News

BlackBerry Movie Tells The Story Of The Famous Keyboard Phone

It’s time to take a break from the Steve Jobs movies and give some appreciation to Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.

Published

3 years ago

March 17, 2023

blackberry movie tells the story of the once famous keyboard phone

Are you a BBM and email enthusiast who misses phones with physical keyboards? In that case, you might be interested in the upcoming Blackberry movie, featuring the creation journey of the famous handset.

The film stars Jay Baruchel (How To Train Your Dragon), Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), and Matt Johnson, also the movie’s director.

BlackBerry is released in theaters on May 12th and covers how the once-famous phone became the premier business communicator, but ended up losing out to the smartphone. In the trailer, we see Johnson’s Doug and Baruchel’s Mike Lazaridis watching the infamous Steve Jobs announcement of the new iPhone, and the stress and excitement as the company pushes to launch its first product.

Also Read: Top 10 Best Video Games Set In The Middle East

If you’re interested in learning more about Blackberry’s rise to fine, or want a preview of the movie before it hits the screen, check out the book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry. The text forms the basis of the movie’s script and is a fantastic read for anyone with fond memories of rocking a Blackberry in the past, as well as a cautionary tale of a business ultimately going bust.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.