BBX - The Next Generation BlackBerry Platform

Research In Motion (RIM) showed off its next generation operating system called BBX that blends the company's BlackBerry 7 OS and the QNX OS that powers the PlayBook tablet at the BlackBerry DevCon in San Francisco.

The next-gen OS includes HTML5 support, bolstered security and a commitment to open standards, the RIM said. BBX will power all of its future smartphones, mobile devices and embedded systems.

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RIM Offers Free Apps After BlackBerry Outage

After three-day outage Blackberry user experienced last week, RIM is offering up a selection of 12 premium apps and games for free, available to download from Blackberry App world  starting from Wednesday and will remain available free until December 31st, 2011.


See  full press release below:

Research In Motion Offers Free Premium Apps to Customers Following Service Interruptions

Waterloo, ON - Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) announced today that a selection of premium apps worth a total value of more than US $100 will be offered free of charge to subscribers as an expression of appreciation for their patience during the recent service disruptions. The apps will be made available to customers over the coming weeks on BlackBerry® App World™ and will continue to be available until December 31, 2011.*

“Our global network supports the communications needs of more than 70 million customers,” said RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. “We truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers.  We’ve worked hard to earn their trust over the past 12 years, and we’re committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect, today and in the future.”

The complete selection of premium apps will become available to download at BlackBerry App World over a period of four weeks beginning Wednesday, October 19th.  The selections over this period will include the following (with more to come):
• SIMS 3 - Electronic Arts
• Bejeweled - Electronic Arts
• N.O.V.A. - Gameloft
• Texas Hold’em Poker 2 - Gameloft
• Bubble Bash 2 - Gameloft
• Photo Editor Ultimate - Ice Cold Apps
• DriveSafe.ly Pro - iSpeech.org
• iSpeech Translator Pro - iSpeech.org
• Drive Safe.ly Enterprise - iSpeech.org
• Nobex Radio™ Premium - Nobex
• Shazam Encore - Shazam
• Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant - Vlingo
RIM’s enterprise customers will also be offered one month of free Technical Support.  Current customers will be offered a complimentary one month extension of their existing Technical Support contract, and customers who do not currently have a Technical Support contract will be offered a one month trial of RIM’s BlackBerry Technical Support Services - Enhanced Support, free of charge.  Additional details about the program and information about how to register will be available at www.blackberry.com/enterpriseoffer.

“We are grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers for their patience,” added Lazaridis. “We have apologized to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence.  We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.”

Note to Editors:
Last week, many customers experienced service interruptions and delays over a period of approximately 3 days in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, 1.5 days in Latin America and Canada, and 1 day in the United States. Global teams worked around the clock to contain the issue and minimize the impact to customers as much as possible. As of Thursday, October 13, service levels returned to normal.

* Please note that the availability of this offer will depend on the type of device, operating system version, access to BlackBerry App World and local conditions and/or restrictions.
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Source: RIM Press releases

Blackberry outage saga continues

As is yesterdays outage was not bad enough, RIM's BlackBerry Internet Services are back down again for many users around the world, just hours after the end of an outage that lasted the best part of a day yesterday. Tens of millions of users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa suffered a second day without BIS services.

RIM also revealed that the areas affected now include South America, with users in Brazil, Chile and Argentina suffering loss of service.

This is no good for RIM's reputation as BIS and BBM platforms are all that Blackberry has going for. With these service performing poorly, many of its users will considering moving to other platforms, such as Android phones or Apple's iPhone, which are not reliant on centralized service for connectivity.

Blackberry BIS on a Glitch

BlackBerry users have been hit by a major outage reportedly affecting the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) across parts of Africa, the Middle East and Europe, including the UK.

The extent of the problem isn’t yet clear, but BlackBerry owners and service providers in the UK are blaming Research In Motion (RIM)for the problem, and the Canadian company confirmed the downtime in a short statement  earlier today.

"We are working to resolve an issue currently impacting some BlackBerry subscribers in Europe, Middle East and Africa," RIM said. "We're investigating, and we apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused whilst this is resolved."

The glitch began disrupting services from 11am (GMT). Users have been unable to browse the web, send or receive emails, or use the BlackBerry Messenger instant messaging service (BBM).

Google Docs app updated

Good news if you use Android tablets  as Google Docs app for Android which was unveiled earlier this year, now it's been updated to work better with Honeycomb tablets.  It now spot a new design, customized to make the most of the larger screen space on tablets. The layout includes a three-panel view, which allows you to navigate through filters and collections, view your document list, and see document details, all at once.


Google Docs app is available on Android Market  for free.

Source:  Official Google Enterprise Blog

Android Hotmail app available to download from the Android Market.

It looks like Microsoft is trying to modernise Hotmail with free Android app offering push email, contact and calendar syncing and the chance to integrate multiple accounts. To be honest, this former king of web-based email is now considered uncool. Most of its users have abandoned their accounts due to an overwhelming amount of junk mail and lack functionality.

Key features include: - With push email get messages on your phone without delay - Synced calendar and contacts - View your folders in Hotmail, including sub folders - Send pictures from your phone using Hotmail - Supports multiple Hotmail accounts - Send, receive and view attachments Hotmail for Android is now available to download from the Android Market.

Steve Jobs, co-founder and former chief executive of Apple has died.

Steve Jobs, the Apple founder and former CEO, has died at the age of 56 after a long battle with cancer. RIP Steve Jobs....a true genius and innovator whose products revolutionised the world of technology.