apps
HTC Speak revealed in Sense 4.0, possible Siri competitor?
iPhone 4S’ Siri is a feature exclusive to the device, and it looks like HTC may be attempting to set itself apart from the rest of the Android competition too but offering up a similar service. This was discovered through the Sense 4.0’s RUU found on the upcoming (and rumored) HTC Endeavor, where an app called HTC Speak was discovered.
Unfortunately at the moment it is unclear as to what it does, although images pulled from the app along with its name seems to suggest that HTC might be interested in a voice assistant of its own. Now for those wondering if this might be a skinned version of Google Voice Search, the Google Voice Search feature is already in the ROM, so it does not make sense for HTC to offer a competing app, unless of course the app does more than voice searching
The HTC Endeavor, and presumably with Android 4.0 and Sense 4.0 on board, will most likely be seeing a launch at MWC 2012, so check back with us then for more information and confirmation.
Apple is well known to be a company that continues to push the envelope when it comes to technological advancements and firsts. This time around, Cupertino has introduced the first ever automated security update for Mac computers in order to assist them in preventing attacks from recently identified bugs, which are also the very same bugs that that security researchers have pinpointed and warned against, as those could be the gateway for hackers to actually gain remote control of machines.
Over in New Jersey, District Judge William Martini has come up with a ruling that the police are not required to actually pick up a warrant before opening a fake Instagram account. This is because the bogus account could actually be used to receive pictures shared by a suspect, and some folks wonder whether this would require a search warrant to be issued beforehand. Not so, according to Judge Martini in his ruling that stated whenever Instagram users post photos on the site, they happen to be practicing “consensual sharing.”
In other words, users who put up photos on Instagram are more or less in the know that should they “follow” or “friend” others, they will also end up sharing their pictures with them. All in all, one should always be extra careful with whatever one shares with others online, as you can never quite tell how something might end up to bit you in the rear some day down the road.
Both iOS and Android number close to a million apps each on their respective app stores, which is one of the reasons why smartphone users flock to either operating system. Of course there are other factors, such as hardware, pricing, availability and so on, but it is safe to say that app availability plays a big role as well. Well Blackberry seems to think so as well as they have revealed that the Blackberry World app store currently sits at about 120,000 apps, which while still pretty small compared to iOS and Android, is a pretty huge deal considering that the platform and its accompanying devices were only launched earlier this year! Blackberry’s CEO Thorsten Heins praised the thriving ecosystem, which we guess was boosted by Blackberry’s efforts where they held events to encourage developers to submit as many apps as they can, and even offering monetary rewards on top of earnings for every app successfully submitted to Blackberry World. We can see that Blackberry is going for quantity at the moment, and we suppose there are quality apps within those 120,000, but for now it looks like as far as apps are concerned, they may very well be edging Windows Phone out of the picture!