For anyone who thinks RIM may be a value stock, I give you these sage words of advice from Admiral Ackbar in “Return of the Jedi”: “It’s a trap!” There is no sugarcoating RIM’s latest earnings report. The company warned that sales and profits for the next quarter will be far below already reduced forecasts. It also announced that its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones, trumpeted as the company’s savior, have been delayed until the end of 2012. That’s an eon in the fast-moving consumer tech world. That’s why the stock plunged 12% Friday morning. Shares are now down 77% year-to-date and are trading at their lowest level since January 2004. The company can’t afford to be Research in Slow Motion at a time when it is facing brutal competition from Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and from handset makers like Samsung and HTC that have latched themselves to Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android wagon. Even Nokia (NOK), thanks to an alliance with Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), is a threat. BlackBerry: Looks like ‘game over’ for RIM – The Buzz – Dec. 16,...

When Facebook first started experimenting with its radical new (and I think, sensational) Timeline interface back in late September, we showed you an 8-step way to get a sneak preview. Now, it’s a whole lot easier: You can enable the timeline with one click, and then publish it for all to see with one more. Follow this quick slide show, and before you know it you’ll have the Facebook Timeline enabled on your own account. The best part is, after you click the “Get Timeline” button, you have seven days until it automatically goes live, but until then, you’re the only one who will see it until you authorize it to be published. However, if you don’t want to wait seven days, you can publish it any time by clicking “Publish Now.” Facebook Timeline: How to Enable it With One...

  A hearing concerning proposed amendments to the widely-feared SOPA bill is going on right now. It’s being streamed on Keep The Web Open and you should take a listen; it’s almost as heartening as it isinfuriating. As you might expect, there’s a lot of back and forth, and it goes a little something like this: Representative1: SOPA is actually counterproductive, will encourage piracy, and severely hamper free speech. Representative2: Well I’m not a nerd, but I disagree. It’s kind of staggering how often the discussion turns to who the “nerds” are, whether or not they understand what they’re talking about. It’s also kind of staggering how often the representatives who assert that they aren’t nerds use this fact as a way to support their statement, backhandedly suggesting that the nerds are nerds and don’t really know how real things work. Like the Internet for instance. The Internet. And yes, they are literally saying “nerd.” A lot. The SOPA Hearing is Infuriating and You Should Listen |...

Yesterday, Verizon Wireless users in New Jersey’s Monmouth, Ocean, and Middlesex counties got a terrifying text message that the coming global superpocalypse was not only coming, but had arrived. The message, completely devoid of context, urged recipents to “Take Shelter Now” and purported to be a direct order from the “U.S. Govern[ment].” Of course, the text left a lot of questions unanswered, like “what’s going on?” and “why is there such a specific end time?” and people naturally started freaking out. Fortunately, the police were able to send out a message explaining that there was not, in fact, a civil emergency. Verizon Sends Out Bogus But Terrifying Take Shelter Alert | Geekosystem. Good gravy! I guess it’s a good thing that this exists just in case, but way to scare people! There should be some awareness about this program though, since it’s nationwide and across many carriers. Personal Localized Alerting Network...

We reviewed Facebook Timeline, the awesomely personal, beautifully designed new profile, in September. September. Facebook said it’d be open to everyone soon after. Clearly, that hasn’t happened—but the wait is over! If you live in New Zealand. What? As someone who uses Timeline daily, I’m without an explanation for why Facebook is holding out on us. There are occasional bugs, but no more than has been the case with any other Facebook feature. When I’ve asked Facebook engineers about the delay, they clam up and say Timeline will go public when “Zuckerberg is ready.” The New Facebook Is Finally Public! …In New...

Occupy Flash, a weirdly misnamed movement presumably riding on the coattails of the much more appropriately named Occupy Wall Street movement, is encouraging users to unequivocallyuninstall Adobe’s Flash player. It all comes back to the fact that Adobe has recently ended mobile Flash development in order to head in a more HTML5 direction. That being the case, Occupy Flash supporters are uninstalling Flash in hopes of forcing Adobe in a more HTML5 direction. Because it’s certainly not headed that way already. No, not at all. Occupy Flash Urging Users to Uninstall Adobe Flash |...

  Right now, the US Congress is debating a law that would give them the power to censor the world’s Internet — creating a blacklist that could target YouTube, WikiLeaks and even groups like Avaaz! Under the new law, the US could force Internet providers to block any website on suspicion of violating copyright or trademark legislation, or even failing to sufficiently police their users’ activities. And, because so much of the Internet’s hosts and hardware are located in the US, their blacklist would clamp down on the free web for all of us. The vote could happen any day now, but we can help stop this — champions in Congress want to preserve free speech and tell us that an international outcry would strengthen their hand. Let’s urgently raise our voices from every corner of the world and build an unprecedented global petition calling on US decision makers to reject the bill and stop Internet censorship. Sign now and then forward as widely as possible — our message will be delivered directly to key members of the US Congress ahead of the crucial vote. via Avaaz – Save the...