Memo to RIM: BlackBerry Name Confusion Bad News for Buyers

New BlackBerry smartphones certainly won't be in short supply this upcoming holiday season; BlackBerry-maker RIM has unveiled two new devices in the last week alone. But the company's not doing customers any favors by assigning confusing product names and model-numbers to its wide array of devices

Thu, October 22, 2009 — CIO — The majority of BlackBerry smartphones shipped in the past few years carried one of Research In Motion's (RIM) crafty device "brand names" like Pearl, Curve, Bold or Storm. That's because the company wisely realized somewhere along the line that its product portfolio was rapidly outgrowing its past model-number-based smartphone-naming conventions.

Innovation: 100-mpg car contest under starters orders

Innovation is our new column that highlights the latest emerging technological ideas and where they may lead.
Last night in California a list of 111 teams was announced – one of which may hold the key to motoring's green future. They are the registered entrants to the Progressive Auto X Prize, a contest that will award prizes totalling $10 million for vehicles that can go 100 miles on the energy equivalent to that in a gallon of fuel.
Notable by their absence were the world's largest car manufacturers – bar Indian firm Tata – who don't seem interested in taking part. The list is varied spanning slick Californian start-ups with electric cars, to less-refined backyard efforts still finalising their designs.
See a gallery of some of the vehicles entered into the Auto X Prize
But you can be sure that the auto giants will be closely watching the progress of entrants through the design judging and performance testing phases planned for this year, as well as the race events scheduled to start in 2010. The contest offers a chance for smaller players to shake up an industry long dominated by giant, established firms set in their ways.

Screens of Android

Screens of Android 2.0 update revealed


Google has kept their mouths tightly shut this time round for their next update for Android (codenamed “Eclair”, version number 2.0). But this hasn’t stopped the BGR guys from having a good look at what the new update will be like and what benefits Android users will soon be able to see. The Boy Genius Report got their hands on a Moto Sholes running 2.0, see a nice list of highlights on the new functions you’d expect to see in Android 2.0 below… Read the rest of this entry »