This was long ovedue and very welcome for BB fans like me

BlackBerry Protect is a free security application that allows you to remotely backup, restore and locate your BlackBerry smartphone, from wherever you are, via your desktop computer, in the event that your device is misplaced, lost or stolen.

Key BlackBerry Protect features include:
· Remote Device Management:
– Protect important information on a lost BlackBerry smartphone by remotely wiping or locking the device from your desktop
– Remotely add contact information to the home screen of a locked BlackBerry smartphone so it can be returned if found
– See your BlackBerry smartphone’s location and pinpoint the current whereabouts of a lost or stolen device with cell tower and GPS device tracking
– Find a nearby misplaced BlackBerry smartphone by remotely activating a loud ringer
- Over the Air (OTA) Backup and Restore:
– Back up data from your BlackBerry smartphone (including Contacts and Calendar; Memos and Tasks; Browser Bookmarks and Text Messages) over Wi-Fi
– Restore your data to a new BlackBerry smartphone, or simply switch from one BlackBerry smartphone to another

BlackBerry Protect will be available in Limited Beta later this week, and available via Open Beta later this year. To find out more about the product, see HERE .

This is a guest post from Simon Tennant of
Buddy Cloud. You can reach simon
at @buddycloud

I’ve tried so hard to work with Nokia recently and am coming close to packing it in with them. I wonder if anyone else has given up trying?

Some background:

– buddycloud has been in Ov store since it’s launch.
– buddycloud is like twitter: short posts and location updates.

It’s taken us about two months to get our application out: one month with Symbian Horizon signing, one month going through the approval hoops at Ovi. 2 months!

This morning I look at the Ovi publisher website and have a comment from OVI (attached below).

What really irks me is the prescriptive nature of how we should build our application. I don’t see the same for Facebook or the various Twitter clients.

Nowhere on their site are their social networking requirements documented for publishers (I’ve looked hard).

At the same time Nokia is writing to us telling us how many downloads we get, how popular we are and inviting us to join all sorts of special programs with them.

Whether they are right or wrong about this (they are probably right), it’s just the sheer frustration of waiting for approval, content checking etc that makes me question even having content distributed through the Ovi store. Pushing content to getjar is a breeze.

Has anyone else pulled the plug on Ovi? How do you get your content into Nokia users hands?

Simon

post below.
———————-

Dear Publisher,

Please note that your item has previously failed 21 days ago because it was not compliant with our new social-networking guidelines. However, given that this item was previously passed and published before this guideline was in place, we are making an exception and allowing it to pass this time without needing the required safety tools. The next time the application is submitted, it needs to be compliant with the following guidelines:

Social networking and chat applications or games which allow communication between users will be required to have all of the safety tools below:
– An age acknowledgement tool at registration that successfully determines if the user’s age is appropriate, and blocks access if he or she does not meet the set age requirement
– A minimum age of 13 is required for all non-romance themed online games and applications
– A minimum age of 18 is required for all romance and dating themed online games and applications
– A ‘Report Abuse’ function must be made easily accessible to the user with clear action provisions outlining how complaints will be responded to
– A ‘Block’ function for blocking abusive or inappropriate users.

Additional metadata requirements apply specifically for chat services/chatrooms only:
– Metadata for chat programs must not imply unapproved content.
– For operator-assisted chat, appropriate disclosure must be made in the metadata description, and terms & conditions of the program.
– Example disclosure wording: This service employs operators who are paid to participate in chat.

If you have any questions, please contact PublishToOvi.Support@nokia.com

I have been following Mobile Cloud computing for a while on this blog and I am speaking at the. Informa Cloud Mobility event

I will be blogging more about it but the event covers areas like:

What should you take into the Mobile Cloud and what should be left behind?

If you are there, we can meet

Tony Fish has a thought provoking post on his blog called
Could consumer ignorance hurt mobile advertising?

Summary

Virtually unlimited mobile usage tariffs means that advertising is perceived as free from the users perspective, as there is no additional cost of bandwidth to the user. These tariffs have lead to an unprecedented growth in mobile applications and the emergence of a new eco-system. However, “all you can eat” pricing models for mobile have become increasingly risky with the advent of new devices and operating systems from Apple and Google. With the prospect of a return to a pay per something, users may change their view of “free” advertising and this could lead to a change in behaviour, as they will
be un-willing to pay for the bandwidth for the advert. Whilst this may seam ridiculous to anyone who understands, explaining to the user they have the wrong perception or that this is not the reason for a significant monthly bill, could be difficult.

This viewpoint therefore opens the debate; “Could some selfish business decisions be destroying the mobile eco-system that has just been created and what scenarios are worth considering?

Link
HERE

Motorola launches an integrated 4G blog covering LTE wimax TD-LTE and such issues. This is good. Its nice for me to get all information about a domain from a company at a single point. And I have covered LTE etc on OpenGardens before. Link is Motoleads4G blog from Motorola

This is a test post from blackberry on wordpress bbc

We are on wordpress .. No more movable type!
I was no big fan of MT and the move went ahead very smoothly. If you want to migrate from movable type to wordpress I highly recommend Perfect Blue