Latest News

From the latest pic of famed cyclist Lance Armstrong sporting the BlackBerry 8900 a new vid by Unify4Life has surfaced called “LA Bike Time Trial BB Application”.

You can see from the video that a bunch of developers working on how to fix the BlackBerry to a bike, talking about dimensions, specifics and the best location for Lance’s riding positions. Personally, this would be an amazing app to have on my Berry. Not sure of what features the app will have, but I love cycling and love my BlackBerry and if it measured my heart rate, distance, km, speed, ability to set challenges etc I would definitely download it.

Check out the video here:

Right on schedule and as promised, Indigo Books & Music officially launched their anticiapted “Shortcovers”.

This is the next evolution for them as they enter the mobile bookstore era. Indigo sees this as a billion dollar business and internally called this the “Kindle Killer”. It’ll be interesting to see how this venture will do over the next few months.

Shortcovers is a free app for your iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices that allows you to buy a book a chapter  at a time and turns your phone into a mobile bookstore. The first chapter is on the house but if you want to continue reading it will cost you $0.99 per chapter.

The LG Neon TE365 in landing at your local Rogers store any day now. This is not officially launched yet but the price plans for this is $29.99 on a 3-year contract, $79.99 on a 2-year contract and a reasonable $149.99 on a 1-year contract.

In the United States this is called the “Etna”. LG decided on the “Neon” for us Canadians and it looks like a decent slider with a full QWERTY keyboard… so it’ll be a texting dream. Good news also as this comes in a couple colours: Pink and Grey. Thanks to Treatz of HowardForums for the image.

The Neon has a 2.4 inch touchscreen (240 x 320 pixels) with a 2.0 megapixel camera that has video capabilities, MP3 Player with FM Radio, Stereo Bluetooth, expandable memory up to 4 GB MicroSD with an overall weight of 108 grams.

More info at Rogers

This is classic! Christen da Costa took his Sonim XP1 to the local firing range as the company said it was could withstand indestructible and could withstand shots from a a 9mm gun. Check out this video for the results

Nokia has put together their latest promo that wants us Canadians to get more out of life. The dedicated website simplygetmoreoutoflife.com has been created that outlines the benefits of the Rogers E71. If you purchase this smartphone (or the Nokia N95 8GB) before April 16th you’ll get a free “Talk-n-Go” kit that includes a Bluetooth headset, car charger and a carrying case worth approximately $90.

Low and behold the day we write a story on how Sony Ericsson removed several key upcoming devices from their website (XPERIA X1, C905, T303 and the W705)… we did some snooping around and found a nice gift.

**UPDATE** – this has been delivered to Rogers customers over a week ago, but was just put online.**

Rogers customers receive a magazine every couple months called “URMagazine”. It basically informs customers of news, tips and contests. Proudly promoted on the cover of the new issue is the upcoming release of the Sony Ericsson C905.

No reason why Sony Ericsson removed this from their website…but who cares right! This is going to be an incredible device and is right on track with the rumours of a Q2 2009 release. The expected price price is said to be around $299.99 on a 3-year contract. We have heard that this will be replacing the K850i and has a 8.1 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, comes with a a 2 GB memory card, dual-band HSPA, Wi-Fi, music recognition.

More soon!

Special thanks goes out to Best Buy for letting us know that they plan to carry the TELUS BlackBerry Pearl 8230 Flip. We already knew that this was coming to TELUS with the leeked images, but they have not officially announced this availablity.

From the looks of this it’ll be available in Pink and Black for the low price of $499.99, no word on yearly plans.  To compare with the Flip that Bell is launching on the 27th, their price plans are similar: Outright is $499.95; 1-year for $449.95;  2-year for $349.95 and the 3-year contract for $29.95.

More info soon… with an official release from TELUS also.
(Check out the Best Buy link here)

Thanks Andrew!

Recently we were thrilled that Sony Ericsson Canada put the “Coming Soon” symbol on their website for the following anticipated devices: XPERIA X1, C905, T303 and the W705.

Hopefully this is just a small glitch and the devices will be put back soon… They only have 8 phones in their current lineup and Sony Ericsson has to put something stellar out this year. The XPERIA and c905 are my faves.

For those who love music and have a BlackBerry, you might want to download this free app from Nobex called “Radio Companion”. Basically it lets you stream 150 Canadian radio stations… when you hear a song you like you click to “Get it” and takes you to a purchase page where you can buy the song.

Go download this app from Nobex here. Also, Kevin over at CrackBerry.com had a chance to catch up at CES this year. Check out this video of this in action.

The CRTC has been involved in new media hearings for the past week and is looking into re-examining the regulations when it comes to Internet traffic management.

The reason this is coming up now is because back in 1999 the CRTC decided not include “new media” as part of the regulation. Dr. Michael Geist, professor at the University of Ottawa, said it’s for 3 main reasons:
1. Licensing and regulation would not help the development of New Media.
2. A lack of regulation of new media would not impede the ability of other media forms from fulfilling their duties
3. The Commission felt that New Media needed more time to become competitive.

Many organizations have stepped up to the plate to have their say: GlassBOX Television, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, ACTRA, SOCAN and majority of the conversations have been based around regulating the internet on your computer.

However, this changed yesterday when Pelmorex, which owns The Weather Network and MétéoMédia, made claims that the wireless carriers need to have a “transparent set of traffic management rules” when it comes to monitoring Internet traffic on our mobile devices.

From their submission to the CRTC Pelmorex stated:
“Pelmorex is concerned that the Commission might adopt a definition of “net neutrality” or “traffic management” that will be too narrow and will not fully address all of the instances where a network operator might manipulate traffic to its benefit. While not currently a concern for wire-line ISPs, there are a number of commercial or business practices that are being employed by wireless network operators that limit access to their networks. Wireless networks are increasingly becoming a key access point for the Internet and the devices that are used to access that network are today’s most ubiquitous computers. These wireless networks, which are owned and operated by the same companies that dominate the wire-line market, provide customers with the ability to send and receive a variety of traffic, including voice, data and programming.”

In addition, Pelmorex wrote “We believe that the measures employed by wireless carriers to control access to their networks should be considered as a critical part of this proceeding and that the  Commission should take steps to ensure that all network operators, including wireless  carriers, are subject to the same general requirements relating to net neutrality.”

Pelmorex goes into greater detail regarding Rogers, Bell and TELUS and how the CRTC should put regulations on mobile devices in action as soon as possible: “The reason for this is that the mobile devices and networks employed by wireless carriers are quickly evolving to the point where the quality of Internet access service provided through a mobile device will be equivalent to the service provided by wire-line ISPs. Recently introduced mobile devices, like the Rogers Stick, provide high speed wireless connections that are comparable wire-line ISPs. Telus and Bell have also recently announced that they will be moving towards a 4G GSM network by 2010. With high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), the wireless network will enable customers to download content at a speed of 14 megabytes per second. This means that wireless Internet for Bell and Telus will be faster than their landline connections, which will accelerate the increasing usage trends for mobile Internet1. Wireless and wire-line ISPs should, therefore, have comparable regulatory regimes.”

Pelmorex takes one for the team with this comment: “Wireless carriers frequently establish “walled gardens” or “malls” at their sole discretion so as to differentiate Internet content. Consumers are then charged more to access content or websites that the carrier, in its sole discretion, excludes from its walled garden or mall.” and “Wireless carriers routinely impose restrictions on the ability of content providers (typically mobile websites) to deliver advertising or restrict or charge more if a customer accesses that advertising, effectively undermining the business case for a mobile website”.

With all this said, I’m sure more organizations will speak up simply because our mobile internet traffic has significantly increased over the past year. Rules and regulations are most likely inevitable… but we can have our say as nobody wants to be limited, watched or have their internet activity monitored.

“Net Neutrality in Canada is the principle that consumers should be in control of what content, services and applications they use on the public Internet.” (from Neutrality.ca)

“When I invented the Web, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end” – Sir Tim Berners Lee

To learn more (and sign the petition) about Net Neutrality Canada please visit Neutrality.ca

If you want to read the full 11-page submission by Pelmorex you can get it here (PDF). More updates soon.