RIM announced the 7 inch BlackBerry Playbook.  At 7 inches, it’s smaller than the iPad and larger than the Dell Streak. 

The Playbook features that stood out for me.

- a micro-USB connector (probably B so it’s only a peripheral)
- mini-HDMI port
- dual core 1 GHz
- 7 inch Capacitive touch screen (less power, more portable than an iPad)
- support for Adobe Flash

CNET covered the live event with Pictures here.  You can watch the video advertisement below from BlackBerry.   I like the look and weight of the device. I expect the capacitive touch screen to be highly

RIM Blackberry Playbook Ad

responsive, like the iPad/iPhone/iPods. 

I try to stay positive on my Blogs, but I had some concerns.  Keeping in mind, RIM hosted a Developers Conference so it’s technical, the CEO focused on it as a “Enterprise” device.   If you look at the Blackberry website here you can see the images focus on entertainment or personal communication.  It’s an interesting mix, and I’m guessing that that RIM hopes to leverage it’s 39% market share and that developers will find the applications to make the PlayBook useful in the Enterprise.

Google stealing Apple, RIM Market Share

For U.S. Smart Phone subscribers, Google appears to be taking more market share than RIM or Apple. 

The Smart Phone subscriber group grew 11 percent from the 12 months prior to this study.  Which means (probably) that overall sales grew for all these players.

I suspect that Google’s gain went to non-Corporate users who

- finally decided to buy into a $60-$70 phone plan
- so they can post their Facebook Status stating “I’m waiting in line for coffee LOL”
- or they just hate Apple

Hopefully the 11% increase to 53.4 million people means all the companies sold more phones.

USB 3.0 in a Sony Laptop

Sony’s flagship Vaio F laptops will have USB 3.0 support built-in. It includes HDMI and a cool remote control

Read more about Sony’s USB 3.0 support at CrunchGear

Tablets in the Enterprise

My marketing question to anyone building a Tablet for Enterprise: Who pays for this?

 

If I’m in a corporation I have 1 laptop. I need this for productivity. To create new content.  Certainly for e-mail, powerpoint presentations, browsing, contract reviews, etc…  Will my IT department, or my boss find the Playbook adds enough “productivity” to make it worth the expense?

This applies to all forms of Tablets from the iPad

Video Calls over a 3G network

The Tango App lets you make a call from a Google phones to an iPhones. Or iPhones to Google phones.

This is the first, cross platform Mobile Phone video Conferencing App launched yesterday (Sept 30, 2010). Tango lists support f
or Acer, Apple HTC, LG, Motorola, Pantech, & Samsung phones for making video calls using your data plan. 

Go to http://www.tango.me/ to learn more.  Read Walt Mossberg’s review in the Wall Street Journal.

The End of Humanity

After having developed a Robot that can learn to the emotions of a 1-year old child, (the Nao shown here,), we’ve decided that we should teach them how to use weapons.

In the video below, using regression algorithms, it appears that scientists have created the first “Terminator” or “Cylon”.

After just 8 regressions, the iCub robot can learn to accurately shoot a bow and arrow and hit a bulls-eye.

I would like to point out that Nao does not use USB, it uses Ethernet and WiFi.  So USB will not be responsible for the end of human civilization.

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