Yahoo has released a native Symbian application which puts a shortcut to its oneSearch service on the Idle screen of your phone (N70, N95, N73, 6120, and E65). The stand out feature is Search Assist that suggests terms and phrases as you go and aims to save you time and provide related concepts for more refined results.
Phonelocator is a real-time GPS tracking application for S60 phones. It send location information to the Phonelocator website where you can view the phone's current position and a trail of where it has been. The software includes some intelligent algorithms designed to minimise data and power usage so you should be able to run it over relatively long periods.
Nokia has extended the deadline for entries to its Mobile Games Innovation Challenge to the 8th of September. The contest is looking for innovative game concepts (actual code isn't required) for S60, Java or N-Gage, with the top 3 concepts getting money and contracts to actually create the games. The concept can take the form of text, mockup images and optionally video too. It's only open to professional development companies though, private individuals cannot enter.
Bloglines, a popular web-baed feed reader, has been experimenting with a new mobile interface (v3). If you want to try it, bookmark m.beta.bloglines.com/feedtree in Web on your phone. Changes are 'favicons' in the feeds list, a 'pin' system for marking things for later attention, auto-marking-read and breaking up long lists of uread items within a feed into manageable chunks.
In a further sign of consolidation in the wireless semiconductor industry Ericsson and STMicroelectronics have agreed to merge Ericsson Mobile Platforms and ST-NXP Wireless divisions respectively to create a 50/50 joint venture. The new venture should be in a better position to compete with Qualcomm and Texas Instruments and may help drive lower chip costs.
When goods are virtually free, why do people pirate software? Developer Cliff Harris took the simple step on his blog... to ask the pirates why they weren't buying his titles. While the Positech titles in question are for the desktop, the principles should apply to mobile games as well.
Content from the Lonely Planet travel guide series is now available in Nokia Maps. The guides are available via the Extras section in the Options menu of Nokia Maps 2.0. The Lonely Planet guides take the form of a collection POIs (Points of Information) which are divided into several categories (Eat, General, Night, See, Shop and Sleep). Read on for more details and screenshots.
You can now play the excellent N-Gage multiplayer title Reset Generation for free through Facebook (click here to visit the game's Facebook page) and Google Gadgets (click here to visit the game's Google Gadgets page). You can also put it on your own website or blog for free by copying the HTML code included below, and of course you can play it on your phone through the N-Gage application. All versions of the game share the same game world, so it should be very easy to find opponents.
This may sound like a spoof listing from TV Go Home, but it's absolutely true: Nokia presents a series of short videos aimed at mobile game developers, this week featuring Miikka Skaffari, Head of Developer Product Management. Episode 1 sees host Arnold Faber quizzing Miikka about the N-Gage platform's new development tools, APIs and SDK. In a sauna.
It's not only AAS which has guest writers, you know. Over at Darla Mack's site, AAS regular snoyt brings us an epic tale of how an N95 classic performed, week in and week out during some transcontinental journeying. He worked the N95 into the ground, but fear not for a more modern replacement is on its way...
Canalys have crunched the numbers and produced some definitive smartphone sales stats for Q2 for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa). Always interesting reading, the highlights this time are that 38% of devices had built-in GPS, 58% had built-in Wi-Fi and 13% had touch-screens. Nokia shipped almost 9 million smartphones in this region alone, with 71% market share - 7% is the share of RIM and HTC, more or less in joint second place. Apple are lumped in with others, but may prove a contender in the future, of course.
Do you use Google's chat and sharing site 'orkut'? If that's you and you have a S60 phone then there's a shiny new S60-optimised mobile site at http://m.orkut.com. From Google: "We have added a bunch of new features, including photo uploads, picture galleries, click-to-call and quick friend searches." Screenshots below.
Nokia has made available, via its website, a wide range of Ramadan related content for a number of phones (including all recent S60 devices). There are a number of applications: Quran (multi-lingual interface, search and bookmark, Emsakya (prayer alerts), Hajj and Umrah (journey guide) and more; as well as ringtones, wallpapers, anasheed (Islamic vocal music) and landmarks (for Nokia Maps).
Samsung recently announced the existence of the i8510 (INNOV8) handset and have now revealed that the 8GB version will be sold exclusively in the UK in partnership with the Carphone Warehouse (a similar arrangement to the iPhone), although which networks the phone will be available on has not yet been specified. The i8510 will have two memory variants: 16GB and 8GB, it appears that only the 8GB is a Carphone Warehouse exclusive, with the 16GB version being sold by other retailers and dealers in the UK.
What with more and more video codecs being involved and YouTube continually fiddling, it's not surprising that shareware-by-any-other-name Mobitubia is having to be fiddled with too, to keep it working efficiently. Version 1.81 build 5 just got released for anyone who's donated to the project and features video playback fixes, general app bug fixes and a new feature: Make thumbnail, for clips which don't come with one. Recommended.
