Fun Canadian Facts about BlackBerry

We're a few hours away from the opening keynote here at BlackBerry World 2012  in Orlando and we will soon know what will be revealed. In the meantime, RIM has shared some fun Canadian Facts about BlackBerry.

• BlackBerry is the #1 smartphone in Canada (as per comScore, MobiLens in December 2011)
• In Canada, 9 out of 10 BlackBerry subscribers are active users of BBM (BlackBerry Messenger)
• BlackBerry PlayBook became the no. 1 selling tablet in Future Shop & Best Buy after the launch of OS 2.0 and after it was discounted accross the board.
• BlackBerry is the leading OS among 13 to 17 year olds in Canada with 40.7% of the smartphone market.
• BlackBerry is also the leading OS among 18 to 24 year-olds in Canada with almost 34% of the smartphone market.

Don't forget to check the live webcast of RIM CEO Thorsten Heins' Keynote at 9 AM Eastern. Stay tuned for my continued coverage of BlackBerry World 2012 today.

Sony Xperia S coming to Canada exclusively to Sony Stores

Xperia S which debuted in CES this year is the first smartphone from the new Xperia NXT series –  or next generation smartphones from Sony which are essentially post Sony Ericsson deivices. The Xperia S finally comes to Canada.  A limited number of Xperia S smartphones will be available exclusively at Sony Stores across Canada, beginning April 17^th. Canadians can purchase their Xperia S, which is compatible with the Rogers wireless network, directly at the Sony Store.

Click to read more ...

CES 2012 Video: Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga Ultrabook Video demo

A quick look at Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga Ultrabook which integrates a 13.3" touch enabled  Ultrabook into an innovative hinge design that allows it to fold into a tablet. 

Ubuntu may invade smartphones and tablets as soon as 2012

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Don't look now but it looks like the mobile market for smartphones and tablets is going to get a lot more crowded. Linux stalwarts Ubuntu by Canonical are looking to expand beyond the desktop and into the more popular and emerging smartphone and tablet markets in 2012.  What this means for consumers is possibly more choice of devices and likely lower cost of ownership given Ubuntu's open source nature.

Ubuntu has remained one of the more popular Linux distributions that is highly regarded for its ease of use, relatively low system requirements as well as solid community backing and support. Like most of Linux, however, it has fought a long and uphill battle for the desktop space.

A presence in mobile makes sense but only if the Ubuntu OS can be pared down to be actually useful on touch-enabled mobile devices and can at least approximate competing mobile operating systems, some of which have a four-year head start, an established developer community and a store and app ecosystem. Word on the street is that Ubuntu's owner Canonical has been in talks with a number of device manufacturers who may be interested in making phones or tablets running the mobile Ubuntu OS.