It’s hard for mobile handset makers to keep anything secret nowadays, thanks to the profusion of websites and blogs eagerly reporting on spy shots and tech specs for upcoming handsets. Meanwhile, there are other, unwitting ways news of a brand new handset can leak out into the public domain.For example, the Cell Addict Blog has come across this photo on Flickr that, according to its Additional Information was taken with a Nokia E71. Click through to the More Properties page, and you see a bunch of technical data on the photo’s aperture, focal length and so on.Anyway, it proves that the E71 exists (although it’s been rumoured online for some time). We’ll have to wait and see what the handset itself is like when Nokia officially unveils it.
Tag Archive for 'nokia'
It’s still early days for GPS mobiles, in terms of figuring out exactly how mapping applications can make use of GPS combined with a mobile phone’s data connection. However, Nokia is certainly bullish about the prospects for the area, judging by comments from CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo at the company’s annual shareholder meeting: ”We expect to ship about 35 million GPS-enabled Nokia devices in 2008, which is equal to the entire GPS device market in 2007,” he said, expressing similar confidence about the company’s decision to buy navigation firm Navteq. “When we look at it with the eyes we have now, when regarding pedestrian navigation, map services, digital maps, we are even more excited about the opportunities than when making the decision.” It’s good news, since 35 million phones is a decent base for GPS-related services to target, meaning that if you own one of these handsets, chances are more developers are working on innovative applications making use of the technology. GPS and social networking is one of the areas I’m most interested in going forward, along with geotagging photos. Of course, just because you own a Nokia handset doesn’t mean you’ll want to use its GPS for Nokia’s own mapping and sharing services, so we’ll have to see how they tie in with other companies’ services (for example Google Maps and Flickr). (via Planet Cell Phone)
Forget all that boring stuff about mobile email, web browsing and document editing. The real reason for getting a Nokia tablet is so you can control puppy robots. Watch the video above for proof… (via Pankaj Nathani)
Nokia’s Beta Labs seem to be going all out to try different ways of connecting your phone to your PC.
Beta Labs tryouts Nokia Text Messenger, Nokia PC Phone and My Mobile Site Widgets and the original and much-maligned PC Suite have been joined by Nokia Communication Center.
Communication Center is intended to replace four components of PC Suite - Phone Browser, Text Message Editor, Contacts Editor, and Multimedia Factory.
Not everything is working yet, but you can already create andd manage text and multimedia messages, manage contacts and view messages on a timeline.
If Beta Labs gets decent feedback they plan to incorporate the technology in future releases of PC Suite so why not give it a try and let them know what you think?
Now this is what I call proper Web 2.0 on mobile. Nokia’s Serena Glover has been talking to MocoNews about the company’s plans for its Ovi services, and this nugget leapt out at me:
“With Ajax on the Web, there’s so much functionality - you can drag and drop and do more all the time. The same thing will happen on the device.”
This is part of a discussion about the way multimedia stuff happens through applications downloaded to your phone right now, rather than directly in the mobile web browser, as they do for PC based users.Glover says Nokia is working to change this, for example by hooking up your handset’s camera directly to the browser “so you don’t have dual experiences”. It’s intriguing stuff, although it also ties into the debate I just posted about, where including Ajax and other Web 2.0 technologies swells the size of websites, which isn’t always good for mobile browsing.
What’s the connection between Kylie Minogue and Nokia?
No, the Finnish mobile giant hasn’t started wearing hotpants and banging out G.A.Y.-friendly floor fillers, nor has the diminutive diva started transmitting in the 3G spectrum.
No, the real answer is- despite repeated attempts, neither of them can seem to ‘break’ America.
Although the earlier S40 phones do fairly well, US carriers seem wary of the open nature of S60 smartphones, and these have never really taken off, stateside.
Nokia currently has around 40% of global mobile sales, but accounts for only 10% of the US market. In part this is due to the company’s lack of CDMA handsets, a situation that looks likely to improve.
In an interview with Helsinki newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Nokia designer Alastair Curtis said that the company had been cooperating with several US operators and that “a lot of new products” were in the works, including CDMA handsets and existing models tailored to US carriers.
If you use the Internet from your phone but are unlucky enough to pay for your 3G usage you probably like the idea of using a wifi-enabled mobile like the Nokia N95. This works great, but it can be a hassle having to reconnect every time you want to go online in a different place and it is easy to forget and use your 3G instead. If you are in a foreign country this can be a VERY expensive mistake.
Psiloc Connect offers a simple solution with the kind of conection management that you would think your phone would do by default. Certainly, if I were a Nokia developer I would be kicking myself for not thinking of this first.
The app does all the hard work for you - just give it a list of wifi access points (or tell it to discover some) and it will try each in order of strength, only falling back on your 3G connection if the wifi fails. If you are really worried about your phone bill, it can be set to ignore the 3G option and just use wifi.
Psiloc Connect is available here for around 10 euros, with a free 10 day trial.
Over at (of all places) Lastminute.com, there is a team of obviously bored-yet-talented programmers who own a couple of Nokia N95 phones.
At the recent Over The Air 48-hour codeathon at Imperial College, they came up with Phone Fight - possibly the world’s first and only Bluetooth/Accelerometer-powered virtual swordfighting app.
Armed with your Nokia blade, Python for S60 and the Phone Fight app you can challenge your frineds to duels, complete with clanging sound effects.
All very silly, and could perhaps use a lightsaber mode, but fun nonetheless.
Here is a quick YouTube vid of an epic phone battle:
Location based information service WHERE has launched a client for Nokia smartphones.
WHERE uses the inbuilt GPS receiver to pinpoint your location and offers over 60 widgets that identify local services and ’stuff’ like restaurants, petrol stations, landmarks and even local weather and earthquakes.
WHERE also includes the mobile friend finding widget BuddyBeacon. BuddyBeacon shows the location of any friends nearby and lets you share your location via social networking sites like Facebook.
The app is a free download for Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N95 and Nokia N82 phones.
Nokia Beta Labs has released an update to the Nokia Maps app for S60 3rd Edition phones that adds realtime traffic updates to the device.
Using data gathered from collaborators ARC Transistance (they only sound like a form of radiation, they are in fact a Europe-wide body of automotive clubs like the AA) the Maps app will show traffic troublespots near your vehicle updated in as near to real time as your connection and their servers will allow which will let you steer your way trhough any roadworks, jams or other hazards.
Not that you should be gazing at your mobile while driving, of course. Hmm. Maybe you should get a passenger to check it for you.
There seems to be a slight bug in the current release that causes the app to download too much trafifc data at once, so it might be worth holding off on this one for a couple of days.
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