Hasta La Gadget!

A beautiful, newly minted couple finishes the ride up to the penthouse after a Perfect night in Paris. With the flick of a few switches, the living room lights, the music cues and the saltwater fish tanks reveal. More »

RIM’s BlackBerry Developer Conference is going down this week in San Francisco, and as you might expect from a developer-focused event, there are a handful of newsy items that’ll affect the development community first and consumers down the road. Here’s a roundup of what’s what:

• WebWorks development platform. From what we’ve heard of this so far, it’s basically a quick way for web devs to get into the BlackBerry app game by offering a tightly-integrated platform for HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript code with hooks to native BlackBerry OS functions and a packager for turning them into “real” BlackBerry apps.
• BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform. RIM’s historically held BBM very, very close to the chest, but it’s starting to open up a tad with this particular announce. Don’t look for BBM on other platforms (yes, we know that’s what some of you were hoping to hear), but third-party app developers will now be able to tap into the system for sending and receiving messages, files, user profiles, and invitations. Interestingly, the company is pitching it as a platform for multiplayer gaming, using BBM as a conduit to move information between devices in real time.
• BlackBerry Advertising Service. Google bought AdMob and Apple bought Quattro, but RIM’s taking a more democratic approach to its advertising platform, allowing both “simple” and “rich media” ads to be served from a handful of providers “with only three lines of code.” It’ll be a 60 / 40 revenue split between devs and RIM.
• BlackBerry Payment Service SDK. This one’s launching in beta this week, bringing third-party in-app payments over credit card, PayPal, and carrier billing (available on AT&T right now, more carriers by the end of the year). It’ll be out of beta before 2010’s out.

Nothing on the so-called BlackPad so far, but at any rate, seems like this roundup is great news for anyone looking to slide some content into App World over the next few months.

RIM announces WebWorks development kit, in-app payments, ad platform, and BBM API originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you knew anything about The Rachel Zoe Project, you’d know that dear Rachel never, ever leaves home without her BlackBerry. Apparently, her comforting hubby — known affectionately as Rodger Berman — isn’t going far without his unbranded Windows Phone 7 device (and a little help from Bing, naturally). Curiously enough, the date on the screen shows July, so there’s a halfway decent chance the software they’re playing with is of the pre-production variety… particularly since he’s wielding a Samsung Omnia i9810-based prototype. Oh, and as you can see above, we’re guessing he’s relying on WiFi or some off-camera magic to actually pull anything up. Hard to get 3G in Los Angeles, especially when your phone is missing its SIM card. At any rate, the spot in full is embedded just past the break, and just between us, we get the feeling this is just the first of many more to come.

[Thanks, Michael]

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 slides into TV spot, Rachel Zoe’s life

Windows Phone 7 slides into TV spot, Rachel Zoe’s life originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 13:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s iPhone users may be buying more apps but when it comes to mobile ads, it is Android customers who are click happy, says an online advertising network.

Android users click on ads 81 percent more often than those who have an iPhone. That makes Android users much more valuable to advertisers, says online ad network Chitika. But here’s another interesting data point. Apple’s iPad did better than the iPhone when it comes to ad click-through rates. The data is based on a sample of 1.3 million impressions across Chitika’s network.

“iPad users are much more likely to click ads than their iPhone-using contemporaries.  This may be chalked up to the difference in display size,” says Chitika on its blog.

The numbers from Chitika are similar to those from another mobile ad company called Smaato in June. Android devices are more friendly to mobile ads compared to the iPhone, says Smaato.

The data about how smartphone users react on different platforms comes as Apple has started rolling out its iAds mobile advertising platform. So far, only five of the 17 iAd launch partners have managed to roll out their advertising campaigns since Apple introduced iAds in April.

Though early advertisers have said they are happy with the results they have seen so far, data from companies like Chitika and Smaato is not an encouraging sign for Apple.

It is not clear why Android devices are ahead of the iPhone when it comes to getting consumer attention for ads, says Chitika. Android users show a click-through rate of 1.187 percent compared to 0.654 percent click-through rates on the iPhone. The lack of iPhone-like elegance in the Android’s interface could result in more user clicks–including those on mobile ads, says Gigaom.

But that alone can’t explain why the Android platform is ahead of the iPhone in getting consumer attention for mobile ads. It’s something that Apple may also be trying to find the answer to.

Chart: Chitika

Well this is getting good. Motorola was one of the first to take a subtle swipe at Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna dilemma with an ad saying you could hold the Droid X “any way you like,” Apple came right back with a video purportedly showing the Droid X suffering similar attenuation issues when held in the right hand, and now Moto’s responded with this cheeky ad that plays off Apple’s free iPhone case solution by saying the Droid X can make calls “without a bulky phone jacket.” Yeah, it’s pretty good — particularly because unlike most other phones, we haven’t been able to death grip the Droid X with any noticeable effect on 3G reception. (Although, truth be told, we can drop the WiFi signal by a few bars pretty easily.) Either way, we’re certainly enjoying this little slice of swagger from Moto — check a larger version after the break.

Continue reading Motorola takes another shot at the iPhone 4, says Droid X is ‘no jacket required’

Motorola takes another shot at the iPhone 4, says Droid X is ‘no jacket required’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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