Tag: mobile technology

BlackBerry will remain in Pakistan after gov withdraws demands

| January 11, 2016

The Canadian handset manufacturer had said it would step out of the country before revealing its customer data.

BlackBerry has now announced that it will be continuing its operations in Pakistan after the government of that country agreed to withdraw its demands that would require the company to hand over access to all its customer data.

The smartphone maker had developed a plan to leave Pakistan if the government continued the requirement.

Chief operating officer of BlackBerry, Marty Beard, explained in a blog post that the Pakistani government had now taken back its previous order to shut down the company’s services after the company and the government were able to complete “productive discussions”. The shutdown order was originally issued by the Pakistani government back in July 2015 when it said that “security reasons” were behind its decision. A few months later, on November 30, BlackBerry announced its decision to leave the country because it was unwilling to provide access to private customer information to the government.

The Pakistani government had demanded a vast range of backdoor access to BlackBerry customer information.

Blackberry - PakistanAmong the information that the company would have been required to hand over included access to BBM chats and BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) emails. The smartphone manufacturer said this was “a compromise we are not willing to make.” The initial order from the government was that the company would have to shut down on November 30. However, that deadline was extended to December 30.

According to the company, there are up to 5,000 BES customers currently in Pakistan. It reported through Beard’s blog post that the authorities in Pakistan yielded to the resistance the company had placed against the demands for access to customer information and records. He wrote that “We are grateful to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Pakistani government for accepting BlackBerry’s position that we cannot provide the content of our customers’ BES traffic, nor will we provide access to our BES servers.”

BlackBerry has not always been as driven or successful in the face of requirements from other national governments for access to user data. For example, in 2013, it gave access to the Indian government. It was able to view emails, BBM chats and internet service customer browsing habits. Reportedly, the company has also established data sharing agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

CES 2016: Skreens transforms your television into a media station

| January 8, 2016

The company’s newest product, the Skreen Plus 4 provides a platform for all mobile devices on one screen.

At CES 2016, it’s not easy to stand out from among the thousands of products and gadgets, but Skreens managed to offer an incredible demo to differentiate itself from the rest of the exhibitors.

The company’s Skreen Plus 4 provides four HDMI input ports and one output to connect all devices to one screen.

The story behind Skreens began with a successful Kickstarter campaign in which it raised more than $470,000 in funding for itself. The result was an awesome demonstration for a product that offers a platform for viewing feed from all your various devices on your television screen. It may sound like a bit of a chaotic mess but its design offers users the ability to organize the display windows to best suit them.

In this way, Skreens can be used to toggle among all devices to give each full screen viewing as desired.

Skreens - Skreen Plus 4 at CES 2016This offers an incredible way to multitask all in one place. Think about it. You can watch a movie, play a game on a console, keep up with a stock or sports ticker and even view a Twitter feed all at the same time. As you want to give each screen priority, you can shuffle from one to the next, resizing windows and moving them around for your customized needs, or simply using pre-created layouts on screen.

Among the components of the demo that was most impressive was the way in which the hubs could be worked into a daisy chain to allow for an even larger number of layout and feed choices. It works smoothly regardless of whether you have four, a dozen, sixteen or more. In fact, the founder and CEO of the company said that if there does happen to be a limit to the number of hubs that can be added, “we haven’t found it, yet.” Moreover, he explained that these feeds can all be run simultaneously without any deterioration in performance, unless it has to do with the WiFi performance in the location. That said, it would not be the result of the Skreen Plus 4 device, itself.

Skreens will start shipping its Plus 4 devices in March, with a two-port option retailing for $249, or a four-port option retailing for $449.