Bank Industry Woes Spill Over to RIM

Men arrested for behavior; each owes airline $36K

(NEWSER) - 'Tis the season of headaches for BlackBerry: Two Research in Motion executives got incredibly drunk on a flight from Toronto to Beijing on Monday night, prompting pilots to turn the plane, which was north of Alaska, around. They landed in Vancouver, where the men were arrested, Gawker reports. George Campbell, 45, and Paul Alexander Wilson, 38, “simply weren't listening to any direction that the flight crew was giving them,” a Canadian official tells the Toronto Star . More»

The Bold 9900: 'Does Anybody Care'?

(NEWSER) - There’s a new BlackBerry on the market, but the “the question is: Does anybody care?” Apple and Google dominate the market, and things are “not looking good” for Research in Motion, which just laid off 2,000 people, writes David Pogue in the New York Times . That aside, how’s the new Bold 9900? “Gorgeous,” and the thinnest BlackBerry yet, with a “comfortable” keyboard and a “beautiful, responsive touch screen.” It’s a great phone—yet it’s not enough to compete with iPhone or Android. More»

But will it be enough to save Research in Motion?

(NEWSER) - Research in Motion rolled out three long-delayed new BlackBerry devices today that it hopes will stem its slide toward irrelevancy. All three devices run on the BlackBerry 7 OS, and all sport touch screens. The flashiest offering may be the Torch 9850/9860, RIM’s first all-touch screen BlackBerry, but there’s also the Torch 9810, which features a slide-out keyboard, and the Bold 9900 Series, which is the slimmest phone yet to boast BlackBerry’s trademark keyboard, ZDNET reports. More»

Passes Symbian; iPhone at No. 3

(NEWSER) - Google’s Android is now the world’s most popular smartphone platform, having edged past Nokia’s Symbian in the fourth quarter of 2010. Vendors shipped 33.3 million Android-based phones that quarter, beating Symbian’s 31 million, a report out today finds. That’s good news for Android phone vendors LG and Acer, who saw sales volume boosts of 4,127% and 709% from Q4 of 2009—and for Samsung and HTC, who together shipped nearly 45% of all Android phones in the period, reports CNET . More»

(NEWSER) - Stocks ran out of gas at the open today, as investors digested a grim jobs report. The Dow and S&P were essentially flat, the Wall Street Journal reports, while the Nasdaq inched higher, on strong earnings from Research in Motion. The BlackBerry maker posted a 26% gain in earnings and was rewarded with a more than 21% share jump. The Labor Department’s latest report showed unemployment at a 25-year-high. More»