BlackBerry

Update 4:22 p.m. PDT: Comments from a Research In Motion representative added.

BlackBerry users around the country were without e-mail for about 3 hours in a nationwide outage that affected users on all major wireless networks.

From about 1 p.m. EDT to about 4 p.m. EDT people who subscribe to a BlackBerry e-mail service through their wireless carrier instead of being offered the service through their companies, could not send or receive e-mail or access the BlackBerry Internet Service Web site. They also weren't able to create new accounts, access their Internet mailboxes, integrate third-party … Read more

Sprint, you're a sneaky one. Without much fanfare or, frankly, even a peep, the carrier released a cameraless version of its RIM BlackBerry Curve 8350i.

The smartphone is available now for $149.99 with a two-year contract and comes without the 2-megapixel camera for those customers whose workplaces ban the use of camera phones. The rest of the device's feature set is the same as its camera-loving counterpart, so you'll still get support for Nextel's Direct Connect push-to-talk services, Wi-Fi, and GPS.

(Via: Boy Genius Report)

Research in Motion will attempt to shake up its design ethos with a new hire who has worked at both Apple and Microsoft.

Moconews noticed Thursday that RIM has hired Don Lindsay as its new vice president of user experience. Lindsay is "currently creating the VP of UX role at RIM," according to his LinkedIn profile, in what will likely involve changes to the look and feel of the BlackBerry.

Lindsay's software design chops date back to a 9-year stint at Apple, where he played an instrumental role in the design of Mac OS X and iLife. … Read more

Google's Mobile App for BlackBerry picks up two new features in version 3.3 that are all but guaranteed to make your search results more reliable. Also, see what the voice search app has in store for our British friends over the pond. Check it out in this First Look video.

Research in Motion's next BlackBerry Storm might come with a tweaked touchscreen in hopes of alleviating complaints about the first edition.

Several publications including Unwired View have picked up on an interview given by RIM's Alain Segond von Banchet, channel sales manager for BlackBerry in the Netherlands, in which the executive discusses a BlackBerry Storm 2 in frank terms. Google translations can be sketchy, but feel free to evaluate the original interview published by Tweakers.net.

The Storm 2 may not wind up being the final name for the new device, von Banchet said, but the device will … Read more

The Shortcovers e-book reader that's available now for BlackBerry, iPhones, and Google Android phones sounded like a good idea when we first heard about it back in February. It still is a good idea, but falls a little short in the execution.

Shortcovers is attractive and modern-looking with a nice, legible default font throughout and a menu system you can find your way around. What it trips on are the details. For instance, thumbnail images draw you in on the page of featured e-books, but are excluded from the actual content. Sometimes the only freebie you get is the … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It seems there are going to be as many ways to run a mobile application store as there are stores themselves.

One of the big topics this week at CTIA 2009 has been mobile applications, as Research in Motion unveiled BlackBerry App World and Microsoft talked about its forthcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile. The dam has truly broken with mobile applications; for years, most consumers seemed indifferent to third-party applications, but now they are viewed as an essential part of any smartphone, just like they are on a PC or Mac.

Most of the credit for that trend has … Read more

Research In Motion opens its BlackBerry app store, including one app that brings full-length TV shows to the BlackBerry Bold; YouTube pulls music videos of the major music labels off its Germany site; and a Hitachi exec is indicted in LCD price-fixing scheme. Get those, and the rest of the day's top stories, in today's podcast.

Today's stories:

BlackBerry App World has landed

TV coming to the BlackBerry

YouTube now pulls music videos out of Germany

Hitachi exec indicted in LCD price-fixing scheme

Green-tech investment dollars plummet

All quiet on the Conficker front. Now what?… Read more

True to its word at CTIA 2009, Slacker Radio has released an update to its excellent streaming-radio application for BlackBerry.

The latest version adds a few new features, the most exciting of which, reading song lyrics, can be enjoyed only by subscribers to the premium RadioPlus service. The lyrics show up when available on the right-most tab in the BlackBerry Slacker app. Even those using the free version of Slacker stand to benefit from Slacker's newly implemented Bluetooth support, which finally provides compatibility with stereo headsets and a whole host of Bluetooth peripherals. You can enable Bluetooth in the … Read more