Latest News

Screaming overstock and put in the clearance section, Future Shop has dropped the price of the once-considered “Apple Eater” Samsung Instinct. On sale now until April 2nd you can get this 3.1 inch touchscreen for only $19.99 on a 3-year contract with Telus.

However, if you can hold out and like Samsung devices, the next touchscreen to launch will be the Omnia (3.2 inch screen, 5 megapixel camera).

Back in December of last year, SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry was in a public beta… not any longer though! They’ve officially left the beta stage and is now available for all BlackBerry addicts to stream TV shows, movies and videos while at work (or anywhere else).

During the beta stage this was only available through Rogers on the following Rogers BlackBerry devices:  Bold,  Curve 8900, 8820, Curve 8320, Pearl Flip 8220 and the BlackBerry Pearl 8120. However, any TELUS customers with the BlackBerry Curve 8350i can use this now.

There are some minimum OS requirements on each device so depending on the BlackBerry you have its best to see which version is optimal. Check it out here

Also, good news for any iPhone owners as  a SlingPlayer Mobile app for iPhone to the AppStore has been submitted and waiting for approval.

Via: EngadgetMobile

Shortcovers, Indigo Books & Music next billion dollar business, Shortcovers recently launched its app for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android devices on February 26th. So today marks its first month in business and to celebrate they have reduced their pricing!? Huh? So soon?

To keep you up to speed, with Shortcovers you buy an e-book a chapter at a time and have the convenience of reading it on your mobile phone. Each additional chapter is $0.99. With the price drop one can only come to the conclusion that business is not going so well. It could be the competition for Kindle, the recent Amazon iPhone app, Google’s free 1.5 million out-of-copyright books, or the countless number of other e-book providers out there.

With all this said, Shortcovers wrote on their company blog:
“One of the early pieces of feedback we’ve been getting from users since we launched was around our pricing. Since even before Shortcovers launched, we have been working on improving the prices we can offer you on our books, and today we’re happy to announce that pricing is indeed improving, and you can expect it to continue to get better over time. We’ve been able to improve our pricing for 3 reasons:

- We’ve been working closely with publishers, and have been getting better prices directly from them
- We had some glitches with our original pricing algorithm that caused it to price a number of items higher than it should have
- We have added promotional pricing for books that we are featuring on our Home, Topics and Writers pages”

One thing that I really like about Shortcovers is that they are incredibly open to customer feedback and truly want this venture to be a success. In addition, over the next few days and weeks they’ll be adding more books and ensuring us that big news is coming.

Source: Shortcovers

Markham-based Unify4Life has released a new video for their latest product called “Sound Grabber”. This is an interactive remote for your iPods and iPod Touch.

It’s basically an MP3 music doc that lets you control everything through your BlackBerry.  The video shows that it’s easy to set up and all your playlist, songs, artist and info work via Bluetooth. This will be available to all of us in June. I wonder how Apple feels about this!

Bell is set to exclusively release the Motorola Hint QA30, this will be available on the following price plans:
3-year: $129.95
2-year: $179.95
1-year: $279.95
Outright: $329.95

The Hint is a slider that has a full QWERTY keyboard with a 2.5 inch QVGA screen. Other features are the dedicated one touch keys to the web, texting, music, 2 megapixel camera (with video capabilities). This can hold up to another 8GB of expandable memory. As this is a Smartphone you will be able to access your e-mail. In addition, this has built-in GPS, Bluetooth and the standard features such as Alarm, Calendar, contacts, speakerphone.

This will compete directly with the recent Rogers Samsung Propel. More info on the Hint soon.

Thousands of jobs have been cut and Rogers, Fido and Workopolis want to make it easier for us to get our next gig. We know that during times of economic struggles, one of the last things people tent to cut back in is technology.

Now Rogers/Fido customers can access job postings directly on their wireless device for free until May 31st (no data charges will appear on your bill). The upside is that you can search, but the downside is that you cannot apply for the position. You’ll have to save the job in your Workopolis account, then go to it later when you are sitting on the couch watching Family Guy.

From your mobile you can visit either www.rogers.com/workopolis or www.fido.ca/workopolis.

John Boynton, Senior Vice President and CMO, Rogers Wireless said “The wireless device can be an indispensable tool to the increasing number of Canadians who are seeking work. Not only can they be available for calls from potential employers, they can now browse jobs from Workopolis directly on their handsets”.

Bell is offering a cool 50 bucks off when you buy a Smartphone online. This is available for new 3-year contracts until March 31st.

Reading the fine print the phone cannot go below $0.00, so if you are looking to get the Pearl Flip which is currently priced at $24.95 you’ll actually get it for $0.00. However, if you have been holding out for a drop in price for the Storm, you can get this for $149.95 as the current price is $199.95.

Always good to save money… make sure you get on the right monthly rate plan thought.

If you have some extra dough hanging around and feel like getting an iPhone, skip past the ordinary and go custom. Head on over to eBay and put your bid for this one-of-a-kind “Chocolate & White Diamonds” iPhone 3G. Seller user1038217 says it has a retail value of £10,000 (about $22k Canadian), but this has a current bid of £2499. Curious about the diamonds? They follow the natural curves all the way around the iPhone.

Good news is that this bid is open until March 27th at 11:30:00 PDT. Head on over to eBay here

This is simply an incredible video. If you have about 10 minutes I suggest you go grab a beverage and sit back and watch the future of mobile technology unfold.

Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT has created a wearable device with a projector that acts as a “sixth sense”. Essentially, Maes describes this as  “a sense that would give us seamless access and easy access to meta information, or information that may exist somewhere that may be relevant to help us make the right decision about whatever it is we are coming across.” Her group called “The Media Lab” have developed a series of inventions to give us access to this information in an easy way without requiring the user to change any of their behavior… the result is a product that currently uses products that are available in today’s market with a retail value of $350 (camera, mirror, coloured caps, cellphone and projector).

As a Canadian I sometimes tend to make slow decisions… not anymore though! I cracked open my Storm and downloaded a free app called the Nickel Buddy Coin Toss. All you have to do from here on in is let this be your guide. Download it here for free and check out this video of it in action: