Items tagged with QNX
Last week we reported that Apple’s self-driving car project, code-named “Project Titan”, was experiencing a big shakeup. This week, however, it seems that Apple is trying to get the ball, or should we say tire rolling. Apple, has hired former QNX co-founder and chief executive officer Dan Dodge in order to further the project. Dodge is now part of a team headed by former Apple hardware chief Bob Mansfield. Dan Dodge at DevCon 2010Dodge co-founded QNX in 1980 as a student at the University of Waterloo in Canada. The company was sold to Harman International Industries Inc. in 2004 and then Blackberry in 2010. QNX makes connected-device systems for Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG, Ford Motor Company....
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Ford has been circling the drains in quality rankings by customers in recent years, mainly due to issues with its MyFord Touch in-car infotainment system. The touchscreen-based interface has drawn the ire of many drivers and automobile reviewers alike, and the auto manufacturer has done much of the past few years to address lingering performance and usability issues. Drivers have experienced frequent system reboots, frozen screens, and poorly-responding haptic controls — not something that driver wants to experience while the vehicle is in motion. Ford has rolled out a slew of updates to address these shortcomings, and has even taken steps to bring back physical buttons and knobs on some models...
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It's been quite awhile since anyone had much good to say to say about RIM's chances of surviving the next 12 months as an independent company, but a new interview with CEO Thorsten Heins has me hopeful. Unlike Heins' widely-publicized op/ed in the Globe and Mail a week ago, in which he sounded like a beleagured ship captain reasurring everyone that no, we haven't struck an iceberg, here he comes off as well-grounded. More importantly, he offers the best, most-concise explanation for RIM's current situation that anyone in the company has had to date. Where RIM Went Wrong The problem is actually quite simple. Back in 2007-2009, RIM was busy selling like gangbusters in the US and had focused most...
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RIM's BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps, the player that will enable the underperforming PlayBook to run Android applications, is still missing in action. However, details are starting to emerge about the limitations of the player, and they are probably going to disappoint many. The details came from a RIM presentation at Droidcon, which is part of the Eastern European Mobile Monday Developer Summit being held in Romania. We already knew that RIM was going to curate applications which can run on the Runtime player, meaning only those who "applied" for inclusion would be able to be installed on the PlayBook. But RIM's engineers explained that there are several features which will be unavailable...
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Investors and analysts agree, Research In Motion needs to do something to reinvigorate its market position and prevent legions of once-loyal BlackBerry users from transitioning en masse to Android and iOS devices. Whether the company's newly announced music service is going to do anything to stem the tide is, however, a matter of debate. The service, which entered a closed beta phase today, will run $4.99 a month. Users will be able to select up to 50 songs, which makes the service seem a dud right out of the gate, but RIM thinks it has an angle. BlackBerry Messenger Music (abbreviated BBM Music)'s hook is that it shares your music library with all of your friends, provided they sign up for the...
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Information about RIM’s first QNX smartphone, codenamed the BlackBerry Colt, have been leaked. The Colt is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2012. This new smartphone is said to have a single-core processor and lack BlackBerry Enterprise Server integration—two key features that are likely to be a disappointment to users. At a time where most high-end smartphones are moving to dual-core processors, the Colt seems to be lagging behind. Although details could change before the phone is released, BGR’s source said the internal testing that’s happening right now with the Colt is with a single-core chip. If you’ll recall, the BlackBerry PlayBook launched without...
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It certainly isn't the sort of press that RIM wants: more than 900 of its brand-new BlackBerry PlayBook tablets have been recalled. The good thing is that the faulty batch of tablets was shipped to one vendor: Staples. If you didn't buy your PlayBook from Staples you have nothing to worry about. The bad thing is there's been no official announcement from either Staples or RIM, as of yet. There's no detail on exactly what the hardware fault is, but if you did buy your PlayBook from Staples, even if you haven't seen an issue, it would still be a good idea to take a look at this list of serial numbers anyway. Update: RIM has released a statement: RIM determined that approximately one thousand BlackBerry...
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Loose lips sink ships, they say, it appears that the loose lips of a RIM representative have confirm the rumors that have been going around of late. BlackBerry's QNX platform, which will run its PlayBook tablet and future smartphones, will run Android apps as well. The video below is of a PlayBook demo from Mobile World Congress. There's a decent amount of background noise but if you listen carefully, you can here the person giving the demo say, "We'll also support Android apps" at the 14 second mark. This isn't the equivalent of a press release, but it's been believed for some time that RIM would do this. This would give them access to an Android Market with six figures worth of apps, yet by...
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