You may remember Krisse's coverage of the addictive TibiaME, back in the summer - a massive multiplayer RPG for S60? Well, it's now had a big update, with wider J2ME compatibility, a new world, new features and over-the-air graphics upgrades. Krisse brings us a full report on what's new in TibiaME and what still needs work.
In the second part of a Friday game double-bill, Attila Katona reviews Robo, also for (nearly) every Symbian OS platform known to man. It's a level-based puzzler in isometric 3D and Robo is really rather good in its cute, pixellated way.
In much the same was as the EU adopted the GSM standard back in the nineties, the mobile TV standard for Europe will now be based on DVB-H (from a consortium that includes both Nokia and Motorola). While not unexpected, neither is it universally accepted as a good idea, although the aforementioned rubber-stamping of GSM has prevented the compatibility problems in Europe that are still experienced in the American market (Reuters).
It seems I just can't keep up with the news today! Google just upgraded their free Maps for Mobile client (www.google.com/gmm on your smartphone) to v2.0.3, adding a 'virtual GPS' feature (thanks Stefan), in which your location on non-GPS devices is estimated based on cell tower information. Google is an amazing company. Also (unrelated), they're investing in green energy in a big way, yet more brownie points from me.
The traditional landline phone is dying in Europe, according to a new study reported by the BBC. On average, 18% of European households now have no landline phone but do have a mobile phone. This figure rises as high as 48% in Lithuania and 47% in Finland. It also reveals that there are 95 mobile phones for every 100 people in Europe.
We mentioned the RAM-hungry Widsets in our RSS piece above, but thanks to Stefan for pointing us towards a fascinating tutorial on how to get started with next generation widgets, those that are pure XHTML, CSS or Javascript and which run on top of S60's Web runtime. This is how widgets should be done. Recommended.
Smartphones Show 48 is out (in YouTube and H.264 MP4 form), the highlight of which is a real world head to head challenge between the two black and silver flagships, the Nokia N95 8GB and the Apple iPhone (on O2). Watch Matt Radford of AAS and I as we try and assess the devices on common, every day tasks. Oh, and here's the RSS and iTunes feeds.
Encompassing both phones and (UIQ) smartphones, Sony Ericsson has announced the nominees for its 2007 Content Awards, winners to be announced on Dec 18th. Some familiar names in the press release below. Of interest also is Sony Ericsson's lavish Flash site showcasing each nominee.
It's Out! Version 20.0.015 firmware for the Nokia N95 classic is now available via Nokia Software Update. This includes demand paging (!), so 30MB plus free RAM after booting, faster operation, N-Gage game store previews and portal stub, new camera software, integrated Search, new Welcome apps and more. Comments below!
Calling all Flash Lite programmers- to promote the upcoming launch of the Playyoo Games Portal, they are offering a prize fund of $25,000 (with $10,000 to the winner) for your Flash Lite games. Playyoo is hoping to be a community destination for players and programmers of mobile games, and rather obviously given the competition based around using Flash Lite.
Popular Web 2.0 ‘microblogging’ site Twitter has put in place SMS usage limits for UK users . Each month you’ll only be able to receive a maximum of 250 SMS messages to your handset (although there are no limits on using it over IM or the Web). The change is likely due to the cost of SMS traffic on the parent company; unlike America, UK customers do not pay to receive text, so there’s no opportunity to do a revenue share with the outbound messages.
