PayPass mobile contactless payments have been making the rounds in NYC, and even found their way north of the border through Bell recently, but have both been limited to NFC-enabled phones (namely the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) (NYSE: NOK) 6131). Luckily, MasterCard Canada is launching a new tag that you can slap on the back of your BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) (NSDQ: RIMM) which enables you to pay for goods and services with a mere tap of the phone on a sensor. This four-month pilot project is likely based on Giesecke & Devrient sticker technology we saw earlier this month. While it might look like you’re just duct-taping a PayPass credit card to the back of your device, there’s a lot of wireless interference that would screw up a normal card – my guess is that this particular PayPass Mobile Tag has been insulated specifically for BlackBerry. One of the benefits of having NFC capabilities built right into the handset is that you could do more software-wise; I’m hoping there’s a BlackBerry app coupled with this tag that launches through a push notification whenever you tap to make a payment, maybe allowing you to enter a pin code to confirm a purchace. At very least, you get an e-mail with purchace details, so keeping tabs of receipts is way less of a hassle.

Anyway, interesting stuff all around – hopefully we’ll see it out of the pilot phase sooner than later.

[via CNW]

While doing some poking around in the BlackBerryOS forums today, I happened to notice something disappointing… especially for the good folks residing in Israel. Seems as though BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) App World is no longer available in the country. Paid apps disappeared first, and now, apparently free apps aren’t available either. Strange.

I know there is quite a BlackBerry community over in Israel, so this news just flat out sucks if you’re packin’ a BB and are looking for new apps. If any BlackBerry users in the country could comment or shed some light on this situation, it would be much appreciated.

Bplay is kicking off the Thanksgiving holiday ’shopping season’ with a ‘7 Days of Deals’ promotion. As each day passes, a new deal is revealed. The first day featured a buy one get one free offer… Buy EA Sports Madden NFL 10 for BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), and you get the Space Slideshow theme for free. Be sure to check the 7 Days of Deals page each and every day to see what the latest deal is. Me thinks the deals are going to get better as time goes by, no?

Again, here’s that link. Happy Thanksgiving!

Radio Shack, or ‘The Shack’ as they’d like to be called, is offering a fine plethora of sales for Black Friday.  Shoppers be on alert since some sweet, sweet handsets are going on sale here, so make sure you’re wearing running shoes, or you could end up like Mrs. Avery up there.  Don’t worry, all she broke was her hip, ankle, femur, wrist, skull, clavicle, and nose.  But she saved a bundle!

Read the full article »

For those of you who are making the pilgrimage to Best Buy Friday morning, I hope you did some working out beforehand as trying to pick up a TV or a refrigerator without any kind of preparation will not end well.

If you’re anything like me, years of being a hermit has turned your body into a soft, delicate pile of pudding.  So why kill yourself when Best Buy has a great number of handsets for sale on Black Friday.  If you can lift a bag of potato chips from your lap, then lifting these handsets should be cake!

Read the full article »

Ah, Thanksgiving.  The time where families come together to share a delicious meal and be thankful for all of life’s blessings.  Once Thanksgiving is over, that’s where the holiday shopping season begins.  Black Friday is known across America as the Friday after Thanksgiving where retailers drop prices on a lot of popular merchandise in order to get you into their stores.  Between today and tomorrow, we here at IntoMobile will be highlighting some Black Friday mobile deals that we feel would help you in planning your holiday shopping.

First up, we have Amazon’s Black Friday sales.  If you’re the type to do your holiday shopping online, they have an impressive array of deals for Black Friday:
Read the full article »

You might have caught wind of the eBay app from the BlackBerry Developer Conference – well, it’s available now for download, allowing you to watch auctions, place bids, receive notifications of being outbid right in your Messages app, and enjoy native Calendar integration for reminders. Notifications all take advantage of the new push services, so you get notified of being outbid the second it happens, not five minutes after the auction’s wrapped up. eBay for BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) works with PayPal, as you’d expect, but I wonder if there’s BlackBerry Wallet integration, too… There was talk at BBDC about the Wallet being linked to in-app purchaces. Anyway, see more of the eBay app and get downloading in the BlackBerry App World, or head over to eBay to see their other mobile offers.

Like many (including my bud Ronen over at BerryReview), I could have sworn the New York Times already had a BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) App available for download. Guess I was wrong. The app I must have been thinking about was/is for the iPhone (I have it installed on my iPhone), and it’s a pretty darn good news app. All of the Times offerings to this point have been desktop shortcuts.

If the iPhone edition is any indicator, the BlackBerry edition should be solid for anyone wanting to get their fill of the Times. Articles are downloaded to your Berry’s memory for offline viewing, which is kind of handy. Especially if you find yourself in a ‘dead zone’ with no network coverage. Content is also optimized for your BlackBerry’s screen resolution, for optimal viewing and ease of use.

To check it out, head on over to http://www.nytimes.com/bbapp from your BlackBerry, or read more from your desktop here. The New York Times BlackBerry App is available for the Tour, Storm, Bold and Curve 8900.

Note: You can check out the New York Times for iPhone App right here (iTunes link).

[Via: EditorandPublisher]

Just a late night quickie here for the BlackBerry Storm 9520 users. OS 5.0.0.341 has leaked and is available right here for download. Keep in mind this is a very unofficial release, so if you do decide to download and install, do so at your own risk. Backup your device and take all necessary precautions before you proceed. Or not.

As always if you give this a whirl, be sure to let us know if you notice any major improvements. I’ll be here awaiting your comments.

Happy OS updating!

[Via: CB]

Google Apps (a hosted service which manages corporate contacts, calendar, and mail) plugged in to BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Enterprise Server last spring, but it was targeted to mid-range companies. Well, App Connector has been updated to version 1.5, and with it has come better scaling both for larger and smaller enterprises. For the higher end, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has bumped up the per-server support to 500 from 250 devices, and for the smaller companies, Google Apps has embraced BlackBerry Professional Software, for rollouts of 30 and under.  Just keep in mind that there were rumors awhile back that RIM was going to be ditching BPS, although Unite! was the only thing that ended up getting cancelled.

You can find more info about Google Apps here or their mobile offerings over here.

[via Official Google Mobile Blog]