Hasta La Gadget!

For a platform billing itself as the business user’s best friend, BlackBerry’s list of unsupported protocols that have achieved ubiquity is actually astonishing: you can’t do two-way read status sync with an IMAP email account, for example, and amazingly, you can’t natively connect to an Exchange ActiveSync service without being routed through RIM’s back-end software. In a shocking move that’s straight out of 2002, it seems at least one of those niggles is going to get patched up soon thanks to a leaked list of email features in BlackBerry Internet Service 3.0, the software carriers deploy to marshal all data connectivity on the handsets they’ve deployed to customers. Yes, that’s right: you’ll be able to synchronize read status and sent items with your Gmail account, just as if you were using virtually any other phone produced in the last several years! It’s hard to fathom that it’s taken this long, but hey, we’ll take it — unfortunately, it’s up to each carrier to decide when they’re going to deploy BIS upgrades, so your mileage may vary on the wait time. Of course, RIM could just add IMAP support directly to its phones so that this whiz-bang tech would work with any third-party email service and wouldn’t have to go through BIS in the process, but that would be crazy talk, right?

[Thanks, Jeff]

RIM’s BIS 3.0 email features apparently leaked, finally does Gmail justice originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  BlackBerry Leaks  | Email this | Comments

Not a week goes by that we don’t hear of investor pressure on Deutsche Telekom to strengthen its financials and offload underperforming units — T-Mobile USA included — and the American outpost is back in the spotlight this evening coming off a report out of The Wall Street Journal that a spinoff might indeed be in the works. According to our favorite “people familiar with the matter,” DT has reached out to a few banks with the goal of raising enough capital for T-Mobile through an IPO that it’d be able to continue to fund its network build-out, something that’s going to become increasingly critical as it fends off 7.2Mbps HSPA and 4G competition from all of its national competitors. There are a few scenarios allegedly being discussed, ranging from a full-on excision of T-Mobile from its corporate parent to a merger with another US wireless firm — but the plan gaining most traction internally is said to involve selling around 20 percent of the carrier to investors while hanging onto the rest, a situation that would get the underperforming unit’s financials off DT’s books. Ultimately, whatever comes of this probably won’t happen for a few months while the options get mulled, but considering what went down in the UK, this certainly seems plausible.

Deutsche Telekom rumored to be eyeing T-Mobile USA spinoff originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET  |  The Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

There’s not much to go on here, but according to alleged sources of Gamervision, Sony’s planning a relaunch of sorts for the PSP Go. The oft-maligned portable hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm — and with its lack of an UMD drive, despite the company’s continued support of the format, that arguably wasn’t the point of its existence, anyway. An apparent marketing blitz is in the cards (unsurprising), and additionally there’s speculation that a price drop might be coming, too. That seems a bit early given it only launched back in October, but if the company’s really wanting to get aggressive and pushing units of its admittedly pretty hardware, that’s a pretty good way to do so. Then again, its hands might be full adding some vigor to its other gaming machine.

PSP Go ‘relaunch’ in the works? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  Gamervision  | Email this | Comments

Continue reading Apple iPad rumor roundup: Abraham Zapruder edition

Apple iPad rumor roundup: Abraham Zapruder edition originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Mashable, GeekWord  |  Apple, TechCrunch, Mission Repair  | Email this | Comments

Spanish blog MuyComputer claims that Microsoft will present the “Zune Phone” this February, at the MWC in Barcelona. According to them, it’s 100% confirmed. Since the phone will use Tegra, Nvidia will team with Microsoft for the anti-JesusPhone debut.

Talking to the blog editorial director Javier Pérez Cortijo, he told me that “the Zune Phone presentation at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress 2010 is 100% confirmed.” I’ve been a close friend of Javier for a couple of decades—he was my first editor—and I completely trust his sources and his judgement, so this is a good one.

As we’ve heard before, this isn’t actually going to be a “Zune Phone” in that it’s Zune, with a phone attached. It’s going to be Windows Mobile 7 with Zune software, just like how the iPhone has iPod software on it. The presentation of the Windows Mobile 7 at MWC 2010, which we’ve been hearing about for a few months now, seems to be inline with the mention of three phones in the Zune software last week, and previous rumors about its introduction.

MuyComputer says that the phone will have a 480 x 272 screen, HDMI video out, and weigh around 2.45 ounces (70 grams). [MuyComputer – In Spanish]

The image is a mockup, not the real thing