LOS ANGELES: More than 20 Hollywood filmmakers, including James Cameron and Michael Bay, have issued an open letter criticizing plans by studios and platforms to launch premium VOD services delivering feature films to the home some 60 days after the theatrical release. The letter comes ahead of the Thursday launch by DIRECTV of the pay-TV debut of the Sony Pictures romantic comedy Just Go With It, starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. DIRECTV's on-demand platform is making the film available to subscribers for $29.99 for a 48-hour window. It was released theatrically on February 11. The other features that will roll out on the DIRECTV premium VOD service include Warner Bros.' Hall Pass, Universal Pictures' The Adjustment Bureau and Fox Searchlight's Cedar Rapids. The open letter, released by the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO), notes that early-to-the-home premium VOD means that "new movies can be shown in homes while these same films are still in their theatrical run." The letter continues, "Currently, the average theatrical release window is over four months (132 days). The theatrical release window model has worked for years for everyone in the movie business. Current theatrical windows protect the exclusivity of new films showing in state©\of©\the©\art theaters bolstered by the latest in digital projection, digital sound and stadium seating. As a crucial part of a business that last year grossed close to $32 billion in worldwide theatrical ticket sales, we in the creative community feel that now is the time for studios and cable companies to acknowledge that a release pattern for premium video©\on©\demand that invades the current theatrical window could irrevocably harm the financial model of our film industry." The letter goes on to note that "Low©\cost rentals and subscriptions are undermining higher priced DVD sales and rentals. But the problem of declining revenue in home video will not be solved by importing into the theatrical window a distribution model that cannibalizes theatrical ticket sales. cheap apple apple notebook promac book speakers best computer mouses notebook tests notebook computer budget batteries ryobi batteries blackberry housing blackberry keyboard projectors 3d projector people mobile mouse pc mouse "Make no mistake: History has shown that price points cannot be maintained in the home-video window. What sells for $30©\a©\viewing today could be blown out for $9.99 within a few years. If wiser heads do not prevail, the cannibalization of theatrical revenue in favor of a faulty, premature home-video window could lead to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue. Some theaters will close. The competition for those screens that remain will become that much more intense, foreclosing all but the most commercial movies from theatrical release. Specialty films whose success depends on platform releases that slowly build in awareness would be severely threatened under this new model. Careers that are built on the risks that can be taken with lower budget films may never have the chance to blossom under this cut©\throat new model. Further, releasing a pristine, digital copy of new movies early to the home will only increase the piracy problem¡ªnot solve it." The signatories¡ªamong them Michael Bay, Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Antoine Fuqua, Gale Anne Hurd, Peter Jackson, Michael Mann, Bill Mechanic, Brett Ratner, Gore Verbinski and Robert Zemeckis¡ªwant "a seat at the table. We want to hear the studios¡¯ plans for how this new distribution model will affect the future of the industry that we love." In a separate release from NATO, Cameron said, "You can argue about VOD windows all day long, but what you can't deny is that there is an overwhelming outcry from the theater owners that they feel threatened by this. The cinema experience is the wellspring of our entire business, regardless of what platforms we trickle down to. If the exhibitors are worried, I'm worried. We should be listening to them. Why on earth would you give audiences an incentive to skip the highest and best form of your film? My films aren't going to the home early, but many will, and that will weaken the movie theater industry¡ªand then my movies are threatened." John Fithian, president and CEO of NATO, added, ¡°The directors and producers we¡¯ve talked to are passionate filmmakers and very informed business people who care deeply about their art and craft. Whether they are the makers of blockbusters or independent films, Oscar winners or just starting their careers, all have expressed extreme concern over announced plans to shorten the distribution window, and stated their desire that films can be seen in the venues they were made to be seen in: movie theaters.¡±

One would have to be a true believer in the equally far-fetched hypothetical purity of either museums or graffiti art to get really hot under the collar about Jeffrey Deitch's MOCA magnum opus "Art in the Streets." Therein lies the ambitious exhibition's weakest link: the unsustainable suspension of disbelief required to entertain belief in this grandly operatic storyline, and its protagonists. You know the story I'm talking about, right? The one about how the stuffy repository of historically significant cultural artifacts and the scrappy band of semiotic revolutionaries established d¨¦tente in order to move art history and human evolution forward into the bright, bright future. Art historically, the most raggedy tag on the funkiest dumpster is more significant than anything MOCA or any other museum could muster at this point. In terms of bestowing legitimacy on an enterprise, the equation actually runs diametrically opposite to how it's being promoted: "Street Art" ¡ª even in the degraded illustration-school-grads-deregulating-public-space-to-establish-a-marketable-brand-identity incarnation ¡ª has far more cultural currency than the exhausted and exhausting stock rotation of the art fashion industry. I'm just sayin'. The only thing Deitch and MOCA have to offer Street Art is that other kind of currency ¡ª the regular kind; the kind you need in order to buy spray paint. This has been the real problem and challenge of graffiti as an artform since it first leaked into high art through works by Jean Dubuffet, Helen Levitt, Jacques Villegl¨¦, Antoni T¨¤pies, and others ¡ª more than half a century ago. How do you monetize and control anonymous amateur pictographic trespassing and acknowledge its potency as visual language, without undermining the proprietary fiscal monopoly of the professional art world? Apple Macbook Pro apple macbook pro review Notebook Cooler notebook test Panasonic Projector budget batteries ryobi batteries blackberry housing blackberry keyboard Microsoft Wireless Mouse Mouse Computer nec projectors Macbook Pro Review Computer Shop Small Speakers The long answer is you get white middle-class art-world insiders to incorporate the vocabulary of street art into commodifiable artifacts; and when that ceases to be convincing, get them to pose as outlaws and then help them make the transition to "real" art. The short answer, though, is the kicker: You don't. The equation in the question may look elegant on paper, but in vivo it does not compute. Street art taken out of the streets is not street art. There's no compromise, no sell-out, no token integration. There's just a bunch of museum art by a bunch of people who also do street art. Which on paper doesn't look like such a good idea. Surprisingly, it makes for a pretty engaging museum exhibition in the flesh, largely due to its extravagant incoherence ¡ª there are didactic illustrated timelines and vitrines displaying spraycans and "Kilroy Was Here"-era ephemera; there is an interactive DIY filmmaking workshop; there are paintings on stretched canvases, installations, and dedicated video projection theaters. There are some spray-painted walls and a miniature skateboard park ¡ª keepin' it real! The most convincing portions of the show is probably its most simulacral moments ¡ª two illusionistic environmental installations: a dark, skanky alleyway courtesy Neckface (in character as a bum throughout the press preview ¡ª I doubt he's in residence through Aug 8) and a reconfiguration of the late 2000 Deitch Projects show "Street Market" by Todd James, Barry McGee, and Stephen Powers (aka REAS, TWIST, and ESPO). "Street Market" is a futuristic ghetto of signs, a Blade Runner cartoon warren of storefronts, studios, and squats that brings the hidden artificiality and alienation of "AitS" to the surface, and full circle into a genuinely creative, entertaining, aesthetically innovative work of art. That it does so (alongside Neckface's alley) in what amounts to a variation on 1970s Natural History Museum design ¡ª you know, the carefully lit walk-through Indian Village or Frontier Town ¡ª lends the entire exhibit a note of critical self-awareness that benefits all. Many works also gain strength through repetition ¡ª Henry Chalfant's deadpan late-'70s documentary photographs of subway cars are arrayed as a monumental brickwork wall that is as energizing as it is elegiac. Erik Brunetti's "LOST (Black Female)" is an accumulation of hundreds of missing pet fliers, offering a refreshing glimpse into entire worlds of street graphics that weren't considered for the show. Several artists ¡ª local legend Chaz Boj¨®rquez in particular ¡ª demonstrate how the compelling palimpsest of layered calligraphy that results from the collectively authored social performance that is real graffiti may be successfully translated into the language of contemporary painting. It's no surprise that all these examples derive from text or script-based forms of street art, which gets into trouble when it tries to compete as an image-based medium without the context of transgressive street presence to differentiate it from art-school-trained picture-makers ¡ª not to mention the entire advertising and film and TV industries. Why not just show the original art from Vaughn Bode's Cheech Wizard, or some of the hundreds of graphic designers more gifted than Shepard Fairey or Kenny Scharf (though the reconfiguration of Kenny's early-80's blacklight Cosmic Cave installation reminded me of why he was cool in the first place). "Art in the Streets" is ultimately a hybrid of two ethically ambiguous cultural movements, neither of which bears much resemblance to what it claims to be. Museums are alleged to be educational resources for the public governed by learned consensus ¡ª certainly not a tax-shelter arena for rich people's pissing contests. Street Art is supposed to be an inherently political collective visual reclamation of bureaucratically and commercially apportioned public space and consciousness ¡ª certainly not a cynical marketing ploy by semi-pro illustrators without the chops to make it in the industry. To the extent that these fictions cancel each other out and create a gap for creativity to flourish, the show is a surprising and delightful success. Revolutionary and historical it ain't.

I've been disappointed by recent BlackBerry devices. So when I saw BlackBerry's Torch being offered by AT&T, I was set for renewed optimism. The Torch showed the promise of being able to capitalize on what the recent models did not. At first glance, you might confuse the Torch with the BlackBerry Storm because it's generally the same shape and size. It even has a screen that takes up almost the entire front panel. But under the surface the Torch has a slide-out keyboard with full QWERTY keys. So you have a choice of whether to use the touchscreen or the hardware keyboard. A noticeable improvement with the Torch is that it has blackberry housing track pad. That's the latest version of the pointing device that seems to be replacing the pearl cursor control on many BlackBerry models. While the pearl control was a rotating ball operated by your thumb, the track pad is flat and operates electronically. It also has a nice feel and is easy to use with single-hand control. The Torch uses BlackBerry 6 OS. The main screen displays from one to four rows of four icons giving you 16 apps at a touch. It logs which apps you use most, and with the flick of your finger, you can reach a screen showing the apps you use most frequently. You can also set up a screen of your favorites or go directly to a screen set up specifically for your media apps such as YouTube. The Torch includes some interesting consumer touches, including pre-loaded apps for Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace to make it easy to maintain your social networks, and info apps from CNN, ESPN and Fandango ( local theaters). It includes a five megapixel camera with flash and video capability. The designers smartly allow you to zoom by using the volume rocker on the side of the Torch; but there's a noticeable lag on the camera shutter. With 4 GB of onboard memory, plus a standard 4 GB microSD card (in a slot allowing cards up to 32 GB), the Torch has plenty of room to store your photos, videos and music. Its specs say it will play up to 30 hours of music or six hours of video between charges -- and it has 5.5 hours of talk time within an 18-day standby period. Although it has a lot of features that are very consumer friendly, the blackberry keyboard Torch is definitely a business device -- with available apps like salesforce mobile, Pocket Informant (a productivity-oriented personal information manager) and BlackBerry Enterprise server (for e-mail). There are some annoying idiosyncrasies on the Torch. Like the Storm, it sometimes doesn't pick up the touch of your finger as well as it could. I also tried to upgrade the operating system and encountered problems for which I needed to contact support. But it has generally been easy to use and reliable. The latest version of BlackBerry Desktop is worlds above previous versions, making the experience of synchronizing your contacts, calendar, tasks, and media much better than with previous versions. It's nice to be able to browse in multiple windows, but for some reason the Torch kept forgetting that I had used the browser before -- and asked me on a number of occasions to accept its agreement. That happened with other applications too, including applications that came pre-loaded and apps that I installed myself. Google Voice had its own idiosyncratic problems that I have not yet encountered on other BlackBerry or Android smart phones. The bottom line is that if you like BlackBerry, you'll probably want to carry a Torch.

Americans and Canadians have disagreed about plenty over the years: the British, nationalized health care, hockey. Now, there¡¯s a new cross-border dispute brewing -- over BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. American analysts are increasingly skeptical that the Waterloo, Ontario-based company can compete with mobile-phone rivals Apple Inc. and Google Inc. and lift its stock from a 16-month low. Canadian investors say the Yanks are underestimating their national champion. ¡°It is a cultural thing,¡± said Paul Taylor, chief investment officer at BMO Harris Private Banking in Toronto. ¡°On our side of the border, folks give the guys at Research In Motion a lot more credit than the U.S. folks do.¡± The split is widening. Ehud Gelblum, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York, cut his rating on RIM last week, making him the third U.S. analyst to downgrade the stock since the company reported sales that missed analysts¡¯ estimates on June 24. Since then, Steven Li, an analyst at Raymond James Ltd. in Toronto, lifted his rating to ¡°outperform¡± and Dundee Securities¡¯ Dushan Batrovic, also in Toronto, initiated coverage with ¡°buy.¡± Ten of 11 Canadian analysts who rate RIM and are tracked by Bloomberg recommend buying the stock. Michael Urlocker, an analyst with GMP Securities LP in Toronto, cut his rating on the stock today to ¡°hold¡± from ¡°buy.¡± Just 54 percent of the 35 U.S. analysts with a rating on RIM give a similar endorsement. Four U.S. analysts, including Gelblum, Citigroup Inc.¡¯s Jim Suva and Simona Jankowski of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., rate the stock a ¡°sell¡± or ¡°underweight.¡± Eroding Loyalty RIM¡¯s skeptics have bragging rights for the moment. Its stock is down 37 percent in the past year, while Apple is up 43 percent. RIM rose 68 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $47.74 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Long the leader in wireless e-mail, RIM is fighting to fend off Apple¡¯s iPhone and Google, which makes the Android software used in phones from Motorola Inc. and HTC Corp. RIM¡¯s share of the global smartphone market slid to 18.2 percent in the second quarter from 19 percent a year earlier as customers opted for rivals¡¯ phones with larger screens and more applications, according to researcher IDC. Apple¡¯s share rose to 14.2 percent from 13 percent, while Android surged to 17.2 percent from 1.8 percent. What¡¯s more, the loyalty of BlackBerry aficionados may be waning. RIM¡¯s pioneering mobile e-mail service made it the must- have device among bankers, lawyers and government workers a decade ago. Only 42 percent of BlackBerry users say they want to stick with the brand when they buy a new phone, according to an August survey by Nielsen Co. For iPhone owners, the same figure is 89 percent, and for Android it¡¯s 71 percent. BlackBerry Torch This month, RIM released the Torch, which has a full screen like the iPhone blackberry keyboard, and a slideout keyboard for blackberry housing. The phone features RIM¡¯s newest operating system with an easier-to-use Web browser, with the company calling the introduction ¡°one of the most significant¡± in its history. That wasn¡¯t enough for Morgan Stanley¡¯s Gelblum. He cited the device¡¯s ¡°disheartening¡± and ¡°lukewarm¡± initial sales as one of the reasons he cut RIM to ¡°underweight¡± from ¡°overweight.¡± Mike Abramsky, based in Toronto with RBC Capital Markets, is one of the most consistently bullish RIM analysts. Abramsky, who¡¯s rated RIM ¡°outperform¡± or ¡°top pick¡± since January 2009, said the Torch marks the beginning of a spate of new products. ¡°The Torch is not a ¡®Hail Mary,¡¯¡± said Abramsky, who doesn¡¯t own the stock. ¡°Torch is the first of many new mobile devices, all of which are expected to have BlackBerry 6 with rich browsing and an updated user interface.¡± Geographic Bias Some American analysts may be overly focused on U.S. sales, while Canadians focus on RIM¡¯s faster-growing regions like Brazil and Indonesia, said Matt Thornton, an Avian Securities LLC analyst in Boston. ¡°If you look at India, Indonesia, Latin America -- it¡¯s a sexy booming brand,¡± said Thornton, who rates RIM ¡°positive.¡± ¡°For RIM, most of the headlines and chatter is about the U.S. If everyone really understood and took in the full international perspective, the stock¡¯s valuation would be better.¡± Tero Kuittinen, an analyst with MKM Partners in Greenwich, Connecticut, agrees. ¡°U.S. analysts tend to look at the global handset market through the prism of AT&T and Verizon,¡± Kuittinen said, referring to the biggest U.S. wireless carriers. He has a ¡°buy¡± rating on RIM. Trailing Apple The 26-year-old company has promoted the BlackBerry Curve and Bold across Latin America and Asia and has been rewarded as sales outside Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. jumped 89 percent last quarter, outpacing the North American market. Still, total sales growth of 24 percent trailed Apple¡¯s 61 percent. While RIM¡¯s rivals have the momentum now, U.S. opinions about the company¡¯s prospects may just boil down to skepticism that a Canadian company can take on Silicon Valley¡¯s best, said BMO Harris¡¯ Taylor, who manages both Apple and RIM shares. The thinking, he said, is ¡°How could a Canadian company build technology that could truly compete and have features that would be worthy of meaningful market share versus the clear, obvious huge capability of an Apple?¡± --With assistance from Rodney Yap in Los Angeles and Tim Mazzella in Princeton. Editors: Ville Heiskanen, Lisa Wolfson

Bad day for a reviewer. I just learned that BW Online already ran a review on the Blackberry that I just reviewed. So I got my draft sent back to me with a thanks-but-no-thanks note. I must have missed an email somewhere along the line. So here's the question: If we run two reviews of the same product, do we undermine our "authority?" Do we risk confusing readers? I don't think so. A news organization isn't one voice, but a collection of voices. So why not broadcast in stereo, or a polyphonic chorus? That said, I'll have to concede from the get-go that my review is a lot skimpier than Arik's, and my lead plagiarizes yesterday's blog post. Still, if anyone wants to read my spiked review, I'll run it here, under the fold... This is the ultimate thumbs-up from a reviewer. I just went out and bought a replica of the Blackberry 8700g I've been testing. It had become my most useful traveling tool, and as I wrapped it up to send it back to T-Mobile, I couldn't see working without it. So I paid $299 for a two-year subscription. That's assuming I get back the $50 rebate, which isn't always a sure thing. My new Blackberry won't work quite as well as the old one--because I'm a cheapskate. I was just about to sign up for a voice-and-data package. It would have been $49.95 for 1,000 minutes, plus $19.95 for unlimited Internet and e-mail. Add the taxes and the $5.95 for insurance, and I was going to be paying more than $80 per month for the next two years. So I regretfully lopped off the voice, sticking with a Verizon family package in which my share costs only $10. In the end, I'll spend $29.95 per month plus taxes for a pure data machine--and pay 20 cents per minute if I'm ever desperate or foolish enough to use it as a phone. This is too bad, because much of the magic of theblackberry housing has been the combo of voice and data. The latest version, available from T-Mobile since April (Cingular has been offering a similar version, the 8700c, since last winter.), has a fast data connection, known as EDGE, along with an Intel XScale processor. I now routinely Google hotels and restaurants on the move--and get near instant results. What's more, the cursor seeks out the phone numbers among the search results. All you have to do is hit the green call button, and you're in business. Last week in Pittsburgh, I located a nearby Days Inn and found a room within a minute. Now I'll continue to try the same maneuver. To make the call, though, I'll have to pull out the Verizon phone and peck out the number. It's a pain, and will take an extra minute. But I figure that by foregoing Blackberry's phone feature I'm saving about a dollar a day--or $700 over the two year subscription. For Blackberry veterans, the 8700g will feel familiar. It has a narrowed-down look of the classic blackberry keyboard, along with the full keyboard. At 4.7 ounces, it sits nicely in the pocket. The battery lasts for days on end. The phone works just fine, though I noticed that in the hot streets of Miami and Austin my face left a coating of sweat on the screen. Email was a snap to set up. It took me all of a minute to get my Gmail and Yahoo accounts feeding into the handset. The device allows for as many as 10 accounts. Hotmail didn't work, for some reason. I probably could have figured it out. But my Hotmail account is a spam magnet anyway, so I didn't press. Problems with the Blackberry? It has little of the multimedia fun of the popular Treo. No camera, no music. Its keyboard is a bit squidgy for my big fingers, and I hate having to hit the alternate key to make a comma. You can get around that problem for periods by hitting the space bar twice. I see as I read through the manual that this new Blackberry features Instant Messaging, including AOL, Yahoo, MSN or ICQ. In addition, users can download Google Talk. It appears that the Google Talk on the Blackberry doesn't yet support Internet telephony. When that day comes--and I'm betting it will--even cheapskates like me will be able to yammer away for free on their handsets. But for now, you have to pay for voice if you want this excellent new Blackberry to play all its tricks.

My BlackBerry is very often the first thing I read in the morning before the newspapers. I check it before I go to bed each night. I check it on the subway on my way to work. I carry it with me to lunch in case I get an important message while I'm standing in line waiting for a sandwich. It carries my daily schedule, plus a list of everyone I know and correspond with on a regular basis and their addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. I receive news headlines included with my e-mail. I often correspond with editors and make changes to stories on my BlackBerry. From remote locations, I've even been known to tap out entire stories using the blackberry keyboard. FORGET THE OLD. My personal BlackBerry is a relatively dated 7230, which first hit the U.S. market during the summer of 2003. It's great for e-mail and for the standard PDA-like applications. I've even installed an instant-messenger client on it, so I can chat in more or less real time with friends from wherever I happen to be. But using the Web in any meaningful way is so unruly as to be a nonstarter. But so much has transpired in the BlackBerry universe in the years since the launch of the 7230. Wireless networks handle the data more speedily, and the capabilities of the devices themselves have improved substantially. As a result, your average BlackBerry user can get a great deal more done while sitting at the breakfast table or from the back of a taxicab than ever before. The latest BlackBerry from Research In Motion (RIMM) is the 8700, and I've been testing it now for the better part of two months. It's the subject of the first in a series of BusinessWeek Online reviews of high-end handheld-communications devices -- and I have to say it made my older model look downright antique in comparison. KEYBOARD CHANGES. This was clear to me upon my first glance at its display screen, which in the back of a darkened taxi automatically lit up brightly. I didn't have to touch a button, thanks to a sensor that detects ambient light and adjusts screen brightness accordingly. Icons, text, and pictures look great on the screen, which boasts a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels, and a display supporting 65,000 colors. The 8700c is the model available from Cingular Wireless for $300 with a wireless-service plan. Deutsche Telekom's (DK) T-Mobile unit in Britain just launched its own version, the 8700g. Rogers Wireless in Canada carries the 8700r, and France's Orange has the 8700f. Unlike another popular BlackBerry variant, the 7100 series, which combines two characters on a single key to make the device narrower across, the 8700 sticks with the traditional Qwerty keyboard, with 10 keys across. However, even at 2.6 inches wide, it's narrower than my 7230 by about a third of an inch. That may sound like a minor difference, but if your hands have become accustomed to the feel of the older device like mine, you're in for a bit of an adjustment. THUMB FATIGUE. The main difference has to do with the shape of and space between the keys. The 8700's keys are flatter, and shaped like a parallelogram, vs. the more oval-shaped and less-crowded keys on the 7230. The end result in my case: My thumbs wore out more easily. Hitting each key accurately required typing at a sharper, more awkward angle than with the 7230. Ultimately, I typed more accurately, but since I needed to exert more effort, I ended up composing shorter messages. Enough on the physical attributes. This puppy is fast. The Cingular Wireless EDGE network -- EDGE stands for enhanced data rates for GSM Evolution -- has made the BlackBerry a speed demon when downloading e-mail messages, and even doing simple Google (GOOG) searches from its HTML-based Web browser. I especially loved the ability to open e-mail attachments, including Microsoft Office (MSFT) documents, right on the screen. tested the e-mail features primarily by creating an auto-forward rule on my personal and work mail directly to the device. But the faster wireless network enables some really cool "push" features, if you like using Microsoft Outlook, IBM's (IBM) Lotus Domino, or Novell's (NOVL) GroupWise. Here's how it works. The majority of BlackBerry devotees are corporate workers and professionals who use the device for mobile access to e-mail and other important types of data, such as calendar items and contacts. But so-called push e-mail eliminates the need to synch the device with the laptop or forward your e-mail. Users have real-time, simultaneous access to e-mail and other pieces of data from their organizer at work. When they receive an e-mail, it shows up on the BlackBerry at nearly the same time that it appears on the corporate desktop. Sometimes it even appears on the BlackBerry sooner. The BlackBerry software integrates quite nicely with the Microsoft Outlook program used at BusinessWeek. But you'll need to adjust to a new interface. Outlook and other popular e-mail programs have separate boxes for incoming mail, sent messages, drafts, and the like. For the sake of efficiency, BlackBerry dumps all these messages into a single box, which can be quickly scrolled with the flywheel on the right side of the device. USEFUL AND FUN. The system works flawlessly, although it would be nice if blackberry housing added a reading pane to give readers the option to see the first few lines of messages without opening them. The trade-off: users wouldn't be able to see as many subject lines at once. The BlackBerry 8700c does a fine job of reading attachments. It makes reading Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slides, and Word documents a snap. And they downloaded quickly, thanks to the relatively speedy Cingular EDGE network. The documents looked good, thanks to the improved screen. The review device also came loaded with some useful applications. The Quotestream Wireless service can be used to check stock quotes and other financial data. The 8700c came loaded with several games, including the Texas Hold 'em King 2, Bass Assassin, and the classic Brick Breaker. A new feature called "AskMeNow" lets you use the Internet to obtain an answer to almost any question. GET THE PICTURE. The BlackBerry 8700c has improved the phone as well. Users no longer need a headset to make a phone call, as they did with earlier PDA-style BlackBerry models. Thanks to the slimmer profile, it doesn't feel like you are holding a brick to your ear when you make a phone call. These are basic, but important and welcome changes that callers will appreciate. Moreover, voice quality was excellent, and RIM's designers added strategically located buttons -- just above the keyboard -- to make calls and end them. Although many, including RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie, disagree with me on this point, I believe there's one thing missing: a camera. I've long dismissed the wireless-phone camera feature as a fad. But since I've had one on my Motorola wireless phone, I've come to appreciate it. Now that the BlackBerry can so readily display pictures on its bright, gorgeous screen, I'd encourage RIM to build one or two models that at least match Palm's (PALM) Treo family of smart phones as an optional feature. Adding a camera, I think, would widen its appeal outside of its usual pinstripe-wearing demographic.

When President Obama talked about a transparent administration during the run up to the 2008 election most Americans assumed he was talking about openness in government dealings. Obviously, this is not the case, as evidenced by the administration's handling of the universal health care legislation which was passed without a single American having had a chance to read it for 72 hours before a vote as the President promised would be the case with all legislation, refusal to release photographic evidence of the Osama Bin Laden raid, the President's own birth certificate which has taken two years to be made public, and the many secret meetings held with Congressional members behind closed doors. It should be clear by now that Big Government's domestic surveillance policies under Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush are being furthered expanded by Mr. Obama. Transparency, it seems, had nothing to do with making government more visible. It did, however, have everything to do with making your like more transparent. Before we itemize the many ways in which you're being watch, surveyed, monitored and aggregated, this latest report by Alex Thomas of The Intel Hub reiterates, yet again, that digital surveillance capabilities are not just isolated to intelligence agencies: A lawsuit filed on Tuesday alleges that Aaron¡¯s, a huge furniture rent to buy company, used software and a special device on their computers that enabled them to spy on PC renters. According to the lawsuit, the company is able to track keystrokes and snap webcam pictures in the home of their customers. Brian and Crystal Byrd, the couple who filed the lawsuit, claim that they were never told about these intrusive spying measures. While computer privacy experts agree that Aaron¡¯s has the right to install devices that enable them to shut down the computers remotely, customers must be told that they are being monitored. The couple only found out about the spying after an Aaron¡¯s employee showed them a picture of Brian Byrd that was taken remotely while the Byrds were in their home. ¡°After they showed us the picture, I, of course, felt violated,¡± Crystal Byrd said in an interview Monday. ¡°There are many times I sat in front of that computer with barely nothing on. So I didn¡¯t know if they had taken lots of pictures of us or what,¡± reported the Wyoming Tribune. Brian Byrd also reported that he thinks the picture was shown to him in order to intimidate him into an easy repossession. Source: The Intel Hub While we often hear protests from privacy advocates about government intrusion into the lives of Americans, what many fail to understand is that it's not just the government. Private businesses like Aaron's, as well as large corporate conglomerates, are themselves engaging in the surveillance of Americans with the development of products and services specifically for this purpose ¨C and often without the consent of their customers, or, through terms of services agreements that include dozens of pages of unintelligible fine print. As modern technology continues to advance at breakneck speeds, just as the merger of the corporations and the state are occurring within political circles, so to are they becoming more prevalent in the intelligence sphere. Fellow Americans, everything you do is being monitored. With respect to the government, it's not by choice. However, when dealing with private businesses, we have readily accepted our own fate by accepting into our lives the very technologies that make it all possible. * What You Do Online Is No Secret: As you sit in the perceived privacy of your own home reading this article, a log of your surfing habits and preferred reading or video viewing subjects is being created. Your IP address, that unique identifier the points specifically to the broadband line connected to your home modem, is time stamped with every web site you visit. Everything you watch at video web sites, everything you download online, and even your search queries are logged. You don't even have to have an account with a major online service provider ¨C your IP is sufficient ¨C but that user account you create is used to further improve your personal profile and characteristics. * We can see you. We can hear you. Not only are your actions logged, but if you were deemed a person of interest for whatever reason, that little camera staring back at you on top of your monitor or that microphone built directly into your PC can be flipped on for remote surveillance at any time. While Aaron's furniture or the local school district may need to install special software to remotely view what you're doing in your bedroom, public sector intelligence groups operating on equipment that is technologically advanced compared to the consumer products of today is perfectly capable of entering your ¡®secure' home network and turning on those video and audio features ¨C and you'd have absolutely no clue it's going on. * Your cell phone is a mobile monitoring device. Much like your computer, all modern day cell phones come with cameras. And they all have a microphone blackberry housing. It is no secret that law enforcement agencies have the ability to easily tap these devices and listen and watch anything that's going on. This capability is essentially hard-wired right into the phone blackberry keyboard. In fact, it has been reported that even if your cell phone is turned completely off, the microphone can still be remotely activated. The only known solution is to remove the battery if you want to ensure complete privacy. Sounds pretty far-fetched doesn't it? Up until two weeks, so did the notion that Apple and Android phones could track and log everywhere you go. We now know that this is exactly what's happening, and literally, every movement you make is tracked within inches of your location. A log of everywhere you have been has been logged if your cell phone was in your pocket. * Phone Conversation and Email Analysis. If you haven't guess yet, phones can be dangerous to your personal privacy. In the 1990¡äs, the few alternative media web sites on the internet often discussed a little know operation in Europe called Echelon. It was hard core tin foil conspiracy type stuff. You know, the kind where intelligence agencies were plugged into the entire phone, fax and email grids and had computers analyzing conversations in multiple languages looking for keywords and keyword strings. If you said a specific word, your conversation was immediately red-flagged and distributed to appropriate intel desks. As sci-fi as this may sound, it turns out that the ¡®conspiracy theorists' were 100% correct about Echelon. Its existence has been confirmed by the US government. Of course, no such system could possibly exist here domestically. * Your pictures are not private. When you snap those photos of the kids in the front yard and subsequently post those pictures on your favorite social network, guess what? That's right, an inquiring viewer on your social networking account can track exactly where that picture was taken. Remember that location logging thing with your cell phone? It turns out that every single picture you take with most newer model cell phones will be tagged with specific GPS coordinates. When you upload that picture anywhere online, that location information becomes publicly available. So anyone who wants to know can now track down exactly where it is your kids were when the picture was taken, or, where exactly you were if you happened to engage in an activity that may be deemed illegal. * The social network. For many, it's fun to spend every waking hour updating the rest of the world on what we're doing. We publish our thoughts. We upload our pictures. We even click a like button at the end of articles like this one to let people know what we're into and what they should be reading. As social networking becomes bigger, connecting hundreds of millions of people across the world, so to does the profiling of members of these networks. Have you agreed with what a certain person has said in a recent post? If they're a person-of-interest for whatever reason, then guess what? You've just become one too. Did your friend recently take a picture of you at a party getting rowdy? Once that hits the social network, facial recognition technology will identify you and publish your name for all the world to see, including current or future employers. It's a social network, and its purpose is to learn everything about you. Perhaps this is why key U.S. intelligence agencies made no effort to hide their $5 billion investment in the largest network in the world recently. Social networking is a critical tool in the struggle to categorize every person on earth. * Toll tags and license plates. Even if you've given up the cell phone and prefer to go without for privacy reasons, when you drive around town you may have noticed those little intersection cameras ¨C at least four of them ¨C on every major (or more regularly now, minor) intersection. While most of them may not be tied to the computer processing systems yet, some, and especially those in sensitive areas and toll booths can automatically read your license plate. Like your cell phone, your position can be logged on a regular basis with either your toll tag or simply, your license plate. Impossible? Not really. Especially when you consider that the information required to track your personal movements are nothing but a few data bytes. All anyone really needs to keep extensive records is a bigger hard drive. * We know your underwear size. Admittedly, we sometimes have a hard time remembering what size pants or shirts we need to purchase. But while our memory may be failing, private data aggregators have plenty of it, and the processing power to boot. Everything you have ever bought with a credit card or membership club card is sent off for processing and aggregation to centralized data centers. While you may use a Visa card at one store, a Mastercard at another, and pay cash with a grocery membership card somewhere else, it's as easy as finding your name and cross referencing that on your cards ¨C and your entire shopping profile can be created. The purpose, we're told, is to better improve our shopping experience and provide market data to companies so that they can improve their advertising. We can only guess at who else has access to this information, which happens to be very easily accessible and widely available for a small fee. * Radio Frequency Identification. Say you've decided to scrap cell phones, internet surfing and electronic payment or membership cards. And, you choose to walk everywhere you go. Not a problem for enterprising surveillance technologists. Large retail distributors have already begun implementing RFID technologies into every major product on store shelves. For now, most of the RFID tracking is limited to transportation and inventory control and is designed to track products on the pallet level. Tracking capabilities are improving, however, and are quickly being implemented on the individual product level. That means when you buy a soda at your local grocery store, an RFID monitoring station will be capable of tracking that soda across the entire city, with the goal eventually being whether or not you put that aluminum can in a trashcan or a recycle bin once you were finished drinking it. One day, you may be issued a ticket by a law enforcement computer autmatically for failing to dispose of your trash properly. Again, it's simply an issue of hard drive space and processing power ¨C and technology will soon get over that hurdle. All electronics, clothing, food packaging, and just about everything else will soon contain a passive RFID chip. * Ripping Data Off Your Private, Secure, chip-enhanced personal identification cards. Passports, driver's licenses, credit cards, cell phones ¨C they all store data. Personal data like banking information, birth date, social security numbers, pictures, phone books ¨C basically everything you've ever wanted to keep private. As storage technology further integrates into our daily lives, and everything from our passports to our health insurance cards contains a digital chip that stores our private information, it will become much easier to rip that data from your purse or wallet without ever touching you. A recent report indicated that local law enforcement officials now have devices that, when you're pulled over, can remotely pull all of the data on your cell phone. This demonstrates how simple it is for anyone, be it law enforcement or criminals, to gain access to everything about you ¨C including you personal travel habits. * Eye in the sky. We've previously reported about domestic drone programs in Houston and Miami. Local and state law enforcement agencies are increasingly adding Federal and military technologies to their surveillance arsenals. Drones have the capability of flying quietly and at high altitude, while monitoring multiple targets simultaneously. It's been reported that domestic drones can not only monitor in the visible light spectrum, but night vision and infrared. That means they can ¡®see' what you're doing in your home behind closed doors. Incidentally, there have been reports of roaming ground patrols with similar infrared technology, capable of seeing right through your walls. This is not science fiction ¨C this is reality right now. Combine this with real-time spy agency satellites and interested parties have the ability to see and hear you, even when you're locked indoors with computers and cell phones disabled. * Security cameras. We've already discussed traffic cams. But cameras are not limited to just the government. Residences, retailers and even day cares are now interconnecting camera security systems with online web browsing. And, as we pointed out earlier, these are easily subject to unauthorized access. Certain cities in the US are now allowing residents to register their personal or business camera systems with the city to allow for local police monitoring. The government doesn't need to push the technology on us. The people willingly accept the technology en masse in exchange for a sense of being more secure. * I See Something! When all else fails, the last bastion of surveillance is human intel. It's been used by oppressive regimes for millennia. The Nazis used it. The Communists used it (and do to this day). It was very effective. And now, we're using it. Remember, if you See Something, Say Something. Even if what someone sees is not accurately represented because of mis-perception, you can be assured that when they say something rapid response units will be on the scene to diffuse the situation. Fusing It All Together What is the purpose ? It depends who you ask. Local law enforcement will tell you it's to protect the safety of the public. Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies say it's to prevent terrorism. Apple and Android tells us it's so that they can produce better mobile products and services. Retailers want more customer data so they can improve advertising and marketing. Whatever the case, it's clear that almost everything we do, whether it's in the privacy of our own homes or on public streets, can be tracked, monitored, and logged. As technology improves and the internet interconnects even more nodes, the information collected by the public, private and personal sectors will be further aggregrated, cross referenced and analyzed. Your personal profile will become more detailed, including your shopping habits, hobbies, likes, dislikes, political affiliation, reading preferences, friends, and potentially your psychological and emotional status. All of this information will eventually be fused into one large database. In fact, the government has already setup well over fifty fusion centers around the nation. What goes on in these centers is kept strictly confidential, and there doesn't seem to be any agency in charge of them, but we know they exist, and we know that their purpose is to acquire, aggregate and act on whatever information they have available to them. These are fairly new, appearing just over the last several years. But be assured that as processing power and software technology improves, so too will the surveillance capabilities of fusion like facilities, whether they belong to government, private industry or criminal industry. History has shown what tends to happen in surveillance societies. Often times, that surveillance is forced upon the people by tyranical government. We won't argue that this is not the case today, as governments the world over are not hiding the fact that they want to know what everyone is doing. The odd thing is, we the people don't seem to care a whole lot. What we're seeing is that the surveillance state is expanding in concert with the definitions for what is criminal or terrorist-like activity ¨C and that's scary. Every year, more people are finding themselves on no-fly lists, no-work lists, or other terrorist watch lists. We've facetiously noted in a previous commentary that at this rate, the terrorist watch list will exceed the U.S. population by 2019. While we were, for the most part, trying to put a humorous spin on an otherwise very important issue, the fact is, that as surveillance expands, more and more people will become enemies of the state or persons-of-interest. That's just how these things tend to work with these types of things. In today's world, the private sector is ready and willing to help government achieve these goals of total control and involvement in our personal lives. In fact, it is at times becoming difficult to distinguish between government and private industry. But if we are to lay blame on anyone here, it must be ourselves. We need only take a look into the mirror and we'll see who makes these technologies possible. It's the American consumer who willingly adopts the technologies into his or her daily life, often standing in lines a quarter mile long to acquire the latest in digital monitoring. While our votes at the ballot box account for something, how we vote with our pocket books will ultimately determine the direction of our country. We have empowered the corporation to lobby Congress and further erode our own freedoms, whether it's with the surveillance technologies we choose to integrate into our lives, the food we buy, the cheap Chinese goods we'll stampede children over, or the gas we pump into our vehicles.

stocks gained, extending a weekly rally in the Standard & Poor¡¯s 500 Index, as companies such as Caterpillar Inc. and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. reported earnings that topped analysts¡¯ estimates. Caterpillar jumped 2.5 percent after also raising its forecast amid a surge in sales in developing countries and Goodyear surged 12 percent after posting record sales. Microsoft Corp. lost 3 percent after sales missed analysts¡¯ predictions. Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the Bblackberry housing, tumbled 14 percent after cutting its earnings forecast. The S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 1,363.61 at 4 p.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 47.23 points, or 0.4 percent, to 12,810.54. Both gauges are trading at their highest levels in almost three years. ¡°The earnings reports have been as expected or slightly better,¡± said Michael Shinnick, a South Bend, Indiana-based money manager at Wasatch Advisors Inc., which oversees $10.5 billion. ¡°Companies like Caterpillar with exposure to global growth were very strong. However, there are some pockets of softness with debate over future strength as we saw with Microsoft.¡± The S&P 500 rose 2 percent this week and gained 2.9 percent this month. The measure has rallied 8.4 percent in 2011 as higher-than-estimated profit and economic reports from manufacturing to housing bolstered investors¡¯ confidence. Earnings-per-share beat estimates at more than three-quarters of the 298 companies in the S&P 500 that reported since April 11, data compiled by Bloomberg show. S&P 500 Forecast Thomas J. Lee, JPMorgan Chase & Co.¡¯s chief U.S. equity strategist, raised his 2011 year-end estimate for the S&P 500 to 1,475 from 1,425, citing first-quarter earnings growth. He also boosted his 2012 earnings-per-share estimate for companies in the U.S. equity benchmark gauge to $105 from $102. ¡°First-quarter results have been impressive and are a reminder that S&P 500 earnings-per-share results can remain resilient despite weaker U.S. gross domestic product growth,¡± Lee wrote in a report dated yesterday. ¡°The most encouraging aspect of first-quarter earnings has been the strength in top- line growth.¡± Sales have grown 10 percent for S&P 500 companies that have reported quarterly results since April 11, exceeding analysts¡¯ estimates at 71 percent of the companies. Stocks rallied yesterday, as higher-than-estimated sales at companies such as Sprint Nextel Corp. outweighed a report that the U.S. economy grew at a slower pace than forecast in the first quarter. Economic Data Lower-than-estimated data on business activity and consumer confidence underscored the Fed¡¯s assessment this week that it will probably keep interest rates near zero for an extended period to bolster a ¡°blackberry keyboard economic expansion. The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc. said today its business barometer fell to 67.6 in April from 70.6 the prior month, trailing the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists for a drop to 68.2. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment rose to 69.8 from March¡¯s 67.5 reading that was the lowest since November 2009. The gauge was projected to increase to 70, according to the median economist estimate. Government data showed consumer spending in the U.S. climbed in March as Americans spent more on food and fuel, indicating further income gains are needed to boost the biggest part of the economy. Caterpillar Caterpillar climbed 2.5 percent to $115.41 for the biggest gain in the Dow. The world¡¯s largest maker of construction equipment is betting on higher mining-equipment sales with its $8.6 billion acquisition of Bucyrus as Asian demand drives up commodity prices. Business outside the U.S. is ¡°booming,¡± Chief Executive Officer Doug Oberhelman told investors and analysts at a construction-equipment conference in Las Vegas last month. Industrial companies in the S&P 500 climbed 0.3 percent collectively, the second-most among 10 industries in the benchmark index. Goodyear Tire & Rubber rallied 12 percent to $18.15 for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. The largest U.S. tiremaker reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of 51 cents a share, more than quadrupling the 11-cent average estimate made by analysts. Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. rose 8.6 percent to $26.06. The handset maker, spun off in January from parent Motorola Inc., reported a narrower first-quarter loss than analysts projected as it sold more Droid and Atrix phones. SunPower Corp. jumped 35 percent to $21.69. Total SA, Europe¡¯s third-biggest oil producer, offered to buy as much as 60 percent of the second-largest U.S. solar module manufacturer at a price of $23.25 a share. ¡®Inflation Risk¡¯ Energy stocks surged 1.5 percent, the biggest rally out of 10 industries in the S&P 500, as the price of oil climbed higher, capping an unprecedented eighth straight month of gains. ¡°Earnings numbers are so far looking pretty strong,¡± said Thomas Nyheim, a Greenville, Delaware-based money manager for Christiana Trust, which oversees $7.5 billion. ¡°But the one thing that keeps coming up is inflation risk, and we¡¯re beginning to see some of that cost pressure coming through in the reports. There¡¯s still a lot of caution in the market.¡± Microsoft, RIM Microsoft declined 3 percent, the most in the Dow, to $25.92. The world¡¯s biggest software maker reported third- quarter sales in the Windows division that missed analysts¡¯ predictions as consumers shunned its products in favor of tablets such as Apple Inc.¡¯s iPad. RIM sank 14 percent, the most since September 2009, to $48.65. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company cut its earnings forecast for the quarter ending May 28 to a range of $1.30 a share to $1.37 a share. Last month, the company had forecast profit of $1.47 a share to $1.55 a share. Before today, it had lost 2.7 percent this year. Mike Abramsky, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto, slashed his price estimate for RIM stock to $55 from $90 and his rating to ¡°sector perform¡± from ¡°top pick.¡± At least four other analysts -- Jefferies & Co. Inc.¡¯s Peter Misek, Cormark Securities Inc.¡¯s Richard Tse, Gleacher & Co. Securities¡¯ Stephen Patel and National Bank Financial¡¯s Kris Thompson -- reduced their ratings on the stock. Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan paced losses in financial companies after the two were listed as among 16 investment banks facing the first-ever European Union antitrust probes into the swaps market. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America slid 1.1 percent to $12.28, while New York-based JPMorgan slumped 0.5 percent to $45.63. --With assistance from Adria Cimino in Paris, Hugo Miller in Toronto and Michael Regan in New York. Editors: Joanna Ossinger, Michael Regan

The city of Helena is considering possible restrictions on the use of cell phones or other electronic devices while driving, though it¡¯s still several discussions away from developing any potential laws on the matter. The city commissioners had an initial conversation about the issue during an administrative meeting Wednesday afternoon. It¡¯s something they¡¯d planned to do months ago, but held off until after the state legislative session to see what became of an ultimately unsuccessful bill introduced by Sen. Christine Kaufmann that would have initiated statewide regulations on texting while behind the wheel of a car. At the meeting, the commissioners were split in their opinions about adopting a city ordinance of the same nature. Though Dan Ellison, Dick Thweatt and Matt Elsaesser threw their support behind the idea, Paul Cartwright and Mayor Jim Smith were hesitant. ¡°Fundamentally, is this a path we want to go down?¡± Smith asked, noting that eating or applying makeup while driving can be just as much of a distraction as texting or talking on the phone blackberry keyboard. City Attorney David Nielsen and Police Chief Troy McGee had assembled a memo listing the various factors the commissioners could take into consideration if they decided they did want to go down that path, like what types of electronic devices and vehicles would be affected. For example, could people be penalized for operating a navigational device while driving a car or for using a phone while on a bike or skateboard? Nielsen pointed out that the commission might also want to keep in mind various situations, such as whether an individual should be allowed to check their email while stopped for an extended period of time. The commissioners didn¡¯t begin to get into such specifics, having a general, theoretical discussion. Ellison referenced a study that recorded more accidents among people using cell phones than among a group of intoxicated individuals. He noted various tragedies in other cities that were caused by the use of cell phones in vehicles and speculated that, even though they might not have been cited as such, the devices might have played a role in some local incidents as well. McGee said it¡¯s hard to track the number of accidents that were caused by cell phone use because, even though officers make a note in their reports when a driver admits to being distracted for that reason, it¡¯s likely that a number of people don¡¯t confess to it. So, though only seven cell-phone-related incidents were recorded out of the more than 1,000 total traffic accidents recorded in Helena last year, the number might actually be higher, he said. As it stands now, McGee said, police don¡¯t pull people over for distracted driving unless there is some proof that they¡¯re not paying attention, like if they run a stop sign. Even if the city passed an ordinance about the use of electronic devices in cars, it wouldn¡¯t be a top priority for officers, he said, since there are so many other laws they have to enforce. Ellison said that, regardless, the city should adopt an ordinance in an attempt to deter people from using phones while driving. Elsaesser said he¡¯d like to see a law similar to the one Billings passed last summer, which makes talking or texting while driving a civil, rather than criminal, offense. McGee said that Billings has issued 50 warnings and 10 citations since its law was passed. Missoula, which banned texting while driving in 2009, has seen 16 citations, he said. The commissioners talked about whether allowing hands-free devices would make a difference, considering the results of a Utah study that suggest that it¡¯s the actual phone conversation ¡ª not holding the phone blackberry housing ¡ª that distracts people. Smith said he would like to get more information about the study. The commissioners also agreed to invite Kaufmann to a future administrative meeting to get some of her insight on the subject. City Manager Ron Alles noted that the city¡¯s internal policies don¡¯t allow cell phone use in city-owned vehicles.

To say that Research in Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook is a study in contrasts is an understatement. After extensively testing a PlayBook ($500 for 16GB of storage, $600 for a 32GB version, and $700 for 64GB) that was running not-quite-final software, I'm impressed by its convenient size and novel navigation, but I found the tablet's sometimes primitive native software and selection of apps frustrating. In some respects, the PlayBook is the most impressive tablet I've seen to date. Its approach to navigating among open apps is a joy; I was able to move among them faster than on any other tablet. But native apps like the PlayBook's browser have disappointing glitches, and you won't get much help from downloading third-party apps -- only 3000 will be available at launch (compared with the 65,000 available for the iPad), and I still haven't seen many marquee names among them. The first thing you'll notice about the PlayBook is that it's compact and light. Like the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the PlayBook has a 7-inch display, significantly smaller than the 9.7-inch iPad 2. At 7.6 inches wide, 5.1 inches high and just 0.4 inches thick, the PlayBook is small enough to comfortably fit into a generous coat pocket, and yet provides enough screen real estate to feel like a significant improvement over a standard smartphone screen. Its depth falls smack in between the Galaxy Tab and the iPad 2, at 0.1 inch thinner than the Galaxy Tab, and only 0.06 inch thicker than the svelte iPad 2. And its weight? Just under 1 pound (exactly 0.94 pounds, according to the PCWorld Labs' scale), which makes it 28 percent lighter than the 1.3-pound iPad 2. By comparison with other tablets I've used, the PlayBook felt downright featherweight. It was by far the easiest to hold, whether you use two hands or one. The PlayBook feels solidly built, with a velvety-smooth, textured back. I do wish the edges were more rounded (they are squared and angular), but that didn't bother me too much. While you can use the PlayBook in portrait mode, it's designed to work best when held horizontally. In that landscape orientation, the PlayBook's 3-megapixel front-facing camera sits centered over the top of the screen, with several buttons flush along the edge: the power button (which is miniscule, stiff, and difficult to use), volume buttons, and a mute button that doubles as a play/pause button. At back, centered along the top edge, sits the 5-megapixel camera (which has no flash). The stereo speakers are front-facing, and centered at either side of the screen; my smallish hands never came close to blocking the speakers, though those with large hands might have a different experience. (The audio output from the PlayBook's speakers is the best I've heard yet from a tablet.) Along the bottom of the tablet are three ports: HDMI Micro, microUSB, and a magnetic rapid charger connection. The PlayBook has three different charging options: slow, fast, and really fast. Unlike most tablets, the PlayBook can charge fully off of a standard PC USB port (at 5V and 500mA), but it'll take a while. The process goes almost four times more quickly, according to RIM, if you use the included microUSB wall charger. If that's not fast enough, you can spring for either of two $70 options: the Rapid Charging Pod or the Rapid Travel Charger. The rapid charging options rejuvenate the PlayBook battery nearly twice as fast as the wall charger, RIM says. Inside the PlayBook, you'll find a competitive set of components. The tablet is powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of memory. This initial iteration connects to 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, but lacks any mobile broadband connection; for that, you'll have to wait until late summer, when RIM will release 4G LTE and WiMax versions of the PlayBook. The unit I tested came with 32GB of on-board storage; as mentioned, it is also available in 16GB and 64GB. You'll need to choose your capacity carefully, since, like the Apple iPad, the PlayBook has no memory expansion card slot. Interface and Multitasking The PlayBook runs RIM's new blackberry keyboard, based on software from RIM subsidiary QNX, which builds operating systems for everything from in-dash car appliances to electric guitars. This OS has a fresh look and feel, and its touchscreen navigation concepts are novel and innovative, albeit it with a few bumps. Let's start with the basic navigation. The PlayBook has no home button. Instead, touch controls are integrated into the bezel, and you navigate about with swipes that originate outside the screen, or move down or up towards the bezel. The gestures work differently depending on the context. For example, if the PlayBook is asleep, you can wake it by swiping up from the bottom bezel into the screen. Once you're on the home screen, a swipe up will reveal a screenful of app icons. If you're in an app, swiping up will close the program. The PlayBook's home screen is divided into three components: A narrow status bar up top; a large horizontal navigation pane in the center that shows thumbnail images of your open apps; and along the bottom, the first row of the app menus. These menus are by default divided into folders: All, Favorites, Media, and Games. The status bar at top gave one-tap access to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, battery life percentage, and general settings info. Within the navigation pane, you can swipe from side to side to move among open apps -- an easy way to switch among tasks. When you're not on the home screen, you can always reveal the status bar by swiping down from the corners. And when you're in an app that uses the keyboard, you can swipe up from the bottom bezel to reveal the keyboard. While it sounds complex, the navigation system is intuitive and quickly becomes second nature. The PlayBook is also responsive: Screens refresh quickly, and transitions and scrolling are snappy. On the whole, RIM has come up with a simple and elegant approach to navigation that is easier and more flexible than the iPad 2's iOS 4.3. One thing I miss: the active widgets on Android 3.0 that keep you updated with bits of information without having to open an app. Individual apps sometimes have additional menu options that can be revealed by dragging up or down from the bezel. The problem is that those options aren't always obvious. Built-in apps like the Web browser, the music player, and the video player have no visual cues alerting you to additional menus or navigation options. It was only through experimentation, for instance, that I found that if you swipe down from the top bezel, you'll see a convenient horizontal scroll of thumbnails of your videos, so you can easily hop to another selection in your library. The BlackBerry's notifications are unobtrusive: Messages appear in the upper right corner to tell you that the battery is running low, for instance. Media and File Handling The PlayBook's handling of video, music, and pictures is a mixed bag. It does some things extraordinarily well: For example, the OS can power two different graphics activities simultaneously, so you can output 1080p video via HDMI to a TV and still surf the Web on the PlayBook -- with no degradation of image quality. Flash video played fine inside a Web page, though occasionally YouTube or Hulu videos wouldn't resize properly to fill the screen. If you leave an app that's in the middle of playing a video, then return later, the PlayBook instantly resumes the video at just where you left off. That's impressive given how klutzy other tablets are in that situation. You can buy music on a PlayBook through 7digital, the same DRM-free store you can shop via a blackberry housing. RIM plans to offer a video store, but it's not ready yet. This tablet had no issue with playing WMV, AVI, or even H.264 MP4 files I shot on my iPhone. The video player is nimble and quick to navigate, but it won't let you store videos in folders of your choice; instead, you must use the three default folders: All videos, Downloaded videos, and Recorded videos. Images looked great -- crisp and sharp, with terrific color -- in the Pictures app. But this app is very basic: It has a slideshow mode, but no transition or playback options. It doesn't show image properties like EXIF data. And vertical images appear as small versions presented in horizontal mode; RIM said it will add that capability in a future update. RIM makes it fairly easy to get content onto the Playbook. You have to install an app on your desktop, and use it to transfer content to the device wirelessly (the tablet acts like a wireless hard drive), or use the app's guided sync and transfer options. Impressively, it grabbed music from my iTunes library, skipping over some songs only because those tracks were protected by digital rights management. The music player that's built into the BlackBerry Tablet OS looks fine and operates smoothly, though its layout took a little getting used to, and it wasn't as easy as I'd like to build playlists on the fly. Web Browsing I like the fact that BlackBerry Tablet OS browser supports Flash, but I was otherwise disappointed with its uneven behavior. The company says some of these issues will be fixed in a future update, but the stumbles made it hard to love the experience. The browser lets you save a JPEG file to a Downloads folder that's accessible via the browser; however, I couldn't open the JPEGs I downloaded on the device. I had similar problems with some Word docs and PDFs that I downloaded, too, though other files saved and opened just fine in the preinstalled apps (Adobe Reader for PDFs; and the Microsoft Office-compatible Word To Go, Sheet To Go, Slideshow To Go). Stranger still, tapping on a file didn't consistently bring up the action to save it -- though when I did get the chance to save a file, the PlayBook also gave me the chance to rename it on the spot. Another frustration: the Download folder didn't consistently retain a history of the downloaded files; without that, or a general file browser so I could rummage on the tablet myself, those files felt lost to the ether. I liked how I had a choice of viewing bookmarks as a visual icon, or as a text list that shows the URL. As with the rest of PlayBook's interface, there's a bezel gesture: Drag down from the top to reveal and flick among open tabs, add a new tab, check the limited browser options, and go to the Downloads screen. The Web browser is as good a place as any to mention the on-screen keyboard. The BlackBerry Tablet OS doesn't have autocorrection; what you type, right or wrong, is what you get. And its keyboard felt cramped -- not surprising, given that the PlayBook has a 7-inch screen. A bigger issue is that the key placement is off-kilter, too. The rows of keys are not staggered as QWERTY keyboards almost always are, and that threw off my touch typing. I like the fact that the PlayBook shows both pop-up letters (as with iOS) and a blue tint as visual indicators of which key you pressed. Apps RIM stocks the PlayBook with a solid complement of preinstalled apps, but it has some notable omissions. As already mentioned, it has a Web browser, Picture gallery, music player, the AppWorld app store, and the 7digital Music Store. Also on board: A well-done YouTube app, a Podcast subscription app, a voice recorder, Bing Maps for navigation, a calculator, weather, and Slacker Radio (for capturing photos and videos). Several games are preinstalled, including the NFS Undercover driving game, and Tetris. But in NFS Undercover, the accelerometer seemed to be too sensitive, and it would prematurely rotate the screen -- another thing RIM said its working on adjusting. The strongest software on board is the Adobe Reader and the three productivity apps that stem from RIM's acquisition of DatavViz. These apps -- Word To Go, Sheet To Go, and Slideshow To Go -- provide interoperability with Microsoft Office documents, and allow for document editing and creation. I found them easy enough to use, though I was frustrated by how they stored files. The PlayBook doesn't include any calendar, contact, or e-mail apps. The idea is that you won't keep any of that data on the tablet itself. Instead, you'll use a feature called BlackBerry Bridge to pair your PlayBook with a BlackBerry phone. That way, you can view your BlackBerry Messenger e-mail, contacts, and chats on the PlayBook's larger screen. When you decouple the tablet and the phone, the Messenger data disappears from the PlayBook -- an element of security that might frustrate consumers, but should appeal to corporate IS honchos who want to limit the spread of sensitive information. The Bridge feature wasn't fully enabled in time for this review; I'll report back once I can test it in full. As a substitute for a native mail app, RIM offers four app icons -- one each for Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL Mail -- that, misleadingly, redirect to those Web-based mail sites in the Web browser rather than to an installed mail app. Depending on the service you use, you will get more or less full functionality via the Web browser. (For example, the Gmail app doesn't let you attach files, unless you manually go to the "basic HTML" or "Desktop" version of the site.) And unfortunately, RIM's Twitter and Facebook offerings are similarly just shortcuts to the browser -- no substitute for an actual app experience. RIM says it will launch the PlayBook with 3000 apps in its AppWorld store. Unfortunately, in the prelaunch testing period, none of the apps I downloaded particularly impressed me -- some appeared to be simple, almost DOS-like in their design. RIM says the PlayBook will be able to run Android 2.x apps (but significantly, not apps for Android 3.0, the tablet version of Google's OS), and only those Android apps that are sold via its AppWorld store; but the Android Player emulator that will enable this feat, along with the emulator that will run BlackBerry phone apps, won't be available until later this summer. Right now, I have to say that the PlayBook lacks compelling apps to complement its (mostly) compelling hardware and mobile OS. Bottom Line The BlackBerry PlayBook gets a lot right, but it also feels very much like a work in progress. It could shine in the future, but for now it's constrained by its limited app selection, software glitches, and choices in functionality or design that should limit the PlayBook's popularity among consumers. Businesspeople who already depend on BlackBerry phones should value both the way those phones will interact with the Playbook and the built-in security of the platform -- and for that audience, those capabilities will override many of the PlayBook's other weaknesses. Note: Since the Playbook's software is still being updated in advance of its launch, PCWorld is holding its rating until April 19.

Many positive and negative things have been written about the BlackBerry PlayBook ahead of its launch April 19. But so far, I have not seen any evidence that the PlayBook will offer small or home office users anything that might revolutionize how they work. The original blackberry housing's push e-mail service enabled millions of users to unchain themselves from their desks by being able to send and receive e-mails almost anywhere they went, while RIM has yet to announce any groundbreaking new feature for the PlayBook. Moreover, if the PlayBook turns out to be just an also-ran copy of the iPad or another tablet, then the device is in trouble. The fact that the PlayBook is competitive with the iPad memory--and price-wise with 6GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities for $500, $600, and $700, respectively--and that it will run Android apps is not enough to get excited about. But here are some features that I would like the PlayBook to offer. If it does not, then hopefully a future tablet that RIM might one day develop will have them. A Superior Touchscreen The PlayBook hopefully will impress by allowing users to easily type texts or to type and click commands in a way that will simply wow them. If RIM cannot manage that, then the PlayBook will hopefully offer excellent touchscreen technology that is at least as good as what the competition offers. After all, the Blackberry's par excellence keyboard is largely what continues to separate the device from the pack of smartphones. The thumbpad simply works well and is one reason that I still have not permanently made the iPhone switch. My typing speed on a Blackberry is about 30 words a minute. In fact, I used my Blackberry to write much of this blog post. Unfortunately, RIM's tactile screen development track record is far from stellar when you consider how it failed with the Storm. However, RIM's development team has hopefully taken the Storm's issues to heart and has designed the PlayBook's touchscreen pad keyboard in such a way that it will dazzle users. Easy and Simple File Sharing with PC Networks This one will likely not happen, but it really should. The PlayBook will have a Micro USB port for PC connections, but how well will it work when syncing files with workstations? The blackberry keyboard's track record here is dismal; its PC sync software is problematic at best. Different Blackberry models often require different Sync versions on a PC and the application just does not work that well. Really good and robust PC syncing options would be a welcome help. Reliable Backups The PlayBook will offer up to 64GB of storage capacity, which puts it in the realm of laptop hard disk sizes more than smart phone capacities. If users regularly save and store important data on their PlayBooks, then that means, as a matter of policy, that the data should be backed up regularly. Hopefully, RIM will offer online backup services when or soon after the PlayBook becomes available. Better yet, I would like to see disaster recovery options so that when the PlayBook is replaced, users can sync online with an offsite server that restores not only the data but the applications as they were installed on the PlayBook during the last backup. A Killer Battery Life For businesses that might rely on the PlayBook as a better alternative for certain tasks compared to what a laptop or smart phone might offer, battery life is crucial, especially if the device is intended to be used throughout the work day away from the desk. So what if RIM were able to pull a rabbit out of its hat and offer 15 or even 20 hours of use on a charge? That could be a deal breaker for many small businesses. However, so far, RIM has not specified the PlayBook's battery life. A very long battery life and the other features mentioned above would also certainly be nice to have in any tablet. But for the moment, I don't expect the PlayBook to offer many of them when it launches in just over two weeks. And to be totally honest, there is not necessary any dire need for small businesses with only basic office application needs to invest in any tablet for that matter in place of a notebook PC. But for those small businesses that could make use of a tablet, any one of these features would be a welcome feature.

Many positive and negative things have been written about the BlackBerry PlayBook ahead of its launch April 19. But so far, I have not seen any evidence that the PlayBook will offer small or home office users anything that might revolutionize how they work. The original BlackBerry's push e-mail service enabled millions of users to unchain themselves from their desks by being able to send and receive e-mails almost anywhere they went, while RIM has yet to announce any groundbreaking new feature for the PlayBook. Moreover, if the PlayBook turns out to be just an also-ran copy of the iPad or another tablet, then the device is in trouble. The fact that the PlayBook is competitive with the iPad memory--and price-wise with 6GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities for $500, $600, and $700, respectively--and that it will run Android apps is not enough to get excited about. But here are some features that I would like the PlayBook to offer. If it does not, then hopefully a future tablet that RIM might one day develop will have them. A Superior Touchscreen The PlayBook hopefully will impress by allowing users to easily type texts or to type and click commands in a way that will simply wow them. If RIM cannot manage that, then the PlayBook will hopefully offer excellent touchscreen technology that is at least as good as what the competition offers. After all, the Blackberry's par excellence keyboard is largely what continues to separate the device from the pack of smartphones. The thumbpad simply works well and is one reason that I still have not permanently made the iPhone switch. My typing speed on a blackberry housing is about 30 words a minute. In fact, I used my Blackberry to write much of this blog post. Unfortunately, RIM's tactile screen development track record is far from stellar when you consider how it failed with the Storm. However, RIM's development team has hopefully taken the Storm's issues to heart and has designed the PlayBook's touchscreen pad keyboard in such a way that it will dazzle users. Easy and Simple File Sharing with PC Networks This one will likely not happen, but it really should. The PlayBook will have a Micro USB port for PC connections, but how well will it work when syncing files with workstations? The blackberry keyboard's track record here is dismal; its PC sync software is problematic at best. Different Blackberry models often require different Sync versions on a PC and the application just does not work that well. Really good and robust PC syncing options would be a welcome help. Reliable Backups The PlayBook will offer up to 64GB of storage capacity, which puts it in the realm of laptop hard disk sizes more than smart phone capacities. If users regularly save and store important data on their PlayBooks, then that means, as a matter of policy, that the data should be backed up regularly. Hopefully, RIM will offer online backup services when or soon after the PlayBook becomes available. Better yet, I would like to see disaster recovery options so that when the PlayBook is replaced, users can sync online with an offsite server that restores not only the data but the applications as they were installed on the PlayBook during the last backup. A Killer Battery Life For businesses that might rely on the PlayBook as a better alternative for certain tasks compared to what a laptop or smart phone might offer, battery life is crucial, especially if the device is intended to be used throughout the work day away from the desk. So what if RIM were able to pull a rabbit out of its hat and offer 15 or even 20 hours of use on a charge? That could be a deal breaker for many small businesses. However, so far, RIM has not specified the PlayBook's battery life. A very long battery life and the other features mentioned above would also certainly be nice to have in any tablet. But for the moment, I don't expect the PlayBook to offer many of them when it launches in just over two weeks. And to be totally honest, there is not necessary any dire need for small businesses with only basic office application needs to invest in any tablet for that matter in place of a notebook PC. But for those small businesses that could make use of a tablet, any one of these features would be a welcome feature.

You need three things to compete with Apple's iPad tablet computer: a gorgeous, easy-to-use device that people will love, a bustling app store and an attractive price tag. Nobody has been able to match the iPad thus far. But the PlayBook, the first effort from blackberry keyboard maker Research In Motion, has emerged as one of the strongest contenders. On the surface, the PlayBook looks similar to other iPad competitors: Its slick touch screen measures 7 inches diagonally, smaller than the iPad's but comparable with those of others. It has front and rear cameras for snapping photos and video conferencing and a black rubberized plastic back and sides. What's different is the software powering the PlayBook. Most non-iPad tablets use Google's Android software; RIM developed its own -- a smart decision, yielding a device that is a pleasure to navigate and filled with cool features. Although RIM's software was built from scratch, it has hints of the blackberry housing interface. When it goes on sale on Tuesday, the cheapest version will cost $499 -- the same as the cheapest iPad. It comes with Wi-Fi capabilities and 16 gigabytes of memory. A model with 32 GB will cost $599, and the 64 GB version will go for $699. Sprint plans a version that works over cellular connections this summer, rivaling the ability of different iPad models to connect to the Verizon or AT&T network. Unfortunately, the PlayBook isn't yet much of a competitor on the app front: There are just 3,000 applications currently optimized for the tablet, and during my testing it appeared unable to download App World apps available for BlackBerry smartphones. By contrast, there are more than 65,000 apps available for the iPad, which can also run iPhone apps. (Apple offers more than 350,000 apps total.) And while it's unclear exactly how many tablet-specific Apps there are for Android, Android tablets can run any of the more than 150,000 apps in the Android Market. But the PlayBook aims to catch up, in a way: Later this year, it will be able to run Android apps, too. In my hands, the PlayBook felt solid and easy to use. There are just a few buttons on the top for adjusting volume and playing or pausing music or videos. There's also a tiny button for turning on the device -- so teeny, in fact, that I regretted trimming my nails right before testing. Finding my way around the PlayBook was delightfully easy and fast because it has a speedy processor. At the top of the main page sit device settings and alerts for things such as software updates. Across the bottom, you see a scroll of apps that you can swipe through or expand to fill the screen by swiping a finger upward. In the middle of the screen are small thumbnails of your open apps; you can slide your finger left or right to sort through these and pick or dismiss them with a tap or a flick. One cool feature: Open apps remain active even when you're looking at them from this view. So if you open the camera and later sort through your open apps, the viewfinder will still be working in the tiny thumbnail of the camera app. Even though the PlayBook is smaller than the iPad, its screen was bright, colors looked rich and images were sharp. I felt immersed watching videos -- a combination of the excellent display and simple frame surrounding. The PlayBook supports Flash video playback -- something the iPad doesn't do -- and HTML5 for rich video content. Thus, you can browse the Web much the way you do on a computer. There are a few annoying quirks: For example, the PlayBook took a long time when scrolling through long documents or Web pages. In general, though, the PlayBook's screen was very touch sensitive, and I especially liked how the PlayBook takes advantage of it. Instead of hitting the power button to wake up the device, you can make one long swipe upward with a finger. When using an application, a long upward swipe will bring you back to the main page that shows the settings and your applications. Make a hard swipe to the left or right to flip through your other open applications. Another neat trick: You can zoom in on Flash videos by spreading two fingers on the screen. Like so many other tablets, the PlayBook includes cameras for taking photos and videos and for video chatting. On the rear, the PlayBook sports a pretty simple 5-megapixel camera that took decent photos (no flash, though) and videos. The 3-megapixel front camera is probably more suited to video calls. I wasn't able to try it, though, as RIM isn't planning to roll out a video chat app until after the device is available. Of course, RIM is known for its focus on business users, and the PlayBook can do plenty of work, too. It includes word processing, spreadsheet and slideshow apps and can easily be attached to an HD TV through its Micro HDMI port (for presentations or, if you're like me, streaming online movies to a flat screen). Its onscreen virtual keyboard was surprisingly accurate and took very little time to get used to. And if you have a BlackBerry phone, a nifty feature called BlackBerry Bridge links the two devices over Bluetooth. When I tested it, it wasn't fully functional. But it promises to let you easily do things on the tablet such as using the BlackBerry Messenger app on your phone and accessing BlackBerry e-mails and calendar. For a business user who feels constrained by the BlackBerry's small screen, this could be a nice complement. RIM expects the PlayBook to get eight to 10 hours of battery life while multitasking. I got about six hours while surfing the Web, streaming Internet radio, checking e-mails and streaming videos. Maybe this was actually a hint that I should limit my music video habit. The PlayBook is an impressive tablet -- it has to be, considering the iPad's head start. And if RIM can ramp up its app offerings, it will be an even heartier contender.

It's been half a year since Research in Motion unveiled its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet based on the QNX operating system. This week, RIM began shipping the 7-inch tablet. After spending a couple days with the final product, it's clear that the PlayBook is a useless device whose development is unfinished. Not only can it not compete with an Apple iPad, it can't compete with the second-best tablet, Motorola Xoom, nor even with marginal Android tablets such as the Galaxy Tab that use the smartphone version of the Android OS rather than the Honeycomb tablet version. In fact, if my choice were between a PlayBook and a Windows 7 tablet -- my benchmark for unusability -- I think I'd rather go sans tablet. [ Also on InfoWorld: "Tablet deathmatch: Apple iPad 2 vs. Motorola Xoom." | Compare and calculate your own scores for the iPad 2, Xoom, Tab, and PlayBook with our tablet calculator. | Compare the security and management capabilities of iOS, Windows Phone 7, Android, and blackberry housing in InfoWorld's Mobile Management Deep Dive PDF report. ] I knew the prerelease reviews were negative, and I had my own concerns after seeing a PlayBook demo in January. But even those didn't prepare me for the profound disappointment that is the PlayBook. Why did RIM bother shipping it? Communications only if the straitjacket fits The fundamental nature of the PlayBook's flaws begin with the requirement that a BlackBerry be tethered to it for access to business email, calendars, or contacts. Other than using a Webmail client, a PlayBook without a blackberry keyboard is unable to communicate. You can't connect to POP, IMAP, or Exchange servers directly from the tablet, as you can from an iOS or Android device -- you must have a BlackBerry tethered via Bluetooth using the BlackBerry Bridge application. In that case, you essentially see your BlackBerry email, calendar, and contacts in a window on the PlayBook when connected. If your BlackBerry is on the AT&T network, you can't install Bridge -- AT&T won't allow it. As luck would have it, my BlackBerry Torch uses the AT&T network, so AT&T blocked me from installing Bridge, which meant I could not get my Exchange or IMAP email, work with my calendar, or look up contacts. It also meant I couldn't use mailto links in the browser, such as in "share with a friend" links -- extremely frustrating. This is what happens when you lock in customers before making sure your business partners (AT&T, in this case) will support your particular type of straitjacket. (And note that Verizon Wireless hasn't yet decided whether it will support the PlayBook.) Companies that don't use BlackBerry smartphones will be in the same position as AT&T-provisioned BlackBerry device users like me: The PlayBook will not be viable for business communications. Webmail is a poor substitute for native email. Despite AT&T's prohibition, I was able to install the BlackBerry Bridge software on a BlackBerry Torch, using instructions posted at brandsdragon.com. Once Bridge is installed on the BlackBerry and the two devices are paired -- a simple operation -- the BlackBerry's email, contacts, calendar, and file browser apps become available on the PlayBook. When you run them on the PlayBook, the apps take advantage of the larger screen and, thus, are more accessible than on the BlackBerry, at least for tap-oriented users. You have to be careful about the distance between your PlayBook and BlackBerry -- the Bluetooth connection can't go much beyond 10 feet, at which point the BlackBerry apps disappear from the PlayBook. The apps don't automatically reconnect when you're back in range; you need to open one for Bridge to reestablish the connection, which can take up to a minute. The few apps limit the tablet's utility When not connected to a BlackBerry, the PlayBook is limited to running a Web browser and a few included apps: the music and video players, Twitter, YouTube, Bing Maps, Adobe Reader, the ancient Tetris game, and the trio of To Go office applications (Word, Sheet, and the view-only Slideshow). Those To Go apps (developed by RIM) are based on the serviceable Documents to Go apps (developed by DataViz) available for iOS and Android, and they work similarly. It's not clear why RIM bothered to hire away most of DataViz's development team to bring these apps in-house; the PlayBook versions don't do anything more than the DataViz equivalents, other than look a little cleaner. They certainly don't hold a candle to the iWork apps on the iPad, which come close to desktop quality. And they lack the ability of DataViz's iOS and Android versions to connect to cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Docs, and Box.net; you're restricted to file exchange via email, Bridge tethering, and USB file transfer. The PlayBook also comes with apps for Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and AOL Mail -- except they're not apps. Instead, they launch the Webmail pages for their respective services, whose Web interfaces are clunky and not terribly gesture-savvy. I felt cheated. Also, interacting with a Web page on a 7-inch tablet screen is no picnic -- you need a native client in that size. The basic apps (the real ones, that is) on the PlayBook aren't terrible, but neither are they special. You could get these apps -- better versions, in many cases -- on an iPad or an Android tablet, plus a whole lot more. There's very little for the PlayBook on the BlackBerry App World store, and what there is are the kind of "lite" demo apps that serve to fill space on the virtual store shelves. There's no contest: If you want to do stuff, get an iPad or Android. Developers of Java and Android apps can recompile their apps to run on the PlayBook, which might lead to many useful PlayBook apps at some point. But RIM's notoriously difficult app process has discouraged many developers, so even those who might consider porting existing apps as a cheap way to gain presence on the PlayBook are likely thinking twice about making the effort. RIM provides desktop management software for the PlayBook for backup and file transfer (such as to import a music library), but that software does not see the PlayBook on either a Mac or Windows PC. The PlayBook does see the Mac or PC when connected, ironically, but can't do anything with it. RIM says PlayBook-compatible Mac desktop software will ship "this summer." The current Windows desktop software is supposed to work, but it didn't on my two XP PCs; the problem was the lack of a PlayBook driver, which didn't come with the PlayBook, wasn't available at RIM's website, and wasn't available to Windows Update. So I couldn't sync. Until RIM fixes these omissions, home users will be essentially locked out of using their music, videos, and other media files -- obviating the "play" in PlayBook. Security is sometimes there, but not always enforceable If you're tethered to a BlackBerry, you can rest assured that your communications are secured. But if you don't use BlackBerry tethering, then you have no security, as you must use standard IMAP and POP connections to your email. The PlayBook is unsecured by default. Although the BlackBerry desktop software doesn't work with the PlayBook, my Mac was able to mount its internal storage over a USB connection and access its files. Fortunately, you can turn off USB and Wi-Fi file sharing separately, as well as set up a device password that must be entered to share files, as on an iPad or a Xoom. You cannot use BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) to force the use of passwords on the PlayBook, or to enforce rules such as password complexity or expiration, as you can for BlackBerry devices. By itself, the PlayBook has rudimentary security controls and no facility -- BES or otherwise -- for IT to enforce security policies. Also, there's no on-device encryption, which could be an issue for stored data. Corporate email, calendars, and contacts are of course not on the PlayBook itself, so they are de facto secured by being unavailable if someone steals or finds your PlayBook. Everything else, however, could be accessible. By contrast, an iPad or Xoom can be secured directly via an Exchange server or mobile management tool; an iPad can also be secured through the use of configuration files installed directly by IT. RIM has very much dropped the security ball when it comes to the PlayBook. A nice user interface, at least With all the functional limits and partial implementations of the PlayBook, you would think it was a total disaster -- but it does have a nice user interface, a clean cross between WebOS's concept of cards and Mac OS X's Dock Expos¨¦. The screen is divided into three basic areas you can hide and show: a menu bar at the top you pull down, the central window that shows the apps and their contents, and an app bar at the bottom you pull up to see all apps. Thus, it doesn't take long to get to an app or a control, yet it avoids both the screen clutter common on Android devices and the sometimes too-simplified view of iOS. The UI isn't perfect, though: It's hard to position your cursor inside text. You have to tap at the right spot since there's no magnifying-glass tool as in iOS or BlackBerry OS 6 to help you see your cursor's position relative to the text as you move. But the selection handles are nice and big. The onscreen keyboard is serviceable, though due to the small screen, it's nearly impossible to touch-tap. The Web browser, based on the WebKit engine used by iOS and Android, is also serviceable. It has a handy full-screen option, except you lose all navigation except Back in that mode, even though there's room enough to retain the Forward and Refresh buttons. The browser's live preview windows for tabs is sophisticated in the style of Mac OS X's Dock and Windows 7's preview tiles. Note: Many websites won't know the PlayBook's unique user agent and thus will think it's a BlackBerry, presenting you with the mobile version of their sites. (You can see its user agent via InfoWorld's free Web-based user agent checker tool.) On the 7-inch screen, such "mobile optimized" sites often display awkwardly, and you can bet any Flash content is excluded. On the bright side, the PlayBook supports Flash, with no need to download a player as on Android. But Flash objects are often slow to load, and some would not function. That's an issue Flash also has on Android, as my colleague Neil McAllister discovered in his extensive Flash tests. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Flash and mobile don't mix. The physical device is a bland black slab, with a too-small power button that's hard to press when the screen goes to sleep. The storage is fixed, as in the iPad, so you can't insert an SD card later on. Battery life is good, easily matching the iPad's 10 or so hours a day. There are front and rear cameras, along with a Mini HDMI port for screen mirroring. The PlayBook nicely mirrors its screen to a TV or monitor via an HDMI cable connected to its MiniUSB port. The text and graphics are crisp, even on a 46-inch HDTV. Also, the mirroring is automatic: Plug the cable into the two devices and you're done. Glitches suggest a rush job Beyond the limited functionality of the PlayBook, I was repeatedly struck by the number of glitches I experienced, even after running the OS update released the same day as the tablet. The PlayBook simply felt as if it debuted before it was ready. That's very troubling for a product intended to lead RIM's charge into the tablet era. For example, after I set up Bridge and opened my BlackBerry apps on the PlayBook, the email screen often displayed as a blank white screen, and selecting or scrolling messages resulted in spastic flashing for several seconds each and every time. There was no way I could read or compose email. Powering down and restarting didn't help. Fortunately, the problem resolved itself by the next day, with the gremlins disappearing overnight while the PlayBook was left on and asleep. I also experienced system memory issues. Running more than a half-dozen apps prevented new apps from opening and interfered with apps in operation; for example, the calendar closed when I tried to add appointments and videos didn't play. It's been more than a decade, during the days of early Windows and Mac OSes, since I saw such memory-handling issues in an operating system. Again, the next day, these issues disappeared, and I could run a dozen apps simultaneously without issue. One issue that hasn't resolved itself: The PlayBook does not handle single-orientation apps well. For example, if I launch the portrait-only Tetris game when in landscape (horizontal) mode, the basic PlayBook controls move as if I had turned the PlayBook to portrait (vertical) orientation. Thus, the normal navigation gestures no longer work until I either rotate the PlayBook to portrait mode or shake the PlayBook to force it to return to landscape mode. This kind of glitch never occurred in iOS or Android devices I tested, not even in first-version models. Bugs are to be expected in any new product, but these issues were more severe than I've seen in competitors' first-time products. It suggests a lack of quality control. For the price of an iPad, you get a whole lot less RIM has priced the PlayBook to match the cost of an iPad: $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, and $699 for 64GB. There are no 3G models. But the real cost is higher, as you also need a tetherable BlackBerry to use the PlayBook for business communications. The 7-inch screen size is too small for many websites, as well as for text-heavy uses, and the lack of native apps means there's not much you can actually do with it. The PlayBook has none of the emotional appeal of the iPad and its polished ecosystem, and it is less capable than a Xoom. It includes few serviceable apps, nor does user-oriented functionality for either consumers or business goals seem to have been a priority. The lack of security as a stand-alone device runs counter to the essence of RIM's reputation. It appears RIM didn't care that its own desktop software didn't work with the PlayBook. It didn't seem to fully test the product in its initial state. And -- amazingly -- it didn't ensure the nation's top carrier would support its fundamental tethering requirement, thus rendering the device unusable by most businesses. At the core of it all, the design of the PlayBook as a BlackBerry-dependent device was simply a boneheaded decision by executives who hoped a hit product might entice more BlackBerry sales. Hint: You need to actually deliver a hit product for that strategy to work. The iPad has been around for a year, so the benchmark for a hit tablet was not exactly a mystery. In the six months since RIM announced the PlayBook, observers like me have raised concerns and questions. RIM executives basically said their customers like the direction RIM had for the PlayBook and naysayers would see the truth when the product launched. If RIM's customers really liked what they saw, then they deserve what they got. But I doubt that RIM actually listened to customers or outsiders -- the train wreck is just too complete for there to have been anything other than heads deeply buried in sand. Still, it's one thing to see an impending train wreck and fret. It's another to view the aftermath -- it's a lot worse than I could have imagined, and it feels awful to look at it. Why RIM chose to ship the PlayBook in such a state is unfathomable. The iPad 2 and Xoom have been out for weeks, so there's no heading them off at the pass. Instead, the PlayBook debuted with all eyes on it -- but instead of a world-class performer, we got the homeless

The decision is heartbreaking, because, for all of the PlayBook's crushing lows, there are just as many amazing highs. When everything's working, the PlayBook experience blows the iPad out of the water. The problem is getting to that point. To be clear, I'm not writing a thorough PlayBook review. I didn't get a loaner from Research in Motion, and I don't intend to pour over every minute detail. What I can provide is the perspective of someone who spent his own money on the product, who doesn't own a blackberry housing and who, after owning an iPad since launch day, is still enamored with the idea of a 7-inch tablet. [ Keep your finger on the pulse with the latest developments in mobile technology¡ªsuch as phones and tablets¡ªin Computerworld's Mobility & Wireless newsletter ] I was optimistic about the PlayBook before launch, largely because of its interface. Navigation is controlled by swipes from the bezel -- swipe up to conjure the home screen, swipe down to open a menu, swipe sideways for fast app switching -- and multitasking is as close to a computer as you're going to get. By default, apps freeze when they're not in the foreground, but you can toggle an option to let them to run at full capacity in the background. This is awesome. While one app loads, you can do something in another, and small size of the tablet allows you to quickly switch back and forth between apps with thumb swipes. Last night, I watched a video on wholesalesgodos.org (because the PlayBook runs Adobe Flash), and switched to the Kobo e-reader app during commercials while the audio played in the background. In terms of navigating from one app to the next, the PlayBook has no equal. But those moments of tablet euphoria are hard to find, and that's largely because the PlayBook has hardly any apps. I'm not an app junkie. I can get by with a decent Twitter client, an e-mail app, some premium video sources and a few really good games. The PlayBook, as it stands, has none of those things, except for Tetris. And without a video chat app like Skype or Fring, you can't even take full advantage of the PlayBook's front-facing camera. The apps that are available have crashed on occasion. Without a lot of apps, you're forced to seek refuge in the Web browser. In theory, this isn't a horrible setback because of the PlayBook's Flash support, but Flash still isn't ready for primetime on tablets, and it shows. An episode of "Community" at wholesalesgoods.org froze up at the 20-minute mark. Grooveshark, a streaming music Website, repeatedly told me that the browser has a Flash blocker installed (not true) and therefore would not run. Flash game sites such as Newgrounds are unusable, unless you can find a mobile-optimized version like wholesalesgoodsorg. Crashes are regular, and, even when Flash sites work, they often need a mouse and keyboard to run properly. I must admit that I enjoy the Flash tablet experience as a sort of adventure. It's fun to see what works and what doesn't--my wife flipped out when she heard that the Los Angeles Times crossword is fully functional--but when a significant number of Flash sites cause problems, it's a letdown. Even some non-Flash sites, such as Gmail and Twitter, are sluggish and hard to use, so I can't say that the Web makes up for the PlayBook's app deficiency. The browser was also giving me some weird network errors that aren't even worth deciphering, but a recent software update (conveniently delivered over the air) seems to have alleviated that problem. As for hardware, the PlayBook is not quite the iPad antidote for which I'd hoped. I do love the size. You can hold the PlayBook in one hand and navigate with a finger, or hold it in both hands and cruise around with your thumbs. But the bezel is so comically large that it took some serious maneuvering to fit it in my coat pocket, and the hardware is too heavy to hold comfortably in one hand for extended durations. I haven't done much battery testing, but after juicing up yesterday evening, I'll probably need a mid-day recharge if I stream much more video.For me, hardware is the last straw. I can wait for bugs to be squashed. I can wait for apps to be developed. But if the hardware isn't absolutely perfect, I've got no reason to be patient. Fixing the PlayBook could be a matter of weeks, months or even years, and by then, there may be a bevvy of awesome 7-inch tablets from which to choose--including a PlayBook revitalized by Android app support and native apps for e-mail and calendar. We're about to see a huge buyer's market for tablets. The blackberry keyboard hasn't convinced me to duck out early. Follow Jared on Facebook and Twitter for even more tech news and commentary.

First announced in September, the BlackBerry PlayBook, Research in Motion's (RIM) ambitious entrant into the tablet market, is now set to hit stores on April 19 at $499. Mashable has been testing out the device over the past week and also talked to Mike Lazaridis, the founder and co-CEO of RIM, about PlayBook, what it means for his company, and the opportunity he sees in a space that's getting more crowded by the day. Read on for the pros, cons and our view as to whether or not PlayBook stands a chance against iPad and the slew of Android options already available. Build, Form Factor and Screen Out of the box, the PlayBook feels sturdy and compact despite weighing in at just 425 grams. The front of the device is glass and there are no buttons. The rear is a soft rubberized plastic that feels good in the hand. The sides have that same rubberized coating, which makes us feel more secure about potential drops -- and that's before adding any of the optional accessories. Unlike the Xoom and the upcoming Acer Icnoia Tablet, the blackberry housing PlayBook breaks away from the 10-inch form factor popularized by the iPad, opting instead for a 7-inch device, making it much more akin to the original Samsung Galaxy Tab. Last October, Steve Jobs famously called 7-inch tablets "tweeners," stating that the devices are too large to be a smartphone and too small for a tablet. Generally speaking, we feel that 7-inch screens can still make for a great ereader (like the Kindle), but don¡¯t quite make sense in a tablet. The PlayBook is interesting, however, because even though it does have only a 7-inch screen, its resolution of 1024x600 makes it feel -- at least in landscape mode -- very similar to an iPad. Further, in landscape, the text is clear, graphics are bright and the keyboard feels good to the touch. The problem, at least for us, was using the device in portrait mode. Reading text on most websites was almost impossible without significant zooming, and the keyboard was uncomfortable even in short periods of time. Unfortunately, using the device solely in landscape mode presents other challenges, like typing long emails or documents because the keyboard takes up a significant portion of the screen real estate. Switching to portrait mode allows more visible text, but that text is smaller and the keyboard is difficult for even small hands to navigate. Beyond the size a€¡° which we ultimately do find to be less desirable than iPad and larger Android tablets -- the screen on the device is WSVGA rather than IPS (as seen on the iPad). That said, colors still look good in portrait and landscape mode from a variety of different angles, and the touch screen itself is capacitive and very responsive. The accelerometer works in all directions and is fast. User Experience We have to give RIM credit for making its UI both familiar and original at the same time. The interface is easy to pick up, but it contains some of its own subtle touches that make it stand out. Compared to prior offerings from RIM, blackberry keyboard OS 6.0 probably comes closest in terms of experience, but it is still a far cry away from what RIM has crafted with the PlayBook (which bases its OS on QNX). Perhaps the biggest differentiator with the PlayBook is the way the entire screen is used. The black bezel on the top and bottom of the screen isn't just for looks -- it's touch sensitive too. Rather than using a home button like the iPad or an on-screen button like Honeycomb, swiping a finger up from the bottom will minimize an app and show the home screen. The menu or status bar is accessible by swiping down from the top of the screen or diagonally from the top left of the screen. Swiping from the lower left or right side allows users to quickly switch between open apps. Accessing notifications -- one of the best features of BlackBerry OS -- is as simple as just tapping on them in the status bar. Notifications can be dismissed by swiping from left to right or accessed by tapping on the notification. The system is unobtrusive and it works. We also really like the way the PlayBook handles multitasking. Switching between open apps feels much more fluid than on the iPad. Lazaridis showed us what he calls ¡°a presenters dream¡± ¨C switching from a presentation to a video that¡¯s already loaded in the background ¨C and the experience is indeed quite seamless. The PlayBook also excels in the more common situation where you want to reference something from a website or a document in an e-mail. That said, for switching between more task-oriented apps, the PlayBook doesn't offer any major benefits over the iOS version of multi-tasking. Having continuous access to certain applications -- like a Twitter or IM client -- from the status menu in any application would give the PlayBook an advantage here. At this stage, however, multi-tasking is still more like fast-app switching. On the whole, we quite like the UI. It feels more finished than Honeycomb and has a consistent look and feel. Apps It¡¯s no mystery that one prominent reason BlackBerry has lost favor in recent years to both Apple and Google is because of its relative lack of apps (or more to the point, lack of quality apps). With the PlayBook, RIM is taking an interesting -- if risky -- multi-faceted approach to platform development. In addition to being able to run apps built in Adobe Air, the PlayBook will support older BlackBerry OS apps and (though not at launch) Android 2.x apps via a virtual machine. The PlayBook ships with a variety of pre-installed apps, including Docs to Go (an app for opening, creating and editing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents), Need for Speed Undercover and Kobo Reader. Need for Speed Undercover is a fantastic example of what type of games can be played on the PlayBook. The game is a dead-ringer for PS2/Xbox versions of the Need for Speed series and the accelerometer works great with the game. Unfortunately, the web browser and some multimedia apps aside, that pretty much covers all of the truly native PlayBook apps. The apps in the App World are sparse and the rest of the applications on the home screen are really just web shortcuts. While Lazaridis pointed out in our interview that the 3,000+ apps at launch is the most ever for a tablet, that¡¯s moot given how many apps now exist for PlayBook¡¯s rivals. Another downside to consider is that in order to access the BlackBerry mail client, BlackBerry Messenger and an address book, users need to connect their BlackBerry devices to the PlayBook through a Bridge mode that allows the PlayBook to access data without actually storing any data on the device itself. While great for security, it¡¯s rather inconvenient. Moreover, at this time, non-BlackBerry owners will need to use a web client for receiving and sending email. For a company like RIM that has made its mark by understanding messaging, not having a native messaging client available without bridging to another BlackBerry is a bitter pill to swallow. Browser RIM is playing up the fact that the PlayBook supports Adobe Flash 10.2 out of the box as one of its biggest advantages. In our testing, Flash video worked well in the WebKit-based browser, as did Flash elements like banner ads and animations. Some Flash-based games seemed a bit slow and some heavily Flash-based sites like Google Maps really didn't work well in the included browser. Most web pages, however, rendered quickly and accurately in PlayBook¡¯s browser. Users and developers continue to debate the merits of native apps versus web apps. One area where native apps clearly win is with device-side integration. On one hand, it's great that the full Facebook experience is provided by PlayBook in the browser. On the other hand, the fact that a user can't get notifications from Facebook or easily access messages from a central location is a loss. Ultimately, the browser is good, but isn't a replacement for the need of native apps for certain purposes. Connectivity and Camera The two cameras on the iPad 2 have been panned -- and rightly so -- for being decent-enough for video but not usable for still photos. With the PlayBook, RIM has delivered solid optics that for both the rear and front facing cameras. The PlayBook is still too large to act as a real optical device, however, it should work quite well in the field and for video chat (though at launch, there is no native video chat app for PlayBook). As far as connectivity is concerned, the PlayBook has a mini-HDMI port that allows users to interact with content, games and video on a second screen. Lazaridis played this feature up in our meeting, saying that this makes the PlayBook valuable for both presentations and a social experience ¨C for instance being able to connect your PlayBook to your TV to share music or movies. ¡°[We¡¯re] enabling a use case that everyone has been wanting but no one has been able to fufill in a technology that is affordable and powerful,¡± he said. While we agree the user experience here is friendly, we think it¡¯s still to-be-determined if this becomes a common use case for tablets, especially in the age of Internet connected TV. A more impressive innovation that will have an immediate impact for PlayBook owners is its ability to sync wirelessly with your desktop or laptop computer. Once setup through BlackBerry Desktop Manager, there¡¯s no need to connect your PlayBook to your computer ¨C files automatically sync over WiFi.