Holiday shoppers in the United States had spent $25 billion online during one week ending 16 December and electronics and clothing items were their favourites. This represents a 25 per cent increase over the same period in 2004.
Research in Motion (RIM) has just announced its first dual-mode smartphone with Wi-Fi enabled – BlackBerry 8820. The dual-mode BlackBerry can be switched between EDGE/GPRS/GSM cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity to allow wireless voice support and data access. The 8820 features a full QWERTY keypad, a large and bright 320 x 240 display, a trackball navigation system, a media player and a memory slot for micro memory cards up to 32GB. Besides that, the 8820 included a built-in Global Positioning System (GPS). The device is expected to be available this summer but there’s no pricing yet.