Egypt is reportedly back online, after the government pulled the plug last week in an attempt to undermine protests in the country. According to multiple reports on Twitter, connectivity has been restored including 3G mobile networks and BlackBerry services.
In the meantime we’ve seen services spring up to offer alternative routes for digital information to propagate, including speak2tweet led by Google, Twitter and SayNow, allowing for Twitter updates to be dictated by voicemail messages. It’s unclear to what extent the period offline will have affected the Egyptian economy.
Phones, phones, phones, phones, PHONES! There are some good ones this week. The Sidekick makes a blurry return to reality, the real-but-not-too-real Sony Ericsson Xperia Playstation phone struts its stuff on The Engadget Show, and a small suite of BlackBerrys leak their way into the blogosphere. It’s a mini-avalanche of news on the Engadget Mobile Podcast, guest starring Professor Vlad Savov — come join us, won’t you?
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It’s no secret that RIM’s PlayBook is going to need a connection to a nearby BlackBerry phone to do much of its corporate heavy lifting, and a new video posted by the company today shows a little more detail on exactly how that’ll look. The one-minute, 54-second spot spends much of its time in the tablet’s email app, demonstrating how the Playbook and the Torch beside it are perfectly in sync — read an email on one, it immediately shows read on the other, and so on. We also learn that any secured corporate data that you’re using on the PlayBook while tethered is essentially on loan — it’ll disappear as soon as you disconnect, which is one of the reasons RIM’s touting this as a bolt-on for any corporate BES environment that won’t require any additional configuration or lines of data service. The video certainly doesn’t do much to appeal to the casual BlackBerry user — you know, the Curve and Pearl types of folks — but it’s an interesting watch nonetheless. Check it after the break.
Those of you fiending for a hit of PlayBook are in luck today. RIM has just posted an official video that shows the new BlackBerry tablet in action. This demo is geared towards enterprise customers/users. It highlights the way the PlayBook syncs up with and pulls data from a BlackBerry.
We are shown the PlayBook connected to a BlackBerry smartphone via a secured and encrypted Bluetooth connection. In the event that the phone and slate are disconnected, all secure data is immediately removed from the PlayBook. IT will have the same level of control with the PlayBook as they do with their existing BlackBerry phones.
RIM is relying on the fact that the PlayBook requires no new data plan or account to push enterprise adoption over the better-known iPad. Businesses won’t need to deal with any extra reoccurring costs, and the IT department won’t have the headache of integrating a bunch of new devices into their security framework.
Looks like RIM is playing it cautious with the PlayBook as the company needs the tablet to succeed to stay relevant. Production of the PlayBook tablet is between 150,000-200,000 a month from Quanta’s plant in Taiwan, with shipments ready as early as February. Sources say that RIM is building the PlayBook exclusively in Taiwan so white-box makers in China won’t be able to copy the tablet, while also protecting its security specifications.
As Apple continues to advance into the corporate field where RIM once ruled, the PlayBook could be RIM’s rebuttal to the popular iPad. The PlayBook is set for a staggered launch, with the US getting the first shipments followed by an international expansion.
Corporate executives have been longing for a BlackBerry like computer and RIM is hoping the PlayBook is what they’ve been waiting for. Quanta stated that it maintains sufficient capacity in Taiwan to meet client needs right now without the majority of its production lines in China. The low production numbers look to be part of RIM’s strategy to see how popular the device is first in the US before full blown production takes place. The PlayBook currently has a March release date.
RIM’s 2011 CDMA device roadmap has leaked, bringing with it details of a renewed push for the Canadian company into touchscreen handsets. According to what looks like a RIM presentation passed to CrackBerry, the BlackBerry PlayBook release in Q2 2011 will be shortly followed by the all-touch BlackBerry Monaco, a 1.2GHz CDMA/UMTS World Phone hybrid with a 3.7-inch WVGA touchscreen and 5-megapixel camera with flash.
The Monaco will also have an optical trackpad, 4GB of storage, 768MB of RAM and a memory card slot; connectivity will include WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, microUSB and NFC, along with GPS, a digital compass and accelerometer. The smartphone will run BlackBerry v6.1 and measure 120 x 62 x 11.5 mm.
It’ll launch in Q3 2011 alongside the BlackBerry Bold Touch (aka Montana), at 10.5mm the thinnest BlackBerry to date, and taking the top spot in RIM’s QWERTY range with its forged, machined steel chassis. The Bold Touch pairs a physical keyboard and a 2.8-inch VGA capacitive touchscreen, together with an optical trackpad, CDMA/UMTS and WiFi b/g/n. More specs in the gallery below.
Finally there’s the BlackBerry Sedona, set to bring its simple QWERTY phone ways to the market in Aug-Sept 2011, though still packing NFC, and the BlackBerry Curve Touch, a 3.25-inch HVGA all-touch smartphone with 5-megapixel camera and WiFi b/g/n. Full details in the gallery. RIM is pushing for NFC support across its range, which will be used for peer-to-peer networking and with special accessories.
The BlackBerry Curve has always been our favorite ‘berry because of its solid keyboard and lack of pretension to any functionality beyond great messaging, but it looks like things are about to change fast: you’re looking at a leaked image of what CrackBerry says is the Curve Touch, codenamed “Malibu,” and it’s all touchscreen — unlike the rumored Apollo, there’s no keyboard in sight. We’ve only got specs on the CDMA version, and they’re right in line with what you’d expect for a midrange device due out in late 2011 / early 2012: 800MHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor, 3.25-inch HVGA screen, 5 megapixel camera with HD video, 1GB storage with microSD expansion and 512MB of RAM, GPS, and NFC. Of course, CrackBerry says those are just “proposed specs,” so anything could change, but man — are we crazy for thinking an all-touch Curve definitely seems to redefine everything about what a BlackBerry is and is not?
CrackBerry looks to have just gotten the inside scoop on everything RIM has planned for the CDMA side of the wireless divide in 2011 — and as usual, it seems they’ll be supporting it just as well as they do the GSM guys. Going chronologically, first up will be a CDMA PlayBook in the second quarter of the year; so far, Sprint’s WiMAX version (sans CDMA support) is the only carrier-partnered version of the tablet announced. Next comes Montana — a CDMA version of the Dakota — which may come to market as the Bold Touch; as the name implies, you can expect the classic portrait QWERTY Bold form factor with the addition of a touchscreen. Look for that one in the third quarter alongside the Monaco (pictured above), which looks like a much sleeker Storm successor featuring a 1.2GHz Qualcomm core, a 3.7-inch WVGA display, and a 5 megapixel camera with HD video capture. Next, we’ll get a CDMA flavor of the Apollo dubbed Sedona, a next-gen Curve with NFC support; that’ll happen sometime around fall. Finally, looking into early 2012 we’ll get a device codenamed Malibu that looks to be a full-screen Curve Touch with slightly lower specs than the Monaco.
On the technology side, most of these new devices will be adopting a handful of technologies not seen on BlackBerrys before, including digital compasses, NFC, HD video recording and “management,” and better HTML5 media support; they’ll also be getting OpenGL support, mobile hotspot capability, 24-bit color, a better web browser, and an overhauled virtual keyboard by way of BlackBerry OS 6.1, which should be present in everything that gets launched here. Caught up? Given the lack of dual-core processors here — the kind of CPUs Lazaridis says he needs to drop QNX on phones — we’d say “no,” but they might be getting within earshot. Follow the break for a shot of the full roadmap.
Details of the new BlackBerry Messenger are leaking out all over the internet today, and what we’re seeing is an app that could make your CrackBerry even more impossible to put away. In a move that shows RIM’s eagerness to loosen up a bit, BBM 6 could be adding at least one new feature that isn’t exactly boardroom-appropriate: gaming. Rumor has it that the app’s new iteration, which will run on OS 5.0 and greater, incorporates a function that allows users to use their BBM name as their gamer name, as well as update their status automatically to reflect completed gaming tasks. BBM 6 would also allow for larger chat groups and cross chat. We’ve no real way of predicting the app’s impact, but if the rumors turn out to be true, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a second coming of the BlackBerry massage.
RIM has told the Indian government that there is no way that it can supply covert access to encrypted emails sent using BlackBerry smartphones, in the process risking finding its service in the country cut off over security concerns. The denial is the latest in a back & forth battle between the Canadian company and the Indian security forces, over concerns that BlackBerry phones will be used by terrorists and dissidents to communicate, and RIM’s persistent claims that a monitoring system would be technologically infeasible.
“There is no possibility of us providing any kind of a solution,” RIM vice president Robert Crow insists, “there is no solution, there are no keys to be handed.” Instead, Crow suggests, individual Indian companies would have to hand over their own encryption keys to the government. Still, there are hopes that India’s security forces will be content with the BlackBerry messenger access RIM has already granted.
