It seems that the European Commission is going to recommend all member countries adopt DVB-H, as used in Nokia's N92 and N77, as the mobile TV solution of choice, in the face of at least two other solutions, more prevalent in Asia. The press release is below. (Via S-F)
If you ever wonder why Rafe started EpocHelp, Steve became a writer and programmer, and I started flag waving for a simple programming language, it was because we saw the promise in Psion. Here, for the first time, is a look back at the ghosts in the closets, the mistakes, the bad karma, and the fear of the last High Tech British company.
This weeks Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted by Route 79. There's the usual round up of writing from around the web with a general theme of the impact mobile has on art, entertainment and lifestyle.
In AAS podcast 26, Rafe takes a look at the announcement of the Sony Ericsson W960 Walkman device, with comparisons to the upcoming iPhone, Steve decides that discretion is the better part of valour when it comes to casing a smartphone, while Ewan brings up the latest scam on the streets as people seek to get more money out of mobile phone theft. If you want to subscribe regularly, here's the RSS feed.
Keeping a close eye on the goings on at Smart2Go (now Nokia Maps, to all intents and purposes), it seems that MapLoader 1.1 is now online and is allegedly ten times faster than the old version. But the Maps software itself is still showing only a tiny compatibility list. If you do chance a version on an 'unsupported' handset, do please report back, etc.
The latest Airbus aircraft have been cleared to run the OnAir mobile roaming service (reports SMS Text News ). In essence a low powered base station in the sky, it will allow SMS, email and voice calls to be made while above the regulation 10,000 feet. Air France (France), TAP (Portugal), BMI (UK) and Ryanair (Ireland) have expressed an interest. Looks like I'll be continuing to fly BA and American then.
It's interesting watching some of the side deals being done around the iPhone. Apparently YouTube are going to make all their video catalog available in higher quality H.264 format. Ostensibly for iPhone compatibility, but note that all S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices and many older Nseries devices (e.g. N73, N93, N80, etc.) have H.264 video compatibility. Hopefully YouTube pages will soon come with a hook or link for smartphones to follow and play?
It's probably worth pointing out that the VoIP and Multi Platform IM application Fring is now available for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 (The Register). Given Windows Mobile already has a Skype client expect a lot more focus on the VoIP angle in the coming months, which of course will have a nice knock-on effect with the Symbian version!
Nokia is set to reorganise its corporate structure from January 2008 as part its move towards becoming an 'Internet company'. Nokia's current structure of business groups and horizontal group will change to three main units: devices, software and services and markets. Currently S60 devices are produced by the Multimedia group (Nseries), Enterprise group (Eseries) and Mobile Phones group. The new structure sees a greater emphasis on software and services a main stay of which will presumably be the S60 Platform.
In this editorial Ewan ponders on the importance of marketing in dictating the sales of high end phones. What can be learnt from the Nokia N95, one of the most desirable phones on the market, and what implications does this have.
The beta of Opera Mini 4 is now available from the Opera website. The new version renders a full page overview from which you can then zoom in to read the page (very reminiscent of S60's browser overview / minimap mode). Other new features include the introduction of a mouse and power scrolling making it easier to move around pages and a quick access context menu. Read on for more and screenshots.
Another nail in the coffin of over-fancy, bloated web sites. In addition to Opera Mini, Google Mobile and operator-branded proxies (e.g. the new Vodafone system, bought in from Novarra), you can also now surf to your heart's content without wasting bandwidth using the new version 4 of Skweezer. Start by pointing your smartphone browser at http://www.skweezer.net/.
MSN has re-launched its mobile site, mobile.msn.com. If you're heavily into Microsoft services (Hotmail, Messanger, etc.) then this makes sense to bookmark in your smartphone's web browser.
With the media about to erupt in a stream of iPhone reviews, Steve gets his thoughts in first, taking Jobs' original line-up of phones that are "'smart', so they say" and comparing how functional they are in daily life. Are miniature keyboards really the problem? Steve thinks (not for the first time) that a lot comes down to where, when and how you need to use your smartphone.
