Video: Hands on of Windows Phone 8.1 Cortana in Action

Windows Phone 8.1 is coming to devices later this year and promises to be the biggest update to any Microsoft based mobile platform since it jumped from Windows Phone 6.5 to Windows Phone 7. One of the key changes to this update will be a personal assistant simply known as "Cortana". Over at Unleash the Phones, they have somehow managed to get demo of this new feature in action. You can check out the video below:

There' no definite proof that Cortana will try to predict the information you want before you ask for it like Google Now; however, as you can see in the video, it does collect information on your likes during the set up process. I am very curious to know what it will do with that information after it collects it. According to a report earlier this week from The Verge, Cortana will offer some of those Google Now suggestions for appointments and flights, so maybe that's why it asks the set-up questions. While this video's information is limited, at least we got a peak into the new feature and that will have to be good enough for now.

OneDrive cloud connection makes its way to BlackBerry 10

Funny thing about this cloud service trend; it's designed to let us upload and access data anywhere, but not all cloud storage providers make their services easily available on all mobile platforms. Microsoft's OneDrive has previously been supported only on Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone, but with today's release of Connect to Microsoft OneDrive, BlackBerry 10 users can store their cloud apps as reliably as people on other platforms.

Connect to Microsoft OneDrive is built by BlackBerry rather than Microsoft, so it's not a client in the traditional sense as seen on other platforms. Much like the Dropbox connection BlackBerry baked into BB10, it's designed to offer an integrated function that can be used to browse through files or upload content to OneDrive. Users can upload, open, or edit documents through the connection and have changes automatically saved to cloud. Photos and videos taken on a BlackBerry 10 device are automatically uploaded so they can be accessed on a desktop or stored as a backup.

The downside to this approach is that you might not get as equal an experience compared to what companies are able to create when they handle the app process. The upside is that it's a better alternative than nothing for people who use OneDrive, and as we've seen with Dropbox, you're not missing out on that much by using an app built by BlackBerry. The core functions of cloud uploading and downloading are still present, and you're able to get a free 7GB of storage when signing up.

Download OneDrive for BlackBerrry

Samsung ends practice of juicing its benchmark stats with Android 4.4 update

When the Android 4.4 update arrives on popular phones like the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and Galaxy Note 3, people will be pleased about the small improvements behind the scenes and the new UI features available in the update. One feature that won't get as much attention outside of a few obsessive tech users is that Samsung has finally stopped rigging its phones to turn in higher than normal benchmark scores.

You may recall that Samsung was found to send the phone into unrealistic states in order to make its benchmark scores go higher. The company would set all of the cores in the device at their maximum speeds only when it detected that a benchmark app was open, which gave the device high scores that could never be replicated in normal conditions, and gave a false sense that Samsung products were significantly more powerful than rivals.

Ars Technica has compared both the Galaxy S 4 and Note 3 under Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and Android 4.4 KitKat. After running tests on both devices to see how they performed pre-and-post-KitKat, the site found that Samsung no longer boosts its benchmarks scores. Though people often put too much stock in benchmarks, it's good to know that Samsung is being more honest in its handling for the people who do care about such things. Charts and a full breakdown are available at the link below.

VIA

FreedomPop Privacy Phone pits specs vs. security

What matters most to you: a great phone with solid specs and so-so security, or an outdated phone that's likely to be more secure than anything else on the market? That's the question posted by FreedomPop's new Privacy Phone that takes a familiar Android device and then packs it with VPN, encryption, and other settings designed to keep the government, hackers, and prying eyes off of your data and activity. But is this extra layer of privacy worth it?

While the theory of Privacy Phone seems very intriguing, I'm less enthused about the hardware used to deliver it. FreedomPop built the "Snowden Phone" (that's actually what they call it unofficially) by refurbishing an old Samsung Galaxy S II. The folks at the VoIP service provider took a three year old phone and then tacked on added protection like VPN for anonymous Internet browsing, encryption for messages and phone calls, and the ability to pay with Bitcoin to have extra privacy. Again, sounds great, but is that good enough to have a phone with:

- 1.2 GHz dual-core processor (Exynos C210)

- 16GB internal storage

- 8-megapixel camera

- 1,800 mAh battery

- Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n

- 128-bit encryption

The Privacy Phone costs $189 and comes with three months of unlimited VoIP calling and 500 MB data. After three months have passed, the phone costs $10 per month, or whatever the equivalent of $10 in Bitcoin is each month.