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RIM loses BBX trademark battle, next OS is named BlackBerry 10
Die-hard fans of RIM's mobile efforts should put those BBX tattoo plans on hold, as the US Federal Court has blocked the company from using the BBX trademark, favoring the existing use by BASIS International for its software. As a result, the boys from Waterloo just announced at BlackBerry DevCon Asia that the new name for its next phone OS is BlackBerry 10 (and the Roman numeral for 10 is... ah, we see what you did there.) Let's hope RIM's plans for pulling its tablets and phones into a single unified platform are better executed than its naming process -- next time, they should probably just leave it up to the machines.
RIM announces PlayBook 2.0 Developer Beta and Runtime, marries Android to BlackBerry
Research in Motion announced the developer beta of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 today at its annual DevCon event. The new beta will be released today, and has a few goodies that we've been waiting a long time for: namely, BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps and the BlackBerry Plug-In for Android Development Tools, which will give developers the opportunity to bring their Android apps to the PlayBook. Also coming along for the ride is support for Adobe AIR 3, Flash Player 11 and WebGL, a new tech that enables hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to show in the browser without needing additional software. Needless to say, this changes the ballgame a bit for Waterloo. Sounds great, but is it enough to keep the company's head above water? Remains to be seen, but check out the press release after the break to get the full scoop, and head over to the Runtime site to get started.
RIM announces WebWorks development kit, in-app payments, ad platform, and BBM API
RIM's BlackBerry Developer Conference is going down this week in San Francisco, and as you might expect from a developer-focused event, there are a handful of newsy items that'll affect the development community first and consumers down the road. Here's a roundup of what's what: WebWorks development platform. From what we've heard of this so far, it's basically a quick way for web devs to get into the BlackBerry app game by offering a tightly-integrated platform for HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript code with hooks to native BlackBerry OS functions and a packager for turning them into "real" BlackBerry apps. BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform. RIM's historically held BBM very, very close to the chest, but it's starting to open up a tad with this particular announce. Don't look for BBM on other platforms (yes, we know that's what some of you were hoping to hear), but third-party app developers will now be able to tap into the system for sending and receiving messages, files, user profiles, and invitations. Interestingly, the company is pitching it as a platform for multiplayer gaming, using BBM as a conduit to move information between devices in real time. BlackBerry Advertising Service. Google bought AdMob and Apple bought Quattro, but RIM's taking a more democratic approach to its advertising platform, allowing both "simple" and "rich media" ads to be served from a handful of providers "with only three lines of code." It'll be a 60 / 40 revenue split between devs and RIM. BlackBerry Payment Service SDK. This one's launching in beta this week, bringing third-party in-app payments over credit card, PayPal, and carrier billing (available on AT&T right now, more carriers by the end of the year). It'll be out of beta before 2010's out. Nothing on the so-called BlackPad so far, but at any rate, seems like this roundup is great news for anyone looking to slide some content into App World over the next few months.
Live from the BlackBerry Developer Conference 2010 keynote!
We're seated in the blogger pit (which bears no resemblance to a casino pit, sadly) at the General Session of RIM's BlackBerry Developer Conference; it's scheduled to run a mind-boggling two and a half hours, but co-CEO Mike Lazaridis is scheduled to speak, so things could get interesting. Tune on in!
