A big storm is coming next month and it is going to be a cause of a big celebration for Verizon Wireless customers. Verizon Wireless officially debuts the “Blackberry Storm”, the first touch-screen BlackBerry.

The storm features a 3.25-inch diagonal display with a 480×360 pixel resolution and support for 65,000 colors. The phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack, four shortcut keys (Talk and End, Back, and BlackBerry menu) and a microSD slot. It is equipped with the most comprehensive global roaming capabilities than other wireless devices in the market today, featuring EV-DO Rev. A, quadband EDGE, and 2100MHz HSPA for Europe.

The blackberry Storm also includes a full HTML finger-navigable browser, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint editing capabilities, Bluetooth 2.0 with support for stereo Bluetooth headsets and dial-up networking, GPS, 1GB of on-board storage with an 8GB microSD card bundled in the box, automatic orientation and ambient lighting sensors, and a 3.2-megapixel auto-focus camera with video recording, auto focus, and dedicated flash.

Storm includes a new feature called “ClickThrough”, a unique suspension system that lies beneath the phone’s display, making the display a clickable surface where everything can be pressed downwards, like a real button.

The Storm allegedly lasts 15 days on standby mode and 5.5 hours of talk time on either GSM or CDMA networks.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Finally, VoIP is now available on iPhone and iPod devices after Apple approved Fring, an application that enables VoIP to iPhones and iPods connected to WiFi networks. Aside from VoIP access, fring for iPhones and iPods will also allow ‘fringsters’ to enjoy live mobile instant messaging like Skype, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo! and AIM, no matter what device their contacts are using.

The 3.0MB application can be downloaded for free from the iTunes App Store. To get more information about this service, please visit the Fring website.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Looks like the month of October is going to be tough for iPhone, T-Mobile has confirmed the arrival of T-Mobile G1 phone powered by Google Android operating system on October 22  and it is now being rumored that the Nokia Tube will be launched globally on October 2.

Nokia Tube which has been featured in the latest Batman film is Nokia’s first touchscreen phone.

Well, lets hope that Nokia will come up with an official statement on this, and let us also hope that the Nokia Tube will have features similar to iPhone or T-Mobile G1 phones.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Apple has released Mac OS X version 10.5.5 which is recommended to be installed right away. The 10.5.5 version includes improvements on stability, security and compatibility and is recommended for Leopard versions 10.5, 10.5.1, 10.5.2, 10.5.3 and 10.5.4.

Below are some update information included in Mac OS X version 10.5.5:

General

• Includes recent Apple security updates.
• Addresses stability issues with video playback, processor core idling, and remote disc sharing for MacBook Air.
• Addresses an issue in which some Macs could unexpectedly power on at the same time each day.
• Resolves a stability issue in TextEdit that could be found when accessing the color palette.
• Improves Spotlight indexing performance.
• Fixes an issue in which contacts might not sync properly with PalmOS-based devices.
• Improves iPhone sync reliability with iCal and Address Book.
• Includes improvements to Active Directory (see this article for more information).
• Improves Speech Dictionary.
• Fixes Kerberos authentication issues for Mac OS X 10.5 clients that connect to certain Samba servers, such as Mac OS X Server version 10.4.
• Includes extensive graphics enhancements.

Address Book

• Addresses stability issues that may occur when creating a Smart Group.
• Resolves a printing issue with address cards containing information that spans more than one page.

Disk Utility and Directory Utility

• Improves reliability when rebuilding a software mirror RAID volume in Disk Utility.
• Improves reliability of server status displayed in Directory Utility.

iCal

• Updates iCal to more accurately handle repeating events.
• Improves performance when choosing meeting attendees.
• Resolves an issue in which the “Refresh All” option may be dimmed (”grayed out”) in the contextual menu for certain calendars.
• Fixes issues with read-only calendars.
• Addresses an issue that prevents an invitee from moving an event to a different calendar.
• Resolves an issue with syncing published calendars.

Mail

• Addresses performance issues related to displaying IMAP messages.
• Resolves an issue with SMTP settings for AIM, Compuserve, Hanmail, Yahoo!, and Time Warner Road Runner email accounts.
• Addresses stability issues that may occur when dragging a file to the Mail icon in the Dock.
• Addresses an issue with the “Organized by Thread” view in which the date does not appear when the thread is collapsed.
• Resolves an issue in which RSS feeds could temporarily disappear from the sidebar.
• Improves Mail robustness when sending messages.
• Improves reliability when saving drafts that have attachments.

MobileMe

• Improves overall sync reliability.
• Improves Back to My Mac reliability.
• Time Machine
• Improves Time Machine reliability with Time Capsule.
• Addresses performance issues that may affect initial and in-progress backups.
• Fixes an issue in which an incorrect alert message could appear stating that a backup volume does not have enough free space.
• Time Machine can now back up iPhone backups that are on your Mac, as well as other items in (~/Library/Application Support).

Popularity: 2% [?]

Good news for Filipinos who have been patiently waiting for the iPhone 3G to become available in the Philippines. The iPhone 3G, according to reports around the internet, will become  locally available in the Philippines and to 19 other countries this coming August 22.The move is to accomplish Apple’s goal of reaching 70 countries worldwide where the iPhone 3G will be available by the end of this year.

Below are the 20 countries and carriers where the iPhone 3G will become available this month:

1. Argentina (America Movil, Telefonica)
2. Chile (America Movil, Telefonica)
3. Colombia (America Movil, Telefonica)
4. Czech Republic (Telefonica O2, T-Mobile, Vodafone)
5. Ecuador (America Movil, Telefonica)
6. El Salvador (America Movil, Telefonica)
7. Estonia (TeliaSonera, EMT)
8. Guatemala (America Movil, Telefonica)
9. Honduras (America Movil)
10. Hungary (T-Mobile)
11. India (Bharti Airtel, Vodafone)
12. Latvia (TeliaSonera)
13. Lithuania (TeliaSonera)
14. Paraguay (America Movil)
15. Peru (America Movil, Telefonica)
16. Philippines (Globe Telecom)
17. Poland (Orange, Era)
18. Romania (Orange)
19. Slovakia (T-Mobile, Orange)
20. Uruguay (America Movil, Telefonica)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Apple’s jump into the Intel bandwagon has been very beneficial for the company when it comes to sales.  However, there are rumors that Apple will no longer include intel chipset in their future MacBooks.  According to rumors, Apple might develop its own chipset or perhaps look for a suitable alternatives like NVidia chipsets.

While Intel has successfully ventured into mobile processors from Pentium M to Core 2 Duo, the company is less successful when it comes to integrated graphics chipsets that connect those processors to the rest of the system. Apple MacBook is using Intel’s mobile Centrino chipsets, but according to a report,  Apple is going to pass on the Montevina version of those chipsets.

Let’s wait and see in the coming weeks if the rumors are true, the good news is that Apple will not be moving away from Intel processors.

Popularity: 1% [?]