Carl Zeiss, makers of various lenses and other optical equipment, created a Symbian application that is … well just watch the video below. Shot by James Burland, this video demonstrates the poor attempt Carl Zeiss took at creating a guide to help people take better photos. Here is a tip boys and girls: you have a digital camera and a memory card that can store thousands of images. Just snap away until your trigger finger falls off. Practice makes perfect!
Samsung will not drop the Symbian support, despite the rumor that has started spreading across the Interwebs few days ago. The Korean company commented on the story, which BTW originates from Taiwanese site DigiTimes, saying the article “is not in line with Samsung’s smartphone strategy.” They went on to add:
Samsung is an initial member of Symbian Foundation and continues to cooperate with Symbian Foundation. At the same time, Samsung supports various existing open operating systems including Symbian, Linux, Android, and Windows Mobile. To provide more choices to meet consumers’ many different tastes and preferences, we will continue our “multi-OS” strategy. Our policy is to provide what consumers want when they need.
That’s cool to know but we do wonder when we’ll see a new Symbian handset from Samsung. Having multiple platforms available on the market is beneficial to the end users in my eyes…
Push-email solutions provider Emoze unveiled what they say is the first “pushed content” application dedicated to football/soccer news – Soccer Updater. The app release doesn’t come as a surprise considering that we’re slowly approaching the 2010 World Cup that will take place in South Africa. The application costs $5 and once you grab it, there are no other fees involved — you’ll get the latest news from now until after the tournament’s final in July.
In addition to the latest news, Soccer Updater also features player of the day pictures (in html format), game venues, scores and of course full tables of the team groups. The opening splash screen features a real-time countdown to the big games in South Africa, and then once the tournament starts, countdowns to individual games.
As for the platforms supported, Emoze’s app works on any Symbian and Windows Mobile powered smartphone, with Java phones to follow shortly. Download is available from Emoze’s website.
Samsung, who is a member of the Symbian Foundation, is supposedly going to stop producing Symbian devices by 2011 if a report from Digitimes is to be believed. Senior Vice President Don Joo Lee said the South Korean company will continue to focus on Android, Windows Mobile, and the yet to be revealed Bada, mobile operating systems. By 2012 Samsung will have only 20% of their smartphone portfolio running Windows Mobile, with the rest being split between Android and Bada. Considering most Samsung Symbian devices never really did all that well to begin with, mostly because finding them was not an easy task, they’re not going to be missed. This does bring up an important question however: except Nokia (NYSE: NOK), who else is going to be making Symbian devices in 3 years?
File this under “rumors” but it seems T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) will not only be known for its Android efforts and as a carrier that will probably (we still don’t have this 100% confirmed) carry the Maemo-powered Nokia N900. The Deutsche Telecom-owned operator may also get to offer the Nokia 5230. Or at least we’ve spotted a device that looks pretty much like Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Symbian S60-running smartphone at the FCC.
Of course, AWS bands are included in the mix, meaning this baby will rock 3G as soon as it’s released. Clearing the FCC is one step, but actually announcing the device is something else. We only hope that between those two steps, we won’t have to wait for too long…
Do you develop mobile apps for the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian or webOS? Well, we want to hear from you! We’ve partnered up with “Under The Radar” to find cool mobile apps that will blow our minds. We’re asking any and all mobile app developers to submit their app for the “FAST PITCH” mobile app talent search, where your app will vie for a chance to be showcased in front of an audience of global dealmakers and start-ups. Even if we don’t pick your app for the talent search, you’ll get some serious recognition for your app (and possibly prizes, like handsets).
Interested? Here’s what you need to know:
You must be able to attend Under the Radar (in Mountain View on Nov 19)
If you’re selected as a finalist, you’ll get a free conference pass
Your app has to be live and available for download
We welcome any and all apps for iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian, etc
Your app must be unique and new – no tip calculators or sudoku apps, please
You must be able to pitch your app in 2 min (and 4 slides) on stage
We’re going to make it simple for you to submit your app for consideration in the “Under The Radar” FAST PITCH mobile app talent search. Interested mobile devs need only leave a comment or tweet @IntoMobile with a quick one-liner pitch for your mobile app – Twitter is limited to 140 characters, so choose accordingly. Please make sure to include a link to your app’s download page (or homepage) and your Twitter handle with your submission.
Your app will be judged for its “uniqueness” and the all important “awesomeness” metric. We’ll be accepting mobile app submissions through Friday, Nov. 6 Monday, Nov. 9 (deadline extended). The 6 lucky finalists will be contacted directly through email and/or Twitter.
Waking up and receiving good news doesn’t happen often enough, so when I opened my crusty teared eyes at 10 in the morning (Helsinki time) and got this press release in the mail, I hit the roof. Opera, the Norwegian company we all love, makers of the Opera desktop browser, Opera Mobile for Windows Mobile, and Opera Mini, one of my favorite mobile applications of all time, has released Opera Mobile 10 Beta for Symbian.
At this point you’re expect a full on review/preview of the application, but I would be wasting my breathe trying to say something genuinely new. It’s literally Opera Mini 5 Beta, but written in Symbian code rather than J2ME code. It’s noticeably more responsive than Opera Mini 5 Beta, the copy and paste actually works now, best of all it is possible to copy and paste text from the browser to another application. Opera Turbo support is included, but disabled by default. Turbo is the same technology that powers Opera Mini. You type in a URL, Opera intercepts that request, feeds it to a server sitting somewhere next to a moose in Northern Europe, renders the page, compresses it, and then spits it back to your mobile phone. I’d be lying if I said a website rendered with Opera Mobile 10 Beta consumed the same information as the same website rendered in Opera Mini 5 Beta; the J2ME client wins hands down at using the least amount of data necessary to display a website.
Things of note: this works on both touch (S60 5th Edition) and non touch (S60 Everything Else Edition) devices, and with the ability of Opera Link you’ll be able to sync bookmarks and passwords between the desktop version of Opera and the mobile version.
Check out the demo video below:
Oh and if you want to download it yourself, just type m.opera.com/mobile into your mobile browser.
Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has just released Google Mobile App 2.03 for Symbian devices and it now includes voice search! The iPhone, Android and BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) have had this for a while if I’m not mistaken, so this feature is welcome for us Nokia (NYSE: NOK) users. Just launch the application, hold the green call key, and say your query. I tested it by saying “five hundred thousand Vietnamese dong in euros” and it worked beautifully, but then again I’m sitting alone in my dead silent flat. Does this work for you outdoors?
To download the app just go to m.google.com in your mobile browser.
Update: An official blog post from Google detailing the new application, along with a video that has been produced for UK audiences, has been published.
Two major companies are joining the Nokia (NYSE: NOK)-led Symbian Foundation. They are Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) and Fujitsu (OTCPK: FJTSY), both of which will get a seat at Foundation’s board of directors.
Qualcomm joined through its subsidiary Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), which will “optimize open source software for use with Qualcomm technology.” Does this means the company is looking to somehow link BREW and Symbian. Hmmm, interesting point. We’ll see…
Fujitsu, which is an old guard Symbian heavyweight with more than 40 million Symbian phones sold in Japan, will also try to find its interest by working with other members of the organization. As far as I can tell, they’ve managed to profit from the “old Symbian” and now that the platform is free, they should be able to repeat the success while saving few bucks on licensing along the way.
And that’s all we got for you in this story. You can check out the two official pressreleases if you care for corporate quotes.
As expected, the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Surge 6790 has arrived on Rogers (NYSE: RCI) for the rabid texters out there. An unexpected bonus is a cheaper price point than the originally anticipated: a mere $29.99 on three-year contract. This is one of the cheapest new smartphones you’ll find out there, though the form factor might seem awkward to a lot of folks. Still, it’s packing a 2 megapixel camera, GPS, microSD memory card slot, and a 2.4″ QVGA display. It’s not in Rogers’ online store just yet, but it should be up soon.
Do you develop mobile apps for the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian or webOS? Well, we want to hear from you! We’ve partnered up with “
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