"Even at night when I'm watching TV and the BlackBerry is recharging, I'll go down to check it to see if I have any messages," he says. "Same thing on the weekends, always checking." Wood, development manager for the 15-story DiamondView Tower by Cisterra Partners in San Diego, spends half his day out of the office and says his PDA is essential to responding to questions immediately. "Probably 60 percent of my e-mail is done through the BlackBerry," he says. "I don't think I could live without it now." Attorney Stephanie Seidman says she feels the same way. "All the lawyers I know use one, and most of their clients do, too," says Seidman, who sends up to 100 e-mails a day from her wireless hand-held device. Wood and Seidman have a close interest in the legal fight that threatens to disconnect as many as 4 million Americans from their BlackBerry lifelines. A federal judge in Richmond, Va., will decide the fate of BlackBerry users when he rules in a patent-infringement suit against the PDA maker, Research In Motion. The Canadian company was sued by NTP, a small patent-holding firm in Arlington, Va., which contends that it holds the U.S. rights to the technology RIM uses to serve its U.S. customers. The stakes could be considerable, as RIM is the world leader in PDA shipments, according to the research firm Gartner. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal in the intellectual property debate. It shipped the case back to federal Judge James R. Spencer, who will rule soon on whether RIM must suspend use of the PDA technology in the United States. He set Wednesday as the deadline for the two sides to submit further legal arguments. Most likely, RIM and NTP will resolve their differences and BlackBerry service will not be interrupted, but some people are taking no chances. Wood has already priced the products of competitors and says he'll buy another PDA within 24 hours if his BlackBerry service is suspended. Other addicts, or "Crackberries" as they are called, say they will face withdrawal problems if the BlackBerry network is shut down. David Smith, a technology futurist with the tech research and forecasting firm Technology Futures in Austin, Texas, is not surprised that people become so attached to technology. "As we move to a real-time economy, you will always have people who will go to the extreme," he says. "As personal technology use increases, I think we are seeing a whole new category of pure information junkie emerge." He said there are pressures pushing toward real-time, which means that business decisions can be made faster and companies should be able to operate more efficiently. But how we handle that pressure can become an issue. Smith doesn't believe it is entirely necessary - or healthy - for most people to be connected 24/7. "If you look at some of the studies that have been done on people who never disconnect (from technology), their productivity isn't better, but actually suffers," he says. "You have to look at the technology as a whole to see if it is worthwhile. There will always been good and bad points to tech. "Is it healthy that someone can't turn off their BlackBerry until they conk out at night? No, it's not. But here in Austin we have real-time technology statewide that allows us to drive by at 70 miles per hour without stopping at a tollbooth to pay for the toll in coins. I would call that a good change and good use of real-time technology." For many police, fire departments and other emergency-response teams, the BlackBerry seems indispensable. Smith says that he thinks that if there is a court order stopping RIM's U.S. operations, the judge probably will exclude emergency teams who depend on the PDA technology. "For most other people, it'll just be an inconvenience," Smith says. "It won't be much more than that." He says there are alternative systems, although BlackBerry is generally regarded as the easiest to use. He adds that Microsoft has its own working versions of mobile Outlook and could introduce a competing product within weeks. © Copley News Service

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