Tipsters to Boy Genius Report, well, report that T-Mobile will start sellng the BlackBerry 8820 on March 5.
The model, which has form and functional identical to the AT&T BlackBerry 8820, is said to be supporting T-Mobile Hotspot@Home Service.
More details on the way…
A new BlackBerry Patent application published this morning strongly points to a touchscreen BlackBerry- similar to the touchscreen iPhone.
It’s also important to note that although most BlackBerry Patent applications are only published 18 months after they are filed, this one has only a four-month gap. These shorter gaps often occur when adaptation of proposed technology the patent describes is imminent.
The Patent app I am referring to here is System and Method for Integrating A Touchscreen Within an LCD.
The Patent Abstract describes what’s being proposed:
A touchscreen liquid crystal display, method for using a liquid crystal display as a user input, and a mobile electronic device are provided. The touchscreen liquid crystal display comprises: a liquid crystal display having a viewing surface and including a plurality of parallel first electrodes located on one side of a liquid crystal containing area and overlapping with a plurality of parallel second electrodes located on an opposite side of the liquid crystal containing area, the first and second electrodes overlapping to form an array of liquid crystal pixel elements, at least some of the first electrodes being displaceable towards the second electrodes in response to external pressure applied to the viewing surface; a driver circuit coupled to the first and second electrodes for driving the electrodes for selectively controlling a display state of the display pixel elements; and a measurement circuit coupled to the electrodes for measuring display pixel element voltages for at least some of the display pixel elements formed by the first electrode, and for each display pixel element for which a display pixel element voltage is measured, comparing the measured voltages to reference voltages and determining a relative force of the external pressure on the viewing surface based on the measured voltages.
Follow along for more explanation from the Patent Application’s literature.
Reports have been pouring in for the last several hours.
AT&T BlackBerry service, which run on AT&T’s not so edgy EDGE network, are really having a rough patch with connectivity today.
As BlackBerry board Pinstack reports via Engadget:
We’re getting reports from all over that AT&T customers are having trouble with 3G and EDGE data. A majority of the complaints are coming from the Midwest / Chicago areas, where things seem to be down entirely, but we’ve also heard from folks as far away as Florida. Team Engadget hasn’t hit any snags in New York or Vegas where we’re currently situated, but let us know if you’re having troubles wherever you might be — and what color crayon to use for this fancy “threat level” printout we’ve got pinned to the wall.
Is your device, and connectivity, affected?
A new BlackBerry Patent app just published today would make it easier than it currently is to generate emails containing invites for future meetings from the BlackBerry Calendar.
Then, the technology would also provide recipients with an email interface they can reply to the recipient with. The recipient could then integrate the reply info back into their BlackBerry Calendar.
The methods for making this work seamlessly are described in the BlackBerry Patent app entitled Electronic device and method of messaging meeting invitees.
In this particular case, a read of the Abstract will give you a good introductory view of what’s being proposed and how these functionalities would work:
A method of composing an email message at an electronic device and an electronic device operable to carry out the method are provided. The method includes receiving an email command from a user input of the electronic device through a calendar user interface, the email command relating to at least one of a plurality of intended attendees of a calendared meeting, and providing an email composition interface in response to receiving the email command.
The email composition interface includes a user-editable portion of an address field. The user-editable portion of the address field is automatically populated with email address information for the at least one of the plurality of intended attendees.
Like I said, you can do this already, but what I see here is a methodology to shorten the steps
A new BlackBerry Patent application entitled System and Method for Adaptive Theming Of A Mobile Device describes ways that a BlackBerry wireless carrier or third-party theme screen developer could configure, or reconfigure, a subscriber’s BlackBerry theme remotely.
This capability presumably could be used to configure temes based on user preferences, regions, or even- hopefully only with the subscriber’s content- to promotions or times of the year.
If I am reading this right, maybe a spring-oriented theme could be forwarded by a carrier or third-party developer to a user that would show flowers native to the subscriber’s area. Similarly, a Christmas or Hanukah theme could be sent to users who may have expressed such preferences during registration or a push email campaign sent by the carrier.
I like this idea- as long as it is opt-in.
Now let us review this Patent App’s Abstract:
In the field of mobile devices, it is desirable to allow parties extraneous to a mobile device’s manufacturer the ability to theme the mobile device. It is also desirable to allow changes to the theme of the mobile device in order to reflect changes in the corporate identity or services offered by a vendor or carrier associated with the mobile device.
Herein provided are methods for the just in time theming of a mobile device. The methods allow for a mobile device to transmit identification information upon activation, receive user interface customization information in response to the transmitted identification information and to subsequently set the mobile device’s user interface to correspond with the received user interface customization information.
Also provided are methods for a server to receive identification information, provide the appropriate user interface customization information based on the received identification information and supply the user interface customization information by transmitting the information.
“Parties extraneous to a mobile device’s manufacturer.” Gee, are we getting a bit obtuse here?
Sounds like a carrier or third-party software provider to me.
Are you OK with this?
The U.K.-based Financial Post reports that BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion is planning an accessory known as the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway.
The device is said to connect to a stereo while, at the same time, Bluetooth technology is employed to play music files from a multimedia-capable BlackBerry.
The relevant section of the User Manual, as newly posted on the FCC Web site, tells us that:
The BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway is designed to enable wireless transmission of music or other audio files from your BlackBerry device to your home or portable stereo.
The BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway uses Bluetooth technology to establish a wireless connection with your BlackBerry device. After you pair the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway with your BlackBerry device, you can connect to the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway when the device is within range of your BlackBerry device (a typical range is approximately 10 meters).
BlackBerry Curve would be one of those devices.
“This is huge,” the Financial Post’s David George Cosh quoted Carmi Levy, senior vice-president of strategic consulting for AR Communications Inc., as saying. “This really is the first tangible evidence that has been bubbling under for some time, but RIM has been really quiet about bringing that to fruition.”
Pictures? There are four on the FCC site. Come along and I will show them all to you.
That’s the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway.. Brush up on your metric measurements.
Another, broader view.
Yes, the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gatewayt has a label, and is made in China.
One more….
Um, “port-land.”
Verizon Wireless and BlackBerry announced today that a red-colored BlackBerry 8830 World Edition will be available online Friday at www.verizonwireless.com for $299.99 after a $100 rebate with a new two-year customer agreement.
If customers sign up for qualifying voice and data plans, they will receive an additional $100 credit at the time of purchase.
The units wil be available in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores beginning a week from tomorrow, February 8. They are also available to Verizon Wireless Enterprise customers who call their sales rep at 1-800-VZW-4BIZ .
A new BlackBerry patent application published just yesterday would improve the ability of BlackBerry devices to read voltage levels.
The patent app is entitled System and Method for Managing Battery Slump.
As we often do when discussing patents, let’s read the Abstract first. The Abstract describes:
A system and method for managing battery slump in a battery-powered communications device including: an input configured for receiving battery voltage level information; an output configured for sending a signal for terminating a transmission; and a controller connected to the input and the output and configured to receive the battery voltage level information from the input; monitor the battery voltage level information; and send a signal via the output to terminate a transmission if the battery voltage level information crosses a predetermined threshold during the transmission.
In particular, the system and method may further include an input connected to the controller and configured for receiving a signal indicating when a transmission is beginning or occurring and the controller is further configured to receive and monitor the battery voltage level information only when the transmission is occurring.
You may be wondering why this is necessary. Let’s go to the passages in the Patent app that describe why this is so:
Colleague John Falcone reports that Sling Media- has confirmed a new update of its SlingPlayer software will be announced for 
BlackBerry.
The release will enable SlingMedia to streamlive TV to be streamed from any Slingbox model over a 3G or WiFi connection to BlackBerry Pearl 8120’s.
The software, which will be priced at a one-time $30 fee, will be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. It’s similar to SlingPlayer software already available for Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian phones.
Public release is expected by the end of 2008.
Oh wait, now I can say “this year.”
When one of our devices crashes or shuts down because of memory issues, one of the last words we would ever use to describe the circumstances is “graceful.”
Yes, but graceful is indeed part of the title of a just-published BlackBerry Patent application entitled Detection Of Out-Of-Memory and Graceful Shutdown.
Interestingly, if you read through the Patent app’s Abstract and literature, this invention seems to be more oriented toward stand-alone and networked PCs rather than BlackBerrys.
The Abstract describes:
A method, system and computer readable medium for managing low memory in a first computing device are provided. The system is configured to cause part of the memory allocated to a specialized application to be held in reserve so that it can be used to support the specialized application during an occurrence of low memory, thus providing time for data backup or remedial steps to be carried out before the affected application crashes.
Reading further in this application’s literature, we note language that directly implicates PC operating systems as vulnerable to lockups that could be forewarned by the technology that is being described here:
As known in the art, operating systems such Microsoft Windows and UNIX based systems have a physical limit on the amount of addressable memory that can be used by an application. If the application exceeds this limit, it will often crash, leading to a loss of data that has not been stored to persistent memory, and perhaps also to crashes or slowdowns in any other applications that rely on the crashed application.
In distributed computing networks in which separate computers connected to a common network perform work in parallel, one computer may be configured to monitor its own memory usage or the memory usage of other computers and take precautionary backup measures, either automatically or after alerting a human operator, in the event that the monitored conditions of one of the computers indicates that an application crash has occurred or is about to occur.
However, such a system requires almost near constant polling of the monitored computers in order to have timely detection of a problem, and even with timely detection, the affected computer application may crash before critical data can be saved.
Accordingly, a method and system for detecting and managing low memory situations that provides time for rectifying or otherwise responding to the situation is desirable.
Ya think?
OK getting serious with you again. I’ve read through the remainder of this literature. Having done so, I think Figure 4, and its accompanying documentation, draws us closest to an understanding of what is being proposed here.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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