BBM CHANNELS AND CHANNELS TO FOLLOW

BBM Channels is a service from BlackBerry that allows users and brands to create channels within BBM. Users can subscribe to the channels while the channel owners can push out custom content to subscribers.
Channels include anything from personal users to brands to communities. Some current channels include CrackBerry (or course), the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, Goo Goo Dolls MMASCHOOLS(C003E9750) and many more.
BBM Channels is currently includes in BBM version 8 and is also available on all android phones having BBM, if it's not showing on your phone, kindly update your on Play store.
For information on schools and educative programs, subscribe to MMASCHOOLS(C003E9750).

Facebook buys WhatsApp: Mark Zuckerberg explains why

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has released a statement explaining why his company has paid $19bn for mesaging service WhatsApp. Here is the release in full.

I’m excited to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire WhatsApp and that their entire team will be joining us at Facebook.

Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. We do this by building services that help people share any type of content with any group of people they want. WhatsApp will help us do this by continuing to develop a service that people around the world love to use every day.

WhatsApp is a simple, fast and reliable mobile messaging service that is used by over 450m people on every major mobile platform. More than 1m people sign up for WhatsApp every day and it is on its way to connecting 1bn people. More and more people rely on WhatsApp to communicate with all of their contacts every day.

BBM for Android leaks; Doesn't work anyway

 The buzz this morning is all about the leaked BBM for Android APK that turned up in the CrackBerry forums . It offered a small glimmer of hope for some Android users to get in early on the BBM fun, but alas, it's not working.

It appears that the service is still locked down on Android unless you're on "the list", so if you don't have a whitelisted BBID (and we're pretty sure you don't) then you'll get stuck on the setup screen and that will be the end of it. 

Statement from BlackBerry:

Yahoo unveils new purple logo as part of internet company's makeover under CEO Marissa Mayer .

Yahoo has adopted a new logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company's founding 18 years ago.

The redesigned look unveiled early this morning is part of a makeover that Yahoo has been undergoing since the Sunnyvale, California, company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become CEO 14 months ago.

She has already spruced up Yahoo's front page, email and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well as engineering a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices.

The new Yahoo logo and (inset) the old one which has now disappeared

The shopping spree has been highlighted by Yahoo's $1.1billion (£720million) purchase of Tumblr, an Internet blogging service where the company rolled out its new logo.

The logo was shown in purple spelling out the word Yahoo!, with no letters touching and ending with an exclamation point.

 

Android KitKat unveiled in Google surprise move

Nestle plans to sell more than 50 million chocolate
 bars featuring the Android mascot

 The decision to brand the software with the name of Nestle's chocolate bar is likely to be seen as a marketing coup for the Swiss food and beverage maker.Google is calling the next version of its mobile operating system Android KitKat.
The news comes as a surprise as the firm had previously indicated version 4.4 of the OS would be Key Lime Pie.
However, Google told the BBC that it had come up with the idea and that neither side was paying the other.
"This is not a money-changing-hands kind of deal," John Lagerling, director of Android global partnerships, told the BBC.
Instead, he said, the idea was to do something "fun and unexpected".
However, one branding expert warned there were potential pitfalls to such a deal.
"If your brand is hooked up with another, you inevitably become associated with that other brand, for good or ill," said Simon Myers, a partner at the consultancy Prophet.

Microsoft Wants To Outdo Google And Apple, Buying Nokia Helps With Neither

So the deal that should have been done 2 years ago is at lastcompleted: Microsoft MSFT -6.17%is buying most of Nokia NOK +29.74% to take control of itssmartphone destiny. Despitesaying kind words about having other partners in Windows Phone, though, this move will effectively end the Windows Phone licensing business. It will position Microsoft as a clear number three in the smartphone wars, but with a difficult decision. In combining the operating system and hardware under one roof, Microsoft’s smartphone division now looks like its increasingly go-it-alone Windows RT group and more like Apple AAPL +1.31%. But unlike Apple, the phones Nokia has been successfully selling aren’t high-margin, high-priced models. And they aren’t selling to Microsoft’s corporate customers either. Microsoft claims they are now a “devices and services” company, but this is the least attractive part of the device business. And if it tempts Microsoft’s worst impluses about its services, helping the company sell more Windows Phone might ultimate thwart what should be its larger aims.

When Steve Ballmer announced he was resigning, The Wall StreetJournal asked a bunch of technology executives what the next CEO of the company should do. While the frontrunner for that jump is clearly Nokia’s Steven Elop, the advice from former Facebook CTO Bret Taylor, who currently runs Quip, crystallized the problem for whoever takes over.

Google to block adverts from pirating sites

Google will block adverts from websites offering pirated content in an effort to cut off revenue from illegal activities in the US

The Pirate Bay was a well-known file sharing website which has since been closed down 

Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft are among the eight companies that are committing to fight internet piracy.

The move will allow industry copyright holders in the music, film, television, books and other creative ventures to alert Google should their adverts appear on illegal sites. This would allow Google to erradicate the problem of pirated content without having to modify its search results.