RIM introduces the Kickstart, uh, Blackberry Pearl Flip

blackberrypearlflip RIM announced its first "flip" open device this morning, a widely-expected product the company will use to outflank Apple and other emerging smartphone competitors.

With the fall release of the Pearl Flip 8220rent a car bulgaria, RIM hopes to sell more smartphones, which allow users to trade e-mails and take photos among other functions, to the 18 to 35 year old set.

The BlackBerry maker released the Bold model earlier this year to help maintain its dominant position in the fast-growing North American smartphone market. Widespread speculation is that RIM will release a touchscreen device codenamed Thunder, sometime this quarter.

With faster cell phone networks and better handsets available, it is now a more attractive option for consumers and business people to buy all-in-one devices.

Not coincidentally, the competition in the smartphone field has heated up - RIM, Nokia, Apple and Microsoft’s cell phone partners, such as Sony Ericsson, are all vying for a larger part of the pie.

Apple (presumably) has made the greatest gains in the market with its white-hot iPhone.

The Pearl Flip, which has been widely discussed for months now, looks pretty much as advertised. It is a clamshell device that has the infamous BlackBerry trackball in the middle. The keyboard looks very much like a Pearl while the start and end call buttons are strategically positioned around the trackball as are the menu and reverse buttons. And of course, it flips open.

Waterloo, Ont.-based RIM announced the phone at the annual CTIA trade show, said T-Mobile will be the first to carry the phone in the United States. Rogers will probably carry it first in Canada.

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September 10, 2008 | Filed Under News Items and Commentary | 2 Comments 

The utility of Google’s Chrome

Google Chrome comic image It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Super Google! You’d think the search engine king had just found the cure for cancer today with the Chrome Web browser/application announcement.

Most immediately, it will rival Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox browser of course. It’s long-term impact is very much a subject of debate despite the hyperbole and HTML code spilled onto the Web over Google’s shiny new Web toy.

What’s more fun was to sift through the bevy of theories as to what Google’s end game is with the Web app.

The most popular reason for Chrome’s creation? Naturally, that it’s going to meant to slay the mighty Microsoft or at least undercut the value of the company’s ubiquitous Windows operating system, leaving Linux or some other variant to do the grunt work on the desktop.

Here are a few other popular theories being bandied about on the Web:

Chrome is designed so that Google to SPY on you! Yes, that’s right. Sergey Brin and Larry Page want to monitor your every Web movement.

Google, naturally, has refuted the charges in its own inimitable way - via a blog post. Queries and an interesting discussion about the purpose of the browser and how it will solve world peace can be found on the Google blog as well.

Then, there’s of course the mobile arena. Chrome, according to Dow Jones, is supposed to help Google control the mobile phone like Microsoft has been able to with the desktop computer.

Finally, leave it to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington to declare Chrome as reason enough not to use Microsoft products even though he’s never used Google’s latest creation.

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September 3, 2008 | Filed Under News Items and Commentary | 1 Comment