Back in September 2014, we announced Maestro, a brand new email client coming for Windows Phone 8.1. The email client promised to be a full-featured app for Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo! Mail. The app entered in a public preview for a few months before going back under wraps for the winter.

Today, Maestro 1.0 is here, and boy has it improved. From new features to performance improvements, Maestro has a clean slate going forward. The developers behind Maestro, Hidden Pineapple, are promising many new features for future builds, including conversations, better avatar support, more gestures, bug fixes, and improvements.

Even better? Maestro runs for $1.99 but if you download it today, it is yours for free forever. This offer is only good for the next 24-hours, so grab it now!

The Xbox/PC exclusive zombie survival game has picked up a thrilling debut trailer, composed entirely of in-game footage. State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition includes all the DLC released for the Xbox 360, in addition to new weapons, vehicles and characters, and will launch on April 28th.

Check out the trailer here!

When it comes to keeping our messages secure we are all aware that our BlackBerry devices have our backs. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t take extra precautions safeguarding our personal messages from prying eyes. While multiple applications are at our disposal to hide unwanted text messages from other uses, having one more option at your fingertips is always a good thing.

With Secret SMS and MMS, selected contacts and their conversations are stored within the application and removed from the Hub. Similar to the Private SMS feature in their populate Privacy Suite Pro application, this time it gets its own standalone headless version with some nice additions to improve the experience.

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As part of its spring content update, first-person shooter Modern Combat 5: Blackout is going free-to-play on the iPhone and iPad.

Previously available for $5.99, Blackout was one of our favorite games without in-app purchases. The game is now free to download and play, and in-app purchases come along as a part of that.

Blackout now features an energy system, which limits how often you can play. You’ll get a certain amount of time to play for free, which can be extended by purchasing more energy. If you elect not to pay, you’ll need to wait for your energy to refill. Players that have already paid for the game are given Veteran status. Veterans don’t need to pay for energy, and can play as much as they want without additional payments.

The spring content update also brings new weapons, more customization, the Support character class, and controller support. There’s also a new multiplayer game mode, Zone Control.

You can download Modern Combat 5: Blackout now from the App Store.

• Free – Download Now

Ubisoft announced today that the next entry into its line of Driver games will be bringing speedboat racing to iOS in April.

Titled “Driver Speedboat Paradise,” the game puts players in the shoes of a young speedboat racer as he is enlisted to combat the mafia… by racing speedboats.

Ubisoft says that the game will feature realistic visuals and challenging courses as waves shift and change in real-time. Players will have to master the art of riding and dodging waves, water drifting, and performing crazy stunts with ramps planted throughout the game’s courses. Along the way, players will collect upgrades for their boats including ship parts, new boats, and decals that will let them pimp their ride.

Overall, the plot of Driver Speedboat Paradise is either the most ridiculous or most amazing thing we’ve heard in a while. Either way, you’ll be able to check it out when it lands on iOS in April. In the meantime, you can check out the game’s trailer above.

Press Release:

Trying to make people afraid of enabling, empowering technology isn’t bad journalism, it’s an attack.

Yet that’s exactly what happened last night when the New York Times published an article originally titled “Could wearable computers be as harmful as cigarettes?”, later amended to “The Health Concerns in Wearable Tech”.

But what does all this research tell the Apple faithful who want to rush out and buy an Apple Watch, or the Google and Windows fanatics who are eager to own an alternative smartwatch?

Nothing. Because no “research” was properly presented, no true experts were quoted, and nothing was done, in good faith, to further knowledge or understanding.

The Apple Watch is going to help many people in many ways. It’s going to make the world more accessible for some, and it’s going to make lives healthier and more fit for others. The NYT, by picking a narrative to make a story instead of researching facts to present one, is not only failing to inform but is actively disinforming. It’s making its readership dumber.

That’s the only really frightening thing about it.

For more information on the science behind Apple Watch, iPhone, and health, check out Derek Kessler’s essay:

• Relax, your smartphone and smartwatch won’t — and can’t — give you cancer

Update: In addition to numerous tech publications calling the article to task, Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times Public Editor has now weighed in as well:

Here’s my take: Mr. Bilton’s writing on technology — on which he’s often engaging and informative — doesn’t make him a health or science expert. It is, of course, possible for a non-expert to write effectively on a complicated subject but, when that happens, extra checking and caution is in order. That didn’t happen here.

And although Mr. Bilton is a columnist, with plenty of leeway for expressing opinion, the careful interpretation of facts still matters. That, too, was lacking.

What’s more, the original web headline felt like click bait, although it certainly reflected the top of the column. Toning it down was a smart move — in fact, a necessity. That change happened after Times Science staff members saw the first headline online and objected, Mr. Emmrich told me.

If you use the default Calendar app on your iPhone or iPad, you can quickly and easily manage any events you were invited to, no matter how you RSVP’d the first time around. If you decide later you need to change your mind, you can quickly access an entire list of all the events you were invited to by following these steps:

How to manage all shared calendar events on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Calendar app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap on Inbox in the bottom right hand corner.
3. Tap on Replied in the top navigation.
4. You’ll see an entire list of shared events. Tap on any of them to view more details or tap on any action button to change your reply quickly.

Pebble will put their own money in backing smartstrap ideas to help turn them into products.

When the Pebble Time Steel was announced Pebble also announced smartstraps – an open hardware accessory platform. Since then there has been a lot of buzz in the developer community about smartstraps, which allow sensors to be added right into the bands. To help these ideas grow into actual products Pebble has just announced that they are putting 1 million dollars into funding the development and support of smartstraps.

We monitor Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms for Pebble smartstrap-related projects, and we’ll back the best of them. We truly understand the value of backing projects in their early state, having started that way ourselves. From there, we expect many projects to evolve into products fit for wider release.

Pebble will not be able to fund every single project that comes out, but they will be using their best judgement to distribute the available funds. A few companies have already caught the eye of Pebble with their ideas, the first being Spark.io. The concept presented here would allow you to be able to untether your Pebble and connect directly to a cellular network, allowing for your watch to remain connected at all times. Next up is SeeedStudio who looks to create a connector for their arduino-compatible Xadow modules which include GPS, NFC and Heart Rate Sensors.

The process of qualifying for funding from Pebble is outlined very simply. Get your team together and build a prototype, then put your idea on a crowdfunding platform, and finally get in touch with the Pebble team through Twitter or email. If you had any interest in building a smartstrap for the Pebble Time, this is definitely great motivation to get in gear and see if Pebble will support your ideas.

Press release:

Microsoft today announced yet another affordable Windows Phone, the Lumia 430.

But, coming not long after the Lumia 435 and being pretty close to it in the naming scheme, there are going to be those asking “so what’s different?” It can get confusing, so here we try to break it down and see how, if at all, the Lumia 430 differs from the Lumia 435.

Although the initial roll out of the BlackBerry Classic came pretty fast, there’s still some regions out there waiting for the device to arrive fully and one of them is Indonesia but the wait is soon over. Telkomsel, one of Indonesia’s largest carriers, has now started taking pre-orders for the device and will continue all the way through until March 24th and through their partnerships with Blanja.com, Erafone.com and Blibli.com, they also have some special offers in place.

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