Research in Motion announced recently that its next-generation BlackBerry phones and tablets would run the same software, and it would be called BBX rather than BlackBerry OS or BlackBerry Tablet OS. There’s just one problem: A company called Basis International owns the trademarket for BBX.

This week Basis announced that it’s won a temporary restraining order against RIM’s use of the BBX name, and at the same time RIM has announced a new name for its upcoming operating system: BlackBerry 10.

Like the BlackBerry Tablet OS which runs on the company’s PlayBook tablet, BlackBerry 10 will be based on QNX software. But it will be the first version to run on phone-sized devices, which means developers will be able to write apps for both phones and tablets and phone users won’t have to get used to a whole new OS when adding a tablet to their collection, or vice versa.

via Reuters and Engadget

Research in Motion is starting to look beyond the BlackBerry smartphone. For years the company’s mobile phones had dominated corporate settings, but Android and iOS devices have been chipping away at BlackBerry’s enterprise market. But RIM isn’t just a phone maker, and today the company introduced a forward-looking product that could help the company survive even if nobody ever buys a BlackBerry phone or tablet again.

It’s called BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, and it’s software that IT departments can use to manage a number of different mobile devices. It supports BlackBerry OS, iOS, and Android and gives IT managers a single console they can use to manage each device and platform.

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion supports the built-in features offered by each operating system. So if your phone doesn’t, for instance, support remote wipe capabilities, Mobile Fusion can’t help.

But the move will make it possible for businesses, government institutions, or other organizations that issue BlackBerry, iOS, and Android phones to staff to manage devices. It will offer the ability to activate devices, reset passwords, remotely lock or wipe a phone, or even push software or apps over the air.

Basically, it brings some of the features that had only been available in BlackBerry Enterprise to other platforms.

The new software should be available early in 2012. Obviously RIM still hopes customers buy BlackBerry OS devices, but it’s interesting to see the company push a product designed for the modern, multi-platform reality.

Adobe has released the last major update to Flash Player for mobile devices. Flash Player 11.1 is now available for download for Android devices and for the BlackBerry PlayBook. The update promises better performance and security and stability improvements.

From here on out, Adobe is only promising to fix bugs and provide security updates. We won’t see any major performance improvements or new features… and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Adobe abandon even those minor updates in another year or two.

A few days ago Adobe announced it would cease development of Flash for mobile devices. Instead the company will focus on supporting HTML5 and offer Flash developers tools to create native apps for Android, BlackBerry and other platforms by using Adobe AIR, which is basically a platform for turning Flash apps into apps that don’t need a web browser to run.

Part of the nail in mobile Flash’s coffin was probably delivered by Apple. The company has never allowed Flash to run on iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad models — and since those devices are kind of popular, the move has helped spur the growth of alternatives to Flash including HTML5 and other web technologies that allow for rich media on the web without the use of browser plugins.

Adobe will continue to develop and support Flash Player for desktop operating systems.

Next year Research in Motion will start producing smartphones that essentially look like smaller versions of the company’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The PlayBook has a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display and runs PlayBook OS software based on the QNX operating system. The new phones will be smaller, but they’ll still have 1024 x 600 pixel screens and they’ll run the new BBX operating system based on QNX.

In an interview with PC Magazine, RIM VP Alec Saunders says that if a developer writes an app today that will run on the PlayBook, it will also work on future phones running BBX.

The move sounds a lot like the one Apple made when developing the iPad. The company had a mobile operating system called iPhone OS which also needed to run on the larger, tablet-sized iPad. So Apple started calling the software iOS instead of iPhone OS. Sure, iPad users get some different features and support for higher resolution apps, but they’re basically the same operating system.

Since BBX phones and tablets will have the same screen resolution, it sounds like there may be few differences between software designed to run for a device that fits in your pocket or one that’s meant to slip into a bag.

Saunders also confirmed that BBX phones will include support for BlackBerry Enterprise Server and ship with native contact, email, and calendar apps — something that won’t be available for the PlayBook until early next year. The first BBX phones aren’t expected to ship until later in 2012.

Opera launched new versions of its mobile web browsers for pretty much every mobile operating system imaginable today… except Android. And that’s only because the Android apps received the same update a few weeks ago.

But if you’re using iOS, BlackBerry, S60, or J2ME you can grab Opera Mini 6.5 for your device. Opera Mobile 11.5 is also available for S60. And MeeGo users can check out a new Opera Mobile Labs 11.5 release for tablets and netbooks.

The key difference between Opera Mobile and Mini is that Opera Mini relies on remote servers to compress data before sending web pages and other content to your device, while Opera Mobile uses your device’s hardware to render web content (although you can turn on Opera Turbo mode to enable the same sort of compression).

The biggest change in the new versions is a tool that helps you visualize how much data you’ve used — and how much data you’ve saved by using Opera’s compression technology. Opera has also made it easier to bookmark a website quickly by tapping a star in the URL bar. Sure, that feature is pretty common in desktop web browsers, but you don’t see it on many mobile browsers yet.

Research in Motion is launching its new social music service, BBM Music for BlackBerry. Like competing services from Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, or MOG, BBM Music charges customers a monthly fee for the ability to stream music on demand.

But there’s a huge twist with RIM’s model. First, the service costs just $5 per month, which is about half the price of competing services.

Second — you only get to choose 50 songs initially. That’s about four of five albums worth of music. But remember how I said BBM Music was social? If you want to listen to more than 50 songs, all you have to do is add friends. Then you can listen to their music collections at no additional cost.

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There’s a new beta version of the official Twitter app for BlackBerry, and it adds support for multiple Twitter accounts. Now if you have a personal account and one for work, you can login to both from your BlackBerry smartphone using Twitter 2.1 beta.

The app is available as a free download from the BlackBerry Beta Zone.

Twitter 2.1 beta supports up to 4 Twitter accounts at once. The name of your current profile will show up in the header so you won’t forget which account you’re using. You can also cross-post Tweets between accounts.

In addition to multi-account support, the new Twitter app also makes it easier to edit your Profile data thanks to an edit link on the Profile page.

Twitter’s mobile apps for Android and iOS already support multiple accounts.

The Android Market is riddled with themes for Android devices that can change the look and feel (or at least the colors) of your phone’s operating system. To install them you’ll need an app that supports themes, such as ADW, Launcher Pro, or the T-Mobile Theme Chooser (which is built into CyanogenMod 7 and some other custom ROMs for Android devices).

But you’ll also need a bit of patience because hunting through the Android Market for themes can be a pain in the behind. Fortunately there’s a faster way. The developers at Bentotbox have put together an app called the N3xGen Theme Manager which rounds up some of the top themes in one place.

N3xGen Theme Manager provides a one-stop shop for ADW, ADW Ex, Launcher Pro, Launcher Pro Plus, and T-Mobile Theme Chooser themes. Just select the icon at the bottom of the theme manager for the type of theme you’re looking for and a list will appear. You can tap any theme for details and pictures showing what the theme looks like. You can also scroll left or right to switch between free themes, paid themes, or sort themes by category or developer.

When you actually click the download button, N3xGen Theme Manager will dump you out into the theme download page in the Android Market — so if your device doesn’t support the Android Market you can’t use N3xGen Theme Manager to circumvent it. But the free app does make finding themes for your phone a lot simpler.

via Droid-Life