Orange has announced the arrival in France of the BlackBerry® Bold™, available now to companies and individuals.

This top-of-the-range smartphone is the first 3G+ BlackBerry® with live TV and GPS+ navigation capability. The versatility and ergonomics of this smartphone make it ideal for both intensive professional as well as private use. The BlackBerry® Bold™ is part of the range designed and developed by RIM.

This latest BlackBerry® solution combines all the usual features with an ultra-luminous, high-resolution screen, providing additional comfort of use, performance and reliability.

BlackBerry® Bold™ as a telephone
This new smartphone offers customers both 2G quadri-band and 3G triple-band capability (for use in the American continent).

BlackBerry® Bold™ for information, directions and entertainment
The BlackBerry® Bold™ is a high-definition mobile handset that enables users to watch live television and on-demand videos on Orange World. With access to EDGE, 3G+ and Wi-Fi networks and its 480×320 pixel/ 65,000-colour screen, the BlackBerry® Bold™ offers a high level of comfort for browsing on the internet and the Orange World portal (news, financial information, traffic information, etc.).

Read the whole article at WebWire.com.

I have always been an advocate of making donations where donations are needed. I’m not talking about the money hungry COs who dress as hobos and carry around collection cups. I’m talking about victims of poverty and natural disasters. I don’t sympathize with all who are in poverty, only with those that can’t do anything about it. If you lose all your money gambling, you should have watched 21  . Considering the recent hurricanes tearing through the lower United States, making a donation of as little as $5 helps. If you want to donate more, that’s great.

As Hurricane Gustav Hits Gulf Coast, Wireless Customers Can Use Text 2HELP Program to Send $5 Donations

Dallas, Texas, Wireless customers of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) can send $5 donations to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund by sending a text message from their mobile phones. A customer simply types the word GIVE and sends it to “2HELP” (24357). A confirmation message will arrive within a few minutes, to which the customer replies “yes” or “no”

The national Text 2HELP Initiative is a partnership between the American Red Cross and the Wireless Foundation, an industry coalition. The funds raised through the program go to the Disaster Relief Fund, which enables the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to the victims of thousands of disasters across the country each year, including hurricanes like Gustav.

“AT&T is pleased to be a participating carrier in this program” said Ralph de la Vega, president and chief executive officer of AT&T Mobility. “In addition to the generosity of its subscribers, AT&T has donated $200,000 this year to the American Red Cross for emergency relief as part of a five-year, $1 million commitment”

Read the whole article at WebWire.com.

Every little bit helps. If you just had your house torn apart by a hurricane, wouldn’t you appreciate donations made by others?

I thought this was pretty interesting. AT&T is going to be launching a solution that will enable educators to go beyond traditional classroom lectures and teaching methods.

The mobile student interactive response solution from Turning Technologies, a developer of interactive response systems, actively enhances the classroom experience for both students and educators. The solution can work within a traditional classroom environment or remotely for distance learning. Additionally, the mobile application can be used on Web-enabled AT&T smartphones, eliminating the need for clickers or other peripheral classroom equipment.

The interactive student response systems also offer the ability to:

• Create a dynamic, interactive classroom experiences, increasing student attentiveness and comprehension.
• Immediately address misconceptions of instruction, allowing for on-the-fly customized knowledge construction experiences.
• Seamlessly combine instruction with assessment, including the cumulative tracking of class and individual student results.
• Allow everyone, even the shyest of students, to become equally involved in honest, no-risk answering.
• Reinforce content via instant polling.

I don’t know how fast schools and colleges will catch onto this, but being in college myself I’d be interested in trying this out.

(via WebWire)