Reckoning that Pro Series Golf is everything my own Fairway could have become, and more, after extensive gameplay I pronounce myself a fan. From the great 3D modelling to the genuinely exciting online multiplayer mode, Pro Series Golf is arguably the best N-Gage game yet. Yes, it has its flaws and glitches, as detailed in the review, but there are no showstoppers.
If you've purchased the rather good Pro Series Golf, you may feel a bit confused by the controls as they're not really explained within the game itself. The method for choosing a club for example is far from obvious. However, help is at hand from two sources: the game's producer has posted a general how-to on the official PSG forum, and N-Gage Arena member ShadowSpawn has done a more extensive illustrated tutorial concentrating on swings and putts. Fore!
Typical - I take a day out to play golf (on the N95) and some updates I've been waiting for all happen. Nokia PC Suite v7 is now official - here's the download page. No huge changes, but plenty of detailed improvements and it always pays to stay up to date. And Flixwagon just went public and has a vastly improved S60 client. In addition, Nokia N81 users just got a firmware upgrade via Nokia Software Update. v20.0.056 brings the N81 bang up to date with demand paging and Flash Lite 3, among other improvements, according to p@sco.
Ewan's on a train speeding down from bonnie Scotland but he's still found time to set up a Friday rant. Ewan reckons there's a gap in the market for a network operator to set up a 'no surprises' all inclusive 'flat rate for everything' plan. Your comments welcome, this one could run and run.
Files on Ovi, which provides access to files on remote computers, is the latest Ovi service and is now available in beta form. After installing a software 'connector' on your PC you can then access files on your computer from any web enabled device (e.g. another PC or your phone). Files on Ovi is the results of last year's acquisition of Avevnu by Nokia.
Astraware keep turning out superbly polished S60 games - and Big Box of Blox is no exception. Ewan's been playing it and in his review points out a few aspects (difficulty, blox detail and orientation handling) that, while not showstoppers, stop the game achieving true greatness.
Telenor and Nokia today announced a cooperation on mobile services using the Ovi service platform. Specific Nokia devices will be customised with services such as Nokia Maps, N-Gage, Telenor Music Store and Mobile TV with more to come in the future. Ovi services will be launched in the second half of 2008 and will be offered to Telenor customers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Hungary.
If you've been left a bit bemused by geeks twittering on (literally) about live videocasting with Qik and the specifics of getting an audience, then take 10 minutes to watch Steve Garfield explaining it all very well on the DV show, using a Nokia N95 (of course) as his live video tool of choice.
The Nokia Maps team is conducting research on the Drive car navigation feature within Nokia Maps 2.0. They are looking for London, Berlin and Madrid based users (both novice and expert) to take part in their research. This is an opportunity to help shape the car navigation functionality in the next version of Nokia Maps. More details are available on the Beta Labs blog.
The Office of the CTO (OCTO) at Nokia is a key stone in Nokia's innovation and vision efforts (self described as a network of researchers and though leaders). CTO.nokia.com is a recently launched site which is intended to help to spread OCTO's vision of the mobile future and engage the outside world. It is a sister site to research.nokia.com and will feature editorial content from Nokia and selected third parties.
Nokia today announced the European Commission has given unconditional approval for Nokia's planned acquisition of Navteq. Nokia has now received all the necessary regulatory approvals and expects to close the deal in the next 5 days. Nokia is acquiring Navteq for $8.1 billion.
Pro Series Golf, one of the most eagerly awaited N-Gage titles, is now available. If you can't see it in your N-Gage client, then 'View available games' and look down the bottom of the list. Screenshots and first impressions are below. It's 21MB and takes 5 minutes to install(!), by the way - I'll have a full review up before the weekend.
Cellphonesoft, those brilliant UIQ 3 developers, strike again with the release of Process Explorer, for all UIQ 3 smartphones (including the new SE G900 and Moto Z10). It's a utility to list all programs running on the phone, including server processes that (normally) run invisibly in the background and are not shown by task managers. And Process Explorer gives users the ability to terminate unwanted processes (ouch!!!). Screenshot after the jump.
So we've been waiting months for Nokia's Ovi Sync. And along comes Nokia Backup instead, ostensibly everything that Ovi Sync will be. The two have got to be linked, surely? I've been trialling Nokia Backup and it's a bigger and better system than you might think, with what I think is a world first. Read on.
If you've got some interesting hobbies or are just good with your hands, note that you can win a Nokia N82 and Bluetooth headset each week over the summer in Nokia's new Free Hands video competition. You can enter as many times as you like, too...
