Author: Nancy Raskauskas, Senior Editor

RIM Announces 2 New Blackberries

Posted by | Apr 27, 2010 | |

Research in Motion has announced two new BlackBerry devices today, the BlackBerry Bold 9650 and the BlackBerry Pearl 3G at the  company’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES).  Both of these phones have significant upgrades. The BlackBerry Bold 9650 is the much improved successor of the troubled BlackBerry Tour.  The BlackBerry Bold 9650 features a 480×360 non-touch display, 3.2-megapixel camera with flash, autofocus, and image stabilization, optical trackpad, BlackBerry OS 5.0 (probably upgradeable to OS 6.0), 802.11b/g, WiFi, GPS, QWERTY keyboard, 512MB flash memory upgradeable to 32GB via microSD card, 3,5mm headset jack, Bluetooth, and BlackBerry App World support. This phone  will become available as of May 23rd for the  usual price of $199.99, but only after slapping down the  $100 MIR and the two-year agreement with Sprint. Verizon should also have this phone soon. he BlackBerry Pearl 3G is an update to the immensely popular BlackBerry Pearl series, which combines BlackBerry functionality with a more typical smart phoney-candy bar design. The new phone adds speed, more device memory (256MB), 3G support, GPS and an optical trackpad. The phone includes support for Wi-Fi 802.11.b/g/n networks and has a higher resolution 360×400 screen. The Pearl has always been marketed as a starter BlackBerry, or a BlackBerry for the non-business user. This is in part because the smaller size compresses the QWERTY keypad. The BlackBerry Pearl 3G will be available in two models with different key layouts. The BlackBerry Pearl 9100 has...

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Google Chrome With Flash

Posted by | Mar 31, 2010 | , , |

Although it has been sounding as if Everyone(ie. Apple) is going towards h.264 and HTML5, Google has just announced that  Chrome will be serving up Flash. Google blog post on the partnership tells us  what we can expect. One of the key benefits to Chrome users will be that they receive automatic updates of new versions of Flash without a separate download. Google goes on to say that “improving the traditional browser plug-in model will make it possible for plug-ins to be just as fast, stable, and secure as the browser’s HTML and JavaScript engines.” This is quite a coup for Adobe for as we know, it has been shunned by  iPhone and iPad  when it used to have quite a partnership with...

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Breaking: iTunes Update Out Today

Posted by | Mar 31, 2010 | |

Just  in time for Saturday’s delivery of the first iPads  Apple has released an update to its iTunes software.The update includes iPad syncing and iBooks support but doesn’t include the music streaming that many have anticipated ever since Apple bought Palo Alto music site Lala in December. CNET quoted unnamed music industry sources who said Apple has said streaming music isn’t likely before the third quarter. One new iTunes feature Apple said it has included involve the Genius music feature which will now let users rename, rearrange and remove track mixes generated by the tool. Apple also updated iPhoto this week so that it will be ready for iPad users when they get their new tablet devices on...

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Yale Reconsiders Using Google Apps & Mail

Posted by | Mar 31, 2010 | , |

Yale University was set to switch over its campus from using Horde Webmail to Gmail and its complement of services included in the Google Apps for Education package, but officials in the Information Technology Services division have announced they’re putting that move on hold. The gradual transition to Gmail would have been ongoing through the year and completed by next spring. According to the Yale Daily News, the original decision to switch over to Gmail was met with concerns and reservations from the faculty and administration. Several felt the decision had been made too hastily and without proper University approval. Deputy Provost for Science and Technology Steven Girvin said.“There were enough concerns expressed by faculty that we felt more consultation and input from the community was necessary,” Computer science professor Michael Fischer said the concerns included ideological issues, technological risks and downsides, security issues, and issues surrounding the way Google handles the data in its cloud. Each piece of information gets stored in three randomly chosen data centers around the world, and Google was unwilling to provide a list of the countries Yale’s data might go to — only a list of 15 countries where the data was guaranteed not to be sent. Said Fischer of the data issue: “Yale is an international, multicultural community of scholars. Students deserve to have rights to their information while on campus.” How...

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