So if you've got a camera phone, where do you show off your pictures? One option is over on MoblogUK. Ewan caught up with Alfie Dennen, one of the brains behind the site to find out what Moblogging and MoblogUK is all about.
Who needs the RIM Crackberry? Not if you're Visto. They're busy working on the Visto Mobile sync solution. Ewan saw them demoing at 3GSM, and caught up with Steve Maynard to have a chat.
If you're into satellite navigation, you might be interested in a sneak preview of TomTom's next generation software, announced already and shipping in the forthcoming weeks and months. Read the preview here.
Many moons ago, Nokia purchased the Sega Dreamcast destined network gaming engine, SNAP. They've now licenced it to Gamica for their Java game, Lucky Ranch Tycoon. This ould be the first visible moving of the N-Gage Technology to other platforms,showing that while the N-Gage has more benefits to Nokia than just financial margins.
Nokia and Tantalus, at GDC (The Games Developers Conference) have officially announced Payload, a racing action game where you take the role of a Courier in a world short of fuel, ferrying what little energy there is between settlements. Previously sneak previewed as Pit Runner, there's no word on a release date yet, although we think Q3 is likely.
“We previewed UIQ 3.0 at 3GSM” shout UIQ. But not shouting loudly enough, because UIQ 3 has been promised for so long, and it’s still not running on hardware. When your CEO crosses his fingers and runs an emulator version of UIQ3, then you have to start wondering what the hold up is?
Rafe is tired of writing about all the mobile phones on show at Cannes, so he's decided to look at some of the more technical details on UIQ3. What exactly is it, what does it do, and why is it something to look forward to.
In which Steve Litchfield enthuses on ultimate integration, in which he finally gets the point of Series 60 and in which the world finally becomes a happier and safer place. Read it here.
After a delightful TGV train journey back from France, Ewan has summed up 3GSM in the first of many reports from 3GSM. Find out more on Network Influence, the new phones, Music on Mobiles, and a shock Stormtrooper appearance in this editorial.
New N-Gage boss Gerard Weiner has said Nokia will make "a couple of significant strategic announcements" at E3 in May, in response to a question about how N-Gage would be promoted in 2005. He also said (in a Business 2.0 interview) that Nokia was still mulling over whether to release another N-Gage model this year, saying "the question is one of timing". He also revealed we can expect some new colours of QD this year (a common marketing tactic in the games and indeed phone industry), and confirmed Nokia would support the current generation of N-Gage to the end of 2005 at least.
Ilkka Raiskinen, until now head of Nokia's Games division, has been promoted to head the entire Nokia Multimedia division (which Games is a part of). Replacing Raiskinen as head of Games is Gerard Wiener, a games industry veteran who joined Nokia as part of a deal with Sega last year which included the purchase of Sega's Online divison, the SNAP network and Pocket Kingdom (which runs on SNAP). In an interview at GameSpot after the reshuffle Wiener sounded particularly rugged and upbeat, contrasting the strong support Nokia is providing the N-gage with the lack of support Sega gave the ill-fated Dreamcast: "The N-Gage will be here for as long as it takes. I remember the sickening feeling I got during the Dreamcast era when I was at Sega, and this situation isn't the same. Every time we get hit, we learn more, and it just makes us stronger."
In their end of year report Nokia has said they've regained the market share lost during 2004. They are now back above the 30% mark, which is twice the share of their nearest competitor Motorola. Profits were slightly down (perhaps because of recent price cuts) but sales set records over the Christmas period hence the rise in market share. In the report on their multimedia division it says "Nokia had cumulatively sold 1.3 million N-Gage devices", the first official statement since their "1 million" announcement in September. It's slightly less than the 1.5 million mentioned by Vir2L, but still shows the QD outselling the original model very quickly. On a side note, N-gage QDs are now on the market in China.
