Blackberry – rgbFilter

Carrier IQ and mobile (in)security

November 30, 2011December 2, 2011 Doug Groves Android, Blackberry, Carrier IQ, Carrier IQ iOS, CIQ, EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, iPhone, IQRD, mobile security, Nokia, rootkit, security, Symbian, TrevE, xda developers22 Comments

Back in October, a story ran on XDA Developers about software running on HTC Android phones called Carrier IQ (CIQ) that appeared to be collecting a fair amount of data about your device and not doing a good job of storing it securely. Beyond your device ID, it collected phone numbers, geo-location and account names. Since that initial discovery, there’ve been reports of it being even more invasive, leading Carrier IQ to issue a Cease and Desist letter and denying what it does.

Best Buy Canada’s Free Phone Fridays – more killer (on contract) deals including the Xperia PLAY

May 27, 2011 drsquid Android, Atrix, Bell, Best Buy, Blackberry, canada, Free, Gaming, google, HTC, Incredible S, Mobile, Motorola, Nexus S, PLAY, Rogers, Samsung, smartphone, Sony, Sony Ericsson, superphone, Telus, Torch, Virgin Mobile, Xperia1 Comment

Best Buy Canada’s Free Phone Fridays returns with some killer deals – if you sign a new 3yr contact. This week’s deals include the Nexus S, ATRIX & Xperia PLAY for $0. With the announcement that the mobile version Minecraft is coming exclusively (at first) to the PLAY perhaps it’s time to consider getting a 2nd phone? Also if you are on the fence about the PLAY we should have some videos posted later today of it in action – it is, IMO, hands-down the best mobile gaming experience you…

BlackBerry PlayBook hits retailers tomorrow

April 18, 2011May 15, 2011 Doug Groves 7 inch tablet, Blackberry, Mobile, PlayBook, QNX, RIM, tablet2 Comments

After a long wait, RIM is finally launching its BlackBerry PlayBook across Canada tomorrow, and can be found at all the usual suspects, as well as less tech oriented retailers such as Sears. The latter went so far as to put out a press release suggesting that they would be the best way to buy RIMs 7 inch tablet running the new QNX based OS, offering a “15 day no hassle” return policy.

Canalys shows Android overtaking Nokia in the world

January 31, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Android, Apple, Blackberry, google, iOS, Microsoft, RIM, stats, Windows Phone 7, WP71 Comment

The latest US numbers from Canalys show that Android has now surpassed Nokia as the best selling smartphone OS in the world. Though it started off slow, Android grew from 8.7% of the market in Q4 2009 to a massive 32.9% in Q4 2010. The big drop was for Nokia, which plummeted from 44.4% to 30.6% in the same timespan. All other smartphones saw a drop as well, with Apple’s iOS dropping less than a percent, while RIM dropped almost 6%. Since Windows Phone 7 launched in the middle of…

BlackBerry PlayBook shows multitasking chops on video

December 3, 2010December 9, 2010 Doug Groves Blackberry, David Neale, PlayBook, Research In Motion, RIM, Rogers, TabLife, video3 Comments

Rogers today held their TabLife event, which invited a series of speakers to discuss the future of tablet computing in both the consumer and enterprise markets, obviously from a Rogers perspective. David Neale, Vice President of Special Projects at Research In Motion was on hand to demo the new Blackberry PlayBook and field some questions from the attendees. This short video shows the 7 inch PlayBook in action. While not yet optimized for dual core processing it nevertheless managed to show off it’s multitasking features rather well. While playing a…

RIM announces the BlackBerry PlayBook – BBM tablet style

September 27, 2010September 29, 2010 Doug Groves Blackberry, BlackBerry PlayBook, BlackBerry Tablet, BlackBerry Tablet OS, Flash, press release, QNX, Research In Motion, RIM, tablet2 Comments

Research In Motion’s developer event’ is still underway, but they’ve kicked it off with a bang, or so co-founder Mike Lazaridis is hoping. The PlayBook is RIM’s push into the tablet space, sporting a 7 inch display, a 1GHz dual core Cortex A9 CPU and sport a ‘flash-loving’, ‘app-rocking’ platform designed by QNX, called the BlackBerry Tablet OS. When the PlayBook was still expected to be called the BlackPad, it was rumoured that one of the big differentiators for the device would be it’s pairing capabilities. Sure enough, the preview…

Telus and Bell also releasing the Torch on the 24th

September 2, 2010September 2, 2010 drsquid announcement, Blackberry, Blackberry 6, Blackbery Torch, release date, RIM, Rogers, smartphone, Telus, Torch3 Comments

Telus and Bell have joined the Blackberry Torch party and also announced that they will be releasing the Blackberry 9800 Torch on September 24th. No official price has been announced by Telus, and Bell has said it will be $199 on a 3-year contract. I think it’s safe to predict the Telus price to be the same. The 24th is a big day for Canadian RIM fans. However, it remains to be seen if RIM and the carriers can generate the same level of excitement for the Torch as the…

Rogers first Canadian carrier to announce release date for Blackberry Torch 9800

September 1, 2010September 1, 2010 Doug Groves announcement, Blackberry, Blackberry 6, Blackbery Torch, Redboard, release date, RIM, Rogers, smartphone, Torch Mobile1 Comment

The Blackberry Torch, which represents a new large screen form factor and updated operating system, is coming to Rogers on September 24th, with pricing starting at $199.99. When the Blackberry Torch was first revealed running the new Blackberry OS 6, it seemed like a step forward for the Waterloo company. The Torch has a slide out portrait keyboard, much like the Palm Pre, and its name comes from RIM’s acquisition of Torch Mobile, a Blackberry developer that was working on a Webkit based browser for the operating system. RIM also…

RIM announces Blackberry 9100 Pearl 3G, coming in May to Bell, Telus and Rogers

April 29, 2010April 29, 2010 drsquid 3G, Bell, Blackberry, Kin, Microsoft, Pearl, RIM, Rogers, smartphone, Telus0 comment

This week Research in Motion (RIM), is holding their annual WES event, in sunny Orlando, instead of Waterloo Ontario. On Tuesday they announced their new Blackberry OS 6, which we posted a video of a few posts below. OS 6 is coming later this year, and is RIM’s attempt to catch up to Android, iPhone and Windows Phone 7. Also announced were 2 new handsets, the new Bold 9650, a refresh of last years CDMA Tour, with the optical track-pad, and more RAM (in preparation for OS 6). More interestingly…

Blackberry OS 6 unveiled on video

April 27, 2010May 1, 2010 Doug Groves Blackberry, Blackberry 6, RIM, video2 Comments

There’s a fair amount of news coming out from the RIM camp these days, but the one thing that is probably the most important is how they’ve refreshed their OS with Blackberry 6, and the above video gives you some ideas. It’s fresh, funky and oh so modern, that’s because it features every electronics manufacturer’s favourite musical act Black Eyed Peas. At least the song isn’t the grammatically questionable “I Gotta Feeling”. Seriously though, Blackberry 6 does have some interesting new elements to it, including a much better Webkit-based browser,…

Telus BlackBerry Storm 2 Review

February 14, 2010February 16, 2010 drsquid Blackberry, phone, review, RIM, Storm, Telus3 Comments

Introduction The enormous success of the iPhone, since its release in 2007, sent a lot of phone competitors back to their drawing boards to create a competitor that included one of the iPhones primary features, a large touch screen. Though none of them would admit to trying to create an iPhone killer, the media quickly dubbed them as such. Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian creators of the ‘Crackberry’ had already made major in-roads into the consumer smartphone market with their Curve and Pearl entry level phones, but the meteoric…

Telus Blackberry Storm 2, Bold 9700 and HTC Hero reviews

February 5, 2010February 16, 2010 drsquid Blackberry, Bold 9700, HSPA, HTC, review, RIM, smartphone, Telus6 Comments

Alex and Doug take a in-depth look at 3 of the newest smartphones available on the new Telus HSPA network. We talk about the HTC Hero, which we reviewed at the beginning of the year, the Blackberry Storm 2, which we will be posting a full review of shortly, and the Blackberry Bold 9700.