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Research In Motion earns a reprieve from Saudi Arabia’s BlackBerry ban

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Saudi Arabia postpones BlackBerry ban indefinitely.

Some hints of hope for Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, in its aspirations of growth outside of North America.

AFP reported that Saudi Arabia has postponed indefinitely a BlackBerry ban after a deadline passed for finding a solution allowing authorities to monitor its encrypted messages. The state news agency SPA reported that the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) had announced that BlackBerry messenger services would remain online, due to progress in efforts to find a solution to the concerns.

Among the reported solutions is the installation of a local server accessible to Saudi authorities, instead of the data going directly to RIM’s Canadian servers. Local daily Okaz on Monday quoted a technical source at one of the monarchy’s three mobile phone companies as saying the tests on the server and requested programmes have been successful.

More than 700,000 Saudis subscribe to BlackBerry, with most reportedly purchasing the smartphone for personal use.

The telecoms regulator had previously ordered mobile operators to block the BlackBerry feature from Friday last week or face a 1.3-million-dollar fine, after similar moves by other Arab nations. United Arab Emirates had announced that it would ban BlackBerry messenger, email and web browsing from October 11, over concerns that the encrypted communications on BlackBerry smartphones could not be monitored by the government for criminal and terrorist activities.

The UAE’s telecoms regulator said last week that it remained open to discussions to find a “regulatory-compliant solution,” possibly a resolution based on enabling monitoring.

Outside the Arab world, India is mulling a ban and Indonesia is not ruling out the option, although on Thursday it denied the world’s largest Muslim nation was considering a suspension of BlackBerry services.

India plans to set a deadline later this week for operators to allow security agencies access to encrypted BlackBerry messages or face disconnection, the Hindustan Times quoted a home ministry official as saying Tuesday.

Tags:BlackBerry, RIM, smartphone
Posted in Gadgets, Phones, Tech news, Technology | No Comments »

BlackBerry Torch 9800: RIM’s first device based on the 6.0 Operating System

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Finally, an actual BlackBerry based on the 6.0 operating system, which Co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie promised last month will have consumers “blown away”.

Views and dimensions of BlackBerry Torch 9800

BlackBerry Torch 9800 with 6.0 Operating System.

Bloomberg’s Rich Jaroslovsky summarises the smartphone maker scene succintly at the beginning of his weekly Friday column:

“It’s become fashionable among the digerati to dismiss the BlackBerry as a remnant of yesterday’s technology and lump its maker, Research In Motion Ltd., with Microsoft and Nokia as wireless pioneers who squandered their early advantages and are now sinking toward irrelevance.”

Rich’s assessment for the Torch is that although it provides BlackBerry users with a more modern experience, “it falls well short of Apple Inc.’s iPhone and the many devices that run Google Inc.’s Android operating system, and provides no reason for users of any of those phones to contemplate switching.”

RIM’s application store, called AppWorld, has only about 9,000 offerings, a small fraction of the number available for the iPhone or Android devices. And the BlackBerry’s media-playing capabilities remain basic, even primitive, when compared with some of its rivals.

Sporting the classic BlackBerry form factor, the Torch weighs 161 grams (5.7 ounces) – 18 percent heavier than an iPhone 4.

Typing can be done using either the physical keyboard, which slides out from behind the screen, or by using the on-screen keypad. The 3.2 inch colour touch screen recognises the usual pinch-and-zoom gestures to resize text and images, and you can move from message to message by swiping the screen sideways.

The new interface for the new operating system will also be available to users of BlackBerry’s Bold 9700 and 9650 and Pearl 3G models. Rich reports that “the home screen is well laid out, with a separate screen for frequently used applications; settings and options have been made simpler across the board.”

The biggest improvement seems to be in web-surfing, considering how painful it had been on older BlackBerry models. The browser has been revamped to be faster and to include new features.

Tags:BlackBerry, RIM, smartphone
Posted in Gadgets, Phones, Review | 1 Comment »

Android smartphones outsell iPhone in US 2010Q1

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

Smartphones have become the next battleground for the technology behemoths to seize pole position. Exciting times lie ahead with the rivalry between Apple’s iPhone/iPad and smartphones based on Google’s Android, while HP plots its next move with the newly acquired Palm’s WebOS, and incumbent leader RIM seeks to preserve its market share.

Google Android Nexus One and Apple iPhone

Google & Android vs Apple & iPhone

According to the NPD Group, smartphones sold during the first quarter of 2010 in the United States stands had the following OS (operating system). NPD’s sales data are based on large consumer surveys: