Hey, BlackBerry fans, good news:

Spy shots: Skyfire’s BlackBerry browser.

YouTube gets a chat feature.

New Ubuntu available for download.

Microsoft: still under antitrust watch.

$9000 Leica camera: pretty, white.

MSI readying Android-based netbooks?

OQO’s future doesn’t look bright.

Trade your HD-DVDs for Blu-Ray.

Lost laptops cost $50,000. Supposedly.

Asus releases a 17.3″ notebook.

Amazon deletes bribe-revealing reviews.

I got real excited when I heard about the new Facebook application 1.5 for BlackBerry phones, thinking it would provide the same functionality as is delivered on my iPod Touch or my wife’s iPhone. Question is, does it even come close to the iPhone interface, or does it leverage the strength of the BlackBerry?

I instantly appreciated the following improvements on my BlackBerry Bold:

• Viewing comments on someone’s status.  Hard to imagine, but no, you couldn’t do that before on a BlackBerry.
• Commenting on a status update and commenting on those comments.
• Connecting your Facebook contacts to your BlackBerry’s contacts.  Here is where it gets really interesting.  While in Facebook 1.5, you choose a contact and it gives you the option choose to “Connect to BlackBerry Contact”.  You then get the chance to “Select Contact” from your BlackBerry address or create a “New Contact”.  If the person already in your BlackBerry address book it marks that contact as a Facebook contact then places the avatar picture in the BlackBerry address book.  If it’s a new contact and you choose “New Contact”, it creates a new one in the BlackBerry address book.  In either case, if you don’t have the person’s phone number, it will send a message asking them for it.
• Connecting your Facebook messages to the BlackBerry’s inbox. Message integration is easy to explain… you see Facebook messages in the BlackBerry’s universal inbox with a Facebook icon to let you know it’s from Facebook.  You can also go into BlackBerry messages and select “Facebook”, to send a message over FaceBook.  I can also go into my BlackBerry address book, choose a friend on FaceBook, then either send that person a message, write on his or her wall, or poke him or her.  This leverages the BlackBerry’s universal inbox and address book.
• Connecting your FaceBook calendar to BlackBerry’s.  I did not try out the calendar function as I don’t use that in Facebook.  I did go into the BlackBerry calendar and it would allow me to pick “Send using FaceBook.”

So the new FaceBook 1.5 BlackBerry application does leverage BlackBerry’s strengths.  This is impressive to me as I believe for my uses, BlackBerry has a superior universal inbox, calendar, and address book.  But I still want some of the items available on the iPhone, such as the application bar and the ability to easily view photos, links,  the live feed, notes, and other apps.  I can’t have it all!

If you have a BlackBerry and want to give the new Facebook a spin, try it out here. Here are a few images of it in action:

Lotsa news tidbits this Wednesday:

Windows 7 users: happy campers.

More BlackBerry Storm 2 rumors.

Nintendo DS: pocket video player.

Apple sued over touch screens.

200 million people use Facebook.

Almost all e-mail is spam.

More and more Twitterers.

Acer unleashes tons of notebooks.

Better broadband? FCC’s getting going.

Word’s father returns to earth.

.

Care to read some news?

Google searches return local info.

New logos for Intel chips.

New BlackBerry Storm in September?

Problem! Mysterious missing Twitter avatars.

Boxee rolls out API, fixes.

Dual-thumbstick PSP for Christmas?

iTunes variable pricing goes live.

Arrington on FriendFeed: cool, unused?

Drobo introduces eight-bay storage.

AP: hands off our content.

It’s baseball season, everybody! Finally!

MLB’s superambitious Web video plan.

New FriendFeed: Fast. Very fast.

Sony movies coming to YouTube?

New iPhones: The suspense builds!

IBM: Sorry Sun, no sale.

Please welcome the…Obama PC?

Unfinished Wolverine movie’s Web premiere.

More Android devices from T-Mobile.

Firefox hits 22% market share.

Hey, BlackBerries are still booming.

Google, buy Twitter! Or don’t!

Rumor: Google’s buying Twitter. Maybe.

Digg launches short-url service.

Microsoft alert: PowerPoint is vulnerable.

Texas decides it hates Vista.

RIM has sold 50,000,000 BlackBerries.

EVO: Linux-based game console.

Motorola’s Evoke phone: surprisingly interesting.

Sweden cracks down on P2P.

Ritz Camera closes 300 stores.

[NOTE: Response to Technologizer's 5Words has been terrific, but many readers have told us that they think even five-word descriptions of stories are too wordy and wasteful. So as of today, we're relaunching the feature as 1Word. Terse enough for ya? If not, we'd be happy to go to monosyllabic words. 0Words would be doable, too. Just let us know.]

Uneventful.

Imitative.

Multilingual.

Fired!

Banned.

Tiny.

Fraudulent.

Bankrupt.

Amusing!

Buggy.

Downsizing.

Android?

Boy Genius Report found a bargain on the BlackBerry Bold over at AT&T’s site: If you’re willing to buy a refurbished phone (not a big deal to my mind, especially in these times) and ready to sign up for a two-year contract, you can get the Bold for free. And–the saints be praised–it looks like there’s no rebate paperwork involved. The BlackBerry Bold may not have the buzz of certain other phones that also reference a piece of fruit in their names, but it’s a great phone. And AT&T charges $550 without a contract, $299 (after a $100 rebate) for a new one on contract, so free represents a steep discount. The offer, which BGR says appears to be good only today and only online, is here.

BusinessWeek is reporting that RIM is close to opening an online application store for its BlackBerry smartphones that will provide its customers with an experience similar to Apple’s App Store. Microsoft, Nokia, and Palm application stores are expected to follow.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but for Apple’s competitors, it’s a matter of necessity. Apple offers iPhone users a seamless experience for discovering, purchasing, and upgrading their applications. The competition lags far behind, but is preparing to counter punch.

The first punch comes from RIM. It will launch its application store in Las Vegas at the CTIA wireless conference, according to the BusinessWeek report. RIM has a fair number of applications available for its platform, but the selection is still limited in comparison to other mobile platforms. That shortcoming was something that I did not like about my BlackBerry, as well as having to reboot my phone every time I installed a new application.

Microsoft’s upcoming store, which it calls Marketplace, has a lot of potential. If Microsoft knows anything, it’s how to keep developers that use its platforms and tools happy. There are already a good number of applications available for Windows Mobile, and I think that Marketplace stands a good chance of being be a decent offering.

The same goes for Nokia. The Symbian operating system is still the most widely used mobile operating system in the world, and there is no shortage of applications available for its devices. The problem has been finding and installing them.

If other phone OS companies open decent storefronts, the iPhone will be less differentiated from the crowd. But Apple may have already gained brand loyalty during the iPhone’s period of App-Store uniqueness. I’m not what you would call a fanboy, but there would have to be a really compelling offering for me to switch to another device from my iPhone. Regardless of what I buy next, I’m just happy that I will have better products to pick from as a consequence of Apple’s leadership and the rest of the industry’s tendency to follow its lead.

What I’m reading this morning:

Twitter-like makeover for Facebook.

Ballmer: Windows Mobile needs work.

Amazon’s selling used video games.

Pogue slams Samsung’s Memoir phone.

Facebook spurns poor Ms. Batman.

Fab Four meets Rock Band.

Spy shots of new BlackBerry.

Windows 7′s revamped UAC: useless?

Vista SP2 available for download.

Interesting, nitpicky Safari 4 review.

Yes, you can be the President of the United States and a denizen of the 21st century, apparently–at least when it comes to cell phones. The U.S. government has figured out how to mod a BlackBerry for super-secure communications, giving President Obama the ability to use the gizmo he feared losing for routing and personal communications. He’s relieved, I’m sure. And I’m relieved–the position is enough of a guy in a plastic bubble already, and there’s something basically unhealthy about the notion that the job is incompatible with modern means of communications. (Let’s hope we never have another leader of the free world who thinks it’s called “the Google.”)

All of which leaves one burning question: Just which BlackBerry model does the president tote? I suspect he’s an 8800 man, although I wouldn’t rule out the idea that he’s upgraded to a Bold.

In a semi-related story, the Washington Post has a good (if alarming) story on the very low-tech White House that the Obama administration is inheriting, with a great quote from spokesman Bull Burton: ” “It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari.”

President-elect Obama is still fighting to keep his BlackBerry, the addictive electronic device that has helped him keep in constant contact with friends and advisers from his Senatorial days right through the campaign, the New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny reports. Saying “they’re going to have to pry it out of my hands,” Obama is arguing that it would keep him up-to-date on what is going on outside of the presidential bubble. I’ve argued previously here that I think Mr. Obama should keep his BlackBerry, and its worth repeating. Here’s hoping that our 44th president wins this battle…

If you thought John McCain ran a shoddy campaign, here’s another reason to add to your argument. Fox 5 in Washington, DC was able to pick up a used BlackBerry from the campaign at a fire sale for a rock bottom price of $20. What the newsroom found when charging up the device was shocking. The campaign didn’t even bother to wipe the device’s memory!

Reporters were able to find the contact information for about 50 people associated with the campaign, as well as hundreds of emails dating from September through a few days past election night. The phone in question apparently belonged to a member of Citizens for McCain, a group of Democrats that were working to elect the Arizona senator.

The contact information was correct, Fox 5 reported, as it successfully contacted several of the individuals in the BlackBerry’s contact list. A few of them were quite peeved about the slip-up. When the McCain campaign was approached about it, they said it was a mistake and the phone was supposed to be erased.

One of the people they called made a comment that I have to admit I did chuckle at.

“They should have wiped that stuff out. Given the way the campaign was run, this is not a surprise.”

Isn’t that the truth. It’s not like its too difficult to wipe a BlackBerry clean: actually its a simple process that takes less that a minute to begin. One begins to wonder: with all the other stuff that was being sold, what else may we find out?

The Open Handset Alliance–the organization responsible for Google’s Android open-source mobile operating system–has rallied more companies into its camp, significantly  increasing the likelihood that there will be an influx of Android-based devices in the near future. C0nsumers will be the big winners: With Apple and RIM battling furiously, the added jolt that an influx of Android-based devices has on the marketplace could inspire even greater innovation.

Today, the alliance announced that 14 more companies had joined its membership rolls, and that those companies would either be manufacturing compatible devices, introducing complementary products and services, or contributing code to the Android open source Project. Google was the founding member of the alliance, and is the primary contributor to Android.

The new members include AKM Semiconductor, ARM, ASUSTek Computer, Atheros Communications, Borqs, Ericsson, Garmin International, Huawei Technologies, Omron Software, Softbank Mobile, Sony Ericsson, Teleca AB, Toshiba and Vodafone. They join a conglomeration of nearly 50 other companies, including carriiers, device manufacturers, and chip makers’s G1, the first phone powered by Android, stacks up well against comparable smart phones and has received reasonably favorable reviews.

More importantly, the G1 is partly credited for driving device maker HTC’s record profits last month. With proven sales appeal and its royalty-free license, other device makers are likely to follow HTC’s lead and adopt Android.

… that’s the way investment banking firm Needham is angling it. Along with reporting that the iPhone now controls 16.6 percent of the market for the quarter ending in September, it also said that the iPhone 3G’s success alone is helping to keep the entire smartphone market from collapsing.

Growth was flat from quarter to quarter at 28.6 percent, and Apple’s hit phone helped to keep the industry from going into the crapper much like the rest of tech.

In a way, this contracts some earlier data by iSuppli which suggests that overall the mobile device market shrunk by 1.1 percent in the same said quarter. However, there was no break down on numbers by device type, so there’s no way to really compare and contrast with confidence here.

Either way the biggest loser here is Nokia. Their share has collapsed as the iPhone became a hit. This time a year ago, the company had a commanding 63 percent of the market. Now, that has fallen to just below 44 percent for this past quarter.

Nokia’s strength remains in Europe, Needham notes. Here in the US enterprise clients, who still are a significant chunk of smarphone users, are showing a preference for RIM and Apple’s platforms. Analyst Charlie Wolf chalks this up to the fact that Symbian (Nokia’s OS) is considered “less robust” that either of its two competitors, and Microsoft’s struggles in signing on handset manufacturers.

There’s one caveat to this, and that’s Android. Wolf says he is unsure of the effect of Google’s mobile OS, but if the success of the T-Mobile G1 is any indication, Steve Jobs might want to watch his back.

(Hat tip: Electronista)

I haven’t laid eyes on a BlackBerry Storm in person yet. More to the point, I haven’t laid fingers on one–so I have no first-hand impressions of how the first touch-screen BlackBerry compares to traditional BlackBerries, the iPhone, and other alternatives. But a gazillion reviews hit the Web today–so many, in fact, that I can’t read every word of every one.

So I’m doing what I often do: skipping to the last paragraph in hopes that it’s a useful, pithy summary of the review’s buying advice. And I’m finding that almost all of them are at best pretty diffident about this phone. Especially given the fact that BlackBerries tend to get good reviews.

After the jump, a bunch of last paragraphs for your perusal…
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