22 July 2010

Nokia Reports First Quarter 2010
Profit Falls 40%, Pressure On CEO Growing

As expected, The Finnish mobile phone giant reported today a sharp drop in second-quarter profits, further increasing the pressure on embattled Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

Kallasvuo, who has spent more than half of this life at the company, may be ousted already this month, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.

Nokia reported that second quarter Devices & Services net sales increased 3% to EUR 6.8 billion, compared with EUR 6.6 billion in the second quarter 2009. At constant currency, Devices & Services net sales would have decreased 2% yea... .. .

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.:[ Profit Falls 40%, Pressure On CEO Growing - full story ]:.

22 July 2010

Texas Instruments Brings First WLAN
Adaptation Package To The Symbian Platform

As long-time proponents and committed enablers of the open source community, TI supports the Symbian Foundation’s vision of a proven, open and comprehensive mobile software platform. Their recent collaborative efforts resulted in Symbian’s very first WLAN adaptation package – a contribution critical to the success of Symbian’s goal for the one-click connectivity outlined in the Symbian^3 platform scope.

For the Symbian Foundation, the WLAN adaptation package represents another major milestone in fostering one of the largest open source transitions in the industry. For TI, this package represents the introduction of the TI WiLink™ 6.0 WLAN driver (running on WL1271) as a key component of Symbi... .. .

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.:[ First WLAN Adaptation Package For The Symbian Platform - full story ]:.

22 July 2010

ARM And TSMC To Bring Faster,
Better And More Efficient Mobile Processors

ARM and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. today jointly announced a long-term agreement that provides TSMC with access to a broad range of ARM processors and enables the development of ARM physical IP across TSMC technology nodes.

This agreement supports the companies' mutual customers to achieve optimized Systems-On-Chip (SoC) based on ARM processors and covers a wide range of process nodes extending down to 20nm.

The agreement provides TSMC access to optimize the implementation of ARM processors on TSMC process technologies, including ARM Cortex processor family and CoreLi... .. .

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.:[ ARM and TSMC ink long-term strategic deal - full story ]:.

21 July 2010

How Your Symbian S60 Smartphone
Can Help You Feel and Look Like A Pro Cyclist

Do you currently cycle for fun or as a hobby, but want to go to the pro level? If you want to get there, or you've decided to take your bicycling seriously you must be willing to put in the time, energy, and the training.

However, you must also acquire the necessary pro cycling equipment. When you look at the pros at an event such as the Tour de France, they have the best of the best for equipment so that they can adapt to the weather conditions, terrain, as well as the length of the race.

Whether your goal is to win a bicycle race or bike all daywhile touring, there are least six ways your Symbian powered smartphone can help. You can plan the route, track your activity, get cadence from the built-in accelerometer and enjoy in some ni... .. .

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.:[ Look And Feel Like A Pro - full story ]:.

20 July 2010

Symbian Developer Cooperative
Launches And Joins The Symbian Foundation

The Symbian Foundation today welcomes its newest member, the Symbian Developer Cooperative (Symbian DevCo), a non-profit, independent organisation founded to raise the profile of individuals within the Symbian community and give them a full voice in the governance of the Symbian platform.

Participants in Symbian DevCo, known as Associates, enjoy the same rights and benefits as employees of other member companies. Symbian DevCo launched today, along with its web site at symbiandevco.org.

The organisation is open to all individuals and participation is free of charge. The Symbian Developer Cooperative will provide a focal point for passionate individuals within the Symb... .. .

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.:[ Symbian DevCo Launches And Joins The Foundation - full story ]:.

20 July 2010

Investors Lose Patience:
Nokia Conducting Search For A New
CEO To Replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo!??

With 40% global market share, the Finnish company remains the world's largest cellphone marker, but has struggled to keep pace in the smartphone market against well entrenched rivals such as Microsoft and Research In Motion and especially against newcomers such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and numerous phones based around Google Inc's Android platform, not to mention Palm which is here since the beginning and keeping the pressure on too.

In a response to this growing competition within the mobile business, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal that cites "people familiar with the situation" Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo may be in his last days as CEO of Nokia Corp. as he struggles to find traction for the company in the market for high-end smartpho... .. .

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.:[ Nokia looking for new CEO to replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo - full story ]:.

19 July 2010

Symbian’s web application development tools
and Nitobi’s PhoneGap framework make it easy
to create mobile apps for any device

Symbian Foundation, the non-profit organization responsible for the world’s leading open source smartphone platform and Nitobi, creators of the ground-breaking PhoneGap mobile application development framework, today announced an open source collaboration designed to simplify mobile application development.

By integrating Symbian’s web application creation tools and Nitobi’s PhoneGap 'write once, run anywhere' platform, mobile developers can now easily make app store ready applications for all major mobile platforms.

The companies will be showcasing this capability for the first time at OSCON, the open source convention, at booth number #700. In addition, Nitobi has contributed PhoneGap to Symbian, which is included in the in the Symbian^3 plat... .. .

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.:[ Symbian and Nitobi Simplify Cross-Platform Development - full story ]:.

19 July 2010

Firmware v10.0.021 For Nokia C6
Available Through Nokia Software Updater!

Good folks from over at Nokia's software department are very pretty productive nowadays as we got lot of software updates lately and Good folks from over at Nokia's software department are trully very busy and productive nowadays not just because of finalizing Symbian S^4 User Interface but also because of the lot of new firmware updates that company has rolled out lately and I'm sure there are many more to come.

Anyway, the last one is the new software version for the Nokia C6, affrodable smartphone that combining the benefits of a 3.2 inch touch screen with a full slide out keyboard. Firmware version v10 is now available through the Nokia Software Updater for most of the generic product codes from EMEA region and AP... .. .

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.:[ Firmware v10 For Nokia C6 Now Available - full story ]:.

19 July 2010

Sony Ericsson Vivaz Family
To Get A Light Pink Sister Soon!

According to official Sony Ericson blog, the Vivaz family will soon get the Light Pink variant which is expected to be available in selected markets end of this quarter.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz is company's second phone in the new family of communication entertainment phones that feature the new design philosophy 'human curvature', first introduced with the Xperia X10, which will become a consistent feature of Sony Ericsson’s portfolio going forward.

Designed to mirror the shape of the human body, and at the same time delivering a precise and compelling phone interaction, Sony Ericsson Vivaz is instantly recognisable. Cre... .. .

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.:[ A new sister in the Vivaz family - full story ]:.

19 July 2010

NetQin Mobile Inc. Introduces Their Latest
Mobile Guard App Available On Symbian Handsets

NetQin Mobile Inc., a global leading mobile security service provider, has just released NetQin Mobile Guard, a free mobile application, for S60 the 3rd and 5th devices. Featuring a package of system optimization, web management, and proactive defence tools, the application provides users with total control over the amount of internet traffic and improves the system's overall speed.

NetQin Mobile Guard v2.4 is designed to optimize system performance while minimizing the power consumption, and keeping users in control of the amount of internet usage.

The product also features mobile optimization scans to allow users to have their phones running at optimum speed. This includes an Operating System Scan that scans for bas... .. .

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.:[ NetQin Mobile Releases Mobile Guard For 3rd and 5th Ed - full story ]:.

19 July 2010

Nokia Kinetic Concept:
Seriously Magical Mobile Phone

Well I am really not sure what it is so appealing about these shiny concept phones that appear from time to time but I'm sure most of you agree with me that it is really pleasure to look at, although we know it's hard to expect that such phone will land in the shops anytime soon.

Anyway, to meet our future vision, Jeremy Innes-Hopkins, a creative designer from London who is currently studying product design at Central Saint Martins worked with Nokia to make a conceptual kinetic phone to show where mobile phone trends are heading in near future!?

Nokia Kinetic is a magical mobile phone that makes receiving a call, text or email more playful, by convening digital information into kinetic movement. Spontaneous, magical and undire... .. .

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.:[ A Seriously Magical & Playful Concept Phone - full story ]:.

19 July 2010

First Screenshots Of The New But Not Greatly Improved Symbian S^4 Homescreen Interface

Couple of months after Nokia has submitted a proposal for a new framework for Symbian-powered UIs to the Foundation’s open community, we finally got the first screenshots of the new but not greatly improved Symbian S^4 homescreen application, mainly thanks to the folks from Symbian Developer Wiki.

Screenshots show a nice array of eye candy and some actually useful bits, like minimalistic status bar with a quite small, battery, reception indicator and clock in the middle.

Also it seems that home screen now support continuous wallpapers implemented on pretty much the same way as to the Nokia N900 and to make the switching between this m... .. .

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.:[ First Screenshots Of The Symbian S^4 Homescreen App - full story ]:.

18 July 2010

Weekend Reading:
Four out of Five Cell Phones
To Integrate GPS by End of 2011

With cell phones increasingly becoming the nexus of the burgeoning markets for navigation and Location Based Services (LBS), the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology in such platforms is set to explode during the coming years, according to iSuppli Corp.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, 79.9 percent of cell phones shipped—amounting to 318.3 million units—will incorporate GPS functionality, up from 56.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009—or 187.8 million units—iSuppli predicts.

"The smart phone is the key product driving the technology industry today—and social networking services and applications spurred by GPS-related features are critical elemi... .. .

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.:[ GPS Technology In Smart Phones Is Set To Explode - full story ]:.

17 July 2010

Public Beta of Nokia
Signing Symbian Apps for Free

To assure end users that the data on their mobile devices is protected, it’s essential to properly package and sign your applications whenever possible but with the wide range of choices for developers, the question becomes: Which packaging and signing solution is the right one for your application?!

In an attempt to make it easier to publish apps in Ovi Store, Nokia recently simplified the tools and the process, and removed some of the cost associated with developing mobile apps for distribution in Ovi Store.

Developers must make initial investments to create Symbian apps; for example, obtaining a Publisher ID and paying a third party to have the application Symbian signed. Currently, thi... .. .

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.:[ Public beta of Nokia signing Symbian apps for free - full story ]:.

17 July 2010

Weekend Reading:
Apple's Attempt To Draw Entire Industry
Into Its Self-Made Debacle Is Unacceptable

To make it clear, I'm not someone who is ardently anti-Apple, not at all, I just can’t resist to say that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is considered as one of the greatest marketers in history which means that nothing he claims can be trusted without checking twice and it’s hard not to be angered and frustrated knowing that Mr. Jobs usually only telling the half-truth at best.

Anyway, Nokia has just released an official statement about their antenna design and their engineering philosophy in direct response to Apple's Friday press conference on antenna issues and said that their engineering devoted thousands of hours to study how people hold their phones in order to prevent the so called dea... .. .

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.:[ Nokia And RIM Respond To Apple's Press Conference - full story ]:.

16 July 2010

Sony Ericsson Reports
Second Quarter 2010 Results

Struggling mobile device maker Sony Ericsson, today reported a net profit for the first quarter, boosted by product launches as well as company cost savings.

As of June 30, 2010 Sony Ericsson retained a net cash position of Euro 609 million, an increase of Euro 46 million sequentially mainly due to operating results, tight financial management of working capital, as well as positive currency effects. Market share in unit base for the quarter remained flat and is estimated to be around 4%. Sony Ericsson maintains a forecast of slight growth in units in the global handset market in 2010.

Bert Nordberg, President, Sony Ericsson commented, “Our second quarter results show that the company continued the momentum seen in the first quarter as a result of our foc... .. .

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.:[ Sony Ericsson Second Quarter 2010 report - full story ]:.

16 July 2010

Mobile Phone Service Subscriptions
Reached The Five Billion Mark Last Week

This week marked yet another milestone in the internet becoming mobile when the 5 billionth mobile subscription added to the count, largely thanks to emerging markets like India and China.

According to Ericsson estimates based on industry information, the 5 billionth subscription was added Thursday, July 8. In the year 2000, about 720 million people had mobile subscriptions, less than the amount of users China alone has today.

Mobile broadband subscriptions are growing at similar pace and are expected to amount to more than 3.4 billion by 2015 (from 360 million in 2009). Studies show that soon 80 percent of all people accessing the internet will be doing so using their mo... .. .

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.:[ Mobile Subscriptions Hit 5 Billion Mark - full story ]:.

16 July 2010

SQRXZ Requires Fast Reflexes And Is A
Simply Mindblasting Jump 'n' Run Puzzle Game

SQRXZ is a nice platformer with puzzle elements. Hop around, collect stars, stomp on enemies, avoid traps and reach the exit in each level. The game offers 15 levels of oldschool platform fun reminiscent of the classic Amiga era.

SQRXZ (2010) is a remake of a game with the same name and has been created by Rodolphe Boixel (Thor), Shahzad Sahaib (Kojote), Simon Butler and Brendan Ratliff (Syphus). Minor support came from Marcus Vesterlund himself who also gave permission to redo his game.

A remake should be usually bearing improvements, so does Sqrxz 2010. Beside the “classic” graphic mode, there is a new mode with “deluxe” graphics. The main gameplay has modified in a way that you need to collect all items to open the doo... .. .

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.:[ Mindblasting Jump 'n' Run Puzzle Game - full story ]:.

16 July 2010

Nokia C6-01 Accidentally Appeared
On Official Nokia's Netherlands Website

OMG, I can smell a kick here ;o) poor webmaster of the Nokia's Netherlands website has managed to accidentally reveal official photos and specifications of yet unannounced Cseries devices and make it available for public access a bit earlier than expected!?

Leak is definitely not according to Nokia plans, so in case you understand Dutch better hurry up if you interesting in, I'm pretty sure Nokia will remove it as soon as possible.

Anyway, Nokia C6-01 looks pretty much the same as its younger brother, the Nokia C6-00 that combining the benefits of a 3.2 inch touch screen with a full slide out keyboard but this variant is equipped with quite better eight megapixel cam... .. .

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.:[ Nokia C6-01 Gets Leaked Officially and - full story ]:.

16 July 2010

OVI Store Continues To Improve
But Significant Challenges Remain

Nokia's Ovi Store was launched a little over one year ago, May 26th 2009. Almost immediately the company issued a statement apologizing to users who were unable to access the service due to "...extraordinarily high spikes of traffic..."

Since then there have been substantial improvements and the store no longer suffers from the kinds of outages reported just after its launch. And volume has continued to scale with downloads passing 1.7 million daily in April.

Developers recognize the improvements over the past year and more than 80% said they would be sticking with Nokia and Ovi with the expectation that their experience would continue to improve. But having 20% of Nokia's "top" develo... .. .

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.:[ Ovi Store developers not very happy with Nokia - full story ]:.

16 July 2010

Minor Firmware Update For Nokia E75
Now Available As FOTA And NSU Update!

I know, I know, I'm a little bit late on this one, but you know what they say: "It's better late than never", so just in case you didn't read it elsewhere already I would like to let you know that Nokia has rolled out minor firmware updates for their latest full QWERTY Eseries device!

New firmware version for Nokia E75 is now available as FOTA update and through Nokia Software Updater as well for most of the generic product codes from EMEA and APAC region and is expected to be available for the rest of the world (NAM and branded devices) shortly.

According to pretty short bulletin of the changes issued by Nokia, software version 211.12 brings just a minor phone and app performance improvements including; e-mail cli... .. .

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.:[ New firmware for Nokia E75 Now Available - full story ]:.

15 July 2010

Opera Mobile Version 10.1 Beta
For Symbian S60 Phones Is Out Now

Opera Software today unveiled the new beta (10) of Opera Mobile web browser for Nokia and other Symbian/S60 handsets.

With new features such as accelerated speed and geolocation capabilities. The Opera Mobile 10.1 beta also contains the latest version of the powerful Presto rendering engine, Vega graphics library and their own Carakan JavaScript engine.

In addition to the new engines and geolocation, this beta also has updated kinetic scrolling, virtual keyboard and auto-rotation to landscape making your browsing exp... .. .

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.:[ Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta For S60 Phones Is Out Now - full story ]:.

15 July 2010

Nokia Opening Its Java Runtime Under Terms
Of Symbian Foundation's Eclipse Public License

If you here for a long enough than you already well aware that I am not huge fan of java applications, or to be precise MIDlets. Apart from the stone-age user interface and general slowness, the most annoying issue are endless, annoying and worthless security prompts!

Ironically most of the phone users don’t even understand what the heck the prompts are saying and confirms all of them without thinking twice whether they really know it's safe to do so or not.

However, it's also important to say that Java is deployed on more than 2 billion devices. It is s the most wide-spread mobile runtime in the world ensuring the best market reach for developers and widest selection of mobile services and solu... .. .

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.:[ Nokia Donates Java Runtime To Symbian Foundation - full story ]:.

15 July 2010

China Plans To Approve
Nokia's Online Mapping Services

China plans to give mobile phone giant Nokia a licence to offer online mapping services, making it the first foreign firm to be approved since new rules were unveiled in June, an official said Wednesday.

Ovi Maps covers more than 180 countries with car and pedestrian navigation for 74 countries, in 46 languages, and traffic information for more than 10 countries. There are more than 6000 3D landmarks for 200 cities around the world.

The official at the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping told AFP that Nokia's application to operate its Ovi Map service would be given the green light, though final approval wa... .. .

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.:[ China Plans To Approve Nokia's Online Mapping Services - full story ]:.

15 July 2010

Fishlabs's Rally Master Pro Now
Available For Free On Satio And Vivaz

It is one thing to stuff a lot of nice hardware into a mobile phone (PowerVR SGX equipped Symbian smartphones) but it is quite another story to make all this power available to the developer and attract them to make the games which take the most advantage of the hardware!

Sony Ericsson did an amazing job here and gave all necessary support and tools to Fishlabs’s engineers to port their Rally Master Pro from iPhone to Symbian featuring almost the same functionality on Satio.

According to Fishlabs CEO, Michael Schade, the new and updated version available for Sony’s high-end Symbian phones is ‘the best version’ of the racer, with ‘better than PSP qua... .. .

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.:[ Rally Master Pro Available For Free On Satio And Vivaz - full story ]:.

15 July 2010

Smaato's Metrics Reveal That Android Gains in CTR
But Symbian Still Dominates Region in Terms of CTR

The Smaato Metrics for June show further significant increases by Android in global click through rates (CTR), while leaders Symbian and Feature Phones both suffer a dip in CTR Index.

Smaato serves over 8 billion ad requests in its network of more than 6,000 registered mobile publishers and over 40 mobile ad networks.

In the US, Smaato’s metrics reveal that while Symbian still dominates the region in terms of CTR (and despite small market share of handsets), Android has closed the gap with a CTR Index of 192 (118 in May), while Apple iOS drops down to fif... .. .

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.:[ Android Gains In CTR But Symbian Still Dominates - full story ]:.

14 July 2010

Minor Firmware Update For Nokia 5230
Now Available As FOTA And NSU Update!

Just want to give everyone a quick heads up that latest firmware update (v21.0.004) for Nokia 523, company's cheap and affordable full-touchscreen Smartphone is now regularly available for most of the generic Euro codes as 'Over The Air' update and as usually, it should be progressively available at the Nokia service points and through the NSU as well.

The new firmware is meant to provide further performance improvements and new functionalities to the handset, and it is already available for most of the generic European and Asian product codes.

There is no detailed change log at the moment and I can't see any noticeable changes or improvements but as you would imagine, the firmware update is always recomm... .. .

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.:[ New firmware for Nokia 5230 Now Available - full story ]:.

14 July 2010

Hard Truth: Of Smartphone Owners,
Only A Third Will Consider Getting A Nokia

Couple of week ago, Nokia and CE4A (Consumer Electronics for Automotive) working group have released the Terminal Mode technology specification as a proposed industry standard for the integration of mobile applications into the car environment and now thanks to god folks over at Engadget we got the first glimpse of Terminal Mode in action!

At MobileBeat 2010, Volkswagen's engineers showed off the video which shows VW Passat CC’s head unit connected to Nokia N97 which is completly controllable through larger touchscreen on the head unit.

Unfortunately, according to Engadget and VW’s engineers this technology is still a couple of years away from commercial integration into vehicles so don’t expect to see it as an additional equipment for the latest generation of VW Pas... .. .

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.:[ VW Passat CC With Nokia's Terminal Mode - full story ]:.

14 July 2010

Hard Truth: Of Smartphone Owners,
Only A Third Will Consider Getting A Nokia

According to the latest wave of YouGov’s Smartphone Mobile Internet Experience study YouGov study, the Finnish mobile telecommunications giant is now lagging even further behind its competitors than six months ago. Of smartphone owners, only a third will consider getting a Nokia as their next handset, compared to 46% in December 2009.

On top of that, only ten percent of smartphone owners expect to purchase a Nokia, a drop of nine percent over the last six months.

In contrast, Apple continues to hold onto the lion’s share of the market, with 56% of smartphone owners considering and 41% expecting to get an Apple handset next time roun... .. .

Read more:

.:[ Nokia continues fall behind newer brands - full story ]:.

14 July 2010

Leading provider of security, identity management and touch control solutions Joined The Foundation

AuthenTec, a leading provider of security, identity management and touch control solutions, today announced that it has joined the Symbian Foundation, which, together with its ecosystem, is creating the most proven, open and complete mobile software platform.

The source code for the Symbian platform is available to all under the Eclipse Public License.

“The Symbian Foundation welcomes AuthenTec into the community,” said Lauren Sarno, Member Programs Manager at Symbian. “Our semiconductor members are at the heart of such important functionality as long battery life and to... .. .

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.:[ AuthenTec Joins the Symbian Foundation - full story ]:.

14 July 2010

According To GetJar & Its Gettie Awards,
Nimbuzz Is The Best Symbian Application!

GetJar, the world’s second largest app store, announced seven winners during the Gettie Awards ceremony at the Palace Hotel on July 12, 2010.

The winners from around the world were honored at the ceremony for their successes and innovations of their best applications across all major platforms.

Developers were given the chance to be the best within each category and best for overall application at this prestigious event. Winners were honored in front of industry luminaries, investors, technology press and peers. The gala evening included com... .. .

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.:[ GetJar Announces Winners of 'The Gettie Awards 2010' - full story ]:.

13 July 2010

Larissa Riquelme & Nokia E71
The Best Product Placement Ever!

With the risk of repeating myself, I want to emphasize again that whoever is responsible for viral marketing and product placement for Nokia deserves a medal for the coolest and hottest product placement ever!

We’ve all seen women using their breast to hold things and that Nokia likes viral marketing and stealth-like product placements in movies, music videos and TV shows but this time we are not sure if this was really paid Nokia product placement or just an accidental advertising of multi-award winning Nokia E71 smartphone, as there have been no confirmations from the brand so fa... .. .

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.:[ Larissa Riquelme Shows How To Hold your Nokia - full story ]:.

13 July 2010

The Beautiful Relationship Between Fring And
Skype Is Over But Who Is Responsible For This?

The beautiful business relationship between Fring and Skype is over but it is not at all clear who is responsible for this? According to fring, they were forced to stop its 4 years of Skype interconnectivity following threat of legal action.

Skype's anti-competitive ambush comes in the wake of fring's mobile video calling on iPhone 4 launch, which continues to set the standard in rich mobile internet communication.

Since its foundation in 2006, fring's rich mobile communications have been available to both fring users and open 3rd party networks including GoogleTalk, SIP, Twitter and, until now, Skype. However, despite fring expanding its network ca... .. .

Read more:

.:[ Skype Cowardly Blocks fring - full story ]:.

09 July 2010

Real Untouched 12-Megapixel
Photo Samples From Nokia N8 Camera

As I have already mentioned somewhere, what makes N8 stand out of the crowd is its a substantially larger sensor than any ever used in any other Nokia device that emphasizes sensitivity over megapixels and rivals those found in compact digital cameras!!

For some time now, the team behind the N8’s camera has been working tirelessly, testing, tuning and optimising individual aspects of the camera’s performance and thanks to good folks over at official Nokia conversation blog we have now almost 40 photos in all, charting the development of the N8’s camera over a period of three months.

The pictures were taken by a variety of folk involved in the improving Nokia N8 imaging capabilities. In some cases the quality got worse before it got better, as is prone to happe... .. .

Read more:

.:[ Untouched Nokia N8 Photos Samples - full story ]:.