A significant majority of BlackBerry owners don’t think the company’s new Torch handset will be successful, and cite the number of apps available on other platforms, such as iPhone and Google Android, as a weakness. More than a third, 37 per cent, of BlackBerry users also don’t recognize ‘Research In Motion’, the name of the company that manufactures the devices. The study of BlackBerry owners spoke to 1,024 users: when they were shown details of the new BlackBerry Torch, 54 per cent felt it was “too similar” to previous handsets. Two thirds agreed it would fail to be as popular as the iPhone 4. Of those, 83 per cent claimed that “better apps” were needed to bring Research in Motion handsets up to the standards of the iPhone. However, nearly three quarters, 74 per cent, added that they dislike touch screen handsets. Two thirds of these said the QWERTY keyboard was one of the things that had originally attracted them to their BlackBerry. The second most popular feature attracting mobile users to BlackBerry handsets was email ability. More than four in five respondents also said they thought BlackBerry’s rumoured iPad rival

Sticking it to The Man just got a little easier with Skype for iPhone's addition of multitasking support and elimination of plans to charge for calls over 3G. But can the ability to receive Skype calls any time really save you money? Let's look at the numbers and find out. For People Who Don't Talk Much: AT&T won't let you get an iPhone data plan without voice minutes, so at the very least, you've got to pay $40 per month for 450 minutes. If you're not routinely talking for longer than that, Skype probably won't help you. Still, consider having long phone conversations over Skype just to reduce the chances of going over 450 minutes. This will help you collect rollover minutes as well. For People Who Talk a Lot Things get interesting when you regularly exceed 450 minutes per month. To truly replace your expensive voice plan, you'll need both a Skype subscription and an online number (formerly SkypeIn), which any phone can call. A subscription for unlimited U.S. and Canada Skype calls costs $3 per month, and the number costs $12 for three months after a 33 percent discount for having a subscription.

If any doubt lingered that voice is now just another feature on cellphones, the latest version of Skype for the iPhone should dispel it. Skype can now receive calls when the app is running invisibly in the background, which was a major omission in previous versions released before Apple added multitasking to its OS. Combined with the May addition of support for Skype calls over AT&T’s 3G data network — and Skype’s simultaneous decision to keep 3G calls free indefinitely — the app is now a workable replacement for the iPhone’s normal calling feature, especially for those people who have Skype accounts which provide real telephone numbers. Video calling is not included — “yet,” we hope, since the iPhone 4 is the first model to have a front-facing camera. But that feature may have a hard time passing Apple muster since it duplicates a new core functionality, FaceTime. Still, this is what we’ve been talking about when we spoke of mobile VoIP nirvana, and it puts the iPhone in the forefront of Skype handsets (in the United States, anyway). Skype mobile is available on a handful of Android and Blackberry phones with Verizon

This Google gaming and social network story is really boiling over. In the last month, Digg's Kevin Rose tweeted that Google has a social network in the works, an assertion backed up Quora's Adam D'Angelo and possibly by this document. In mid-July, TechCrunch said Google had invested $100 million in social gaming platform Zynga and was striking a deal with that sensational startup. Now the Wall Street Journal reports (paywall warning) that Google is in "talks with several makers of popular online games as it seeks to develop a broader social networking service that could compete with Facebook." But isn't this the worst-kept secret in high tech? I could resort to snarky commentary about traditional media outlets merely building off of blogs like TechCrunch, but they do a much better job of trashing mainstream media. Oh, wait, TechCrunch is the new mainstream media. They just don't know it yet. Anyway, the WSJ says Google is also talking with Playdom, which Disney just purchased for as much as $763 million.

With the release of a new album approaching, Kanye (KAHN'-yay) West is making sure he's up to date with the social networking sites. He joined Twitter on Wednesday, one day after going to the offices of Facebook, in Palo Alto, Calif., to preview some of his new material. Videos of him rapping a cappella while standing on a conference table have been posted on YouTube. On his website afterward, West posted a letter to Facebook, thanking the staff for their support: "Your energy was a gift so electric, so genuine, that it really helped me give my best."

Facebook on Wednesday introduced a beta program that lets users pose questions to the community at large. Facebook Questions will let its users ask questions on a variety of topics. Do you need restaurant recommendations? Want to know what the best smartphone is? Use the power of 500 million Facebook users to get your answer. Facebook is currently rolling out the feature to a limited number of users, but when it does launch, there will be an "Ask Question" icon next to a picture of a light bulb on top of your Facebook homepage. Any questions posted via Facebook Questions are public and visible to everyone on the Internet, Facebook said. All your friends and their friends will also be able to see your questions, so this might not be the best forum to make particularly personal queries. Facebook, however, envisioned the feature as a place to ask more innocuous questions. The site also added the option to include a poll or add a photo. Want to know what kind of flower is growing in your backyard? Take a photo and add it to Facebook Questions. Which game console should you buy – Wii or Xbox? Create a poll.

With all this chatter about the Library of Congress making it kosher to jailbreak your Apple (AAPL) iPhone, let’s take a minute to look at what new things your newly liberated, warranty-violating device can now do. Or go see for yourself: Cydia, basically a mini-App Store for jailbroken iPhones, offers a range of both free and paid applications. Some examples: Wi-Fi Sync, $9.99, enables wireless syncing of your iPhone with ITunes.
Infinboard, $1.99, allow infinite vertical scrolling; effectively, you can put as many icons as you want on your home screen. SNES4Iphone, $7.99, lets you play old Super Nintendo games on your iPhone or Touch. Snappy, $1.99, is “a camera app for the iPhone that launches and is ready to take pictures in one second, without having to exit your currently running application.” MXTube: “The iPhone’s first native YouTube video downloader. Download your YouTube videos and watch them later.” WinterBoard: Add themes to your iPhone screens.

In the following guide you will learn how to unlock the iPhone 3G / 3GS with iOS 4.0.1 installed. This process can be completed using Ultrasn0w 0.93 and, taking in consideration that iOS 4.0.1 does not change the baseband, it works for baseband 05.13.04. If you are already unlocked on iOS 4.0, you can safely update to iOS 4.0.1, without the fear of locking your device. If have an unlocked OS. Before you unlock your iPhone 3G / 3GS 4.0.1, please note that you need to jailbreak it first. Use this for jailbreaking the iPhone 3G 4.0.1 or this for iPhone 3GS 4.0.1. Also, if you are an T-Mobile USA user, disable your 3G connection during the process.