BlackBerry to add Amazon's App Store to BB10 devices

Make do with what you have. That seems to be BlackBerrys approach to bolstering the offerings on BB10. While new apps on their mobile platform may not be arriving as quickly, possibly because developers are vacillating on whether continuing to produce software for a platform that's shifting away from consumers and towards enterprise. The good news is BlackBerry is open to partnerships from exisiting third-party app providers like Amazon which hosts over 24,000 apps for its Kindle readers as well as the rumoured Kindle phone. This means more Android apps for BlackBerry 10 devices and their users. Hit jimp for the details on this new development.

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Surface Pro 2's get discounted in the US as Surface Pro 3 ship dates slide

US buyers who are on the fence about the Surface Pro 3 can now consider its predecessor, the Surface Pro 2 at a discounted price. According to ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley, some Surface Pro 2 models sold in the U.S. have been reduced by $100 each and others by $200.

The 64 GB, Core i5-based Surface Pro 2, for example, is now $799 instead of $899 and  the highest end 512 GB model is now $1,599 instead of $1,799. When the original Surface and Surface Pro were discounted in the US, Canada soon followed suit.

Why would someone opt for the SP2 instead of the newer, thinner, larger and more flexible Surface Pro 3? Well, they share the same Intel Haswell processors for one thing so battery life is pretty good. The older Surfaces also have that Wacom digitizer which has 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity compared to the newer N-trig digitizer used in the Surface Pro 3 which only has 256, that's a pretty dramatic downgrade for artists. 

In other Surface Pro 3 related news, it seems that while some lucky preorders have shipped, the shipping date for some models of the Surface Pro 3 has been moved from June 20 to June 30th, possibly because of constrained supplies.

Source: ZDNet

Google brings premium Google+ features for Apps customers

Google aims to entice more enterprise and business users to use its Apps services with new Google+ “premium” features. App customers will have access to HD-quality hangouts and they can invite up to 15 people per session. These users also have more control over their privacy settings including restricting their domain to being visible only to employees and colleagues as well as hide their profiles from public searches.

Source: The Next Web

Microsoft developing passive voice activation for Cortana

Looks like Microsoft is keen on bringing Cortana up to par with Google’s and Apple’s own digital personal assistants with the new features they are throwing in. Marcus Ash, the group program manager for Cortana on Windows Phone, tweeted that their team is currently working on passive voice activation for their service. This would mean you no longer have to hold the search button or tap on the live tile to activate Cortana. You would just need a voice command like when you say “Ok, Google” for Google Now or "Hey Siri," for iOS 8.

Something to think about as we design voice activation for #Cortana. Don't want Jesse sending texts on your behalf. http://t.co/Vq4uXB0P6q

— Marcus Ash (@marcusash) June 17, 2014

Source: Ubergizmo