BBM is coming to Android and iOS

BBM has been one of the most appealing features of BlackBerry ecosystem since its launch and is considered the father of all the chatting applications (like WhatsApp, iMessage and Viber) that float around these days. It inspired these all and it still remains one of those features which makes people go for BlackBerry smartphones. But with the rising popularity of iOS and Android even the guys over at BlackBerry are starting to acknowledge the strength of these ecosystems and it looks like they have a decided to get a piece of the cake for themselves too. As it says in the heading, BBM is coming to Android and iOS.

BlackBerry CEO Thornstein Heins announced during BlackBerry Live 2013 conference that BBM will be available as a third-party app for both the ecosystems and it will be supported on all iOS devices that run at-least iOS 6.0 and all Android devices that run at-least Android 4.0 ICS.

The app will be live on Apple App Store and Google Play Store this summer and will only support BBM chats, multi-person chats, voice note sharing and BlackBerry Groups (where users can share calendar, photos, files etc with a group) initially. But as Thornstein mentioned on stage, they plan to make BBM a full featured application on both the ecosystems equipped with all the latest BBM features such as voice call, video call, screen share and the recently announced Channels as well.

While BBM on iOS and Android may be very behind in the acceptance curve when WhatsApp and iMessage are put in the comparison with it but there is no doubt that BBM still has a certain level of appeal that these services are yet to match.

Read More

New gameplay video for 'Watch Dogs' released

Ubisoft's open world action-adventure game, Watch Dogs, is starting to make a lot of fans for it and it hasn't even been released yet. The fans are eagerly waiting for it and they are right in doing so as this is one of the most interesting games that is currently in development because of the uberly detailed environment and interaction options with it that are present in the game. And knowing that it will be coming with gorgeous graphics helps its cause in a great way.

As mentioned above, the game is an open world action-adventure game much like the Grand Theft Auto series but this one comes with a twist. "Everything is connected" is the motto of the game and that means that using the interface of the game, you can hack into various electronic devices and control them for your benefit.

Ubisoft has released a new gameplay video for the game to give its growing number of fans a reason to wait eagerly for it and also make some new fans for itself in the way. Lets have a look at the video.



The game will launch, expectantly, on current as well as next generation of gaming consoles as well as PC by the end of this year. This is going to be an awful long time to wait but we will have to wait to get hands on this beautiful game with intriguing concept.

Read More

Giveaway #1 - 5 Premium WordPress themes worth over 200$ for Free

We get likes each day and in the last 6 months we have got 2500 likes on our facebook page. We can't be more thankful to our dear fans and to portray our thankfulness, today, we are here with the first giveaway of SmartHacks.

Many people build or think of building a website but most of us look for themes or templates to use as a base. But most of the times the most amazing themes are the costly ones. Today, in SmartHacks' first giveaway, we are offering 5 such premium WordPress themes from themeforest.

Hype WordPress Theme

This is an amazing theme which supports java-script  jquery, php and html. The theme is amazingly responsive and can be customized for a blog, website or a magazine. One amazing thing about this theme is that it supports ajax as well. You can know more about the theme by clicking here and can have a demo by clicking here. This theme costs 35$ on purchase.

London Creative+ WordPress theme

This is a very unique theme perfect for portfolios and photo blogs. It features an amazing jquery slider and an infinite dropdown menu. It features 3 colors which can be easily changed on the fly. It also has TimThumb PHP script pre-installed so that your images can be dynamically re-sized and has got PrettyPhoto jquery plugin to use LightBox for full size image viewing. Twitter and custom form social widgets are present too. You can know more about this #25 most selling WordPress theme on themeforest by clicking here and have a preview of how it works here. The theme costs 45$ if you want to purchase.

Buffalo - Unique WordPress theme

This is a very unique (true to its name) WordPress theme especially if you want to use it for your blog. You can customize it for one or two column layout and option to easily fly between 5 color options. Also, if you want it use it for adsense than this theme features an ad manager and easy adsense code implementation in-built. The area for social media buttons is quite fancy and a slideshow to help you feature your special posts. You can have a look at more of its features here and its preview here. The theme costs 35$ on purchase.

Nuance - A modern WordPress theme

This is a very different and an amazingly powerful theme for business or brand websites if you are one of those people who likes to have flexibility and the power to customize your theme in any way you like and to show off different aspects of your brand. It has got different modules (like latest tweets module, blog module and services module) for different, and special purposes and it even features a blank module for you to use it any way you like. To add one more thing to flexibility, it features 29 different font options through Google Font APIs. As you can have a look here, it has a very powerful theme options panel to complement this flexibility. It also features a very unique and powerful jquery email validation based contact form. The special menus and 3D transition effects are WordPress 3 and 3.5 compatible as well. You can have a look at more features of this amazing theme here and the preview is available here. This theme is available for purchase on themeforest.net at a justifiable price of 50$.

London Live - 3-in-1 WordPress theme

This is a very responsive theme designed for those who want to have a perfect theme for their magazine or a blog. It has got 3 colors to choose from and has got content sliders to show off your work to your readers and feature your videos to get viewership. It has very easily customisable options panel and it has also got built in contact form validation. It has also got 5 custom widgets and a jquery based drop down menu. One of the unique things about this theme is that it contains PSD files included with it. To know more about this very not-so-hard to customize theme, you can click here and a preview is also available here. The theme costs 40$ if you purchase it.

How to participate

The participation conditions are very simple. We use a very powerful and simple widget from PunchTab. You can enter with the help of your facebook account or your email account and you have option to gain more than one entries in the giveaway through some different ways. So just login with your account, participate in this amazing giveaway and have a go at winning one of these stunning themes.

Read More

iPhone 5 only iOS 6.1.4 released

Apple generally releases not that insignificant point updates but lately they have seeded updates even if a single correction is required to the iOS and they have done exactly this today as well. They have a released a very not-so-jolly iOS 6.1.4 update that meant to update audio profile of only iPhone 5 and for those who are keeping track, this does not take care of the lockscreen bypass issue that cropped up with iOS 6.1.3.

The update weighs at a measly 11.5 MB when downloaded through OTA and if you want, you can get the IPSW file from here.

Read More

Call of Duty: Ghosts announced

Call of Duty is one of the most successful FPS (First Person Shooter) game series and that is the reason its fans have been waiting for some time for its next iteration. The wait is over. The developer company, Infinity Ward, has just announced it with a teaser trailer release. It is called 'Call of Duty: Ghosts'.

After a teaser release on Instagram, CoD fans were eagerly waiting for some official information. Everyone was expecting a follow up game in CoD: Modern Warfare series as Black Ops series got its installation not a long time ago but Infinity Ward has decided to go in a complete new direction with this game and although the game has been announced now but there is no more information about it. Therefore, it is safely being assumed that this version of CoD will feature a completely new back story and setting for the fans to have fun with.

Infinity Ward also released a teaser trailer to go along with the game announcement. It doesn't tell much about the game or its gameplay, all it tells you is that Call of Duty: Ghosts is coming. Have a look for yourself.



The game is scheduled to be released on November 5 this year. It is known to support PC, PlayStation and Xbox 360 as of now but hopefully it will support next-gen Xbox too which Microsoft will be unveiling on May 21. As usual, Wii U is being left out again.

Read More

Latest GTA V trailer features the three protagonists

Grand Theft Auto game series has been an amazing success story for Rockstar Games and hence they are doing everything they can to promote the latest iteration of the game, GTA V.

In December, the lid was blown off and it was leaked that the game will in-fact feature not one but three main characters a.k.a. protagonists. As this is the first time this is happening in the series, its fans were bound to get excited. Instead of crying over the spilt milk, Rockstar Games took some promotion benefit from it and to keep the buzz from going off, they released some in-game screenshots of the game back in the month of March. Although they were quite helpful in realizing the graphical strength of the game but Rockstar was still mum about the three protagonists. But today they have sorted that out by releasing a new teaser trailer for the game featuring the three protagonists.

The video is divided into three parts - each dedicated to a character. It shows the back-stories of Michael, Franklin and Trevor and let us know why they do what they do in the game. Lets not spoil the fun of watching the video. Here you go.



The game does look intriguing and Rockstar is trying its best to make this feeling sustain. The Xbox and PlayStation versions of the game are supposed to hit the shelves on September 17 and PC version, which is still in works, should hit the market in 2014.

Read More

Getting started video for Google Glass released

Google Glass has been one of the most anticipated devices since its announcement at Google I/O 2012. Recently, Google revealed specifications for this hot-in-demand product of theirs. Also, Google started shipping first batch of Glasses to the developers who signed up for it back in June 2012. The batch was known as Explorer Edition and many explorers are starting to have fun with the product already but as such other people than these have no idea how this works and because of all the buzz around this product, many really want to have a look at its UI. This wasn't possible, until now. Google has answered atleast this little desire of the general public.

Google has released a getting started video for the Google Glass which gives you a sneak peak at its UI and let you see the world through its tiny window with the help of the point-of-view (PoV) preview. Lets have a look at the video.



In its current state, Google Glass has basic functionality like time, weather, photos, videos and sharing on Google + but all of this is bound to improve once apps from developers, known as Glassware, kick in and use all the features of this interesting wearable piece of technology.

Read More

4.3 Jelly Bean may become next Android iteration

Google I/O is supposed to start in a couple of weeks and it always has been the stage for announcement of new Android versions. Although it was being suggested previously that this release will be of Android 5.0, whose name was confirmed as Key Lime Pie by a Google employee back in December, there hasn't been anything concrete to back this up. But according to a recent build being seen in the server logs of Android, we may not get Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie at Google I/O 2013 and instead Google may go with Android 4.3 JellyBean to give OEMs and developers some breathing space.

A build, Android 4.3 JWR23B, was spotted in the server logs. While these can be faked but the IP address was traced back to two Google employees thus putting it in Google's affinity.

The starting letter of the build, "J", means that it is going to be named JellyBean as the first letter of the build is always same as the first letter of the version name. Moreover, Google doesn't give a name to its build until and unless they are ready to be released in short period of time, maybe a couple of weeks. Also version numbers aren't assigned to internal test releases and the fact that while Android 4.3 has been spotted, Android 5.0 is still in hiding which may imply that we may get to see Android 4.3 JellyBean as the new Android iteration at this year's Google I/O.

While this may mean that we are almost sure that next Android iteration will be Android 4.3 Jelly Bean instead of Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie, there is still no information on what new features we should expect from Google to bake in its next Android version. But Google I/O isn't that far off now and it is safe to assume that all the mystery surrounding Android's future should be revealed by the time it ends.

Read More

Google X reveales itself in AnTuTu benchmarks

Google's Android mobile operating system is the most used one in the smartphone industry today and Google has been looking to cash-in on this popularity directly with its Nexus line of smartphones which feature a pure-bred Android ecosystem. But with the help of its Motorola acquisition, Google has now direct access and control over the hardware of its smartphones giving them a better chance of success at this game. And to harness these sources effectively, this time, it is coming up with an interesting smartphone, Google X.

Back in December 2012, the rumors of this project started coming up but now its getting intriguing as a new phone just cropped up in the AnTuTu score cards list, Google X. According to the screenshot, the smartphone will come with a 1.5 GHz process and Android 5.0.1 Key Lime Pie.

While the score of 15479 may be far from ground breaking (Galaxy S4 scores 24716 in its Exynos variant), this is hardly a surprise as we all know Google phones are not known for their performance but their amazing prices and pure-bred Android experience. Also, this score card gives us some hope that maybe Google is not far from announcing next Android iteration. But as usual, this leak too is to be taken with some amount of salt as the screenshots can be faked as well. We will know more when Google X is ready for prime-time.

Read More

WWDC 2013 announced by Apple

Apple has been one of the foremost innovative companies of all time and it has manged to contribute something to the smartphone industry with its every iPhone, and iOS iteration and the stage has been its annual WWDC (World Wide Developer's Conference) event which is held in June. This year Apple has chosen June 10 - June 14 as WWDC's dates and it will be held at its usual venue, Moscone West cultural center in San Francisco.

According to Apple, "developers from around the world will learn about the future of iOS and OS X" which means that Apple is going to talk about iOS 7 and Mac OSX 10.9 (which is going to be named after another big cat surely). This also means that we won't be seeing hardware announcements this summer most probably meaning Apple is going to keep its September cycle for new iPhone launch which it started a couple of year back with iPhone 4S.

The tickets for this hotly anticipated event were to start selling 25.04.2013 10 am PST and as it turns out, it took only 2 minutes (Yes! That is correct) for the even to be a sell out, which according to Apple, is a record time.

After last year's maps debacle, Apple made some very important and influential changes to the iOS development team meaning we may get to see some interesting UI design changes, for which everyone has been waiting for a long time now, this summer. Lets wait, watch and hope Apple startles the world with something amazing.

Read More