Verizon Wireless starts to offer Skype Mobile this week, no Wi-Fi support

Sometimes it can be tough to convince conventional wireless carriers to allow their consumers to use Skype on their phones. This is understandable, I suppose, since it can bite straight into the carrier’s bottom line. That said, less money from a customer is better than no customer at all.

It seems that Verizon is coming to its senses in this respect, because it has announced that Skype Mobile will indeed be offered on several of its handset. The launch is slated for this Thursday, March 25.

Skype Mobile will be made available initially for nine Verizon Wireless 3G smartphones, including BlackBerry and Android. It’s not like the calls are made over Wi-Fi though, per se. Instead, Skype Mobile still uses Verizon’s voice network for the wireless connection of Skype-to-Skype calls. You knew there was a catch, right? So in the end they make money off data fees rather than airtime. With the installation in place, Skype users on the Verizon network can make and receive Skype voice calls, send and receive Skype instant messages, manage Skype contact lists, and call international numbers at Skype’s calling rates. If you’re still not sure, there’s an annoying video on YouTube you can check out.

READ MORE - Verizon Wireless starts to offer Skype Mobile this week, no Wi-Fi support

Meet some Canucks, get free Best Buy gift cards with a BlackBerry

Hey Vancouver hockey fans! As the hometown Canucks gear up for a potential playoff run, you’ll have an opportunity to meet a couple of the team’s star players and cash in on some free stuff while you’re at it. They’re not quite Roberto Luongo, but you still want to meet these Canucks.

I got an email in my inbox from Best Buy, informing me that Alex Burrows will be making an appearance at the Cambie Best Buy on Sunday, March 21st between 2pm and 4pm. Presumably, he’ll be there for autographs and photo ops.

If you’re over in the Tri-Cities, then you can meet with Mason Raymond at the Coquitlam Best Buy during the same time that Burrows will be at the Cambie Best Buy. Yeah, this means that you likely won’t be able to hit up both events.

What does this have to do with mobile phones and portable technology? Not surprisingly, Best Buy has an ulterior motive. They’ve partnered up with Bell and the NHL for these events.

After meeting with Burrows or Raymond, you can waltz into the Best Buy Mobile location to sign up for a 36-month Bell contract. In doing so, you’ll receive a $100 gift card. That promo is effective between March 19 and 25 in the Vancouver area. If you get a new BlackBerry before the end of the month, they’ll give you free unlimited NHL at least until the playoffs end.

To give a further incentive to show up early, the first five people who activate a new BlackBerry with Bell on the day of the event will get an exclusive Stanley Cup NHL jersey.

READ MORE - Meet some Canucks, get free Best Buy gift cards with a BlackBerry

New BlackBerry Storm 3 is really a BlackBerry slider?

It seems that the boys and girls at Research in Motion have been keeping pretty busy. We’ve seen two generations of the BlackBerry Storm already, but there are still people like me who would prefer to have a physical keyboard. How are they going to appease the masses? Based on these leaked photos, it seems they’re doing it with a BlackBerry slider phone.

There’s no model number or model name attached to this just yet, but some are starting to call it the BlackBerry Storm 3. While in its closed position, it looks almost like the regular BlackBerry Storm, except there is an optical trackpad included underneath the touchscreen.

What makes this BlackBerry different than all the rest, however, is that verticaly slide-out keyboard. This gives the BlackBerry slider the same kind of form factor as the Palm Pre, except you get all of that BlackBerry-fueled addiction goodness.

Take these leaked shots with a serious grain of salt, of course, but they do look quite convincing. Should this slider indeed be the BlackBerry Storm3, it’ll likely have that BlackBerry OS 6.0 that’s got everyone talking.

READ MORE - New BlackBerry Storm 3 is really a BlackBerry slider?

New $25 unlimited plan coming to Virgin Mobile?

Just because you want to have an unlimited plan doesn’t mean that you have to break the bank. This comes from an unverified source, but it seems that Virgin Mobile is about to unleash one of the cheapest “unlimited” plans that I have seen for some time. How cheap? How does twenty-five bucks sound?

Looking at these new Virgin Mobile plans, the $25 unlimited plan will give you unlimited text, unlimited email, unlimited data, and unlimited web. That’s a lot of Twitter updates and YouTube videos! The downside is that the $25 plan only comes with 300 anytime minutes.

If you’re the kind of person who tends to chat a little more than that, you can bump up to the $40 a month plan. It’ll give you the same unlimited features, but you get 1200 anytime minutes. For truly unlimited, there’s the $60 plan with unlimited minutes. BlackBerry users, for whatever reason, are on the hook for a $10 premium on any of these three plans.

I don’t talk much, so the $25 unlimited “Beyond Talk” plan sounds awfully appealing. I wonder if they’ll be offering anything similar to Canada.

On a related note, three new phones should be launching with Virgin Mobile soon too. There’s the LG Rumor Touch ($150), the Kyocera Loft ($70), and the BlackBerry Curve 8530 ($300).

READ MORE - New $25 unlimited plan coming to Virgin Mobile?