The service that began the status update revolution finally turns four-years-old today. Microblogging service Twitter was started back in 2006, and has become wildly successful, despite taking off into the mainstream in 2008.

But despite the fact that Twitter’s got more fame than any group of entrepreneurs could ask for, the service’s ability to make a steady stream of loads of cash has been virtually non-existent.  The last we’ve heard with regard to Twitter monetization came at the end of February, when it was noted that the Twitter advertising platform would arrive within a month.

Regardless of Twitter’s plans, the service has been an incredible asset not only in terms of breaking news, but for folks looking to simple keep in touch.

Here’s to many more years.

Listen up, North American BlackBerry users. On Sunday March 28th (one week from tomorrow), Research In Motion [RIM] will be upgrading their servers to run the latest and greatest version of BIS [BlackBerry Internet Service], and will cause an outage for all BlackBerry users (regardless of carrier) commencing at 2AM Eastern time. The outage is expected to last for four hours, to 6AM Eastern.

As tough as it may seem to endure four hours without precious BIS services, it’s certainly for the best of reasons. BlackBerry users will finally gain two-way Gmail sync and ability to add/remove labels, support of OpenOffice documents, support for .wma media, and various other upgrades.

Who’s excited?

iPhone game developer Tom Refenes received the shock of his developer career when Apple took down his game for what seemed to be no apparent reason. But of course, there was a reason — and it might have been for the simple fact that Refenes had bad-mouthed Apple’s App Store.

You see, last week, Refenes (while attending a Game Developer’s Conference) had stated that he “absolutely fucking hate[d] the iPhone app store,” comparing it to the gaming market that once served the Tiger handheld video game systems from the 1980’s and 1990’s. Reason enough (Refenes thinks) that Apple would pull his application.

But of course, we must consider all sides. Last week, Refenes was experimenting with the price of his ‘Zits & Giggles’ iPhone game — a game which allows the player to quite disgustingly pop pimples. At one point, the price of the application nearly reached a whopping $400. Could this be why the app was pulled?

Refenes remains hellbent over the fact that Apple took down his Zits & Giggles game for the simple reason that he criticized the App Store.

Unfortunately, Apple’s letter to Refenes regarding removal offers no hints as to why the application was taken down except for “We have been trying to reach you…” with a phone number to reach Apple. According to Refenes, he’s since been attempting to reach Apple at the provided contact information.

Below you will find a video of Tommy Refenes at the Game Developer’s Conference talking smack about Apple and their App Store:

[ via Kotaku ]

According to the SanDisk homepage, “something big is coming” on March 23rd, 2010. For those of you without a calendar and common sense, that’s this upcoming Tuesday.

We’ll tell you upfront. We have no idea what it is — but we’re thinking it has something to do with flash memory — given the fact that SanDisk is potentially the world’s most popular flash memory company.

That said, we’re not even going to begin speculating — so we’ll just have to wait until this Tuesday to find out what’s going on. That doesn’t mean that you can’t post you speculation in the comments, however.

We’ll keep you posted.

Now here’s a clever advertisement. The folks at Sprint have now launched their first warhead in the direction of AT&T — releasing a new commercial which depicts an iPhone user connecting to a Sprint Sierra Wireless Overdrive 4G Mobile hotspot. Why? Simple. 4G connectivity is quicker than 3G connectivity.

As opposed to utilizing the abundant 3G coverage from AT&T (or should we say a lack thereof), it’s truly humorous that an individual would use their iPhone on another carrier’s network — but we can easily see it happening.

Take a gander at the video after the break and tell us what you think in the comments.

[ via BGR ]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has finally broken his silence and opened up about his liver transplant last year. As many of you may or may not be aware, Jobs was secretly hospitalized last year in Memphis, Tennessee to receive a liver transplant. Luckily, he was able to quickly find a donor there, and have the new organ replace his old damaged liver.

Now, Jobs is partnering with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to raise awareness of the SB 1395 legislation  by state Sen. Elaine Alquist that would make it mandatory for California residents to answer whether or not they would like to be part of the organ donor program before the Department of Motor Vehicles [DMV] issues or renews their license. Currently, the California DMV hands out licenses to people even if the question is not answered at all.

During his speech, Steve Jobs tells the story of his ordeal last year. He explains:

“Last year, I received a liver transplant. I was very fortunate because many others died waiting to receive one. Last year in California, there were 671 liver transplants. But last year there were also 3,400 people waiting for a liver, and over 400 of them died waiting in California. I was almost one of the ones that died waiting for a liver in California last year. I was receiving great care here in Stanford, but there were simply not enough livers in California to go around. And my doctors here advised me to enroll on a transplant program in Memphis, Tennessee, where the supply-demand ration of livers is more favorable than it’s in California here. And I was lucky enough to get a liver in time, as a matter of fact this coming week is my one year anniversary.”

He goes on to explain more about the current situation in California when it comes to organ donations. His speech starts 13:00 minutes into the video. Additionally, you can find out more about the legislation at the Office of the Governor website.

Check out the video of the press conference below.

BlackBerry Curve 8530 owners, rejoice! According to the image above of Verizon Wireless internal system, it appears that the carrier will officially start rolling out OS 5.0.0.508 for your device on Monday. Though after seeing what happened with the Android 2.1 update for the Motorola Droid, we advise you not to get your hopes up just yet.

The new update promises to improve many of the existing features such as appearance, battery life, video operation, messaging, and even Bluetooth. Release notes and instructions on how to upgrade the device are already live on the Verizon Wireless website. According to the instructions, the update will be available via the Internet, Desktop Manager, and over-the-air [OTA]. Verizon Wireless is still listing the update as “coming soon.” We will definitely not have to wait long to find out.

You can check out the official release notes after the break to see the all the new improvements and fixes.

OS 5.0.0.508 for Blackberry Curve 8530 Release Notes

Erictric will update as soon as the update is released. Stay tuned.

[ via CrackBerry ]

By the end of January, Google offered cash rewards to developers and researchers who found bugs on the Chrome and Chromium builds as part of its Chromium Security Reward program, which is pretty similar to program offered by Mozilla. Google promised to pay cash prizes that range from $500 for most eligible bugs, up to $1,337 for highly critical bugs. The day has come, and Google has handed out its very first $1,337 prize.

The official Google Chrome Releases Blog states:

“Congratulations to Sergey Glazunov on receiving the first $1337 Chromium Security Reward for bug 35724.”

The bug found by Sergey is described as “High Integer overflows in WebKit JavaScript objects.” That might not mean much to the average person, but to Google it’s worth $1,337. Additionally, Google handed out other smaller cash rewards to other people who also found less severe bugs including a $1,000 for a “Cross-origin bypass” and $500 for a ”Memory error with malformed SVG.” Not too shabby, huh?

This is definitely a great program by both Google and Mozilla to reward those who spend countless hours trying to locate bugs. Congratulations to all the recipients.

[ via TechCrunch ]

We saw the first images of the BlackBerry Peal 9100 on November 20 of last year. Ever since, we haven’t really heard or see much. Luckily, the folks at Spanish site Technomovida [Google translation] have released a handful of new photos for our viewing pleasure. Not much to say other than the Pearl in the photos is still featuring the SureType keyboard, which we recently heard that it could be substituted with a full QWERTY keyboard. Also, the Pearl in the images is running OS 5.0.0.449, and has the media keys on top, just like the BlackBerry Curve 85xx.

On a sidenote, it appears like all the Spanish websites are getting their hands on the latest devices. Jealous much? I am.

Check out more images after the break.

Since AT&T is destined to lose exclusivity of the iPhone at some point or another, we have heard several times that the device is heading to other carriers in the United States. Of course, the carrier of choice is none other than Verizon. But other smaller carriers such as T-Mobile have also been rumored to get the iPhone as well. As a matter of fact, we have reported on a few occassions that some analysts claim the iPhone is heading to T-Mobile.

Now, to further fuel the speculation surrounding a possible version of the iPhone for T-Mobile USA, Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann is quoted saying:

“T-Mobile USA is hoping to start selling the popular smartphone later this year or next year.”

Obermann apparently went on to say that for the time being the company will merely focus on the Android platform. Of course, this doesn’t really mean anything at all. In fact, this could have been another of those moments in which a CEO expresses his desire to have the iPhone as part of their mobile phone roster.

Until Apple itself announces that another carrier besides AT&T will offer the iPhone, it’s really hard to believe anyone else. In this case, not even CEOs are to be believed. We’ll find out more as time goes by, and see if AT&T indeed loses its exclusivity over the iPhone.

[ via Engadget ]