BGR Daily Breaking Stories

Daily Headlines FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2015

Where BlackBerry is still king We’ve argued in the past that BlackBerry has an important opportunity to reestablish itself as a status symbol for corporate executives and government officials who absolutely need to have top-notch security. Business Insider’s Jim Edwards reports that that having a BlackBerry is still a big deal for many people in Davos this week, where he’s noticed that “a lot of people here are conspicuously carrying two phones: an iPhone and a Blackberry.”  MORE → The craziest fact about the Apple Watch: It will be more powerful than the first iPad The Apple Watch will not have incredible battery life, a 9to5Mac report on Thursday revealed. Apple wasn’t even able to meet its own battery targets for its first smartwatch, which is why the company delayed the launch of the Apple Watch from late 2014 to early 2015. But one detail from the report that was overlooked is that the tiny gadget will apparently be more powerful than the iPad.  MORE → HTC’s beautiful new flagship phone leaks again in new pics HTC is having a pretty tough time keeping its newest flagship smartphone under wraps, but we aren’t about to complain. Phandroid has posted the latest batch of leaked HTC One (M9) photos and they pretty much confirm a lot of what we’ve already seen about the device.  MORE → Finally: We’ve found a group of consumers who will benefit from the Comcast-TWC merger Comcast and Time Warner Cable have long insisted that their proposed merger will have big benefits for consumers, although opinion polls of consumers have shown that this argument hasn’t proven very persuasive. That said, consumers in Michigan actually have a very good reason to support the merger because it will mean that Comcast will leave them alone.  MORE → Bloatware you will love: Free Office preinstalled on Windows 10 phones and small tablets Microsoft on Thursday confirmed various details about its upcoming Office plans, revealing that Office 2016 will be released at some point in the second half of the year, and that Windows 10 mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets will get a special Office for Windows 10 version that’ll be similar to what’s currently available on iPad and Android tablets. Furthermore, Microsoft said that Office for Windows 10 will be preloaded for free on Windows Phones and Windows 10 tablets with screens smaller than eight inches.  MORE → Check out the first trailer of Tina Fey’s upcoming Netflix sitcom In early March, Netflix will launch a brand new sitcom made by 30 Rock’s mastermind Tina Fey, CNET reports. Called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the comedy centers around a survivor of an apocalyptic cult who’s rescued from a bunker and has to face the realities of modern-day New York City. The show was initially supposed to air on NBC, but Netflix eventually picked it up, ordering two seasons.  MORE → Video: Bill Gates gets Jimmy Fallon to drink sanitized sewage water Bill Gates was invited on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday night, where he talked about the “Omniprocessor,” a neat invention that helps engineers turn human waste into clean water and electricity. This isn’t the first time Gates talked about this Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation project, or the first time when Gates drank so-called “poop water,” but this time around the Microsoft guru also tricked Fallon into drinking the same kind of water.  MORE → Video: McDonald’s uses 19 ingredients in its fries, insists none of them will kill you Ever make homemade french fries? It’s pretty easy, actually — just cut up some potatoes into thin strips, dump them into a pot full of boiling oil, remove them when they turn a golden brown and then salt them to your tastes. So really, that’s three basic ingredients: Potatoes, oil (peanut and canola both work fine) and salt. If you’re McDonald’s, however, it takes an insane 19 different ingredients to make something that should be an incredibly simple meal.  MORE → Kim Dotcom’s new encrypted MegaChat service will compete with Skype It’s about a year late, but Kim Dotcom’s encrypted audio and video calling service has finally arrived. Dotcom and the Mega Conspiracy Team announced on Thursday that MegaChat has officially entered public beta, allowing users to place video calls and share files with their contacts over a secure line.  MORE → What if there was an entire PC in your mouse? Even though it’s facing tough competition from mobile devices, the PC is far from being dead, and many people are still trying to reinvent it. Such is the case with Przemysław Strzelczyk, whose team is apparently working on a PC that fits inside a regular mouse: The Mouse-Box.  MORE →