Leaked photos are one thing, but we do enjoy a video of a pre-release device to really see how it fits in the hand.  Having seen the BlackBerry Pearl 9100 (aka Striker) a little over a week ago, now comes a video of the compact smartphone in action courtesy of Salomondrin.  No word on how he acquired the Pearl 9100, but he gives a decent overview of its form-factor and the changes from earlier handsets.

In terms of specifications, the Pearl 9100 has GSM 3G (i.e. it uses a SIM rather than CDMA networks) and of course there’s the optical trackpad as seen on some of RIM’s other recent BlackBerry devices.  Around the back there’s a 3.2-megapixel camera, and the handset runs BlackBerry OS 5.0.0.350 with 256MB of memory.

Particularly nifty are the multimedia controls running along the top edge of the handset, which allow you to skip tracks, play or pause music (as well as control the phone ringer) without having to take it out of your bag or pocket.  That almost makes up for the side-mounted 3.5mm headphone socket, ideally placed to catch your headphones cable as you try to whip out the phone.

One of my big pet peeves is when people wear Bluetooth headsets when they aren’t driving and can actually hold the handset up to their ear. A long time ago I could see the Bluetooth headset as a status symbol, but today everyone, including my Grandma, has one so we aren’t impressed. If you like to wear Bluetooth headsets but don’t want others knowing you are wearing it, here is the product for you.

Sky Mall is offering a “covert” Bluetooth headset called the BrickHouse Security 159-ME-PASSIVE. The headset is otherwise known as the Invisible Bluetooth Earpiece. The thing is poked way down inside your ear canal where it can’t be seen from the outside.

Removal is done with an included “super strong” magnet. That makes me nervous, what if the magnet isn’t super strong enough. It would suck to have to go to the doctor and get the thing removed from your ear. The earpiece synchronizes to any Bluetooth phone and has a remote mic for picking up voice. The earpiece is available now for $199.95.

Apple fans and developers keep their ear close to the ground to find the new tidbits on coming Apple products from all sorts of sources. Often those sources include usage logs and deeply buried profiles in updates and software from Apple. Developer Pandav has discovered a usage record for an iPhone model that has not been announced.

Pandav discovered a usage record for an iPhone 3,1 in its analytics application. The unannounced Apple device was used to access the iBART transportation guide for the San Francisco train system. The usage numbers correspond to those attached to devices by Apple.

References to the iPhone 3,1 were spotted in August reports MacRumors, but this is the first time that the iPhone 3,1 was spotted in the wild. The iPhone 3GS was the iPhone 2,1. Perhaps the 3,1 is the oft rumored and talked about Verizon iPhone?

The CrunchPad has gone from steamrolling to just getting run-over, with project founder Michael Arrington reporting that not only has the 12-inch touchscreen web-slate been axed but a storm of legal arguments created.  In a long post on TechCrunch, Arrington details the sudden discovery that their manufacturing partner, Fusion Garage, was looking to cut them out of the business and threatening to push ahead without full ownership of the CrunchPad IP.

The legal hurdles seem to have been prompted by Fusion Garage looking to renegotiate their part in the project, or more precisely the equity split.  In the end, the courts will decide; TechCrunch are “almost certainly” going to file lawsuits against their former partners.

    “We’re still completely perplexed as to what happened. We think they were attempting to renegotiate the equity split on the company behind CrunchPad, which was to acquire Fusion Garage. Renegotiations are always fine. But holding a gun to our head two days before launching and insulting us isn’t the way to do that. We’ve spent the last week and a half trying unsuccessfully to communicate with them. Our calls and emails go unanswered, so we can’t even figure out exactly what’s happened” Michael Arrington, TechCrunch

Away from the production wrangles, it’s disappointing news both for anybody interested in portable electronics and for those to whom the CrunchPad project represented the potential for individuals and small companies to come up with an idea and make it reality.  Right now it looks like SlashGear columnist Michael Gartenberg’s predictions were correct: citizen gadgetry is harder than it seems.