BlackBerry pens open letter to customers and fans

The past few weeks haven't been kind to BlackBerry whose new smartphone releases have been somewhat overshadowed by talks of acquisition, a delayed attempt at bringing BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) to Android and iOS as well as recent loss of nearly $1 billion due to poor selling Z10 smartphones and the most depressing news of all is that it has no recourse but to lay off 4,500 employees as part of its restructuring. Thorsten Heins and Co. have been rather quiet througout all this, even cancelling a regularly scheduled earnings conference call in order to deal with the issues facing the company. There's an open letter from BlackBerry that's expected to make the rounds in various newspapers today and this is the first time the company is opening up about the issues it faces.

“You can continue to count on BlackBerry,”  is the gist of the letter with BlackBerry pointing out the positives (cash on hand, debt free balance sheet and the aim to cut expensies by 5- per cent." The company says they may be down but they are definitely not out despite what various pundits are saying. Hit jump for the full letter.

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Android KitKat will allow users to pick default messaging app

The upcoming Android 4.4 version or KitKat will let you choose the third-party app to manage your text messaging needs. According to a post on Google’s developer blog, the company wants to provide a proper, supported way for the third-party messaging apps to gain access to your texts, instead of using workarounds that the company doesn’t approve of.

Canadian government wants to ‘unbundle’ cable and satellite channels

"watch TV" by D.Reichardt, Creative Commons License

The government wants to give its citizens the ability to buy channels on an a la carte basis, according to a report on The Verge. 

Industry Minister James Moore said on an interview, "We don't think it's right for Canadians to have to pay for bundled television channels that they don't watch. We want to unbundle television channels and allow Canadians to pick and pay the specific television channels that they want."

Updated Google terms of service can use your reviews and photos for ‘endorsements’

Based on a new terms of use announced on Friday, Google will be able to collect your comments and ratings on Play Store or any of its products and sell these to companies as “shared endorsements” to be used for online advertising. The new policy will go live on November 11 and will display users’ names, photos, and comments beside things liked, reviewed, followed, or positively commented on. You can opt out of the feature for now through this page.