BlackBerry 8700

It looks like the BlackBerry has officially made it’s way to the People’s Republic. Alcatel-Lucent and Research in Motion have just announced that they have inked a deal making the the BlackBerry 8700 the first smartphone offered enterprise customers in China.

“This strategic partnership perfectly matches Alcatel-Lucent’s global presence and strength in the Chinese market with the global awareness and popularity of RIM’s BlackBerry brand,” said Frederic Rose, President of Alcatel Shanghai Bell and President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Asia Pacific activities. “This agreement strengthens the distribution frame agreement that Alcatel-Lucent and RIM signed last year covering Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia and now extends to China.”

Read the full press release…

Alex King has received numerous questions in response to his bounty for the BlackBerry 870* Bluetooth modem tether for OS X that was claimed yesterday.

He has been asked so many questions that he has created a FAQ of sorts that answers questions like release dates, speed, if the bluetooth modem tether works on Windows PCs, etc.

I don’t want to steal too much thunder so if you are interested in using your BlackBerry 870* device as a Bluetooth modem for you Mac or your PC, head on over to alexking.org.

BlackBerry 870* Bluetooth Modem Tether

We have talked, a couple of times, about a bounty that Alex King set up to get a Bluetooth modem tether from an 87xx series BlackBerry to a Mac running OS X. The September 30th deadline was reached without anyone claiming the bounty, however, Alex extended the time frame because a promising submission, although not complete, came in at the last minute.

Well, all you Mac users should be glad that Alex extended a grace period because Daniel Pasco has created a solution for using a Blackberry 870x series device as a Bluetooth modem for a Mac running OS X.

Daniel is hard at work polishing it up and quashing the little quirks that exist in the early dev stages of any product, but it already has been tested and works with the 8700g (T-Mobile) and the 8703e (Sprint and Verizon).

Alex and Daniel hope to have version ready for testing by the bounty contributors soon.

BlackBerry Bluetooth Moded Tether for Mac

When I got up this morning I, along with all other CanWest MediaWorks VideoPlayer beta testers, had an email informing us that the beta trial was coming to an end, however, CamWest is about to unveil their commercial product, bbTV^TM.

If I am honest, I was not all the impressed with the CanWest’s VideoPlayer. In fact, I was kind of disappointed. Needless to say, I would not pay for bbTV even if I lived in Canada. The graphic at the top of this post is kind of telling. The video quality of VideoPlayer is just a tad bit better than that. Having to download entire video clips to your 8700 or 7130 is not the way to go either. Download times were not too bad on Verizon here in the States, but pretty horrible, from what I hear, on just about every other carrier.

CanWest and Sona Mobile, I give you props for being the first to offer Multimedia on the BlackBerry, however, you should get a team of engineers to figure out how to make your video stream and flat out look better. If there is ever a plan for bbTV to fly in the U.S., take a look at V Cast from Verizon, Sprint TV, and the ESPN phone. You will see that you still have a lot of work to do.

Read more…

CanWest MediaWorks VideoPlayer, Sona Mobile, V Cast, Sprint TV

With all the rumors out about new BlackBerry models coming out with joysticks, built-in digital cameras, and removable memory slots, this little gem of a device almost got passed us.

Here is a shot of big time Hip-Hop artist and producer Pharrell sneaking us a peak of the upcoming, 18-karat gold plated, if you’re a true baller you’ve got to have one, BlackBerry 8700b. (The b stands for Bling)

This BlackBerry doesn’t have a camera, but, chances are if you are carrying this bad boy around with you there are always some paparazzi near by that would be more than happy to take a quick picture for you.

[via Celebrity BlackBerry Sightings]

For those of you who take RIMarkable waaaay too seriously, there is not really a BlackBerry 8700b, however, the BlackBerry 8700 that Pharrell is holding really is 18-karat gold…

Pharrell Williams