From the Symbian Foundation and Texas Instruments comes the news that the Zoom OMAP34x-II mobile development platform will be the first reference platform for the Symbian Foundation. This is a test device, capable of running various mobile operating systems, that can be used, to test code, by those wishing to contribute to the open source platform. It is also useful for developers wanting to explore and conduct tests on upcoming Symbian platform releases.
Yahoo! may make blunders elsewhere in the computing world, but they've always had their head screwed on when it comes to mobile. Yahoo! has just launched its next-gen mobile home page, which you can find at new.m.yahoo.com in your phone's web browser. Some screens below to give you a flavour, but on first look they seem to have done a good job integrating news sources, weather and traditional mobile information with a new 'Social pulse' panel, in which feeds from the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Friendster can be amalgamated and presented in chronological order.
Just before the deadline we want to point out a few more April exclusives. There's the Symbian Foundation powered toaster (Smart Toaster X, from Hussel & Robbs, the first Symbian^2 appliance) and the TEXT'N'WALK application from Looflirpa (innovative camera usage).
Nokia's long-demonstrated Point and Find service seems to have appeared in very early beta form, with many known bugs and issues, for most (but not all) S60 3rd Edition phones and for UK and USA regions only. Point and Find uses your device's camera to identify product barcodes and movie posters, linking through to relevant Web URLs. See here to get/try the beta and here for CJ's coverage.
I'm not sure S60 really needed yet another photo browser, but Nokia Beta Labs has gone and released one anyway, at least in 'experimental' form. Nokia Photo Browser offers a fluid wall of photos (see screens and video below), with 'magnifying glass' feature and 'face detection' (swipe from face to face in a group shot). It's very limited though, in that there are no menus or ways of actually doing things with your photos. My guess is that some of the 3D tech in this release will make its way into future S60 5th Edition devices. Anyway, enjoy for now.
AT&T today officially confirmed that they would be carrying the Nokia E71 on their network in the form of the E71x. The E71x comes in black and, in contrast to the E71, runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (S60 3.2 on Symbian OS 9.3). The phone supports the US 3G bands (850/1900 Mhz) and retains the WiFi connectivity and GPS from the E71. It comes with a variety of AT&T services including AT&T Navigator (turn by turn GPS navigation), AT&T Music, XM Radio, CV-stream, Xpress Mail, Mobile Instant Messaging and Video share. The E71x will cost $99, on a 2 year contract, after a mail-in rebate ($50).
Nokia is apparently clearing down stocks of its older smartphones - in this case what I'd call 'classic' smartphones - the still awesome N82 (in black or silver) is in the Nokia UK shop at the bargain price of £199 including VAT (sales tax), SIM/contract-free and unlocked. Staggering. The black version's there too, though 'Out of stock' messages have popped up recently - your mileage may vary. Anyway, grab them while you can. Xenon flash, candy bar form factor, accelerated graphics, you know you want to....
If you go to the official N-Gage Need For Speed website and click on the "Competition" pack of cards near the bottom left corner of the site, you should receive instructions on how to claim a free activation code for Mile High Pinball, Reset Generation or Pro Series Golf. This contest opened unofficially earlier in the week and some people had trouble getting their code to work, but hopefully they've fixed things now that the compo page has officially opened. Incidentally, if your activation code begins with the number 0 (zero), make sure you enter 0 (zero) and not the letter O.
Lots of people now have flat-rate data plans for their phones, but these plans usually aren't flat-rate when you're in a foreign country. Using data while abroad has traditionally been very expensive, but the EU is now trying to introduce caps on data roaming charges. Under the plan, data roaming charges would be capped from July 2009 at 1 euro per megabyte, falling to 50 cents per megabyte by July 2011. These are caps so phone networks could charge less of course, but they could not charge more.
DreamSpring, the guys behind some of the leading UIQ titles, have turned their attention to S60 (including 5th Edition) and have contacted us to announce a beta program for DreamLife, their integrated Calendar and Contacts system. There's no mention of getting a free reg code at the end of the beta, but this is probably taken for granted if you provide useful feedback.
If you go to the official Need For Speed Undercover N-Gage site, you'll see a competition section labelled "coming soon". Try clicking on the words "coming soon", and you'll see a contest which tells you how to get free activation codes for Pro Series Golf, Mile High Pinball or Reset Generation. According to the n-gage.com NFSU game page, the code you require is NE3D 4 5P33D, though the prank form says NE3D 4 S433D. (via mavilacivert on the Arena forums) (UPDATE: It appears that the competition has been taken down as the "coming soon" link no longer works. We suspect they activated the link too early, as a lot of people couldn't get the codes to work.)
Astraware is selling Astraware Boardgames and Astraware Solitaire at the reduced price of $5 each until the end of this month. The games are available for Symbian S60 3rd Edition and UIQ3, and can be purchased at the reduced price from astraware.com: click here for their S60v3 section, and click here for their UIQ3 section. (Astraware's parent company Handmark is also having a sale until the 29th of March, with a "buy one, get one free" offer using the discount code "DEMAND".)
Long-time readers may remember we gave Lonely Cat Games' card game Mau Mau quite a positive review, and for those who don't know it's basically Uno played with normal cards. Well, it now appears that the game is available free of charge from LCG's website for all S60 editions and UIQ2 as well. Just download the file from the download page, then head on over to the free unlock code page and use your phone's IMEI. (UPDATE: Apparently there's the old annoying "expired certificate" problem with this file, but you should be able to get round this by altering your phone's date settings to March 2008 instead of March 2009. You can then alter the dates back to normal after installation.)
More Carnival of the Mobilists goodness over here this week, in Carnival 166. Always good to read - the posts help round out one's mobile industry knowledge!
