Shares in Canada’s Research In Motion (RIM) fell on Thursday as the BlackBerry maker’s new tablet computer, the PlayBook, received desultory initial reviews.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM saw its share price shed 1.66 percent on Wall Street to US$53.92 in a market that finished slightly higher overall.
The PlayBook, which is to hit store shelves on Tuesday, is RIM’s answer to Apple’s hot-selling iPad and its first foray outside the mobile phone realm.
Photo: Bloomberg
RIM is offering three models of the PlayBook. A version with 16 gigabytes of storage will cost US$499, a 32GB model will sell for US$599 and one with 64GB will cost US$699. The prices are the same as for comparable models of the iPad.
The PlayBook features Wi-Fi connectivity to the Internet, while Apple sells both Wi-Fi and 3G versions of the iPad.
RIM says the PlayBook is the first “professional-grade” tablet and has stressed its integration with its BlackBerry smartphone, a favorite among many business users.
BlackBerry users can pair their handset with the PlayBook using a Bluetooth connection, a feature called BlackBerry Bridge, to view their e-mail, calendar, contacts or other content.
However, David Pogue, the technology columnist for the New York Times, complained in his PlayBook review that the PlayBook “does not have e-mail, calendar or address book apps of its own.”
“You read that right,” Pogue said. “RIM has just shipped a BlackBerry product that cannot do e-mail. It must be skating season in hell.”
Pogue noted that the PlayBook can play Flash video, which the iPad can’t, but its GPS does not offer turn-by-turn navigation software.
The PlayBook has a 17.8cm touchscreen, smaller than the iPad’s 24.7cm and at less than 425g, the PlayBook is lighter than the iPad 2’s 590g.
However, Pogue said that although the PlayBook “looks and feels great,” it is about half an inch too wide to fit into the breast pocket of a jacket.
Pogue and Walter Mossberg, technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, also said that while Apple offers 300,000 applications for the iPad, RIM has just a handful for the PlayBook.
Mossberg said the PlayBook is more a “companion to a BlackBerry phone rather than a fully independent device.”
“That may be fine for dedicated BlackBerry owners, but it isn’t so great for people with other phones,” Mossberg said. “I can’t recommend the PlayBook over a fully standalone tablet, except possibly for folks whose BlackBerrys never leave their sides.”
RIM co-chief executive Jim Balsillie, appearing on CNBC television, said the PlayBook is “super, super fast with true multitasking capability.”
“The most important thing for us is to have a future-proof operating platform for mobility,” he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”