The tour U2 are soon to be embarking on is brought to you by those Canadian Smartphone manufactures Research In Motion – expect to see a U2 branded handsets any day now.

U2’s 360 degree tour is backed by BlackBerry to promote their 12^th album ‘No Line On The Horizon’, kicking off in Barcelona on June 30^th this year.

The name of the tour comes from its apparent effort for the concert goer to experience an uninterrupted, unobstructed, full view, of their stage performance.

Those of you who remember the last album might recall or even purchased one of the U2 branded iPods that came out at the time. Which begs the question; Why BlackBerry and not someone bigger like Apple to back the tour? Surely greater tie-ins can be obtained elsewhere and with a more apt backer?

Questions such as those will probably relate to the economy not being all that great at the moment, in the US of A. We could always be wrong on that point, or they just missed the boat on this one.

RIM has been for the past few years trying to ever so eagerly break into the mass consumer market, with their candy bar Pearls and more recently the Vodafone/Verizon Storm backed touch screen handset.

This new move from them could very well cement this deal, or at least add a greater impression that they play nicely with consumers too along with the business world.

Just in case you were wondering when and where you might be able to catch U2 and BlackBerry on stage, the following are dates produced by Live Nation.

EUROPEAN TOUR SCHEDULE:

30-JUNE BARCELONA, SP    NOU CAMP

07-JULY   MILAN, IT                SAN SIRO

11-JULY   PARIS, FR               STADE DE FRANCE

15-JULY   NICE, FR PARC CHARLES EHRMANN

18-JULY   BERLIN, DE            OLYMPIC STADIUM

20-JULY   AMSTERDAM, NL    ArenA

24-JULY   DUBLIN, IE              CROKE PARK

31-JULY   GOTHENBURG, SE                 ULLEVI

06-AUG    CHORZOW, PL        SLASKI STADIUM

10-AUG    ZAGREB, HR           MAKSIMIR STADIUM

14-AUG    LONDON, UK          WEMBLEY STADIUM

18-AUG    GLASGOW, UK       HAMPDEN PARK

20-AUG    SHEFFIELD, UK      DON VALLEY STADIUM

22-AUG    CARDIFF, UK          MILLENNIUM STADIUM

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR SCHEDULE:

12-SEPT CHICAGO, IL           SOLDIER FIELD

16-SEPT TORONTO, ON        THE ROGERS CENTRE

20-SEPT BOSTON, MA          GILLETTE STADIUM

24-SEPT NEW YORK, NY      GIANTS STADIUM

Now, the details passed to the press today mentioned the tour is presented by ‘BlackBerry Revolutionary Production Design Revealed’. We’re not entirely sure if this is just word play, or if there is anything on the horizon named ‘Revealed’ in the BlackBerry portfolio.

We are however expecting some tie-in at a later date, with exclusive content or a limited edition branding of a handset, as the tour kicks off. As why else would there be a deal like this announced, someone has to make some money somewhere out of this.

Let’s hope it’s a BlackBerry U2 Storm handset, then we can write headlines such as – U2 Storms the charts with mobile phone tie-in.

What about a Curve or Pearl branded mobile, in order to produce such gems as – U2 launches a Pearl of a handset or Curve your mind around U2’s new phone.

A posting over at Gizmodo via the original source of a Tmonews forum item has a leaked image of the RIM roadmap, with a new Bold model on the horizon with a touch screen in a slider casing.

There’s nothing much more to tell other than what the picture above shows, but still it’s an interesting rumour none the less.

In all practicality, we can’t really see the benefit of a touch screen in the Bold’s current housing. Unless RIM are open to crosspollination of their range, which they might very well be if the latest phone is anything to go by.

With the Curve 8900 we’ve seen the old model Curve from last year updated, to house a screen of the current BlackBerry Bolds likening.

Working on that principal and that principal alone, perhaps a screen somewhere in between the Bold and the Storm could be of use in this supposed new handset.

Seeing as it’s also designated to be housed in a slider format this could be much more of a feasible solution.

Of late we’ve seen the BlackBerrys break out of their corporate monstrosity mould, to adopt a much more consumer focussed design.

One model of phone they haven’t actually brought to market yet is a slider, so perhaps the concept isn’t as wild and unbelievable as it first appears to be.

A few years back you wouldn’t have believed RIM would have produced a candybar shaped mobile any more than you would have believed a full touch screen handset, minus a keyboard.

Even the thought of a flip phone wouldn’t have made sense to most, now look at the sales. It’s actually doing rather well.

With a product codename of ‘Pluto’ we’re guessing the rumour this model’s design isn’t so out-of-this-world after all.

BlackBerry Curve 8900 - titanium - Carphone Warehouse

The BlackBerry Curve got its launch today, not exclusively with the Carphone Warehouse as we were told by them nearly three weeks ago.

A press release arrived today from O2, around the same time CPW were announcing to the media their launch. Which they initially stated was an exclusive deal with Research In Motion on the new Curve 8900.

After we spoke to them, they were in puzzlement over the O2 announcement as a few weeks back they officially put in writing to us the BlackBerry 8900 was being solely sold with them. In fact, we were the first to tell them today it is also going to O2 as well.

It has now come to light the deal may have changed since we published those details many many weeks back.

Carphone Warehouse clarified all this by putting out a press release today informing the media they will now be selling the SIM free 8900, only with a different colour finish in ‘titanium’.

This is despite the O2 version of the phone looking exactly the same in every way shape or form as the CPW counterpart.

BlackBerry Curve 8900 - O2

We called to confirmed the image supplied by Carphone Warehouse was correct and the image supplied by O2 was also correct – both came back in the affirmative.

Even handsets they’re shelling out to the media and showed off at the launch today were the exact same ones as the O2 models; in fact the link on CPW website here just confirms all of it. Curiouser and Curiouser!

Just as we were writing this up T-Mobile has announced they’re having a press briefing this Thursday over the BlackBerry Curve 8900 arriving with them. What’s the betting the phone will look the same there too?

Also, just to make matters worse when we spoke to T-Mobile’s PR company they thought the Javelin and the Curve 8900 were two different handsets. D’oh!

O2 have said the pre-registration for the phones open up on the 10th of December, with pre-ordering kicking off from the 22nd on their website – with the handset arriving on the 5th January. All at a cost ranging from free to £234, on selected tariffs.

Whilst the Carphone Warehouse will beat them hands down, as the phone will be in their shops nationwide on December 20th, three weeks before O2 will have there’s. Although they haven’t offered up any pricing as yet, but we’ll keep you informed of those developments within time.

If you weren’t already aware, the Curve 8900 is their thinnest BlackBerry handset to date. It arrives with all the features you expect from them, whilst also being Quad-band with WIFI onboard.

It comes along with a 2.4-inch 480 x 360 pixel HVGA+ display coupled with a 3.2 megapixel camera, all weighing in at 110 grams and its dimensions measuring up to 109 x 60 x 13.5 mm. With a battery life of 5.5 hours talk time and 356 hours/15 days of standby.

Let’s hope the mess of who has what, what has who and when’s when is sorted out by the time they arrive.

In an exclusive deal with the Carphone Warehouse, RIM’s latest handset the BlackBerry Curve 8900 hits the stores on December 20^th.

Yes, that’s right folks you read it here correctly ‘the latest handset’. Gone are the days of the Storm this, the Storm that – the Storm has officially passed.

Now it’s time to turn our much deserved attention to the up coming arrival of the Blackberry Curve 8900, formally known as the Javelin.

The other week be brought you the ground breaking news of its arrival in der fatherland. We can now officially confirm from a spokespersons at Carphone Warehouse that it’ll be in the shops just in time for Christmas. Ideal for those last minute shoppers, saving them a trip to the petrol station at midnight.

This new Curve is set to have all the abilities of the first, only building on the technology of the Bold by including its visual experience with its screen.

We’ve been told it’s a worthy follow-up to the original, with a smaller form factor than the first outing and with WIFI now onboard.

No tariffs or pricing as yet been made available, although we’ve been told it will be around from SIM free. Wahooo! .

Keep your eyes peeled on their website for more info at – www.carphonewarehouse.com

The glorious magnificent Curve 8900 AKA Javelin has just hit Germany, on T-Mobile. TBC for the UK.

RIM’s been a busy bee of late, with the Flip, the Storm and now the latest rendition of the Curve.

After a quick call to BlackBerry’s press office, and yes they are still speaking to us, it appears nothing has been confirmed as yet for Blighty. We were however prompted to keep our eyes open for something perhaps next week.

What’s been described to us as ‘the old Curve, but with the BlackBerry Bold’s screen’ is looking to be a winner. It could be ideal for those not wishing to go down the exec-looking route of the Bold, and wanting to stay clear of the oncoming Storm.

The only details we’ve really seen so far on the handset relates to it being of Quad band in nature, with a 2.4-inch screen, a 3.2MP camera, with GPS and WIFI onboard.

Depending where you are in the world, WIFI wasn’t built into the Curve from last year also there was only a 2MP camera onboard.

Other than that, it’s supposedly a tad thinner this time around but it’s still blighted by lack of 3G connectivity.

Currently it’s being rolled out from 4.95 Euros, on a 2-year contract and 359 Euros SIM free.

We’ll bring you more info when we know more info to be passed along as info to you.

Mobile Pro software pretty much does everything the desktop version does, only this time on your BlackBerry. According to E*TRADE, the software has:
• Free real-time streaming stock and options quotes
• The ability to trade equities and options, including certain conditional orders
• Brokerage and bank account QuickTransfers, including those from outside financial institutions
• Live watchlists and portfolios
• CompleteView of all E*TRADE accounts on one screen
• Secure transactions backed by the E*TRADE Complete Protection Guarantee

At present this is exclusive to BlackBerry devices including the Curve and the Pearl and E*TRADE hasn’t said anything about bringing the software to any other smartphones yet. I can’t imagine we’ll have to wait too long – this looks absolutely like Windows Mobile (and iPhone) heartland.