RIM may be gearing up to officially announce BlackBerry Messenger 6, the latest version of the BlackBerry peer-to-peer messaging service--BBM to fans.

Real-time gaming among BlackBerry owners is one possible new feature suggested by a source known to the BlackBerry site PocketBerry.

The rumor specifically addressed playing under the BBM log-in name, chatting with other gamers who aren't on your friend list, and integrating gaming results into your status update. BlackBerry Messenger 6 may be supported on all OS 5 devices and up, according to the rumor.

So how far off is the rumor? Hopefully it's right on the mark. Gaming with BBM is something we predicted before the BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco this past September. Indeed, at that conference, RIM laid out plans to give BlackBerry Messenger a new social life by extending the Messenger platform so other apps could tap into BBM's ability to push content between contacts.

We'll keep you updated, of course, on any and all newsworthy developments.

Facebook has released a benchmark designed to help developers test just how powerful desktop and mobile browsers are at running a new generation of games built with a new generation of Web standards.

One of the most important of those standards is the JavaScript programming language, which is ubiquitous on the Web and ever faster in browsers. Enter Facebook's JSGameBench, designed specifically for measuring game issues such as displaying "sprites," the graphics out of which animated characters are made.

"Although there are many other benchmark suites that measure JavaScript performance, we wanted to build one focused specifically on key game performance metrics," said Facebook engineer Cory Ondrejka in a blog post last night. "JSGameBench exists to explore HTML5's game performance limits," he added, using HTML5 in the broad all-sorts-of-new-Web-technologies sense currently in vogue in some circles.

It's only at version 0.1, so expect lots of changes. So far, though, Microsoft's upcoming IE9 crushes the competition on the speed test, with the Windows version of Google's upcoming Chrome 10 in second place.

Mobile browsers are particularly important at Facebook, and the new benchmark fits in there, too. "JSGameBench generally works on mobile browsers, but properly abstracted touch and gesture events are key to games working across multiple phones," Ondrejka said.

Ondrejka, by the way, has an interesting history in the digital realm. After a falling out in 2007, he left the chief technology officer job at Linden Lab, which operates the Second Life virtual world, then spent some time at music label EMI. After that stint, he worked on a variety of programming projects then co-founded a start-up called Walletin with his friend Bruce Rogers. Facebook hired the pair before the project got off the ground.

Browser performance is tricky to quantify, in part because there are so many possible things to measure. In that, it's like just about every other benchmark: its relevance is limited by how well its tests represent real-world challenges. A benchmark limited to gaming applications has similar issues of scope, but it is a narrower task than analyzing all possible Web-based programs.

Microsoft, as part of its effort to promote IE9 and its hardware acceleration, is also interested in showcasing performance with a series of browser games and demos on its Internet Explorer Test Drive site.

Microsoft may have idled through the last decade of browser activity, but it's fully awake now with IE9. It's got a competitive browser almost done, it's engaged in setting Web standards, and it's got its technical marketing team in high gear.

A recent example: Yesterday, Microsoft detailed one of its benchmark-esque demos, called Blizzard. The company teased apart how the site exercises many of the new Web technologies. Among them are SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) for durved lines, Canvas for 2D graphics combined with JavaScript to animate their movement, WOFF (Web Open Font Format) for custom typography, built-in HTML5 audio, and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for styling.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Lots of apps can stream music, photos, and video from a PC to an iOS device, but very few support TV shows recorded with Windows Media Center.

That's a shame, because WMC has been my DVR for years (and it's more awesome than ever now that it has a Ceton InfiniTV 4 CableCard adapter).

Enter Remote Potato ($6.99), a new app that streams just about anything stored on your PC: music, photos, videos, and, hallelujah, recorded TV. What's more, it provides access to your TV guide, meaning you can schedule recordings on the go.

Now for the bad news: the app's pretty buggy at this stage, and getting it connected to your PC can be a hassle.

The latter requires the Remote Potato server client (for Windows 7 only). It's easy enough to install, but doesn't offer any way to automatically connect to the iPhone app. Thus, you have to supply the PC's IP address. And if you want to use Remote Potato outside your home (i.e., outside your network), you'll need to sign up for a dynamic-DNS service (like DynDNS) and do some port-forwarding on your router.

Other media-server solutions don't force you to jump through these kinds of hoops, so I have to give Remote Potato a demerit on that.

Once I got everything set up, I tapped the app's Recordings button and was delighted to see all my recorded shows. I selected an episode of "The Colbert Report," chose a streaming quality (Remote Potato has five options, from Lowest to Top), and settled in to watch.

For the first 10 seconds, it was awesome. Then the playback paused for about 2 seconds. Then it resumed. This happened regardless of the streaming quality I chose. If I paused playback for a minute or two, that gave the app time to buffer more video, and the hiccups abated. Still, that shouldn't happen. (For the record, it didn't happen with other, non-TV videos in my library.)

Remote Potato doesn't let you scrub video, though it does have a 30-second replay button. Thus, you're pretty much stuck watching commercials.

The other problem I encountered was with the TV guide. It worked fine at first, but then every time I tried to view it, I got a blank "loading" screen. It took some troubleshooting with the developer to get that resolved.

On top of all that, the app crashed on me several times--usually when I was futzing with the server settings, but sometimes just when switching from one function to another.

Despite this considerable list of problems, I really like Remote Potato. Or, at least, I want to like it. It has the potential to be the killer app for the Windows Media Center set, of which I'm a proud member. And I suspect it will be, just as soon as the developer works out the kinks. Here's hoping that's soon.

In the meantime, check out PlayOn Mobile (which, to be fair, has problems of its own.)

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Mobile devices are the frontier for malicious hackers and other technological ne'er-do-wells, which means that the Android operating system sheriffs can't be far behind. It's an unusual space to be in at the moment, because while malicious mobile apps have been proven to exist and indeed are legitimate threats, there's very few of them for one simple reason: there's no money in it. At least, not yet.

You can bet your last horse bound for the glue factory that as phones replace credit cards and are increasingly used to conduct transactions, the threats will increase. App makers aren't waiting around, either, and already there are some major Windows security players moving into the Android market. Many of them don't have fully baked, stable releases, but some do. We've reviewed three of the better-known apps that are ready to safeguard your phone: AVG Antivirus, Lookout Mobile Security, and Trend Micro Mobile Security. (Check out our comparison chart.)

Generally, these three compare favorably against each other, although there are definite differences. DroidSecurity was the original publisher of AVG's app, and so the look and feel of AVG Antivirus for Android has very little to do with the desktop application. Expect that to change in the coming year, but for now they seem to share only a company logo.

The features in AVG's app are similar though not identical to Lookout's app. Lookout has been garnering massive attention in the Android world, to the point where it's been featured on several Android television commercials. The app has more going for it than a good PR firm; Lookout has been developing its App Genome Project, a real-time database of verified legitimate apps and their security implications to further bolster the Lookout app's bonafides.

AVG and Lookout share common features beyond their scanning tools. Both have a lost phone locator, a must-have feature for mobile devices, although the implementation is different between them. Lookout's implementation feels more polished thanks to a stronger Web site design, and where Lookout offers an on-demand car alarm-style "scream" deterrent, AVG lets you send custom messages to the screen. However, AVG's remote lock and wipe are included in the free version, which Lookout reserves for its premium customers.

Both also offer backups, again with different implementations. Lookout restricts content backup beyond contacts to premium users, while AVG users get free access to backups for text messages, bookmarks, system settings, application settings, call logs, as well as contacts. Despite fewer features being offered in the free version, Lookout's implementation is preferable for several reasons. One is that AVG's backup covers much of the same ground that other free backup utilities or options can help you with, such as contacts and bookmarks, without backing up many people's most prized possession: their photos. Settings and text backup without having to root the phone is an excellent feature, though, and so I'd place the two apps on equal footing.

Trend Micro stands slightly apart from AVG and Lookout. It doesn't have a phone locator service, although it does offer parental controls and a solid call and text message blocking system. It also ports its Smart Protection Network from the desktop to the phone, running Web sites you look at in the default browser through a safety check without slowing down your device. Unfortunately, the SPN doesn't yet support other browsers, such as Dolphin, Firefox, or Opera.

Another difference with Trend Micro is that it's not free. Like the desktop version, you get a 30-day, unencumbered free trial, after which a license costs $3.99. Upgrading AVG will set you back $9.99, while Lookout Premium commands a premium of $29.99 per year.

All three will enhance the basic level of security on your phone, and all three have strong added-value features. However, when it comes to app verification and lost phone locator implementation, my two biggest concerns, Lookout jumps to the top of my list.