The good folks over at Griffin Technology asked me to show off their latest press release introducing a new line of accessories for Blackberry units. There are some good looking cases here!

Nashville, TN – July 21, 2009 – Griffin Techology Inc., the innovative leader in MP3, Mac and PC accessories, today established its place in the BlackBerry market with a line of new accessories and cases, all with proven function and style, for an array of BlackBerry devices. The release includes a number of favorite Griffin case designs that have been adapted for use with the popular line of smartphone.

"The BlackBerry has a well-deserved reputation for utility and technology, as well as a loyal user base," says Mark Rowan, Director of Product Development at Griffin Technology. "We’ve been designing best-selling cases for years, across numerous platforms, and we’re excited to bring them to BlackBerry."

Griffin’s case line-up is as diverse as the BlackBerry family, itself. Available today are Elan Clip for BlackBerry Bold 9000, Elan Form for BlackBerry Storm, FlexGrip for BlackBerry Pearl, iClear for BlackBerry Curve 8300, iClear for BlackBerry Pearl, and Screen Care Kit for BlackBerry Storm.

You can click here for the rest of the press release and the details, and believe me, it’s well worth taking a look!

Yesterday, I noticed that one of my favorite games on the iPod Touch (or iPhone) was updated, and I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity to mention it to all of you.  That game, of course, is Trace, which is just an incredibly creative and original addition to your iPhone or iPod Touch.  It was among  the first games I downloaded when I bought the original iPod Touch, and is still among my favorites today.

In this game, you control a small person.  The only thing you need to do is guide the person to the exit (which is the yellow starburst).  Use the arrows to move him forward or backward, and the little blue triangle to jump.  Along the way, you there will be numerous obstacles blocking your path.  Touch any of these obstacles and you will need to begin the level anew. 

The game starts off easily enough, but before long those obstacles are going to require some creativity.  For that, we bring in the element of the game’s namesake, trace.  To trace a line, all you need to do is drag your finger across the screen.  You can draw a line anywhere on the screen, providing a new path for your character to follow.  If you make a mistake, just toggle from draw mode to erase or just hit retry to start fresh.

It all sounds so simple, but watch out because this game gets difficult fast…and then keeps right on going, with 120 levels divided into six differently themed worlds (paint, water, plant, chalk, volcano, and space).  Needless to say, this one is going to get pretty interesting along the way.

In addition to providing a simple and creative game, Trace also features fantastic graphics.  In what has become somewhat more common in the time since Trace was released, the graphics resemble simple hand drawn doodles.  The whole thing just screams fun…and then lives up to that expectation in spades.  It quickly became one of my favorite games, which led immediately to both my sons picking up the game.  Before long, all three of us were hopefully addicted to guiding that little guy through worlds upon worlds of doodles.  What a fantastic game. 

Trace is available for free from the iTunes App Store.

It is like a shared ritual.  We have all been there.  Your friend, mother, mother-in-law, or other random visitor is coming into town for a visit.  Your job is to meet them at the airport.  Unless you live across the street from the airport, this requires an incredible feat of timing and coordination.  Otherwise, your friend ends up standing outside baggage claim for half an hour…or you are driving around the terminal in endless circles (don’t even think about pulling over to catch your breath).  What you need is some app which will give you the status of any flight.  What you need is FlightView on the Palm Pre.

FlightView is a pretty simple, but relatively effective app.  From the main screen, all you need to do is enter your flight information under “Track a Flight” in order to get started.  You can enter the information by flight numbers or by route.

Once you have entered the information, you can view a map showing the path of the flight, with an airplane showing its exact location along the route.  Beneath that, you will find the scheduled (and actual) departure and arrival times, as well as the amount of time remaining in the flight.  It will even show you at which gate you can expect the plane to arrive (not that you would be able to make it through security to meet your friends, but what the heck).

From here, just tap the plus sign to add the flight to your favorites, where you can access it quickly and easily in order to keep tabs on the flight’s progress.  In order to keep you even more completely informed, you can also add the flight information to your calendar, or set up alerts so you will receive a notification if anything changes.

Like I said, it is a pretty simple app.  It does one thing, and does it well.  Don’t be fooled by this simplicity, however.  The developers have done a fantastic job of finding a niche which everyone could use, and filling it with this fantastic little app.