Here are two of the first device pictures of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet...
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Here's the full announcement on RIM's newly announced 'BlackPad' tablet computer, the BlackBerry PlayBook:

RIM today redefined the possibilities for mobile computing with the unveiling of its new professional-grade BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and BlackBerry® Tablet OS.

Perfect for either large organizations or an "army of one", the BlackBerry PlayBook is designed to give users what they want, including uncompromised web browsing, true multitasking and high performance multimedia, while also providing advanced security features, out-of-the-box enterprise support and a breakthrough development platform for IT departments and developers. The incredibly powerful and innovative BlackBerry PlayBook is truly a game-changing product in the growing tablet marketplace.

"RIM set out to engineer the best professional-grade tablet in the industry with cutting-edge hardware features and one of the world's most robust and flexible operating systems," said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. "The BlackBerry PlayBook solidly hits the mark with industry leading power, true multitasking, uncompromised web browsing and high performance multimedia."

The Tablet You'll Want to Take Everywhere

This beautifully designed and incredibly powerful tablet is ultra portable, ultra thin and super convenient for both work and play. Measuring less than half an inch thick and weighing less than a pound, the BlackBerry PlayBook features a vivid 7" high resolution display that looks and feels great in your hand. With such a unique mix of utility, performance and portability, you'll want to take it everywhere.
The New Benchmark in Tablet Performance

At its heart, the BlackBerry PlayBook is a multitasking powerhouse. Its groundbreaking performance is jointly fueled by a 1 GHz dual-core processor and the new BlackBerry Tablet OS which supports true symmetric multiprocessing. Together, the abundant processing power and highly sophisticated OS enable the BlackBerry PlayBook to provide users with true multitasking and a highly-responsive and fluid touch screen experience for apps and content services.

Uncompromised Web Browsing

With support for Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1, Adobe® Mobile AIR® and HTML-5, the BlackBerry PlayBook provides customers with an uncompromised, high-fidelity web experience and offers them the ability to enjoy all of the sites, games and media on the web. For more than a decade, the mobile industry has worked to bridge the gap between the "real web" and mobile devices through various apps and technologies and, in fact, a significant number of mobile apps today still simply serve as a proxy for web content that already exists on the web. The BlackBerry PlayBook closes that gap and brings the real, full web experience to mobile users while also opening new and more exciting opportunities for developers and content publishers.

High Performance Multimedia

The BlackBerry PlayBook features premium multimedia features to support high-quality mobile experiences. It includes dual HD cameras for video capture and video conferencing that can both record HD video at the same time, and an HDMI-out port for presenting one's creations on external displays. The BlackBerry PlayBook also offers rich stereo sound and a media player that rivals the best in the industry. 

BlackBerry Integration

For those BlackBerry PlayBook users who carry a BlackBerry smartphone*, it will also be possible to pair their tablet and smartphone using a secure Bluetooth® connection. This means they can opt to use the larger tablet display to seamlessly and securely view any of the email, BBM™, calendar, tasks, documents and other content that resides on (or is accessible through) their smartphone. They can also use their tablet and smartphone interchangeably without worrying about syncing or duplicating data. This secure integration of BlackBerry tablets and smartphones is a particularly useful feature for those business users who want to leave their laptop behind.

Enterprise Ready

Thanks to the seamless and secure Bluetooth pairing experience and the highly secure underlying OS architecture, the BlackBerry PlayBook is enterprise ready and compatible (out-of-the-box) with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server. When connected over Bluetooth, the smartphone content is viewable on the tablet, but the content actually remains stored on the BlackBerry smartphone and is only temporarily cached on the tablet (and subject to IT policy controls). With this approach to information security, IT departments can deploy the BlackBerry PlayBook to employees out-of-the-box without worrying about all the security and manageability issues that arise when corporate data is stored on yet another device.

QNX Neutrino Reliability

The BlackBerry Tablet OS is built upon the QNX® Neutrino® microkernel architecture, one of the most reliable, secure and robust operating system architectures in the world. Neutrino has been field hardened for years and is being used to support mission-critical applications in everything from planes, trains and automobiles to medical equipment and the largest core routers that run the Internet. The new BlackBerry Tablet OS leverages and builds upon the many proven strengths of this QNX Neutrino architecture to support a professional grade tablet experience and to redefine the possibilities for mobile computing.

An OS Built for Developers

The Neutrino based microkernel architecture in the BlackBerry Tablet OS delivers exceptional performance, high scalability, Common Criteria EAL 4+ security, and support for industry standard tools that are already familiar to hundreds of thousands of developers. The OS is fully POSIX compliant enabling easy portability of C-based code, supports Open GL for 2D and 3D graphics intensive applications like gaming, and will run applications built in Adobe Mobile AIR as well as the new BlackBerry® WebWorks™ app platform announced today (which will allow apps to be written to run on BlackBerry PlayBook tablets as well as BlackBerry smartphones with BlackBerry® 6). The BlackBerry Tablet OS will also support Java enabling developers to easily bring their existing BlackBerry 6 Java applications to the BlackBerry Tablet OS environment.

Key features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook include:

- 7" LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
- BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
- 1 GHz dual-core processor
- 1 GB RAM
- Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording 
- Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
- Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
- HDMI video output
- Wi-Fi - 802.11 a/b/g/n
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
- Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
Ultra thin and portable:
- Measures 5.1"x7.6"x0.4" (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
- Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
- Additional features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook will be shared on or before the date this product is launched in retail outlets.
RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.

Availability

The BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to be available in retail outlets and other channels in the United States in early 2011 with rollouts in other international markets beginning in (calendar) Q2.

RIM will begin working with developers and select corporate customers next month to begin development and early testing efforts.

The BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK is planned for release in the coming weeks and developers can register for early access at www.blackberry.com/developers/tabletos.

For more information, visit www.blackberry.com/playbook.

*Bluetooth support required.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Well, it's all change at Nokia. Mr Fix It, Anssi Vanjoki is exiting the building as soon as he can (given his 6 months notice period). Now then, this is very interesting news. What does it mean? Well, it's either brilliant news for the company, or absolutely shocking news. Strange not to see any "sorry to see you go" quotes from colleagues in the press release. Strange given the chap is widely regarded to be Mr Fix-it. And one of the company's top board directors. Strange given the market was looking to him to fix Nokia's mobile device unit. Strange he is departing the company and not taking up a non-job "thanks for coming" position before leaving to "spend more time with his motorbikes."

Strange time for the announcement. I like the chap. He's always been passionate about mobile and Nokia whenever I've met him. Here's the announcement:

Nokia announced today that Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and a member of Nokia Group Executive Board has given notice of resignation from Nokia. Vanjoki, who currently heads Nokia's Mobile Solutions unit, has six months notice period and he will continue in his current tasks for the time being.

"I felt the time has come to seek new opportunities in my life," Anssi Vanjoki says. "At the same time, I am one hundred per cent committed to doing my best for Nokia until my very last working day. I am also really looking forward to this year's Nokia World and sharing news about exciting new devices and solutions."

This week belongs firmly to the mobile giant that is Nokia.

Nokia World has come to London. It's the corporation's own chance to speak to the (previously dwindling) faithful entirely on it's terms.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the company has to offer the marketplace.

Nokia has been learning some hard lessons in the last few years and -- ever so slightly -- management has got the message, setting their people free from copious restrictions and making things happen. Witness, for example, the company's announcement of their free navigation services -- it took the market entirely by surprise and set the agenda, simultaneously challenging Google to get off it's arse. I don't think TomTom and the other 'Personal Navigation Device' ("PND") manufacturers have recovered. Especially given that a PND is now a mobile device.

Nokia didn't make the announcement 6 months in advance, giving every player at least two board meetings to plan a response. Instead, Anssi got up on stage and said, "This is live on our 10 most popular devices today. Now. From 10am."

This kind of aggressive presentation and delivery was unfamiliar to a company accustomed to extensive 'dialog' with it's industry partners prior to anything actually happening.

What has now become clear to Nokia is that its partners -- the global mobile operators -- are irrelevant, having to dance the tune of the consumer, thanks to Apple's consumerisation of consumer mobile.

Witness Vodafone 360's (Samsung supplied) handset hitting the marketplace in prime position in all their stores. The consumer said, "Er yes thanks for that, but when do you get the iPhone in?"

What was it? 50 Vodafone 360 pre-orders vs 50,000 iPhone pre-orders? And that's just Vodafone.

The operators used to pick and choose their successes. Now, they have no choice but to run fast with the consumer and avoid getting it spectacularly wrong for spectacular sums of money.

It used to be Nokia would live or die by the operator decision to stock their products. Witness, for example, Orange demanding to purchase X million Nokia N95s, "But, yeah, could you take the WiFi chip out? Doesn't work with our strategy today. Thanks."

And Nokia, trying to push the market forward with integrated WiFi services for all devices, had no choice but to agree to the request.

In the blink of an eye (as far as a Nokia executive is concerned), the market has changed dramatically.

All those ideas Nokia's geniuses had to put back in the box because their ultra-thick operator customers didn't 'get' or were utterly frightened off? Yeah. Bring them back.

NFC in every Nokia phone? Yes please. The map as the primary mobile interface? Show us! Integrated presence across bit-pipe networks? You bet.

Of course Nokia did lose it's way. The company had grown accustomed to presenting the consumer with excellent handsets that, on closer inspection and use, were ridden with stupid bugs. And could be upgraded only with a total wipe and a degree in Nuclear Physics. And only when Nokia finally released the firmware for your country and your operator (which would only arrive the month after you'd upgraded your bug ridden Nokia).

But I think we are over the belief mountain now. Nokia's senior management now recognise the scale of the challenge facing them.

And they are slowly getting there.

Unlike any other manufacturer, they are actually aiming to make products better than the iPhone. Meanwhile most other manufacturers have settled themselves into making devices that are almost as good.

As if the iPhone is a pinnacle of mobile engineering genius.

It is not. I won't get into that here though.

The iPhone works for today though. And it works for my mum, your mum, my brother, your sister. Everyone. Even a 2 year old.

So what's next? Well I can't wait for the industry to evolve beyond the current application silo model ("look, you can now have folders to organise the applications you don't use").

The real sweet spot for me with Nokia is MeeGo -- indeed, this should be the focus for anyone who's evolved beyond a Nokia S40 cheap-phone.

Anssi was very clear to us in his video interview at Mobile World Congress in February: Symbian is for the low-end market (oh, yes, there's nothing wrong with the N8) whilst MeeGo will deliver their top-end devices.

"Wait until January 2011," Anssi told us, "Then judge us."

With all predictions pointing to a sizeable percentage of devices from Nokia next year running MeeGo, it will be an interesting 2011. If MeeGo and Nokia hardware combined actually delivers the next generation mobile devices we've all been looking for, I look forward to sparks flying across the marketplace.

One can but hope. I think Nokia can do it.

Although, as I write, I've just got news that Anssi -- the Nokia equivalent of a steamroller to whom the market was looking to for a fix of the mobile devices division -- has resigned.

Well, it's certainly going to be an interesting 2011 for Nokia.