The Backberry Bold , the feature-rich 3G device from Research In Motion (RIM) will be released on AT&T’s network on November 4th. The price will be $299 with contract. Unlike the Verizon Blackberry Storm, this phone will have a keyboard and, I’m pretty sure, no touch screen.So basically you’re looking at a modern version of your typical Blackberry, which is a good thing.

A few days ago, Apple announced in its earnings call that it has sold over 10 million iPhones this year alone, surpassing RIM to become the 3rd biggest phone manufacturer in the world, by measure of revenue. That’s a lot of iPhones.

In other phone introduction news, Sprint is releasing the HTC Touch Pro on the 26th at Best Buy stores, and the 2nd at all other outlets, including online.The phone, successor to the HTC Mogul Pocket PC phone (on which I’m typing this article) has a slide-out keyboard, high-speed data access and a 3 megapixel camera. It runs Windows Mobile 6.1 plus some HTC enhancements, and will be prices at $300 after a rebate and with a new contract, which will have to include a data plan in order to get the phone. I’ll be upgrading sooner or later, though it may not be for a bit…my next phone upgrade is due late next semester. This is despite the operating system, which has been compared with a Soviet-era tank in the face of the iPhone.

Microsoft’s The Ultimate Steal promotion is back. In one of the few useful ads on the current oredigger.net site, I saw that Microsoft was offering the deal again, and it’s worth looking at for sure. Office 2007 Ultimate Edition is a mere $60, 91% off of retail,Visio 2007 (for flowcharts and such) is $56, and Windows Vista Ultimate, normally around $200, is available for $65. Windows Vista, granted, is an upgrade version, but all you have to do is install it twice, once with no license key entered, then once with the key entered…and you’ve got a legit Windows install for cheap (trust me, I’ve done it before).

Watch out! If you’re playing Oregon Trail, be warned that, sometime in the near future, your app will be replaced without a trace …by Speed Date!?! Unless you’re into that sort of thing, get out while your profile is untainted by such weirdness…

Water-cooled computers are so three years ago…cool your computer with non-nonconducting oil for the latest in ultimate gaming performance. No, seriously…submerge your components in the techno-magical potion for crazy cooling.

Comcast has rolled out its new, higher speeds, based on the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.0 standard. The problem: those speeds aren’t available anywhere around here, and won’t be for awile considering the competitive situation. Currently rollout is in the northeast, as well as in the Twin Cities (MN) market, formerly a test bed for the tech. With the upgrade, customers on the standard tier get their internet speeds doubled for free, and everyone with the higher service tier gets speeds set at 16 megabits per second down, 2 Mbps up (double the download speed in most cases, no change on uploads). In addition, with rental (or eventually purchase) of a new DOCSIS 3 modem, two new tiers are available: a 22 Mbps download, 5 Mbps upload “Ultra” tier for $63 per month, and a 50 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload “Extreme 50″ package for a whopping $140. The prices on these new tiers seems to be for cable users; expect something higher if you don’t bundle in cable, or if you want business-class service, which will also get the new tiers (the current 16/2 $89-per-month business plan won’t change). Another problem: it sounds like the 250GB residential cap is staying around even with the new, ostensibly more network-congestion-friendly tiers, which spread downloads over multiple channels on the highest-speed offerings. Theoretically this “burden sharing” would allow for less network congestion and thus higher caps, but in reality all the current “channel bonding” technology used in these setups does is restrict single-connection, single-file downloads to as low as one-third the connection’s full bandwidth. In short, when the new tiers do come, heavy users may want to seriously consider upgrading to the $59 “basic” business tier, which will boasts 12/2 download/upload speeds and no usage caps for a price lower than what people are paying now for 8/2, capped, residential service.

The open-source media player Boxee now supports Hulu and CBS videos. The significance? The social media player can be hacked onto an Apple TV, among other platforms.

Time to be more selective on your six-packs, beer-drinkers (I’m assuming you’re legal). Researchers have genetically engineered a brew with ingredients that combat cancer. Plus it’s anti-aging, even when the beer goggles come off. Best. Drinking. Excuse. Ever.

Just because you’re a gamer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re an antisocial nerd (though one can’t rule out the possibility, unfortunately). I’m not the one saying this: a study is. Check it out.

That’s all for now! Check back a week from now for more News Bits, or between now and then for more substantial, topical, articles…I have some good ones coming! Also, check out the new Mines website! It’s now online at www.mines.edu and it looks great!

YouTube is now serving up TV shows on their site, starting with Star Trek, Beverly Hills 90210 and MacGyver. The interface seems reminiscent of Hulu’s, with a big focus on the viewing area, plus some ads interspersed in with the content. Fine with me…I’d rather watch an ad or two on a cool TV show than have YouTube keep on not making any money…

Texting while driving has now been proven to be more dangeous than driving while drunk. Just don’t do it. Also, if you don’t have a number on voice dial, think twice before trying to hammer it own while speeding down the freeway. Have an iPhone? You’re screwed; stop if you want to do anything with your shiny new toy, or have someone who isn’t behind the wheel do it for you.

Know about the Roku “Netflix Box”? Pretty soon it’ll be able to stream from a variety of sources. A very good deal when you’re talking about a device that costs just under $100.

Between this article and the last one of its kind, MySpace Music was announced…and streamed over one billion songs! It helps that “the usual suspects” are on board in terms of recording labels. It’s also an advantage when your service is probably already the largest aggregator of indie bands on the web at the moment.

Aside from being delayed…or maybe coming soon…depending on who you ask, Windows 7 (which, by the way, will actually be called Windows 7 upon release) will not ship with photo, video or e-mail editing applications on board. This time around, they’ll be downloadable from Windows Live, something Microsoft is already doing as an option with everything mentioned but a video editor. The idea is to get both applicatioons and Windows itself to the market quicker, with the side benefit of less litigation from the suit-happy EU. In “same difference” news, Microsoft is now touting “Windows Cloud“, some bit of vaporware that exemplifies Microsoft’s new focus on web-based services. Misplaced focus? You decide.

eBay is nixing check and money order payment options for small-ticket items, trying to keep buyer satisfaction up. They also laid off 1,000 workers recently. Coincidence? Mostly, but eBay hasn’t been doing so well lately, with their modified policies on both ends of the transaction and the site’s unfortunate abundance of cheap accessories for whatever item you’re really trying to buy.

Verizon Wireless now has the option to buy a phone and plan without a contract, though you’ll pay as much as three hundred more dollars for your phone for this privilege. Or you can activate your own Verizon-capable phone. In other news, they’ve announced that the BlackBerry Storm 9500, a touch-screen, multi-network Swiss army knife of a phone, will be out “in time for the holidays” “priced competitively”. Whatever that means, the phone itself looks awesome. Not so awesome: charging content providers three cents per text message sent to a Verizon subscriber, in addition to what that subscriber already pays to receive the message. Look for mobile services like Google SMS to start offering their wares everywhere except Verizon sometime soon.

The Large Hadron Collider is shut down until early spring. Even the paranoid are safe…for now…

TiVo is now available for your computer. TiVo lovers rejoice…and say “Finally” under their breaths.

Pandora will survive for just a little longer. The internet radio service is a direct beneficiary from a Senate bill that passed recently, allowing internet broadcasters more time in negotiating with the big names in terrestrial radio, who would absolutely love to sock it to internet venues with high per-play royalties, thus putting the poor guys out of business.

RealDVD has been halted from sale by entertainment industry litigation, after Real, the software’s producer, sued to establish legitimacy of its product. In the mean time, Google is your friend; there are plenty of free DVD rippers out there.

iTunes threatened to shut its music section down in light of Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) rate hikes. The CRB blinked, so Amazon’s MP3 store is still playing second fiddle to the Apple music behemoth.

Adobe Flash is being developed for the iPhone. The problem is that Apple decides what goes onto the iPhone, and such platforms as Flash just aren’t on that list. A few other notable apps, such as a podcast catcher and a special GMail reader, have also been rejected. Look for them on an Android phone near you soon.

Android phones seem to be qite the hot item these days. T-Mobile is having trouble keeping up with preorders for their device, the HTC-built G1. Over 1.5 million have been sold, and it isn’t even the first day!

It’s not a phone, but the Nintendo DSi, coming soon to Japan and likely later here, looks to be a solid answer to Apple’s iPhone\iPod Touch challenge to the mobile gaming throne. The DSi has an internal camera, a 3.2 megapixel external camera, larger screens and an application store. It’s also even thinner than the last iteration of Nintendo’s handheld series, making it enough of an upgrade to get people thinking about the platform again. On the other hand, it remains to be seen whether DS or DS Lite owners will upgrade…the price of $190 probably doesn’t justify the number of features added to the unit.

Heard of the Slingbox? Its makers will soon be pulling together content from major studios, your computer and even the Slingbox itself at Sling.com, though not all of these features will e available at launch. Still, very, very nice.

It’s a TV, it’s a camera, it’s a game console, it’s an MP3 player…it’s the Sega Vision! No kidding…they’re getting back into the hardware market next year, though who knows how successful this handheld PSP competitor will fare.

Want more battery life? Then don’t boot into Windows and use a cell phone processor to do all your work. That’s the premise behind the Dell Latitude ON feature. Naturally, when you’re in this flash-based, email-checking mode you’re running Linux and not Windows Vista.

Heard of the Sony eReader? No? What if Sony gave it a touch screen, spiffed up the design and added a few features both on the dive and its associated online store, then raised the price by $100? Ah well, that’s what those folks did…

Is drunk e-mailing a problem for you? How about drunk basic math? If you answered yes to the last two questions, Google’s Mail Goggles may be the answer to your first problem, by taking advantage of the second.

AMD is splitting into two companies, one for design and the other for actual chip-building. The idea is to have the design half focus on…well…competing with Intel on the CPU front and Intel\nVidia in the GPU sector, leaving the expensive process of building factories and other such physical burdens to another entity.

What happens when you cross light with WiFi? A research project, of course. The idea is to allow for scrue short-range communication in lieu of WiFi by way of LED-based light fixtures. Sorry guys, but the very thought gives me subliminal messages that a headache is imminent.

Google Chrome (yes, the browser) seems to have had a dose of meteoric success; its market share is dropping faster than the Dow in an economic crisis (close to home but an appropriate sense of scale). It probably doesn’t help that the browser is no longer being promoted on Google’s front page, but it’ll probably go back there once a new version (or a Mac version, or both) becomes available.

Paranoids, now is your time. The Google-exclusive GeoEye-1 mapping satellite has beamed its first high-resolution images down to earth, and while they aren’t military-grade (each pixel covers 50cm of territory) they are creepily detailed, especially if you don’t trust what used to be simply the world’s best search engine, or something like that.

That’s it for now. More news bits coming soon!

Featuring tight integration with Google service to the point that the phone syncs only with Google’s calendar and contacts applications (no Outlook sync, but a GMail account is required), the HTC G1, and its Android operating system, is whatever you make it. Like the iPhone, the G1 has a built-in application store. Unlike the iPhone, “Android Market” is completely open; developers are free to publish whatever software they want to the system.

The phone itself is a relatively high-end model, though most of its features are mirrored in other phones of the same price. It has a relatively large (but not iPhone large) touch screen, a Blackberry-like scroll ball for navigation and a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard that looks comfortable enough to type on, if it weren’t for the way the phone is designed: at the bottom (or on the right when the keyboard is open) there’s a bulge that doesn’t move with the screen.

The G1 also sports a 3.2 megapixel camera (that, like the iPhone, can’t do video) and 3G data capability on T-Mobile’s US network. You can also take the phone internationally, and 3G will work there. There is a 1GB limit on data transfer per month, however, and T-Mobile won’t sell you the phone unless you’re in or near their 3G coverage area (we aren’t…yet). The phone also has WiFi built in.

A few nice Google-focused developments on the phone include built-in GMail support with push capability (then again you can do this with any other smartphone via a few ways that I’ll discuss in a lter article) and a version of Google Maps that not only has Street View but actually ill reorient the street view depending on where you’re pointing the phone.

The phone will go on sale October 22nd in areas that have T-Mobile’s 3G network available for $179 with a two-year contract (by the way, Verizon will now let you get their service contarct-free if you pay full price for your phone, but that’s another story). Data plans are either $25 for “unlimited” (1GB then painfully slow thereafter) plus 400 messages (text or multimedia) or $35 for both data and unlimited messaging. These costs are in addition to that of a voice plan, which on T-Mobile can be had for as little as $30 per month.

I’m looking forward to eventually seeing this phone in person…it seems to be missing some features (stereo Bluetooth, also not found on the iPhone…is still in the works) and T-Mobile’s 3G coverage is still extremely limited, but the Android OS holds promise (you can actually buy music from Amazon MP3 right on the phone) and, like Google’s recently released Chrome browser, is open for tinkering for all. As opposed to that crazy amazing slab of plastic, glass and metal that they sell for $200-$300 over on AT&T…

You can find more information on the phone at this site.

1. Best Buy has bought Napster for $121 million. Why, we’re not sure…maybe because they want to increase their position in the music selling market…they sell CDs and had a relationship with Real for Rhapsody. Now they have their own subscription service, which of course still won’t break the iTunes mega-market share situation.
2. The Large Hadron Collider was infiltrated by hackers earlier this week, to the point that a computer one level away from the actual control inferfaces was compromised. Also, they’ve shut the collider down to fix some cooling system problems. Scary, much?
3. Google has been working on a new place to put their data centers: on the ocean. THe big advantages: power from the waves, cooling from the water and the lack of land to tax. Sounds like a plan…let’s just hope there aren’t any scurvy data pirates around, ready to take all that personally identifyiable information wieth them on a raid in the high seas.
4. Heard of the Google Android phone? How about the HTC Dream? Well, T-Mobile will be introducing the latter, with the former operating system on it, Tuesda. The phone won’t be available until October, but this is finally the end of the vaporware that has been Google’s mobile phone operating system for some time now. The Dream will retail for $199 with a two-year contract, on par with the iPhone 3G lower-end model.
5. Have a Zune? Microsoft has made a deal with Wayport, a WiFi hotspot provider, to give Zune customers free WiFi at McDonalds outlets, for downloading music. In contrast, Apple has had a deal with Starbucks ever since their iPod Touch came out. Interesting dichotomy though.
6. In other Microsoft news, they’ve launched “I’m a PC” ads to counteract Apple’s ongoing PC-bashing ad blitz. Whereas Apple touts what Macs have that PCs don’t have, or are uncomfortable with Macs having, the “I’m a PC” ads focus on the wide ariety of people who use PCs. Sure, Apple might connotate Macs with being cool, but with a PC you can be cool, smart, rebellious or…um…a suba diver. That works. Microsoft has also passed a milestone build of Windows 7, meaning that a full-blown beta release may land as early as this year.
7. Yahoo is trying out a new home page layout. They’re also where Sarah Palin had an e-mail address, which was social-engineered by some hackers. Moral of the story: check the “Forgot your password?” option on your e-mail provider; it may well be the weakest link security-wise for getting into your e-mail. It was for Sarah.
8. In other political news, researchers have designed a program that figures out how much political spin is placed on a speech based on word usage. The verdict: Clinton is average, McCain pretty much doesn’t spin things, and Obama is an absolute spin doctor. Also, there seem to be problems with voting machines in several swing states, which includes here in Colorado. No is a good time to volunteer to help in whatever way you can to solve these problems. Tech heads are patriotic like that, right?
9. In the ongoing Spore saga, Electronic Arts has decided to relax some of the onerous copy protection restrictions imposed on the game. Now you can install it on up to five computers (up from three) and there’s an automated mechanism for deauthorizing machines if, say, you trade an old computer for a new one.

That’s it for now! If you have any comments or questions, look below…a comment box awaits your command!