BlackBerry sues Ryan Seacrest's company over Blackberry keyboard production for iPhone

BlackBerry Ltd said on Friday it had filed a lawsuit against a company co-founded by "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest that offers a physical keyboard that can be attached to some of Apple Inc's touchscreen iPhone 5 models.

The company, Typo Products LLC, is currently taking pre-orders for the $99 keyboard, which features angled miniature keys similar to those used on many of BlackBerry's devices.

Canada's BlackBerry, a once dominant smartphone maker that has lost market share to the iPhone and other touchscreen devices, said Typo's keyboard infringes its own design.

The allegation has not been proven in court. Typo and Seacrest could not immediately be reached to comment on the legal proceedings.

"We are flattered by the desire to graft our keyboard onto other smartphones, but we will not tolerate such activity without fair compensation for using our intellectual property and our technological innovations," Steve Zipperstein, BlackBerry's chief legal officer, said in a statement.

BlackBerry's Beloved BBM Service Is Coming To iPhone And Android

Research In Motion BBM application is to launch on iPhone and Android phones.

The popular instant messaging service will be available as a free app for iOS and Android devices in the coming months.

It will work on Apple devices running iOS 6 or later and Android devices running Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) and Jelly Bean (4.1).

The app will initially offer texts, photo messages and group sharing functions, with screen sharing and voice and video calls being rolled out later in the year.

The move puts BlackBerry in direct competition with other cross-platform messaging services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Interestingly, BlackBerry has not yet announced any plan to bring the app to Windows Phone or Symbian phones even though some other popular IM apps like WhatsApp support these platforms.

"It's time to bring BBM to a greater audience no matter what mobile device they carry," said BB CEO Thorsten Heins.

RIM rolls out new OS update for PlayBook

The much awaited BlackBerry Playbook OS 2.1 makes its way to a global audience with loads of new features.

Research In Motion (RIM) has announced the roll out of a new software update for its PlayBook tablet worldwide. The new BlackBerry Playbook OS 2.1 operating system upgrade brings a host of new features like better Android app support and the much awaited SMS capability.

The upgrade will bring an improved BlackBerry Bridge which will allow users to view, respond to and compose new SMSes on their PlayBook by connecting it to a BlackBerry smartphone overBluetooth. Besides, the update will increase the performance and speed of BlackBerry Bridge.

Also, the update brings support for portrait mode for email, calendar and contacts; earlier only landscape mode was available for these functions.

In this update, there's better support for Android apps, including for in-app payments and apps that use the PlayBook's camera. Users can also run Android apps in separate windows for improved multitasking and switching between apps with the new upgrade.

Also, while using Bridge users are connected to a WiFi network as well, and the PlayBook will automatically send and receive data over WiFi in order to use less cellular data.

The upgrade is available over the air and users will receive a notification when it is available for their device.