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See Thorsten Heins, Alicia Keys and BBM during the BlackBerry Live keynote, now on YouTube
While Google presented its nearly four hours of recorded keynote glory in one giant clip, BlackBerry had the decency to split things up into four more-manageable segments. In the first installment of BlackBerry Live Keynote 2013, you can catch CEO Thorsten Heins chatting up some stats before hopping into the passenger seat of a QNX-equipped Bentley. Later during the show, we hear from Alicia Keys, the company's Global Creative Director, before taking a look at BBM Channels (which we imagine the performer already plans to use as a replacement for Twitter). You'll find all four parts of the company's keynote embedded right after the break.
BlackBerry announces BBM channels, gives dedicated messaging streams to brands and users
BlackBerry Live 2013 isn't just about new phones and OS versions. CEO Thorsten Heins just announced BBM channels, a way for people, companies and brands to provide streams of content in BBM. The new service allows users to search for and subscribe to preferred channels, comment and share posts with friends and also have one-to-one chats with channel administrators. Users can create and curate their own channels as well, with metrics to track the amount of traffic they're receiving. So, it's essentially Twitter, only with a decidedly BlackBerry flavor. Following the initial announcement, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton appeared onstage to chat a bit more about the new platform and explained that the service will provide his F1 team the ability to communicate more directly and easily with fans. Excited to join Mr. Hamilton on the BBM channel bandwagon? Well, the beta's available for download now for BlackBerry devices running BB 5 and up, and the full release is slated to arrive later this summer.%Gallery-188281%
BlackBerry announces BB 10.1 rolling out to US Z10 users later this month (updated)
BlackBerry Live 2013 has begun, and Thorsten Heins just revealed the first bit of good news for BlackBerry users. The latest version of BlackBerry's OS, BB 10.1 will be rolling out to the Z10 on US carriers beginning later this month. While the new software is mostly about tweaks to the OS for folks with a Q10 in their pocket, Z10 users will get an HDR camera mode, support for contact suggestions, PIN-to-PIN messaging and email with attached messages when they get the update. Additionally, notifications are improved with per-account message notifications and users will finally be able to paste phone numbers into the dialers as well. We still don't have an exact delivery date, as it'll vary by carrier, but at least you know you'll get the new software goodies in the next couple weeks. BlackBerry's Enterprise Service is also getting bumped to version 10.1 and is available as a free download right now. Most users won't care much about the mobile-management platform, but IT pros will definitely appreciate the simplified deployment tools that can manage not just BB10 devices, but also Android and iOS handsets. There's also a shiny new dashboard that offers all sorts of data and statistics. And, really, who doesn't love piles of data?
