Software and games

Poynt is one of the developers making a play for the BlackBerry PlayBook, which launched this week. Poynt for PlayBook, available for free in BlackBerry App World beginning today, will soon be offering a unique "send to phone" feature that will let the tablet initiate phone calls and even turn-by-turn directions on a BlackBerry smartphone phone, Poynt told CNET in an exclusive interview.

An alternative to Google Search, Poynt will use a form of tethering to bypass restrictions that bar pairing non-RIM PlayBook apps with your phone via BlackBerry Bridge and Bluetooth. Instead, Poynt will use RIM's … Read more

RIM's official Twitter for BlackBerry app will be getting a visual refresh and some new features with version 1.1. For starters, the app will push "@" mentions to your username and will autocomplete hashtag options (#).

The app will also tag locations after you enable the feature in the Options, then tap the icon of a compass for tweets you want to geolocate. You'll also be able to view the locations of people you follow on a map within the application.

When you retweet, Twitter for BlackBerry will indicate that the message was retweeted by you, a nod toward user feedback from the beta testing group. In addition, the app supports simplified and traditional Chinese, Polish, Czech, and Thai languages.

The Twitter for BlackBerry 1.1 app sheds its beta and will be fully available, for free, in the BlackBerry App World within the next 24 hours.… Read more

With more and more smartphones and tablets getting front-facing cameras these days, video chatting is on the forefront. VoIP company Fring, like rival OoVoo, is making group calling its next step.

The latest beta update to Fring, available today, will let you chat with up to four participants who also use Fring on an Android phone or iPhone.

On the preview we got ahead of the launch, the app was rough around the edges at this beta stage. For instance, the version we played with works in portrait mode, not landscape. We'd also like to see a more polished … Read more

I always love seeing new functionality for Facebook for iPhone, and the team has trotted out not just tweaks, but some improvements that make a real difference.

For instance, you can now unfriend former buddies directly from the phone, instead of having to cut them off from your profile page on the Facebook.com site (not that I would ever do such a thing, of course.)

Just go to a contact's profile page and press the arrow in the top-right corner, the same you would tap to add a friend as a favorite or launch a Facebook message.

The … Read more

Google has tweaked Google Maps for Android once again. Starting today, smartphones running Android 1.6 and up will see new location history and check-in features in Google Maps 5.3.

The first addition is for maps users who have enabled Google Latitude on their profile. If you choose to, you'll now be able to view stats and graphs of your location history, including estimates that break down how you allocate your time at work, home, or elsewhere.

Maps' second feature expands the pre-existing Latitude check-in option to let followers and friends know you're at home when you'… Read more

If you visit Facebook's mobile site, you may notice a few changes to the way the Web site looks.

The social network began rolling out an update to the site that optimizes Facebook.com for all mobile phones, from the humble feature phone to the high-end smartphone.

Facebook previously encouraged feature phone owners to visit m.facebook.com, while channeling touch-screen devices to touch.facebook.com, but found the backend logistics limiting from a design standpoint and time-consuming for developers.

The upshot is that all of Facebook's mobile socialites will be able to see the latest updates regardless … Read more

Google made a few tweaks today to the way it presents financial information in its mobile search results.

Now, typing a stock symbol into the Google.com search bar in on your iPhone or Android smartphone (2.1 or above) returns useful data in a glance, including the stock's share price and an interactive graph you can click on to see fluctuations over a day up to a five-year span.

What's more, the results appear on four "cards," or screens, that you can swipe through to see additional news, and a market overview. Those of you … Read more

Mozilla lifted the lid off Firefox for Android earlier this week, but what's the big deal? Oh, just that this is Firefox's most important mobile appearance since browser-maker Mozilla began its mobile project, notably as the Minimo browser for Windows Mobile 5 and 6, and later as Fennec for Windows Mobile 6. (Mozilla later dropped Windows Mobile support when Microsoft began work on Windows Phone 7.)

There's also the fact that Firefox offers a couple of unique mobile components, like its signature add-ons convention, as well as Firefox Sync, which gives your smartphone access to URLs that … Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--Sony Ericsson didn't offer any new phones at CTIA 2011, but we did get the chance to handle the official Verizon Wireless version of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. What's more, Sony Ericsson also revealed that the gaming Android phone will land in the United States either late next month or in early May.

In fact, Verizon Wireless may be the first carrier in the world to get the Xperia Play. Rogers in Canada may beat it with a release of the GSM handset on April 14, but either way it means that North America will … Read more