I Told You CES Had Lot's of Tablets

Best Buy gives us an inside look at the Samsung Galaxy, the Blackberry Playbook, and the Panasonic Viera.

Blackberry App Store Slated For Spring Launch

Research In Motion announced today that they’ve sent notice to their developers to begin submitting applications for their upcoming application storefront. “Bring us your innovative genius,” said RIM in a statement to their current stable of developers. Obviously endless comparisons to the Apple App Store are set to begin now in a battle of nerdy aka genius developers fighting for code supremacy. I enjoy sitting back and picking a side without actually knowing a single technical spec for how these apps get built. Off to the nerdery for a debate on whose SDK is more applicable to the [enter engineering jargon here] My vote is that Apple continues to dominate. Anyone have a contrary belief?

Nokia Really Joins The Smart Phone Race

Courtesy of CrunchGear...

The Nokia E63 has surfaced on Amazon.com for a pre-order price of $499, unlocked. You’ll remember the E63 as the tie-loosened, top-button-unbuttoned little brother to the more polished, business-oriented Nokia E71.

The E63 on Amazon is listed as the “International Version with No U.S. Warranty" while there’s an E71 being sold unlocked for $375.99 that’s listed as the “U.S. Version with Warranty.” There’s an international version of the E71 going for $454.99, which leads me to believe that if there were to be a US-specific version of the E63 offered, it’d likely cost less than the international version AND it’d have a warranty.

No word on an actual release date, but you can pre-order it if you’re interested.

Blackberry Storm In 4 Days

It looks like the wait is over.... let the holiday iPhone - G1 - Storm battle begin!!

Build A Wireless Finger Phone

Blackberry Game Mimics Real Life Movements...Scary

Courtesy of TechCrunch Mobile:

Its been a few months since we last mentioned Mobile Dead, but this zombie-blastin’ “Mobile Multiplayer Trans-Reality” (MMTR) game has now gone live in New York City.

Like other MMTR games, you’re wandering the streets of your own city rather than some made up fantasy land. Your character and other in game objects are superimposed onto a map of your area, with your character’s position determined by your real-world location (via GPS). Move in the real world, and you move in the game.

Because everything can be made better with a dash of the undead, Mobile Dead takes the MMTR concept and throws zombies into the mix. Weapons and health items are scattered around your area, with on-screen danger lurking behind every corner. As you come across other players (zombies), you’re free to friend them, fight them - or both. According to Perk Mobile, Mobile Dead’s developers, the game will even extend past the screen, with “real world puzzles” and hidden codes placed around NYC.

We noted this briefly last time, but it still holds true: The tough part for Mobile Dead will be maintaining a critical mass of players. If there aren’t enough players in New York City, much of the game’s appeal is lost. Hell, even if there aren’t enough players in any given neighborhoodof NYC - who’s going to trek 8 blocks to try and stalk down an opponent? On the opposite end of things, too many players could spoil the fun. If they do manage to maintain that balance though, Mobile Dead could turn out to be a blast.

Something that might ensure they can at least maintain them minimum would be getting the game onto other mobile platforms. They’re working on it; while there’s no ETA yet, releases are in the works for both Android and the iPhone.

With cell tower triangulation technology growing in popularity and satellite-based GPS well on its way to becoming a fully standard feature, I’d imagine we’ll be seeing a whole lot more of these MMTR games making their way out over the coming months and years. Keep your eye on the genre - it’s easy enough to drop in and out off to be inviting to the casual gamer, while immersive enough to keep it from becoming mind-numbing after just a few minutes.

Blackberry Storm To Battle iPhone and G1

Considering the coverage I’ve given to both the iPhone and G1, I’ve neglected to consider the effect the Blackberry Storm will have on the touch screen phone market. The phone is contracted through Verizon, the next carrier to make an exclusive deal to try and catch some share from AT&T (iPhone) and potentially T-Mobile (G1).

Blackberry has done very little to promote the phone so far, and could be waiting for the hype over the G1’s coming release in a couple weeks to slow down.

The new touch-screen, which also works as a keyboard, supports single -touch, multi-touch and gestures to easily navigate in applications. The haptic touch-screen will let the user distinctly feel the screen being pressed and released with a gentle click, and the experience is said to be similar to that of a physical keyboard or a mouse button. Some of the other features include an inbuilt accelerometer to auto-orient the screen between landscape and portrait modes when the handset is rotated by the user.

RIM has said that it is very fast and easy to navigate web sites with the Storm's touch-screen interface letting users double tap to zoom in and slide their fingers to scroll and pan.

Mike Lazaridis, RIM's president and co-CEO has said "We are proud to introduce the first touch-screen based BlackBerry smartphone together with Verizon Wireless and Vodafone. The BlackBerry Storm is a revolutionary touch-screen smartphone that meets both the communications and multimedia needs of customers and solves the longstanding problem associated with typing on traditional touch-screens. Consumers and business customers alike will appreciate this unique combination of a large and vibrant screen with a truly tactile touch interface."