Monthly Archive for February, 2009Page 10 of 18

All good things…

Posted
by
Douglas Soltys
on February 18, 2009, at 3:32 AM
in Editorials
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33 Comments

Jim Balsillie and Douglas SoltysMike Lazaridis and Douglas Soltys

Which of these three people is not a RIM Co-CEO?

2009 is set to be an historic year worldwide, but it seems as though my beloved Canada is failing to play a role. The Sens still suck, the Raptors still suck, and no one wants another federal election. With President Obama’s visit to our nation’s capital drawing ever nearer, I’ve decided to put my own stamp of change on the New Year. To that effect, as of this Friday I will no longer be Editor-in-Chief of BlackBerry Cool.

During my time at the ‘Cool, much has changed in the BlackBerry space. I can remember back in the early days writing an editorial (one of my first, in fact) in favor of the then much-rumored Apple/RIM device we had dubbed the ‘iBerry’ — we all know how that worked out. BlackBerry Cool has changed quite a bit in that time as well: we’re prettier, faster, and with writers like Kyle McInnes, Nan Palmero, and Jonathan Brandon, filled with new blood and fresh opinions. In the end, I guess that’s why leaving BlackBerry Cool, a site that I’ve grown with and has grown with me, doesn’t seem as heartbreaking as it should. With the new BBCool team and the myriad BlackBerry sites on the web now (remember when it was just BlackBerry Forums, and BBCool?), I know I leave things in good hands.

As for my part? I’ve had the opportunity to meet with many industry luminaries (see above photos), broken some pretty major news, launched a cool mobile application, hosted breakthrough industry events, and played with so many pre-release BlackBerrys that you should be jealous. I leave BlackBerry Cool with no regrets and many fond memories.

I will be thanking many people for their help in this journey during the next few weeks, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to you, the reader. Thank you for your constant support, encouragement, and proving the impetus to forgo sleep for just one more post. If you’re ever looking to chat BlackBerry, you know where to find me.

Douglas Soltys
Editor-in-Chief
BlackBerry Cool

Cisco extends Cisco WebEx Meeting Center Service to BlackBerry to enable easy mobile web conferencing

Posted
by
BlackBerry Cool
on February 17, 2009, at 11:25 AM
in News
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6 Comments

Press Release

Mobile World Congress – Cisco is announcing further expansion of its mobile collaboration portfolio offering for leading 3G smartphones. Users will be able to join Cisco WebEx Meeting Center web and audio conferences on smartphones including the BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve 8900, and BlackBerry Storm. They will be able to participate in audio and web conferencing via 3G or Wi-Fi, attend scheduled meetings and view presentations, applications and desktops with live annotations. In addition, Cisco is announcing the capability for hosts of Cisco WebEx meeting applications, including Meeting Center, Training Center, and Event Center to invite attendees with SMS-capable phones to attend meetings by responding to an SMS invitation.

“Enabling access to Cisco WebEx Meeting Center over BlackBerry smartphones offers a rich collaborative experience that will be welcomed by customers,” said Jeff McDowell, vice president of Global Alliances at Research In Motion. “This solution enhances mobile worker productivity with secure access and uses the unique and intuitive ‘Join Now’ capability of the BlackBerry platform — where one click connects to the conference automatically.”

Cisco WebEx Meeting Center support for these BlackBerrys is scheduled to be available in April 2009. You can see a list of key facts after the jump.

Cisco WebEx Meeting Center Key Facts

Lenovo and RIM to deliver Constant Connect, who is it for?

Posted
by
BlackBerry Cool
on February 17, 2009, at 11:04 AM
in News
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3 Comments

Some interesting news was released by RIM and Lenovo yesterday, as the two companies jointly announced a new mobile solution for ThinkPad laptops. Called Constant Connect, the solution will allow enterprise email received on a user’s BlackBerry smartphone to be automatically synchronized via Bluetooth onto the user’s ThinkPad laptop – even if the ThinkPad laptop is off – without the user having to take any additional steps. However, my boy Ronen over at BerryReview seems to question whether or not Constanct Connect is too specific of an enterprise solution to be of use to many people.

The card is essentially a Bluetooth radio with 500 Mb of storage and works with Outlook/Exchange, POP3, & Gmail. This might be cool if it would automatically let you use your BlackBerry as a tethered modem, but it doesn’t. From the wording of RIM’s press release, it will not even let you send email! The only use I can see for it is for attachments that open better on a laptop, otherwise this is a useless piece of… Who the hell is going to pay $150 to read email they already have on their BlackBerry? This will also tie up their Bluetooth connection and kill their BlackBerry battery and not letting them use a headset while on the go! Many workers who have $150 to spend and are mobile enough to justify a product like this probably already have a wireless data card built into their ThinkPad.

I’m leaning toward agreeing with Ronen here. Either you’re a ‘on-the-go business user’ that is more likely to invest in a wireless data card or a tethering solution, or you need email on your laptop so infrequently that you could simply find a wireless hotspot (at your nearest Starbucks, for example) when necessary. Post a comment and tell us who you think this product is for; the full press release is after the jump.

Lenovo Constant Connect Press Release

Make money testing BlackBerry apps on 02 UK

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on February 17, 2009, at 10:50 AM
in News
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4 Comments

It’s not just developers who can earn cash from mobile apps, the pleebs can too! O2 in the UK has unveiled an app store that lets mobile phone users earn money by testing apps for their handsets and providing feedback to the developers. So all that time you spend in the blogosphere, testing Betas and giving back to the community can finally pay off. The site is live for customers and O2 has been asking for developers to contribute since back in December. Check out Mob4Hire for an idea of how the payment system will work.

[Via]

RIM’s BlackBerry Application Suite for Windows Mobile

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on February 17, 2009, at 9:45 AM
in News
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15 Comments

The BlackBerry Application Suite for Windows Mobile is getting some great feedback. The suite, will begin to replace many of the popular user interfaces today with that of the BlackBerry interface. To get the suite on your device is no different than any WinMo app. You get a .cab file and boot it up like any other app. One caveat, the TouchFLO 3D user interface must be turned off.

Here are some highlights of the suite:

Integration:
The GPS and Bluetooth are integrated seamlessly. The suite is functional enough to allow the BlackBerry interface to almost fully take over the device. Calling is still handled by the WinMo side of things, but the BlackBerry side can handle all your SMS/MMS messages.

Navigation:
Although the BlackBerry UI itself is very navigation and user friendly, the Application Suite does not respond well to the touch interface. The system is therefore not entirely finger-friendly, but this may change in future builds.

Even though WinMo users are incredibly proud, I should hope they’re giving RIM some thanks and appreciation for taking their almost impossible to use and giving it a dose of BlackBerry. RIM also has plans for Symbian, and if you’ve ever used a Nokia E Series, you know this has been a long time coming.

[Via]

LeBron James and his Gold BlackBerry Bold

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on February 17, 2009, at 5:42 AM
in News
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2 Comments

LeBron has a fairly nice Gold BlackBerry Bold but something is wrong with this picture. The Bold clearly has a Colorware job, which is fairly reasonably priced custom painting solution. LeBron James and his hundreds of millions of dollars should be able to afford more, no? With that kind of money, you could be commissioning RIM to build you a BlackBerry you could shoot hoops with. Although, eccentricities might be frowned upon in these harsh economic times.

[Via]

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