• blackberry

    RIM Introduces the Blackberry Storm

    October 9, 2008 /

    Not wanting to leave Apple alone in the “Uber-Cool Touchscreen Phone” market, Research In Motion (RIM) along with their US and European launch partners, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, officially introduced the BlackBerry Storm smartphone earlier today.

    “Designed to satisfy the needs of both consumers and business customers, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone combines the powerful communications features, global connectivity and personal productivity advantages of the BlackBerry® platform with a revolutionary touch-screen technology that dramatically enhances the touch interface and enables easy and precise typing. The world’s first “clickable” touch-screen responds much like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation.”

    “We are proud to introduce the first touch-screen based BlackBerry smartphone together with Verizon Wireless and Vodafone,” said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer at RIM. “The BlackBerry Storm is a revolutionary touch-screen smartphone that meets both the communications and multimedia needs of customers and solves the longstanding problem associated with typing on traditional touch-screens. Consumers and business customers alike will appreciate this unique combination of a large and vibrant screen with a truly tactile touch interface.”

    “The BlackBerry Storm offers our customers more ways to stay connected to both their personal and professional lives – whether in their communities or around the globe,” said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless. “The BlackBerry Storm combines the reliability of our 3G network with the dependability and network efficiency of the BlackBerry platform to deliver our customers the ultimate wireless experience – all in one of the coolest smartphones available on the market today.”

    Moving touch screen aside, this new BlackBerry does have some great features packed into it, including:

    • DataViz Documents To Go
    • 3.2MP digital camera
    • Built-in GPS receiver
    • 1GB of built-in memory and a microSD card slot for up to 16GB of extra storage
    • 480×360 resolution display
    • Removable 1400mAh battery

    Read the full RIM press release here…

    The “clickbable” touchscreen sounds like an interesting gimmick. When you press down on the screen, it is suppose to have a little bit of give in it that gives you tactile feedback much like you would get if you where pressing a mouse button or typing on a keyboard. We’ll get back to you on that when the device is in wide distribution to figure out if this feature is a boon or a bust.

    At this time, RIM has not announced a release date or pricing for the Storm with or without new service contracts with Verizon or Vodafone.

    For more details about the new BlackBerry Storm, visit the RIM BlackBerry Storm website.

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  • apple,  blackberry,  htc,  iphone,  rim

    New Name, Expanding Smartphone Coverage

    October 6, 2008 /

    Today is both an ending and a beginning. After long and careful deliberation, it is time to say goodbye to “Foleo Fanatics.” In the year since Palm canceled the Foleo Mobile Companion it has become increasingly evident that the Foleo, in it’s original configuration and name, will never be released.

    The Foleo unit that I was able to use, even for a short while, showed amazing potential and I’m still looking for something to replace it.

    However, the time has come to look beyond the Foleo and, starting today, Foleo Fanatics has become Smartphone Fanatics.

    Smartphone Fanatics will continue where Foleo Fanatics has left off, providing you with the same great coverage of the Palm user community. We also plan on expanding our coverage beyond Palm’s products. Moving forward, look for increasing coverage of Windows Mobile devices from great vendors like High Tech Computng (HTC). We will also be covering the exciting new BlackBerry smartphones coming out of Research In Motion (RIM). And, lastly, we also plan to cover everybody’s favorite entertainment device, the Apple iPhone.

    Welcome to Smartphone Fanatics!

    Alan Grassia
    Editor, SmartphoneFanatics.com

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  • dataviz

    Passwords Plus Updated

    October 1, 2008 /


    DataViz, the makers of the award winning Documents To Go, today released an update for Passwords Plus that adds support for Microsoft Windows Vista and Apple Mac OS X 10.5.

    Passwords Plus 1.007 adds the following updates:

    • Support for Windows Vista and Palm Desktop 6.2 or higher
    • Support for Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard)
    • Minor bug fixes

    Passwords Plus 1.007 is a free update to all registered customers and can be downloaded from the DataViz website. Passwords Plus can be purchased for $29.99 from DataViz’s online store.

    The one thing that this update does not address that I wish it would is the Windows Mobile version of Passwords Plus for ActiveSync and Windows Mobile Device Center for Windows XP and Vista. A few years ago, DataViz chose to stop selling Passwords Plus for Windows Mobile/Pocket PC. With more Palm OS users migrating over to Windows Mobile devices, bringing back Passwords Plus for Windows Mobile seems like a win-win solution for DataViz and their customers.

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