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Vancouver-based Chalk Media Corp announced that the all cash $23.1 million acquisition by RIM has been completed. Chalk Media developed the Mobile Chalkboard, an application that pushes media content (audio and video) to BlackBerry devices.

“The Arrangement was approved by Chalk securityholders at a meeting held on January 27, 2009 where holders voted in favor of the Arrangement. The Arrangement was approved by the Supreme Court of British Columbia on January 28, 2009. As a result of the Arrangement, Chalk, a member of the BlackBerry ISV Alliance Program since 2007, becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of RIM.”

Source: MocoNews

I guess Virgin Mobile is looking to bring on some wicked phones this year, or maybe they are too busy sponsoring Britney’s upcoming Circus Tour… or perhaps it’s paying for employees to dance at work…

However, on Monday, February 2nd according to a Best Buy ad it looks like Virgin Mobile will be increasing their rates by about $5 per plan. In addition, you will see an increase in the bundle options also.

For example, a new “Starter” plan for $25 per month will get you 100 minutes plus 1,000 evening and weekend minutes. As a bonus Virgin is throwing in 100 text messages. As you can see on the image price plans $30, $40 and $50 used to all be $5 less a month. They were gracious enough to keep the $60 plan at the same rate. My math is not the greatest but from my quick calculations this is almost a 17% increase on a monthly basis.

Now as for the four “Bundle” options, majority have increased with only the $25 stays the same. The $11 bundle used to be $10; $18 bundle used to $15 and the $22 bundle used to be $20.

With these rate increases it seems like Virgin is playing with the big boys… are they not supposed to be a “cost effective” carrier? The reason for the hike is because Virgin has never broken even since opening their doors back in March of 2005. Sir Richard is probably not too happy.

[Source: Forum]

Thanks “walkntalk”!

We first wrote about AskKinjo back in November and was not overly impressed. For those unfamiliar  – Toronto-based AskKinjo is a free service that works by dialing #KINJO (#54656) from your mobile and brings you relevant information based on your location and request.

They added a slew of  categories to their offering such as traffic updates, gas prices, parking info, ATM locations, coffee shops, Fast food restaurants and a “Nightlife” category.

Looks like they are stepping up their game and have developed a free iPhone app that brings you”Information on the Go with #KINJO in the Greater Toronto Area from Burlington to Whitby and Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe. The easiest and safest way to get to the following data, closest to you, by using the iPhone built-in geo-location or by stating your location verbally”

Check them out here at AskKinjo.com

If Koodo is not cheap enough, sorry “cost effective”, for you… check out their Bargain Bin section as they have “refreshed” phones that are basically refurbished devices. They have been used, returned, damaged and fixed and you now have the good fortune of possibly buying them.

All prices are reduced a bit: Motorola W385 is $50; Motorola KRZR is $75 and the Samsung U410 is $40. If you do go for this option you’ll be happy to know that all the phones come with a 90 day warranty.

iSuppli has taken apart the BlackBerry Storm and has come to the conclusion that it costs about $30 more to produce than the iPhone 3G with total has a materials and manufacturing costs of $202.89. The iPhone3G comes in at $174.33. In addition, the total number of parts for the Storm is at 1,177, while the iPhone’s part count is 1,116.

Looks like everybody is dropping something these days! We recently posted great deals on the BlackBerry 8900 at the Source for $99.99, and then the BlackBerry Storm was put on sale for the first time at Future Shop for $199.99… and now, Best Buy is following up with what they call a “Hot Price” for the Telus HTC Touch Pro.

You can pick this up for a cool $99.99 on  a 3-year plan with voice and data.. or you can go directly to Telus and dish out another $200 as they are advertising it for sale at $299.99. This sale price is on until February 26th and only available in-store – so remember to be focused when you go buy this because you could get distracted and walk out with a flat screen TV also.

The HTC Touch Pro is a touchscreen device that has a side slider QWERTY keyboard, 2.8″ colour screen, 640×480 VGA resolution, 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and camcorder, GPS, Music player, speakerphone, Accelerometer, Handwriting recognition and weighs 165 grams. Our video review can be found here.

Remember back in November Viigo showed us how content will look on the Storm?

Viigo has officially released thier new version (3.0.856) which is compatible on the Storm: “It has arrived! The Viigo Beta for the Storm watch is over. With this download, you can now benefit from the excellent feedback we’ve collected from tens of thousands of people who have previewed our Alpha version of Viigo on the Storm. We’ve worked hard to improve the overall Storm experience (performance, usability, etc.), and we’ve also added some exciting new features including a new Shopping service, the ability to tweet articles with a single click, and the capability to build and track your own portfolios in Stocks & Finance.”

Get Viigo here.

We always lookout for the latest deals when it comes to new devices.

The BlackBerry Storm launched just before the holidays and it seemed like there was not going to be a sale for a while… until Future Shop stepped up to the plate and put RIM’s first touchscreen below the original $249.99 to a stellar $199.99 on a 3-year contract until February 5th.

This product is only available in-store so if you’re looking to save a few bucks you might want to get there at 9:00am sharp!

More here at Future Shop

Koodo Mobile has dropped the price of the Motorola W385 to $100, a savings of 25 bucks. This is just above your basic entry device as it barely comes with a camera (0.3 megapixel VGA camera with 8x zoom).

In all seriousness it’ll get you by as long as you stick to the basics such as calling and texting. This also comes with a built-in speakerphone and available in pink and black.

Albertans who bank with ATB Financial and have TELUS as their cellphone provider are in luck.

The “TELUS Mobile Banking system” will begin a 90-day pilot where select ATB customers can use their “mobile devices to view account balances, see recent transactions and transfer funds using virtually any mobile phone’s existing messaging software and mobile web capabilities” via text messaging or mobile web. After the trial a full production will rolled out.

Ismail Pishori, TELUS vice-president, financial services said “With over 20 million mobile subscribers in Canada, time-pressed consumers are quickly adopting the mobile device as yet another transaction channel to help manage their busy lifestyles”