RIM launched the BlackBerry 10 platform at the BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida.

RIM also released the initial developer toolkit for native and HTML5 software development.

Developers could download the beta from http://developer.blackberry.com.

The toolkit contains the BlackBerry 10 Native SDK with Cascades, for creating graphically rich, high performance native applications in C/C++ using Qt. 

The Native SDK for BlackBerry 10 has APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for core device features and a range of BlackBerry application services, such as Push and Payment services. 

Cascades allows developers to build visual applications without having to write complex, low-level graphics code.
The toolkit supports HTML5 application with the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK. 

The BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK uses HTML5 and CSS to build apps. It provides JavaScript bindings to native device APIs along with RIM’s open source UI toolkit, bbUI.js, to create applications with native-like capabilities. 

This initial release of the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK have access to a core subset of the full WebWorks APIs, including Identity, Application and App events, System and system events.

More details about the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK are on http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/04/blackberry-10-webworks-sdk.

Applications created with any of the BlackBerry 10 tools will run on BlackBerry 10 smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook when the new platform becomes available for it. All of the SDKs will be updated to give developers access to more of the BlackBerry 10 unique capabilities over the coming months.

RIM would be providing BlackBerry 10 Jam attendees with a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device.

Developers can download the NDK for BlackBerry 10, including Cascades, at http://developer.blackberry.com/native/download

and the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK at http://developer.blackberry.com/html5/download.

Take a look at this video shown during the keynote presentation at BlackBerry World 2012: http://bbry.lv/BlackBerry10Video

Google has launched its own cloud service called Google Drive.

Google would have a lot of competition from other popular cloud services like DropBox, Box, SugarSync and CloudDrive. 

If you have been using Google Docs to save documents online, this facility is now integrated with Google Drive. And you can continue doing the same tasks there. 

Users can search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition or OCR. 

Right now the app is available for Windows, Mac and Android. The iOS version will come later.

Malaysians with Google accounts can start registering at drive.google.com for Google to inform them when Drive is ready for them.

A new research from Trend Micro has voted the BlackBerry 7 OS the most compatible mobile OS for enterprise use.

The main factor is the BlackBerry 7 superior security, especially security, authentication, device wipe, device firewall and virtualisation; and also corporate-grade security and manageability of the platform, according to Altimeter Group, Bloor Research and Trend Micro.

Features of BlackBerry for Business: - The BlackBerry Enterprise Solution was the first mobile platform to achieve Common Criteria Certification
- BlackBerry smartphones is awarded multiple FIPS 140 validations (Federal Information Processing Standard) in the USA and Canada for its embedded encryption technology. 
- The BlackBerry Enterprise Solution is the only smartphone solution formally evaluated by CESG (the National Technical Authority for Information Assurance which advises UK Government) and approved to protect material classified up to and including RESTRICTED
- The BlackBerry PlayBook is the first FIPS certified tablet deployed by US federal government agencies
- It is the first tablet certified by the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) of the Australian Government.

Annamalai Muthu, Country Director for RIM Malaysia & Brunei, said: “Our heritage lies in delivering enterprise-grade mobile computing. Recent innovations such as BlackBerry Mobile Fusion and BlackBerry Balance, reinforce our strength and expertise in the business market, helping us build on our leadership position in meeting the mobile communications and security requirements of public and private sector organisations of all sizes.”

If your imagine that Flash has sunk and disappeared, think again.

Even when the new kid in town, HTML5, is rising and has taken over Flash in quite a number of websites, Flash still plays in other sites.

Adobe is putting out an update, Flash Player 11.2, together with AIR 3.2.

The new Flash features include mouse lock, right and middle click and multi-thread video decoding, and 2D and 3D graphics of up to 60 fps, updating itself automatically when running in Windows.

AIR 3.2 supports Stage3D graphics on Android and iOS devices,  and visuals will have fast GPU rendering. 

Adobe has partnered with Unity so that developers could upload their 3D games to Flash Player. An an incentive they can use the features in Flash for free until they earn US$50,000 in revenue, of which 9% goes to Adobe, starting from August 1st onwards. They don't have to pay this if developing AIR 3.2 apps though.