RIM puts BlackBerry Playbook on massive sale; Android Market shoehorned onto rooted units

Research in Motion may not have found itself in a coveted spot as 2011 ended, but if it’s learned anything from HP, there’s a surefire way to rid itself of remaining BlackBerry PlayBook inventory: sell ‘em for a loss. After the unloved slate went on sale in its native land, Americans can now save up to $400 on a PlayBook through February 4th. RIM’s official webstore is offering the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB model for $299, leaving us to wonder who would ever choose the smaller two if all three remain in stock. In related news, those who take the company up on the offer can now gain access to the Android Market with a few choice moves.

Read story at engadget

Social Q&A Site Sharecare And Healthline Announce Partnership On Health Search Services

Exclusive – Social Q&A site Sharecare.com, created by WebMD founder Jeff Arnold and TV’s Dr. Mehmet Oz, is partnering with Healthline Networks, a provider of intelligent health information services. Healthline currently powers the health platforms at Yahoo Health, AARP, Aetna, United Health Group and others. Going forward, it will power Sharecare’s search services too.

One of the more interesting products resulting from the partnership is the integration of Healthline’s 3D BodyMaps, a visual search offering that lets users browse the human body to see how diseases and other medical conditions can affect it. The launch is timely, given Google’s recent announcement that it would shut down its own Google Body Browser project, which will be closed and the code open-sourced.

Sharecare will also roll out additional content, navigation features and applications in over the next few months, including Healthline’s SymptomSearch, TreatmentSearch and DrugSearch

In case you’re unfamiliar with Sharecare, the site is a social counterpart to the older WebMD, both of which were founded (or co-founded) by Jeff Arnold. It’s probably what WebMD would be, if launched today…-

Read the whole story at Techcrunch

Google Takeout, An Easier Way To Take Your Data With You

#Lost in all the buzz around Google+ is an important new feature rolled out alongside it that makes it way easier to take all your data out of Google. It is called, appropriately enough, Google Takeout. It’s got it’s own separate site and is also part of settings within Google+. In settings, you click on “Data Liberation” and then you are given the option to download all of your profile data, stream data, photos from Picassa, Buzz data, Circles and Contacts.” Read more at techcrunch.com