Hoot! Hoot! Early today, HootSuite released a nice surprise to the community by announcing that HootBerry (HootSuite for BlackBerry) is almost ready for beta release. For those that are an user of the app on the other platforms it's available for and/or for those that are looking for something new this is great news.

So click on the link below and be among the first to get early access to this Twitter client.

HootSuite for BlackBerry Private Beta Signup

RIM is looking at the end of the year to bring out a small BlackBerry tablet powered by a 1GHz processor, according to a report from an analyst on Friday.

The 7 inch touch-screen tablet is to be powered by a 1 GHz processor from Marvell, according to Ashok Kumar, an analyst and managing director at Rodman & Renshaw.    

"Research In Motion  is trying to pull forward the launch of the 7-inch touchscreen tablet from early next year to year end...with a marginal point of differentiation being the front- and back-facing cameras for videoconferencing," he said in a research note Friday morning.

He added that the device could possibly run on Marvell's 1GHz Armada 610 processor which supports 1080p video playback, 16-megapixel image capture and advanced 3D graphics. Marvell would also supply the baseband silicon for 3G connectivity on the device.

RIM obviously declined to comment. If anything, the company has never officially confirmed that it is working on such a device. So sit back and wait...there will certainly be many more rumors dropping in the coming months.

The guys over at BBNews discovered this a few weeks back, It’s an application that will initially be made a free for BIS-B users, I suspect RIM will charge BES for a corporate license a good way of funding the project. BlackBerry Shield is basically RIM’s version of SmrtGuard. Once your details are registered (upto 5 devices on one account), users will be able to login and perform remote operations to their device:

Borders Group Inc., the nation's second largest bookstore chain as measured by sales, has launched an e-bookstore powered by Kobo Inc., the Canadian e-book retailer in which Borders owns an investment stake.

Borders, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., last December invested in Kobo and said that Kobo would eventually provide e-books for Borders.com and today they have announced that E-Books is available on select BlackBerry devices. This application, for now, supports the Curve, Tour and the Bold, as the Storm is left out again...for the time being. You can also download a version for your PC.

"The digital book marketplace is still in the very early stages," said Mike Edwards, CEO of Borders Inc., the principle subsidiary of Borders Group, in an interview. The new Borders e-book store has more than 1.5 million titles, including free books.

This is a free download for all you avid readers, and is available at the following link.  Please leave feedback and share your opinions here. 

Enjoy !!

Borders e-Book

GPSGolfShot Becomes the First Golf GPS Software Application Approved by Verizon Wireless for Popular Blackberry Devices

GPSGolfShot has become the first ever golf rangefinder application to receive approval from Verizon Wireless® to utilize their proprietary GPS interface on Blackberry models such as the Curve, Pearl, Storm and World Phone. GPSGolfShot™ is now the first and only golf GPS system available that can provide accurate, real-time yardage information on these popular mobile devices for Verizon Wireless subscribers.

GPSGolfShot  for Blackberry® also offers several exciting new features which make it one of the best handheld golf GPS systems available for your mobile phone:

 

 ~ PowerSaver  battery optimization technology conserves battery power by only activating the GPS when you need it. With a full charge, GPSGolfShot  can easily last 36 holes and leave plenty of power to make calls on the ride home.

~ GPSGolfShot™ automatically downloads the course map you need over the wireless data network when you get to the course. You never connect to a PC or type anything into the device. Just show up, launch the app and play- anywhere in America. Our 16,500+ courses are mapped and ready to use. Click here to see if your course is mapped.

Here is an article that came out today in the San Francisco Chronicle that I thought was interesting and I thought I would share this with our members.

It's easy to think that Apple and Google are leading the smart-phone race.

Apple released its iPhone 4 a week ago and promptly sold 1.7 million of them in three days. Earlier, Google said about 160,000 phones running its Android operating system were being activated daily.

But the two companies still trail the North America leader, Research In Motion. RIM's BlackBerry devices control 35 percent of the U.S. market, compared with 28 percent for the iPhone and 9 percent for Android, according to the Nielsen Co., a research firm.

But the numbers belie a significant shift as RIM's market share - which five years ago was more than 50 percent - erodes in the face of increased competition.

By 2012, Gartner predicts, Android will become the second-best-selling smart-phone platform worldwide behind worldwide leader Symbian, closely followed by the iPhone. RIM, currently in second place worldwide, will fall into fourth place.

RIM finds itself at a crossroads. Its aging smart phones remain essential to businesses and continue to gain users. But compared with iPhone and Android devices, BlackBerrys have less broad appeal and generate less loyalty from customers and developers.

The next year may prove critical in determining whether BlackBerrys can compete in the new age of powerful smart phones or become yesterday's technology.