RIM has released a few free holiday themes to celebrate the season and even though they’re pretty simplistic, they’re still nice to look at. Considering it’s RIM, it would have been cool to see some themes with a little more creativity and animations, but their is still time and apparently they’ll be releasing more free content throughout the holiday season.
Also, strangely enough, RIM is limiting these free themes to the US and Canada. Why wouldn’t RIM offer this to Latin America and Europe?
A new app will be hitting the App World Test Center and Beta Zone over the next couple days called BlackBerry News Feeds. The app is an integrated RSS reader that lets you read your daily news and share it with your contacts. Not much is known about this app but hopefully it will have some integration with Google Reader, otherwise many users won’t switch over from their current solutions.
One interesting point that Lazaridis made about the PlayBook which we’re hearing more about is how the PlayBook stores data. Apparently, nothing is kept on the device and if you lose the PlayBook, nothing will remain on the device. This sounds like it could be great for security but hopefully it doesn’t take long for all the data to sync up.
During the interview, AllthingsD asks a few times if a BlackBerry will run Android. This seems like a strange question given the QNX acquisition was obviously intended to leapfrog the competition. Overall, this interview seemed to go much more smoothly.
ScanLife is running a contest right now where they’ll be giving away prizes ranging from an Apple TV to an Amazon Kindle. The contest is simple to enter and involves:
1. Using your ScanLife app on Android, BlackBerry, or iPhone, scan any UPC barcode on a product of your choice.
2. Once your content loads, click on the Daily Holiday Giveaway banner (shown above)
3. Select the “Twitter” button to follow ScanLife or “Facebook” button to post on your wall.
We talk a lot about mobile payment systems here at BlackBerryCool because it’s a fast growing industry with some pretty awesome implications for retail and business in general. The BlackBerry, being a secure and ubiquitous device, is the ideal platform for capturing mobile payments and we’ve recently come across a pretty awesome solution called Wireless Merchant.
Wireless Merchant is a two in one application for BlackBerry. The first application is a Credit Card Processing Module which allows merchants to process their clients’ credit cards and receive an authorization almost immediately. The second application is an Order Entry/Billing Module which integrates directly to back office accounting systems (Sage ACCPAC ERP, Sage BusinessVision and QuickBooks). This application brings the customers, items, pricing, taxes etc. into the BlackBerry and allows the merchant to process an Order, Invoice, Credit Note and/or a Quote while automatically updating their accounting system and creating a domino effect. All of this backend updating is done in real time. Continue reading ‘Wireless Merchant Mobile Accounting and Payment Solution Comes with Competitive Pricing’
We reported not too long ago that BlackBerry App World had undergone some server updates in order to accommodate for digital goods and in-app purchases. During this upgrade phase, the reporting system was down for a brief time. Another ramification of the changes is that reporting now supports scheduled reports. Distimo let us know that their team has updated Monitor to work with the updated App World. Click through for an explanation of the changes and what to do if you’re a current Distimo Monitor user. Continue reading ‘Distimo Monitor Service Now Supports App World Scheduled Reports’
