500px on Wednesday announced the launch of its new Professional Photo Portfolios, redesigned from the ground up. The Canadian company also revealed that it is now serving over a billion page views per month – a milestone it passed just two months ago and has maintained ever since.

500px’s new Portfolio UX gives photographers their own URL, backup system, tabs, pages, and zero maintenance or incremental hosting fees. As before, your Portfolio page links directly to your 500px account.

500px boasts the following three principles features for its new rollout:

• Showcase your photos in beautiful, lush and textured layouts with rich options for people to interact with you and your photos.
• Setup and customize your Portfolio page in just a few minutes, seamlessly updating your photo collection as it grows.
• Create a unique look and feel to your page design. With Portfolios you’ll get access to more features, like full CSS customization (for the brave), Store integration so your visitors can buy your photos straight from your portfolio, and Blog integration that lets you to stay in touch with your customers and readers.

500px portfolio profiles will be getting more features, in terms of photos of course, but also with additional themes and customizations. The company recently also increased storage limits for all its accounts, and the prices for its paid memberships. Free accounts can upload 20 photos per week, while Plus ($25 per year) and Awesome ($75 per year) will accept larger size of photos (up to 100Mb per file) and have unlimited storage.

In an industry that is simply overloaded with products and services vying for a piece of the photographer’s pie, 500px continues to grow very quickly. Furthermore, the fact it is launching offerings while increasing prices shows the Canadian firm is managing to offer something users actually want enough to pay up.

See also – Nearing 500k downloads, 500px for Android updated with better friend and photo discovery features and After passing 1m downloads, 500px releases faster iOS app with Flow for iPad and support for followers

Top Image Credit: Miguel Saavedra

BlackBerry’s Enterprise Instant Messaging service has been updated to version 3.0 today, giving users the chance to chat securely over various business apps such as Microsoft Lync, Microsoft Office Communication Server and IBM Lotus Sametime.

The free update encrypts data from end-to-end, ensuring that users’ personal information is always protected. It works in conjunction with version 10.1 of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, the company’s dedicated enterprise mobility management solution for the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 smartphones.

The new client app has been built with collaboration in mind and offers both one-to-one and multi-party instant messaging, as well as the ability to switch seamlessly from text chat to a voice call.

Users can also update their profile and status at any time, rather like Skype and any other modern instant messaging app, and also access messages from the BlackBerry Hub. For owners who use their BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 for both work and personal use, there’s also the option to separate enterprise-related messages from personal apps and content using BlackBerry Balance.

BlackBerry has been a popular choice in the past with enterprise users and consumers based in emerging markets. The company’s dominance has slipped, however, in accordance with the rise of both the iOS and Android mobile operating systems.

BlackBerry is trying to reposition itself as a company that has broad public appeal. The appointment of Alicia Keys as a creative director, for example, was no accident and the heavy marketing behind Time Shift, a new camera tool that lets users move parts of their image backwards and forwards in time, is clearly geared towards the wider public.

It’s nice to see that BlackBerry hasn’t forgotten its roots, however. The enterprise market is still incredibly lucrative and being able to provide a robust, secure messaging service will be very attractive indeed.

➤ BlackBerry Enterprise IM 3.0

See also: BlackBerry unveils the Q5, a mid-range QWERTY device for emerging markets, launching in black, white and pink

Image Credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images

BlackBerry has today revealed a new device, the Q5, running the BlackBerry 10.1 operating system aimed at emerging markets and available in black, white and pink colors.

At the BlackBerry Live event in Orlando, Florida today, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said that the Q5 would be launching with global carrier partners in the summer. The press release additionally notes that the device will launch in “selected markets” in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia (including the Asia Pacific region), and Latin America, starting in July.

Heins didn’t divulge any specific specs for the Q5 but the press release informs us that it sports a 3.1” touchscreen. Modest, for sure, but this is no high-end device, it’s aimed squarely at highly price-conscious customers.

The Q5 joins the Q10 and Z10 in offering the BlackBerry 10 OS. Heins also revealed that the 10.1 update would begin pushing out to Z10 users from today.

Heins was upbeat about BlackBerry’s direction, highlighting the profit in its recent quarterly results and crediting his leadership team in helping him get there.

Also read: BlackBerry World hits 120,000 apps, as Skype launches on the Z10 along with 10.1 firmware update

Header image credit: Getty Images

BlackBerry on Thursday announced that the US Department of Defense (DoD) has approved the use of BlackBerry 10 smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets with BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10. The approval means all DoD customers can officially use the latest BlackBerry devices on its networks.

BlackBerry working with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to test BlackBerry 10 smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets in DoD labs. This result in the devices’ being listed on DISA’s Unified Communications Approved Product List (UC APL).

The news shouldn’t be too surprising given that BlackBerry 10 received US government certification, more specifically Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 140-2 (FIPS PUB 140-2), before it even launched. This gave the green light to government agencies looking to deploy BlackBerry 10 smartphones and the company’s mobile enterprise management solution BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 the day they launch.

Unsurprisingly, BlackBerrry is happy with the announcement. The Canadian company has always marketed its devices as very secure, and it can’t lose that label if it wishes to remain relevant.

“BlackBerry 10 is ideal for our government customers because it offers a rich, highly responsive mobile computing experience, along with BlackBerry’s proven and validated security model – a combination that’s unmatched in the industry,” Scott Totzke, SVP of BlackBerry Security, said in a statement. “This approval will enable DoD customers to connect their BlackBerry Z10 or BlackBerry Q10 smartphones to DoD networks and securely access assets from work, while enjoying the wealth of consumer-oriented functionality that BlackBerry 10 brings to market.”

In February, the DoD announced the release of a Commercial Mobile Device Implementation Plan. The goal is to open its communications networks by February 2014 to mobile phones and tablet computers from Apple and Google.

Just yesterday, we learned the department is expected to rule that Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and Apple devices running iOS 6 meet certain standards to allow for their use in the Pentagon. BlackBerry thus wants to emphasize that its devices are still a viable option.

Top Image credit: Martyn E. Jones

BlackBerry has devised a new strategy to tempt BlackBerry 7.0 users into upgrading their operating system to version 7.1: free apps. Until June 30, the company is offering 10 paid apps at no cost to the user.

The following apps are included in this promotion, which is only available in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, and the UK:

• EA SPORTS FIFA 13 – Electronic Arts.
• The Sims 3TM Supernatural – Electronic Arts.
• BeWeather – Bellshare GmbH.
• Screen Muncher – Motek Mobile.
• Color ID FREE – Motek Mobile.
• InstaPhoto – Smarter Apps.
• DriveSafely Pro – iSpeech.
• N.O.V.A for BBM – Gameloft.
• UNO and Friends – Gameloft.
• Photo Studio PRO – KVADGroup.

To take advantage, all you have to do is upgrade your BlackBerry Curve 9360/9380, BlackBerry Bold 9790/9900, BlackBerry Torch 9810/9860 or Porsche Design P’9981. You can do so on the Web, using the BlackBerry Desktop Software, or directly from your smartphone (over-the-air).

BlackBerry 7.1 offers features such as Mobile Hotspot, FM radio, BlackBerry Tag, and Wi-Fi calling. Tips on upgrading are available here.

If BlackBerry has learned anything in its struggle against Android and iOS, it’s that apps matter a lot. Mobile users are crazy about them, arguably more so than whatever operating system they have on their device.

As such, this move is a clever one. If the company can get BlackBerry 7.0 users into the habit of upgrading their devices, it should be able to offer new features to many of its users.

What’s not clear is whether BlackBerry is paying the developers of these apps, or if it asked them to participate and simply include this as part of their marketing budget. If the Canadian company paid developers to bolster its mobile platform, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

See also – RIM announces free BlackBerry 10 app submissions, guarantees you’ll earn $10k if you make $1k and RIM doubles developer ‘Port-A-Thon’ rewards to $2 million in final push for BlackBerry 10 apps

Top Image credit: Abdulaziz Almansour

Amazon on Thursday announced it has trimmed the prices of its Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite devices in Canada. The Kindle is dropping from $89 to $79 and the Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi is being reduced from $139 to $129.

The prices are effective immediately. You can find the former over on amazon.ca/kindle and the latter at amazon.ca/kindlepaperwhite.

The price changes are likely in response to criticism that Amazon is charging Canadians more than Americans, despite the fact that their currencies have been very close in value for a very long time. In fact, it just so happens that today they are exactly the same: CDN$79 is equivalent to $79 and CDN$129 is equivalent to $129.

In January, Amazon finally launched the Kindle line in Canada. In addition to the duo listed above, the company also released the Kindle Paperwhite with 3G and Wi-Fi, but this device is apparently keeping its $199 price tag. Also in January, Amazon Prime arrived in Canada, but was another perfect example of limitations Canadians know all too well: the Instant Video feature remains US-only.

In December 2012, Amazon launched its Kindle Store in Canada, featuring e-books priced in Canadian dollars. Canadian customers can also access the Canada Kindle Store; Kindle books can be read on Kindle devices as well as on Android smartphones and tablets, iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch), as well as Windows Phones using the free Kindle apps.

At the time, Amazon said the store features over 1.5 million Kindle books, directly accessible from Kindle devices. The company also said it includes 250,000 exclusive books customers won’t find anywhere else, 35,000 free books, and 50,000 French-language titles. Those numbers have presumably grown over the last few months.

So what else should Amazon do for its Canadian customers? We think it should extend its price parity to all devices as well as all e-books. Oh, and we really wouldn’t mind getting the Kindle Fire.

Top Image credit: Nicolas Raymond

BlackBerry on Tuesday announced the BlackBerry Q10 will be launching in Canada first on May 1. Those interested will be able to get it from Rogers Wireless, Bell Mobility, and Telus starting at $199 with a three-year contract.

While those are the three biggest carriers in Canada, the device will also be available on Virgin Mobile Canada, Fido, Koodo Mobile, and Sasktel. Canadians will be able to buy it in store at The Source, Best Buy, and Future Shop, but BlackBerry wouldn’t give timing details for these.

BlackBerry is of course planning to launch the Q10 globally as well, but it hasn’t (yet) provided specific dates for its international arrival. Many expect the device to launch in the US very soon (either in May or June), and especially so as it hit FCC testing on April 17.

Yet BlackBerry fans shouldn’t hold their breath as the pricing for the Q10 isn’t very competitive. In fact, it is more expensive than the Z10, which at launch was priced at $149 in Canada and in many cases has already dropped down to $99.

The higher Q10 pricing is an interesting move by the Canadian company, given that it is known for its QWERTY devices. Many BlackBerry fans would undoubtedly like to see the Q10 priced lower, if not at the same level, as the Z10.

That being said, we don’t recommend anyone buying the Q10 at launch. If the Z10 is any indication, its price will likely drop. We would thus wait a few weeks to see if it does, and only then take the plunge. For those who love their tactile keyboards, there still isn’t anything better than a BlackBerry.

See also – Review: With its US launch, can the Z10 save BlackBerry from itself? and BlackBerry has shipped 1 million Z10 smartphones, but is that enough to compete for third place?

Top Image credit: Abdulaziz Almansour

Canadian mobile network operators TELUS, Virgin Mobile and Bell have opened pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S4 today, confirming that consumers will receive the device on April 27 before it hits store shelves on May 3.

Signing up to a contract isn’t particularly cheap though. Samsung’s new flagship Android device will cost $199 on a three-year contract with TELUS, starting at $50 per month. Consumers can expect 1,000 minutes, 300MB of data and unlimited texts for that amount, although given that TELUS offers a 4G LTE service, that’s unlikely to last very long.

Upping the data cap to 600MB will set users back an additional $15, or 1GB for a total of $80 per month. Anything higher will cost consumers an extra two cents per megabyte, without exception.

TELUS also offers an unlimited talk and text plan for $100 per month, although it still only includes 5GB of data. That might be enough for the majority of its subscribers, but data-heavy Android users will be left bitterly disappointed.

The Samsung Galaxy S4, unveiled in March, is likely to be one of the most sought-after smartphones until the next iPhone or Nexus products are announced.

The device has a premium 5-inch 1080p display, set at an impressive 441 ppi. Under the hood is a quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 processor, bumped up by an additional quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 chipset. That’s a whole lot of processing power.

The Galaxy S4 comes stocked with 16GB of internal storage, although that’s expandable via a microSD card, and runs on the latest version of Android (version 4.2.2) with Samsung’s TouchWiz skin slapped on top.

The device also has a mighty Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery, which should do a pretty decent job of counterbalancing the smartphone’s power-hungry processors, and 2GB of RAM handling multiple apps and tasks.

It will be available in two colors, “white frost” and “black mist”, although Samsung has also revealed that additional color options will follow alter this year.

Pre-orders for the device opened in the United Kingdom late last month, ahead of a public release on April 26.

Image Credit: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images

BlackBerry is refuting claims that its new Z10 smartphone is experiencing high customer return rates by seeking a review from both the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US and Ontario Securities Commission in Canada.

Thorsten Heins, CEO of BlackBerry, reiterated that sales of the Z10 were “meeting expectations,” and that any data supplied by its retail or carrier partners had shown that customers were “satisfied” with the smartphone.

It follows a report written by Jeff Johnston, an analyst at Detwiler Fenton, who told the Wall Street Journal that in several areas customer returns were now higher than Z10 smartphone sales.

“We believe key retail partners have seen a significant increase in Z10 returns to the point where, in several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before,” Johnston said.

Joe Fersedi, an analyst for ITG, backed some of these concerns in a separate report, claiming that the Z10 launch “started poorly and weakened significantly as the days passed.”

He later added that the proportion of sales attributed to the Z10 had fallen from 4 percent to 1 percent at Verizon stores. The same was also true of AT&T stores, Fersedi claimed, dropping from 7 percent to 2 percent.

Heins has lashed out against these findings, but admitted that return rate statistics for the device were “at or below” company forecasts, despite being in line with industry expectations.

“To suggest otherwise is either a gross misreading of the data or a willful manipulation,” he said. “Such a conclusion is absolutely without basis and BlackBerry will not leave it unchallenged.”

BlackBerry says Detwiler Fenton has refused to hand over its original report, or to explain its methodology. Verizon is said to have also refuted the claims surrounding high customer return rates.

Steve Zipperstein, Chief Legal Officer for BlackBerry, said it would be presenting its formal request for a review to the Securities and Exchange Commission and Ontario Securities Commission “in the next several days.”

“These materially false and misleading comments about device return rates in the United States harm BlackBerry and our shareholders, and we call upon the appropriate authorities in Canada and the United States to conduct an immediate investigation,” he said.

“Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the merits of the many competing products in the smartphone industry, but when false statements of material fact are deliberately purveyed for the purpose of influencing the markets a red line has been crossed.”

BlackBerry’s anger is somewhat understandable. The BlackBerry Z10 smartphone is its new flagship product and carrying the flag for its revamped mobile operating system single-handedly. Well, at least until the Q10 comes along anyway.

The company announced that it had shipped 1 million units last month, but substantial sales figures are yet to be disclosed. High return rates, if proven, could seriously damage the company’s ability to compete not only with iOS and Android, but also the so-called “third pillar” platforms such as Windows Phone, Firefox OS and Tizen.

Image Credit: LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images

Tempo AI is bringing its Tempo smart calendar app to Canada. Nearly two months after the launch of its iPhone app, which resulted in an unpopular wait list, the company is confident that any lengthy reservation will soon disappear and anyone with an iOS app will be able to download Tempo instantly. It has also announced that it has processed more than 50 million calendar events in its first month using its artificial intelligence.

As an added bonus, we now have queue jumps for the Tempo — scroll down to the bottom for more information.

Tempo Smart Calendar is an app that takes your meetings and appointments listed in your native iPhone calendar app and imports it into a sophisticated personal assistant service. Once integrated, users will find additional and relevant information added to each event, such as associated emails, contact information, directions, and more.

The app was spawned from the idea factory at SRI International, the same non-profit research institute that created Siri, its travel-related sibling Desti, and the personalization engine Trapit.

Raj Singh, Tempo AI’s CEO, says that the move to Canada is something he’s excited about: “Our goal is to bring the Tempo experience to as many users as fast as we can.”

Another feature that has arrived is the ability to support multiple devices. Beginning today, users can install Tempo onto their iPhones or iPads and access their calendars practically simultaneously.

Interesting discoveries

Now that the app has been out for a few weeks, Tempo AI took a look at its statistics and shared with us some interesting news. Specifically it found that the most used feature in the app involved the emails and links to documents. Singh believes that with people running off to meetings, being able to review documents quickly that are relevant to that appointment has been a critical thing for users.

Another thing that has fascinated the company is that within the first couple days of using Tempo, Singh and his team have noticed a large number of meetings being created. It turns out that users are being creative with their events and are treating it almost similarly to Siri — they are typing in different names to see if Tempo knows who to invite to a meeting while also trying to learn the app’s algorithm.

Queue up to install the app

One of the problems that Tempo AI encountered when it launched was the enormous demand and the extremely long amount of time it took to get people on-board. With the first 24 hours, potential users were complaining about its lack of service and inability to work. We spoke with Singh, who eventually resigned himself to establishing a wait list, similar to what Mailbox did recently. Singh admits he’s not a fan of the wait list and believes that anyone still on it will receive access to the app very soon.

What caused the need for the wait list? Singh says it was because the system had trouble with Microsoft Exchange. It turns out that Tempo is the only calendar that supports this software, which had many configurations that needed to be done. Some of these users had thousands of attachments or contacts which the server needed to review and import, which ultimately needed to be addressed. Singh says that within the first week of launch, most issues had been resolved, although the company still needed to fix any outstanding issues that were still left unresolved.

Increasing its acceptance rate

With today’s news, Singh says that the company is doubling the rate in which people are being accepted into using the app. He tells us that Tempo has a high Word of Mouth sharing score with some telling their friends that it’s “worth the wait”.

Although Tempo seems to have its defenders, it’s quite obvious that its launch did not go as smoothly as it hoped, leaving the door wide open to other calendar apps like Sunrise and Fantastical.

Jump the line

If you happen to be waiting your turn in line to try out Tempo, the company is giving 500 TNW readers the chance to jump ahead of everyone if they register using the passcode “TNW500″ here.

➤ Tempo Smart Calendar for iOS

Photo credit: Lindsey Turner/Flickr

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