I know I hate company phone trees/menus. Have you ever tried to call up Verizon’s home service line or Time Warner Cable? You have to jump through 7-8 hoops before there is even a chance of you speaking to a human. While the Dial-A-Human list is great you still have to sit through and dial the correct numbers. Some of these phone trees now even force you to listen to the whole recording before you can select an option.

Fonolo does all the work for you. It transcribes the entire phone menu of many major companies. You just scan it and tell it where you want to be and it will connect you. Its as simple as picking the place in the menu where you wish to be.

When I read about Fonolo on BoyGenius I had to try it. A friend gave me his login and it worked as advertised. Right now they are in closed beta which means you have to enter in your email address and they will send you an invitation later.

Sign up for the beta at www.fonolo.com and let me know what you think if they accept you.

I just know that companies will now come up with a solution to block automated dialers like Fonolo…

Tony sent in this great tip for finding movies and movie times on the go. This is not anything new but is very useful if you want to find showtimes on the go.

You simply just open up www.google.com on your BlackBerry and enter in a query like:

The Dark Knight 10025
OR movies 10025
where 10025 is your zip code

And you will get a great mobile format listing of the movies and showtimes near you. It even has the number for the movie theater below so that you can call and reserve tickets. Shockingly there is no link to map the address! I also wish they would link to a YouTube video for the trailer…

BlackBerry® Unite!^TM Automatic software MR updates are updates to BlackBerry Unite! software. These MR software updates install automatically on computers running BlackBerry Unite! software and include new features and functionality.

Note:

To start using the new features each user must reactivate their BlackBerry Smartphone that is connected to BlackBerry Unite!

BlackBerry Unite! software MR 2

Released Thursday, July 31, 2008

Features

• Load default policy

BlackBerry Unite! software MR2 is designed to allow users to reset service restrictions on BlackBerry smartphones to the default settings by clicking a button.

• Restrict file transfers

BlackBerry Unite! software MR2 introduces the functionality to restrict file transfers. BlackBerry Unite! software is designed to allow users to disable file transfer to or from a BlackBerry smartphone, or place a file size limit on file transfers.

• Change the polling interval

BlackBerry Unite! software MR2 is designed to allow users to define the amount of time BlackBerry Unite! software will wait before polling messaging servers for new email messages. A longer polling interval will decrease network activity, and a shorter polling interval will cause BlackBerry Unite! software to check for and retrieve email messages more frequently.

• Rich content email messages

BlackBerry Unite! software MR2 includes support for rich content email messages.

Deja Vu… I wonder if RIM gets sued every week and we just don’t hear about it. I was just reading an article in the Chicago Tribune over the weekend about how RIM is being sued once again over some network patent. A company called Aloft Media LLC seems to think that the BlackBerry 8320 & 8820 violate their patents. Once again the company is seeking an injunction and unspecified damages. Yippee!

This patent is so good that Aloft Media wont even tell us what it covers. I wonder if it has something to do with the 8320 & 8820 having WiFi. On the other hand that would also include the 8120 which was not named. I’m confused…

After reading on Law.com about the fiasco that was the NTP lawsuit I was hoping I would not have to read about it again. Hopefully this will be the last we hear of Aloft Media.

Sue and Bill let me know about this great deal on Amazon. A bit back I told you that Meritline had the 8GB card for $39.99. Turns out that the 8GB card keeps on going down in price. They found it sold on Amazon from a good couple of 3rd party sellers for a few pennies more than $34. Hopefully this means that the 12GB and 16GB are coming soon…

Right now there are 5 Featured Amazon Merchants selling it for exactly $34.20 shipped. This is kind of funny since all of them have a different sale price but the shipping brings it to exactly $34.20. There are also some non-featured merchants for a few dollars cheaper but in my experience they tend to not be as reliable.

Check them out at this link

Let me know if you find any better deals!

Jibi at BBNews caught some great simulator shots of the BlackBerry 8220 KickStart. In case you don’t remember the KickStart is the upcoming BlackBerry clamshell phone that looks to be coming to T-Mobile soon. Surprisingly the most interesting features shown in the screenshots have little to do with the device itself.

Turns out that RIM is going forward with their CellData location system. This is essentially Google’s “My Location” feature built into the BlackBerry or AGPS to be more technical. RIM has also added some great features to BlackBerry Messenger. This new version lets you group messages like the latest IM clients. It also lets you choose if your buddies can see if you are on the phone or what your listening to.

Check out all of the pics at BBNews

I just found some great instructional videos on CNN.cn showing how to assemble and disassemble a new model BlackBerry. There have been photo walkthroughs before but this is the first instructional video set that I have seen. Its also free which is pretty damn cool.

Check out the videos at this link on Nationwide Network Cellular. Nice work guys!

Every month or so I get an email from RIM asking me to fill out a survey for their market research. I did not have a chance to check out the survey myself until Bryan brought it to my attention. While filling out the current survey he noticed that a good half of the survey is just gauging his companies interest in the iPhone. Its is interesting to see that RIM has a healthy interest in the iPhone. Many IT departments are starting to get hammered to support the iPhone by clueless users so RIM’s questions are truly justified. You can see a sample of what I mean below:

• Have users in your organization requested iPhone smartphones for use with corporate email or applications?
• Do you have plans to test iPhone for use in your organization?
• Has your organization purchased iPhone smartphones for any employees?
• Has your organization deployed iPhone smartphones with corporate email or applications?
• Does your company support users who have purchased their own iPhone?
• How likely would you be to recommend iPhone for your organization? Please rate on a scale of 1-5, 1 being not likely at all, and 5 being very likely.
• What is your perception of iPhone security features?
• Will never be good enough to use in our company
• Not good enough today, but will get better
• Good enough to use in our organization today
• Don’t know
• Is the availability of Jailbreak software; which allows end users to load uncertified applications, of significant concern to you?

They also seem to have a healthy interest as to what companies would not allow Camera phones at all and the deployment of Windows Mobile compared to BlackBerrys.