Research In Motion is offering the BlackBerry Widget Software Development Kit (SDK) to enable third party application developers to build applications for BlackBerry smartphones using common web technologies.

The new BlackBerry Widget SDK allow developers to create web-based applications for BlackBerry smartphones with advanced features and functionality, a capability available for BlackBerry applications written in Java(R) earlier.

A BlackBerry Widget uses the BlackBerry Browser engine to render an application's user interface using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Developers can easily use existing web content to create BlackBerry Widgets and can extend the capabilities of their web applications using BlackBerry Widget APIs.

Using the new BlackBerry Widget APIs, developers can, for instance, create seamless interaction between a widget and the BlackBerry email and calendar applications, create widgets with the ability to view or edit files and documents stored on the smartphone, access location-based services or the media player, and more. Developers can also take advantage of RIM's unique push technology, enabling dynamic widgets that can run in the background and provide proactive alerts to users in a timely manner.

With Snow Leopard finally been given a release date and a price, the comparisons with Windows 7 are starting to pop up all over the place. Everyone is asking "Which one is the better upgrade i.e. which provide more value for your money?"

Snow Leopard is truly a release where the under-the-hood stuff is more important than user-visible changes. OpenCL, Grand Central Dispatch, removal of PowerPC code, fully 64bit, they all aid in making Snow Leopard faster and leaner. There are also some interface tweaks, but they are small (but useful!), and certainly don't draw that much attention.

Windows 7 is a completely different story. Microsoft has made the operating system perform better than Windows Vista (and every report confirms that per osnews research team), with some even claiming performance on par with Windows XP, especially on more recent hardware. Snow Leopard could give a more substantial improvement in this area, but only very recent and powerful 64bit machines will see these benefit. Windows 7's (possibly) more modest performance gains over Vista will benefit machines that are much older and/or much less powerful. For instance, both that old Pentium 4 box as well as low-spec Acer Aspire One perform better with Windows 7 than with Vista. Similarly aged and/or spec-ed Macs can't even run Snow Leopard at all!

However, where the difference really becomes obvious is the interface changes Windows 7 introduces, and all the pulling-together of frameworks and features introduced with Windows Vista, and exposing them to users in much more useful ways than Vista did. The best example of this is Homegroup, which pulls together various technologies and features introduced with Windows Vista, and presents them in a way that makes managing your network and shared files completely painless. Another example is that various driver upgrades no longer require a restart, such as graphics drivers.

Blackle claims that if you are using CRT monitors or LCDs of size 24-inch or more, and use Blackle.com it will save lakhs of Watt hours (Actual figures are displayed on their homepage). Blackle is a website powered by Google Custom Search, which aims at saving electricity by displaying a black background color for search results.

Google, on the other hand, claim that making its home page black will not reduce energy consumption. They also add that on flat-panel monitors, displaying black may actually increase energy usage. However, they do agree with the idea of reducing climate change by saving energy and applaud the spirit of such initiatives. This is an important effort that we all should join in especially in India, since it does not have energy in abundance. India still have a long way to go, but do keep in mind that it is still a developing country but is moving closer to the developed country mark very quickly.

While experts debate if black is the new green or not, here are couple of things you can actually start doing at your end to make a significant contribution to the climate changes: