It seems the major price cuts RIM offered on their BlackBerry Playbook tablets still hasn't been enough to shift the backlog of unsold slates, as today the company revealed they will be giving some units away for free to those who develop apps for their device.

The offer was revealed in a tweet from RIM's vice president of developer relations Alec Saunders, who stated that those looking to nab a freebie must first submit an app to the BlackBerry App World.

And they'll have to do it quickly too; to claim a free Playbook, the app must be submitted in under a fortnight, before February 13th. A few more (conveniently) as-yet-unannounced stipulations apply, which may make it difficult for potential developers to meet the terms within the time frame. If they do however, they merely need send an email to developeroutreachprogram@rim.com with the details of the app they've created to claim their prize.

"The plan is to provide one free 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook to every registered BlackBerry App World vendor who converts their Android app for use on the BlackBerry PlayBook and submits it to BlackBerry App World," reads a posting on the BlackBerry developer's blog.

It's thought that move is to encourage a rush of apps onto the BlackBerry App World store in preparation for the potential launch of two new BlackBerry tablets this year.

Could this be the turning point for BlackBerry makers RIM? We hope so, as an apparent leaked shot of their first BlackBerry 10-packing superphone, dubbed the "London" leaks online.

Looking like a cross between a BlackBerry PlayBook and an iPhone, it's claimed to be RIM's newest flagship device, set to hit stores before the end of the year.

Revealed in what appears to be an internal corporate slide, the London has plenty of buzzwords bandied around it, calling it the "Ultimate Communication Device" and featuring a "Rich specification - hardware & software". Spotters CrackBerry are also claiming the device will have a 1.5GHz dual core processor either from Qualcomm or Texas Instruments, a .5GHz jump over the PlayBook tablet.

Hard to really judge the legitimacy of the image; we know RIM are hedging their bets to deliver something revolutionary by their standards this year, while the lingo used does seem full of enough chaff to be genuine executive-speak. The handset itself though looks far more like a render than a genuine photo of a device.

We'll bring you any updates on RIM's smartphone plans as we get them.

Via: CrackBerry

RIM's BlackBerry Bold 9790 handset is now on sale through Vodafone.

The QWERTY keyboard-packing handset is available free on £31, 24 month price plans, which offer 600 mins, unlimited texts and 500MB of mobile data.

Running off a 1GHz processor, the 110 x 60 x 11.4mm phone feature's RIM's BlackBerry 7 OS, the company's most recent operating system update, as well as a 2.45 inch touchscreen and 8GB of internal storage space, expandable up to 32GB with microSD cards.

New and upgrading customers will also benefit from 3 months worth of free data through Vodafone's Data Test Drive service, letting them explore just how much data they consume on the handset in a month before committing to a monthly data plan.

For more info, visit Vodafone's website here.

Joint CEO's Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have stepped down from their top-level roles at the BlackBerry-owning firm.

Founder Lazaridis will now take the role of vice chairman, with Jim Balsillie taking a non-operational role on the board of directors. Thorsten Heins will now be the singular CEO, with Barbara Stymiest is the new independent board chair.

It's the culmination of an incredibly testing few months for BlackBerry, which saw the brand name tarnished by network outages, poor BlackBerry PlayBook sales and the role of BlackBerry Messenger as a means of communication for the London rioters.

There is no indication that the pair have been forced out of their previous roles, though one would expect that the enormous pressure felt would have influenced their hands. In a statement Balsillie said:

"There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognise the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now. With BlackBerry 7 now out, PlayBook 2.0 shipping in February and BlackBerry 10 expected to ship later this year, the company is entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond."

And so, in the video below, introducing Thorsten Heins, new RIM CEO:

Did you upgrade from one smartphone to another over the Christmas period? Maybe you jumped from one operating system, like Google's Android, to Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft or iOS with the iPhone?

But it doesn't have to be that way! Follow a few simple steps, and your new smartphone will up and running with all the info you need from your last one in double-quick time. Today, we bring you a How-To guide from gadget helpline specialists the Geek Squad, who list five simple steps for an easy smartphone switchover.

1. Email and Calendars
If using your phone to access your email and calendar then the last thing you want is to see messages and appointments dropping out of your inbox. Transferring onto a commonly used system like Gmail could help you seamlessly transfer not only your email, but also your calendar and phone directory from one phone to another, because the system is compatible with both Google's Android and Apple's iOS software platforms. Apple's iCloud service is also a useful tool, as it allows iPhone users to access third party systems like Google's Calendar and Mail services, meaning you won't miss out on your appointment or message.

2. Messaging services
Many phones offer access to social messaging services such as Twitter or Facebook - it's relatively simple to switch over your account onto a new device, but do make sure it's been disabled on your old phone to stop any 'friends' accessing your feed! The only exception to this rule is Blackberry Messenger which is a service that only Blackberry supports, so if you're leaving the RIM world to join Android or Apple, you won't be able to take your BB friends with you. Consider alternative instant messengers like Twitter and Windows Live Messenger, both of which are supported across multiple platforms beyond mobile alone.

3. Text Messages
Text messages often hold some of our closest memories these days - from organising a first date to a heartfelt message from family, so the last thing you want to do is throw away those memories when you make the switch. Unfortunately transferring your old SMS text messages to your new phone can be a bit tricky. There is some nifty third-party software out there, which does the job for a small premium. Try SMS Export, available through the App Store. The App allows you to export your SMS messages in text format, which can then be transferred onto the MicroSD card in your new Android phone. Finally, download an App from the Android market like SMS Migrator to complete the process.

4. Music
Smart phones are being used more and more as our portable music players, and with downloads available direct to the handset it's important you don't lose any of your collection when you switch phones. The best way to do this is to use a music library on your computer - iTunes or Window's Media Player are the easiest to set up and use. It's simply a case of plugging in your old phone, transferring the music to your library, and then transferring your collection over to your new phone - you can always edit out any musical mistakes when you make the transition!

5. Data
Users tend to particularly worry about losing their data when switching or upgrading their phone, but it's important to remember that things can go wrong at any point, even with a tried and tested handset that you've owned for months, which is why it's a good idea to regularly back up. You can change your preferred settings so that your phone is automatically backed-up to a Cloud service, which means you can forget about needing to sync using your handset USB cable or any potential data loss.

For more gadget help from the Geek Squad, check their site here.

After a frankly disastrous year at RIM HQ, co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are now expected to leave their positions as co-chairmen of the board at the flailing mobile firm.

The longtime CEOs have often come under fire, with critics citing the fragmented nature of their dual leadership as damaging innovation and growth across the BlackBerry platform. Following investor worries in mid-2011 an independent committee was set up to review leadership structure, and now following disappointing financial results, the duo are expected to leave their posts at the boards head.

The news comes via the Financial Post, who are also claiming that Barbara Stymiest, former executive at TSX and RBC, will take charge. Stymiest currently sits on RIM's review committee.

The move will not affect Balsillie and Lazaridis' roles as co-CEOs, though if the company's fortunes do not change swiftly, one can only wonder how long their current positions will remain stable for.

It's been on the cards for quite some time now, but it seems the BlackBerry PlayBook firesale is now looming. Retailers across the land are cutting the price of the under-performing tablet quite drastically, giving tablet bargain hunters plenty of reasons to start smashing their piggy banks.

Head over to the Carphone Warehouse today and you can pick up a BlackBerry PlayBook at 16GB for £169, 32GB for £199 and 64GB for £329. That's down from £399, £479 and £559 respectively.

Amazon are making similar cuts, dropping the 16GB model under the £200 mark.

RIM in the US take the price-cutting biscuit however dropping every model (including the 64GB version!) to just $299 (£191) before tax.

Despite lukewarm reviews and sales to match the general lack of interest in the device, at these prices the BlackBerry PlayBook actually looks quite a good deal, in much the same way the £99 HP Touchpad firesale did.

However, RIM may be shooting their future prospects in the foot with the move. With the PlayBook's QNX OS built on the same foundations as the forthcoming BlackBerry Ten mobile OS (due in just under a year), such desperate measures may be seen by some as an admission of the platform's failure. With much of the upcoming BlackBerry portfolio resting on BlackBerry Ten, that would be a very foolish move.

RIM's line-up of next-gen BB10 packing BlackBerry phones (their new OS, formerly known as BBX) gets a new addition today, as the BlackBerry Milan makes its leaked debut online.

Similarly shaped to the Torch 9810, it features BlackBerry's famed full-QWERTY set-up in a slider that sits just underneath a full touchscreen.

The first leaked shot of the device, appearing over at CrackBerry, seems to show that RIM have dropped their often-derided optical trackpad, as well as the menu, call and back buttons.

Aside from the build, little is known on the inner specs of the device. However, the screen is said to feature a far denser pixel-density than previous BlackBerry touchscreen offerings.

More on the handset as its details trickle through.

via: CrackBerry

RIM have lost a trademark battle to name their next-generation tablet and mobile operating system BBX.

The US Federal Court has ruled that the name is too similar to a product owned by Mexican tech company BASIS International LTD, who make software called BBx for Mac, Windows PCs and Linux systems.

BlackBerry have released this statement following the ruling:

"We don't typically comment on pending litigation - but we actually unveiled the new brand for our next gen platform at DevCon Asia today (today Singapore time). We'll be using the "BlackBerry 10" brand name for our next generation mobile platform, which will bring the best of the BlackBerry and QNX platforms to customers and partners. The BlackBerry 10 name reflects the significance of the new platform and will leverage the global strength of the BlackBerry brand while also aligning with our device branding."

In what has unquestionably been a tough year for RIM's BlackBerry brand, this latest set back may infact be a blessing in disguise. Though BBX may have had some sort of comic-book-cool behind it, at least BlackBerry 10 makes mention of the brand name.

Still, we're only currently at BlackBerry OS 7 when it come's to RIM's mobile OS, so what happened to 8 and 9, eh? Perhaps it's just a mere correlation between the Roman numeral "X" and its numeric value of 10, though we'd like to hope RIM have a massive leap planned for their gear.

Surplus stock of the under-performing BlackBerry PlayBook will cost RIM somewhere in the region of $485 million (£308 million), the company has today revealed.

Despite a number of price cuts, the feldgling RIM tablet is still sticking steadfastly to store shelves, with consumers opting for Apple or Android rivals instead.

That's not to say RIM aren't still hopeful that the tablet will meet its potential in the new year.

"RIM is committed to the BlackBerry PlayBook and believes the tablet market is still in its infancy," said Lazaridis.

"Although a number of factors have led to the need for an inventory provision in the third quarter, we believe the PlayBook, which will be further enhanced with the upcoming PlayBook OS 2.0 software, is a compelling tablet for consumers that also offers unique security and manageability features for the enterprise."

That PlayBook OS 2.0 software that Lazaridis mentioned is pencilled in for a February release. However, despite the continued requests from the small PlayBook using community, the update still wont bring with it native BlackBerry Messenger support.

Which is symptomactic of the PlayBook's failure thus-far in fact. Though not an awful piece of hardware by any means, the PlayBook suffered from key functionality being notably absent at launch. 9 months later, we're still waiting for the likes of BBM to hit the platform.

With such a lacklustre response to this first tablet offering, and RIM's financial woes this year well documented, it makes you wonder whether they'll bother release a PlayBook 2 at all.

Via: RIM

The online supermarket Ocado has released its On the Go shopping application for both the Windows 7 and Blackberry devices for the mobile shopper in all of us.

The app which has been available on Iphone and Android for some time now continues to build on the online supermarket business structure by allowing more of us to do our weekly groceries on our mobile devices. After a bit of market research discovered that 18.6% of all Ocado checkouts are now being made on smartphones rather than on computers the company has put more emphasis on the smartphone market.

Blackberry has always had the reputation of a business phone and so was a perfect choice for releasing an app for. As for Windows 7, the recent deal with Nokia to replace its Symbian operating system with the Microsoft software would have played a big part in the decision to release the app for Windows as well.

Ocado found that orders through the On the Go app where at their highest during peak travel times, showing commuters making the most of signal failures and traffic jams by ordering their shopping to be delivered at their convenience.

Supporting both touchscreen and rollerball devices the App and its features are designed to work for 30 different models and handsets and plans are already in place to introduce barcode scanning and syncing deliveries with phone calendars in the next few weeks.

The research into the shopping habits of Ocado customers also found some rather odd results in the shopping habits or those at home and those on the go. Home users would indulge themselves with purchases of home baking products, wine and butter, compared to those using the App purchasing mostly fruit, veg and fruit juices.

A logically answer would be the customers ordering from home are mostly going to be housewives or husbands who have the time to be baking and perhaps have a glass of wine while doing this, and the business people are ordering all the healthy food to make up for their lunch of McDonalds or KFC.

The App is available today for download from the Blackberry and Windows Marketplaces.

BBM Music, the socially-orientated music downloading and sharing service exclusive to BlackBerry users, has gone live in the UK today.

First announced in August, the service costs £4.99 a month and gives users access to 50 tracks a month, with users allowed to swap out 25 of those tracks for new ones every month.

However, through integration with BlackBerry Messenger, users will have access to the 50 tracks stored on up to 140 of their BlackBerry-using friend's handsets, potentially giving access to 7,000 tracks on and offline each month to every user.

Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI are among the labels touting their artists on the service.

It's a very strange system. Quite fixed in its nature, it relies heavily on many of your friends using the service in order to maximize the tracks available to you, as well as having similar taste to your pals in order to enjoy it. It looks as though RIM are hoping word of mouth will push the service, as users hope to expand the range of their available music each month, in a similar way to Dropbox's storage-increasing referral system.

However, you do have to wonder who in their right mind would choose the service over alternatives. Limited to 50 tracks a month for a fiver (not including the random selections from pals), BBM Music pales in comparison to the unlimited access to millions of songs you get from Spotify mobile for £9.99 a month, now available on BlackBerry OS 7 devices. You can argue that the integration with BlackBerry Messenger gives the service a unique social aspect, given the wild popularity of the free messaging client, but with Spotify now so integrally tied into Facebook (and with everyone and their dog signed up to the world's largest social network), the BBM features themselves seem moot and limited in their scope.

Working on BB OS 7, BB OS 6, and BB OS 5 devices running BBM 6, the app is available now from the BlackBerry App World.

Water damage on a phone is a very common problem, where a small amount of moisture will enter the phone, usually through the charging port and causes issues. Alternatively water damaged can be caused by dropping it in the toilet.

A new study by a mobile phone comparison website found some worrying results that a third of phone owners in Britain have broken their phone through water damage. The most popular way was dropping it in the toilet, followed by dropping it in a drink, dropped in the shower or bath, dropped in washing up bowl and finally being put in the washing machine, I'm assuming with clothes.

It seems that people can't grip their phones properly as most of the damage tends to happen through dropping; perhaps a universal design flaw? One that i found particularly interesting was dropping it in the shower or bath. Who takes their phone into the shower? I don't think I have ever had that much of an important text or call come through that I would reply in the shower under a stream of running water.

Some other interesting results show that males are three times more likely to drop their phones in water than females. 86% of the the phones damaged with water were not insured.

Mark Owen founder of the company that ran the survey, GoodMobilePhones.co.uk commented, "I know mobile phone insurance can seem like an expensive addition to a monthly phone bill, but often it can be something really worth thinking about, especially if you are prone to being a bit clumsy! The majority of smart phones can be expensive to replace so it's often worth the additional cost of insurance, but if you have recently broken your phone then there are some great deals to be had."

Have you had a disastrous combination involving your phone or any other gadget and the technology killer that is water? Leave your best (or worst) experiences below in the comments.

BlackBerry makers RIM have seen their stock value drop 68% over the course of the year, leading to record lows for the company's net value.

Stock prices have fell under "book value", with investors now believing the company is worth less than its portfolio of patents and assets.

It's the latest in a string of woes for RIM, after their debut tablet the Playbook was met with a universal "meh" response, their BlackBerry messaging service was linked to August's London Riots and the company suffered a massive global network outage.

So what next for RIM?

Shareholders have been quick to suggest a buy-out as a viable option for the flailing mobile giants, while the company's dual-CEO set up has also been marked as a problematic structure.

The frustration was significant among the tens of million BlackBerry users who found their beloved internet devices had stopped working last month. Three whole days went by without that comforting buzz from BlackBerries worldwide, causing hurt and upset.

At least that looks to be the case for a certain Eric Mitchell, of Sherman Oaks, California. He has now brought a lawsuit against Research In Motion (RIM), asking the company to "take full responsibility for these damages". Mitchell cites breach of contract, negligence and unjust enrichment as his claims against RIM, which he estimates to be earning £2.12 every day in service revenues.

At the same time, another lawsuit was filed against RIM in Canada, on behalf of all the nation's BB owners with an active service agreement. Both the Canadian and US lawsuits are asking for damages and compensation for service fees, a bill that could be costly for RIM: it has 2.4 million users in California alone.

Following the three-day BlackBerry "apocalypse", brought on by an upgrade going catastrophically wrong, RIM apologised to its users. This came following three days of minimal information available, in what has been later hailed as a PR disaster for RIM.
"We will work tirelessly to regain customers' confidence and are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this happening again," said CEO Mike Lazaridis.

Lovely, but later the company announced it will compensate users with nothing more than free apps. A $100 worth of free apps, but those who missed out on important business emails during the three days may well feel this is not enough. The BB internet services dipped in and out during the outage, meaning some users were lead to believe things were up and running again when they were not.

According to Informa analyst Malik Saadi, RIM customers should probably be paid about $12 per day the loss of services, wrote the Guardian. This does not however take into account liability fees for loss of data.

To sue RIM for breach of contract seems a bit harsh, to be honest - in all likelihood everything possible was done to prevent this ordeal. We can imagine the frantic scenes at RIM HQ as the outage was going on, and the incident may have caused lasting damage to BlackBerry's reputation. It then seems just as likely that these lawsuits are a way of seeing compensation for emotional distress. After all, we trusted you, RIM! Please don't do it again.

Some welcome good news for BlackBerry owners today after the recent outage troubles. It's been a long time coming, but BlackBerry users can finally get the superb Spotify music streaming service on their handsets.

Revealed today over on the official Spotify blog, those who favour RIM's smartphones now have a version of the Spotify app tailored to their devices.

However, as it stands it's being listed up as a "preview" release, and as such, comes with a few caveats.

Firstly an obvious one; you'll need a premium Spotify account to take your music out on the go with you.

Secondly, Spotify for BlackBerry only works with GSM phones, meaning US readers are out of luck for the time being at least. The only BlackBerry handsets tested and officially confirmed to be working with the service are the BlackBerry 9780 Bold, 9700 Bold, 9300 Curve, original 9000 Bold and 8520 Curve, while unofficial reports of the Bold 9900 BlackBerry 7 handset also running without a hitch have been made.

For now, those with Torch or Storm touchscreen BlackBerry's are out of luck it would seem.

If you fit into the above criteria however, you'll get all the usual Spotify goodies, including offline playlists, Last.fm scrobbling and all the usual search features, with the added ease of a QWERTY keyboard.

Not yet on the BlackBerry App World store, you can try the preview build by clicking here.

Following last week's major service outages across their BlackBerry handset range, manufacturers RIM are set to give more than $100 worth of free apps to their customers affected by the problems.

Premium apps such as Sims 3, N.O.V.A and Bejeweled will be offered without charge to BlackBerry owners between the 19th of October and the 31st of December, whilst BlackBerry Enterprise customers wil recieve a month's worth of free technical support too.

"Our global network supports the communications needs of more than 70 million customers" said RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis.

"We truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers. We've worked hard to earn their trust over the past 12 years, and we're committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect, today and in the future."

Considering the huge number of BlackBerry users affected by the outage, and te high price of technical support for the many enterprise customers on RIM's books, this is a generous and costly compensation package after what must have been a pricey week's worth of problems for RIM anyway.

After a slow start, RIM handled the outage remarkably well, using social media channels to keep users updated, as well as seeing Lazaridis extend a heartfelt video apology over YouTube.

The timing however, could not have been any worse. Apple mania had kicked in just days before with the launch of the iPhone 4S, and while one of BlackBerry's key USPs, BBM, was faltering, iOS 5 was introducing iMessage to the Apple-loving masses.

If things were already tough for Canadian phone giants RIM, the past week hasn't made things any easier.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for BlackBerry following this week's major service outages, CNN are now reporting that the problem has spread.

Spread to other planets that is!

CNN state that "users on almost every planet" have been affected.

Quick, someone notify the Jedi Council!

No wonder RIM have been struggling to keep up with Apple's smartphone dominance here on Earth; they've been struggling to quell the BBM riots on Astra 5 in the Nebulus system! Their intergalactic PR manager must be having a nightmare week!

Via: Craig Kannally (Twitter)

Co-CEO of RIM, Mike Lazaridis, has given a heartfelt video apology for the widespread BlackBerry outages affecting many of his customers this week.

Posted on RIM's official BlackBerry YouTube channel, Lazaridis stated that: "You expect better from us and I expect better for us."

"It is too soon to say that this issue is fully resolved but let me give you more detail on what is happening," continued the beleaguered boss.

"We are now approaching normal BlackBerry service levels in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"We continue to monitor the system closely and working hard to stabilise the system. We expect to see some instability problems as the system comes back to normal levels everywhere."

Lazaridis also noted the poor response users were given to the outage, stating that they will commit to a more thorough social media campaign following any future issues.

"We know you want to hear more from us and we are working to update you more frequently through our websites and social media channels."

"I know this is very frustrating. We are doing everything in our power to restore regular service levels and are working tirelessly to restore your trust in us."

The BlackBerry problems are now in their third day.

BlackBerry services are beginning to come back online across Europe after major outages saw many key features of RIM's handsets stop working.

For three days internet, BlackBerry Messenger and email services have been failing on the handsets, but things are finally beginning to stabalise.

"From 6AM BST today, all services across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as India, have been operating with significant improvement. We continue to monitor the situation 24/7 to ensure ongoing stability. Thank you for your patience," reads a RIM statement.

However, internet servers are still down, meaning web access isn't available for the vast majority of users. USA and RIM's own Canada are still suffering outages too.

A failed database upgrade in Slough (where RIM manage much of the European server load) is said to be the cause of the problem, with an attempt to revert back to an older system causing the outages.