Self-proclaimed Position Art genius Stavros would have been proud, it seems that his art form is alive and well. At least according to the Ovi Blog's recent Sports Tracker competition, in which people were invited to send in their best captured 'tracks'. Here are the position art winners and, because I know you're wondering, here's Stavros's original Position Art mega-site "The World is my Canvas" - go on, browse around and watch - it's still a hoot, even two years on!
Nokia Care, which provides support and help for Nokia's complete product range, has opened a Twitter account @NokiaHelps. They are inviting people to send in their queries, to which, they will, if possible, provide a reply. Support by Twitter is necessarily limited by the short messages involved, but for some will be more convenient that posting to a forum or calling a support line.
Yesterday Nokia and Intel announced the establishment of a joint research centre, based at the University of Oulu (Finland). The lab, which will have around two dozen researchers, will focus on mobile user experiences, with a particular emphasis on 3D experiences and technology. Likely research areas include 3D virtual worlds, 3D user interfaces and immersive gaming.
Some interesting numbers over at the Online Journalism Blog on mobile web uptake in the UK. Looking through the internet section of the latest Ofcom report, they’ve found the significance of mobile access, with 23% of the UK population using a mobile browser to access the web.
Nokia today announced that it plans to acquire Motally Inc., a privately held US company, which provides analytics services for mobile websites and applications. In addition to basic tracking and demographic reporting, Motally's main product offers the ability to track user behaviour within applications.
Just in time for this weekend's V Festival event featuring the likes of Kasabian, the Kings of Leon, Paul Weller, the Pet Shop Boys and many others, the official V Festival application has been updated and the new version is live in Ovi store (existing users should get notified of the upgrade automatically). There are some innovative features, including a customisable map and schedule planner, but it is also a great example of how a well executed application can add value to a real world event.
Never mind the date on the official download page, DivX Labs has officially released v1.0 of their ubiquitous mobile player for all S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition smartphones (direct SISx links). Version 1.0 "has numerous updates and simplifications to the UI. It also has touch-screen support for S60 5th Edition users." Initial feedback shows that desktop class DivX files (unsurprisingly) generally have bitrates that are too high for the limited processor speed in most current Symbian handsets. A figure of 600kbps is recommended as a maximum.
Nokia Beta Labs add-on shot at an integrated 'social' experience has now been closed, pending the arrival on the High Street of a full commercial implementation of the ideas and feedback in both Contacts and Ovi Maps in Nokia's Symbian^3 smartphones. Note with the discontinuation of the Beta program you will no longer have access to the Nokia Messaging for Social Networks service.
Nokia Conversations recently ran a poll asking what's more important than battery life? Yesterday, they published their results with the largest segment of users, 38%, voting for the 'Nothing' option. The runner-up choice was Connectivity, with 25% of the vote. Multimedia capabilities took third place with 17% of the vote. Read on for more commentary.
One of the most under-rated features of the Nokia N8 is its new email client, in the form of an upgraded version of Nokia Messaging. The Nokia Messaging team, in a blog post and video, talk about some of the key improvements, which include full HTML email support, improved device integration, easier set up and settings configuration, portal address lookup for GMail and Hotmail and improved performance characteristics. Also in N8 related news is the availability of N8 pre-orders through the Nokia USA web store.
Nokia has taken the beta label of its free Symbian Signing program, demonstrating Nokia's long term commitment to lowering costs for developers placing their applications in the Ovi Store. Previously the cost for a developer to sign their first Symbian application was $215, with an additional $15 for every signing instance thereafter. In order to participate in the free signing program developers need only become Ovi Store publishers (necessary to publish content in the Ovi Store), which means paying a one-off fee of €50.
The online service element of Sports Tracker, the application that lets you track exercise activities (workouts) and turns your Nokia smartphone into a GPS sports computer, is now available. The online service allows you to see at a glance information about each activity, easily visualise your workouts, make comparisons and share activities with others via the Sports Tracker website, Facebook or Twitter. Read on for more information and screenshots.
The N8 is now available for pre-order from Nokia's own web stores in France, Spain and Germany. The French store quotes a price of €459 (£380) and availability at the 'end of August', the Spanish store quotes a price of €469 (£389) and availability at the 'end of September', while the German store quotes a price €479 (£397) and availability in the 'third quarter'. The N8 is already available for pre-order in Italy at a cost of €469.
The saga of continually improving user firmware for the Samsung i8910 HD continues with the release a few minutes ago of the impressive HX8, rolling in, among other things, intelligent virtual keyboard/keypad rotation, portrait qwerty added, Music player now has full kinetic scrolling and is skinnable, plus more dynamic 'on the fly' interface customisation options, including changing camera codecs and browser user agents. And those are just the changes since HX7... 8-) Links, changelogs, videos and screens below.
