research

LAS VEGAS -- Alec Saunders needed a little bait.

Soon after Saunders took over the developer relations team, he asked Research In Motion's then co-CEO Mike Lazaridis in October 2011 for 25,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. When Lazaridis asked why, Saunders said he intended to give them away.

"His jaw just dropped to the floor," Saunders told CNET. "He stood there flabbergasted."

Lazaridis ultimately agreed, and Saunders began giving PlayBooks out to developers. He followed that up by giving away more than 8,000 units of RIM's Dev Alpha devices, which ran an early … Read more

DTS demonstrated its new Headphone:X surround processing system at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. The system is capable of reproducing up to 11 channels of surround sound over conventional stereo headphones. I didn't hear it, but a few friends at the show who heard the Headphone:X demo came away impressed with its ability to project a sound field well outside the confines of the headphones. DTS is promoting Headphone:X technology as HTiP -- Home Theater in Pocket, and claims that the system can emulate the DTS reference listening room or a … Read more

Hospital-acquired infections have become a major killer in the United States, mainly because the drug-resistant "superbugs" that cause them have proven nearly impossible to stop.

But now IBM and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology say they have come up with what they're calling an antimicrobial hydrogel that can successfully fight the superbugs that are behind killers like MRSA.

In an announcement today, IBM Research and its partner on the project said that their antimicrobial hydrogel was designed to cut through diseased biofilms and almost instantly kill off drug-resistant bacteria. The collaborators on the project said that … Read more

You might be familiar with the term "megabyte."

For some, though, it represents an emotional megadeath.

You might know what an ISP is, but some need ESP in order to explain to themselves what this actually means.

This, at least, is the conclusion of a deeply disturbing piece of research, performed in the U.K. on behalf of Carphone Warehouse's Geek Squad. … Read more

Research In Motion will launch devices running BlackBerry 10 at the end of the month, but the handset maker is still playing with the idea of licensing its new operating system to other manufacturers.

When asked whether RIM might license the new platform as Microsoft did with Windows Phone, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins told German newspaper Die Welt that it's not out of the realm of possibility.

"Before you licensed the software, you must show that the platform has a large potential," he said, "First we have to fulfill our promises. If such proof, a licensing … Read more

The first BlackBerry 10 smartphone will feature specifications that are comparable to the competition's.

Tech news site Techradar apparently got the details through official training documents from Research In Motion.

The first BlackBerry 10 L-Series all-touch-screen phone will feature a 4.2-inch display with a high-definition resolution of 1280x768, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and an 1,800 mAh battery, according to the report. The phone will also have a front-facing 2 megapixel camera with 2X digital zoom and 720p video recording, the report said, while the back will have an 8 megapixel shooter with LED flash, … Read more

Research in Motion's stock, which has had an impressive run over the past few months, appears to have finally gotten tripped up.

The BlackBerry maker's shares fell more than 14 percent today, a day after reporting fiscal third-quarter results that investors considered better than expected. The stock recently fell $2 to $12.08.

If you look beyond the basic revenue and profit, RIM's performance in the quarter gave reason for Wall Street to be concerned. Ultimately, these results matter little; what will determine the company's fate will be the success or failure of its BlackBerry 10 … Read more

There may be life in the BlackBerry PlayBook yet.

Research In Motion's tablet saw a surprising jump in shipments in the fiscal third quarter, with the company sending out 255,000 units in the period. In the last quarter it shipped 130,000, only slightly less than the 150,000 it shipped a year ago.

So what gives? Chief Financial Officer Brian Bidulka said during an investor conference call today that there was strong "promotional activity" in North America, with RIM seeing some success with the Wi-Fi and 4G versions of the PlayBook in North America and … Read more

Research In Motion posted a profit in the fiscal third quarter thanks to a favorable tax settlement, but it ceded some customers along the way.

The company reported a profit of $14 million, or 3 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $265 million, or 51 cents a share. Revenue fell by nearly half to $2.72 billion. Excluding the one-time item, it reported a loss of $114 million, or 22 cents a share.

The results were better than Wall Street expected. RIM was supposed to post a loss of 35 cents a share on revenue of $2.… Read more