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Whether it’s participating in an office-only contest or by joining forces with AT&T to throw an American Idol sweepstakes, many Simplexity (the parent company of Wirefly) employees are enjoying the guilty pleasure of keeping up with the show. Check out this cube photo snagged from our sales team: You can get into the spirit as well by [...]

We're following breaking developments of RIM's BlackBerry BIS service being down all across the country.  From what we can gather, the outage started late this morning, and worked its way from a minor inconvenience to a very serious nationwide outage.  BES is not impacted, however for those using BIS, it stretches across all of the carriers.  For most subscribers, internet service works fine but e-mail is down - however we have heard reports of both in a few cases.  Personally, my e-mail is down at the moment as well.

We'll keep you updated as the story breaks.  Let us know where you're at, the carrier you use, and if you have e-mail access.


Update @ 6:10PM: My service (AT&T) appears to be restored.  Anyone else?

Update @ 10:00AM: Everything seems to be restored.  Still having problems?  Let us know.

When the guy who stole an iPhone, and then emailed a pic of himself with it, got caught, there was no doubt it was a colossal mistake. In fact, I pretty much have to invoke A Fish Called Wanda here: Calling that dude stupid would be an insult to stupid people.

Now here's another entry in "Dumb Thieves Exposed" file. This one, though, is a blunder so perfect in its ridiculous precision and timing that it almost surely has to be divine intervention at work.

The headline says it all: "Mobile Phone in Kid's Pocket Calls Police as He Brags of Burglaries; Found With Hot Stereo in Hands."

The Phoenix New Times reported on a story about a Peoria teen whose mobile phone suddenly dialed the police by itself — just as the kid was talking about stealing a car stereo. [This is not an urban legend. It's a real news story. Check out the phone call for yourself here. If you're into this kind of stuff, you'll be rewarded about 4 minutes, 25 seconds into it. That's when, after long silences and murmurs, the thief's voice becomes clear. Toward the end, at around 12 minutes or so, the cops arrive on the scene. Warning: There's some cussing in here, so skip it if you offend easily. Or at least turn it down, if you're at work.]

The authorities eavesdropped on this conversation long enough to triangulate the caller's position via cell towers. They deployed a squad car to the area, and the patrol caught the teen redhanded. Seriously, he actually had the stereo IN HIS HANDS.

We've all had friends dial us by accident. Usually it means we're on somebody's speed dial and they've just sat down and butt-dialed you (like in the BlackBerry that "flips closed" commercial, below). But there's no way this thug would have the cops on speed dial. So then what? Somehow the 9, 1 and 1 buttons were magically depressed individually and in that order?

Okay, scratch stupid. This wasn't dumb, it was... just perfect.




[Speaking of cell commercials, here's my aforementioned fav of the moment.]

It's known throughout the online news sphere that Sprint employees are preparing for Palm Pre training, but we've received word that employee vacations have been frozen throughout the month of May, hinting at a potential Pre launch sometime during the month.  A similar procedure happened when AT&T and Apple launched the iPhone, so we would wager that May is a pretty strong guess.



What really has our gears turning, however, is a recent sighting of the Pre.  During a stop at the annual "Bring Your Own Wheel" race, two unknown individuals are sporting Palm Pre devices (above).  An attendee at the event happened to see the devices, stopped in to "chat" with the guys, and snapped a few pictures.  What's more, the two claim that they've used the device for several weeks, and weren't impressed with it until the most recent software updates were installed on the handset.  After all of the hype surrounding the device, words like "weren't impressed with it" don't bode well for the future of the phone.  We hope the final version won't have this problem.

What's more, they wouldn't let analysts and the media touch the device at CTIA, but there are two people toting it around in a park allowing strangers to take pictures?  What gives, Palm?

Nokia fanboys (or anyone else for that matter) that are on Verizon Wireless, take note: a tipster has informed the guys over at BGR that Nokia has plans to develop a "swiveling E71-type handset" for use on Verizon (and Engadget Mobile has received tips as well).  Launching in July/August, the phone will be running S40 (not S60, unfortunately).  Beyond that, features and specifications are relatively unknown at this point.  From what we can gather, it looks like some sort of Sidekick-esque device:



The image above is based on first hand impressions from an individual that has seen it, and is not an official picture by any means.  But it's exciting news, nonetheless!  Nice to see Nokia giving Verizon some love again.

Making it the first iDEN device with a QWERTY keyboard, the Motorola iDEN i465 has passed through the FCC, presumably headed to Sprint's Nextel (or perhaps Boost) side.  Preliminary features include Bluetooth, a VGA camera (0.3 megapixel), 1,000 mAh battery, and Direct Connect.  We do wonder - with the documented issues concerning text messaging on Nextel's iDEN network, how much of an impact is a QWERTY-centric device going to have?  On another note, however, they do get credit for expanding their range of formerly drab handsets.




Source: PhoneArena