BlackBerry Bold 9900 Releasing end of September in Russia, Israel, Turkey, Greece, and more

Have you been wondering when the BlackBerry Bold 9900 might be hitting your country in Eastern Europe or countries nearby?  We’ve secured this screen capture from an e-mail of a RIM manager confirming the release date for the Bold 9900 would be at the end of September for Turkey, Greece, Israel, ME, and Russia.  No word on price yet, but we’d guess it to be around £399 box – similar to Vodafone’s offering.

The BlackBerry PlayBook is also said to launch in these regions around the same time as the Bold 9900.

via:n4bb

Perfecto Mobile gives free access to its MobileCloud to BlackBerry developers

 

OK full disclosure – I’m not a developer; I have not written a line of code since 1988.  Now with that out of the way, Perfecto Mobile has extended access to its MobileCloud platform to BlackBerry developers for free.  If you’re unfamiliar with Perfecto’s MobileCloud, it’s a development platform that gives you access to devices without the need to install the simulator on your computer.

As my disclaimer says I’m not a developer but this sounds like a pretty handy tool to have access to.  With the multiple types of devices a developer has to accommodate for when developing an application not needing to have multiple simulators running on your computer would be a real asset.

The MobileCloud platform also allows you to test your application across multiple networks in various geographic regions.  Currently their devices are located in Canada, USA, UK, France, India and Israel.  I can see the many benefits of this ability.

More information on the Perfecto MobileCloud

Press Release: Research In Motion Makes Lead Commitment to Second BlackBerry Partners Fund

Press Release

Research In Motion Makes Lead Commitment to Second BlackBerry Partners Fund

WATERLOO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Feb. 14, 2011) – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) and the BlackBerry® Partners Fund today announced that RIM is making a lead commitment to BlackBerry Partners Fund II, a new US$150 million independent venture capital fund focused exclusively on mobile computing. BlackBerry Partners Fund II is expected to launch in June 2011 and will have a broader international mandate than the first Fund.

“We are very pleased with the positive impact of the first Fund on our mobile ecosystem and we look forward to BlackBerry Partners Fund II bringing additional resources and support to mobile innovators in a broader range of international markets,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion.

“We are very fortunate to have RIM as an anchor investor and partner in our Fund and greatly anticipate expanding our reach and the geographical scope of Fund II,” said John Albright, Co-Managing Partner of BlackBerry Partners Fund.

The first BlackBerry Partners Fund was established in 2008 in collaboration with Research In Motion, Thomson Reuters, Royal Bank of Canada and a roster of high profile investors. The Fund has made 13 investments to-date in mobile start-ups in Canada, the United States, Israel and Ireland. The Fund brings capital, resources and domain expertise to the partnerships it forms with exceptional entrepreneurs around the world who are shaping the future of the mobile eco-system.

International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGAs) Announces Nominees

The International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGAs) has announced its nominees with 30 games in 6 categories that are being put forward for the final round of judging. The IMGAs has reviewed more than 1,400 mobile games from more than 52 countries including the USA, Ukraine, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, China, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Belgium. Participants include PhD students, researchers, artists, individual developers and the top ten mobile games publishers and developers in the world. The winners of the IMGAs will be announced at Mobile World Congress in February.

It should be interesting to see the smartphone breakdown of the winners. Will iPhone, which is known as a great gaming platform take all the awards? We might get surprised with a few titles from Nokia, considering the heavy European presence in the IMGAs.

For more about the nominees, check out the IMGA website.

Kayak Flight and Hotel Search App v2.0 Update

I was having some issues getting the previous version of the Kayak for BlackBerry app working on my BlackBerry Torch while trying to book a trip to Israel. Nikolaus let me know that Kayak just updated their app to v2.0 over the weekend with no change log. He is still having issues getting it to work on his BlackBerry Bold 9650 running the leaked OS 6.0 but it works like a charm on my BlackBerry Torch 9800.

You can pick up the new version 2.0 of Kayak at this link in App World. For some reason they have changed the download to App World only but you may have some luck with a direct OTA download at this link.

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