RIM to release 5 new touch-screen BlackBerry smartphones this month

Research in Motion announced five new BlackBerry smartphones, the first to run its new BlackBerry 7 mobile OS, on Wednesday in a bid to recapture market share and inject some new excitement into the company’s products.
The new smartphones, RIM’s first new handsets in nearly a year, each utilize touch screens and include two new BlackBerry Bold models and three new iterations of the BlackBerry Torch and are set to hit carriers such as ATT and Sprint this month.
The devices will arrive at an important time for the Canadian company, one of the first to popularize email integration on a phone.

Last month, RIM announced that it was cutting 2,000 jobs and shuffling some of its top executives into new roles in a reboot to better combat the Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone, which have been eating into BlackBerry market share for months. In June, RIM also reported a 12% drop in quarterly revenue during its fiscal first quarter.

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 phones are RIM’s thinnest to date at 0.41 of an inch, and each version features a 2.4-inch touchscreen sitting on top of a full physical keyboard.
Both models come with a 5-megapixel camera that can also shoot 720p video, 8 gigabytes of memory that can be expanded with a memory card and run on 3G networks.
The three new BlackBerry Torch models feature larger touch screens than the Bold phones, but the Torch 9810 adds a slide-out keyboard and can run on 4G networks.

With a 3.2-inch display, the Torch 9810 looks a lot like the older Torch 9800, but the new model adds a higher-resolution screen (up to 640 by 480 from 480 by 360), longer battery life and 8 gigabytes of on-board memory instead of 4 gigabytes.
The Torch 9850 and 9860 smartphones have no physical keyboards and instead go full touch screen with a 3.7-inch display with a resolution of 800 by 480. RIM says it’s the largest on a BlackBerry phone so far. The 9850 and 9860 feature 4 gigabytes of memory, but can be expanded to up to 32 gigabytes of memory with a MicroSD card.

The Torch 9860 will run on 4G networks, while the 9850 will stick with 3G service.
“This is the largest global launch of BlackBerry smartphones in our history,” Mike Lazaridis, RIM’s president and co-CEO, said in a statement. “The BlackBerry solution offers a best-in-class mobile communications experience that customers love, and we think they will be thrilled by the faster performance, enhanced browsing and richer multimedia delivered by these powerful new BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Torch smartphones.”

Leave a comment and tell us whether or not you think RIM’s newest touch-screen-centric BlackBerry phones have what it takes to fight off Android, the iPhone and Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

RIM to release 5 new touch-screen BlackBerry smartphones this month

Research in Motion announced five new BlackBerry smartphones, the first to run its new BlackBerry 7 mobile OS, on Wednesday in a bid to recapture market share and inject some new excitement into the company’s products.
The new smartphones, RIM’s first new handsets in nearly a year, each utilize touch screens and include two new BlackBerry Bold models and three new iterations of the BlackBerry Torch and are set to hit carriers such as ATT and Sprint this month.
The devices will arrive at an important time for the Canadian company, one of the first to popularize email integration on a phone.

Last month, RIM announced that it was cutting 2,000 jobs and shuffling some of its top executives into new roles in a reboot to better combat the Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone, which have been eating into BlackBerry market share for months. In June, RIM also reported a 12% drop in quarterly revenue during its fiscal first quarter.

The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 phones are RIM’s thinnest to date at 0.41 of an inch, and each version features a 2.4-inch touchscreen sitting on top of a full physical keyboard.
Both models come with a 5-megapixel camera that can also shoot 720p video, 8 gigabytes of memory that can be expanded with a memory card and run on 3G networks.
The three new BlackBerry Torch models feature larger touch screens than the Bold phones, but the Torch 9810 adds a slide-out keyboard and can run on 4G networks.

With a 3.2-inch display, the Torch 9810 looks a lot like the older Torch 9800, but the new model adds a higher-resolution screen (up to 640 by 480 from 480 by 360), longer battery life and 8 gigabytes of on-board memory instead of 4 gigabytes.
The Torch 9850 and 9860 smartphones have no physical keyboards and instead go full touch screen with a 3.7-inch display with a resolution of 800 by 480. RIM says it’s the largest on a BlackBerry phone so far. The 9850 and 9860 feature 4 gigabytes of memory, but can be expanded to up to 32 gigabytes of memory with a MicroSD card.

The Torch 9860 will run on 4G networks, while the 9850 will stick with 3G service.
“This is the largest global launch of BlackBerry smartphones in our history,” Mike Lazaridis, RIM’s president and co-CEO, said in a statement. “The BlackBerry solution offers a best-in-class mobile communications experience that customers love, and we think they will be thrilled by the faster performance, enhanced browsing and richer multimedia delivered by these powerful new BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Torch smartphones.”

Leave a comment and tell us whether or not you think RIM’s newest touch-screen-centric BlackBerry phones have what it takes to fight off Android, the iPhone and Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

LG promises OTA updates to smartphones, new customer care

The LG OTA updates app and remote assistance services got their debut in Korea and now LG is making it clear it will offer the same services widely to Europe, the Asia Pacific region and South and Central America throughout the second half of the year to its premium line of Optimus smartphones – the Black, 2X and 3D.
First off, customers will get the FOTA app – “firmware over-the-air” so they can get the most current updates for their phones wirelessly (as other makes offer them). This way LG Optimus owners will get software updates directly to their phones without the need to connect to a PC.

The remote call service will be region and operator-dependent and will connect users to a member of customer service through 3G or Wi-Fi, should a problem occur with their phones. Thus users won’t have the need to necessarily visit an LG Customer Information Center or a service-station. This will be done through the pre-loaded “Remote Call” application.
Once the user is registered, LG’s remote customer care assistants will get wireless access to the smartphone in order to quickly see what the problem is. Customer Information Center assistants won’t get access to private information like emails, messages, pictures and calendars unless the customer has consented to it.
Both services will be made available in the second half of this year.

LG promises OTA updates to smartphones, new customer care

The LG OTA updates app and remote assistance services got their debut in Korea and now LG is making it clear it will offer the same services widely to Europe, the Asia Pacific region and South and Central America throughout the second half of the year to its premium line of Optimus smartphones – the Black, 2X and 3D.
First off, customers will get the FOTA app – “firmware over-the-air” so they can get the most current updates for their phones wirelessly (as other makes offer them). This way LG Optimus owners will get software updates directly to their phones without the need to connect to a PC.

The remote call service will be region and operator-dependent and will connect users to a member of customer service through 3G or Wi-Fi, should a problem occur with their phones. Thus users won’t have the need to necessarily visit an LG Customer Information Center or a service-station. This will be done through the pre-loaded “Remote Call” application.
Once the user is registered, LG’s remote customer care assistants will get wireless access to the smartphone in order to quickly see what the problem is. Customer Information Center assistants won’t get access to private information like emails, messages, pictures and calendars unless the customer has consented to it.
Both services will be made available in the second half of this year.

Nokia announces first 1 GHz smartphone, changes naming convention again

We all know Nokia is working on hardware running Windows Phone for their high end smartphone line, but they still continue to roll out Symbian devices. With this latest announcement of the Nokia 500 they are changing their naming convention yet again.
The Nokia 500 is also their first 1 GHz processor device, but I understand there is no GPU and according to All About Symbian it may have worse performance than the existing lineup of Symbian^3 devices.


The Nokia 500 will launch later this year at a low cost, EUR150 (about $215 USD), so it is understandable that the performance and specifications would be lower as well. It does appear to have decent specifications, but given that few in the US care about the Symbian OS it won’t have much of an impact here.
It will likely sell well in developing countries where Nokia and Symbian still do fairly well, but this won’t help Nokia with any kind of market share or realized profits.
Specifications for the Nokia 500 include:

• 1 GHz ARM 11 processor
• Penta-band 3G data (Why can’t ANYONE else get this right?)
• 2GB memory with microSD card slot
• 3.2 inch 640×360 pixesl display
• 5 megapixel EDoF camera with no flash
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS

Nokia has gone through a few naming conventions in the past and I thought their last one with Nseries, Eseries, Cseries, etc. seemed to make sense except when they started having multiple device names for some odd reason, such as the Nokia C6 that came in either -00 or -01 models.

Anyway, their new naming convention, described in this Nokia Conversations post, goes back to 100,200,300,….900 series where they can use up to 99 numbers in each series to name phones. The Nokia 500 is the first in this new naming scheme and it is a mid-level smartphone. They already announced the Nokia N9 so they probably won’t renumber it the 900, especially given that they are killing off MeeGo right after it launches anyway.

I don’t think this new naming convention will do anything for the customer and will still present confusion. How are you supposed to know what device runs Symbian or S40? Will Windows Phone devices follow this convention too and if so then how will one tell if it is a WP or Symbian device? Seems to me sticking with the Series was just fine and maybe they should work on getting the Anna update out to those with 1-year old Nokia N8 devices instead of messing around with naming conventions.

Nokia announces first 1 GHz smartphone, changes naming convention again

We all know Nokia is working on hardware running Windows Phone for their high end smartphone line, but they still continue to roll out Symbian devices. With this latest announcement of the Nokia 500 they are changing their naming convention yet again.
The Nokia 500 is also their first 1 GHz processor device, but I understand there is no GPU and according to All About Symbian it may have worse performance than the existing lineup of Symbian^3 devices.


The Nokia 500 will launch later this year at a low cost, EUR150 (about $215 USD), so it is understandable that the performance and specifications would be lower as well. It does appear to have decent specifications, but given that few in the US care about the Symbian OS it won’t have much of an impact here.
It will likely sell well in developing countries where Nokia and Symbian still do fairly well, but this won’t help Nokia with any kind of market share or realized profits.
Specifications for the Nokia 500 include:

• 1 GHz ARM 11 processor
• Penta-band 3G data (Why can’t ANYONE else get this right?)
• 2GB memory with microSD card slot
• 3.2 inch 640×360 pixesl display
• 5 megapixel EDoF camera with no flash
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS

Nokia has gone through a few naming conventions in the past and I thought their last one with Nseries, Eseries, Cseries, etc. seemed to make sense except when they started having multiple device names for some odd reason, such as the Nokia C6 that came in either -00 or -01 models.

Anyway, their new naming convention, described in this Nokia Conversations post, goes back to 100,200,300,….900 series where they can use up to 99 numbers in each series to name phones. The Nokia 500 is the first in this new naming scheme and it is a mid-level smartphone. They already announced the Nokia N9 so they probably won’t renumber it the 900, especially given that they are killing off MeeGo right after it launches anyway.

I don’t think this new naming convention will do anything for the customer and will still present confusion. How are you supposed to know what device runs Symbian or S40? Will Windows Phone devices follow this convention too and if so then how will one tell if it is a WP or Symbian device? Seems to me sticking with the Series was just fine and maybe they should work on getting the Anna update out to those with 1-year old Nokia N8 devices instead of messing around with naming conventions.

Nvidia GeFore GTX 580 The Fastest Single GPU Money Can Buy

Nvidia and AMD’s GPU arms race continues unabated, and the “world’s fastest” moniker hangs in the balance. The latest salvo comes in the form of Nvidia’s latest flagship graphics card, the GeForce GTX 580. Priced at $500 (as of 11/9/2010), the card sits right at the upper echelons of the graphics card market, aimed squarely at the enthusiasts who will suffer nothing but the best. And they’ll find speed in spades here: the GTX 580 is the fastest single-GPU graphics card on the market today, sailing through our battery of tests with aplomb.



A Tale of Two Cards
Over a year ago Nvidia released their flagship graphics card, the GeForce GTX 480. Built on Nvidia’s fledgling Fermi architecture, it was their first DirectX 11 graphics card. And it was quite a beast: a confluence of blistering performance and temperatures that generally topped the performance charts, but ultimately stumbled in light of AMD’s well-established DirectX 11 competition. With the GeForce GTX 580, Nvidia quite literally went back to the drawing board. The GPU inside the GTX 480 was re-tooled from the transistor level, as Nvidia worked to mitigate some of the power and temperature issues that plagued the card. As a result, the GTX 580 is quieter, cooler, and relatively more power efficient than its predecessor.
Putting Fermi to the Test We pitted the GeForce GTX 580 against its predecessor, the GTX 480, and AMD’s Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5970. A note about the Radeon HD 5970: while it is a single graphics card, it’s actually a pair of GPUs, sandwiched together. Synthetic benchmarks aren’t necessarily a barometer of real-world performance, but they’re handy for getting a solid idea of how cards stack up. This is particularly true for the Unigine Heaven benchmark.

This strenuous DirectX 11 test is laden with geometry-heavy scenes and tessellation — the Fermi architecture’s bread and butter. The GTX 580 takes a decisive lead, ousting even the HD 5970’s ample muscle. While the Radeon HD 5970 clambers back into the lead on the 3DMark Vantage benchmark, it isn’t ahead by very much — 7%, on the Extreme setting. That’s not a bad showing from the GTX 580’s single-GPU. Our gaming tests saw a bit more of the same. The dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 maintains a near constant lead, with the GTX 580 nipping at its heels. The Dirt 2 Demo’s results were the outlier here, with Nvidia’s GTX 580 pulling ahead by as much as 80% over the Radeon HD 5870. It maintained a steady lead over the Radeon HD 5970 by up to 40%.
With Great Power, Comes Great Efficiency

The GTX 480s chief faults lay in its unwieldy power demands, and Nvidia has gone a long way to rectifying that issue. AMD’s Radeon HD 5870 is (unsurprisingly) the least demanding of the cards we looked at, but the GTX 580 managed to shave 20W off of its predecessor’s idle and full load power ratings. The improvement shows once we take performance per watt into account.

The Radeon HD 5970 takes the lead as the most efficient card, but the GTX 580 makes dramatic strides over its predecessor, overtaking even the venerable Radeon HD 5870. Fermi, Done Right Nvidia was late to the DirectX 11 game, and the GTX 480 ultimately failed to make much of a splash. But an extra six months in the proverbial tool shed has resulted in quite a showpiece.

The GeForce GTX 580 is everything the GTX 480 should’ve been, but it’s still saddled with some of the same problems. There’s still no answer for AMD’s Eyefinity technology — if you want to run three (or more) monitors, you’ll still need to pick up a second GTX 580. The GTX 580 also lacks a DisplayPort connector, offering up a pair of DVI connectors and a mini-HDMI port instead — AMD’s cards offer the full gamut.

DisplayPort concerns aside, Nvidia has managed an impressive feat. An unwieldy titan was reforged, delivering a component that outpaces the competition, and earns the vaunted “world’s fastest” moniker.

Nvidia GeFore GTX 580 The Fastest Single GPU Money Can Buy

Nvidia and AMD’s GPU arms race continues unabated, and the “world’s fastest” moniker hangs in the balance. The latest salvo comes in the form of Nvidia’s latest flagship graphics card, the GeForce GTX 580. Priced at $500 (as of 11/9/2010), the card sits right at the upper echelons of the graphics card market, aimed squarely at the enthusiasts who will suffer nothing but the best. And they’ll find speed in spades here: the GTX 580 is the fastest single-GPU graphics card on the market today, sailing through our battery of tests with aplomb.



A Tale of Two Cards
Over a year ago Nvidia released their flagship graphics card, the GeForce GTX 480. Built on Nvidia’s fledgling Fermi architecture, it was their first DirectX 11 graphics card. And it was quite a beast: a confluence of blistering performance and temperatures that generally topped the performance charts, but ultimately stumbled in light of AMD’s well-established DirectX 11 competition. With the GeForce GTX 580, Nvidia quite literally went back to the drawing board. The GPU inside the GTX 480 was re-tooled from the transistor level, as Nvidia worked to mitigate some of the power and temperature issues that plagued the card. As a result, the GTX 580 is quieter, cooler, and relatively more power efficient than its predecessor.
Putting Fermi to the Test We pitted the GeForce GTX 580 against its predecessor, the GTX 480, and AMD’s Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5970. A note about the Radeon HD 5970: while it is a single graphics card, it’s actually a pair of GPUs, sandwiched together. Synthetic benchmarks aren’t necessarily a barometer of real-world performance, but they’re handy for getting a solid idea of how cards stack up. This is particularly true for the Unigine Heaven benchmark.

This strenuous DirectX 11 test is laden with geometry-heavy scenes and tessellation — the Fermi architecture’s bread and butter. The GTX 580 takes a decisive lead, ousting even the HD 5970’s ample muscle. While the Radeon HD 5970 clambers back into the lead on the 3DMark Vantage benchmark, it isn’t ahead by very much — 7%, on the Extreme setting. That’s not a bad showing from the GTX 580’s single-GPU. Our gaming tests saw a bit more of the same. The dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 maintains a near constant lead, with the GTX 580 nipping at its heels. The Dirt 2 Demo’s results were the outlier here, with Nvidia’s GTX 580 pulling ahead by as much as 80% over the Radeon HD 5870. It maintained a steady lead over the Radeon HD 5970 by up to 40%.
With Great Power, Comes Great Efficiency

The GTX 480s chief faults lay in its unwieldy power demands, and Nvidia has gone a long way to rectifying that issue. AMD’s Radeon HD 5870 is (unsurprisingly) the least demanding of the cards we looked at, but the GTX 580 managed to shave 20W off of its predecessor’s idle and full load power ratings. The improvement shows once we take performance per watt into account.

The Radeon HD 5970 takes the lead as the most efficient card, but the GTX 580 makes dramatic strides over its predecessor, overtaking even the venerable Radeon HD 5870. Fermi, Done Right Nvidia was late to the DirectX 11 game, and the GTX 480 ultimately failed to make much of a splash. But an extra six months in the proverbial tool shed has resulted in quite a showpiece.

The GeForce GTX 580 is everything the GTX 480 should’ve been, but it’s still saddled with some of the same problems. There’s still no answer for AMD’s Eyefinity technology — if you want to run three (or more) monitors, you’ll still need to pick up a second GTX 580. The GTX 580 also lacks a DisplayPort connector, offering up a pair of DVI connectors and a mini-HDMI port instead — AMD’s cards offer the full gamut.

DisplayPort concerns aside, Nvidia has managed an impressive feat. An unwieldy titan was reforged, delivering a component that outpaces the competition, and earns the vaunted “world’s fastest” moniker.

Google gave original Mac designer free rein on new Google+ UI

Google’s new Google+ social networking project departs from the company’s usually spartan interfaces with an animated UI designed by original Apple Macintosh team member Andy Hertzfeld.
 
The search giant announced its Google+ endeavor on Tuesday. After the design of the service quickly drew praise, it was discovered that Hertzfeld played a significant role in developing it.
A self-described “Software Wizard” while at Apple, Hertzfeld joined the company in 1979 and was instrumental in the design of the Macintosh’s graphical user interface. After leaving Apple in 1984, he co-founded several companies and founded Mac history website folklore.org, before starting work at Google in 2005.

The company appointed Hertzfeld as the design leader for Google+, which was codenamed “Emerald Sea.” Given that Google is known for its stripped-down design ethos, Hertzfeld has at times felt “constrained,” Steven Levy reported for Wired.

According to the report, Larry Page, co-founder and now CEO of Google, is notorious for despising “swooshy” designs and animations. But, the new Google+ interface, especially the Circles social grouping feature, contains animations and other choices reminiscent of Apple’s design ideals.
“With colorful animations, drag-and-drop magic and whimsical interface touches, Circles looks more like a classic Apple program than the typically bland Google app,” said Levy, author of the book “In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works And Shapes Our Lives.”
Hertzfeld admitted to having taken a risk with the design.It wasnt a given that anyone would like what I was doing, but they did, he said.
Ive heard in the past that Larry Page he didnt like animations but that didnt stop me from putting in a lot of animations in, and Larry told me he loves it, he continued. Maybe Apples resurgence had a little bit to do with it.”
Google+ appears set to challenge rival Facebook, the current king of social with 750 million monthly active users. Earlier this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted that he “screwed up” by not pushing harder to compete with the social network.
The Mountain View, Calif., company is touting new Google+ features such as Circles, Hangouts, Instant Upload, Sparks and Huddle. Circles allows for easy grouping of and sharing with friends of family. Hangouts bring the “unplanned meet-up” to the web with group video chats.
The Instant Upload feature automatically uploads photos and videos from Android devices to a private Google+ album. Sparks tracks a user’s interests and recommends content it thinks he or she will like. Finally, Huddle is a group chat feature.
Google launched the service Tuesday with an invitation-only “limited field trial” period. The company also released a Google+ Android client on Tuesday, and promised an iOS version is “coming soon.”

In addition to the Google+ announcement, the company unveiled redesigns of its core search page and mobile website. The new search page features a now black menu bar, while the mobile main page now sports a “drawer” with links to commonly used sites, individual search types and web apps.

Google gave original Mac designer free rein on new Google+ UI

Google’s new Google+ social networking project departs from the company’s usually spartan interfaces with an animated UI designed by original Apple Macintosh team member Andy Hertzfeld.
 
The search giant announced its Google+ endeavor on Tuesday. After the design of the service quickly drew praise, it was discovered that Hertzfeld played a significant role in developing it.
A self-described “Software Wizard” while at Apple, Hertzfeld joined the company in 1979 and was instrumental in the design of the Macintosh’s graphical user interface. After leaving Apple in 1984, he co-founded several companies and founded Mac history website folklore.org, before starting work at Google in 2005.

The company appointed Hertzfeld as the design leader for Google+, which was codenamed “Emerald Sea.” Given that Google is known for its stripped-down design ethos, Hertzfeld has at times felt “constrained,” Steven Levy reported for Wired.

According to the report, Larry Page, co-founder and now CEO of Google, is notorious for despising “swooshy” designs and animations. But, the new Google+ interface, especially the Circles social grouping feature, contains animations and other choices reminiscent of Apple’s design ideals.
“With colorful animations, drag-and-drop magic and whimsical interface touches, Circles looks more like a classic Apple program than the typically bland Google app,” said Levy, author of the book “In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works And Shapes Our Lives.”
Hertzfeld admitted to having taken a risk with the design.It wasnt a given that anyone would like what I was doing, but they did, he said.
Ive heard in the past that Larry Page he didnt like animations but that didnt stop me from putting in a lot of animations in, and Larry told me he loves it, he continued. Maybe Apples resurgence had a little bit to do with it.”
Google+ appears set to challenge rival Facebook, the current king of social with 750 million monthly active users. Earlier this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted that he “screwed up” by not pushing harder to compete with the social network.
The Mountain View, Calif., company is touting new Google+ features such as Circles, Hangouts, Instant Upload, Sparks and Huddle. Circles allows for easy grouping of and sharing with friends of family. Hangouts bring the “unplanned meet-up” to the web with group video chats.
The Instant Upload feature automatically uploads photos and videos from Android devices to a private Google+ album. Sparks tracks a user’s interests and recommends content it thinks he or she will like. Finally, Huddle is a group chat feature.
Google launched the service Tuesday with an invitation-only “limited field trial” period. The company also released a Google+ Android client on Tuesday, and promised an iOS version is “coming soon.”

In addition to the Google+ announcement, the company unveiled redesigns of its core search page and mobile website. The new search page features a now black menu bar, while the mobile main page now sports a “drawer” with links to commonly used sites, individual search types and web apps.