Blackberry

Special-Edition BlackBerry Bold 9780 for Selfridges

Filed under: Gadgets

Limited Edition BlackBerry by Bill Amberg

Bill Amberg for BlackBerry, for Selfridges. This exclusive special edition BlackBerry Bold 9780 was created by designer Bill Amberg and although it's available in six colors the yellow, shown here (the backplate) was made exclusively for Selfridges. The backplate features Selfridges' earthy mustard yellow and it comes with a matching leather case that's crafted in Europe and polished until it shines with a sleek lacquered finish. Inside the limited edition phones are the first to come with the new BlackBerry 6 operating system and (I'm assuming) come loaded with a special Bill Amberg theme. Each of the six colors is limited to ten numbered editions, the Selfridges' yellow included. £1000

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Tags: bill amberg, BlackBerry, cell phone, selfridges

"Bury" Your BlackBerry in the Sand of Los Cabos

by Alison Wellner (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets, Luxury Travel & Hotels

If you needed more proof of our pronounced love-hate relationship with our communication devices, the Marquis Los Cabos Resort invites its arriving guests to participate in a "BlackBerry Burial Ceremony."

After a de rigeur welcome drink and opportunity to avail yourself of a cool towel, you head out to the beach and bury your phone in the sand.

Now, the only thing that seems worse for an electronic device than sand burial is the dreaded toilet dunking, but luckily this ceremony is just a ritual.*

First, your smart phone is placed in a protective case -- a coffin, as it happens. Then, you must go at least ten minutes without your phone while the spa director teaches you how to massage your over-used hands. Try not to panic.

Finally, your dig out your phone -- I'm imagining a frantic, sand-flinging scene -- and then you get your phone back again to tell everyone on Facebook or Twitter what you've done.

*A note for the cautious! This ritual makes Sascha Segan, PC Magazine's cell phone editor, just a bit nervous. "In general you don't want sand or other little particles near your delicate electronic equipment and cell phones are pieces of delicate electronic equipment," he said.

"But what about the coffin?" I asked.
"How well sealed is that coffin?" he said. "I would feel much better if you put the phone in a zip-lock baggie before you bury it."

He suggests using the self-same bag that got your three-ounce liquids through airline security. And if you really want to bury your phone, the one to do it with is Casio Rock from Verizon. "That one is 100% sand proof."

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Tags: blackberry, loscabos, mexico

Gizmobies Protect Your PDA in Style

by Lisa Palladino (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets, Services

Whenever I get a new cell phone, I obsess over protecting it from every scratch, but after fruitless shopping for a case that's not too bulky or too expensive or too blah, I usually just give in to the basic black leather case. Yawn. Now that I'm finally ready to join the modern era and get myself a BlackBerry, I started noticing all the cases for those and discovered ... Gizmobies. Forgive my excitement, but now NYC area residents can buy these at the Gizmobies store in Midtown or via its online store (more below).

Made of a thin yet durable gel-like material, Gizmobies provide superior padded protection, come in tons of colors and patterns, and are thin enough that your phone or PDA slips in and out of your pocket or purse easily, yet provide a great grip so that your device won't fall off a table or your lap. You can easily change skins without any trouble at all -- they peel right off, and don't leave any residue.

I recently chatted with Andrea Balkin, who owns the New York area Gizmobies franchise, and here's what I learned: Gizmobies were started about three years ago by a successful technology start-up team with the goal of inventing a product that allowed iPod and cell phone owners to customize and protect their device but keep it pocketable and enhance its aesthetics without adding bulk or weight.

Andrea noted, "I purchased a Gizmobie for my iPhone 1G at the beginning of 2009 and fell in love with the fact that my phone, my most used possession, now felt great in my hand, looked really cool, and had excellent protection! No more ugly bright pink rubber case, which got stuck in my pocket, collected dirt in it, and looked so very pedestrian.

"I loved my Gizmobie so much that I wanted to get another one, but found that there was no place on the East Coast to purchase them. A budding entrepreneur myself, I knew that Gizmobies would be an instant hit out east -- especially in the iPhone Apple mecca of Manhattan!" And so ...

If you're in the NYC metro area, you should stop by Andrea's kiosk in the Manhattan Mall, on 6th Avenue at West 33rd Street. It features more than 130 designs, with new ones arriving regularly, for most BlackBerry phones, Nintendo DSi and Lite gaming systems, Nokia N97 mobile phone, and the Apple suite of devices; iPhone, iTouch, iPod, and Nano ($20-$25). Gizmobies for laptops are due out before the Christmas holidays.

Gizmobies offer a lifetime guarantee that allows the customer to mail the product back to the company's headquarters in Las Vegas if anything should happen to the product. Gizmobies are made in the USA.

Check out the gallery for examples of the array of patterns available, and how Gizmobies look on some popular devices.

Gallery: Gizmobies Protect Your PDA in Style

Tags: BlackBerry, cell phone, cell phones, CellPhone, CellPhones, gift, gift ideas, GiftIdeas, gifts, Gizmobies, holidays, iPod, laptop, Nintendo, PDA, phone, phones

This Year's Holiday Shopping Lesson: Lux Goes Online

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Apparel

The web isn't just for bargains. Some of the top luxury lifestyle brands in the world are turning to the internet to beef up their sales -- a must in a market where brick-and-mortar is lagging in the all-important holiday season. Giorgio Armani and Valentino Fashion Group, which have generally steered clear of the prolies shopping online, are changing their attitudes, as they have had to cope with the most severe recession in seventy years. Roberto Cavalli and Salvatore Ferragamo have joined the fray, too, both opening online stores in the past month.

In addition to younger buyers who are more comfortable skipping the store, a sense of "luxury shame" is causing many to turn to the web. The anonymity, once reserved for porn purchases, allows customers to indulge in big-ticket buys without having to endure looks of envy (or worse). If you need proof that luxury spending is going digital, take a look at Italy. This year, online sales of Italian luxury products are expected to surge 42 percent to $500 million, according to a study by Politecnico. Last year, it fell six percent for the luxury goods industry as a whole. In Italy, around 14 percent of holiday shopping will occur ont eh web, according to Deloitte's 2009 Christmas Survey.

The luxury industry's online endeavors are not limited to traditional stores, though Stefano Sassi, Valentino's CEO, notes that the startup costs are lower and that "There's a very interesting margin on e-commerce" as a result. Armani has launched applications for smartphones, including the iPhone and Blackberry and has launched a Christmas website.

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Tags: armani, BlackBerry, Christmas, christmas shopping, ChristmasShopping, Giorgio Armani, GiorgioArmani, holiday, Holiday season, holiday shopping, holidays, HolidaySeason, HolidayShopping, iphone, luxury, online retail, online retailers, online retailing, OnlineRetail, OnlineRetailers, OnlineRetailing, roberto cavalli, RobertoCavalli, salvatore ferragamo, SalvatoreFerragamo, Valentino

iPhone and Blackberry Get Dressed Up in Diamonds

by Laura Malesich (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets

This is the fanciest case I've seen yet! Not just gold in color, this carbon fiber leather case is studded with forty-two diamonds (3.2 carats total) set in 18K gold. The diamonds are VVS1 clarity and H color making Case-mate's handcrafted Diamond Case very luxurious indeed. Limited quantities are available for $20,000 each. It certainly is quite the accessory for those that already have it all...or those that just need a little extra bling.

[via Shiny Shiny]

Gallery: Case-Mate's Diamond Cases

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Tags: blackberry, carbon-fiber-leather, Case-mate-diamond-case, iPhone

Projector Keyboard

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets

More and more people are relying on portable media devices for everyday instead of desktop PCs, meaning that they have to rely on the tiny keyboards that are part of the interface of their PDA or cellphone. A standard computer keyboard would not be a practical accessory, no matter how much faster correspondence would become, but the Projector Keyboard can solve that problem. The keyboard is about the size of a small cellphone itself and projects a standard keyboard onto any flat surface, from the table at the coffee shop to a sidewalk at the park. It connects to your phone/PDA/laptop via Bluetooth and "watches" your fingers, transmitting the data back to the device you have it connected to. The red outline is visible even in bright lighting conditions and a charge allows for two hours of typing time. Price: £119 ($221).

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Tags: blackberry, bluetooth, bluetooth gadget, cellphone, gadget, keyboard, portable, portable keyboard, projector keyboard

New Hotel Luxury? No BlackBerries

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets, Luxury Travel & Hotels

It looks like the new luxury vacation might be one where they take away your little luxuries. At least, they'll take away things like your BlackBerry, which you might have considered to be a luxury item before you were answering e-mails 22 hours each day. Some hotels have instituted programs that allow guests to put their BlackBerries - sometimes dubbed "CrackBerries" for their addictive nature - into storage for the duration of their stay, thus ensuring that you have a chance to relax on your relaxing vacation.

Hotels like the Sheraton Chicago offer no charge for the service, though peace and quiet might actually be worth paying for.

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Tags: blackberry, hotel, pda, travel, vacation

Memwine, Mobile Wine Database

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

If you have ever stood in the wine store and tried to remember if you have tried a certain wine before and liked it, the new MemWine™ service can help. It's a personal wine database that can be updated via your cell phone. The database can be used on the phone or on the Internet and lets you enter details such as rating, price and tasting notes. The website is devoid of bells and whistles so that it is easier to access via a handheld such as a a Treo or Blackberry. The free service currently has a member-driven database of over 12,000 labels. You can also create a personal wines to try and wines tasted lists.

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Tags: blackberry, database, free programs, red wine, treo, white wine, wine

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