AT&T is looking to put a kibosh on the proposed merger of Sprint Nextel’s nationwide WiMax assets with those of Clearwire.

It’s funny that AT&T is putting up any kind of stink to the merger, considering that the company exists in its current state only because of several massive mergers in the past few years, including the multibillion dollar merger between AT&T and BellSouth, which put full ownership of the wireless operator under one owner, and the purchase of wireless assets from rural operator Dobson Communications last year.

The FCC, which is currently reviewing the merger, must give its blessing for the deal to be completed.

But it’s clear that AT&T is nervous about the new Clearwire’s plans. AT&T is currently still deploying 3G technology throughout its territory and is busy upgrading its existing network. But it is years away from taking the next big leap toward building a 4G network, which will use a competing technology known as Long Term Evolution, or LTE. By contrast, WiMax technology is available and working today. And regardless of the outcome of the merger, Sprint expects to launch its first WiMax deployments in September. What’s more, devices supporting WiMax have already been developed and will hit the market by year’s end.

Sprint Nextel announced in May that it was teaming up with Clearwire to form a new joint venture that would combine both companies’ WiMax assets to create a nationwide broadband wireless network. The deal, which has been valued at about $14.5 billion, is being backed by cable operators Comcast and Time Warner, as well as Intel and Google.

While analysts still aren’t sure whether WiMax will survive in the long run as a mobile technology here in the U.S., it appears from AT&T’s latest moves that it’s at least a little bit scared that the new Clearwire network, with backing from heavyweights like Intel and Google, could get enough traction to threaten its current and future wireless business.

On Thursday, the nation’s largest phone company filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission, asking it to deny approval of the merger.

I could go on and on and on and on. But in the interest of your time and mine, I’ll only go on and on.

For me, and many others who have been to the previous Maker Faires, this weekend’s version was more like a reunion than a showcase of new projects. To be sure, there was an endless supply of new makers on hand. How could there not be with hall after hall of creative people showing off the talents, skills, and wicked good humor that is the hallmark of events like this.

But, there was also a lot on display that had been at previous Maker Faires–and other events, too, like Burning Man, Yuri’s Night, Coachella, and so forth. These days, a lot of big interactive art pieces are making the rounds of such festivals and events and some of the artists behind them, people like Michael Christian, Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito, Mark Perez, and others, are becoming known beyond the relatively insular communities they began in.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

One wonderful project was the Buscycle, a fully pedal-powered bus of sorts. You’d see it rolling by all over the fairgrounds, a happy collection of children and adults thrashing their feet, driving it forward. I had seen it sitting idly on Thursday when I visited the fairgrounds for Maker Day–a day for the makers to meet each other and get a bit of a taste for the event before they had to entertain the multitudes–and I’d wondered if it would be special. Question answered: Yes.

In one outdoor area, the Neverwas Haul was attracting a long line of people wanting to climb inside a fully steam-powered, mobile, Victorian house. If that’s a concept that boggles the mind, don’t let it: A mobile Victorian house is exactly the kind of disconnect that Maker Faire is all about.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

A fire art project called 2piR tasked people standing on a platform in the middle of a circle of propane-fueled jets to move around and set the jets off with large plumes of fire. The more they moved, the faster the jets would shoot.

But, let’s be honest: None of that matters when what you see when wandering around Maker Faire is excited kids, happy parents and young, attractive men and women dressed to the nines in period costumery.

There were hourly demonstrations of dueling Tesla coils that, with dimmed lights for full dramatic effect, would build up to a crescendo of commingled lightning bolts crackling away in front of an audience lucky enough to have wandered by at the right time.

Another project I liked was Michael Yates’ “Camp Rehab Chevy,” a collaborative effort to rebuild a very worn down 1948 Chevy truck and bring it back to life. As I found it, it was still pretty beat up and sad, but a group of people were tinkering around in the engine and inside the cab, and I had no doubt that by weekend’s end, this might well be a functional truck.

What else? Well, no story could do the event full justice. But the sublime 2piR was well worth highlighting. This is a fire art piece in which a large circle of propane tanks connected to jets shoots out plumes of fire in time with the movements of people standing on a platform in the middle. The more you move, the more the jets of fire erupt on the perimeter. As the day grew cold Saturday, many people huddled on the outside of that perimeter, hoping that the players in the middle would cause the plumes to erupt near them and warm them up. Sadly for me and my friends, the propane fueling the jet nearest us was empty.

The point of all this is that Maker Faire is a place where there is almost literally no end of wondrous attractions and terrific little finds. Tucked away in a corner of a hall, you might find some little delight that you’d never think you’d find: someone with a series of LEDs being spun around in seemingly random circles, making gorgeous patterns in the air, like Carl Pisaturo’s “Rotating Amusement Device,” or Tim Giugni’s “Shadow Dome,” a terrific exhibit which projected a shadow castle on the wall of a canvas room with a spotlight inside.

Another terrific–and very popular–attraction was the remote-control scale battleship naval wars that were being put on by members of the Western Warship Combat Club. In front of hundreds of people lined up four-deep or standing up on bleachers, these folks ran their little warships around a makeshift pool, firing BBs from ship to ship, trying to sink them. Little ships would get damaged, and then, showing no mercy, those running much bigger vessels would ram their craft into the smaller ones, all to the gasps and “Oohhhs” of the crowd.

There were huge crowds at Maker Faire 2008. While no attendance figures were known yet, there were rumors that the event's ticket pre-sales had doubled over Maker Faire 2007's. Regardless, it was clear that the event was attracting many more people than during the last two Maker Faires, in 2006 and 2007.

So, indeed, what does Maker Faire 2008 have to offer?

Those of us who live in the Bay Area might be tempted to think that this is the only place on Earth where you could find such an eclectic combination of people. Yet, as the very successful Maker Faire Austin last fall demonstrated, there are such folks in many places. What’s really needed to bring them out of the woodwork is an event that champions their creativity, glee, and interest that people of all kinds get from hours and hours of playing around with the kinds of things that Maker Faire offers.

Earlier in the day, I had wandered through the various halls and came across a terrific exhibit of aerial kite photography. An artist named Ben Peoples explained that a small camera suspended from a harness under a kite can be controlled with precise movements and with some practice, can be used to take excellent photos from high above the ground. And indeed, there was a series of the photos on display, and you would never know from looking at them that they weren’t taken by a professional with a camera in hand, maybe inside a helicopter or a plane.

This is the third year that Maker Faire has packed the San Mateo Fairgrounds with the best and brightest of the burgeoning DIY community–mobile barcalougers, dueling Tesla coils, huge Burning Man art pieces, felt masterpieces, and on and on–and there can be little doubt the success of the previous two years’ iterations led to a bigger crowd this time around.

That’s why, for example, Mark Perez’s gigantic, Life-Size Mousetrap was a massive hit this weekend, with hundreds of people lining up to watch and see if a bowling ball could make it all the way around a long path of levels, pulleys, ramps, baskets, ladders, and the like. I never actually managed to see it running because the crowds were too deep. But when I’ve seen it in place previously, at Maker Faires here and in Austin, and at Burning Man, it’s been a thrill to watch it in action.

In 2006, the first Maker Faire was a bit of an oddity, yet still attracted 20,000 people for the weekend. Last year, that number doubled and while I didn’t hear any attendance figures for this year, I did overhear someone saying that ticket pre-sales had doubled over last year’s total. All this is just the math behind the wall-to-wall people moving around the fairgrounds–most of them sporting ear-to-ear grins.

Several people were on hand at Maker Faire demonstrating what's possible with aerial kite photography, a technique in which a digital camera is harnessed and hung from a kite and then raised to shoot pictures of the ground below.

SAN MATEO, Calif.–If the hour-long traffic jam leading into Maker Faire wasn’t proof that the do-it-yourself festival being held here all weekend is bigger than ever, then maybe the huge crowds gathered around attraction after attraction was.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Colin Fahrion poses for a picture wearing a whimsical steampunk-esque bunny mask and ears. The outfit was emblematic of a popular aesthetic at Maker Faire this year.

At Maker Faire 2008, there was a very large contingent of steampunk vehicles, structures and clothing. Here, a steampunk vehicle resembling a tractor powers its way across the pavement of the San Mateo Fairgrounds in San Mateo, Calif., where the do-it-yourself festival is being held all weekend.

It’s not likely that if you’re reading this story that you’d be able to hop in the
car and make it to the fairgrounds before Maker Faire closes Sunday–at 6 p.m.–but if what you’re reading here piques your interest and you’ve never been before, mark the first weekend of May 2009 on your calendar and make a point of coming down next year. You will not be disappointed.

And that is really the message that Maker Faire sends: That there are delights for everyone, whether you’re a robotics fanatic, a Lego fan, a crafting devotee, a fire artist, a 9-year-old, or all of the above.

One of the first things that one would see when entering Maker Fair was Kevin Mathieu's LegoJEEP. The car was meant for covering with Lego bricks, and it was a huge hit with kids. However, Maker Faire security was not too happy to see children climbing on top of the vehicle, but in the spirit of the event, after security voiced its concerns, Mathieu restricted kids to standing on the ground or on the bumper. The car and the resolution to security's issues with it, were emblematic of the do-it-yourself ethos and the desire of its participants to solve problems themselves.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

The idea’s not new–Amazon.com has had a recommendation engine for years, and many online music services like Pandora, iLike, and Jango employ variations on that theme.

I filled out the survey asking what genres of music I like, and was somewhat surprised that it only offered about a dozen genres. After noting that I liked jazz, “rock/pop” (a genre so huge as to be basically useless), and electronic, it kept recommending mainstream modern hip-hop, like 50 Cent and Ludacris. Not my bag, although I do own music by Outkast, plus more obscure artists like Mos Def and DJ Spooky. (How can an algorithm ever reconcile those types of contradictions? I have no idea.)

(Credit: Screenshot)

Maybe the interface and recommendation engine will improve over time. But based on my early testing, I’m guessing The Filter’s meant for busy Internet users who view “entertainment” as an occasional product to be consumed, but don’t know where to start. It doesn’t seem to be for music (or movie) geeks or collectors. Fair enough. Just not for me.

The recommendations interface could also use some improvement: when I click “Improve My Recommendations” it takes me back to the genres page, which I’ve already filled out once. It doesn’t offer me any artists to rate (like iLike does). There’s a slider that lets you tell the engine to make recommendations “more surprising” or “more expected” but it’s only available when you click through to an album page, and it didn’t seem to make much difference when I moved it all the way to the “surprising” side. (Question: if you want recommendations that are “more expected,” why would you need a recommendation engine at all?)

I cleared that up by going back and giving hip-hop my lowest rating. Then the engine kept throwing up pop-rock acts that I’m already familiar with and know I don’t like, such as Good Charlotte and Fall Out Boy. After a few more low ratings, it seems to have realized that I’m in my late 30s, and on the front page it recommended three CDs that I heard about a million times back in the early 90s–Pearl Jam’s Ten, the Counting Crows’ first record, and “Mother’s Milk” by the Chili Peppers. All OK records for their time, but not exactly new discoveries. It also recommended a Bruce Springsteen collection–not his last album, Magic, which is actually his best in years and which I might theoretically not have heard since it got very little radio play.

The Filter is an entertainment recommendation service that asks questions about your taste, then tries to refer you to CDs and DVDs you might be interested in buying. (The site will eventually add other forms of entertainment, such as TV shows.) It’s been in a closed beta since earlier this year, and has gotten some press thanks to the involvement of art-rocker Peter Gabriel. On Tuesday, it opened to the masses.

“A lot probably has to do with the fact that Microsoft is in a different geography,” said Elop, who did prior stints at Juniper Networks, Adobe Systems, and Macromedia, where he held down senior posts. “We’ve had a generation of leaders who have had to compete head to head with Microsoft over the years. What’s happening now is that we’re moving on. We’ve got 2,500 people in the Valley. Maybe I’m surprised that opinion hasn’t evolved yet in the Valley, but it will. Too many things are going on.”

I haven’t seen speed out of Google really. I mean, come on. They have one product. It’s been the same for five years–and they have Gmail now, but they have one product that makes all their money, and it hasn’t changed in five years.

I mean, (Google has) a gestalt, but gestalt is gestalt. Let’s talk about the reality. The reality is one product makes 98 percent of all of their money, search. Oh, they have two products, AdWords and AdSense. They have two products, both search-based, that make all of their money, and it hasn’t changed a lot in five years. I’m not giving them a hard time, but we’ve got to learn–if you say, what have you learned, we try to learn from people’s successes, not from people’s gestalt. The gestalt is yet to be proven.

But what’s with the nonstop trash talk from the CEO–especially in the countdown to Gates’ upcoming “Going Away Day?” He ought to watch his words. Over the next week, Ballmer is going to be all over the media, reaffirming that Microsoft is finished with its Yahoo crush and as relevant as ever. Inevitably, reporters will pop the “What about Google?” question. And the more Ballmer insists on convincing interlocutors about chinks in Google’s armor, the less people will believe him. In the same FT interview, for instance, Ballmer says the following:

Gestalt? If I didn’t know better, I’d be tempted to diagnose this as a severe case of Google envy (which may be the flip side of Microsoft’s ongoing search for respect as a technology innovator.)

In a revealing interview with The Financial Times, Ballmer distanced Microsoft from any criticism that it’s lost a step over the years. In fact, he added, why not point fingers at some other software behemoth? (Any guesses who that might be?)

“We’re trained in Silicon Valley to believe that Microsoft steals other peoples’ innovations,” says Microsoft’s Stephen Elop, who replaced the retiring Jeff Raikes as president of the company’s Business Division. “We just don’t give Microsoft credit. I don’t know whether that’s because of arrogance or hubris.”

The weepy countdown to Bill Gates’ last day on the job as a full-timer must be getting to Steve Ballmer. Always full of surprises, the big galoot is at it again.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)

Yes, but as his erstwhile comrade in arms is wont to say, doesn’t that speak to the magic of software? Ballmer can try and call out Google for being a one-trick pony. Still that’s one heckuva pony. Truth be told, if Microsoft enjoyed that sort of technology prowess in search, I very much doubt Ballmer would have wasted four months wooing a unenthusiastic Jerry Yang.

I spoke with Elop a few weeks ago. As I reviewed my notes, his comments as a former outsider shed a different light on Ballmer’s ongoing eruptions of “Google-itis.”

Eric who?

Maybe so. I can’t predict whether Microsoft will ever be received warmly by Silicon Valley. There’s a long history and memories die hard. (Microsoft’s emissary to the Valley, Dan’l Lewin, keeps plugging away.) Meanwhile, the best way to put the relationship on a more solid footing is to continue to open up and prove Microsoft can build great technology, not just because management is “persistent.” (Note to the inner sanctum at Redmond: You can remain obsessed with Google. But try not to let on so much. It’s just bad form.)

Update at 2:52 p.m. PDT, with a report from AdMob about global Internet traffic on smartphones.

(Credit:
Palm)

And in the U.S., Apple’s iPhone has an even greater share of the Internet traffic among smartphones.

(Credit:
Google)

AdMob, a mobile-advertising marketplace, issued a report Tuesday that looked at February Internet traffic using smartphones.

The iPhone holds a 49.5 percent slice of U.S. Internet smartphone traffic, followed by Research in Motion’s Blackberry 8300 with a 9.1 percent slice and the Blackberry 8100 with a 6.9 percent piece.

According to the report, smartphones accounted for 33 percent of the global Internet traffic in February, up from a 26 percent slice six months ago.

And within the smartphone market, here’s a ranking of which device grabbed the largest share of Internet traffic, according to AdMob:

These smartphones are built on an open platform that can accept applications from any developer who writes programs for that particular mobile operating system and are sold, or distributed freely, via a mobile-application store, rather than through the phone’s carrier.

But with Google calling on third-party developers to embrace its Android smartphone and Palm with its highly anticipated Palm Pre smartphone set to debut this summer, In-Stat is expecting the number of users accessing mobile-application stores with their smartphones to increase four-fold by 2013, noted David Chamberlain, a principal analyst with In-Stat.

While a number of these mobile applications are offered for free, that could change as third-party developers and operators of mobile-application stores find it difficult to make money off advertising.

(Credit:
AdMob)

With the popularity of Apple’s
iPhone mobile-application store growing and competitors Palm and Google teeing up their efforts, the number of smartphone users tapping into mobile-application stores are expected to reach 100 million in 2013, according to a research report released Tuesday by In-Stat.

By 2013, Chamberlain said he expects nearly one-third, or 100 million, of all smartphone users to have the capability to access mobile-application stores. The current slice of the total pie is a fraction of that and largely comprised of Apple iPhones, he noted.

Currently, the number of smartphone users accessing mobile-application stores is roughly a fourth of the projected 100 million users and is largely comprised of only iPhone users.

“If Coca-Cola buys a Superbowl ad, Nielsen can say how many people watched it,” Chamberlain said. “But there are no independent third parties to audit mobile applications.”

(Credit:
Apple)

Unlike other tech industry chief executives, Scott Kriens of Juniper Networks is refreshingly candid and pragmatic.

• 1. Q1 competes with Cisco MARS. Unlike other security management firms, Q1 is really focused on networking and security, and concentrates on competing with Cisco’s Monitoring, Analysis, and Response System (aka Cisco MARS). Juniper gains a product and partner built from the ground up to fight against its primary competitor. This should make Q1 popular with field sales very quickly.

Cisco is Cisco and it will continue to win its fair share of the business regardless of what any competitor does. Still, enterprise companies are clamoring for a strong No. 2 networking vendor and Juniper realizes this. It sure looks like the company is making a series of aggressive moves, like the Q1 Labs deal, to capitalize on this opportunity.

• 2. Q1 complements the Juniper/NetScreen products. Juniper doesn’t have to duke it out with Cisco everywhere; it has security customers of its own. The security line it bought from NetScreen is a perfect security device complement to Q1 monitoring, management, and reporting. Likewise, Juniper can take the NetScreen line into the Q1 base. This is one of those cliche cases where 1+1=3.

Despite the fact that Juniper revenue exceeds $2 billion annually and the company’s market cap is nearly $13 billion, Kriens recognizes that Juniper just can’t match Cisco Systems’ product depth, global sales reach, and resources. Kriens still believes that Juniper can compete by following a simple formula: 1. Pick the technical battles it can win; 2. Stay ahead of the industry on innovation and performance; and 3. Acquire and/or partner to supplement Juniper’s value.

• 3. Juniper gains another enterprise hook. Security management is on fire right now as large organizations move to next-generation platforms. Yes, there are some strong competitors but Juniper/Q1 can hold its own. In the meantime, Juniper opens another door into the traditional Cisco base.

The CERN directors took some convincing. “The difficult part was explaining to them the true nature of what the Web was going to be,” Berners-Lee’s colleague Robert Cailliau told the BBC. “We had to convince them that this was going to take off and it was a really big thing. And therefore CERN couldn’t hold on to it and the best thing to do was to give it away. We had toyed with the idea of asking for some sort of royalty. But Tim wasn’t very much in favor of that.”

(Credit:
Cary Gibaldi) Note the nerd humor with the binary numbering of the years… I can’t say that it actually was the “moistest cake I’ve ever tasted”, but, like the web, it was free, so I’m not going to complain.

It could easily have gone differently. Fifteen years ago, the management of the CERN physics lab in Geneva could have decided that this World Wide Web thing that researcher Tim Berners-Lee was working on might have some proprietary value down the road and put it under lock, key and license. But they didn’t. Fifteen years ago today, they put it into the public domain and changed history. Of the many Web milestones we celebrate, that makes this one special.

Fifteen years ago yesterday, the World Wide Web became official and was put into the public domain. In honor of that fact, one of our colleagues at frog (thanks Ben Tomassetti!) brought in a birthday cake for it today:

Kingdon comes equipped with an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, as well as more than a half decade’s worth of experience running digital-ad agency Organic.

Hiring a “business guy” to helm Linden Lab, rather than someone with a background in social networking or gaming, may be a sign that the company wants to achieve some corporate momentum and eventually go public.

“Our search for the leader of Linden Lab demanded both tremendous business skills and a deep understanding and passion for Second Life and where it is going. Mark is the perfect choice,” Rosedale said in a statement, acknowledging that Linden Lab’s new chief needed to know how to run a business, not just come up with cool ideas.

Linden Lab’s management is likely counting on Kingdon to sort things out.

Second Life creator Linden Lab has selected digital-strategy veteran Mark Kingdon as its new CEO, following Philip Rosedale’s resignation from the post last month. Rosedale will remain chairman of the company’s board.

But before that, the company needs to get its act together. Second Life hasn’t lived up to the breathless marketing hype of a year or two ago, and its chief technology officer left in December amid reported disputes.

Kingdon will take over the CEO post on May 15.

Lucovsky was asked about Microsoft’s Hailstorm project, which he worked on during his tenure in Redmond. Hailstorm was a precursor to what is going on now on the social Web, with OpenID, OpenSocial, OAuth, and other technologies. “If you squint at Hailstorm, it assumed every identity was a very rich and extensible profile,” he said. It could include friends, photos, calendars, message streams, and other content. “Opening up API access to enhanced profiles is a replay of what we were talking about back in the day,” Lucovsky added.

He is optimistic that Web service interoperability and a hybrid application architecture is feasible. “I love the fact of Amazon, Google, and Yahoo with their APIs, and Microsoft out with a good trajectory and track record…it’s absolutely the right way to go,” he said.

Of course, Google benefits when more applications and users interact on the Web by using its APIs. It’s a means to selling more ads.

Mark Lucovsky

Listen to theGillmor Gang podcast

“We are taking things we are best at and opening them up to the public,” he stated.

Lucovsky also admitted his fondness for Microsoft Outlook e-mail over Gmail.

He would like it if Outlook were on every machine and you could just type in a URL. He might want to try Yahoo’s open-source Zimbra e-mail, which is what Web Outlook should be, and it also has offline support.

Participating in the Lucovsky interrogation were myself, Steve Gillmor, Jason Calacanis, Doc Searls, Robert W. Anderson, and Mike Vizard.

He was asked about Google having access to all the user data via its search APIs and hosting services. “We have access and can see what is going on, but we only look at stuff in aggregate,” Lucovsky said. If an API is launched, Google can see how well it is working, such as if the cache semantics are tuned properly or which configuration is more popular, to help optimize performance, he explained.

“We are opening up all of Google bit-by-bit programmatically,” Lucovsky said, referring to search APIs as well as the GData read/write API and Web analytics and site monitor APIs. About the only areas not yet publicly accessible are the massive compute cluster for processing data out of band, with MapReduce and the Google File System, he said.

He maintained that Google is doing the right thing for customers by providing access to its APIs and hosting tools. “We get nothing out of this. We have gone through a lot of latency work in the last quarter, and a lot of sites don’t know how to do things right in terms of caching,” Lucovsky said.

This week’s Friday Gillmor Gang podcast featured Mark Lucovsky, currently head of Google’s search APIs and formerly a top technologist at Microsoft (reportedly Steve Ballmer threw a chair across the room upon being informed that Lucovsky was getting hitched to Google).

He was also asked about cloud computing services, and working with multiple providers, such as Amazon.com’s EC2 and Google’s App Engine. “You can pick and choose providers with best of breed services,” Lucovsky said. For example, a developer could build a hybrid application using a Google front end and some bulk storage from Amazon’s S3 service. He is also betting that large-scale providers such as Google and Amazon will be the most dependable infrastructure providers because they have the depth of experience and APIs that scale.

“The strength of client in a lot of ways is about presentation and interaction with the data or in original content creation. E-mail is the canonical client application that works great as a Web app and aweseome as a client app. I love Outlook and don’t share the love for Gmail, but I like that I can go into an Apple store and check my e-mail,” he said, noting that Web-based apps are pervasive and client apps are difficult to set up.

Lucovsky also had some comments about Microsoft’s Live Mesh synchronization initiative. He said that the lack of compelling applications for Live Mesh makes it difficult to understand its potential. “There are a million different ways people are doing synchronization in XML, and most cases are tied to real application problems,” he said.

Lucovsky talked about making Google’s APIs available to developers. The APIs include high-speed access to Google search via Javascript and RESTful protocols, peer APIs about accessing APIs, language APIs for detecting languages and translations, and hosting of third-party open Javascript libraries, such as Mootools.

The RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120 now comes in frost to match the season.

Available immediately, you can now get the Pearl in emerald black, indigo, or frost, in addition to the current titanium offering. All versions will cost $149.99 with a 2-year contract and will include integrated Wi-Fi, a 2-megapixel camera with video recording, instant-messaging clients, and a microSD expansion slot. To learn more about the smartphone, please read our full review of the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120.

It’s officially fall. The leaves are changing colors, and apparently, so are the colors of smartphones. Just one day after Sprint announced two new colors for the Palm Centro, T-Mobile introduced three fresh hues for the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120.