BlackBerry Tour 2600 mAh extended battery: Breaking free of cords since 2009

As with most gadget junkies, your smartphone is your window into the world. Without you often feel lost, without a voice even. You can always carry a spare batter or charger in your pocket but let’s be real, no one is wants to do that. If you can sacrifice a couple millimeters of your precious pocket space, the Seidio 2600 mAh extended battery for the BlackBerry Tour will give you the extra juice needed while adding a minimal amount to the Tour’s backside. So, if the already bigger than most 1400 mAh battery just isn’t cutting it, the Seidio 2600 mAh battery has the power you need to get you through the day and then some. If not, you probably need to stop looking at batteries and instead shift your focus to mobile generators. $59.99 at the link below.

• Purchase the Seidio 2600 mAh battery for $59.99 from Seidio Online

CrackBerry

Microsoft going for the kill: Poaching Apple Store employees with $$.

Work at an Apple Store and feeling a little gipped when wages are concerned? Looking for something new and completely different from your current occupation? It seems Redmond is doing a bit of poaching from deep within Apple these days as Apple Store managers are reporting that they are being contacted by Microsoft personal brandishing promises of greatly increased wages as well as a lucky few even getting lavish gifts such as paid moving expenses. Microsoft appears to be really trying hard on this whole retail front, but are clever signage, store layout, and poached Apple employees really going to make Microsoft stores more hip? Personally I doubt it will do much to improve the “coolness” factor. Instead, I see Microsoft stores being more geeky stores full of…well…geeks with Apple continuing to attract the hipster crowd. However, the added knowledge and consumer based know-how Apple employees bring certainly can’t hurt right?

Ars Technica

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GoldenEye 007 new release outlook: Don’t hold your breath.

Get your tissues ready and prepare to weep. If you’re old enough to remember GoldenEye 007, (not only the greatest James Bond game ever, but one of the best games ever) and were hoping that it may make it’s way to a new console such as the Xbox Live Arcade or Wii Virtual Console, you’re going to be thoroughly disappointed. According to Rare, the company responsible for the N64 first person shooter, made it very clear that there isn’t much hope for future renditions or even ports of the game to come to modern consoles. A rather close summary would go along the lines of: “a snowball’s chance in hell”.

Again, not very encouraging to say the least. I know that I myself as well as hoards of games would have shelled out another $20-$30 to get a modern version/port of that game on new hardware. Sadly it looks as if those leaked shots of a hi-def GoldenEye “10th Anniversary Edition” are nothing more than a visual tease, taunting us from behind closed doors. god life sucks…

CrunchGear < G4 < Nintendo Everything

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Sony shooting itself in the foot. PSP Mini games fail before they even had a chance.

Sony’s grand plan of having PSP Mini games take off and become as popular as and comparable to iPhone game offerings have become a little less realistic after an announcement last Thursday at a Game Developers Conference presentation. While PSP Mini games will benefit from a faster approval process, the grim details talk of limited functionality and features put a blemish on something that could have been much better. The list of disappointments on upcoming PSP Mini games include the banning of PSP Mini apps from using any networking features as well as excluding said games from any downloadable content. Further casting a cloud over these seemingly favorable little apps is the fact that Sony has also put the kibosh on any 3rd party peripheral support.

While I understand cutting costs and pushing apps through faster means some sacrifices have to be made, when considering Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch apps all of which have full support of the blacklisted Sony features means Sony’s attempt at even matching Apple has failed before it’s even started. Why companies shoot themselves in the foot like this is beyond me. Are the suits that run these companies really that out of touch with reality and their customer base?

Electronista < Joystiq

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Sony Xperia X3 gets unboxed!

One of the most lusted after Android handsets on many Android fans’ lists is that of the Sony Xperia X3. While the X2 is still brand spanking new and not even available yet, the X3 brings in a much nicer looking and functional Android core, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, and that much hyped “Rachel UI” that have many second guessing their current phone of choice. So far, the unverified specs for the X3 include:

• 4″ WVGA display

• 1GHz Snapdragon processor

• Android Donut

• 8.1 megapixel camera w/ LED flash

Definitely a looker and one that has my eye for sure. But no one wants to see a bunch of text right now. They want pictures! And pictures there are. Come on in.

AT&T just doesn’t get it: Double/Triple charging you for their problems.

After seeing countless posts today about AT&T’s new MicroCells, I can’t help but reply to everyone who thinks these are God’s gift from Big Blue. THEY’RE NOT! To many, AT&T’s announcement and release of MicroCells, or little router like contraptions that increase cellular reception (it’s AT&T…stop kidding yourself…they give you reception) inside your humble abode are a blessing bringing a much needed improvement in reception, or reception to a location that before hand didn’t have any signal. In reality, these are nothing but a shotgun blast to the back of every AT&T subscriber’s back. Here’s why — they’re charging your twice for the same service. How this isn’t illegal I don’t know. It surely isn’t consumer friendly.

First, you pay right around $100/month for an iPhone plan with shoddy service as an added “free” bonus. Next, to make up for the god awful performance and coverage, AT&T trots in on their white horse offering a “solution”. The solution is anything but. Instead it is a wallet raping to the tune of $20 extra per month to take the same network your already pay for and instead offload it on to your ISP thereby taking the load off of AT&T. In actuality, if you use AT&T for home internet service as well, you’re pretty much paying for the same thing 3x over:

1. first you pay for the wireless data plan
2. next you pay for the $20/month micro cell
3. (if you use AT&T for home internet) finally you pay for home internet, which will end up carrying already paid items 1 & 2.

Someone please explain to me how AT&T can get away with this? Their network sucks beyond belief and they are constantly spewing out empty promises of “network upgrades” and expanded coverage yet nothing ever comes about. I’ve said it multiple times before, and I’ll say it again: I can’t wait to drop this POS excuse for a carrier.

What’s worse is that AT&T actually believes they’re doing their customers a favor with their new MicroCells. If they really wanted to impress disgruntled customers they’d start slinging these MicroCells out for free in efforts to salvage the shitty image they already have and prevent it from going even further south. Do yourself a favor and pass these gimmicks. Better yet, take your hard earned dollars elsewhere. There are at least three other carriers with networks much more reliable than AT&T.

Am I the only one that can see the injustice here?

**Update: Engadget and MacRumors are reporting various tidbits about AT&T’s MicroCell offerings. The device itself will apparently cost $150 with a $100 rebate and service if you choose to use your own wireless minutes will be free. If you want to add unlimited calling via MicroCell, the pricing scheme is as follows:

• MicroCell w/o any other AT&T services: $19.99

• MicroCell w/ either AT&T home phone or internet: $9.99

• MicroCell w/ both AT&T home phone and internet: FREE

While it still isn’t ideal, it’s a start and is more in line with Verizon and Sprint’s offerings. Though their units cost a tad cheaper up front.

Also worth noting, the service is currently labeled as a “public trial” in Charlotte, North Carolina.

After reviewing the new info, anything over free for this service when AT&T in essence isn’t doing anything except rerouting traffic still makes this a boon no?

Green Dam Youth Escort software gets booted from last 3 stranglers

In what was one of the worst ideas yet in regards to censorship and “safety”, the forced install of the Green Dam Youth Escort software that was mandated to be installed on every PC in China has been dealt another and potentially fatal blow. The last three major manufacturers whom also started shipping or installing the software from the factory are now backing down as well. Lenovo no longer installs the software from the factory, though, they will provide an install CD if asked. Acer announced that they too will stop shipping PC’s with the Green Dam install CD. Sony meanwhile stopped shipping Green Dam two months ago after the initial July deadline was repealed. It’s worth noting that while the July deadline was repealed for an outright mandatory install on all PC’s, the public sector including schools, cafes, etc. were still required to install the software.

It appears however that the line in the sand will be moved even further back as public domains are starting to blacklist the software with the latest being Number 50 Chinese High School which is requiring the Green Dam software to be uninstalled from all school computers as it caused conflicts with grade and attendance software already in use. If you don’t recall, the original outcries were caused by privacy concerns as Green Dam was extremely invasive as well as the fact that it was being forced on everyone. Now that there has been some secession on the governments part, could one interpret this as a more consumer friendly movement moving through the Chinese government? Can I get a whoop whoop?!

In all reality, the makers of Green Dam are most likely working on the various bugs and maybe even a few privacy concerns so that they can come back at a later date? Have we seen the last of Green Dam?

Tech Vi < Yahoo

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