Itty bitty news bite committee

SlingPlayer for BlackBerry – Sling Media has kept us anticipating this news for nearly a year, but at long last a public beta of SlingPlayer for BlackBerry will arrive on Dec. 30, allowing Slingbox users to watch and control their TV and DVR via BlackBerry. Although the software won’t be available for RIM’s “best selling Verizon handset,” the Storm, most other BlackBerry users will be able to test this out (EDGE users may have some difficulty, because the application targets 3G and Wi-Fi handsets). We’ll see how it fares. SlingPlayer has said it plans on expanding the app to other BlackBerrys and perhaps to the iPhone. I figure that will take another 50 weeks.

Samsung Android – Samsung has jumped onto the Android bandwagon (beating out several other OHA members) and announced that it will be releasing handsets for both Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile. Expect this one to be touchscreen, akin to the Instinct or the Omnia, and available in Q2 (June-ish).

iPhone App-land – Yes, you can now play Metal Gear on your iPhone, which is admittedly awesome, but this past week provided a lot more action that that. We saw a $3.99 Television app, which for now is mostly an aggregator (and certainly no SlingPlayer) — but at least it’s a start. Evernote’s upgrade extended its file-synching features to the iPhone, so for $5 a month you can view, listen to, and e-mail files. Now if we could just get the editing part down. Oh wait, we’re making progress on that too. Photogene’s app (again $3) gives you the ability to crop photos, add frames, and rotate or adjust contrast and brightness. Lastly, the Big G (that would be Google) gave a facelift to the Google search results for both iPhone and G1, which increases the speed of search results and adjusts results for screen size.

Motorola’s 2009 lineup – Proving that it is still very much in the game, Motorola has begun leaking pictures of its 2009 smartphones, and boy, do they look sharp. Motorola has said that it’s working on phones that will run Android, and at least three phones are said to be touchscreens to some extent. There are a bunch of codenames being thrown around: Rush 2, Inferno, Calgary, Niagra, Fairbanks, Harmony. The clamshells aren’t causing nearly the commotion that the sliders are, and it’s uncertain how much of this is still rumor, but it could mean that things will be looking up for Motorola in 2009.