One of the most well received projects in the demo area of the S60 Summit at Barcelona this week was Shaker Racer - a radio controlled truck using not the regular RC sticks, but the accelerometers in a Blue-tooth-connected S60 handset. I had to find out more, in our special video report.
Nokia has just sent out a mailshot to gamers trumpeting Worms World Party and Pro Series Golf (plus MHP and Snakes Subsonic), so I'm guessing that these two new games will be appearing in the N-Gage download area imminently. Or else it's a Nokia marketing screw-up. Place your bets.
Steve takes a look at Marble Maze, the latest game to make use of the accelerometers in the latest Nseries devices. The principle is easy enough, tilt your phone to roll the marble around the maze to reach the end while avoiding the holes, but is the 21st century version a rival to the classic wooden real world original?
Whoever thought this would happen? The presumed-forgotten Nokia E61i just received a firmware update from v2.0633 to v3.0633.69.00 (for unlocked Euro versions anyway, yours may vary slightly). [update] The E51 just got an update too, to v200.34.36, so NSU is most definitely your friend (E51 tip via the Symbian Blog)]
S60.com's recent video competition, "Show your S60 Smarts", has ended and the winners have been picked down at the S60 Summit. Our very own Rafe came in third, with a little help from his dog. You can view all the winning video entries here - that's your lunchtime viewing sorted and you'll learn a few things along the way too!
The ad-funded mobile games portal 123play.com just launched, with a decent selection of modern (though not quite top tier) Java games, I've been looking at half a dozen of these below the break, so read on. Anyone downloading a 123play.com game before June 17th also gets entered into a draw to win a Nokia N81 8GB, so there's double interest here.
Nokia Wellness Diary has just been updated to v1.18, significantly bringing seamless data import from Nokia's Sports tracker and Step Counter applications - seems like Nokia really want us all to get fit... v1.18 also brings support for S60 3rd Edition FP2, as used in the upcoming Nokia N96, among others.
Have you had trouble installing N-Gage on your phone? Need some help with using the application? Want to know what other kinds of games your N-Gage-compatible phone can run? Perhaps you should check out a new site called the N-Gage School, which contains videos and step-by-step tutorials aimed at people of all skill levels, with more tutorials to be added on a regular basis. (Incidentally, to make things clear, the N-Gage School is written by yours truly, but it has no official connection to AAN or AAS.)
Although there are no real production units of the Sony Ericsson G900 up for looking at yet, it's been interesting to read the early reviews of the prototype around the web. Unwired View reckons the G900 should be great for people who need normal phone functions first and smartphone functions second, while Mobile Review says that the G900 presents one of the finest offerings in terms of the price/quality ratio.
At the Summit today, S60 has announced the opening of its 'Ambassador' web site. The Ambassador program aims to harness enthusiasm for S60 among early adopters, promising 'freebies' (not devices, but general 'swag') in exchange for signing up. With news and software leads flowing out to 'Word of Mouth' ambassadors and with reports on good and bad experiences with S60 smartphones coming in from people on the street, it's potentially a win for all parties.
Today, at the S60 Summit in Barcelona, the Samsung SGH-L870 was publicly unveiled. The L870 is a S60 phone in a slider form factor and has a 3 megapixel camera, FM radio and 3G connectivity. It runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (the first Samsung device to do so). This takes the total number of S60 devices to 79.
Wednesday morning sees the start of the S60 Summit in Barcelona, with Rafe and Ewan in attendance, more from them as it happens. See below, though, for photos and information on so-new-it's-almost-vapour Nokia N100 - the ultimate S60 smartphone? Plus my thoughts on Nokia's design strategies - maybe some of these will be taken on board by the manufacturers represented at the summit?
All About Symbian regular Matt Radford is hosting the Carnival of the Mobilists this week, it's here at his All About iPhone blog. Carnival 125 is a bit of a cracker, actually, with discussion about whether content providers should pay the carriers for the data consumed by the end user, with a look at a huge new mobile-related craze from Japan, plus a detailed look at the implications of Google's Android (and the aforementioned Apple iPhone) for the rest of the smartphone industry.
With a passion for Snakes and armed with N-Gage on his trusty Nokia N95, Ewan Spence was the logical choice of reviewer for the brand new Snakes Subsonic. Unfortunately, Ewan reckons that the three year old original is slicker and smoother in most departments and that the new Snakes implementation suffers from numerous design and performance issues. Here's the full review of Snakes Subsonic.
Arun Sarin is stepping down from his CEO role with Vodafone. While cutting a controversial figure since his appointment almost 5 years ago, he has overseen rapid expansion in traditional markets, and made significant inroads into India, Turkey and Eastern Europe. In those five years theuser base has grown from 120 million users to 260 million.
