You'll remember Nokia's newish Sports Tracker widget, whereby you can embed your journeys and media into your web page? Well, following on from the news that Sports Tracker itself can handle videos (taken along the exercise route), the official widget has now been upgraded too. The current name is now 'Maps+Photography+Video' - something snappier is desperately needed.
The European Commission has announced unconditional approval of Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech. Nokia can now proceed with the final stages of acquisition, which are expected to be completed quickly. Trolltech's Qt, a cross platform graphics/GUI tookit, is the principal reason for the acquisition and will be an important part of Nokia's cross platform development strategy.
If you've ever wondered what use Nokia's built-in IM (Instant Messaging) application was, then you're in good company. However, the truth is that it just needs TLC and a good online gateway. As 'Talk about Nseries' reports, Mobjab is a new service that lets Nokia's IM integrate with a number of popular IM systems, including AOL and Windows Live Messenger.
Symbian's annual show, the Smartphone Show will take place later this year, October 21st to 22nd, at Earls Court in London. New this year is the Mobile DevFest a developer focused event from Symbian that runs in parallel to the main show. Symbian has issued a 'call for papers' for developers who are interested in speaking at the event. Fame and glory await.
Nokia are really pushing on with development of Maps 2.0 at the moment. There's a flashy new promo video on the main Nokia Maps page, plus a new build of the software: v2.0 build 2204 - can you spot anything new or changed?
There's a great post by Daniel Rochas over on Forum Nokia, posted yesterday, discussing the pros and cons of using Python for developing applications for S60, with links, resources, caveats and more. In short, Daniel thinks that Python 'brings back the fun' into development. Also of note on the same site is a new and interactive eLearning tutorial for PyS60. Both highly recommended.
Heck, maybe I should just start a PiZero fan club or something - his latest theme is Leopard (yes, that Leopard) - see below for a majestic screenshot taken on the Nokia E90. The theme wasn't really designed for such a wide screen, but it looks like it can adapt to anything!
Digia has announced it has developed a new browser for the UIQ 3 platform - Digia @Web. The browser is based on a port of the open-source webkit browser engine (as used in S60's Browser) and be controlled using finger touch. Features include page control with finger, four zoom levels, intelligent bookmarks, URL auto-completion, full screen browsing and screen rotation. A beta of the browser will be available later in June and will be available for all touch enabled UIQ 3 devices.
As part of last week's S60 Summit, S60's Saara Bergstrom - who now runs The Voice of S60 podcast - sat down with our very own Rafe and Ewan to chat about the event, the platform and the smartphone world in general. Here are the MP3 and eAAC+ links for you to grab and listen to.
As you'll have noted from the recent post about the new features in the released Nokia Maps 2.0, cell-id-based location has been added to the existing GPS support. Andrew over at London Calling has a definitive set of musings as to where this has come from and on how big a deal it will be to keep this extra ID database up to date. (via this week's Carnival of the Mobilists)
Now here's interesting for the trend spotters. Use of the 'mobile' web goes up at weekends compared to the working week. And on top of that, the sites being visited aren't the same as those from the office connection. Business Week has more on the cyclical habits of the browsers.
Jamba is a well known name in mobile games, and the strength of their distribution channel means that their in-house games development team, working under the Ojom banner, is no longer required to keep the flow of content in the stores (reports MoCoNews). This doesn't change affect any other in-house team, including their ring-tone creation business.
Everybody's other favourite theme designer, p@sco, has knocked up a re-creation of the theme used in the Nokia N78 and N96, for installation on other, older devices. If you're into pretending, this is a free way to do it!...
In AAS Insight 27, the latest All About Symbian podcast, we talk about some recent firmware upgrades for a number of devices before moving on to a wide ranging discussion from topics out of last weeks S60 Summit. Areas covered include the future of user experience, Samsung and the S60 platform, the future of software development and widgets and WRT.
MobileTechNews is reporting that Swisscom has launched its mobile television service, 'Bluewin TV mobile', in Switzerland to become one of the first European providers to offer DVB-H mobile TV to its mobile customers. The only handset supported is Nokia's S60-running N77 smartphone, though you can bet that other future Nseries devices (such as the N96) will also come on board. (via Engadget Mobile)
