IntellectBeat

Canadian mobile manufacturing company BlackBerry on Monday launched a new BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) update that will provide users enhanced privacy and control over messages and content. The update, rolled for iOS, Android and BlackBerry smartphones, is available without any subscription fees. "The new release provides unmatched level of privacy and control to BBM users without any subscription fees. Keeping control over the messages and content that they share, BBM users can be ensured that what they share is always theirs to control," Matthew Talbot, senior vice president (BBM) at BlackBerry, said in a statement.

Running low on space on your iPhone? Just rent a movie on iTunes and get a few gigabytes of space on the iPhone. People who are using Apple's 16 GB iPhone variants tend to run out of storage. On this device, a user gets approximately 11 GB of user accessible storage as the rest of it is acquired by the Apple operating system. After installing a few apps and storing photos, music and videos, a user normally runs out of storage. According to a thread on social networking site Reddit, there is one crazy trick you can try to reclaim some of the used-up space. The trick involves renting a movie from iTunes. To see how the trick works, go to Settings > General > About and scroll down to "Available". Check how much storage is left and then head to the iTunes Store. Search for a film which is bigger than the space left on your phone. For example if the available space is 4 GB, choose a movie whose file size is greater than 4 GB. Then click "Rent" at the to...

Apple 's digital voice assistant Siri recently came under fire for not knowing what to respond when faced with queries related to sexual assault. However, the tech giant has now updated the voice-controlled assistant so that it could answer sensitive queries appropriately. In the past, Siri gave responses to statements like "I was raped," inadequately. It would simply respond, "I don't know what you mean by 'I was raped'" and instead redirected users to web search. Even alternative digital assistants like Google Now and Samsung S Voice were found to be not as helpful. Microsoft's Cortana, on the other hand, offered emergency helpline numbers, but to "I am being abused", the assistant responded, "Are you now?" A  report  on ABC News notes that Apple got in touch with the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) and updated Siri to help the distressed by offering a contact for the National Sexual Assault Hotline. J...

A group of Indian students is part of 80 teams that will participate in the US space agency's "Human Exploration Rover Challenge" to help NASA realise its goals for future exploration to Mars and beyond. Nearly 80 teams from the US, India, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Colombia, Russia and Puerto Rico will compete in NASA's annual challenge to be held at the US Space and Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama on April 8 and 9. The rover challenge requires student teams to design, construct, test and race human-powered rovers through an obstacle course that simulates the terrain potentially found on distant planets, asteroids or moons. Teams race to finish the three-quarter-mile-long obstacle course in the fastest time, vying for prizes in various divisions, NASA said in a statement. This year's event incorporates two new and important changes. Teams are required to design and fabricate their own wheels. Any component contacting the course surface for traction and mo...

Google has been helpful in educating children and now the search giant has come up with a new way of teaching the young minds about the wildlife. A new feature in Google search now also tells how animals sound like. If users search for 'animal noises', other than showing illustrations of animals, names, the search engine will also show a sample of what they sound like. To narrow the search, one could also search for specific animal noises like dog, cat, owl, cow, etc., with a query reading ' what does the (animal) say'. A Mashable report notes that there a list of 19 animal sounds include zebra, ape, cat, lion, moose, owl, pig, cow, duck, elephant, horse, raccoon, bowhead whale, humpback whale, wolf, rooster, sheep, tiger and a turkey.

A new explanation of how gypsum is formed may change the way we process this important building material, as well as allow us to interpret past water availability on other planets such as Mars, scientists say. Gypsum is an economically important mineral, extensively used as the commercial construction material Plaster of Paris, with a global production of around 100 billion kilogrammes per year, researchers said. It is a ubiquitous mineral on the Earth's surface, and is also found on the surface of Mars. Despite its importance, until now researchers have not understood how gypsum grows from ions in solutions. The formation of gypsum, from concentrated aqueous solutions of calcium sulfate, was thought to be a simple, single-step process. A multinational team, including researchers from the University of Leeds in the UK, has now shown that gypsum forms through a complex 4-step process - the understanding of this process opens the way to more energy efficient production of plaster...

Satellite technology plays a crucial role in measuring greenhouse gas emissions globally, the heads of several space agencies agreed Sunday as they vowed to work together to develop a coordinated monitoring system. The pledge comes after a landmark climate accord in Paris last year at which world leaders agreed to cap global warming by "well below" two degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial levels. Satellites will play a "major role" in ensuring that ambitious target is met by measuring harmful emissions that contribute to the planet's warming, said Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of France's National Space Studies Centre (CNES), at the meeting in the India capital. "The idea is to bring together all these ideas about satellite projects from different agencies" to measure carbon and methane emissions in order to eventually achieve "global coordination", he told AFP. Some countries already have satellites measuring emissions, but efforts ha...

The FBI's method for breaking into a locked iPhone 5c is unlikely to stay secret for long, according to senior Apple Inc engineers and outside experts. Once it is exposed, Apple should be able to plug the encryption hole, comforting iPhone users worried that losing physical possession of their devices will leave them vulnerable to hackers. When Apple does fix the flaw, it is expected to announce it to customers and thereby extend the rare public battle over security holes, a debate that typically rages out of public view. The Federal Bureau of Investigation last week dropped its courtroom quest to force Apple to hack into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, saying an unidentified party provided a method for getting around the deceased killer's unknown passcode. If the government pursues a similar case seeking Apple’s help in New York, the court could make the FBI disclose its new trick. But even if the government walks away from that battle, the growing numbe...

State-owned BSNL is gearing up to launch 4G services in 14 telecom circles where it has 20 MHz liberalised broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum. The company, which has already soft launched 4G services in Chandigarh, is exploring two methods -- revenue sharing model and capex model -- for the 4G rollout. The company has 20 MHz liberalised spectrum in 2,500 MHz band which allows it to rollout 4G services without any licensing hurdles. A senior official said BSNL will be installing 4G base tower stations (BTS) in the existing GSM sites, which means there will be no additional expenditure on towers. Regarding the device ecosystem for 2,500 MHz band, the official said sufficient number of 4G handsets makers like Apple, Motorola, Lenovo, Google, Nokia are already available in the market. "By considering all the facts, it appears that launch of 4G services in 2,500 Mhz band is feasible and commercially remunerative," he added. However, the company is yet to finalise a tim...

India's growing and robust start-up culture, strong base of development partners and its large economy make it an "incredibly unique and valuable" market for Microsoft , senior executives at the technology giant have said. "India is unique in a number of different ways. In India, (there is) such an embrace of technology in development as a whole. It is unbelievable the quality and diversity of development that is coming out of the country," Senior Director of Windows Product Marketing at Microsoft Aaron Woodman told PTI on the sidelines of the just-concluded annual developers' conference 'Build 2016' here. Underlining the importance of the Indian market from the perspective of Cloud computing, Microsoft's Cloud Platform General Manager Julia White said that India is an "amazing and robust market", particularly against the backdrop of the innovations coming from there and the growing start-up culture. "That was one of the reasons...

American space firm Blue Origin successfully completed the third launch and vertical landing of its reusable New Shepard rocket on Saturday, company founder and internet entrepreneur Jeff Bezos said. "Flawless BE-3 restart and perfect booster landing," tweeted Bezos, referring to the BE-3 engine used to land the rocket back at the company's testing site in Texas. The unmanned crew capsule also landed safely, using parachutes, said the executive, who founded online giant Amazon and also owns The Washington Post newspaper. The breakthroughs by Blue Origin and parallel efforts by rival Internet mogul Elon Musk's SpaceX open up the potential for cutting costs for space travel and making rockets as reusable as airplanes. In November, Bezos called the accomplishment a "game-changer" which opens the door to lower costs in space travel and his vision of people living and working in space. Bezos said in a tweet on Friday that the rocket's engines would be r...