RIM unveils slick Porsche BlackBerry phone. Price tag? Just $1,890.

People having a mid-life crisis have been known to get themselves a Porsche in an attempt to feel more beautiful, youthful and cooler. Now, it’s Research In Motion’s turn.

The latest Porsche to hit the market is a marvel of sleek engineering, filled with gleaming stainless steel and hand-stretched leather. It also fits in your shirt pocket.

That’s because it happens to be not a car, but a BlackBerry. Research In Motion unveiled its latest, slickest-looking smart phone yet this week, the Porsche Design P’9981. The phone was co-designed by RIM and Porsche Design, a subsidiary of the German sports car manufacturer.

It retails for a mere $1,890 in Canada, at the Porsche Design store in Yorkville. In other select markets where it’s been released, it’s already got some celebrity fans — Kanye West has reportedly bought fellow musicians Jay-Z and Beyonce Porsche phones.

For that price, you get not only the gleaming new piece of hardware, but a custom Porsche-designed user interface, a unique PIN that identifies you as a P’9981 owner, a 1.2 gigahertz processor, 8 gigs of memory, and a 5 megapixel camera, and a browser that RIM hopes will speed you down the information autobahn.

It’s a project that RIM leaped at when approached by Porsche Design two years ago, said Todd Wood, RIM’s senior vice president for industrial design.

“When they came knocking, it was such a fantastic opportunity,” said Wood.

For Wood’s inner design geek, it was also a thrill to work with Porsche Design, the company started by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche in 1972. The grandson of the auto maker’s founder was the one who designed the company’s iconic 911 sports car.

“I learned about him in design school, so to go over there and work with that company that he created was great. There were a few times I had to pinch myself,” said Wood.

The new BlackBerry runs on RIM’s BlackBerry 7.1 operating system. It won’t be able to run the long-awaited BB10 operating system when it’s launched, likely this fall, Wood confirmed.

“It won’t be backwards compatible,” Wood said.

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Apple pays $60M for iPad trademark in China

IDG News Service - Apple has agreed to pay $60 million for ownership of the iPad trademark in China, as part of a settlement with a little-known Chinese firm called Proview that had tried to ban sales of the tablet in the country, according to a local court.

The Guangdong Province Higher People's Court announced the settlement on Monday, and stated that the legal dispute had been put to rest. Following the payment to Proview, Chinese authorities transferred the "IPAD" trademark to Apple.

The two companies have been locked in a legal dispute to determine ownership of the iPad trademark, with Apple claiming to have bought the iPad trademarks for China from Proview in 2009.

Proview, a PC and display vendor now facing possible bankruptcy, however, argued that the company had never officially sold the iPad trademarks to Apple. The Chinese company filed complaints and lawsuits, demanding that local authorities stop sales of the iPad in the country because of trademark infringement.

The Guangdong court was originally expected to rule on the case. But Apple and Proview were in recent months in talks to settle the dispute, at the initiative of the court.

Apple did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The company's latest version of the iPad has yet to be sold in the country, despite clearingregulatory checks. Analysts have said the legal dispute over the iPad trademark could be delaying the product's sale.

Proview had wanted as much as $400 million in settlement from Apple in order to help clear its debts. Eight banks have taken over Proview's assets and are owed $180 million.

Li Su, the head of the consultancy representing the eight banks, said Apple initially wanted to pay only a few million dollars for the iPad trademark. But over time, Apple negotiated in good faith, realizing the dispute would linger in Chinese courts unless a settlement was reached, he added.

"Some may feel that Apple had help from Chinese leaders by spending a lot of effort on public relations," he said, noting how Apple's CEO Tim Cook visitedChina in March and met with government officials.

"But I think Apple was acting in good faith," Su added. "Apple only needed to pay a small amount to resolve what could have been a major inconvenience," he said.

Su said he did not know how the $60 million received from Apple would be spent.

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