Hasta La Gadget!

The Blackberry Bold 9900 and 9930 seem competent

RIM has just announced the BlackBerry Bold Touch. The new handset comes in two versions: the 9900 is the GSM 3G and 4G version, and the 9930 is the CDMA world-phone, with quad-band GSM and and dual-band UMTS.

With those various confusions dealt with, let’s take a peek inside. The Bold Touch runs on a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, has 768MB RAM (and storage of 8GB to 32GB), a 5MP camera (which shoots 720p video), a 2.8-inch, 640 x 480 (287 ppi) display, all crammed into a pedestrian, thin-ish, corporate-friendly shell.

The Bold Touch also ships with a new version of the BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 7. This brings a new, HTML5-compatible browser, voice search and a smart feature which lets you seperate business and pleasure, segmenting things like Twitter and Facebook into their own ghetto. You know, because Twitter and Facebook are never used for work. I kid. This compartmentalizing means you can carry just one phone and be certain your drunken party videos will never turn up when you’re in a meeting.

It looks like a strong but unspectacular update from RIM. Which is of course exactly the kind of update its market — the IT department — loves.

Available this summer, price tba.

BlackBerry BlackBerry product page [BlackBerry]

BlackBerry Bold press release [BlackBerry]

See Also:

• BlackBerry Bold Loses Against iPhone in Browser Race
• BlackBerry Bold Now Free At Wal-Mart
• BlackBerry Bold in Trouble? Orange UK Suspends Bold Shipments …

EchoStar and Dish Network agree to pay TiVo to settle a long-running patent tussle. The companies are also swapping patent licenses.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Research In Motion kicks off its BlackBerry World 2011 conference with a pair of smartphones that feature touch screens and NFC capabilities.

Originally posted at Dialed In

Death Race 2000: Amazing post-apocalyptic vehicle spotted on present-day city streets. Photo Nathaniel Akin

If Rube Goldberg ever built a bicycle, it would look like this crazy machine. Actually, it’s a little more Heath Robinson than Goldberg, but you get the idea: This thing is a convoluted mess. A convoluted awesome mess.

Details are slim, as the contraption was photographed not by the owner (and presumably builder), but by sometime tech blogger Nathaniel Akin. It appears to be fashioned from the zombie-fied remains of at least four other bikes, variously lashed together with cable-ties and bolts. Atop this behemoth sits a plastic chair, where the rider (driver?) presumably perches, carried along like C3PO when he was held aloft by George Lucas’ stupid teddy bears.

The bike is driven by an electric drill connected to car batteries through a inverter, and the power runs along several cogs and chains before reaching the wheel. It’s so bad-ass that I’m actually scared to make a joke about recumbent bikes [cough] beards [cough].

And of course, the “bike” is pulling a beer cooler.

Akin calls this the “Mad Max Electric Bike”, and we can’t do any better than that. We salute you, crazy bike building guy, whoever you may be. Thank you for making the world a slightly more awesome place.

Mad Max Electric Bike [Tech Envy via the Giz]

See Also:

• Indestructible Mobile Home Keeps Out Mad Max, Zombies
• Mad Max Bike With Single-Cylinder Engine
• Post Apocalyptic Transport
• Deadly Bike Has Flame-Throwers, Ejector Seat
• Bad-ass

We’ve seen it photographed, videotaped, and even, briefly, up on RIM’s own website. Now it’s up there to stay, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 (aka the Bold Touch) have been made official as RIM kicks off BlackBerry World in Orlando. As expected, the phone packs a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor that has only a 2.8-inch VGA touchscreen with a 287dpi pixel density to worry about. On the back is a five megapixel camera and inside is 8GB of internal storage (with microSD expansion) and NFC circuitry. At 10.5mm it’s RIM’s thinnest handset yet, featuring a stainless steel circumference and a fiberglass back, while up front of course it makes room for a full QWERTY keyboard. The 9900 supports HSPA+ connectivity to get its 4G on, while the 9930 is the world variant, adding dual-band CDMA and quad-band GSM to the mix, and both do 802.11a/b/g/n along with Bluetooth 2.1. Both, quite naturally, include the new BlackBerry 7 OS, including a faster browser and voice-activated search. Another picture and full specs are listed after the break, which will have to do you until this handset releases sometime in the summer, meaning this could be your next great beach accessory for those working vacations.

Update: Full press release and more images after the break.

Continue reading BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 (Bold Touch) official

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 (Bold Touch) official originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 08:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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