The Nokia Maps team is conducting research on the Drive car navigation feature within Nokia Maps 2.0. They are looking for London, Berlin and Madrid based users (both novice and expert) to take part in their research. This is an opportunity to help shape the car navigation functionality in the next version of Nokia Maps. More details are available on the Beta Labs blog.
The Office of the CTO (OCTO) at Nokia is a key stone in Nokia's innovation and vision efforts (self described as a network of researchers and though leaders). CTO.nokia.com is a recently launched site which is intended to help to spread OCTO's vision of the mobile future and engage the outside world. It is a sister site to research.nokia.com and will feature editorial content from Nokia and selected third parties.
If you've got some interesting hobbies or are just good with your hands, note that you can win a Nokia N82 and Bluetooth headset each week over the summer in Nokia's new Free Hands video competition. You can enter as many times as you like, too...
Darla's back on the scene and in good investigative form, as she uncovers Nokia Backup, an official online backup service that may or may not be related to Ovi, plus she announces and demonstrates a brand new beta service, Nokia Email, offering push email from your existing mailboxes. Comments welcome.
Warner Music Group become the third of the so called 'Big Four' music labels to sign up to Nokia's "Comes With Music" program. Sitting alongside Sony BMG and Universal, this accounts for between 65%-70% of the total music market depending on which figures you use. Only EMI are outside of the program now - and once they come on board expect a big PR push from the Finns.
Thanks to all the people who emailed in with this - I'd held off posting about it because I thought it was an accidental leak, but this comprehensive (Flash-based) Nokia N96 interactive demo has been online for a while now and not removed, so presumably it's 'final', especially as we're now within a month or so off seeing the first N96 in the shops.
Two new-ish blogs for your reading pleasure were pointed out this weekend, and in the spirit of the rapidly opening Symbian, two of the executives, David Wood and John Forsyth have set up their own blogs. Outside the company, and representing their own personal views, you can find them at www.dw2-0.com and johnforsyth.blogspot.com.
PyS60 (or Python for S60) has been evolving nicely and it now extremely useable as a 'quick' programming language for smartphones. And there's a shiny new version for wannabe developers to play with. See the announcement and changelogs at the usual place at Forum Nokia.
Of course Rafe's upcoming E66 review will be even more informed(!), but in the meantime, I've been very impressed by the thoroughness of Alfredo Padilla, in this exhaustive multi-page E66 review. Well worth a read if you're weighing up the strengths and weaknesses of this replacement for the popular E65.
I'd noticed new icons for the elements in Google's Mobile services homepage yesterday but hadn't thought any more of it - it turns out that each element has had a new intro page written, explaining the difference between the download and web-based versions. As ever, try it at m.google.com - screenshots below.
No apologies for the blatant plug, but PiZero's done it again. Fresh is an awesome theme for all S60 3rd Edition phones that's gone straight to the top of my hit parade. It's pretty, useable in light and dark conditions, bright enough to be used as a flashlight in the dark etc. Give Fresh a try.
You'll know him as kflyer from our forums, but Miyuru also runs his own blog and sites - and he's also a nice kid and has given me a heads up on several news stories this year. Miyuru's created a survey of some of the Symbian/smartphone questions that most of us are interested in - it only takes 2 minutes to go through, so why not give it a try? I'll make sure the results get linked to here afterwards.
