THE NEWS WRAP: Amazon turns up the heat in smartphone market with Fire

Amazon has unveiled its long awaited smartphone – Fire.

Features include Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, which the company is describing as breakthrough innovations that “let you see and interact with the world through a whole new lens”.

Dynamic perspective uses a new sensor system to respond to the way you hold, view and move Fire.

Firefly quickly recognises things in the real world – web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, music, movies, and millions of products which can be added to your Amazon shopping cart.

It has a Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 2.2 GHz processor, 4.7 inch HD display and is set to be released on July 25.

Canadian court orders Google to block websites worldwide

The Canadian Supreme Court has issued a temporary injunction which requires Google to block a group of websites from its search engine.

The decision came despite arguments from Google’s lawyers that the Canadian courts did not have jurisdiction to make such an order.

App that just says ‘Yo’ raises $1 million in investment

The app, which took eight hours to build, allows users to send the word ‘Yo’ to their friends.

Founder Or Arbel says the app deals with “context-based communications”.

The app, which was released on April Fools’ Day this year, has raised $1 million in investment and has over 50,000 users, according to ThinkProgress.

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 98.13 to 16,906.62. The Australian dollar is currently trading at US94 cents.