameron Summerson via How-To Geek

How to Use the Google Drive Desktop App to Sync Your Files Anywhere

Google Drive has become one of the premiere cloud storage options for millions of computer users over the past few years. But it isn’t just about Google Docs and Slides–you can also use it to sync your other files across computers, and access them offline, without a browser.

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by Lori Kaufman via How-To Geek

How Two Resellers Married BlackBerry and Microsoft Solutions to Win U.S. Federal Government Customers

Governments have always been big BlackBerry users and, according to leading technology analyst Rob Enderle, demand is getting even stronger thanks to a new third-party alliance and expanding interest in our secure Android phone, PRIV.

Enderle, writing in IT Business Edge about the AFCEA Defensive Cyber Operations Symposium April 20-22, described a partnership announced at the symposium between government consulting firm B&D Consulting and Microsoft partner harmon.ie. B&D has deep BlackBerry experience providing security, unified communications, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence services to government clients, while harmon.ie specializes in making Microsoft Office and collaboration tools easier to use on mobile and desktop devices.

As Enderle described it, the Department of Defense (DoD) and other government agencies want their employees to use mobile devices as business collaboration tools, but they’ve been constrained by the lack of “BlackBerry-like security protections demanded by government, with full management control, and they needed a SharePoint-like product that people would actually use. They needed a partnership between BlackBerry and Microsoft, but these firms weren’t partnered,” Enderle said.

The harmon.ie – B&D alliance aims to fill the gap, giving DoD the Microsoft collaboration software they want with the security they require. And, according to Enderle, PRIVs are their “most requested phone for support,” so they’re planning to aggressively support PRIV once it emerges from federal security certification. “This suggests that there will likely be a rather large number of government employees moving from iPhones to BlackBerry PRIV phones by year end,” Enderle said.

Why Third-Party Developers Are So Important

According to Enderle’s article, “How a Secret Strategy Helps BlackBerry and Microsoft Solve Government’s Mobile Problem,” this partnership has broad implications for Microsoft, BlackBerry, government and other enterprise users, and the two partners involved in this latest deal.

Partnerships with independent software vendors and consulting firms have long been a key part of how BlackBerry delivers software and services to the enterprise (including government and regulated industries). As we’ve expanded our cross-platform, enterprise software and services – with development of BES12 and through acquisitions including Good Technology, AtHoc, WatchDox and others – third-party developers are bringing more usability and functionality to mobile devices used for work.

Swyft Mobile and GSX Solutions are two other examples of how important these types of partnerships are for enabling mobility for enterprise IT and users.

The Swyft Mobile for Good Enterprise Edition app makes Salesforce and virtually any other corporate data source available on mobile devices using Good Dynamics SDK containerization for end-to-end data protection.

GSX Monitor gives administrators and IT managers the ability to manage BES as part of their unified communications infrastructure, assessing applications’ performance and monitoring all components that might affect messaging and collaboration.

To share more about how BlackBerry is partnering with ISVs to deliver innovative answers to enterprise mobility problems, we’ll take a deeper dive into these solutions during two webinars in May. On May 10 at 11 a.m. ET, BlackBerry and Swyft will discuss how to Mobilize Salesforce For Your Good Platform, and on May 19 at 11 a.m. ET, BlackBerry and GSX will offer Managing And Monitoring Mobility From BES To The Overall Unified Communications Infrastructure. The webinars are free; just click on the links to register.

And, for more insight on other enterprise solutions, visit BlackBerry Enterprise Webcast Central for a wealth of resources, from announcements about upcoming enterprise-focused webcasts and archives of past sessions.

by Vicki C. Walker via Inside BlackBerry

Starting from Scratch with @rickwlms and @burnrubberdetroit To...

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Starting from Scratch with @rickwlms and @burnrubberdetroit

To see more of Rick’s photography, check out @rickwlms on Instagram. All the sneakerheads out there will love his shop, @burnrubberdetroit. This post is in celebration of National Small Business Week in the US.

Rick Williams (@rickwlms) bought his sneaker boutique, Burn Rubber (@burnrubberdetroit), when he was just 23 years old. No easy feat for a new college graduate. “I got into photography because of my sneaker store. I had to shoot the product because we didn’t have money to pay a real photographer,” Rick, now 35, says. “I just got to the point where that was my favorite part of the whole process.” Telling stories through photos is Rick’s creative passion these days, and scenes from Detroit are often his muse: “When I shoot around out here, I’ve been in a lot of abandoned buildings and things like that,” Rick, who lives in Southfield, Michigan, a Detroit suburb, says. “But I find a lot of beauty in that heritage, imagining what used to be there and what that building used to be like … We’re making it here. We’re still driving. There’s a beauty in that to me; there’s a beauty in the struggle.”

by via Instagram Blog

How to Find a Lost iPhone’s Owner by Asking Siri

You found somebody’s lost iPhone. They were cautious enough to enable a passcode, so you can’t root around in their contacts looking for the owner. If Siri is enabled, though, she can help you get the iPhone back to the right person.

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by Walter Glenn via How-To Geek

Milken Conference: Cyber Resilience, the New Line of Defense for Business

The United States Department of Homeland Security defines resilience as “the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions.” Building cyber resilience, in order to protect privacy and data assets, is the topic of one of today’s sessions at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2016, of which BlackBerry is proud to be a sponsor.

Cyber security is garnering more and more attention in corporate, public sector, and individual circles, as devices and services continue to connect us more than ever before. According to the TRUSTe Consumer Confidence Privacy Index, consumer concern is rising: 92% of individuals worry about their privacy online, and 42% are more worried about their online privacy than one year ago. When it comes to corporate data, you need only look to the headlines. All industries are being affected, from higher education to high tech to healthcare, where 8 of the 10 largest breaches took place in 2015.

By all counts, this is a topic worth discussing and a concern that will only grow over the rest of the year. In keeping with the Milken mantra of “where others see problems, we seek solutions”, here are 5 steps that BlackBerry is taking to get in front of this threat and tackle it so you don’t have to:

1. We’re fostering collaboration with experts in the field, by co-creating a new conference on Security and Privacy for the Internet of Medical Things and hosting panels with partners like Microsoft to discuss data security in the cloud, for example.

2. We’re reacting quickly, by being the first OEM to deliver security-related patches in line with Google’s public disclosure of vulnerabilities, significantly closing the window of exposure for our customers.

3. We’re creating new standards for connected devices, starting with the DTSec medical device cybersecurity standard with contributions from physicians, nurses, medical manufacturers, university researchers, and more.

4. We’re helping lead the way on security research & development, with the BlackBerry Center for High Assurance Computing Excellence, or CHACE, which seeks to drive worldwide innovation and improvement in computer security.

5. We’re not only protecting business data, but also championing consumer rights to privacy. By turning decades of secure mobility experience towards the Android platform, BlackBerry has put privacy in control of consumers with the PRIV secure smartphone with DTEK by BlackBerry.

The battle for data protection and privacy that can be trusted isn’t over. But with some of the most innovative minds and forward-thinking organizations coming together to tackle these issues together, the future is bright for cybersecurity.

What do you see as the top cybersecurity issues facing businesses, governments, and individuals today? What does the future hold for data protection? Join the conversation here on the BlackBerry Blogs and on Twitter with @BlackBerry4Biz and #MIGlobal.

by Luke Reimer via Inside BlackBerry