In the third part of my Camera 'Nitty Gritty' series, I look at the so-called Megapixel Myth. Are more 'mp' necessarily better in a camera phone? What other factors are involved and what's the base specification that I'd recommend? I illustrate my points with test photos from 2, 3, 5 and 8 megapixel S60-powered phones.
In an appropriately 'over the air' day (ref the HTC G1 announcement), Tzer2 looks closely at how divorced S60 is from a desktop computer. In other words, do you need to be tied to a PC or Mac at all these days? The answer is largely 'No'. Tzer2's article will make you think and challenge the way you've viewed Symbian OS and S60 phones up until now.
NeuroSky has demonstrated, in the USA, using a Bluetooth mind sensor to control software on a Nokia N95 8GB, by detecting changes in brain wave patterns. Game interaction has been shown to be possible, too. (via The Earth Times)
For those following AAS's Nick Anstee and his Nokia N96, you might like to note that he has his own Ovi channel for uploading his N96-shot photos (and screenshots). You can contact him via AAS or here.
In All About Symbian Insight #40 (AAS Podcast #93) Rafe, and Steve discuss SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing) on Symbian OS and what some of the key benefits might be. Steve gives us his first impressions of the Nokia N79 and finally there's some chat about gaming on the N-Gage versus the iPhone.
S60.com do like giving away free bits and pieces, and themes that they approve of are usually of very high quality. This month, there's an Autumn theme, 'Seasonal', which you can grab for free after registering and logging in.
Forum Nokia has launched a new developer contest, Calling All Innovators, which aims to encourage developers to create applications that will 'better society'. The competition takes place across three categories: ECO-challenge, Emerging Markets and Technology Showcase. There's a total prize fund of $150,000 with category winners each winning $25,000.
Hot on the heels of Star Wars being released and Resident Evil being announced, the official N-Gage blog has now confirmed that Spore Origins will be coming to the N-Gage platform. There's no release date yet, but it could be soon as the N-Gage blog includes a link to a hands-on preview of the game.
A new version of Nokia Photos, a media (images and video) sync and management application for your PC, is now available through Nokia Beta Labs. The new version, 1.5, has a new look to fit in with the Ovi branding, improved support for importing images from non-Nokia devices, tools for adding and visualising geo-tagged images, and improved integration with Share on Ovi and other Nokia services. Read on for further details.
Nokia will be holding an Evening with S60 in London the night before the Symbian Smartphone Show. It is a chance to see the newest S60 devices, get one-one-one demos and meet other S60 enthusiasts. The event will be held at Nokia's Flagship Store in Regent Street on October 20th between 7:30 and 10:00 pm. You need to register here if you want to attend the event.
I'd been holding off on this until it was fully available - but now the Nokia N82 just got its v30 firmware upgrade too, following on from the v30 upgrades for N95 and N95 8GB, with similar (but not identical) improvements, namely more stable Flash Lite 3, Maps 2.0, new Music player visualisations and increased speed and overall performance, less sensitive auto-screen rotation, Share online 3.0, plus numerous other detailed fixes and improvements, including better battery life. Sadly, the dim display 'feature' hasn't been fixed. But with UDP (User Data Preservation) in place you shouldn't need to restore data or apps or settings. But - you know - an extra sync of your PIM data might be a good idea - just in case?
[Cue spooky music] "The Darkness is coming...." In fact, the Darkness arrived today, in the form of PiZero's latest work, available in super-polished custom, default and Flahorn icon versions. It works very well on black S60 devices, but I wouldn't recommend it on the silver N82 and N95 classic!
We've covered Python in passing before, but any wannabe on-device or RAD programmers might like to look at Daniel Rocha's latest piece, pointing out the good and bad points of Python (for S60), along with useful pointers and links.
You may have gathered, over the years, that Ewan's a bit of a Mobipocket Reader fan. Personally, I sit there fuming wondering why the developers still haven't got round to programming a 'Find' function, but that's another rant for another day. Anyway, Ewan's penned a useful beginner's guide on how to make your own ebooks, for reading on the move and for saving huge amounts of excess book-weight when travelling.
Nokia's LifeviNe project has been renamed, it seems, to just Nokia ViNe: Jeff Clinton provides a detailed walkthrough of the application and service, for automatically logging your photos, videos and listened music, for sharing with the world, while Ricky Cadden asks whether the application makes sense, pointing out that it doesn't give much that's new and worrying about possible battery drain implications. I'd echo some of his worries, preferring to simply geotag my photos and upload them to Ovi or Flickr or similar. What do you think of Sports Tracker's evolution?