Touch Screen BlackBerry Thunder in Q3
BlackBerry makers plans to launch a touch-screen version of the wireless e-mail device in the third quarter as an answer to Apple Inc’s iPhone, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
RIM declined to comment on the report, stating that it does not comment on rumors and speculation. Earlier this week, rumored details of a touch-screen BlackBerry surfaced on the Internet.
The device, known as the Thunder, is to be sold through Verizon Wireless in the U.S. and Vodafone PLC abroad, the Journal reported on its Web site, citing people familiar with the matter.
In February, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said the company may bring out a touch-screen device if customers want it.
This week, Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM announced its BlackBerry Bold, a sleek smartphone with a keyboard aimed at its core base of business users.
Introducing a touch-screen BlackBerry would put RIM in more direct competition with Apple’s popular iPhone. In the past, Balsillie has dismissed concerns that the iPhone could pose a serious competitive threat.
A touch-screen BlackBerry would also build on RIM’s continuing push into the broader retail market as it seeks to diversify its client base beyond the executives, lawyers and other professionals who have been its mainstay.
source:read
Google will be Nokia’s competitor in Online Mapping
Nokia is taking on the world with the latest addition to their online social website Ovi.com. At a conference in California, Nokia revealed an early version of their new Map software on Ovi.com.
The demo is impressive. Unlike most web-based mapping applications, the screen refreshes rapidly, enabling you to pan, tilt, and spin your view of the map while the screen refreshes almost instantaneously. zoomed around a yellow-and-blue map of San Francisco with an aerial abandon that felt like flying over the city, in comparison with Google Maps’ pokey dirigible. Nokia gets that speed by using vector-based maps and doing the redrawing computation on the user’s computer, rather than the servers.
The company is planning on publishing an API for developers to create various applications that will allow this software to interact with other software on the PC or mobile phone.
source:read
Fedora 9 Sulphur Officially Released, Download it here
Fedora 9 Sulphur released and it’s the most breathtaking version of the Fedora operating system. Not only does this release bring support for encrypted filesystems (implemented in the installer), but it’s also one of the best Fedora releases yet!
It’s powered by the latest and greatest Linux kernel, version 2.6.25, Fedora 9 Sulphur brings you ext4 support, a filesystem that’s more scalable and performs much better than ext3. Although it is considered to work better than ext3, it is still under development and not enabled by default, with some features that are not fully completed. Moreover, Fedora 9 doesn’t bring you a fully ext4-compatible version of e2fsprogs, although this utility can create filesystems mountable by ext4.
Download Fedora 9 and enjoy a very nice Linux distribution, right now from here.
I always recommend having an empty hard drive for a Linux installation and you must have a minimum of 10 GB free space for the Fedora installation.
For this installation, use the Install DVD, because it contains all the software you’ll ever need. However, the DVD edition has about 3 GB in size and, if you don’t have the necessary bandwidth to download it, then we strongly recommend you get one of the KDE or the GNOME Live CD editions. Burn it on a blank disc with your favorite CD/DVD burning application, then insert the disc in the optical drive of the computer on which you want to install Fedora and boot from it. You’ll be presented with a very nice Fedora GRUB splash and some options. At this stage, we simply suggest you press Enter, and wait for the system to load. And follow the screen messages.
And, before you reach the Fedora desktop, you must do a one-time general system configuration. That’s it! Now log in to your new Linux operating system and enjoy the breathtaking Fedora 9 Linux distribution!
Swisscom deal with Apple may offer 3G iPhone
The iPhone international roll-out the news that Swisscom will offer the iPhone in Switzerland.
Although the official statement from the telecoms co was brief, merely confirming a deal had been done with Apple. Local news sources are filling in the gaps by claiming the carrier will get the unconfirmed 3G model.
Newspaper Le Matin is claiming that the version for sale in Switzerland will boast video-conferencing, mobile television and GPS and will go on sale in June.
Since the announcement Swisscom’s website has leaked pricing for the 3G 16GB model that will apparently be available in silver, but the 32GB offering will come in silver, black and white.
source:read
Googles New Free Vidnik V0.13.0 Video Application.
Google released Vidnik, a new application they’re offering as part of their Google Mac apps. It’s a simple program for using the built-in camera on your Mac to create movies and upload them to YouTube. It’s free to download and use the first release of Vidnik, version 0.13.0 .
Vidnik is useful for creating video diaries, or to produce a video comment you can attach to an existing YouTube video. It works with the iSight webcam built in to MacBook Pros and MacBooks, and also works with many FireWire and USB-based video cameras that are Mac compatible, according to the developer.
The application lets you record a video clip, trim it, add some title, description and other information, then click the upload button. You can also drag movies you’ve created in other applications into Vidnik’s interface, which will allow you to upload them, as well.
Vidnik also lets you use other video applications to manipulate the videos you’ve created in Vidnik, if you want to add effects or other enhancements.
Worldwidetelescope.org Microsoft WorldWide Telescope a copy of google sky
Microsoft has launched WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that stitches together images from some of the best ground- and space-based telescopes. Microsoft says the “final frontier got a bit closer” as the software giant officially launches the public beta of its WorldWide Telescope, which is now available at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org.
Very similar to Google Sky, WorldWide Telescope is a web app that brings together imagery from ground- and space-based observatories across the world to allow people to explore the night sky through their computers.
Collections include pictures from the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes, as well as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
The web-based tool also allows users to pan and zoom around the planets, and trace their locations in the night sky.
The application itself is a blend of software and Web 2.0 services created with the Microsoft Visual Experience Engine, which claims to allow “seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments”.
WorldWide Telescope stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies and displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky.
worldwidetelescope.org Microsoft WorldWide Telescope a copy of google sky
