LinkedIn, the leading business oriented social networking site launched a mobile interface that can be accessed from your BlackBerry browser or any other smartphone browser.
Just point your browser to http://m.linkedin.com
You can see here video of one of the engineers demonstrating the functionality:
Here is a nice collection of free games for your BlackBerry:
| Pipes Rotate the pipe segments to connect all the pieces. Features a resizable board, randomly generated puzzles, and auto save and resume. Easy to learn... and yes, every puzzle can be solved. To install, browse from your BlackBerry to mobile.kornhornio.net | |
| Xiang Qi (Chinese Chess) Xiang Qi is one of the oldest chess games. This is the Chinese version and was also specially written for the Pearl and other 8xxx series to take advantage of the trackball. To install, browse from your BlackBerry to http://rivviepop.php0h.com/bb/ota/cchess.jad | |
| Snake Remember the snake game on your old Nokia cellular? Here it is! To install, browse from your BlackBerry to http://wap.mobile9.com/ and enter code 97683 | |
| Bubblet You have to clear the screen by selectively pressing Fire key (when the cursor is on bubbles of the same color) to make them disappear. The bubbles can be touching each other vertically or horizontally. To install, browse from your BlackBerry to http://wap.mobile9.com/ and enter code 374707 |
Bayalink has an interesting product that allows you to use your BlackBerry right from your laptop. Their product is called Bayalink Liberty and is pretty much a USB dongle that you plug to your laptop. After plugging the dongle, you'll be able to manage your BlackBerry mail right from your laptop keyboard without any connectivity (send, delete, read etc) open mail attachments with a normal viewer on your laptop and more. This is a pretty nice solution for situations where you don't have Internet connectivity and can be used instead of using the BlackBerry for tethering, which is extremely slow and consumes a lot of data just to access Outlook Web Mail.
The product retails for $99.99 and is available to order from their web site. You can also see a full demo on their site.
The BlackBerry Lounge added the Pub Checkers game to the list of their free games. Login to the lounge: www.blackberry.com/OL and go to Downloads --> Games to install via your Desktop Manager. Here's the description from their web site:
"Step into a cozy English pub and have a relaxing game of Checkers over a pint with your best mate. A classic game of checkers, which involves diagonal moves of uniform pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over the enemy's pieces. You’ll always find some local competition down at the pub ranging from the village idiot to the town champ."
The Duke campus is a beautiful place to visit and if you haven't seen a basketball game in the Cameron Indoor Stadium - you don't know what a home court advantage is. Now there is another reason to visit Duke. According to this Engadget post, the Duke campus is about to become the world's largest 802.11n wireless network hosting more than 2,500 Aironet 1250 Series APs. Cisco also published a case study on this record deployment.
Lets face it - Air travel is getting more annoying every week thanks to the endless delays, cancellations and security lines. There are not many things that will bring a smile on your face on your way to the airport besides getting an email notifying you of a complimentary upgrade on your upcoming flight 
. One of the things that I do like about airports (can you call it a hobby?) is watching for all those error messages on the monitors that are supposed to show you the flight departure and arrival status. Here are a few of the funnier ones:
Is that a virus in your plane?
Quick! Someone get the IP of this machine so we can change the departure times:
Someone has been browsing too many web sites...
To restart IE or not to restart? That is the question.
Looks like one of my ex-hard drives...
Lets update Windows while people are trying to figure out which gate they need to go to:
Can someone send a TSA agent to buy some more RAM?
And nothing is complete without a good Blue Screen of Death...
The BlackBerry Lounge added a new free game under the Downloads --> Games. This one is called Disco Bowling and you can guess what it is about
"Get ready to Boogie and Bowl. Strike 'em down, spare 'em up, and get funky! Strike, Double, or Turkey – You'll become all too familiar with the bowling lingo as a super Disco Bowler. Get down with putting some crazy spin on that ball and blast those pins into sweet sweet points."
From your desktop browser go to www.blackberry.com/OL and register if you have not yet.
WebMessenger announced they have opened up free downloads of their market proven WebMessenger mobile IM client for BlackBerry. The free IM service provides a single client interface to AIM, GoogleTalk, MSN Messenger, Skype and Yahoo Messenger. To download the client to your BlackBerry, you need to register on their Web site. You will receive an Email with a OTA link to download the software and a user name and password to login to the client. From there, the setup wizard will take you through setting up all your different messenger settings. Very simple!
WeatherBug released WeatherBug Direct for BlackBerry for free. It provides live local weather and forecast from any of their 8,000 tracking stations around the USA. I've been using BlackBerry's Push Weather for a while, but this is much better as it updates more frequently.
Features
From your BlackBerry browser go to: http://blackberry.weatherbug.com/download.
I posted from CES that EA Mobile will release 3 free games for your BlackBerry right after CES. Apparently, right after turned to a little over a month after CES, but better later than never. Yesterday I finally got an Email inviting me to download the free games:
Dear Damian,
Thanks for your interest in EA Mobile products for BlackBerry® smartphones at the recent CES 2008!
GET YOUR FREE GAME
EA Mobile would like to thank you for visiting the BlackBerry booth with a free game download!
FROM YOUR BLACKBERRY DEVICE, CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A FREE GAME.*
Sign-up to learn about more EA Mobile games for BlackBerry smartphones at eamobile.com/blackberry.
*One game per email address, good only for BlackBerry registered booth attendees. Free game varies by device and offer applicable only on Blackberry devices. Not all devices supported. Free game must be redeemed within 7 days and expires on February 16, 2008.
If you access this URL from your BlackBerry you will get to the download page:http://aw.jamdat.com/skum3/dr/cs/chId/75/catId/3895/mc/BB-EA-EM/em/2220
From my BlackBerry 8800 I was able to see only Skate, so I'm not sure if that is the only "free" game they released so far or that is the only one supported on my device. I'll keep on checking as I was really hoping to get SimCity on my BlackBerry
This is starting to get ridiculous. The BlackBerry service used to have 100% availability and it is getting worse every week. These outages like the one experienced today are getting more common. Here's what RIM announced:
Every time one of these outages happen I can't help but to think about the advertisement campaign Microsoft is running on different magazines where you can see a Visio diagram of what the Email infrastructure looks like when a message goes through RIM's architecture from the Exchange server to your BlackBerry, and then how Microsoft bypasses that (the BES server and the RIM network that goes down...) and goes directly from the Exchange to your Windows mobile device.
WorldMate Live just released an update for their BlackBerry client and the Outlook add-in.
What's new in this version?
1. Edit your itinerary from the BlackBerry - Instead of editing the itinerary online and then synchronizing, now you can do everything directly from your BlackBerry client.
2. Get travel confirmation directly to your BlackBerry - Instead of using the Outlook add-in, have your travel agent sent the confirmation mail to you and in addition send a copy (cc) to cc@worldmatelive.com. More info on how to setup this feature here.
3. Improved Outlook Add-in - Support for Outlook 2007 and improved performance.
To upgrade your BlackBerry, point your BlackBerry browser to www.wmlive.com. To upgrade your Outlook add-in, login from your computer to www.worldmatelive.com.
Continental released a new mobile Web page that you can access from your BlackBerry (or any other smartphone) browser. This new page will show you not only the flight status but also the upgrade list, standby list, where the flight is coming from, seat maps and in-flight amenities. You can access this page here: http://pda.continental.com/info
Now you can actually see how many people are in front of you for that upgrade
Polymer Vision will release Readius sometime in mid 2008 through Telecom Italia. This little device features a foldable grayscale 5 inch QVGA display and includes 3G HSDPA and a 400MHz ARM CPU and is based on Windows CE. The device takes advantage of the organic flexible displayed introduced by Philips back in 2002. Philips spinned-off the company in 2006 to focus on consumer electronic devices that use this technology.
Bezeq, Israel's dominant (or only) phone company, launched a service that would block calls to porn and other "improper" destination numbers. The porn industry is a leader in technology innovation and they have been exploiting not only the Internet, but also land-line phones and now 3rd generation cellular phones with video support.
You can see the complete details in the Reuters article.
The long awaited BlackBerry OS 4.3.1 was re-branded by RIM's marketing to BlackBerry OS 4.5. Whatever they decide to call it, this version will bring a lot of new functionality to the existing BlackBerry devices. Different models will get different new features and PC Magazine gives you the breakdown of what to expect according to your model. A couple of the most anticipated built-in features, which you can get today as 3rd party application you purchase, are spell check and HTML e-mails.
Here is an interesting future gadget I got from Bob. You have to look very closely before you realize what this really is!
What does this look like? Some guy with 5 pens?
Look closely. Are these pens with a tiny camera?
How about now that they are in "operational mode"?
Still no clue? Meet the laptop of the future! As part of the miniature revolution and the possibilities with Bluetooth connectivity, scientist can design a computer that you'll carry in your pocket. These "pens" produce the functionality of a keyboard on any flat surface, and project the monitor on any wall along with CPU and storage on the other "pens".
Email:
