Apple's announcement that "more personalized Siri" features of Apple Intelligence would be delayed until "the coming year" reveals a troubling departure from the company's hard-earned reputation for reliability, long-time commentator John Gruber writes. Unlike other Apple Intelligence features that were demonstrated to media in June, the personalized Siri features -- promising personal context awareness, onscreen awareness, and in-app actions -- were never shown working to anyone outside Apple. Yet Apple prominently featured these capabilities in the WWDC keynote and even created TV commercials (now pulled) touting these functions to sell iPhone 16.

This represents a dangerous shift toward the pre-Jobs-return Apple that promised vaporware it couldn't deliver. Gruber writes. Apple has squandered its credibility, built meticulously over decades through consistently shipping what they promised, he writes. Gruber's post cites the following excerpt from a 2011 story: Apple doesn't often fail, and when it does, it isn't a pretty sight at 1 Infinite Loop. In the summer of 2008, when Apple launched the first version of its iPhone that worked on third-generation mobile networks, it also debuted MobileMe, an e-mail system that was supposed to provide the seamless synchronization features that corporate users love about their BlackBerry smartphones. MobileMe was a dud. Users complained about lost e-mails, and syncing was spotty at best. Though reviewers gushed over the new iPhone, they panned the MobileMe service.

Steve Jobs doesn't tolerate duds. Shortly after the launch event, he summoned the MobileMe team, gathering them in the Town Hall auditorium in Building 4 of Apple's campus, the venue the company uses for intimate product unveilings for journalists. According to a participant in the meeting, Jobs walked in, clad in his trademark black mock turtleneck and blue jeans, clasped his hands together, and asked a simple question: "Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, "So why the fuck doesn't it do that?"

For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. "You've tarnished Apple's reputation," he told them. "You should hate each other for having let each other down." The public humiliation particularly infuriated Jobs. Gruber adds: Tim Cook should have already held a meeting like that to address and rectify this Siri and Apple Intelligence debacle. If such a meeting hasn't yet occurred or doesn't happen soon, then, I fear, that's all she wrote. The ride is over. When mediocrity, excuses, and bullshit take root, they take over. A culture of excellence, accountability, and integrity cannot abide the acceptance of any of those things, and will quickly collapse upon itself with the acceptance of all three.

Arctic Wolf has acquired Cylance, BlackBerry's beleaguered cybersecurity business, for $160 million -- a significant discount from the $1.4 billion BlackBerry paid to acquire the startup in 2018. From a report: Under the terms of the deal, which is expected to close in BlackBerry's fiscal Q4, BlackBerry will sell its Cylance assets to Arctic Wolf for $160 million in cash. BlackBerry will get ~$80 million at closing and the rest of the tranche a year later, along with roughly 5.5 million common shares in Arctic Wolf.

TechCrunch's Paul Sawers reports: Fledgling fintech startup OpenBB is revealing the next step in its plans to take on the heavyweights of the investment research world. The company is launching a new, free version of a product that will open its arsenal of data and financial tooling to more users. OpenBB is the handiwork of software engineer Didier Lopes, who launched the Python-based platform back in 2021 as a way for amateur investors and enthusiasts to do investment research using different datasets for free, via a command line interface (CLI). The company went on to raise $8.5 million in seed funding from OSS Capital and angel investors such as Ram Shriram, an early backer of Google. While the community-based, open source project has amassed some 50,000 users, OpenBB has also been building an enterprise incarnation called Terminal Pro. This paid version gives teams access to an interface, pre-built database integrations, an Excel add-in, and various security and support bolt-ons that would appeal to larger businesses. [...]

The all-new OpenBB Terminal -- not to be confused with the previous CLI-based OpenBB Terminal that the startup sunsetted in March -- is a full-fledged web app, though it strips out many of the premium features of Terminal Pro. It's fully customizable, can run on any operating system or platform, and provides access to an AI-enabled OpenBB copilot. Like the previous OpenBB Terminal, the all-new web app is also free to use. OpenBB Terminal is perhaps something of a middle ground between the CLI centricity of the open source project and the bells-and-whistles feature set of the enterprise product.

The OpenBB Terminal serves as a single end point for accessing financial information from some 100 data sources, spanning equity, options, forex, the macro economy, and more. Users can also throw all their new data into the mix -- the community has previously contributed financial datasets such as historical currency exchange rates and crypto pricing data. There are also a slew of extensions and toolkits to bring more functionality to OpenBB -- such as an AI stock analysis agent. Users are free to incorporate their own AI systems and large language models (LLMs), which might be particularly important for security and compliance use cases. But with the OpenBB Copilot, categorized as a "compound AI system," users can run natural-language queries about their data out of the box. While OpenBB has been likened to an "open-source Bloomberg," TechCrunch notes that it's not a direct competitor due to Bloomberg's massive data resources and built-in chat functionality. OpenBB, however, offers flexibility with its open-source platform and customization options.

OpenBB filed for a trademark, but Bloomberg has requested an extension to potentially oppose it, despite the company asserting there's no link between OpenBB and Bloomberg's abbreviation "BBG". Lopes says the name originates from BlackBerry stock, where the founders had lost money during the meme stock craze.

Lenovo's widely used ThinkPad laptop hasn't changed much over the years. Corporate technology leaders say that's why they love it. From a report: "There's a lot to be said for familiarity and that consistent experience," said Ace Hardware Chief Information Officer Rick Williams, whose company uses about 4,000 ThinkPads. The ThinkPad brand of personal computers, originally created by International Business Machines, hit the market in 1992 before Lenovo acquired it, along with IBM's PC division, in 2005. Since then, the boxy design -- originally inspired by the Japanese bento box -- has gotten thinner and lighter, but not much else has changed from a design perspective, Lenovo said.

The logo is the same, although in 2005 Lenovo did add the red dot over the "i" in "Think" that remains today. That logo has remained angled at 37 degrees on the device. And on the keyboard the small, red, old-timey trackpoint remains nestled between the "B," "G" and "H" keys (which Lenovo says some users swear by and some CIOs say they never use). Ports and camera placement have also been relatively consistent. And despite some experimentation with colors, the laptop itself primarily remains its original black. "You're going to recognize the iconic ThinkPad," said Tom Butler, executive director for worldwide commercial portfolio and product management at Hong Kong-based Lenovo.

Its strategy might seem counterintuitive in an industry where winners and losers are often determined based on their pace of innovation, and where to stay the same often means to become obsolete. Big consumer tech companies that dominated the early 2000s, like BlackBerry, Nokia and Motorola, ultimately couldn't keep pace with competitors and struggled. But for Lenovo, which plays in the enterprise space, it's paying off. Lenovo has been leading in market share in the worldwide personal computer vendor market, based on unit shipments, on and off for more than 10 years, according to research firm Gartner.

The Register provides a retrospective look at how Microsoft "absorbed the handset division of Nokia" ten years ago, only to kill the unit two years later and write it off as a tax loss. What went wrong? "It was a fatal combination of bad management, a market evolving in ways hidebound people didn't predict, and some really (with a few superb exceptions) terrible products," reports The Register. From the report: Like Nokia, Windows Mobile's popularity peaked in 2007, then started to drop away. The iPhone was the tech item of choice for fashionistas, Blackberry was seen as essential for serious business, and Android -- with Google as its new owner -- was gaining traction. Microsoft by that time had a new CEO in Steve Ballmer, who completely and famously failed to see the shifting sands in the mobile market. He dismissed the iPhone as a threat to what he thought was Windows Mobile's unassailable market position, and was roundly mocked for it. So the scene was set for a mobile standards war, and Steve Ballmer staked his professional pride on winning it. Microsoft recruited Nokia to help out. [...]

Under [Executive VP of Microsoft Stephen Elop's] leadership, a closer working relationship with Microsoft was a given -- but in 2013 Redmond announced it was going the whole hog and buying Nokia's handset business outright for $7.2 billion. The deal was done in April 2014, a decade ago from today. Microsoft also got a ten-year license on Nokia's patents and the option to renew in perpetuity. It also got Elop back, as executive vice president of the Microsoft Devices Group. That meant stepping down as CEO of Nokia, for which he trousered an 18.8 million bonus package -- a payoff the Finnish prime minister at the time called "outrageous." Nokia retained its networking business in Finland. It purchased Siemens' half of the Nokia Siemens Networks joint venture and renamed in Nokia Networks. The Nokia board rolled the dice again on hiring another non-Suomi manager, Rajeev Suri, and this time hit a double D20 in D&D terms.

When Ballmer stepped down from the helm at Microsoft in 2014 -- shortly before the Nokia deal completion -- he left a hot mess to deal with. His plan had been to develop the mobile operating system in conjunction with Windows 10, and Windows Mobile 10 was supposed to be a part of a unified code environment. While Windows 10 on the desktop wasn't a bad operating system, Windows Mobile 10 really was. The promised synergy just didn't happen -- it was power-hungry, clunky, and about as popular as a rattlesnake in a pinata. It was this mess that Satya Nadella faced when he took over the reins. Nadella was never very keen on the phone platform and spent more time in press conferences talking about cricket or the cloud than Microsoft's mobile ambitions. It was clear to all that this really wasn't working. Elop was laid off by Redmond a year later.

It was clear that Windows Mobile wasn't going to work. Android and iOS were drinking Microsoft's milkshake, and Redmond realized the game was up. Microsoft started shedding mobile jobs -- both in Finland and Redmond. While mobile was still publicly touted as the way forward for Microsoft with Ballmer gone, the impetus wasn't there and support for the mobile OS shriveled. In 2015 Microsoft declared it was writing off $7.6 billion on the Phone Hardware division as "goodwill and asset impairment charges" -- $400 million more than it had originally paid for the Finnish firm. Nokia bought European networking giant Alcatel-Lucent in a $16.7 billion deal in 2015. Around the same time, Suri announced a move into tablets, since it had a non-compete agreement with Microsoft on mobiles. Meanwhile a bunch of former Nokia execs who'd fled Elop and Microsoft had started a mobile biz of their own: HMD. It was Finnish, but outsourced production to Foxconn in China, and was planning to make cheapish Android devices. In 2016 Microsoft sold its mobile hardware arm to HMD for an undisclosed -- but probably not large -- sum. Nadella clearly wanted out of the whole business and the Finnish startup concentrated on selling good-enough Android smartphones to Nokia's traditional cheap markets.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: In April, Apple sent notifications to iPhone users in 92 countries, warning them they'd been targeted with spyware. "Apple detected that you are being targeted by a mercenary spyware attack that is trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID," the notification reads. Users quickly took to social media sites including X, trying to work out what the notification meant. Many of those targeted were based inIndia, but others in Europe also reported receiving Apple's warning. Weeks later, little is still known about the latest iPhone attacks. Former smartphone giant Blackberry, now a security firm, has released research indicating they are linked to a Chinese spyware campaign dubbed "LightSpy," but Apple spokesperson Shane Bauer says this is inaccurate.

While Apple says the latest spyware notifications aren't linked to LightSpy, the spyware remains a growing threat, particularly to people who may be targeted in Southern Asia, according to Blackberry's researchers. Described as a "sophisticated iOS implant," LightSpy first emerged targeting Hong Kong protesters in 2020. However, the latest iteration is much more capable than the first. "It is a fully-featured modular surveillance toolset that primarily focuses on exfiltrating victims' private information, including hyper-specific location data and sound recording during voice over IP calls," the researchers wrote. April's warnings were not the first time Apple has issued notifications of this kind. The iPhone maker has sent out alerts to people in over 150 countries since 2021 as spyware continues to target high-profile figures across the globe.

Spyware can be weaponized by nation-state adversaries -- but this is relatively rare and expensive. Its deployment is typically highly targeted against a very specific group of people, including journalists, political dissidents, government workers, and businesses in certain sectors. "Such attacks are vastly more complex than regular cybercriminal activity and consumer malware, as mercenary spyware attackers apply exceptional resources to target a very small number of specific individuals and their devices," Apple wrote in an advisory in April. "Mercenary spyware attacks cost millions of dollars and often have a short shelf life, making them much harder to detect and prevent. The vast majority of users will never be targeted by such attacks." Plus, Apple says its Lockdown Mode feature can successfully protect against attacks. "As we have said before, we are not aware of anyone using Lockdown Mode being successfully attacked with mercenary spyware," Bauer says. Still, for those who are targeted and caught unaware, spyware is extremely dangerous. There are a number of ways to protect yourself against spyware and zero-click exploits in particular:

1. Regularly Update Devices: Keep your devices updated to the latest software to protect against known vulnerabilities.
2. Restart Devices Daily: Regularly restarting your device can help disrupt persistent spyware infections by forcing attackers to reinfect the device, potentially increasing their chances of detection.
3. Disable Vulnerable Features: Consider disabling features prone to exploits, such as iMessage and FaceTime, especially if you suspect you're a target for spyware.
4. Use Multifactor Authentication and Secure Sources: Employ multifactor authentication and only install apps from verified sources to prevent unauthorized access and downloads.
5. Monitor for Indicators: Be vigilant for signs of infection such as battery drain, unexpected shutdowns, and high data usage, though these may not always be present with more sophisticated spyware.
6. Seek Professional Help: If you suspect a spyware infection, consider professional assistance or helplines like Access Now's Digital Security Helpline for guidance on removal.
7. Utilize Advanced Security Features: Activate security features like Apple's Lockdown Mode, which limits device functionality to reduce vulnerabilities, thus safeguarding against infections.

For the first time ever, Apple beat out Samsung to ship the most smartphones in a year according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. From a report: Although IDC cautions that its data is preliminary and subject to change, a second research agency, Canalys, also has Apple taking its top spot for all of 2023. IDC has Apple's total mobile shipments at 234.6 million, versus 226.6 million for Samsung. Xiaomi, Oppo, and Transsion round out the top five with 145.9, 103.1 and 94.9 million smartphones shipped, respectively.

IDC notes that the last time Samsung wasn't on top of the annual board was 13 years ago in 2010. Back then Apple didn't even feature in the top five. Instead it was Nokia in first place, Samsung in second, LG Electronics in third, ZTE in fourth, and Research in Motion (manufacturers of BlackBerry devices) in fifth.

TechCrunch reports: Apple's warnings in late October that Indian journalists and opposition figures may have been targeted by state-sponsored attacks prompted a forceful counterattack from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Officials publicly doubted Apple's findings and announced a probe into device security.

India has never confirmed nor denied using the Pegasus tool, but nonprofit advocacy group Amnesty International reported Thursday that it found NSO Group's invasive spyware on the iPhones of prominent journalists in India, lending more credibility to Apple's early warnings. "Our latest findings show that increasingly, journalists in India face the threat of unlawful surveillance simply for doing their jobs, alongside other tools of repression including imprisonment under draconian laws, smear campaigns, harassment, and intimidation," said Donncha Ã" Cearbhaill, head of Amnesty International's Security Lab, in the blog post.
Cloud security company Lookout has also published "an in-depth technical look" at Pegasus, calling its use "a targeted espionage attack being actively leveraged against an undetermined number of mobile users around the world." It uses sophisticated function hooking to subvert OS- and application-layer security in voice/audio calls and apps including Gmail, Facebook, WhatsApp, Facetime, Viber, WeChat, Telegram, Apple's built-in messaging and email apps, and others. It steals the victim's contact list and GPS location, as well as personal, Wi-Fi, and router passwords stored on the device...

According to news reports, NSO Group sells weaponized software that targets mobile phones to governments and has been operating since 2010, according to its LinkedIn page. The Pegasus spyware has existed for a significant amount of time, and is advertised and sold for use on high-value targets for multiple purposes, including high-level espionage on iOS, Android, and Blackberry.
Thanks to Slashdodt reader Mirnotoriety for sharing the news.

Private equity firm Veritas Capital has made an offer to buy Canadian software company BlackBerry, Reuters reported Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter. From the report: BlackBerry had said in May it would conduct a review of strategic alternatives, which could includes the possible separation of one or more of its businesses. Founded in 1984, the company currently makes software for cars and cybersecurity. It became popular for its ubiquitous business smartphones, toted by executives, politicians and legions of fans in the early 2000s. It pulled the plug on its smartphones business last year and has since been trying to sell its legacy patents related to its mobile devices.

"When we learned that a BlackBerry movie was in the works last year," writes Engadget, "we had no idea it would be something close to a comedy. But judging from the trailer, it's aiming to be a far lighter story than other recent films about tech."

Variety notes that the movie has already screened at both Berlin Film Festival and SXSW Film Festival. "The film has received favorable reviews so far, with Variety's Peter Debruge calling it "frantic, irreverent and endearingly scrappy."

That review also calls the film "surprisingly charitable to the parties involved, acknowledging that these visionaries, while making it up as they go along, still managed to change the way the world communicates.... The film, at least, feels fresh, making geek history more entertaining than it has any right to be." But there's also a message in there somewhere. Mashable calls it "a cautionary tale jolted with humor and heart," while Vulture describes it as "a very funny geek tragedy." The stories of tech founders continue to entertain and frustrate us in equal measure, and continue to give us more content to watch on the platforms and devices they created. Clearly, something about power-tripping nerds really speaks to something in our collective psyche.
Actor Jay Baruchel plays BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis — and even tells Vulture he'd kept using his own BlackBerry "until about three or four years ago..."

"I think there's something inherently tragic about these guys that are really significantly responsible, in a really significant way, for the way we all relate to each other. There's a direct line from how we all communicate now, back to what these nerds did in Waterloo in 1996."

The movie will be released on May 12.

There may be a new ringtone in your life -- the urgent chime of a company-issued cell phone. From a report: In a throwback to the Blackberry era, telecom-service providers are seeing strong growth from companies handing out phones to employees. The phenomenon, which started during the pandemic, picked up recently thanks to new compliance policies around the use of WhatsApp and TikTok. It's provided a "tailwind" for subscriber gains at AT&T, Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches said at a conference this week. At the same event, T-Mobile US Inc. Chief Financial Officer Peter Osvaldik said his company's corporate customer count "grew every quarter in 2022."

The phones are more than just a corporate perk, said Gartner analyst Lisa Pierce. "It's also about control" -- a means of restricting or blocking applications and keeping corporate data secure, she said. Businesses, especially those in finance, have grown concerned about the security of their data, and the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have stepped up their scrutiny over unauthorized private communication on applications such as WhatsApp and through personal email. Late last year, Congress, along with several states, banned China-owned TikTok from government employees' devices over national security concerns. This puts organizations in the position of either requiring their workers to remove apps from personal phones, or offering a secure second device. That second device helps explain how wireless carriers keep racking up millions of new subscribers long after the time when the mobile market passed saturation, with nearly every adult in the US owning at least one phone.

Shipments of personal computers and mobile phones are expected to fall for the second straight year in 2023, with phone shipments slumping to a decade low, IT research firm Gartner said on Tuesday. From a report: Mobile phone shipments are projected to fall 4% to 1.34 billion units in 2023, down from 1.40 billion units in 2022, Gartner said. They totaled 1.43 billion in 2021. That was close to the 2009 shipments level when Blackberry and Nokia phones were the market leaders as Apple tried to dent their dominance.

The mobile phone market peaked in 2015 when shipments touched 1.9 billion units. The pandemic led to a fundamental change where people working from home didn't feel the need to change phones frequently, Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, said in an interview.

Brian Krebs writes via KrebsOnSecurity: Peter is an IT manager for a technology manufacturer that got hit with a Russian ransomware strain called "Zeppelin" in May 2020. He'd been on the job less than six months, and because of the way his predecessor architected things, the company's data backups also were encrypted by Zeppelin. After two weeks of stalling their extortionists, Peter's bosses were ready to capitulate and pay the ransom demand. Then came the unlikely call from an FBI agent. "Don't pay," the agent said. "We've found someone who can crack the encryption." Peter, who spoke candidly about the attack on condition of anonymity, said the FBI told him to contact a cybersecurity consulting firm in New Jersey called Unit 221B, and specifically its founder -- Lance James. Zeppelin sprang onto the crimeware scene in December 2019, but it wasn't long before James discovered multiple vulnerabilities in the malware's encryption routines that allowed him to brute-force the decryption keys in a matter of hours, using nearly 100 cloud computer servers.

In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, James said Unit 221B was wary of advertising its ability to crack Zeppelin ransomware keys because it didn't want to tip its hand to Zeppelin's creators, who were likely to modify their file encryption approach if they detected it was somehow being bypassed. This is not an idle concern. There are multiple examples of ransomware groups doing just that after security researchers crowed about finding vulnerabilities in their ransomware code. "The minute you announce you've got a decryptor for some ransomware, they change up the code," James said. But he said the Zeppelin group appears to have stopped spreading their ransomware code gradually over the past year, possibly because Unit 221B's referrals from the FBI let them quietly help nearly two dozen victim organizations recover without paying their extortionists. [...]

The researchers said their break came when they understood that while Zeppelin used three different types of encryption keys to encrypt files, they could undo the whole scheme by factoring or computing just one of them: An ephemeral RSA-512 public key that is randomly generated on each machine it infects. "If we can recover the RSA-512 Public Key from the registry, we can crack it and get the 256-bit AES Key that encrypts the files!" [James and co-author Joel Lathrop wrote in a blog post]. "The challenge was that they delete the [public key] once the files are fully encrypted. Memory analysis gave us about a 5-minute window after files were encrypted to retrieve this public key." Unit 221B ultimately built a "Live CD" version of Linux that victims could run on infected systems to extract that RSA-512 key. From there, they would load the keys into a cluster of 800 CPUs donated by hosting giant Digital Ocean that would then start cracking them. The company also used that same donated infrastructure to help victims decrypt their data using the recovered keys. A more technical writeup on Unit 221B's discoveries (cheekily titled "0XDEAD ZEPPELIN") is available here.

The rise and catastrophic fall of what was once Canada's most valuable company is set for the big screen. CBC.ca reports: Blackberry will tell the story of Waterloo, Ont.-based Research in Motion (RIM), creators of the titular device, which for a time was the world's most popular smartphone. The film stars Canadian actor Jay Baruchel as company co-founder Mike Lazaridis and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Glenn Howerton as co-CEO Jim Balsillie. The film was adapted from the 2015 book Losing the Signal: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of BlackBerry, by Sean Silcoff and Jacquie McNish. Toronto's Matt Johnson directs and also appears in the film as RIM's other co-founder, Doug Fregin. The cast also includes Cary Elwes, Saul Rubinek and Michael Ironside.

RIM was founded in 1984 by business partners Lazaridis and Fregin, who had previously worked together on a failed LED sign business. After a decade of dabbling in various other technology projects, they turned their attention to the two-way communications systems that would become the foundation for the BlackBerry device.

Ars Technica reports: Researchers have unearthed a discovery that doesn't occur all that often in the realm of malware: a mature, never-before-seen Linux backdoor that uses novel evasion techniques to conceal its presence on infected servers, in some cases even with a forensic investigation.

On Thursday, researchers and the BlackBerry Threat Research & Intelligence Team said that the previously undetected backdoor combines high levels of access with the ability to scrub any sign of infection from the file system, system processes, and network traffic. Dubbed Symbiote, it targets financial institutions in Brazil and was first detected in November.

Researchers for Intezer and BlackBerry wrote:

"What makes Symbiote different from other Linux malware that we usually come across, is that it needs to infect other running processes to inflict damage on infected machines. Instead of being a standalone executable file that is run to infect a machine, it is a shared object (SO) library that is loaded into all running processes using LD_PRELOAD (T1574.006), and parasitically infects the machine. Once it has infected all the running processes, it provides the threat actor with rootkit functionality, the ability to harvest credentials, and remote access capability...."

So far, there's no evidence of infections in the wild, only malware samples found online. It's unlikely this malware is widely active at the moment, but with stealth this robust, how can we be sure?
"When hooked functions are called, the malware first dynamically loads libc and calls the original function..." according to Blackberry's blog post. "If the calling application is trying to access a file or folder under /proc, the malware scrubs the output from process names that are on its list.... If the calling application is not trying to access something under /proc, the malware instead scrubs the result from a file list....

"Symbiote also has functionality to hide network activity on the infected machine."

Google is highlighting how Chromebooks can work in "zero trust" corporate environments with its new Chrome Enterprise Connectors Framework. From a report: The new integration system is designed to make the Chrome browser and Chrome OS devices easier for IT departments to implement with existing security, endpoint, and authentication solutions as well as bother management solutions. Google Chrome OS exec John Solomon describes the new tools as a "plug and play" solution that lets other companies helm Chrome OS management functions like remote-wiping a Chromebook using BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Management or flagging malware downloads with Splunk. These types of management functions previously worked through the Google Admin console. Managing and enrolling Chrome OS devices in the enterprise will still rely on Google tools like Google Admin and Chrome Browser Cloud Management. But new tools like Chrome OS Data Controls give enterprises more options to allow or lock down actions like printing, screen capture, copy / paste, and other potential data loss situations. It might even give IT a better handle on buggy Chrome OS updates and is currently available through the Trusted Tester program.

"Headline says it all," writes Slashdot reader segaboy81. "Lots of people have been looking forward to this Kickstarter for the Unihertz Titan Slim, but it is easily the thickest phone of 2022." Neowin's Dean Howell reacts to an unboxing video of Unihertz's Titan Slim, the successor to last year's Titan Pocket physical keyboard-equipped BlackBerry clone, writing: While Blackberry refugees have been clamoring for new PKB devices, they've been asking for them to be thin and sleek like the Blackberry of yesterday. We thought that's what we were getting with the announcement of the Titan Slim, but after yesterday's unboxing video by Adam over at TechOdyssey we know that's not the case at all. [...] Normally he would show how it compares to other devices, and I think this go 'round he was reticent to compare it directly to the Titan Pocket because if he did it would confirm what I think is true; the Titan Slim is not slim at all and it's every bit as think as the Titan Pocket.

The drama doesn't end there I'm afraid. There is a review embargo on this device, so there are a lot of details Adam didn't talk about, like performance characteristics. [...] New year, new phone, new CPU right? Wrong. I wondered what CPU the Titan Slim would ship with and it took less than a minute to figure out. I went over to Geekbench and found it had already been tested. Unfortunately, the Titan Slim will ship with the same CPU as last year's Titan Pocket. What's worse is the Helio P70 in the Titan Slim is comparable at best to the then-mid-range Snapdragon 660 of the 2018 Key2.

There's won't be a big revival for BlackBerry phones anytime soon. OnwardMobility, the Austin-based startup that announced its plans to release a 5G BlackBerry device with a physical keyboard back in 2020, is shutting down. From a report: The company posted a notice of its closure on its website, making it clear that it won't be proceeding with the development of the smartphone. This comes a month after it responded to people asking about the status of the project with a blog post entitled "contrary to popular belief, we are not dead." While OnwardMobility didn't expound on the reason behind its closure, Android Police reported a few days ago that its license to use the BlackBerry name had been canceled. Apparently, BlackBerry wants to distance itself from its past as a smartphone manufacturer after it sold off its remaining mobile patents for $600 million in the beginning of February. OnwardMobility reportedly decided not to push through with the development of a new smartphone without the BlackBerry name, especially since it won't be easy entering the market with an ongoing global component shortage.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: The delayed 5G BlackBerry phone is dead, OnwardMobility has confirmed on its website. "It is with great sadness that we announce that OnwardMobility will be shutting down, and we will no longer be proceeding with the development of an ultra-secure smartphone with a physical keyboard," OnwardMobility said in a message posted Friday, as spotted earlier by CrackBerry. "Please know that this was not a decision that we made lightly or in haste. We share your disappointment in this news and assure you this is not the outcome we worked and hoped for." Android Police and CrackBerry originally reported the phone had been cancelled on Feb. 11, saying OnwardMobility, a Texas-based startup seeking to revitalize the iconic brand through an Android-based, next-gen Wi-Fi device, lost the license from BlackBerry Ltd. to use the BlackBerry brand name. OnwardMobility did not expand on why it is shutting down and cancelling production of the phone. The news comes after BlackBerry ended service for its legacy devices in early January. "Before OnwardMobility picked up the license, Chinese manufacturer TCL was the most recent maker of BlackBerry-branded phones," adds CNET.

Most recently, the company sold its prized patent portfolio to "Catapult IP Innovations Inc." for $600 million.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: BlackBerry is adding another sad chapter to the downfall of its smartphone business. Today the company announced a sale of its prized patent portfolio for $600 million. The buyer is "Catapult IP Innovations Inc.," a new company BlackBerry describes as "a special purpose vehicle formed to acquire the BlackBerry patent assets." BlackBerry says the patents are for "mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking." These are going to be the patents surrounding BlackBerry's phones, QWERTY keyboards, and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). BlackBerry most recently weaponized these patents against Facebook Messenger in 2018, which covered ideas like muting a message thread and displaying notifications as a numeric icon badge. BlackBerry -- back when it was called RIM -- was a veteran of the original smartphone patent wars, though, and went after companies like Handspring and Good Technology in the early 2000s.

If the name "Catapult IP Innovations" didn't give it away, weaponizing BlackBerry's patents is the most obvious outcome of this deal. According to the press release, Catapult's funding for the $600 million deal is just a $450 million loan, which will immediately be given to BlackBerry in cash. The remaining $150 million is a promissory note with the first payment due in three years. That means Catapult is now a new company with a huge amount of debt, no products, and no cash flow. Assuming the plan isn't to instantly go bankrupt, Catapult needs to start monetizing BlackBerry's patents somehow, which presumably means suing everyone it believes is in violation of its newly acquired assets.