I'm currently in Seattle attending the Mobius event. This is run for by Microsoft and aims to bring together webmasters of mobile device sites and other mobile writers. The event is invite only and Microsoft pays for travel and accomodation expenses. I'll be posting some thoughts on my personal blog.
The latest version of Apple's iSync software 1.2.1 has improved support for Nokia series 60 devices and SE P800's. It now syncs Addresses, Address Pictures, Calender and To Do's. More details and download here.
There's been speculation for some time and now it's official, Psion has finally put Windows onto the Psion Netbook. Is this suicide? Is Psion desperate to take it's own hardware and posess it with the Demon of Blue Screen Hell? While some respectable technology news sites give an open picture, others say that this is a nail in Symbian's coffin and confirmation that Symbian is dead. Is it?
According to this Inquirer article Sendo has won two victories in its case against Microsoft. OK they're minor the first was to refuse to dismiss that case. The second was to keep the trial in Texas rather than move it to Delaware as Microsoft wanted.
Fonix have joined the Symbian Platinum Program in support of Symbian OS. Symbian will now have access to Fonix's award-winning text-to-speech (TTS) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) solutions.
In this press release NTT DoCoMo have signed up to use the Symbian OS to develop a user interface to be used in its FOMA 3G phone range. Full details in comments.
Following the recent news that AppForge is now available on Series 60 comes the news that there will be no licensing fees for the Booster (run time) application for any platform.
Just a memory jogger - this Friday night sees the latest in the periodic London Symbian/PDA user meetings. It's all informal, all free, loadsa prizes, etc.... you get the idea. Details here. Be there!
This article from The Register gives a report from the Intel developer forum and the new Intel processor that will enable "Xbox in a phone"....could this be Microsofts answer to the N-Gage or Sony's eagerly awaited PSP?
New at PocketInfo are a load of SmallBase databases specially optimised for the Nokia 9200 series communicators, plus movie trailers in .3gp and .mp4 format, just right for the Sony Ericsson P800. Check it out here.
Nokia and Psion have started negotiations to purchase Motorola's stake in Symbian. This will mean that Nokia's share will increase to 32% from 19% and Psion share will rise to 31%. Motorola says it wishes to concentrate on Java based devices presumably running on Linux. I just wonder how long it will be before they change their minds again?
Symbian have announced their half year figures. There is nothing too surprising and it shows them making progress with revenue from royalties increasing steadily. An encouraging sign is that that there are now 26 devices in development as opposed to 20 at the end of the first quarter.
In an effort to encourage more cross-platform intercommunication and support third party developers to innovate using readily available standards for the internet (NOT), Microsoft has decided to restrict non-Microsoft software from being able to use its Messenger service, as reported on Infoworld. Sean Sundwall, a Microsoft spokesman said; "We are very interested in interoperating with all third parties, there just needs to be a formal agreement". What this does mean is that on October 15, Instant Messenger solutions on the Symbian platform (and third party solutions on other PC platforms such as Jabber) will cease to work; ""It is our expectation that those who use our service with unlicensed or unauthorized third-party clients will likely not be able to log on after Oct. 15".
This is only vaguely relevant, an article discussing the entertainment focus of the upcoming CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2003 conference. However, it does contain this paragraph:
