Qik, a startup that allows you to stream live video to the web directly from your phone, has launched support for RIM’s incredibly popular Blackberry platform. The software is currently available in an alpha state (so don’t be surprised if you encounter bugs), and includes support for the Blackberry Bold and Pearl (other phones, like the Flip and Curve, will be available in a later release that the company expects soon).

This brings Qik to a much broader platform, and also helps cement Qik’s lead in terms of device support well ahead of competitors Kyte and Flixwagon, neither of which support Blackberry. However, Qik will have another competitor on the Blackberry platform: today’s news comes hot on the heels (and may have been prompted by) the launch of Next2Friends, the first streaming video application that supported Blackberries.

Two weeks ago Qik also launched alpha support for the J2ME platform, which is found on a wide variety of phones.

Unfortunately there’s still no word on when Qik will finally makes its way to the iPhone (it runs well under jailbroken phones, but isn’t yet available through the app store). At this point this isn’t because of technical difficulties (Qik has a version working for distribution through the iPhone’s ad-hoc beta service) – it’s a question of whether Apple will allow the app on its store. There haven’t yet been any applications that support video using the iPhone’s built-in camera, but it’s unclear if Apple has a broad ban on such apps or if it simply hasn’t come across any video applications that passed muster.

For the last few months I’ve been waiting for someone to come up with a statistic saying how many new mobile phones are being announced each day, each our, each minute or second. It would be fun seeing all these phone giants battling for market share, wouldn’t it?

The latest groundbreaking release this fall is Samsung Pixon M8800, a 15.5mm thick 8 megapixel camera phone that packs some incredible photography skills. Autofocus, built-in double flash with LED, image stabilization and anti-shaking software, panoramic shooting, face/smile/blink detection are just a few of the features that can turn the new Pixon into a pretty good point-and-shoot camera. It also records videos at a resolution of 720 x 480 @ 30 fps, or 320 x 240 pixels @ 120 fps.

Other than a perfect camera phone, it packs a 3.2-inch display (400 x 240) with 256k colors, a TouchWiz interface from the i900 Omnia, 2100 MHz HSDPA, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, built-in GPS, a built-in memory of 200MB, Micro SD slot (up to 8GB), 1000 mAh Li-ion battery and unexplainable … it misses WiFi. It does, however, play divx, xvid, h.263, h.264, wmv, mp4, mp3, aac, wma si amr files. Talking about audio and video playback, it has a stunning feature. It tries to mimic a 5.1 surround device.

Samsung Pixon M8800 is expected in stores at the end of October, start of November, and the price should be somewhere near $800. I think it’s going to be a top seller, right from the begining.

Sprint may have signed up with the other 30 or so companies to support Google’s development of the Android mobile phone operating system, but currently they are not so keen.

The CEO of Sprint has proclaimed that Google’s Android OS is not good enough just yet, Dan Hesse spoke in Washington to The National Press Club and informed them that Android is not “good enough to put the Sprint brand on it” yet.

Hesse did say that Sprint would sell an Android powered phone “at some time in the future”. This is a very interesting statement for Hesse to make considering that Sprint has been having problems marketing its brand over the last few years, and the Android OS may be the biggest thing to hit cell phones in years.

Hit the read link below for the full story or leave your thoughts on Sprint and Android in the comments.

Google G1 mobile phone

The first smartphone powered by Google’s open source Android operating system – the G1 – was in one sense a big success even before it went on sale this week through Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA mobile unit. According to some reports, 1.5m T-Mobile G1 handsets were preordered by buyers eager to get hold of a device and an operating system that promise to deliver another boost to the consumer smartphone market. It goes on sale in the UK shortly.

I have been testing the G1, made by Taiwan-based HTC, for several weeks. A number of shortcomings aside, it is a true rival to Apple’s iPhone and other smartphone devices aimed at the consumer market.

The G1’s most noticeable feature is its design. It may lack the immediate, simple aesthetic appeal of the iPhone, but it does pack both a big 3.2 inch touch screen and a full mini Qwerty keyboard that slides out of one side: and it all fits into a case that is only slightly thicker than Apple’s device.

The G1’s physicalkeyboard will particularly appeal to users who write and send a lot of mobile e-mail, text messages or instant messages and who, like me, find the virtual keyboard built into the iPhone difficult to use.

The other unusual design feature is that it is angled at one end to move the microphone a little closer to the users’s mouth during voice calls. It also positions the BlackBerry-style trackerball conveniently under the right thumb when you rotate the handset to the “landscape” position to use the keyboard and browse the internet.

Aside from the trackerball, there are five buttons below the screen. The familiar green and red start/stop call buttons, along with its good sound quality, make the G1 an appealing handset for ordinary voice calls. There is a home screen button, a return button to take you back one step, and a menu button that brings up a set of context-sensitive “soft” keys at the bottom of the touch screen.

Navigating the G1 and its features is easy but not quite as intuitive as the iPhone.

In spite of its sophisticated technology credentials, the G1 is clearly aimed at the broad mass market rather than technology aficionados or corporate users. It is not designed to synchronise with corporate e-mail systems and does not permit users to save or edit Microsoft Office documents.

W hen new G1 owners power up the handset, they create or sign into a Google account and then the phone is automatically sychronised with Google’s web-based Gmail, calendar and contact information. Users can also set the phone up to download and send e-mail from other non-Gmail personal e-mail accounts. Gmail users can read Microsoft Word and Excel attachments, but cannot edit or save them.

Appropriately for a device that Google believes will help bring the mobile internet to the mass market, the G1’s web browser is both fast and excellent – it is in fact based on the same technology as the Safari browser built into the iPhone and Google’s recently launched Chrome web browser.

In my tests, web pages loaded quickly and I could zoom easily by tapping a screen based icon.

The G1’s home screen features four icons providing access to basic applications – a dialler, contacts list, the web browser and Google Maps. The latter takes full advantage of the G1’s built-in GPS satellite navigation technology and supports one of my favourite features – Google Maps street view that changes as you turn around, like a compass needle.

From the home screen, users can open a full screen of application icons that provide access to all the included applications such as alarm clock, camera, e-mail, IM and music.

Surprisingly, the big gap in the G1’s features is support for music and other multimedia content where it is easily outclassed by the iPhone and the latest BlackBerrys. The G1 comes with an integrated music player and 3Mp (megapixel) camera, but does not allow users to take video clips.

More crucially, there is no way to sychronise your music with your PC; instead, you must load unprotected AAC, MP3, or WMA files on to a memory card or drag and drop music files on to the G1 while it is connected via a USB cable to a PC. However, users can download music directly from the Amazon music store using the G1’s WiFi networking capabilities.

The lack of a standard headphone mini-jack is also annoying – users have to plug an adapter into the G1’s proprietary USB port. On the plus side, the G1 has a removable rechargeable battery and, in my tests at least, was quite frugal – an overnight charge was enough to run it all the next day. Talk time is around five hours.

Overall, the G1 is an impressive first generation of a new type of smartphone, with many strengths offsetting a few weaknesses. It is well made and remarkably stable – my test unit has not crashed at all – even though it is actually a combination of a new mobile phone operating system (Android) developed by the Google-led Open Handset Alliance, new hardware built by HTC and, at least in the US, a new 3G mobile network being rolled out by T-Mobile USA.

It is also likely that many of the niggles I have identified will be addressed by software updates and by third-party applications offered through Goog-le’s online store, the Android Market. Like Apple’s App Store, the Android Market will offer free and low cost software packages – about 50 at launch – and is in my view the most exciting development.

More smartphones: next week Paul Taylor looks at the latest BlackBerrys – the Bold and the Pearl Flip