I’ve already ranted on this subject. And also has Symbian’s David Wood…

However, this time it seems serious. Reuters reports that a group of the world’s mobile operators and handset makers said on Thursday they are to join together to develop an open-source Linux-based operating system that could to be used in phones by the end of 2007. The new not-for-profit group will be formed by Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM), Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Samsung, NEC and Panasonic (NYSE: PC).

Handset manufacturers like the idea of a free code, and mobile operators want to charge their customers for the usage of the latest must-have features.

Combine two of the mayor carriers with four handset makers and you’ll get something to think about. We can only wait to see what will come from this. Meanwhile folks, there are plenty of great Symbian devices out there. If you still haven’t – grab one and enjoy!

Karrier Communications, the developer of IntelliGolf – the #1 selling “Golf Scoring and GPS Software”, recently announced the JAVA-based version of their popular software for UIQ devices. IntelliGolf has been completely rewritten in JAVA (MIDP 2.0), removing the need for continued use of AppForge’s Crossfire (Booster) software on Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE)’s P900-series of phones. The new version saves users over 1.2Mb of phone memory making IntelliGolf easier to install and faster to use on the golf course. In addition, IntelliGolf for the P900/910 includes a completely new section on shot tracking, adds 25 new wagering games (35 total), adds 150 new gaming-improving statistics (250 total), scoring for up to a fivesome, and wireless access to over 21,500 course scorecards worldwide. Round set-up is simplified. The IntelliGolf Par and Birdie edition (version 5.0) software is immediately available.

Craig A. Schmidt, president of Karrier Communications, said that this new JAVA version of IntelliGolf paves the way for offering IntelliGolf on a variety of mobile platforms, including new Sony Ericsson smartphones – P990, W950 and M600. Nice!

According to Al Ramadan, senior vice president of mobile and device solutions at Adobe, consumers worldwide demand engaging content and services on their devices.

Research by the Boston-based consultancy, Strategy Analytics, forecasts that there are 38 million flash-enabled mobile phone handsets today, but that number is going to grow to 216 million by 2010. The firm reports that during the last two years, growth has been in the “triple digits” realm for the phones which have Adobe “FlashLite” and “FlashPlayer” technology (anyone said Nokia?).

TechNewsWorld has an article titled “Mobile Phone Converging With ‘Flash,’ Other Apps“. Interesting read.

Have you heard of PuTTY? It is a free telnet/SSH client developed by Simon Tatham and others. The Symbian version is also available and it’s free (like the PC original). PuTTY for Symbian OS works on all Symbian smartphones including all S60 devices (not just Nokias), Series 80 Communicators and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 7710 (Series 90). Separate UIQ versions of the PuTTY are available from Robert Horvath and MobilEyes AB.

Elements Interactive B.V. releases version 2.60 of its multi-platform mobile game engine Edge. This new version adds support for the new Symbian 9.1 operating system and includes improved versions of the Edge Packer and Edge IDE development tools.

Emulator library builds for Series 60 third edition and UIQ 3.0 are included in the SDK as well to ease development and testing, as many Symbian 9.1 devices aren’t commercially available yet. Read the full article »

Mobipocket, the universal reader for PDAs and smartphones, is now compatible with Symbian 9. Both S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3 are supported, allowing users of all new Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) smartphones to utilize this handy app. Furthermore, new Sony Ericsson smartphones (namely M600, W950 and P990) will come with Mobipocket pre-installed on their devices.

Now you can read all the eBooks, eDocs, and eNews from your new smartphone. Mobipocket Reader is free to download.

Mobile software testing and development company, Flander, has been granted Publisher Certifier status by Symbian. This agreement allows Flander to test both its own and third-party applications and content and to grant Symbian Signed certification.

Flander’s high quality, well-defined processes (they received CMMI 3 level acknowledgment in 16 processes), allow them to offer fixed testing times as a service-level guarantee. Their customers will benefit from cost efficiency and already mentioned high quality.

Nokia Software Market has also chosen Flander as a Symbian Signed vendor.

Yesterday I was thinking something. Wouldn’t it be great to have a perfect all-in-one device which could have all cool features such as: full QWERTY keyboard, WiFi capability, built-in GPS and high-quality camera. Apparently such device already exist. The only problem is that it’s working on Windows Mobile platform and it’s part of the Fujitsu (OTCPK: FJTSY)-Siemens Pocket LOOX T Series handhelds.

I’m not writing this to glorify the Windows Mobile platform. I’m doing it in hope that someone from Symbian OS handset manufacturers will read this post and actually do something about it. Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s E61, E70 and 9300i have many of the mentioned features, except: Read the full article »

New version of SlovoEd, a multilingual software dictionary, is released by Epocware. Support for Symbian S60 3rd Edition is now included, allowing users of all new Nokia (NYSE: NOK) devices to take advantage of this extraordinary application.

SlovoEd 1.7 highlights:

• Easy-to-use interface;
• High quality of dictionary databases is a consequent result of SlovoEd and the world leading publishers’ cooperation: Merriam-Webster Inc., Van Dale Lexicografie BV, Larousse Editiorial, S.L., MAGENTA LTD, LingoMAXX, MediaLingua;
• Large range of articles represents a selection of modern vocabulary;
• Quick and precise translation enables to find rapidly a required word. User will see the results in clear and structured way;
• Unique compression technology locates 100000 words in 600 Kb and save the space on a storage device;
• User can install the dictionary on memory card.

Multifunctional handy SlovoEd dictionaries (100+ dictionaries) are ideal for tourists and travellers, students and language learners, specialists or any curious person. Free trial version is available from Epocware’s site!

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) had already done some research regarding the DVB-H technology. Now, another pilot project involves German mobile network operators E-Plus, O2 (NYSE: TEF), T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD). It started in Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover and Munich and will run until August 31 except Munich where the pilot ends on July 31, 2006. The main point is to allow FIFA World Cup visitors to enjoy live TV programs.

During the pilot project 14 TV channels (ARD, ZDF, Nord3, BR, RBB, RTL, Sat.1, ProSieben, n-tv, N24, VOX, MTV Music, Eurosport and a regional channel) and six radio channels are accessible live on any DVB-H enabled device (i.e. Nokia N92).

The mobile TV pilot is based on DVB-CBMS open standards, which is supported by a number of handset and mobile TV platform manufacturers, including Nokia.

UPDATE: Apparently, it is not that financialy viable to operate a mobile TV broadcasting service. Cellular-News has a story.