New Mercedes Benz BlackBerry Free Application mbrace

Special thanks to Sabrina (Mercedes-Benz USA) for sending us the press release and screen shot. This new service offers a lot of positive functions and perks for current and future customers of Mercedes-Benz, and opens the door for future additional features for sure.

From your BlackBerry® Interact with your Mercedes-Benz vehicle and access mbrace services conveniently from the palm of your hand.
Forgot to lock your car door or locked your keys inside your vehicle? Lock and unlock vehicle doors using the Mercedes-Benz mbrace mobile application. Simply enter your mbrace account number and secure PIN, and select Remote Door Lock* or Remote Door Unlock to send the request to your vehicle.

Can’t remember where you parked your Mercedes-Benz? View your vehicle’s current location on a map by selecting the Vehicle Finder feature. The mbrace mobile application sends a signal to your vehicle requesting its GPS coordinates and receives a response back telling you where it is**. There’s no need to remember to mark your location prior to leaving your vehicle.

Need to contact your Mercedes-Benz dealer or find a local dealership in your area? Select Dealer Information to view your dealer’s contact information and search for nearby Mercedes-Benz dealership

Press Release Excerpts:
Specifically, mbrace personifies “connected services” by marking the first time drivers can connect with their vehicles via BlackBerry™ Devices, allowing them to do such things as remotely lock or unlock their vehicles or locate their vehicles in crowded parking lots or on city streets through a map representation on their smart phones. The flexibility of combining HTI’s platform with today’s leading smartphone offerings allows for a continual stream of in-vehicle innovation throughout the life of a vehicle’s ownership.
The mbrace system offers 18 features:
(five of which are part of a premium package) aggregated in the categories of safety & security, navigation & destination planning and convenience. The services can be accessed quickly and easily from within the vehicle or from any computer through a personalized web portal.
The standard mbrace safety and security features include:
Automatic Collision Notification; SOS/Emergency Calling; Safe Ride; Roadside Assistance Connection (in-vehicle and mobile application); Stolen Vehicle Location Assistance; Automatic Alarm Notification; Vehicle Information and Crisis Assist. Navigation services include a Search & Send feature. Standard convenience features include: Remote Door Unlock and Lock (remote application), Vehicle Finder (via mobile application), and Dealer Connect (mobile application). A premium service – mbrace PLUS – adds such features as Location-Based Weather, Location-Based Traffic, agent-assisted Route Assistance, Point-of-Interest Destination Download (through agent), and “Mercedes-Benz Concierge,” which functions much as a hotel concierge making restaurant reservations, locating stores and services, cash wire assistance, etc.

You can pick up the Free Mercedes-Benz mbrace application http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/4009

More information on Mercedes-Benz and its products can be found at www.mbusa.com and www.maybachusa.com.

Urbanspoon Releases BlackBerry App

We mentioned Urbanspoon’s service a bit back but they just released a BlackBerry app at DevCon. They sent me an email that their new app lets you choose restaurants near you with a sort of slot machine for picking a favorite.

You just hit the space bar or shake your Storm and it will find a good restaurant near you buy choosing cuisine, neighborhood and price you are looking for. It also lets you simple search and browse restaurants near you using your location.

Check it out at www.urbanspoon.com/bb

Gateway LT3108H at Best Buy Canada

Here at TorontoWireless if there is one thing we pride ourselves with is being as flexible as possible, this is very different from the experience of large box stores such as Best Buy Canada. On Wednesday I received a Best Buy flyer for their store opening sale, and I found myself getting excited as I am a bit of a technophile (PC Desktop, netbook, HTPC, dSLR, and so on). Leafing through the Best Buy Store Opening flyer I noticed they had a door crasher special for the Gateway LT3108H Athlon64 powered netbook with an 11.6inch screen for just $299!!!! (regularly $449), the very netbook I had been drooling over since I read the first review of. The only problem with door crasher specials is you have to be there extremely early in the morning to line up, and working full time here at TorontoWireless the last thing I was going to do is take today off. After resolving that I wouldn't take the day off to drive out to Best Buy and line up at 5AM in the morning (given the fact they only had 10 units). I did however decide to look around the Best Buy Canada website out of curiosity to see what else they had to offer. While looking around their website I came across the same Gateway LT3108H netbook for just $349 (still $100 off) for their anniversary sale, however they had already sold out of the product online. Not only had Best Buy Canada sold out of the units the sale ends on October 21st! Had the sale been for one more day I would have purchased the netbook after work at the Newmarket location. Given the fact that I couldn't justify $449 for this netbook (I bought my Acer Apire One for $329 in August 2008) I decided to try two things. The first was to call Best Buy Canada's customer service and see if I could somehow purchase the product the following day in the store with the discounted price. Unfortunately this didn't work out as the Best Buy head office (or at least customer service) has no say into what happens in Best Buy Canada's retail locations. The second thing I decided to do was when the Best Buy store opened the following day (today) to call and talk to someone in the computers department to see if they would honour the sale price and put the last one on hold, unfortunately as I was read the stock script that Best Buy Canada's flyers change on a weekly basis, and there was now a new flyer with new deals. So thus ends my aspirations of buying this affordable netbook from Best Buy. Now here at TorontoWireless we are happiest when our readers are happy. As the head of sales here I have been known to work with clients that haggle, bend over backwards to get new clients, and make executive decisions whenever client issues arise. This whole experience with Best Buy Canada has rather soured me to their corporate brand. It also made me reflect on the idea of what would happen if they offered SEO Services, and how they would treat their clients with a one size fits all mentality (whereas we recognize that all clients are different, and have different needs). All I have to say is Best Buy Canada Sucks for their customer experience!

UpDate: Best Buy near where I live put the last one on hold and honoured the $349.99 price for me

BestBuy’s inventory shows Rogers getting the BB Bold 9000 in White

You gotta love a good leak from BestBuy’s inventory system. One of the ninjas over at BGR sent in some screenshot’s showing that Rogers Wireless will be getting the Blackberry Bold 9000 in White. You might also want to notice the Bold 9700 listed in there for both Rogers as well. No word on launch dates or pricing, but stay tuned.

(Via BGR)

Acer Joins the Multi-Touch Laptop Crowd 15.6"

I admit I haven’t been quite onboard with the current touchscreen laptop trend, but the more I think about different usage scenarios and positions, like actually using one on your lap with the screen low and angled, the more I’m starting to come around. Thus, I’m somewhat enthusiastic about Acer’s new Aspire AS5738PG touchscreen notebook with multi-touch.
First, it offers a sizeable screen, 15.6″ at 1366×768 with LED backlight, which I can’t find with tablets. Resolution is low for the size, but sufficient for HD movies. That’s backed up with an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T6600 at 2.2GHz and ATI Radeon HD 4570 Graphics with 512MB VRAM for smooth HD playback. A media machine with touchscreen control appeals to me.
Second, they don’t skimp on the multi-touch, including it in the touchpad as well. Thus, if you don’t want to “gorilla arm” it, you can still use the multi-touch gestures to zoom, scroll, rotate, and flick your way through whatever you’re doing via the touchpad. Alternately, if you’re showing off photos to someone, it’s more instinctive and natural to point to the screen and control it from there. A unified user experience is good.
Third, Acer is including all the Touch Apps shown previously in the Gateway One (Gateway is owned by Acer), allowing touch access to media sharing, social networking, music, and memos. This is in addition to the games and goodies in the Microsoft Touch Pack. Seems like Acer is making a strong, concerted effort to be a leader with touchscreen applications. I’d still much prefer this in a convertible model, but overall, I think Acer is making a commendable effort at applying touchscreen control.

Google apps for your BlackBerry

When you pick up a new BlackBerry Curve 8900, Pearl 81XX, 8800, Bold 9000 or an 8700, you have the option to pay monthly (9.99) for GPS navigation service, but the thing that most people don't know is that if you navigate to Google.com via your mobile browser, then click on (More>>) at the top of the screen it takes you to a page filled with free BlackBerry enabled Google apps just like on the iPhone! You have the option to download them all at once or pick which ones you want from a selection of 15 free apps including:

-Search
-Maps
-Gmail
-iGoogle
-Sync
-Orkut
-Calender
-Docs
-GOOG-411
-SMS
-News
-Photos
-RSS Reader
-Blogger
-Notebook

So in conclusion, there is a whole page full of free apps for your Blackberry waiting for you any time you please!!
P.S. Back to the GPS thing, the Maps listed above is the Google BlackBerry equivalent to Maps on an iPhone!! Plus its free and has satellite view as well as map view and uses the GPS chip in your BlackBerry (If you have one) and gives you turn by turn directions for free!!

( Via PhoneDog.com )

Blackberry storm2 launched

RESEARCH IN MOTION (RIM) has officially unveiled the Blackberry Storm2, the successor to its first touch-screen handset, adding WiFi capability and improvements to the tactile feedback for its display.
Available in the UK later this month from Vodafone, the Blackberry Storm2 features a capacitive touch-screen with new Surepress technology that provides tactile feedback when the display is pressed.
As well as quad-band GSM and HSPA, the new Storm also adds 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, a capability lacking in the original Storm launched last year. It also has GPS for maps and other location-based applications.
The original Storm was rushed to market as RIM's answer to the touch-driven Apple Iphone, but many users found fault with the device, particularly with the clickable display mechanism.
With the Storm2, RIM is hoping to fix many of these issues, especially with Surepress, which uses an electronic pulse to provide feedback rather than the actual screen moving.
The new handset also comes with access to Blackberry App World, RIM's online application store.
It also ships with Blackberry OS 5, in which the Blackberry Browser is improved with faster JavaScript and CSS processing and support for Google Gears and BlackBerry Widgets.
For enterprise customers, the new Blackberry works with enhanced features in Blackberry Enterprise Server 5, including the ability to remotely access Windows file shares, manage Microsoft Exchange email folders from the Blackberry, and set follow-up flags as users can in Outlook.
The new Storm2 has 256MB of Flash memory, plus 2GB of storage and a microSD slot supporting Flash cards up to 16GB. It also has a 3.2-megapixel camera and a removable 1400mAh battery providing six hours of talk time on 3G networks and 280 hours on standby, according to RIM.
Vodafone said that it will offer the Blackberry Storm2 free with 24-month contracts from £35 per month. These include 600 minutes talk-time, unlimited Blackberry Internet Service, unlimited text messaging, and unlimited access to Vodafone Mobile Internet.