Just a quick one to point out that the EU Watchdog is satisfied that the purchase of UK Mobile Operator O2 by Telefonica will not distort roaming charges. The Spanish telco can now confirm it's offer to O2 shareholders (Mobile Burn).
Some interesting comments in a Vunet article regarding Nokia's choice of the DVB-H standard over the DAB standard for 'mobile TV.' While DAB will reach the UK airwaves first, Nokia's Mark Selby is quick to point out that the DVB-H standard will better cope with multiple channels, that the UK spectrum may be opened up earlier, and it's not always about just the UK.
Again, not exactly covered by the site remit (except only in the loosest sense), but Nokia's Maemo/Linux powered Tablet device, the 770 is proving popular and production is to be increased, reports The Register.
Following up on the Nokia Mobile Store in Russia, the Finns have come to an agreeement with CompUSA to brand certain in-store sections of branches of the popular American Retailer as "Nokia Experience @ CompUSA" (Mobile Burn). They'll be using this to demo units such as the 770 Tablet, N90 and 6682.
Darla's spotted yet another outbreak of buck-chasing virus paranoia, this time from AhnLab. Read on for some priceless marketing quotes. And if you're worried about the threat of mobile malware then don't be. Read on...
Digital Restrictions Management in UIQ 3 is going to be provided by Discretix, UIQ have announced. Procviding support for the industry standard OMA DRM, Microsoft Windows Media v10 and CPRM, it promises "flexibility in meeting the evolving needs of mobile operators." Our emphasis. Full press release follows.
Rafe Blandford sees the upcoming Nokia N80 'slider' as a solid echo of the original 7650. Lots of interesting technology insights in his detailed N80 hands-on preview.
Panasonic looks set to focus its effort around the Linux operating system rather than the Symbian OS. In a recent press release Matsushita announced they would be reorganising global R&D. It is accelerating development of the Linux OS, and closing the US R&D office where Panasonic's Symbian development took place. Read on for more and a status check on Symbian and S60.
Jamdat, in under 6 years has gone from start-up to selling to Electronic Arts for $680 million US. Along with the Tetris Mobile licence, EA have also picked up the recently completed Doom RPG, Bejewelled and of course all the EA licenced games Jamat have been working on. From a wap version of scissors paper stone, to the number one publisher in the USA with 40% of the market, the boys have done well.
When you hear about multi-million dollar gaming licences and massive global hits, it's hard to forget that there are hundreds of coders out there every day who get picked up by the mobile networks and showcased in their catalogues. It's the new 'mark of excellence' in a sense, and Irish Developer BitRabbit is slowly making a name with their arcade games Yukiko and Atomanix. The later has been picked up by Swisscom, who are following Orange UK's in signing up these titles for OTA distribution.
Reading between the lines of various posts around the Internet and scanning the very helpful FCC-hosted user manual, it seems that the Nokia 9300i 'smartphone' is only a couple of days away, with clever money being for an announcement on Monday. Main changes are Wi-Fi (of course, including 802.11g), 1100mAh battery, predictive text input on the cover phone and a rich Instant Messaging client. More details as and when Nokia make things official.
Telcogames have been slowly making moves into the Symbian market, but that's about to change with their accquisition of Magic Productions. Magic, the company behind ports of Qwak and Another World, are strong in the 16-bit conversion market. These titles, which have great name recognition in carrier portals, are in the market now, with the recently launched Cannon Fodder and Nebulus following that tradition.
Ewan interviews Chia-Lin Simmons from Audible about their plans for spoken word audio content in the Symbian world. Here's the interview. Summary: all very polished, but as with ROK TV, you might want to wait for unlimited GPRS tariffs before subscribing.
Steve is tickled by the latest trends in the mobile device industry towards qwerty keyboards. He just knew the rest of the world would come round in the end... Read on...
The quarterly figures from Symbian, Ltd have ben released today and show a steady growth in pretty much every area. 8.54 million Symbian handsets shipped in Q3 of 2005, 60 different Symbian powered devices, 4500 applications available and 11 licencees developing handsets. But the headline number everyone should start paying attention to is the installed user base, now standing at 48 million Symbian OS users. Which is probably a number the Microsoft Windows team would love to be closer to than an order of magnitude.
