When we changed formats over a year ago and stopped doing daily news in favor of this weekly feature, I fancied it like a network news program. We’d run down all the things relevant to our local niche. One of my favorite parts about network news — well, my only favorite part, since I don’t watch the actual programs — is the teaser they play in the hours before. “Is your breakfast cereal making your children dumber? Story at 11.” This week we can see such a teaser: “Will the BlackBerry be banned in America? Story after the jump.”
Instead of competing on product, many companies nowadays compete on patents. Company A will claim that Company B’s product infringes on its patents, as if Company B blatantly ripped off the technology and thought they could get away with it. I tend not to buy this. I don’t have an intricate enough knowledge of the patent system to say just how bad it is, but from stories I’ve heard many patents are ridiculous.
To that end, Motorola has filed suit against RIM, claiming that the latter violated patents involving Wi-Fi access, application management, power management, and UI. Seriously? You can patent a UI? Sounds a bit ridiculous to me, as does application management. But I’ll refrain from further comment, since I do not know nor would I understand the technical aspects. What I do wonder is of whether Motorola thinks it owns patents on Wi-Fi access in general. Wouldn’t that be an interesting scenario.
In any case, Motorola has asked the International Trade Commission to block the import of RIM devices which violate Motorola’s patents. This, in all likelihood, will never happen. I do want to see how this case plays out, however, because of the nature of the patents.
Photos, video of the BlackBerry Magnum
We’ve heard murmurs about RIM’s attempt at a full-QWERTY, touchscreen phone for a while now. It was originally supposed to be the Magnum, but then we heard the name changed to Dakota. Apparently, the Dakota is a complete update, with better specs, leaving the Magnum dead before arrival. This week, however, The Cellular Guru showed off the defunct model. Here’s a shot, with thanks to CrackBerry for the pointer.
As Kevin noted in the update, we should not expect to ever see this specific model on shelves. We’ll instead see the Dakota, which has yet to show up on the Internet. But, since we love new devices so much, we’ll close this section with a video demo of the Magnum. It’s not really that impressive — since the device doesn’t have a working OS there’s not much to demo beyond the hardware.
Tip of the week: Fixing your BlackBerry after a Reload Software: 522 error. It can be deadly, which is why you should follow…
Tip of the week No. 2: Back up your BlackBerry wirelessly with Aurkon. Read the post first, however, as it goes over the matter of data privacy.
Yet another sign of the coming Tour 9650
We know of the many signs that a device release is nearing. We see photos, then video, we see it pass through the FCC, and then, sometimes, we see bloggers get hands on demos. This one we’ve yet to see: A Facebook status update. RIM announced that the Tour 9650 is coming soon, though the update came down soon after.
Notice how it says Tour 9650 and not Tour 2. If this is the case, it sounds like a marketing ploy to soothe original Tour buyers. I’ve wasted plenty of breath saying how unfair it is to original Tour customers that RIM releases a better version of it seven months later. In any case, I can’t imagine this device is further than a month away. Best Buy is already phasing out the 9630.
BIS 3.0 to support OpenOffice, Windows Media
A bit of good news about BIS 3.0, which should hit in the next couple of months. According to BBLeaks, the new service will support OpenOffice and Windows Media Audio files. There’s not much to add — it’s pretty cool that RIM will support these file types. I’m still much more psyched about the two-way Gmail sync.
12-key Pearl coming?
This has to be some kind of mistake. BBLeaks mentioned it about a month ago, and now they have further confirmation that RIM is working on a 12-key Pearl. Yes, 12 keys, as in zero through nine plus star and pound. Here’s the patent drawing.
Doesn’t that defeat the entire purpose of the BlackBerry? If ever released, I imagine this would sell worse than the Pearl flip.
BlackBerry rundown
I bookmarked a lot of stories this week, but most of them stand on their own. Here’s a list of links you might enjoy.
- Verizon to offer a prepaid BlackBerry? Looks like they’re trying to keep up with other prepaid services, if true.
- The Curve 8910 was at CES? I still don’t see where it fits in the lineup.
- RIM creating fingerprint reader? That would be a pretty cool security feature.
- How would you change the Storm 2? There are about 250 comments on this post, so if you have some time you might be able to weed out some decent ones.
- How to make your smartphone last longer. Al Sacco brings us the best tips. What would we do without that guy?
- Verizon offering music pre-loaded on microSD card. The card comes with 1,000 popular songs plus 4GB of storage beyond that. It’s going to cost $50, and comes with a choice of a few different genres. While I don’t see it catching on, the price seems right. The songs essentially cost 5 cents each and the card is free.
This post originated at BBGeeks.com – home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.
BlackBerry News From The Wire for the Week of 1/25/2009
This post originated at BBGeeks.com – home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.
BlackBerry News From The Wire for the Week of 1/25/2009