Perhaps predictably after the news of Cabir comes news that an anti virus program has been released for both UIQ and Series 60. SimWorks Anti Virus from SimWorks claims to protect your phone against virus. Updates are delivered by additional install files to update virus defintions. At this stage there are not any serious Virii in the wild so you don't really need this!
Explode Arena has been released by Inifinite Dreams (authors of the popular Sky Force). The game draws on elements of dynablaster and bomberman. The game includes several game modes such as arcade, capture the flag, last man standing and deathmatch in either single player or multiplayer (4 way) Bluetooth. With nice graphics and sounds and good gameplay this is sure to be a popular game. Available from Handango.
It's a tough world out there for mobile phone users, carriers, handset vendors and OS (writes John Lettice at The Register). Lettice has a very lengthy piece on Digital Rights Management, looking at the OMA spec that is carried by Symbian.
RMR Software have released RMRCar and RMRFuel. The programs are aimed at helping keep track of fuel and car use. RMRCar is aimed at comapny cars users who want to keep track of mileage and expenses. RMRFuel is aimed at monitoring fuel consumption. Both programs are written in OPL.
Sony Ericsson today announced the P910 which is a small upgrade to the UIQ P900. Improvements include the addition of a Qwerty keyboard on the reverse of the flip, internal memory increased to 64 Mb from 16 Mb, support for Memory Stick Duo up to 1GB, improved screen (262k colours) and better support out of the box for corporate email.
Nokia and Gameloft today announced Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory for the N-Gage platform, expected release is during the first quarter 2005. I hope I like the third of the N-Gage Splinter Cell titles more than the first!
Sony Ericsson looks to set to announce some of it's new range of phones this Thursday. Looking very likely is a mini upgrade to the P900 the P910 which features a new flip with a keyboard on the reverse. Also possible is a second UIQ phone, possibly, utilising the new UIQ 3 which can be operated without pen input. Whatever the case we'll keep you updated.
As reported by TechJapan Sharp is planning to use Symbian in future phone, intially in its higher end offerings. Sharp see Symbian as a way to eaiser global distribution and diffferentiation of their handsets (currently 70% ship domestically). Not all Sharp phones will be Symbian OS powered, but it is clear that Symbian is at the heart of Sharp's future phone startegy.
Hobbies Photo Contest vote is open. You now have 3 photos from which to pick you favourite(s). *View Photos & Vote by Clicking Here* Poll closes on 26th July 2004! & Good Luck to all who entered.
Psiloc is offering a free Professional upgrade to all current users of WorldClock Standard and Extended Profiles Standard applications as a result of standardising their portfolio. Further information on the upgrade is available here.
Rusty Axe Games has released a beta demo of a popular game of other handhelds - Colony. The game has 3D isometric graphics and is best described as a strategic puzzle game. Rusty Axe also intend to port the Green Myste to N-Gage another of the games in their portfolio.
Futuremark have announced the availability of their benchmarking software for Series 60 smartphones - SPMark™04. Futuremark, well known for their 3DMark PC benchmarking program, have released a program thats runs a series of comprehensive benchmarking tests on the phone. We'll be using the software in future reviews to compare phone performance.
Psiloc have announced details of their DRM solution for Series 60 (with other Symbian UI's to follow) called Common Solutions. The solution consists of three main components - common security, registration and tools. The release reflects growing concern within the mobile software industry at the use of illegal software.
Nokia Lifeblog is now available as a time limited beta version. Lifeblog is a multimedia diary comprised of items you collect with your phone (pictures, videos, sound an text). Currently the software is limited to the 7610, but you can use the PC version independently of the phone software.
As well as a pro-rata purchase of Psion's old stake in Symbain, Symbian's partners have participated in another rights issue to the value of £50 million. All of Symbian's shareholders have taken part. The Symbian split now stands at Nokia 47.9%, Ericsson 15.6%, Sony Ericsson 13.1%, Panasonic 10%, Siemens 8.4 % and Samsung 4.5%.
