Smartphone thefts are not new and we have seen how Apple and other companies have tried to mitigate this with anti-theft measures, such as Find my iPhone and Activation Lock being some of them, but it seems that in New York City and St. Louis, a new method of snatching iPhones has been uncovered which has led to the technique being coined, “Apple Picking”. Basically it involves the thief approaching the victim and asking for the time, which admittedly seems innocent enough, but if you don’t wear a watch, the next best thing would be to pull your phone from your pocket, right?

When the phone is taken out of the pocket, the thief then determines if the phone has any value. For example if I pulled out an old feature phone, obviously it isn’t worth any trouble to the thief, but if I were to pull out a brand new iPhone 5s or the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, well obviously the thief has hit the jackpot and will then grab the phone and run off. Of course this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t give strangers the time of the day, but this is a new technique that is definitely worth keeping an eye out for. Wearing a watch will probably help as well, unless of course your watch is extremely valuable as well.

When it comes to low-light photography with our smartphones, most phones tend to struggle, save for the Nokia Lumia 1020 and the LG G2, both of which appear to handle low-light photography relatively well, albeit somewhat noisier than I would have like, personally. For those who don’t enjoy the noise on their photos, using flash would be the next best thing, although in most case using flash results in harsh photos, which Apple has attempted to correct in the iPhone 5s. Well if you’re sick of having bad photos in low-light situations or night shots, then the Lightstrap is definitely a Kickstarter project worth checking out.

As you can see in the photo above, the Lightstrap is an iPhone casing that comes with an LED ring around the back of it, similar to a photographer’s flash ring. Lightstrap will allow iPhone photographers to choose from seven brightness levels and six color temperatures. Its creators, a father and son team comprising of Ben and Cassidy Clawson, claim that the Lighstrap will offer 10 times the brightness of the flash in the iPhone 5s. It sounds like a great idea and based on what we can see in the sample photos, it helps a lot. If you’re interested in learning more or to pledge your donation, be sure to hit up its Kickstarter page for the details!

We’re sure there are still plenty of smartphone users out there who might prefer the tactile feedback and the familiarity of typing on a keyboard, like the BlackBerry Q10 for example. However there are also those who might acknowledge that a physical keyboard is great, but at the same time don’t want to miss out on having a larger touchscreen display. Well if you’re an iPhone user and wouldn’t mind a physical keyboard to go along with your device, you might be in luck as TV host and celebrity, Ryan Seacrest along with a venture co-founder will be investing $1 million into a keyboard case for the iPhone, which is called the Typo Keyboard.

The pair are expected to further invest an extra $5 million over the course of time. According to Seacrest he was inspired by his friends’ difficulties of carrying two phones around: an iPhone and another device for “typing and correspondence”. The Typo Keyboard is essentially an iPhone case with a BlackBerry-style keyboard at the bottom (as pictured above) and will begin shipping in January for $99. As it stands the keyboard case will only play nicely with iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s units running iOS 6 or later. It will pair with the phone via Bluetooth and will pack a180mAh battery. It’s an interesting idea although it does make the phone look really long and unwieldy, but for more info or place your pre-order, hit up their website for the details.

When it comes to endorsements, tech companies have no problems turning to celebrities to make what used to be nerdy or geeky become “cool”. We have seen how Intel had used will.i.am, the front man of the Black Eyed Peas, Ashton Kutcher with Lenovo, and Alicia Keys with BlackBerry, just to name a few. However it seems that at one point in time, BlackBerry could have closed a deal with teen pop sensation, Justin Bieber. According to a BusinessWeek report by Vincent Washington who was a senior business development manager at BlackBerry until 2011, Justin Bieber had approached the company with a plan, which was that he’d represent them as long as they gave him $200,000 and 20 devices.

“One thing we missed out on was that Justin Bieber wanted to rep BlackBerry. He said, ‘Give me $200,000 and 20 devices, and I’m your brand ambassador,’ basically.” When Washington pitched the idea to the BlackBerry executives during a meeting, they laughed at him and rejected his idea. Washington did not state when Bieber attempted to pitch his idea, but presumably it was at the very latest in 2011, perhaps when he was not as big a celebrity as he is today, and when BlackBerry was not in such a mess yet.

It is unclear as to how much value Bieber would have brought to BlackBerry; perhaps he could have convinced hordes of screaming teenagers to purchase BlackBerry devices, but we guess we will never know. What do you guys think? Did BlackBerry make a mistake by passing up on Justin Bieber as a potential ambassador?

BlackBerry’s BBM app has always been pretty popular and we suppose its exclusiveness helped play a part back then, but now that it has made its way onto iOS and Android platforms, recent studies have found that the app still managed to retain its popularity, especially amongst certain Asia countries to the point where  it seems that customer service for a particular company in the Middle East has turned to using BBM to help keep in touch with customers as well as address any problems or enquiries that they might have. This is according to a tweet by @shahriyarali who wrote on his Twitter account, “Middle East now running customer care service on BBM for stores.”

When it comes to customer service usually a hotline is provided, or an email address. Sometimes there are some websites which even have customer service representatives chatting with you live to address your queries, so be able to reach out via BBM is definitely a pretty uncommon sight! We’re not sure if this is such a good idea, especially since whoever is using the phone will have their hands full replying to customers all the time, but at the end of the day it’s like getting paid to chat at work which isn’t such a bad thing, right?

Acer has recently unveiled their C720P, the company’s latest Chromebook which features a touchscreen display. However if a Chromebook wasn’t what you were after and you were looking for something for your desktop, Acer has announced the Acer Aspire Z3-600 all-in-one desktop system.  It will be priced starting at $779 and is expected to be made available for purchase in the US later this month, although Acer did not mention any specific dates, so we guess we will just have to keep an eye out for it.

So what can you expect for your money? Well the Acer Z3-600 will feature a 21.5” Full HD touchscreen display that will support the ability for users to perform handwriting on the display if they choose. While it has been designed to be a desktop system, the Z3-600 will also pack a built-in battery good for about 2.5 hours, which means that you should have no problems moving it around the house, or if you wish you could even take it to work or school with you.

The Z3-600 will be powered by an Intel Pentium J2580 quad-core processor and will feature Intel HD graphics. It will come with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 750GB hard drive, full HDMI support, and will include one USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports with a built-in HD webcam. It will also pack Harman Kardon speakers with Dolby audio.

Back in October, the Nokia Lumia 1320 was announced. The handset is another 6” smartphone by Nokia but unlike its sibling, the Lumia 1520, the Lumia 1320 will be slightly lower specced, meaning that it will be a tad more affordable for those who don’t really see the need for the latest or greatest hardware in their phones. The handset has recently made its way through the FCC but based on what we can see, the handset will feature the 3, 7, and 20 LTE bands which aren’t used in the USA, and will also lack AWS support, indicating that it will most likely be headed to Europe or international markets, rather than the US for now.

Based on Nokia’s announcement at that time, the Lumia 1320 is expected to head to countries such as China, Vietnam, India, and Europe, and is expected to cost around $339 before local taxes. For those who might have forgotten about the Lumia 1320, the handset will feature a 6” 720p HD (instead of 1080p Full HD) dispay, and will be powered by a dual-core processor (rather than a quad-core found on the Lumia 1520). It will also pack a 5MP rear-facing camera and will come with  8GB of onboard storage that can be expanded via microSD.

About a month back the much awaited Android 4.3 update for Galaxy S3 was leaked online. Build XXUGMMJ9 was officially released a couple of days after it leaked, however Samsung ended up having to pause the roll out because users who had updated reported various issues. It seemed that Samsung had rushed the update, so then the roll out was halted and users’ patience was tested. Android 4.3 for international Galaxy S3 has started rolling out today, this time the build is XXUGMK6 and it won’t cause issues that its predecessor did.

Stock international variants of the Galaxy S3, GT-I9300, should receive the update over-the-air in stages, so it might take some time before the update becomes available in your region. The update brings support for Galaxy Gear, reduces lag, improves battery life and also features some camera enhancements. Despite the fact that the previous built featured Samsung Knox enterprise security suite, XXUGMK6 doesn’t seem to come with the suite. While users complained of Wi-Fi issues, poor multitasking, battery drain, random freezing and more when they updated their Galaxy S3 to the previous build, so far those who have installed the latest Android 4.3 update seem to be pretty happy with it. If you were scarred last time, its pretty safe to tap that update now.

Square Enix announced today that Final Fantasy VIII has launched on PC through Steam and other “e-tailers.” This is the second title from the classic series to make its way to the PC via digital download. A number of Steam exclusive features have been added to the title, such as 45 new achievements despite the fact that when the game first came out in 1999, the original game didn’t include any achievements. Steam’s version of Final Fantasy VIII supports Steam Cloud, thus allowing gamers to transfer their save data between different PCs using the same game. No Mac or Linux support is present at launch, only Windows users will be able to get their Final Fantasy VIII fix via Steam at this point in time.

Prior to Final Fantasy XIII, this title was the fastest selling game in the entire series, it sold over 8.5 million copies around the globe. Final Fantasy VIII comes with a few enhancements as well, to make the game look much better on HD PCs. A feature that wasn’t available to Western gamers before has been added to the game now, called Chocobo World, it was added to the Japanese version after the game was first released in the U.S. Steam members can now purchase Final Fantasy VIII for $11.99.

Nearly two years ago, Google launched the Galaxy Nexus smartphone. Developed in collaboration with Samsung, it was the first smartphone to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Since then multiple Nexus smartphones have come and gone, and so have major Android OS updates. When Google unveiled Android 4.4 KitKat recently, Galaxy Nexus users expected that the company will support their device. Instead, Google announced that it would not release an official KitKat update for the Galaxy Nexus. Dejected owners then turned towards third-party developed ROMs, but there weren’t any stable ROMs available. If you have been waiting for one yourself, the wait if now over. A stable custom Galaxy Nexus Android 4.4 ROM has been released.

Built from AOSP, the CyanogenMod 11 custom Android 4.4 KitKat ROM for Galaxy Nexus is stable and all features are working. However, the ROMs status is still in beta because its missing some common CyanogenMod features, which are different from core Android OS features. Apart from a screenshot taking glitch, everything seems to be working. It goes without saying that flashing custom ROMs comes with its fair share of risks, so before you download the Galaxy Nexus CyanogenMod 11 Android 4.4 custom ROM, be sure that you know what you’re doing. The ROM and install instructions are available at XDA forums.