In today’s mobile news roundup: A kid takes center stage in Galaxy SIV teaser; Yahoo! shuts down BlackBerry app; Indian government to control BlackBerry infrastructure; ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 first non-Nexus to get Jelly Bean; Sprint will not offer BB Z10; and Verizon busts a church deacon for child pornography.

Kid takes centerstage in Galaxy SIV teaser

At Mobile World Congress last week Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 8.0, an 8-inch phablet that falls between the Note II and the Note 10.1 and announced the debut of the Galaxy SIV in the US.

Samsung has released its first teaser, “Be Ready 4 the Next Galaxy,” which features “Jeremy,” the secret messenger of the Samsung Unpacked 2013.  The teaser features a kid in charge of keeping the secret until it is ready to be revealed.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the next big secret is the Galaxy SIV.

Not entirely sure what’s a kid got to do with the SIV, but let’s just go along with it.  Here’s the full teaser:

http://youtu.be/dIEfNaNCkKM

Yahoo! shuts down BlackBerry app

Yahoo! has terminated several of its products such as Yahoo App Search, Yahoo Sports IQ, Yahoo Clues, the Yahoo Message Boards website, Yahoo Updates API, and its BlackBerry app.

According to Yahoo, by April 1, the Yahoo app for BlackBerries will not be available for downloaded and will no longer be supported.

Aside from the above products being retired, Yahoo Avatars will no longer be supported, which means you’ll have to say bye-bye to your beloved cartoonized self.

The take down is intended to clean up its slate from products that are not that popular.  As for Yahoo’s mobile efforts, the company just wants to trim down mobile apps from 60-76 down to 12-15 apps that people actually use.

Indian government to control BlackBerry infrastructure

The Indian government plans on taking over BlackBerry servers and infrastructures in Mumbai to tests solutions offered by the phone company for legal interception of internet communication.

BlackBerry previously refused to the government’s demands, but has now complied with requirements that ensures all its services are intercepted in a readable format, in real-time, when required by security agencies.

“With respect to PIN to IMEI resolution, the tested solution is apparently satisfactory for all the handsets officially shipped to India. With regard to handsets shipped to other countries, RIM intimated that PIN to IMEI correlation in such cases can be obtained through BlackBerry Public safety office (PSO),” said the internal note from the telecom ministry. “We may negotiate with RIM to provide the entire IMEI-PIN correlation data of other countries.”

ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 first non-Nexus to get Jelly Bean

The ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 is the first non-Nexus device to get the Android 4.2 a.k.a. Jelly Bean update.  ASUS has announced that the update will start rolling out today.
Aside from the over-the-air Jelly Bean update, owners of TF300 will get updates for the App Locker, Virtual Keyboard, Lock Screen and Setup Wizard applications.  While Transformer Pad Infinity, The MeMo Pad Smart 10-inch, and the MeMo pad will get the update by the second half of 2013.

Sprint will not offer BB Z10

In a surprising move, Sprint has announced that it will not be offering the BlackBerry Z10 when it becomes available in the US this month.  Still, BlackBerry fans should not be quick to jump ship, since the company stated that it offer the Q10, the BlackBerry 10 device that has a physical keyboard, when it becomes available.

“We aren’t saying there’s anything different about our customers,” Sprint spokesman Mark Elliott said. “We think our customers will be happy with the qwerty keyboard and touch screen on the Q10.”

Verizon busts deacon for child pornography

Verizon has alerted authorities when it detected child pornography in an account on its Verizon Online Backup and Sharing, which belonged to William Steven Albaugh, a deacon at St. Joseph’s Church in Fullerton, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore.

The police arrested Albaugh, who admitted owning the porn materials, but stated that he was not involved in shooting or making them.  He also stated that he started collecting the materials since the ‘70s.  The authorities claimed that none of the children in the photos and videos were from the church, its school, or the Fullerton community.