In All About Symbian Insight 114 Ewan, Steve and Rafe share their thoughts on Nokia's announcement of the Nokia C6 and Nokia E6. We also shares news of Sony Ericsson's Q1 2010 results, the renewal of Sports Tracker, firmware updates for various phones and Numo Solution's Ovi Store success. You can listen to AAS Insight 114 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Last Friday, Nokia announced that it had acquired MetaCarta Inc, a privately owned firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which specialises in 'geographic intelligence solutions'. MetaCarta is best known for its geosearch and geotagging products (e.g. NewsMap, which allows publishers to automatically created a map tagged with their news stories) and has partnerships with a number of leading technology firms. MetaCarta's technology will help Nokia improve its social location services, such as local search.
In All About Symbian Insight podcast no. 112, Ewan returns with a bang and, together with Steve and Rafe, brings you up to date with developments in the Symbian world. We start with news of the WordPress Symbian client, the beta release of Nokia Bots and the recent upgrades to Nokia's Ovi Store. In the second half of the podcast there are hardware thoughts on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz (Steve) and Nokia 5230 (Ewan). You can listen to AAS Insight 112 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Furtiv, the Share Online plugin maker, recently passed its 100,000th download on the Ovi Store, and has announced the end of its beta stage. Users who installed plugins from Furtiv's mobile site over a month ago are advised to upgrade. More below...
In our latest video Ian Hutton (Technology Management at the Symbian Foundation and chair of the Feature and Roadmap Council) explains how the Symbian Foundation's roadmap is put together. We learn about how its community driven nature is directed and driven through external package owners and internal technology managers. Ian also talks us through some of the big themes for the next few releases of the Symbian platform including improvements to the user, developer and device manufacturer experiences. Watched as a whole it is also a great introduction to how Symbian is seeking to shape the future of mobile.
In All About Symbian Insight 111 (AAS Podcast 175), Rafe and Steve talk about the outstanding value provided by the Nokia 5230 (highlighting T-Mobile's recent offer). We also look at Mobile Documents, with an emphasis on its file streaming technology, as well as Shazam's 1 million downloads from Ovi Store, the Nokia 6788i and MM-Ovi Store before considering some listener questions. You can listen to AAS Insight 111 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Nokia have tweaked the Ovi Store with some changes that should prove popular to most users; clearer information about the content you are browsing, more stars when rating applications, and review devices noted. Read on for more about these changes, including screens and info on a new Ovi Store client.
In All About Symbian Insight 110 (AAS Podcast 174), Rafe and Steve share news of the arrival of Ovi Map's free navigation on the N86, and the release of the Silverlight for Symbian Beta. Steve tells us about a community firmware release for the Samsung i8910 and introduces a discussion on the death of Wayfinder; Rafe talks about Navteq True (next generation digital mapping data collection) and shares some initial thoughts on Windows Phone 7 Series. You can listen to AAS Insight 110 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Navteq, at Mobile World Congress 2010, showed off their new mapping collection system called Navteq True. The system, which is placed on top of a vehicle, combines a LIDAR system, multiple panoramic cameras, and positioning (GPS and IMU) sensors. Navteq is part of Nokia and its digital mapping products underlie numerous location products and services, including Ovi Maps. In this video we get a closer look at the system, see some of the data it collects and find out what implications it has for digital maps.
Our latest MWC video is a tour around the Qt stand, looking at some of the Qt-enabled devices - from phones to printers and appliances. Mobile developers and users have been hearing more and more about Qt in the last 18 months. It is the future application framework for both Symbian and MeeGo (Nokia's two open platforms going forward). However, as this video demonstrates, Qt is already a well established technology and the 'Qt everywhere' slogan has already been realised.
In this video interview, recorded just before MWC, we speak to Scott Weiss (User Interface Technology Manager at the Symbian Foundation and Chair of the Symbian Foundation UI Council) about the Symbian Foundation UI and some of the initiatives and projects that Symbian is undertaking around UI topics. You'll hear about some of t he key user experience changes, the UI workshops and the UI pattern library.
In All About Symbian Insight 109 (AAS Podcast 173), Rafe and Steve start off with a Sony Ericsson theme - they talk about the recent Satio firmware upgrade and some first impression views on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz. Steve then reports back on the latest release of YouTube for Symbian, Rafe shares news of Qt 4.7's preview release and the podcast concludes with a discussion of Ovi Maps' new pricing on older devices. You can listen to AAS Insight 109 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Ovi Suite, Nokia's new all-singing all-dancing Windows desktop magnum opus, has just had an important update, to v2.1.1(.1, if you're counting builds), with 'critical fixes' for synchronisation and device software updates, especially under Windows 7. Fire up Ovi Suite, if you have it installed, and click on 'Check for updates' on the main menu.
Our latest MWC video features a walkabout with Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation, in Hall 1 of exhibition area. The video summarises some of the key messages of the Symbian Foundation from the event. There's discussion of the buzz around Symbian at MWC, the formal launch of Symbian^3, the Open Screen Project (which the Symbian Foundation had just joined), the importance and strengths of Qt to Symbian developers going forward, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz and the bright future for Symbian.
Google's drive for world domination around your country has been going nicely, judging from the fact that Street View just went live for virtually all the UK. Yes, every last track, every last estate road - it's all there in glorious technicolour on your smartphone. Google Maps for Mobile itself is available from the usual m.google.com/gmm and to see Street View you need to long tap on any location and pick 'Street View' from the pop-up menu.
