FOXNews...

“CrackBerry” addicts were looking for thumbthing to do late Monday as BlackBerry smartphones throughout North America went on the blink.

A major service outage afflicted users of the popular, addictive BlackBerry smart phones across the United States and Canada on Monday, wireless carriers said.

Officials with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless said BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. told them customers of all wireless carriers were affected.

It was not immediately clear how many BlackBerry subscribers had problems, as some users reported being able to access their service normally Monday afternoon.

The BlackBerry service, which lets users check e-mail and access other data services on their handheld devices, has become a lifeline for many business executives and is increasingly popular among consumers with models like the BlackBerry Pearl.

There was no word what caused the outage or when service would be restored.

RIM officials did not return phone calls.

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This is a mobile blog of sorts. So maybe I should do mobile news here. So from the Chicago Tribune today is a story about Motorola and how they may sell off their cell phone business...

It was shortly after Motorola Inc.'s Edward Zander declared "more Razrs" that the mantra started to backfire.

Zander, then CEO of the Schaumburg-based technology giant, was riding a stupendous crest in July 2006 when he was asked what was next for Motorola after the hit Razr mobile phone.

"More Razrs," he said. "It is something we are going to continue for quite some time."

Competitors followed suit, turning the thin, must-have phone into a commodity now found for free.

Nothing has been the same since for struggling Motorola, which said Thursday it is considering restructuring the company, including whether to separate the mobile phone division from its other businesses. That means Motorola, one of the most prominent names in technology, could exit the phone business it pioneered by seeking a buyer.

The problems for the tumbling phone division are complex, but one thing is clear: It was a fateful decision to exploit the Razr's success with a series of phones -- the Krzr, Rizr, Slvr, Q and now Razr 2 -- that mimicked the Razr's style but not its original cachet.

The company couldn't follow up with another breakout hit, market share and the stock price have plummeted, Zander left the top job in December and now the future of the company is uncertain.

"Motorola lost their way," said Karen Norkus, a senior sales representative for a Chicago Verizon Wireless store. "Customers started shying away from them because there was never anything strong after the Razr."

Customers also aren't clamoring for the Q smart phone, she said, noting that she sold three BlackBerry models on Thursday.

"Sales for Motorola's smart phone have gone down," she said, referring to sales at her Michigan Avenue store.

Aza Raskin, a Chicago software designer who recently joined the Mozilla Foundation, a Web programming concern, said Motorola seemed to rest on its laurels.

"If you talked to people when the Razr first came out in 2004, they loved how thin it was. It had a sexiness to it," he said. "It was groundbreaking but they couldn't follow up.

"So the question is, 'What comes next?'"

'Beholden' to carriers

And in Raskin's view, he would work on breaking down Motorola's reliance on providing U.S. wireless carriers with products to suit their needs, and focus on meeting consumer needs, as mobile phone-makers do elsewhere.

"The cell phone-maker is beholden to the carrier in this country," he said. "I know Motorola has a lot of cool stuff in its labs. I've seen it. But it must be frustrating because they have to make what the carriers want."

I like Motorola so they'd better get it together quick!

Labels: mobile, news

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A mural up in the ceiling. An interesting place to put a piece of art, right? The things you find at a Greyhound bus station.

Labels: cameraphone, chicago, greyhound, mobile, photograph, travel

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It's the month of May and she is walking around in a pair of snowboots. Hmm not that I know much about fashion but isn't that trend slowly dying. I don't know, but it was an unusal thing to see. She really was nice looking though.

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On board a red line train at 95th Street.

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In the Roseland neighborhood.

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On Western Avenue near 103rd Street.

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I was some where on the south end on Lincoln Park near the beaches, a little closer to the Drake Hotel. The waters looked very choppy on this day. I decided to capture that.

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Doesn't it look busy in this terminal. It was about midnight or so with people going to such places as Atlanta, Nashville, Chicago, Indianapolis, points in Florida, Detroit, and other points. I don't know why by Louisville seems like a city I'd live to visit a little more one day.

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Texarkana is one of those unusual cities that seems to start in one state and ends in the state next door. There's a Texarkana, Texas and a Texarkana, Arkansas, but on this night I didn't know which side of the state border we were on that evening.

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The terminal in "hot-lanta" was in a state of reconstruction. The terminal couldn't possibly handle the traffic that I have seen here more than once. The building looks temporary, indeed it somewhat resembles a trailor. It doesn't look like Greyhound will have new digs anytime soon.

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Waiting at the terminal to leave Dallas by Greyhound.

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Watching TV at the Greyhound terminal there in the wee hours of the morning.

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What you find at a Greyhound station.

This picture was taken at the terminal in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Probably the only sign Gov. Blagojevich doesn't have his name on!

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I was walking along the Magnificient Mile and I saw this image on the sidewalk outside of a jewelry store.

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He is the Morehouse College archivist and I took this picture of an Omega Psi Phi probate from many years back at Morehouse.

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