Nan Palmero and I, Matt Cameron, will be at WES 2010 representing BlackBerryCool so come say “hi” to us at the show. The above video is just a quick chat we had about the upcoming show, and the quality of the upload is so bad that I would suggest listening to it and avoiding the video.
When we recorded the video, we weren’t sure who the musical acts would be, but we now know it’s Bedouin Soundclash, Joss Stone and guest DJ will.i.am. Will.i.am will also be a panelist on Next Generation Mobile Users featuring futurist Ben Silverman, CEO and Founder of Electus. Continue reading ‘Meet BlackBerryCool at WES 2010: Stage Dancing, Shield and More’
Another week in BlackBerry and this week really finished with a bang. This week ended with rumors of a BlackBerry tablet coming in 2010, which would be a really interesting turn of events for RIM. We’re constantly seeing RIM diversify their product offerings and this would be yet another business that is almost totally unrelated to smartphones. The tablet rumor came right around the same time that we learned RIM acquired the Ottawa-based QNX, who are a fairly large company with revenues probably in the tens of millions, and specialize in automotive infotainment. Other than the rumor mill, we let everyone know that Twitter for BlackBerry is now in public beta. The app is the official Twitter app for BlackBerry and comes with a wide range of features to integrate Twitter into many facets of your device.
I really recommend checking out the “Other” section of this week’s roundup, as we have a lot of unique editorial content such as a talk with Rob Woodbridge of Untether.TV and Rob Kao of SmrtGuard about the upcoming BlackBerry Shield. Continue reading ‘BlackBerryCool Roundup for the Week of April 5th’
This was a great week for the BlackBerry Nation filled with OS leaks, new apps, and some good news on the BIS side of things. The BlackBerry Beta Zone launched this week and it’s a great opportunity for the general public to get access to invite-only beta apps. This means you can get an advanced look at the latest BlackBerry Messenger, Desktop Manager, or even OS builds. I’ve heard most of the apps will be available to anyone, but OS builds will be selected based on device and carrier conditions. So if you’re an early adopter, this program is perfect for you.
Something that wasn’t mentioned, which I’ll say now without creating a new post, is that BlackBerry Shield will be announced at WES. While it won’t launch for some time later, we do know it will be part of the press announcements. Click through after the jump and get caught up on a week of BlackBerry news.
Speaking of WES, don’t forget to sign up for Zenprise’s Smartphone Support Story contest where they’ll be giving away a free ticket to WES 2010. If you submit a story by video, and you win, they’ll also cover the cost of your flight. Check it out at Facebook.com/Zenprise.
Moby is a new app that is currently in Alpha and they’re looking for Beta testers. Through a series of customizable alerts, a user can connect and direct chosen contacts or professional security to their location in an emergency.
Moby has some of the following features to protect the owner and alert their contacts:
Set a secret button on your phone that instantly sends an alert to your family, colleagues, or professionals – depending on your level of service.
Set a recurring schedule for your phone to ask ‘Are you okay?’ If you don’t respond, Moby automatically notifies your contacts.
Set a schedule to automatically send your location on a Google map to your contacts, so everyone knows where you are when it counts.
The BlackBerry Shield sounds like a great idea in that RIM will be able to offer some of the great functionality of SmrtGuard, to all BlackBerry users. On the other hand, it’s generally bad business for RIM to be competing with people like SmrtGuard, who have done so much to make the BlackBerry better for their users. The message RIM are saying is: don’t bother making anything useful, because we’ll steal your idea and make it ourselves.
Remote Device Wipe – in case of loss of the terminal, just log in to BB Shield to remove all data from the device and / or memory card.
“Lost & Found” Screen – you can customize the sentence on the screen to display that the BlackBerry is lost and show any information about the content (i.e. “take me please“).
The ability to remotely set the password on the BlackBerry.
A loud bell alarm – useful option, even if you’ve lost your BlackBerry (at home) – once you’ve activated this option, your BB will ‘behave’ loud sounding an alarm, which will hopefully prompt a passerby (or yourself) to pick up your lost BlackBerry.
Tracking capability – based on the GSM transmitters and / or GPS position that is constantly monitored in the BlackBerry unit, and there may be the possibility of seeing it on the map (like Google Maps) from the BB Shield dashboard.
Backup – create wireless backup and restore, which can be set automatically exercise in the given time intervals
In the meantime, you should definitely be checking out SmrtGuard-Free, a product every BlackBerry user should have.
