Symbian has announced two key technologies for the next generation of Symbian OS-powered smartphones, ensuring that superfast mobile broadband and complex interface, video and gaming requirements won't be a problem for the smartphones of 2008 and beyond. Read on for the full press release about the new ScreenPlay and FreeWay and for official reaction from Symbian licensees. And we'll have a video podcast up shortly with a full interview.
During their keynote today at the Symbian Smartphone Show, Samsung Electronics announced two new phones (the GPS enabled i550 and i560), to sit alongside three other phones. All five S60 3rd Edition phones will be available before the end of the year.
Nokia has announced that the black N95 8GB smartphone has started shipping across the world, with most of Europe and selected Middle East countries also getting the Spiderman 3 movie preloaded into the large internal flash drive. Reports of sightings welcome.
Sony Ericsson today announced the forthcoming availability of a range of new accessories today. The HCB-105 is a in car Bluetooth speaker system which is effectively Bluetooth speaker phone accessory designed with car usage in mind. The MBS-100 is Sony Ericsson's first portable wireless speaker system to accept stereo audio Bluetooth streams (via A2DP) and features a striking design and 5 hours of music playback.
Nokia's marketing teams do seem to be very good at this sort of thing. "Non-stop living" is a multimedia extravaganza showing off their range of Bluetooth headsets. So, forget everything Ewan and I said a few days ago about how A2DP doesn't really work and immerse yourself in the Non-stop living site. (via Adverblog and IM)
The Samsung SGH-i450, a music focused S60 3rd Edition smartphone, has been officially announced by Samsung as part of its new line up of music phones. The SGH-i450 is billed as a dual slide with touch wheel music navigation. Features include support for HSDPA connectivity, metallic speaker supporting ICEpower (developed by Bang & Olufsen), and a microSD card slot support for SDHC cards. Read on for more.
Nokia are piling on the firmware updates this week, ahead of next week's show, I'm guessing. No sign of that N95 or E90 update yet, but.... This time it's the Nokia N73 - firmware 4.0735.3.0.2 (/ 4.0736.3.2.1) is released and available on NSU and includes Nokia Maps 1.0 (edition 1.2), plus updates to the Music Library and music downloads system.
There's a new firmware on the loose for the Nokia N93i. v30.0.013 is on Nokia Software Update and includes "Nokia Maps 1.0 (edition 1.2)" (eh?), plus faster opening of downloaded video files, MP4 editing improvements, better 2nd camera image quality and support for more Bluetooth stereo headsets.
Ewan's got a fairly honed sense of hearing, which is why Rafe and I packed him off with a Bluetooth stereo headset to investigate wireless sound quality and reliability. Did A2DP pass the test and is it ready for the prime time? A qualified yes for low grade pop listening, but an emphatic no (for several reasons) for anyone serious about their music...
At 'the definitive consumer awards event' last night, the Mobile Choice Awards, the Nokia N95 was voted the ‘Dream Handset’, ahead of the Apple iPhone, while Nokia's other flagship, the E90, was pipped to the post for 'Best Smartphone' by the Blackberry Curve. MEX has some analysis of the night and of some related industry trends.
Nokia N95-toting professional photographer Henry Reichhold is being featured in an international gallery of his best N95-taken photos at the Royal Albert Hall at the end of this month. Well worth popping in, I think, some of the images are stunning. If you go, please report back to AAS! (via Nokia Creative)
ARM and Symbian today announced Symbian OS would support the ARM Symmetric Multi-processor (SMP) architecture in future OS versions. This technology allows for multiple CPU cores to be used in mobile phones. Don't get too excited though, the first phones using multiple core processors are not expected before 2010. In other Symbian related processor news Renesas today announced it has commenced sample shipments of its new generation chipset, the SH-Mobile G3. Read on for more details.
It seems that some of the S60 tweaks assigned to the upcoming Nokia N95 8GB and N81 are making their way down to lesser and older devices - thankfully. The N76, with its greater free RAM, is a logical starting point, with v30.0.015 firmware now available through the Nokia Software Updater, featuring device and Internet search directly on the standby screen. (via WOM)
Ewan's got a fairly honed sense of hearing, which is why Rafe and I packed him off with a Bluetooth stereo headset to investigate wireless sound quality and reliability. Did A2DP pass the test and is it ready for the prime time? A qualified yes for low grade pop listening, but an emphatic no (for several reasons) for anyone serious about their music...
If you've owned a Nokia E70, N95 or N93, or a Sony Ericsson P990i, the chances are that, at some point, you've had a 'Memory' error, usually in the context of 'Low memory' or 'Out of memory'. In this How to, I explain the cause of 'Memory' errors, discuss ways to avoid them and point out a silver lining.
