This Week in BlackBerry #62
July 4, 2009“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
~United States Declaration of Independence
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This Week in BlackBerry Saturday / The Fourth of July, 2009 / #62 |
Tips
1. Fix Tip: RSET to Fix BB Calendar or Address Book
Commentary
2. Largest Commercial Satellite Launched for Small Dual-Mode Smartphones
3. NVIDIA Tegra Low-Voltage All-in-One Chips will Corner the Smartphone Market
BlackBerry
4. BB Tour 9630 Review
5. BB Tour 9630 $199 from Verizon on July 12
6. RIM Buys Dash Cheap
7. BlackBerry Saves Kidnapped Woman
Windows Mobile
8. Windows Mobile 7 Code Named “Pink”
9. Windows Mobile Marketplace to Launch with 600 Applications
Palm
10. Palm Pre: Could Ship 1M Phones this Quarter
iPhone
11. iPhone: SMS Hack Yields Root Access
12. iPhone’s Importance to AT&T
13. Apple Takes 45%of US Mobile Web Ad Requests
14. iPhone 4.0 Patents
Femtocell
15. What is a Femtocell?
16. Femtocell: Vodafone Europe
17. Femtocell: Sprint, AT&T Vie for 3G Supremacy
NFC/RFID
18. NFC: RFID Could Be in All Cell Phones by 2010
19. NFC: Citibank’s Large-Scale Mobile Payments Trial
Other News
20. Micro USB: The New Universal Phone Charger
21. Graph: US 3G Speed & Reliability by City
“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier."
Tips
1. Fix Tip: RSET to Fix BB Calendar or Address Book
Say you have duplicate entries in your BlackBerry Calendar or Address Book, you can try this:
- On the BlackBerry go to the calendar (or address book).
- Press the menu key (left of the track ball) and scroll to options in the sub menu.
- In Options scroll to wireless sync and press the track wheel to change option to no.
- Press the menu key to save option and it will take you back to the calendar (or address book).
- Again press the menu key and go to Options. You will be back in the same menu as you just came from.
- Type rset (keep in mind you will not see what you are typing and it doesn’t matter where you are on the options menu screen as long as it is in the options menu).
- A message will pop up to delete the calendar (or address book). Say yes. Once it is gone, go back into the options menu and change wireless synchronization to yes and save it.
- In 15 minutes or so the calendar (or address book) will sync again and should have all the entries back.
Commentary
2. Largest Commercial Satellite Launched for Small Dual-Mode Smartphones
As the satellites get bigger, the satellite phones get smaller. School bus sized TerreStar-1 with a 60 foot reflector will allow TerreStar Networks to offer BlackBerry sized cell/sat handsets. With AT&T’s partnership the handset will use cellular until unavailable coverage demands a satellite link. Mobile service will include the continental United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska. Meanwhile… Qualcomm is developing the MSM8960 chipset to include satellite, CDMA, and GSM-based protocols in its first chips for LTE. These dual-mode handsets, with both 2-4G cellular and satellite coverage, will become accessible on our retail shelves within 2-5 years.Wireless Week
3. NVIDIA Tegra Low-Voltage All-in-One Chips will Corner the Smartphone Market
Tonight, I was talking with a friend from NVIDIA about their Tegra "computer on a chip" which integrates CPU, GPU, northbridge, southbridge and primary memory functionality onto a single package the size of a dime. The first Tegra processor products are slated for release in Fall 2009. Microsoft’s Zune HD will be using the Tegra chip which uses less than 1 watt of voltage, meaning it can provide up to 15 days of audio and 5 days of video. I think Microsoft and Google are partnered with NVIDIA, but RIM and Apple better consider it too, because the NVIDIA claims it will continue its historical doubling of chip performance and efficiency every year. I think NVIDIA has hired aliens as their engineers. Check out this augmented reality game that was developed for the Tegra chip…ARHrrrr,Wikipedia
BlackBerry
4. BB Tour 9630 Review
BlackBerry Tour is not far off from other recent BlackBerry models. It’s like the love child of the Curve 8900, the Storm, and the Bold. ZDNet
5. BB Tour 9630 $199 from Verizon on July 12
Key features are a screen bigger than the Bold, and 3G EV-DO Rev A (decent for tethering) with additional wireless compatibility for 220 countries. This device has everything except WiFi and touch screen.www.blackberry.com/tour,CNET
6. RIM Buys Dash Cheap
Despite RIM’s veil of secrecy, it is thought to have purchased Dash for a deeply discounted $8.3M after Dash had garnered about $71M in venture capital. Dash started out making a web-based navigation device that offered directions as well as user recommendations and real-time traffic information based on data gleaned from other Dash devices on the road. User adoption was slow, likely because the device carried a $600 price tag (later reduced to $399), but the service won praise from many reviewers.Gigaom
7. BlackBerry Saves Kidnapped Woman
A signal from the mobile device served as a homing beacon for police in saving a kidnapped woman earlier this month.Mobile Enterprise
Windows Mobile
8. Windows Mobile 7 Code Named “Pink”
More evidence appeared this week that Microsoft’s handheld operating system, Window Mobile 7, is being developed under the code name “pink”. Unwired
9. Windows Mobile Marketplace to Launch with 600 Applications
Microsoft will launch its Windows Marketplace for Mobile this fall with 600 applications, according to published reports.eWeek
Palm
10. Palm Pre: Could Ship 1M Phones this Quarter
Palm has sold 300,000 units of its Pre smartphone in June — on top of 70,000 in May — and despite pumping out 15,000 devices a day is still running into supply shortages due to the Pre’s unexpectedly high demand, according to Charter Equity Research. The company is on track to ship 1 million units to exclusive carrier Sprint Nextel in the quarter.Barron’s
iPhone
11. iPhone: SMS Hack Yields Root Access
We know that iPhone doesn’t yet meet the standards of security-intensive large enterprise organizations, but this week an SMS hack was revealed that yields root access to the iPhone’s operating system.Slashdot
12. iPhone’s Importance to AT&T
An internal AT&T memo was leaked that shows some impressive numbers. For example, the iPhone 3GS launch exceeded the iPhone 3G in many ways. TechCrunch
13. Apple Takes 45%of US Mobile Web Ad Requests
AdMob’s monthly metrics reports the iPhone and iPod touch snagged the top two spots again in May, taking 45 percent of total ad requests in the United States. Third on the list is the Samsung R450, which accounts for 4.5 percent of ad requests.WirelessWeek
14. iPhone 4.0 Patents
We’ve already seen some of the things, like integration between Mapping and Calendar app in recent Apple patent filings. Some new patent applications from Apple reveal even more. Unwired
Femtocell
15. What is a Femtocell?
A femtocell is a low-powered base station, similar in size and shape to a router, which takes your mobile phone signal and sends it over your broadband connection. They are designed primarily to expand and extend mobile phone coverage, especially indoors. They are intended to help residential customers and businesses that suffer from poor cellular signals.
16. Femtocell: Vodafone Europe
Vodafone announced this week it will be releasing a Femtocell for the commercial market on 1 July, making it the first operator in Europe to do so. It will call its service theVodafone Access Gateway. A femtocell is a low-powered base station, similar in size and shape to a router, which takes your mobile phone signal and sends it over your broadband connection.
17. Femtocell: Sprint, AT&T Vie for 3G Supremacy
AT&T has said it will begin 3G femtocell service in the U.S. by year’s end, but a Sprint Nextel executive insisted the carrier will get there first with full commercial service. Femtocells, the small home-base stations, have become increasingly important to carriers because of their ability to enhance wireless voice service as well as ensure that customers can use their mobile phones to go online at home.Unstrung
NFC/RFID
18. NFC: RFID Could Be in All Cell Phones by 2010
Ericsson’s VP of Architecture predicts a year from now, every new phone sold will have near field communication (NFC) for a two-way, bio-directional RFID communication link that makes this device work as a tag or reader. RFID chips will have a secure environment on the SIM card, where "trusted identities" or "secure elements" can be downloaded. This will enable phones to take on other roles, such as the keys for your car or house, or a credit card or concert ticket.ZDNet
19. NFC: Citibank’s Large-Scale Mobile Payments Trial
In India, Citibank is including 3,000 to 5,000 cell phone users and 500 merchants in a large-scale near field communications (NFC) test with paying retailers and other outlets using mobile phones as credit cards. Citi said it viewed the test as more than just a technical trial, but also as a production-scale pilot.Yahoo!/PC World/IDG News Service
Other News
20. Micro USB: The New Universal Phone Charger
Last time we heard about the GSMA’s universal phone charger project, it was estimated that most phones would use a standard Micro USB charger by 2012. Now it looks like phones compatible with the new universal charger will be available in Europe as soon as next year. The European Commission announced major telecoms have agreed to adopt the Micro USB solution and offer compatible products starting 2010. The companies are: Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Apple, RIM, NEC, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.Reuters
21. Graph: US 3G Speed & Reliability by City
Here is a link showing the download speeds, upload speeds & reliability scores for each service provider in13 major cities.PCWorld
Let’s Connect
If you have any additions, questions, comments, concerns, corrections, criticisms, cut-downs, condemnations, censures, denigrations, deletions, disapprovals, edits, ideas, hypotheses, juxtapositions, knowledge, lectures, machinations, or if you would just like to be removed from this dreadful weekly newsletter, then, by all means, let me know. Thanks for reading.
Scott R. Curtner
