During the past decade or so many mobiles phones have come and gone. Some models are so famous (or infamous) they’re even mentioned in pub quizzes, or are public favourites. With the odd exception, none have enjoyed the continuing success and longevity of the BlackBerry. News that the prototype of the new BlackBerry has been introduced to the world by RIM is exciting and fans of BlackBerry.com business phones in particular have sat up and taken notice.

This is largely due to the fact that this happened earlier than expected as the replacement for the old BlackBerry operating system wasn’t expected to be revealed until much later in the year. This new OS in intended to bring the BlackBerry back into the race alongside the iPhone and Android smartphones, both of which it has lost ground to of late in the highly competitive smart phone market.

RIM, or Research in Motion, has also revealed the new handset which will run on the new BlackBerry 10 OS, and Alec Saunders, the vice president of developer relations at RIM, spoke to the New York Times about why they had taken this step. He said that they had made this unprecedented and unusual move in the industry in order to create a wave of support and interest in the new BlackBerry’s before they actually hit the market.

At present, apps for BlackBerry’s are largely ignored by developers who are concentrating all their efforts on the highly profitable Google Play, which offers access to thousands of apps for the rapidly growing Android market and the iOS Apple Store. To try and change this, RIM is offering those developers who can have their apps both finished and approved by the time the new BlackBerry 10 is introduced and a guaranteed revenue of $10,000.

The prototype smartphone is to be called the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha, and features a screen measuring 4.2 inches as well as the usual range of both wired and wireless connection options. RIM has stressed, however, that this has only been created for their developers, and the actual model that will be released with differ greatly.

This new operating system is seen by many within the industry as RIM’s last chance to recover from a series of blunders they have made strategically. These include failing to respond to the imminent threat from both Android’s and the iOS’ user friendly interfaces and also the disastrous launch of their ill fated PlayBook tablet. These problems have been compounded by other operational errors, and is viewed as make or break time for RIM.

Now that streaming services exist all over the internet it may be time to finally rank Netflix and YouTube up there with Sky and the BBC, given the fact that people watch almost as much television online as they do offline. In fact, when Netflix was first launched in the UK its CEO stated that it was not hoping to cut into Lovefilm’s clientele, but instead to take on Sky which is the leading television provider in the country.

Sky Atlantic and Sky Movies both offer a large amount of US films and programmes to its audience whereas Netflix is hoping that they can cut in and offer international offerings to the rest of the UK audience that does not want to pay the higher subscription costs of Sky.

At first this seem a bit brash, given the fact that Netflix is attempting to go up against the largest television provider in the UK as Sky has over 10m customers, but while Sky may be ahead in terms of money, in the world of internet streaming this is not quite as important.

Internet TV was slow to take off because most people still preferred to watch television from their TV and not on their laptop, but now that almost every TV is internet ready, internet connected applications such as Netflix are going to become more desirable and the idea of internet TV is going to become an everyday activity. This is when the low priced Netflix service is going to start to appear very attractive.

During 2011, Proview won a judgment in China that gave them the right to ‘iPad’ but since then Apple has issued an appeal that is still pending. In the mean time, Proview is acting quickly hoping to block all sales of the iPad and cost Apple a nasty blow in sales.

Xie Xianghui, a lawyer for Proview, stated that they are working with China customs in an effort to ban the export and import of all of the iPad products based on the fact that they stole the trademark that they are using on the goods.

To the south of Beijing, in the small city of Shijiazhuang, all of the iPads were already pulled from the shelves and it looks as if this is just the start if local media reports in the country are to be believed. Apple released a statement regarding the name that claims they purchased the worldwide rights to the trademark ‘iPad’ brand in ten different international countries a few years ago and now Proview is deciding not to honour this.

In a move to make its products more accessible to the public, Sony has moved to reduce the price of it PlayStation 3 down to just £199 which is a large cut from the original £250 price tag that has already been altered on the market. The large gaming giant is also planning to release a reduced version of its popular handheld gaming console with a price that will be set somewhere around £99 straight from the retailer. Since 2006 the PS3 gaming unit has already seen more than 50m in sales, with sales rising a great deal since a cheaper model was introduced in 2009.

Although retail price will be set by Sony at £199, it is predicted that many of the large retails will further cut the price down to £180 making it more affordable to the general public. Sony choose to release the news of the lower cost model at the Cologne GamesCom event along with the announcement that the mogul will also be releasing several new games such as DanceStar Party, Resistance: Burning Skies, and a few others. The cheaper version of the PSP will not have Wi-Fi which is part of the reason for the reduced price.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, claims that site blocking is too large of a task for the government and not entirely effective making it a very inefficient way to prevent file sharing. Due to this fact, the government has decided that its plans to block illegal filesharing websites is not viable and that there are better alternatives that are less costly and less time consuming. He added that the government is still however working on some type of plan that will tackle the problem of piracy.

Cable reported in a consultation document that ministers are still considering how they can best stop copyright infringement and music piracy online which is starting to leak over into other entertainment sectors such as film and television. He added that people will still be able to make their own copies of digital use which confirms the alteration of a law that makes it illegal to place a CD onto a digital device. Cable stated that it is only common sense to allow music to be used by personal owners in a manner of their own choosing, but that there still needs a way to make sure that piracy is contained.

The world of CFD, or Contracts For Difference, has been revolutionised in recent years by the inception of online trading platforms. Whilst many have welcomed the ease in which a CFD trading platform system in the UK has got so much easier, it has also led to many rookie traders getting in over their heads and making mistakes that have led to serious financial problems, and no-one should ever start dealing without speaking to an advisor.

The choice of CFD trading platforms is vast and varied, thanks to the online platforms and the downloadable apps for smartphones which literally allow you to trade as you walk the dog or sit on the bus. No longer do you have to trail down to the stock exchange in person, or give your broker on the phone, a few clicks here, a touch of the screen there and you are trading.

These platforms also give you the access to a vast range of shares that are available to you by only laying out the margin money, normally a percentage of approximately 10-15%. In fact, everything involved with CFD trading can be done on these platforms, and many carry informative tutorials for beginners to give them a better idea of what CFD trading actually is, and how it differs from traditional trading using cash.

The big advantage of CFD trading is that you can trade up to 15-20 times the amount of capital you actually have, and if the market moves in your favour there can be huge gains, but real care is till required.

Smartphones available today

When smartphones first came out they were identified as phones that could access the internet and offer you a small keypad that made multi-variable use of the internet possible. Then quickly came functions that not only allowed you to surf the web via wireless, but also download functions to play games, listen to music, learn facts, read magazines, and pretty much every other small thing you could think of.

However, while people are discovering new apps every day they did not know they needed such as Shazam, a great deal of people wonder if it’s possible for the phones to get any smarter.

In one word the answer is yes, and pretty soon the public is going to get its first taste of the smarter smartphone as the new RFID enabled mobiles start to hit the market. These smartphones will allow you to leave your wallet at home because instead of scanning a travel pass or your debit card you can simply scan your mobile device screen. Yes, there will soon be an app for that too, and with the possibilities of theft and identify fraud already large, you better make sure you have an iron lock on that phone any time you leave the house.

Despite the fact that many rioters seemed out of control in London and various UK towns over the past week of events, police were actually able to thwart a great deal of additional attacks by using the mobile phones of those they arrested to garner information about planned illegal action. Multiple attacks were prevented across London by Scotland Yard after investigators were able to get into social networking websites to read details of the attacks by using the mobiles of those heavily involved in the riots.

Included attacks that were discovered on the BlackBerry Messenger service were several stores on Oxford circus, attacks on the Olympics site, and attacks on both Westfield shopping centres. The mobile phones allowed them to access messages that listed details of the riots and of subsequent looting activities that were being tossed around the BBM service. Monitoring of the phones also allowed the Met to gain access to Twitter accounts that were involved in the riots so that they could prevent additional planned riots from occurring as well as to keep pace with where activity may be developing around Britain. Police remarked later that at one point they even considered shutting down Twitter and BBM use briefly during the riot crisis.

First we had desktop computers, which took up the space of a small pony, then we moved to laptops and the latest inception is the tablet, small, convenient, extremely portable and becoming more and more popular all the time. These tablets take using the internet to a whole new level, and the convenience of browsing, networking and shopping on the move is appreciated by thousands.

One question that has been raised regarding the latest tablets in about the anti-virus protection they offer. To be honest, when you are queuing up to get your hands on the latest tablet that does everything but sing and dance and bring you a coffee in the morning, anti-virus will not be at the front of your mind.

Some would argue that you wouldn’t dream of using your PC or laptop without anti-virus such as Norton Antivirus, and when you think of how much more personal a tablet is than a PC and the sensitivity of the data you may have stored there, it makes sense to ensure there is protection in place. However, the majority of people think that tablets aren’t as vulnerable as PC’s, and this is true to a certain extent.

Mobile operating systems work in a different way to broadband, and therefore are more immune to the common virus patterns; hence the manufacturers see no need to include anti-virus protection. The lack of built in anti-virus programmes in the new tablets has caused the main companies offering protection to create special anti-virus programmes designed specifically for use on tablets.

At the end of the day it is purely a matter of personal choice. Some will feel they have no need for anti-virus protection on their tablets, while others will clamour for it. At present the operating systems are nearly immune to viruses, and let’s hope with the constant improvements in technology it stays that way.

Blackberry Playbook

RIM’s management is taking some heat in the press as well as its poor Playbook performance as BlackBerry announces that it will soon launch seven new smartphones. Co-chief executive Jim Balsillie announced this week that the company will offer seven new mobiles over the next few months all with the new operating system but told shareholders that admittedly RIM has some challenges to face as it attempts to hit its sales target for the remainder of the year. He added that there have been some delays with the new OS, but that the mobiles will help the company reach its financial goals by the close of 2011.

Analysts are not quite as sure as Balsillie that this is even possible after seeing a large decrease in profits over the second quarter, and the fall of the market share of RIM by almost half this year does not offer much more hope. In fact, the company holds a market value of only $13.6bn which is quite low when compared to its high in 2008 of $75.2bn. However, according to other co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis said that the delays are only to make sure that the smartphones will hit the market with a storm so that the Bold can finally jump back to the top of the mobile pack.