We are only minutes away from showtime here at the new BlackBerry 10 launch event in New York City and in cities around the world London, Dubai, Toronto, Paris and Johannesburg. The press has filed in and the anticipation is building. The show is about to kick off with a montage of guests and interviews from excited fans, analysts and media from around the world. It has definitely been a spirited journey and a fantastic build-up to launch – check out a few of the stories being highlighted.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

There you have it – I definitely echo the host’s sentiment when he said, “I hope after today Lil’ E can get some sleep.” Stay tuned – all your BlackBerry 10 launch news is coming up next. Are you excited? Be sure to leave us a comment telling us your journey to BlackBerry 10.

So how do I handle being out of communication for my whole day off? By planning ahead. I use my BlackBerry Bold smartphone to turn on my Out of Office notifications, set up an all-day appointment on my calendar, and then run out to face the day with reckless abandon. (But just for one day. I’m not that crazy.)

Getting directions somewhere without GPS navigation or remembering appointments without my calendar is difficult, and I can’t always make it the whole day without taking a peek at my email. But overall it’s a nice break from technology, and makes me appreciate the help my device provides that much more.

What would you do if you took a BlackBerry day off? What kinds of things do you find more challenging without technological assistance? Let me know in the comments below!

One of the best things about my job at BlackBerry is that I get to learn about the tremendous impact our products have on the lives of consumers and developers all over the world. From Saratoga Springs, USA to Phalaborwa, South Africa, BlackBerry devices have found their way to the farthest reaches of our great planet.

Africa is such a fascinating region for us. As an emerging market, you might be interested to know that mobile adoption in Africa is projected to reach 85 percent, or 950 million subscribers, in the next three years. To put that into perspective, that’s more than three times the entire U.S. population!

What’s really cool is that in South Africa, BlackBerry devices maintain a 70 percent market share. According to researchers at Ovum, this is largely the result of high-quality apps – like BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), a favorite in the region – and app stores like the BlackBerry App World storefront.

There are so many ways to engage with markets around the globe. A great place to get started is by following the BlackBerry Europe & Africa communities on Facebook or YouTube.

Is there an emerging global market that interests you? Let us know in the comments below.

From all of our conversations on our LinkedIn® Group and Company Page, Twitter®, and here on the blogs, we know that you’ve been patiently waiting for a LinkedIn app for your BlackBerry® smartphone. Today we’re excited to announce that the day has come! A free LinkedIn app for smartphones running BlackBerry OS 6 and 7 is now available for download; get it here.

With LinkedIn, you can put your professional network at your fingertips. The new LinkedIn app for BlackBerry smartphones lets you access many of the LinkedIn features that you love from the desktop experience and stay connected while on the go. Read on for an overview of the features that are included in the app.

Note: Thanks for your excitement in LinkedIn 2.0! Please be aware that it may take up to 24 hours for the app to be available in BlackBerry® App World™. The LinkedIn app for BlackBerry smartphones supports all devices that are BlackBerry OS 6 or higher, and requires a Wi-Fi connection or data plan in order to function properly. Learn more about regional availability and language preferences on the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog »

Did you know that if you don’t properly shut down applications, they could be running in the background on your phone? A few weeks ago, my friends over at the Inside BlackBerry® Help Blog told you about a great utility app from Research In Motion® (RIM®) that entered beta. Well, I’m happy to tell you that the Application Resource Monitor is out of beta and has landed as a free download for those running BlackBerry® OS 7.1 in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.

This app is designed to run in the background, monitor and notify you when unused applications are running and using up device resources like memory and battery power. You can even adjust the settings to automatically shut down resource-draining apps. If you’re looking for tools that can help you get added efficiency from your BlackBerry smartphone battery, this is definitely one to add to your roster.

For more details, swing by the Help Blog and the app download page on BlackBerry App World.

Have you been using this app in beta? Let us know how you liked it in the comments.

Tell us about a #BoldMove you've got in the works. Big or small, we want to hear how you're being #Bold.  ^MS—
Research In Motion (@BlackBerry) May 22, 2012

…and for a “simple” question, we got some fantastic and complex answers. One of the most inspirational stories was from Brett Gilmore, a Montreal native who made a super #BoldMove when he traveled to Ecuador to volunteer with Free The Children. In fact, we were so impressed with his journey that we wanted to ask him some questions about the trip, the volunteering and his experiences on #TeamBlackBerry. Brett graciously shared some stories with us:

1. Do you remember buying your first BlackBerry smartphone? Tell us about it.

Yes I do, I was using a different make of phone and it died on me with no possibility of revival. For Christmas my mom gave me another smartphone but I didn’t really fancy it. I wanted a BlackBerry® smartphone, so I could have BBM™, social hookups and BrickBreaker. My mom and I discussed that having a BlackBerry smartphone would be better for me because she has a BlackBerry smartphone, and it would give her an easier way to contact me if I had one as well. We traded in the other device for a BlackBerry smartphone, and from that moment on I was hooked.

2. How many BlackBerry devices have you had? Which ones?

I have had one BlackBerry. It is a BlackBerry® Curve™.

3. We are so inspired by your #BoldMove – taking a trip to Ecuador to help communities with Free The Children. Can you tell us more about your trip?

In 2010, my brother Liam went on a humanitarian trip to Ecuador, which our school organized for the first time. I was so inspired by his recounting of the trip that I decided I had to experience it for myself. I had always wanted to go to another country to help others, and saw this as a great first opportunity since the purpose of the trip was to build a community school. I went to Ecuador with Free The Children on a 10-day trip in April 2011.

We landed in the capital of Ecuador, Quito, where we were staying for the night to get used to the altitude so that we didn’t get sick in the mountains. We also toured the city and learned about the culture and their history. The following day, we made our way to the community where we would be working to build the school. We came across many things such as rose factories, farms, and livestock, and we got to know our amazing driver Rigo and learn about his family. He was a great person and gave us more insight into the culture and lifestyle. About four hours into the trip, we came across the first school ever made in Ecuador by Free The Children. Seeing it and realizing what happens when one person takes the initiative and gets his classmates to help in the fight for social equality and justice was incredible.

It was nighttime when we finally arrived at the lodge we would be staying in for the duration of our stay. I got altitude sickness which made me sick as a dog and weak like a baby. Despite this, I pushed myself during the day because I wasn’t there for myself but for the children. Our task was to lay the foundation of the school, and we had to start by actually making the bricks! We made over 200 bricks by hand.

When we weren’t working on the school, we were participating in cultural activities such as going to the market, visiting a women’s group, and visiting the Cloud Forest. I returned to Montreal a different person. This trip inspired me to engage in different humanitarian activities and events, which became something I am passionate about.

4. We’d love to hear about a favorite memory from the trip. Can you share a picture with us and tell us about the memory?

My favorite memory from the trip is playing with the kids of the community. We played volleyball, tag, hop-scotch and marbles. Despite the language barrier, we had fun and managed to play and laugh together. The kids there are always smiling, and it made me realize that you do not need a lot of material possessions in order to be happy.

5. Are you doing or planning on doing any more trips or work with Free The Children?

I would love to. I am a big fan of the work they do in other countries and will get involved with everything I can. I am also thinking of going to Kenya or Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and work in a community there. I would also like to visit Rwanda.

6. If you could create your own BlackBerry smartphone app to help people, what would the app do and why?

I’d create an app that would be useful for people who sponsor a child in another country so that they can receive updates on the child they sponsored. They could get information such as the weather, pictures, letters, and other things. I think it would be cool because the child you sponsor will always be with you in your smartphone.

7. How do you use your BlackBerry smartphone now to help others?

I use my BlackBerry smartphone to send texts about things that are going on in our school, such as meetings for trips, senior day, the 30 Hour Famine, school dances, dress down days, as well as to get other student’s opinions on activities so that everyone has a voice in our school.

Thank you for your time, Brett, and for being on Team BlackBerry! Readers – did you respond to our call for #BoldMoves? What was your leap of faith? Let us know in the comments.

You know that feeling you get when the kids are out of school, the weather is warmer, the days are longer, and you’ve finally found your favorite flip-flops? It’s summertime! One of the greatest freedoms that comes with summer is the ability to pack up the kids for a family vacation, or even send them to camp and have a mini-vacation all for yourself. Whatever your summer travel plans entail, you’re first going to want to grab these top travel apps for your BlackBerry® smartphone or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet before leaving the house.

BlackBerry® Travel – By Research In Motion® Limited (RIM®)
This one is a must-have – and it’s free! Using the BlackBerry Travel app allows you to plan, book, and manage your travel plans by offering destination, hotel, and transportation options for finding the best price and most convenient flight times. You can also book your travel elsewhere online, and then pull your details into the app with the trip scanning feature; this gives you the whole itinerary right at your fingertips. BlackBerry Travel’s best feature? This app will notify your BlackBerry smartphone of a late or cancelled flight.

KAYAK Travel search Flights Hotels Cars Flight Status Trips – By Kayak.com
KAYAK rocks the bargain-hunting at a near mind-blowing level. Their app – which won the 2010 Gettie Award winner for best BlackBerry smartphone app – helps you to compare deals on flights, hotels, and car rentals across multiple websites for the best deal. If you like to travel on the cheap (and who doesn’t?), I highly recommend checking this app out.

Compass – A Premium GPS-based Compass – By SRID Games
Hikers, climbers, and outdoors enthusiasts of all skill levels can appreciate a good compass, and this one from SRID Games is a beauty. Using your BlackBerry smartphone’s internal GPS, Compass can help you find your way home from whatever adventure you’re returning from. This app also includes your movement speed (perfect for runners), latitude and longitude, and the direction of True North — which is perfect for trips to Canada to see your favorite OS, smartphone and tablet maker!

Navita Translator – By Navita Tecnologia
If you are headed abroad in your travels, this nifty free app Navita Translator is the perfect solution to make you seem like a local. Translator translates more than 50 languages, and can speak English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Russian from words or phrases from e-mails, web pages, SMS messages or arbitrary text typed into the software. If you need to share your translations, Translator also allows you to send translations through Twitter®, email, or BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™).

These are just a few of our favorite travel apps for summer that I collected from asking around the office, but I’d love to hear your contributions, too. How do you get the best deal, not get lost, or go native with your BlackBerry smartphone when you travel?

Photographers are a unique and highly creative bunch — they come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, backgrounds, skill levels, and styles. BlackBerry® smartphone cameras and the apps that drive them can say the same thing—that they are unique, creative, and are far from one-size-fits-all. So, what are some of the most useful photography apps for #TeamBlackBerry users? Let’s take a look at a few:

Camera Plus By WickidApps
For active shutterbugs looking to snap and email photos from their BlackBerry smartphone in batches, WikidApps’ Camera Plus can be a big help. This app allows you to capture, preview and email up to 25 photos or about 5MB of data. Camera Plus also allows you to preview and remove individual photos from an album, then email the album off to a recipient. One caveat to this app: Sending large amounts of data may result in extra charges not covered by your data plan, so consult your agreement before utilizing Camera Plus through your wireless carrier.

Simple Depth Of Field Calculator By Arvinder Channey
In photography, Depth of Field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image. Arvinder Channey’s Simple DOF Calculator for BlackBerry calculates Depth Of Field, Near Depth of Field, Far Depth of Field and Hyperfocal distance. It also supports a variety of camera formats and does not require a keyboard to operate. This app is not for the casual photographer, but if you’re looking to move from amateur photographer into semi-pro, you may want this in your toolbox.

FlickrShow By Motek Americas Inc.
FlickrShow (formerly Screen Charger) is a fun little app for showing off your photography on your BlackBerry smartphone, and it delivers a few fun options as well. For example, FlickrShow replaces the standard clock screen that you see when you start charging your phone battery with pictures publicly available through photo-sharing site Flickr® and controlled by parameters that you set (no Flickr account required). You can include photos by user, tags, location and more to create a pretty sweet slideshow. This app also rocks because it’s free!

If you use these apps on your BlackBerry smartphone – or have suggestions for others – please share them here or, better yet, post a photo!

1. Extending BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) to your BlackBerry PlayBook

The BlackBerry Messenger experience on your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet features an enhanced interface and solid functionality. If you’re using your tablet and a BBM message comes into your BlackBerry smartphone, simply pop open the BlackBerry Bridge folder on your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and tap “BBM” to read it. I particularly find BBM via BlackBerry Bridge on my BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to be useful for viewing photos, voice notes, or files sent to me from BBM contacts.

2. Stay connected without Wi-Fi®

It’s a pretty connected world out there with Wi-Fi at work, home, coffee shops, and airports. When you’re on the move, however, it’s important to stay online without skipping a beat. Thanks to BlackBerry Bridge, my BlackBerry PlayBook tablet comes with me and remains connected the entire time through the wireless radio on my BlackBerry smartphone.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog »

Hi, I’m Ryan. I’m a Hardware Engineering Technician in the Hardware Support Lab at Research In Motion® (RIM®). Today, I’m going to give you an inside look at the testing we do during the development of your BlackBerry® smartphone to help ensure it lives up to the high standards that BlackBerry is known for. Our team works to make sure that your BlackBerry smartphone is both durable and reliable – which basically means we try to break them so that you, #TeamBlackBerry, would be hard pressed to do the same. =D

Your BlackBerry smartphone is your connection to your friends and family. It is your lifeline, and we want it to always stay in operating condition so that you can stay in contact with the important people in your life. So when you accidentally drop your BlackBerry smartphone, or sit on it, or spill your morning coffee on it, we want it to keep working.

So how do we work to ensure that your BlackBerry smartphone will keep working? Well, we drop them, bend them, shock them, soak them and zap them…a lot. We also do some nerdy things like reading digital signals to make sure everything is speaking the right language – they look like this:

Cool, eh? Yeah…not really, but it is helpful for our team. This video is a bit cooler:

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]
*Filmed using my BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet

You’re probably wondering why we dropped that BlackBerry® Curve™ 9360 smartphone in a bucket. It’s called a “Moisture Ingress Test” and it’s one of the many important tests that we perform on your BlackBerry smartphone to make sure that it lasts. The water contains a dye so that we know where water can enter a BlackBerry smartphone; with this info, we can improve the device’s water seal.

Allow me to run through a few of the other durability tests we perform on BlackBerry smartphones:

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]

BlackBerry Smartphone Drop Testing

Dropping your BlackBerry smartphone is one of the toughest things you can do to it. It’s also one of the most common mishaps that we all make (sometimes I wonder if there’s butter on my fingers!). Just like you, we drop our BlackBerry smartphones…only we do it intentionally.

Every BlackBerry smartphone model gets dropped hundreds of times before the hardware is deemed strong enough for mass production and consumer use. When dropped, the BlackBerry smartphone is filmed using high-speed cameras for review and analysis that could lead to revisions in hardware design to make the device stronger and more durable. Every design revision is then tested to make sure it can endure consumer use – whether that’s on a construction site, in the boardroom, or downtown with your friends.

In the video above, you’ll notice a BlackBerry® Curve™ smartphone being dropped. We recorded this with our high-speed camera at 2000 frames per second! You may have noticed the wave that the impact sent up the casing on the side of the device. Did you know that the BlackBerry smartphones are designed to do that? By allowing the device to bend, we are able to absorb the shock from the concrete into the plastic… just like a shock absorber on a car!

BlackBerry Smartphone Bend Testing

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]
*Filmed using my BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet

Not only do we drop BlackBerry smartphones, we bend them too! Check out this video of my co-worker bend testing a BlackBerry smartphone. Why are we bending this poor smartphone? Well, many people like to keep their smartphones in their back pocket and sometimes, unfortunately, they sit on them. This test makes sure your BlackBerry smartphone can withstand the pressure of your posterior.

More BlackBerry Smartphone Tests

Do you love the keypad on your BlackBerry smartphone? We push the keys on BlackBerry smartphones literally millions of times to sure they click with the right pressure and can withstand all the e-mails, BBM™ messages and tweets that you type. Have you ever been shocked by a door handle? Your BlackBerry smartphone has been too! We zap them with what is called an Electrostatic Discharge, or ESD, to make sure that the sensitive internal components are protected.

I hope you all see how committed RIM is to making your BlackBerry smartphone the strongest and most reliable smartphone available. We definitely enjoy what we do in the Hardware Support Lab, but we also enjoy hearing how what we do is making your BlackBerry experience better. Tell us your BlackBerry smartphone durability stories in the comments below!