The Download Blog

Research In Motion has begun soliciting applications for the BlackBerry Application Storefront, which is due to go live in March.

Submissions for applications opened on Monday. RIM announced in October that it would be launching an app store in March of this year, a move that will bring it in line with rivals such as Apple, Google, and Palm, each of whom has or is about to launch their own on-device app stores.

The vendor guidelines listed on RIM's Web site make it explicit that the Canadian handset manufacturer "reserves the right to accept, deny, or remove any application from the Storefront, at any time." However, it is not yet clear precisely how much control RIM intends to exercise over which applications are chosen for listing--the closest points of comparison being the iPhone App Store, over which Apple retains control, and the Android Market, where Google has a notably low barrier to entry.

RIM is working with PayPal on the payment mechanism for the Storefront. Organizations will also be able to roll out applications to BlackBerry-toting workers. Those using BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BlackBerry Professional Software will be able to control which applications their workers are able to download.

Mobile operators will also be able to put their own customized application catalogues on BlackBerry smartphones.

Developers who successfully get their mobile applications into the Storefront will get to keep 80 percent of their revenue, whereas those selling applications for Apple's iPhone or Google's Android handsets get to keep 70 percent of revenue.

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Microsoft Research on Thursday is releasing software that gives musicians, both casual and professional, a new way to speed up song development. Called Songsmith, the $29.99 application creates musical accompaniment based on whatever is sung into the computer's microphone.

In order to do this, the software processes the pitch and tone of what's recorded and lets users hear how it might sound if they had a little backup in the form of a virtual piano, drums, and keyboard. Microsoft is expecting them to use the new track either as inspiration for further song development or as a simple way to create karaoke-quality recordings for friends and family members.

The software lets users change the feel of a song completely using various sliders that adjust mood, volume levels, tempo and what instruments are being used. Users are also able to purchase additional instruments from Garritan for a small fee that can drastically change the way a track sounds. Each purchased instrument comes wrapped in a special installer that automatically adds it to Songsmith. Dan Morris of Microsoft Research tells me there may eventually be a marketplace for other sample providers, although for now the software is using it exclusively because of its the only compatible format.

Songsmith lets you simply sing into your computer's microphone to hear what it would sound like if you had a back-up band.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Songsmith is starting out as a digital download only, and will be available from Microsoft's recently launched digital downloads store front. Morris says there are no current plans to make the software part of a larger suite of music oriented products from Microsoft. Competitor Apple has offered a slightly similar feature in its Garageband software that gives you virtual band mates that can accompany you as you record music with an in-line microphone, however each of the instruments must be programmed by the user.

One interesting thing to note is that the technology is fully capable of providing automated accompaniment in near real-time. Morris says the only hurdle there is that the programming does all its magic by seeing where users are going with a melody and compensating accordingly. Morris also says a Web based version of the software could be possible later on down the line, although development in that area has been slowed down due to latency and recording quality bottlenecks.

Embedded below are before and after clips of what Songsmith is capable of. As mentioned before, to change the sound of this song users simply need to adjust a slider or two.

New mobile app stores launched by Apple, Google, and Research In Motion could shift the balance of power in the mobile market away from wireless operators and toward device and platform developers.

Until recently, wireless operators served as the gatekeepers of what content and applications made it onto mobile phones. Now mobile platform developers such as Apple, Google, and Research In Motion are providing marketplaces where consumers can get access to thousands of new applications tailored specifically for each of these device platforms.

On Tuesday, Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, became the latest device maker to announce it will offer an application storefront branded specifically for its own operating system.

Earlier this summer, Apple made headlines with the launch of the App Store, an online marketplace of games and other software designed to run on the iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

More than 3,000 applications are currently available, and Apple has said that users downloaded more than 100 million applications between the site's launch on July 11 and the beginning of September.

Google followed with its own application store for phones that use its Android operating system. The first phone, called the G1, will go on sale Wednesday on T-Mobile's network in the U.S. And the on-device application marketplace will also go live with it.

For developers, these new storefronts should make it easier to develop and distribute applications. For consumers, it means more choice in applications. But for operators, it means ceding some control over what applications make it onto their phones to other companies.

"The big picture trend is that mobile carriers are playing less of a central role in the marketing and distribution of individual applications," said Charles Golvin, a principal analyst with Forrester Research. "It's analogous to what happened on the Web. People initially accepted the walled garden of AOL, but as they became more skilled users they found that to be too restrictive."

To a certain extent, wireless operators appear to have accepted the trend. Verizon Wireless, which has developed a new open network initiative to speed up certification of devices and applications running on its network, claims that it is happy to allow new applications and services on its network, since ultimately it will drive network usage.

"We want users to bring any device or application to the network that they want," Eric Reed, vice president, Market Issues and Policy for Verizon, said during a panel discussion at the Consumer Electronics Association Industry Forum in Las Vegas on Tuesday. "That is what our open development initiative is all about."

But it's clear that carriers don't want to give free reign to application developers to put anything on their network. Wireless operators still insist there needs to be certification.

"We also have a responsibility to make sure that these applications and devices don't crash the network or hurt the user experience," Reed added.

That said, Forrester's Golvin believes that wireless carriers see the writing on the wall, and they realize they must be more open to new applications if they hope to drive usage on their networks.

The danger for wireless operators is that by ceding application distribution to handset makers or platform developers, they are essentially making themselves into dumb pipe providers. This is a wireless operator's worst fear and one they have already begun to see play out in the broadband market.

But Reed of Verizon said he still expects wireless consumers to come to Verizon for applications, too.

"There is not a one size fits all solution here," he said. "There will be multiple business models."

RIM has also acknowledged that there will be multiple ways for consumers to get applications. And it will continue to work with its carrier partners to provide on-device application centers that are created by the carriers to help promote application downloads. These centers will allow each carrier to offer a catalog on the device so that customers can discover and download applications.

Our hardworking colleagues at CNET have been in the thick of the action at the CTIA wireless show this week and we figure Crave readers will want in on the fun, too.

(Credit: RIM)

In case you haven't seen, today Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry, made a whole slew of announcements about bringing popular consumer applications to the device. It already has Facebook for BlackBerry, but now RIM is expanding.

• As CNET News reported earlier this week, Microsoft Live Search will be integrated with the BlackBerry Browser.

• BlackBerry users will now be able to schedule their TiVo recordings from their phone, and in the future, view those recordings from a BlackBerry. (Possibly stealing SlingPlayer for BlackBerry's thunder? Sling, by the way, said today SlingPlayer for BlackBerry is on track for release later this year.)

• RIM is also apparently not playing favorites: it will be offering a MySpace app for the BlackBerry as well.

• There will be a customized TicketMaster app for RIM phones, which means users can buy tickets right from their phones.

• And last, RIM is partnering with Internet radio site Slacker to allow BlackBerry users to make customized music channels. Phone owners can also store up to 1,000 songs on the device.

For full details on each application, see Maggie Reardon's article at CNET News.

You might be enjoying the dog days of summer now, but look out! The school year is just around the corner, and teachers, books, classes, and winter will be here before you know it. Get a jump on the upcoming school year with a collection of downloadable software for communicating with classmates, managing your homework, learning new study skills, or harnessing the reference power of the Internet. You can even find software to let you call your parents free from college. (Seriously, your mom wants a call.)

Digsby

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Facebook profiles, instant-messaging networks, various Web mail accounts...who can track them all? With Digsby, all you need is one, simple application that lets you update your social-networking statuses, manage and send e-mail, and chat with your buddies from a single interface. The powerful package uses a lot of system memory, but Digbsy's approach may be the future of socializing online.

StudyMinder Homework System

(Credit: CNET Networks)

It's always fun to head back to school to reunite with all the classmates you missed over the summer. And then comes the homework...and the research papers...and art projects...and the science fair. Academic commitments only get more complicated as you advance through your school years, and it's best to master your schedule as soon as you can. The publisher of this feature-packed organizer also offers a Lite version for free as well as a portable version that can be run off a U3 drive.

Typing Master Pro Typing Tutor

(Credit: CNET Networks)

What was once a simple but valuable skill has become an utter necessity. The keyboard might not be around forever in its current incarnation, but the rise of technology has made it imperative for all students to master the standard QWERTY setup. Regardless of whether you're writing assignments by hand, the sooner you learn to type the better. This top-rated app includes well-designed lessons, games, and personalized exercises to teach or improve skills.

Graph

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Ah, math class. What better place for a nice, quiet nap...what's that? You like math?! Then this free software for drawing graphs of mathematical functions might be right up your alley. The program includes a vast number of predefined functions, and it's easy to add your own. It also calculates length and area of functions, as well as first and second derivatives.

WordWeb

(Credit: CNET Networks)

You might think that the Web has rendered offline dictionaries moot, but that might be a fallacious supposition, at least according to the publishers of the top-rated dictionary software WordWeb. The software can use an Internet connection for expanded functionality, but most of its power is built right in. With a intuitive, integrated interface and database of more than 150,000 root words and 120,000 synonyms, WordWeb is one freeware app that every aspiring writer should check out.

Google Earth

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Ever since Google bought Keyhole's satellite software and merged it with its own mapping software to create Google Earth, citizens of the planet have been provided with amazing photos and valuable geographic information. Start with a view of the entire planet, then manually zoom into any country or city you like, or just type in a name of a location. Version 4 added 3D models of real buildings and structures to the program, and users can even create and submit their own using Google Sketchup.

WorldWide Telescope

(Credit: CNET Networks)

While Google has the Earth's most excellent reference, Microsoft takes the prize for information and imagery from across the universe. The recently released and fabulous freeware WorldWide Telescope is the most ambitious attempt to bring the power of massive space- and ground-based telescopes onto your PC. Along with the incredible pictures of black holes, nebulae, and radiation clouds, you can take guided tours of celestial objects led by eminent astronomers and educators.

WikidPad

(Credit: CNET Networks)

For users accustomed to onlike wikis like the Web service Wikipedia, this freeware app is a great find. Whether you're into comparative literature or computer programming, you're going to need to take and organize notes. The big bonus with WikidPid is that, like Wikipedia, you can link notes from one to another in various paths. If you find it works well for academic classes, it's easy to use the software to track information, schedules, and news for athletic teams, community projects, and other personal pursuits. Wikid cool!

Zotero

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Research in the 21st century doesn't involve as many card catalogs, microfiche machines, reference books, or 3x5 index cards as it once did. Today, online research is the name of the game, but recording and citing sources is still as important as ever. This free add-on for Mozilla Firefox puts that source information directly into your browser, while letting you add and manage related notes. The open-source app also lets you save search queries and store full Web pages or PDF files.

Skype

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If you're far away from home at college on a budget, an Internet connection and a PC are all you need to talk to friends and family around the world for free. This revolutionary VoIP software lets users talk between computers for free and charges a reasonable fee to call landlines. You'll need to find a serviceable microphone and get used to occasionally spotty call quality, but the long-distance savings will add up quickly.

Microsoft's Research group announced an Internet Explorer 7 plug-in called SearchTogether on Wednesday that turns Web searches into a group activity.

The plug-in lets people set up what amounts to search chat rooms, in which a group of people can jointly peruse search results. Users can chat, annotate specific results with comments, ratings, and recommendations. Members of a group also can return later to view the annotated search session.

The SearchTogether browser plug-in provides an interface that looks like this illustration from a 2007 paper on the collaborative searching technique. At far left are notes about the joint session; in the central pane, search results are interspersed with annotations and thumbs-up or thumbs-down ratings; in the upper right is an instant-messaging window; and in the lower right are the search results themselves.

(Credit: Microsoft)

It also lets people perform a "split search," in which results are divided among different users in separate browser tabs. Many hands make light work, as the saying goes.

Unlike Wikia Search, the service doesn't actually alter search engine results.

But Microsoft clearly has the idea in mind, at least for adjusting the results particular users see if not the general list.

"There are changes to underlying search engine algorithms that could take advantage of the knowledge of a group," said Meredith Ringel Morris, the project leader and a member of Microsoft's Adaptive Systems and Interaction group.

"Groupization takes the idea of personalization techniques for customizing a list of search results to an individual and customizes a list of search results to a group, based on information you know about each member of the group. You can either exploit similarities among all the group members, to bubble up search results that would be most relevant to the group as a whole. Or you could exploit differences among the group members, send portions of the search results to different people in the group based on what you can automatically determine is their specific area of expertise.

Google, too, is exploring personalized results, though not among members of a group. For users who sign up for a service, Google tailors search results based on a person's browsing history.

Microsoft gives a quick walk-through of the technology on a video demonstration (WMV file) in which a family collectively browses diabetes search results.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If you've ever done a search on Wikipedia.org, you know that as you read a particular article there are hundreds of links to related items that are incredibly hard not to click on. In my experience, I'll go into Wikipedia with a specific goal in mind only to find myself reading something completely different 20 minutes later. While this could be because of my desire to see it all, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say some of the most interesting Wikipedia pages are the ones you stumble across you never would have known existed otherwise. Unfortunately, clicking around on links is not conducive to getting your originally planned research done.... Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--BlackBerry's users, often referred to as "CrackBerry" addicts, will now have easy access to the popular social-networking site Facebook.

The two companies, which have been working in secret for the past six months, announced Wednesday that they have integrated the Facebook Web application with Research In Motion's Blackerry smartphones.

Mike Lazaridis, founder of RIM, joined Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook, to formally unveil and demonstrate Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones at the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment show here.

T-Mobile USA will be the first mobile operator to provide the software application to subscribers, the companies said. The application, which will come preloaded onto all T-Mobile BlackBerry smartphones, will be free.

"By integrating Blackberry's push technology with Facebook's networking technology provides a real-time social-networking experience away from the desktop," Lazaridis said.

Lazaridis demonstrated how easily pictures could be sent to a Facebook page from a BlackBerry Curve. Without even opening the application, a BlackBerry user can take a picture and instead of e-mailing or sending the photo by MMS to a friend, he can go directly to his Facebook mobile page, add captions and even tag the photo. Then with the click of a single button, the picture is uploaded to the Facebook page where anyone can see it.

Friends who are also using the integrated BlackBerry/Facebook application can be notified immediately that a new picture has been added. These alerts can even be customized with unique tones so that BlackBerry users know who has just messaged them. The application is also integrated into BlackBerry's address book, so that BlackBerry users can invite contacts to become Facebook "friends."

It makes sense for Facebook to work with device makers to integrate its application into more phones. As a new smartphone user, I've noticed that it can be a real pain in the neck to access Web applications I access all the time on my desktop.

It's also very telling that the young Facebook, which was started by a couple of college kids, is partnering with a company that got its start catering to the stodgy world of Wall Street bankers, government middle managers, and corporate lawyers. Even seeing the founders of the company on stage together was a symbolic look at where the future of the Internet and mobile industry are going. Moskovitz, who quipped when he came on stage that he was drinking Red Bull and eating Hot Pockets four years ago in a dorm room at Harvard, looked like he could easily be Lazaridis' son or dare I say even grandson.

Indeed, Facebook is not just for students anymore. A year after the company started letting anyone join the network, Moskovitz said that more than half of the nearly 50 million registered users of Facebook are not in college or high school. When he asked the packed hall in San Francisco's Moscone Center how many people had a Facebook profile, nearly every hand in the room went up.

"It's really exciting to see the business community using this communications platform," he said. "Opening the application to more users and developers is really the cornerstone of our growth."

But RIM is also trying to expand its market with new products geared toward more casual users. The BlackBerry Pearl has been dubbed a perfect phone for "soccer moms" who need to check e-mail on the go. And the BlackBerry Curve, which is loaded with multimedia functionality to rival Motorola's Q, the Samsung Blackjack, and other "lifestyle" smartphones, is also geared more to the mass market than the hardcore business user. While the Curve is no Apple iPhone, it certainly shows where the market is headed. The Facebook application is another indication that BlackBerry is trying to hit professionals who want to meld their work lives with their professional lives.

Googalyzer adds research and writing tools to a conventional Web browser.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

What's your method for research on the Web? If I'm involved with a project that requires searching a lot of sites, I'll probably have a couple of programs running on my Mac, including a browser and some sort of word processing program or text editor.

If I need an outline, I might open another window in my word processing program and set it up there. Taking notes would probably involve opening yet another window for cutting and pasting and adding my own comments. While my usual method is functional, I can tell you from experience that sifting through all the open windows can make things pretty confusing.

I recently found a program that makes the whole process easier. An elegant Mac app called Googalyzer gives you a Web browser with useful search tools, a way to organize separate projects, and a word processor--all within the same interface. You can drag the vertical split-view divider to the right to add, subtract, and manage projects you're working on, while dragging the horizontal divider opens up writing, bibliography, and outlining tools.

With the Googalyzer running, you can work with information off a particular Web site to create an outline, or quickly switch to writing mode without ever switching windows. Searches are made easy with icons across the top of the browserlike interface, which let you choose common Google search filters like News, Images, blogs, or books relating to your subject.

If you have a paper to write or some other type of research, I recommend giving Googalyzer a try. Having all your information in one interface takes much of the confusion out of the process.