toure

Samsung Omnia 2 coming August 23?

Since we posted a First Take of Samsung's Omnia 2 back in June, a lot of readers have been asking when Verizon would actually begin selling it. Well, according to the good folks over at the Boy Genius Report (who have a "trusted mole" at Best Buy Mobile), the much-anticipated iPhone pretender will be launching August 23, along with several other phones from different carriers.

Here's the complete list that leaked:

Omnia 2 (Verizon) Global AirCard G2 (Verizon) Samsung Rogue (Verizon) LG Chocolate Touch (Verizon) Samsung u450 Intensity (Verizon) Samsung Gravity 2 (T-Mobile) Samsung Solstice (AT&… Read more

Slacker Radio goes on (BlackBerry) Tour

In mid-July, Verizon began automatically pushing Slacker Radio to BlackBerry Storm phones. Starting Tuesday, Verizon's partnership with Slacker Radio begins extending to BlackBerry Tour devices in its U.S. network as well.

As part of the agreement, Slacker Radio will hook into Verizon's V Cast store (which itself taps the Rhapsody catalog), giving BlackBerry Storm and Tour users the capability to purchase one of 4.5 million songs.

Slacker Radio's streaming music player competes heavily with similar Internet radio services, particularly Pandora.

Twitter takes the Tour de France on new course

In the not-so-distant past, the only way to follow the Tour de France was through TV, newspapers, or radio. People in the U.S. (lucky enough to have cable) would wake up before dawn to watch the race in real time. Then came the Internet, which made stats and information on the race course and teams more readily available. Technology continued to expand, and last year the big advance was Google's Street View of the race.

But, now there's Twitter, which takes it to a whole other level. No longer are riders' recaps spliced into packaged sound bites, … Read more

Can RIM get its mojo back with the BlackBerry Tour?

The summer of the smartphone is heating up as Research In Motion is set to introduce on Sunday its latest BlackBerry device, called the Tour. But will it be enough to keep RIM king of the smartphone market?

The BlackBerry Tour is hitting store shelves at an important time for RIM, which has been reportedly taking a sales hit as carriers promote exclusive phones, such as the Palm Pre on Sprint Nextel's network and the Apple iPhone 3GS on AT&T's network, according to Michael Walkley of Piper Jaffray.

Walkley said in a research note published this … Read more

U2 releasing 'mobile album' for BlackBerry

iPhone applications featuring particular musicians have been around for a while now--Nine Inch Nails was recently in the news when Apple rejected an update to its application, and tech companies like Melodeo and The Orchard have experimented with creating iPhone apps for their clients.

Soon, BlackBerry fans will be able to get in on the fun. Research In Motion, which is sponsoring the U2 360 tour, has posted a page on its Web site declaring the imminent arrival of the U2 "mobile album."

Although the video teaser is fairly cryptic, it looks like the app will let users … Read more

Sprint BlackBerry Tour also coming July 12

Well, well, looky here. Just one day after Verizon Wireless announced a July 12 availability date for the RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630, Sprint has responded and said it, too, will start selling its version of the BlackBerry Tour on July 12 for $199.99 with a two-year contract and a $100 mail-in rebate. How's that for a little friendly competition?

Sprint's model will also offer world-roaming capabilities with voice coverage in 185 countries and e-mail and Web browsing in nearly 150 countries. The carrier also touted easy access to social-networking sites, such as Flickr, MySpace, and Facebook.

Other … Read more

Verizon RIM BlackBerry Tour to arrive July 12

Just a couple of weeks after the introduction of the RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630, Verizon Wireless announced Tuesday that the smartphone is now available for preorder online and will be in stores on July 12 for $199.99 with a two-year contract and after a $70 mail-in rebate.

For that price, the BlackBerry Tour offers world roaming capabilities, providing you with voice coverage in 220 countries overseas and e-mail and Internet coverage in 175 countries. Domestically, the smartphone works on Verizon's EV-DO Rev. A network and supports a number of the carrier's services, such as VZ Navigator and … Read more

First Take: Wii MotionPlus

When Nintendo announced Wii MotionPlus at last year's E3 2008 press conference, it certainly raised a few eyebrows. First off, we wondered why this technology wasn't included in the original Wii remote to begin with. Would every game be able to take advantage of MotionPlus?

We've had a few days to play around with Wii MotionPlus along with a few games that take advantage of what it offers. That said, we're not convinced that these games maximize its capability and therefore we're not giving it a score yet. We're going to wait until Wii Sports Resort is released--the first game that is supposedly fully optimized for MotionPlus--before we make any final judgments.

Regardless of a final score, we got to experience what MotionPlus is mostly all about, and for the most part, it does offer an impressive 1:1 representation of your movements on screen. We tested it out with two early games that can use it, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 and Grand Slam Tennis.… Read more

RIM announces BlackBerry Tour 9630 for Sprint, Verizon Wireless

On Monday, Research in Motion unveiled its newest device, the RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630, a 3G-enabled world phone that will be available from Sprint and Verizon Wireless later this summer. In addition, the smartphone will be sold in Canada through Bell Mobility and Telus.

The news isn't a complete surprise. Also known as the BlackBerry Niagara, the BlackBerry Tour 9630 has long been rumored for the CDMA carriers and finally brings an update to Sprint and Verizon's BlackBerry 8830 World Edition models.

As a dual-mode world phone, the BlackBerry Tour runs on the carrier's respective EV-DO Rev. … Read more