New BlackBerry 8300 Curve

When it comes to BlackBerrys, you have the really tiny one, the one with GPS, and now you can add to that list the one that just rocks. And we're not just talking about the Curve's music player or fully integrated stereo Bluetooth. RIM's latest fun-loving smart phone (available for AT&T later this spring) boasts a sharp two-megapixel camera and a much-improved multimedia software package for taking your favorite songs, pictures, and videos to go--all without sacrificing the long battery life that's made BlackBerry the device of choice for e-mail addicts.

Design Features:
It sports the kind of sleek design that will make BlackBerry Pearl owners say "D'oh!" The Curve is just as slim as the Pearl (0.6 inches), and at 3.9 ounces it's only 0.7 ounces heavier. It slips easily into a pocket, no geeky hip holster required. Granted, at first glance this device doesn't seem as deserving of an iconic name as the Pearl, but the Curve's liquid-silver finish with chrome accents and rounded edges make it an attractive alternative to the Samsung BlackJack.

More important, RIM managed to squeeze in a full-sized backlit keyboard, one that makes the Curve noticeably wider than but also much more reliable than the Pearl, whose not-so-SureType keyboard doesn't always accurately guess the word you're trying to peck. In just a few minutes we were typing e-mails and entering Web addresses at a brisk pace, thanks to the Curve's well-spaced layout. Just like the Pearl and the 8800, the Curve has a trackball for simple (if sometimes erratic) menu navigation.

New High Tech Passport

The NY Times reviews the new U.S. e-passport today (if you didn't want one, apparently you're too late). It mostly focuses on how ugly the pastiche of American iconography is, but it mentions the new embedded RFID chip holding all of your biographical info and "a digital image of the passport photograph, which will facilitate the use of face recognition technology at ports-of-entry," according to the State Department's website.

While the gold bars and circle marking your passport as a magical "e-passport" are on the front cover, the chip is embedded somewhere on the back page. To alleviate fears of skimming the chip's info, it only works within four inches of a reader—the cover contains shielding material—and the passports use Basic Access Control, which requires a printed PIN to read the chip, which seems like a pretty good idea.

That said, no one can skim my plain paper passport, which is thankfully good for another seven years.