The Washington Post wrote a tongue-in-cheek editorial about the worst ideas of the decade, and the BlackBerry was named one of them. The reason? “Thanks to the BlackBerry…we are always connected.”
The editorial reads like one of Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes’ rants where an old man talks about how he doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about and what this crazy device called the “BumbleBerry” even does. The author goes on to talk about how the problem with email is that “the more we emails we send, the more we receive.” I’m not sure what he’s getting at exactly but the idea of ubiquitous communication being a bad thing is so funny I couldn’t not post.
I couldn’t resist the title, but there is a show traveling Canada right now called WIRED, and one of their props is an improvised giant BlackBerry. WIRED aims to educate youth about how to deal with cyber-bullying, and some of the challenges kids face growing up in a fully connected world. Funnily enough, the featured BlackBerry has Viigo loaded and a cool theme I haven’t seen yet. I actually don’t mind the square edges on the device and would probably buy a completely square form factor. I spoke to one of the actors Chris Cochrane, and apparently the kids they meet, aged 8-12, all have Facebook profiles and a lot of them have BlackBerrys.
Nan Palmero, the man behind our recent Nan the Power User editorial series, just got married. While on his honeymoon, Nan took the time to email me a photo of his wedding cake, which should bring a tear to the eye of every member of the BlackBerry Nation. It seems that for his wedding, Nan wanted to do something special to honor his better half — the Sprint BlackBerry 8830.
Post a comment and wish Nan the Power User well on his honeymoon! No, I don’t know how he convinced her, either.
I almost missed this last week with all the BlackBerry Developer Conference madness last week, but it’s too good not to post. Our fellow Canucks over at MobileSyrup have found a YouTube clip from the Rick Mercer Report (think the Canadian Daily Show) lampooning a fairly well known Rogers commercial. In the Rogers commercial, two businessmen are stuck in an elevator, with only one able to maintain their cell call, leaving the other in awe.
You can watch the original commercial after the jump, but please watch the one above first. It makes you wonder whether or not having the ‘fewest dropped calls’ is a good thing or not.
In case you missed it, local Ottawa A-list celebrity and local A-list BlackBerry game developer Magmic‘s VP of Business Development, Phil Giroux, was interviewed by CBC National Radio a few weeks ago about BlackBerry addiction.
Although the interview is brief and mostly an excuse for the uninformed interviewer to play sound bites, it’s worth checking out to hear Phil deftly respond to dumb questions with comedic gold. Oh, he also discusses sharing drinks with RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie and whether or not it’s polite to pull out your BlackBerry during a meeting with RIM. Enjoy.
As a Canadian mobile industry blog, we tend to shy away from discussing American politics on the site (that’s what conventions are for). However, we feel that for many members of the BlackBerry Nation, what we are about to tell you could be the deciding factor in whom you vote for this November. Essentially, a McCain staffer has claimed that the Republican nominee helped create the BlackBerry. We’re going to let CNN do the heavy lifting on this story while we pull ourselves up from the floor:
He added, though, that McCain — who has struggled to stress his economic credentials this cycle — did have experience dealing with the economy, pointing to his time on the Senate Commerce Committee. Pressed to provide an example of what McCain had accomplished on that committee, Holtz-Eakin said the senator did not have jurisdiction over financial markets — then held up his Blackberry, telling reporters: “He did this.”
“Telecommunications of the United States, the premiere innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create,” said Holtz-Eakin. “And that’s what he did. He both regulated and de-regulated the industry.”
It’s funny, I didn’t realize that the United States Commerce Committee had jurisdiction over Canadian companies and their products.
The Obama campaign has already weighed in, with spokesman Bill Burton stating, “If John McCain hadn’t said that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’ on the day of one of our nation’s worst financial crises, the claim that he invented the BlackBerry would have been the most preposterous thing said all week.”
Please feel free to post a comment. Seriously, go nuts. The BlackBerry Cool staff really wants to hear your thoughts on this one.
