A BlackBerryCool.com contributor James, recently asked me how the major BlackBerry sites get their hands on pre-release devices. I thought I would give a quick explanation of the many ways it happens.
Leaked from companies
BlackBerry devices that have not yet hit the market, such as the BlackBerry Niagara, are floating around various RIM partner companies. They require these devices in order to build software for them. Sometimes, a company employee may get their hands on this device and leak the information to the blogosphere.
All companies that work with RIM are under an incredibly strict legal agreement to not release any information about the device. When this is broken, there could be harsh penalties and a possible end to the business relationship.
I heard a rumor that RIM once tracked down a leaked device source based on the type of wood grain seen in the leaked picture. The employee was immediately fired and the company had to seriously review its IT department. Continue reading about the various ways a device is leaked
BlackBerry themes and apps of an iPhone nature are fairly popular because it gives you the simple look and feel of an iPhone but you get to keep your pro device which is far better. It’s almost like having the best of both worlds.
Well now you can have the popular slide to unlock feature of the iPhone on your BlackBerry Storm. Just slide the bar from left to right to unlock your device. The app will start automatically when the screen dims and will also let you set a password.
Did you know you can use ALT+NMLL to show the signal strength in RSSI form rather than instead of bars? It’s an interesting way to look at signal strength and I wouldn’t mind displaying it rather than the bars. The above table shows the translation between number of bars and RSSI. The RSSI numbers are a vendor independent standard. That means that they mean something different from each vendor compared to the standard dBm’s.
Weight Watchers Online is promoting the BlackBerry Storm for the mobile side of their latest campaign. It seems the Storm is not only good for browsing the Internet, it helps you burn calories. The secret lies in the SurePress technology. That extra push builds muscle and burns fat!
T3 is a tech magazine that is reporting that RIM and T-Mobile are “holding a mystery joint event tonight” where the BlackBerry Niagara 9630 will be announced. It could be true that the event will demo the phone to certain parties and give them a first look, but I doubt it will be a public announcement. It would make more sense for RIM to announce the device at a conference such as WES 2009.
Tungle Accelerate significantly increases the accuracy while decreasing the time it takes to schedule and book meetings between individuals or groups – inside or outside an organization. It enables the proposal of multiple time slots with just one click; for the first time, permits people to see all invitees’ free / busy schedules both inside and outside organizations’ groupware platforms, before invitations are sent – and prevents double-booking through its intelligent and dynamically updated meeting invitations. This significantly decreases frustration and accelerates the speed of booking meetings.
“Despite all of the advances in communications and online meeting tools, people often still feel hopelessly frustrated when trying to schedule a meeting for a group of people from different organizations because of the difficulty in accessing calendars,” said Mark Levitt, vice president for Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 Strategies at IDC. “Tungle changes this paradigm by accelerating the process of sharing relevant calendar information to allow people to focus on having productive meetings, rather than on meeting logistics.” Continue reading about this great calendar solution that is completely free
