At its 2012 BlackBerry World Conference in Orlando on Tuesday, May 1, Research In Motion (RIM) demonstrated some of the most attractive features which are coming aboard its BlackBerry OS 10 software, scheduled for launch later this year.

With RIM, which is struggling to keep pace with competitors in the smartphone and tablet arena, pinning its hopes on BlackBerry 10 OS to turn around its fortunes, a prototype BlackBerry running the overhauled software was unveiled by the company’s CEO Thorsten Heins at the event.

While refraining from making any official disclosure about the expected launch date for the BlackBerry 10 OS, Heins began the demo of the software with the home screen. The prototype BlackBerry – which Heins stressed was not a finished product - had a touch-screen, and, like most of the BlackBerry handsets, lacked a physical keyboard.

Despite the fact that the BlackBerry 10 OS demo did not reveal many details about the working of each of the swatches on-screen, one of the new features which came through on the prototype device was a modified touch-screen keypad which will apparently enable the users to select full words with a single key stroke.

Meanwhile, in an apparent attempt to draw attention to the fact that app developers will play a pivotal role in getting BlackBerry 10 OS going, RIM used the Tuesday event to release its toolkit in beta so as to help developers begin the creation of apps for the forthcoming OS.