The new OS 2.0 for the BlackBerry PlayBook

speaker 1: Hey, I'm Donald Bell here at CES 2012. I'm here with Michael (Clooney?) from RIM showing off their new play book 2.0 operating system for the playbook tablet. Tell me, Michael, what is going on with the new playbook software? speaker 2: It's great to be here, Donald. And we're really excited about Playbook OS 2.0. What Playbook OS 2.0. is essentially bringing is the built in e-mail, calendar contacts application as kind of the big headliners for this release. So within the e-mail application, you get your unified inbox which all our BlackBerry users are used to already. It's a great way to get all of your information coming in to right at once. Not only do you get your e-mail accounts in there but you also get your social accounts like LinkedIn and Twitter. You get access to all information. The e-mail clients also bring in features like rich text composed which allow you to, you know, change the font sizes, bold, italicized all of that within the e-mail client and stuff including a great improved virtual keyboard that has auto correct, auto suggestion and contextual word (prediction?) really make the e-mail and messaging experience you know, to the next level. Speaker 1: So you (??) e-mail makes sense especially for a BlackBerry device, you really want a powerful e-mail client. What else do you have? speaker 2: Great, so within the contacts application, we're moving again with that social centric experience. So the user would add their LinkedIn or their Twitter accounts to the device. We go off and we pull down the friends you follow, the contacts that you have in (Palm?) and we merge that and integrate that all into one contact card for the user. Speaker 1: So contacts, e-mail... Speaker 2: Calendars , the 3rd application, the built in application that we're adding. And then it also brings in that social integration into the calendar. So their meetings aren't just about where they are and when they are but it's about the people you're meeting with so you know who you're meeting with. You have all that great information about them. You know, if they changed roles because they get LinkedIn updates. You know when the last time you met with them because you can look at past meetings. So you have all that in your information before you even get to that meeting and you're well prepared in advance. Well, so you have what we call growing numbers in a month view. The bigger the number, the busy you are. So it really gives users that way to (ask?) your calendar quickly, look at it and say you know what, I'm really too busy on this day. Let's try and book at meeting that day and then dive in to the further details of that. Speaker 1: all right, I'm excited (??) when a BlackBerry Playbook user is gonna be able to access the software? speaker 2: The OS coming in February of this year and it's gonna bring those 3 things that I mentioned plus many things else like the video store also powered by (Rovi?). Or we're bringing in support for Android applications including some of the thousands of great titles that we have already. Speaker 1: all right, Michael, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for showing me BlackBerry Playbook OS 2.0. And I'm excited to see it when it comes out in February. cnet.com, I'm Donald Bell.