Stuart Kershaw is a filmmaker who developed his career in the US and moved back to the UK to start his film company Dark Productions. Recently, he put together a short film about turning off his BlackBerry for 7 days. Near the beginning, he goes completely mental and gets the crackberry shakes. Slightly distracted by iPhones in the shops, he stays the course and goes sans technology and focuses on making sweet sweet love to his girlfriend. This totally exemplifies the most intense form of crackberry addiction. Not only was he on his BlackBerry constantly, it apparently was stopping him from having sex with his really cute girlfriend.
The only question I have now is: have his BlackBerry habits changed? Is he now a sex addict who doesn’t use email? Is he now having sex with his BlackBerry? I’ve heard that the most dangerous part of drug addictions is when you stop using the drug for a period of time and then start using again. Having built up a tolerance for the drug while you were getting clean, you now run a serious risk of overdose when you start again. That’s why when junkies get clean, they can never do another drug ever again. Not even 1 single beer.
The Sony XPERIA X1 uses an interesting panel system to display content much like Zumobi for BlackBerry. The latest panel to surface on the net is the Facebook Panel. The panel has all the Facebook functionality that you need on a mobile such as the ability to write on a friend’s wall, send them a message, dial their phone number, and so on. Also of interest, the panel shows you who has recently updated their status once refreshed.
Pew Internet and American Life Project have released a study saying 48% of the respondents to their survey said they needed help setting up their devices.
* 38% contacted user support at some time
* Men (39%) more than women (22%) are more likely to try to fix it themselves
* 29% of cellphone users had their device fail in the last year
* 23% of those cellphone users never had them fixed
I’m always surprised at the number of people who buy smartphones and other devices but don’t take the necessary time to set them up and get the most out of them. For example, at my university, I met several people with BlackBerrys who did not take the time to activate their push email. They didn’t even know they could get their email on the device other than through Google. They simply bought the phone for its QWERTY and therefore faster SMS.
I’ve been getting some of our less technically-inclined readers emailing me asking “how do I download mobile games from my AT&T BlackBerry?” It seemed like too easy of a question to answer so I’ve been avoiding it but there is no such thing as a stupid question and I’ll happily respond.
For this how-to, I’m using an AT&T BlackBerry Bold courtesy of Research in Motion (RIM). The first thing you’ll notice about the Bold is that it has 6 icons on the lower section of the screen. From that list you have (or at least on my Bold): messages, email, address book, calendar, MEdia Net and media. Click through to read about how to get games on your AT&T BlackBerry
UMA stands for Universal Mobile Access and it’s the technology that allows your phone to switch between networks seamlessly. You’ll notice this technology when your phone switches between WiFi and cell tower. The above figure shows how UMA works and it also describes one of the benefits of UMA which is better coverage via WiFi. Your mobile device will use WiFi to send a signal through the Internet back to the carrier, and thus using the hotspot to boost coverage. This isn’t the best part of UMA though. It will actually save you money. Click through to see how UMA will help you save money
Barack Obama has talked about his BlackBerry before, saying that it’s his guilty pleasure and he can’t stop checking his email. Well all of that may have to change because according to the law, the general public must have access to his entire official correspondence. Clinton also had to cease e-mail services because of this same issue. The only solution proposed would be an email system where he could receive but not send. If that’s the case, maybe Barack will be able to enjoy a BlackBerry Pluto after all (I assume he gets unreleased devices from RIM).
Slydial is a free service that let’s you dial any mobile phone number and get directed straight to voicemail, which can be helpful when you have to communicate with someone without wanting to, you know, communicate.
Previously, using Slydial was a bit cumbersome, requiring you to call “267-SLYDIAL” first then manually entering the number you’d like to call. However, Slydial has launched an application for BlackBerry, allowing you to simply select a contact from your address book. You can find a download link below, as well as a link to more Slydial videos. My personal favorite was the “Mulligan” video, but I couldn’t find any embed code.
Are you ready for some football? I guess that’s the question on Bplay’s mind these days, after releasing officially licensed BlackBerry themes for all 32 NFL teams. Obviously, from the image above you can probably guess that my loyalty lies with ‘Da Bears’, but whatever your team Bplay has a theme for you.
You can find a collage of all 32 NFL themes after the jump. The BlackBerry Bold is not yet supported, but will be in the coming weeks.
Download your NFL team BlackBerry theme!
A recent NPD Group research paper says that not only are people using their smartphones more, but they’re playing games more often than using enterprise and productivity software. The findings come from a portion of the report aimed at discovering what features and functions consumers are most aware.
Smartphones are still being used primarily as a communication device, with phone calls, email and text messages occupying the majority of a smartphone user’s time. This is changing due to a trend that has been primarily pioneered by the iPhone. Mobile gaming on the iPhone has steadily increased over the last three months and the trend is perpetually growing.
If mobile gaming, applications and web browsing are becoming an increasingly larger percentage of device usage, I’m anticipating a time when our phones are using 100% data. Phone calls will be made over VoIP and the majority of social interaction will be done via social networking and messaging programs. At this point, I feel we will truly have left behind the archaic and soon to be obsolete telephone.
Super popular BlackBerry entertainment company Bplay has updated their incredibly popular iBerry theme with two new variants: iBerry Neo and iBerry Neo Zen. In addition, Bplay has also made two other popular BlackBerry themes available for the BlackBerry Bold: Crossbar and FlowBerry. You can download them at the links below!
