Contest: Enter to win a pair of smarTouch gloves courtesy of Isotoner! Read on for details.

It's winter in our neck of the woods. Well, not mine, specifically because I live in Arizona. But for much of the world, it's cold and snowy and wet and that means that everyone is bundled up to stay warm. The only problem is… how do you use your BlackBerry or PlayBook if you have gloves on? If you have a BlackBerry with a keyboard you may be able to navigate ok, but if you have a touchscreen, you're pretty much out of luck if you're wearing gloves.

Isotoner has a solution. They have a line of gloves called smarTouch that are designed to work with your smartphone or tablet. They are water repellent, with a non-slip palm and fingers, made with Lycra fiber so the gloves fit snugly and stretch just when you need them to. While all of that is neat, the best feature of these gloves is right at the tip of your fingers, or to be specific, your thumb and index fingers. Here you'll find they have embroidered the tips with a special conductive thread that conveys an electrical impulse to the touchscreen, allowing you to scroll, select, and type without having to remove your gloves and freeze your fingers off. Keep reading to see our impressions of the smarTouch gloves, and more details about how to get your hands on some.

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A common complaint I see pop up in the forums is in regards to the the touch screen on some BlackBerry smartphones, or more specifically, while the device is in your pocket or purse applications being opened, moved around or deleted and of course the dreaded butt dial. The screen/keyboard lock on the BlackBerry Torch 9800/10 is notorious for locking as it should, but also unlocking when it shouldn't. And the other models aren't any exception to this problem, because let's face it, none of us are perfect and sometimes we forget to hit that lock button.

Slider Lock by Ajani InfoTech is a great solution for all of the problems listed above. With this application, you can set your device to auto-lock after a predetermined amount of time, or when the backlight goes off. You can even choose whether you want the app to not lock your device when certain apps are in the foreground. And with the ability to toggle the entire app on/off, and one-click activation, there's no need to worry about your phone doing things you don't want. Once locked, you simply slide your finger across the on screen slider (for touchscreen devices) or use the trackpad/ball for non-touchscreen. Available for most BlackBerry smartphones, you can grab Slider Lock from App World for $1.99.

More information/screenshots and to purchase Slider Lock

The Storm and Torch devices use an on-screen keyboard. Because of this, some of the shortcuts used for others’ BlackBerry smartphones may not always apply when using touchscreen devices. Fear not, for those shortcuts are not gone. They’ve simply been lost in translation.

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* Update from Kevin: This is DEFINITELY one of the older pre-dakota prototypes (ie. magnum). Don't expect to be buying this exact device anytime soon (errr.. never). But something nicer and updated is in the works! *

We've been hearing the codename "Dakota" for a while now. The Bold 9000 sized, 3G, Touchscreen device with a full QWERTY keyboard that is also rumored to be using a "Liquid Lens" designed for high quality images. And now the above pic appears on Twitter followed by a second, clearer shot. showing off it's trackball / trackpad-less form factor.

Is it a Dakota? Or is it more likely that this is a Magnum prototype? Or some other prototype that got left in the trash can? Magnum was the predecessor to the Dakota, whose design was scrapped and then transitioned into Dakota. No OS details were mentioned from @cellguru, so it remains unknown if there is even an OS loaded onto it, which makes it a little difficult to say with 100% certainty what device it actually is. We were under the impression that Magnum didn't have a trackpad while Dakota did, plus the actual look and styling of this device seems a tad bit older than that of the latest generation of BlackBerry Smartphones. If it is Magnum, then hopefully we'll see some Dakota soon and that'll clarify the situation. That's all we have for now. Feel free to speculate in the comments. Hopefully some more details will turn up soon. In the meantime, what do you all think of the concept? Liking the notion of a BlackBerry that's half touchscreen, half physical keyboard?