Research in Motion has moved Blackberry Messanger 7 out of the beta zone and into the hands of the public. Starting today, a free update to the networking service is available. The biggest addition to BBM 7 is the new Voice feature, which allows free voice calls over Wi-Fi.

Just a few weeks after announcing its arrival in the Beta Zone, Research in Motion has opened the gates and is making BlackBerry Messanger version 7 available to the public. The free update to the mobile social network brings some significant changes for those that still do the majority of their chatting on a Blackberry device. It’s available today to folks running running BlackBerry 6 OS or higher. If you’re still using 5, expect the update to roll out to you sometime early next year. 

Research in Motion seems most excited about the addition of BBM Voice. A new way to communicate within the messenger service, BBM Voice will allow users to make Wi-Fi free voice calls to their contact list. Beta testers seemed rather pleased with the feature, as is Vice President of BBM T.A. McCann, who stated, “With the integrated experience, we extend the core features of reliable, real-time engagement to include voice calling and take BBM to the next level.”

Also making an appearance in BBM 7 is the ability to multitask while engaged in conversation with split-screen, an additional indicator in the contacts list to show when a person is available for a voice call, direct update notifications, 16 new emoticons (in case there is anything you can’t express via voice but can sum up with a tiny animated face), and BlackBerry ID synchronization that will store profiles and contact information. The ID sync likely comes to make the switch to Blackberry 10 more convenient. We just hope those new emoticons make the jump to the new operating system as well.

LG has announced sales of its L Series phones -- which consists of four different models -- have reached the impressive figure of 10 million.

Anything arch-rival Samsung can do, LG can do as well, and this week it can tick send self-congratulatory press release off its to-do list, complete with a picture of smiley people celebrating, something it has done to announce a total of 10 million L Series phone sales. LG first launched its L Series phones during Mobile World Congress in February, and has since added a top-of-the-range model in the shape of the Optimus L9.

While Samsung has told us it has sold five million Galaxy Note 2 smartphone/tablet hybrids, and more than 30 million Galaxy S3 phones, LG is giving us its total for a collection of four different devices. The L Series range consists of the basic Optimus L3, the Optimus L5, the Optimus L7 and the aforementioned Optimus L9. They’re promoted as fashionable alternatives to the sea of identikit Android phones available, a point LG pushes right at the start of its press blurb, saying the 10 million sales prove “many consumers want attractive smartphones with distinctive — not ‘me too’ — styling.”

LG’s CEO adds, “This milestone demonstrates the importance of delivering smartphones with stylish design, comparative size of display and enhanced UX features.” LG made plenty of noise about its updated Optimus UI 3.0 user interface when it was released back in May, which was placed over the top of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and can be found on the Optimus L9, while a slightly cut down version exists on the Optimus L7.

Eight figure sales of any smartphone is impressive, but we’d have liked to see a breakdown of which L Series handset has proven most popular too. LG has traditionally sold well in the U.S., with ComScore recently putting them second to Samsung in its charts with an 18-percent market share, however the company didn’t even make it into the top five on IDC’s global market share list.

With the L Series one year anniversary fast approaching, perhaps MWC 2013 will provide the stage for any sequels LG may have in the works.

Further details on Samsung's Premium Suite update, heading for the Galaxy S3 smartphone soon, have been revealed in a second video. This time it concentrates on new camera and accessibility features.

Late last week, Samsung released a video showing its Premium Suite software upgrades headed to the Galaxy S3 smartphone, as part of its Android 4.1.2 update. Today it has provided even more information on the new features and although we knew there was more to come, as the earlier video was labeled Part One, we didn’t expect part two to appear so soon.

This time, the video discusses new features related to multimedia — primarily the camera — and improved accessibility too. Starting with the camera upgrades, Samsung has added what it calls Best Face, which is a variation on burst mode, but instead of solely choosing the best of a series of pictures, it lets you swap faces from each snap. This works well in group photos, where blinks or silly expressions — unless that was what you wanted — can be eliminated. It looks great in the video.

Next is a new low-light mode, which can take bright, clear images even without a flash. Again, it looks very impressive in the demo video, but this is one feature that will need some real world testing to measure its true effectiveness. Finally, there’s Paper Artist, another port over from the Galaxy Note 2. This gives your photos a pencil art look, which can be enhanced by scrubbing over sections to reveal the picture underneath. On the Note 2, this is most effective using the S-Pen stylus, so it’ll be interesting to see how it works with a finger instead.

Moving on to the improved accessibility, new smartphone owners will get to use Easy Mode, where five frequently used apps and widgets appear on simplified home pages, minimizing the need for newcomers to dig around in Android’s menus to find an app. During setup, the accessibility menu has been added to the procedure, making it easier for those with disabilities to switch on the S3’s features straight away. Finally, the camera will now tell users how many faces it detects in its frame.

As before, Samsung hasn’t given a release date for the Premium Suite, but it does hint that it’s already on its way, so if you own an unlocked Galaxy S3 it’ll be worth checking Software Update periodically from now on to see if it has arrived.