Hasta La Gadget!

Apparently Kodak’s attorneys were having a little courtroom separation anxiety — just a week after settling that long-running patent case with Samsung, they’ve filed three separate actions against Apple and RIM based. Two of the cases are based on the same patent at issue in the Samsung litigation: the first is an International Trade Commission complaint alleging that iPhones and BlackBerrys infringe the Kodak patent on previewing images, while the other is filed solely against Apple in the Western District of New York and also includes a patent on processing images at different resolutions. Apple’s also the sole focus of the third case, which alleges infringement of several patents on computer programs calling to other programs — sounds obvious, but Kodak’s already enforced them against Sun in a 2004 case. Kodak says all it’s after is fair license terms, and that it’s not trying to push anything off the market — the man with the gun always sounds so reasonable, doesn’t he?

Kodak files patent lawsuits against Apple and RIM originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We managed to track down the guys from Canada’s Allerta and got to spend some time with a couple dummy models of the soon-to-be-released inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry. Design-wise, it’s very attractive, with a brushed metal body and a leather band. As a bonus to early orderers, the first 1,000 sold will be custom-milled on a CNC router — ironically, it’ll actually be more cost-effective for them to do it that way while they build up production volume. In terms of functionality, it will launch with support for displaying text messages, caller ID, new e-mails, and BlackBerry Messenger messages (yes, it supports BBM!). It’ll give you information on who the message is from and a preview of the message’s contents. We couldn’t get a hard shipping date, but rest assured we’ll let you know as soon as we do — for now, our hands-on gallery will have to suffice.

inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry wrist-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM has unveiled BlackBerry Presenter, a portable gadget that lets business users show Microsoft PowerPoint presentations directly from BlackBerry smartphones–and gives owners a reason to forgo upgrading to an LG Expo projector phone.

The Presenter is a tiny but heavy device, measuring 3.4 by 2.4 by 0.9 inches (HWD) and weighing just over a pound. It displays three video resolutions: 640-by-480 (VGA), 800-by-600 (SVGA), and 1024-by-768 (XGA) at a 4:3 aspect ratio. The device contains VGA and S-Video outputs, plus a USB power connector and a multi-mode status LED.

When displaying PowerPoint files, it features Loop and Freeze modes, and is compatible with third-party Bluetooth enabled devices. It supports NTSC and PAL video signals, supports most 2003 and 2007 PowerPoint animations and transitions, and offers navigation and displays speaker notes on the BlackBerry.  The unit comes with a synthetic leather carrying case. It requires BlackBerry OS 4.6 or later, meaning that it doesn’t work with older BlackBerry Curve 8300 and Pearl Flip 8200 series devices.

The BlackBerry Presenter lists for $199.99. RIM hasn’t announced a release date other than posting a “Coming Soon” notice.

The year is 1999. Bill Clinton is the President of the United States, gas is 94 cents a gallon, Bondi Blue iMacs are a staple in dorm rooms across the country, and Microsoft is trying to bring the desktop Windows experience to the pocket, pushing its Palm-size PC concept (after Palm had quashed the original “Palm PC” branding) on a world still feeling jilted by the failures of the Apple Newton. 3Com subsidiary Palm and its heavyweight licensee Handspring have figured out something interesting about the still-nascent PDA market, though: people like simplicity. If an electronic organizer does what it says it’s going to do, keeps your information in sync with your PC, runs for forever and a day on a single set of batteries, and does it all with a minimum of fuss, people will buy. It’s an exciting, challenging, and rapidly-changing era in the mobile business.

Continue reading Ten years of BlackBerry

Ten years of BlackBerry originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Diehard BlackBerry users often compare BlackBerry Messenger to a potent drug. And just like a drug, coming down from a BBM high can be rough — so rough, in fact, that RIM’s claiming that a couple recent releases are responsible for “an unanticipated database issue” that stone-cold knocked out data service for many of the world’s subscribers yesterday. Folks using versions 5.0.0.55 and .56 are being strongly advised to upgrade to 5.0.0.57 immediately, but in the meantime, Waterloo says its systems are back to normal while apologizing “for any inconvenience to customers.” With three major outages now under BlackBerry’s belt in the past month, faith in the rock-solid stability of its infrastructure is fading rapidly — but then again, it gives you a great excuse to be off IM for a few hours and talk to live humans, doesn’t it?

RIM blames massive service outage on newer Messenger versions originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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