At the 3GSM Symbian Press/Wiley showcased its new title – “S60 Programming: A Tutorial Guide”. The book is co-authored by Reuben Edwards, senior lecturer in mobile applications and a Forum Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Champion, and Reuben Edwards, lecturer in games and m-commerce who has been at the forefront of innovative mobile multimedia application development for over ten years.

Authors argue that the new book will prove to be an invaluable aid to academic and professional programmers alike who want to learn S60 and wish to quickly attain a level of competence where they can develop their own applications for the commercial market.

More information is available from here.

Seagate Technology has announced it has joined the Symbian Platinum Program. As a Platinum Partner, Seagate will support the growing Symbian smartphone market with its new DAVE (Digital Audio Video Experience) technology platform, ensuring seamless interoperability with Symbian OS-powered devices.

The point of the DAVE platform is that it delivers 10-20 GB of hard drive wireless storage in an accessory smaller than many slim-line mobile phones. Designed to deliver a great user experience for consumer and enterprise applications alike, DAVE technology enables digital content to be stored, moved and connected in ways never before possible.

Yet another Linux platform. This one is developed by Qtopia. Their Greenphone recently went on sale, but only for the interested developers. What will happen with this platform – it’s hard to tell at the moment. One thing is certain – at the end, we’ll have no more than 2-3 mainstream Linux platforms. In the meantime, enjoy the short hands-on Greenphone video.

emoze’s PR has been working around the clock during the 3GSM, as they confronted their service against BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM). Two duelers using emoze and BlackBerry battled it out to see who could provide users with their emails quickest, and emoze emerged as comfortable winners.

Read the full article »

Probably the single most popular Java application has been updated, as Opera Mini reached version 3.1. The new version brings better connectivity options and memory management, improved RSS feed management and support for more mobile phones. Also, most (if not all) of the known bugs have been fixed.

Opera Mini is still free, and you can download it from the official OperaMini.com website. If you want to know what exactly has been changed in the new version, check out this post on OperaMini blog.

During the 3GSM, I had a chance to meet with the CMO of Mobispine – Joakim Hilj. The goal of this Swedish based company is to bring the RSS to the mass market mobile audience. By providing users with a very easy to use interface, they may be onto something. Joakim pointed out that what Mobispine’s service tries to do is to be some kind of a mobile Netvibes – to give its users a homepage-like one-click access to their favorite RSS feeds.

To reach their goal Mobispine doesn’t only show you RSS feeds you select, they also aggregate them, assuring the fast access for the end user. Read the full article »

Also from the 3GSM. As I’ve been browsing around, I’ve stumbled on Eleksen’s fabric keyboards. It’s a very nice concept, but frankly, couldn’t see myself buying one of those. On the other hand, I’ve nothing against having play/pause and related music-plating buttons integrated in my jacket. That totally makes sense.

At the 3GSM, Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) held a media and analyst briefing to issue an open invitation to phone vendors to become shareholders in UIQ Technology AB following their acquisition of the Swedish software company from Symbian Ltd on February 2. UIQ Technology AB licenses the UIQ user interface framework and application suite to phone vendors. At the briefing Sony Ericsson President Miles Flint said that UIQ will remain an independent company and that phone vendors are invited to license UIQ as well as become shareholders in the company. Read the full article »

AdStar announced plans to use Symbian S60 software platform to trial an end-to-end “private label” advertising service to enable the delivery of mobile ads. AdStar will integrate Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s mobile technologies into its ad management services, which will be enhanced for mobile distribution. This collaboration will result in a private-label service for various media channels including, but not limited to, newspaper publishers. The trial is projected to begin in Q2 2007 in select markets.

The trial service will not be limited to Nokia devices, and both companies intend the service to support service providers and publishers that have their own advertising sales forces. The trial will test a variety of performance-based, local advertising methods, including pay-per-click, pay-per-call and pay-per-coupon from either a graphically rich display advertisement to simple text links.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) E90 Communicator has just been recently announced, but that doesn’t mean that there are no reviews of the new device out there. Lucky folks from My-Symbian.com had a chance to review the new Communicator before anyone else, and now thanks to them we actually know how good the E90 actually is. Naturally, they compare the E90 with its predecessors and find the device just perfect. I won’t rant more about it – you can read the full review from here.