Archive for 'Newsflash'

The Symbian Foundation announced recently the Symbian Exchange and Exposition (SEE), which kicks off today, and takes place at Earls Court 2, London for two days. This free to attend event is a must for anyone interested in the future of mobile and the mobile industry.  Twitter is already alive and kicking with the hashtag #SEE09. 

Bloggers, Writers, Visionaries, and Symbian Developers from around the world have been tweeting along their way to London from various places across the Globe.  Be sure to also follow @AAS, Rafe Blandford of All About Symbian, and All About Maemo who is in attendence, as Im sure he will be firing out live updates from the venue too.

Sadly, I could not make this event, but will be sure to update our front page of all things of interest happening at SEE09, there is also a N97 Homescreen widget available, which you can install on your N97, and keep up to date with the events goings on right on your homescreen.  You can read what various talks, and happenings that will take place at the venue, and also see a subscription of the tweets coming from @Symbian

You can read about the SEE09 N97 Homescreen Widget here, or download directly here.  If you can’t make it to the event, then why not checkout the all new and improved Symbian Foundation website here. 

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Thats all I know, as much as you.  I just received an email titled “Something to get your juices going”, with the image below attached, which states “It has begun….Major Compete”.  What could this be I wonder?  Would you like to hazzard a guess? I’m currently racking my brains to what this Major Compete means.  Maybe something to do with the event taking place soon in London?  I know some bloggers have been invited there by WOMWorld, so it could be related.

Our very good friend from All About Symbian, Rafe Blandford has been busy working away behind the scenes for quite some time now, putting together the final pieces for his new sister site, which is called All About Maemo.  Rafe already runs the very successful All About Symbian site, where he has a highly knowledgeable, and experienced team in place, Steve Litchfield, and Ewan Spence.

Rafe’s decision for the addition of All About Maemo may not be entirely clear to many of you, but seeing as Rafe is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to mobile devices, and is no stranger to many of the various mobile platforms, it can only be said, that the creation of All About Maemo from Rafe says something about Maemo, and its sheer potential in the Nokia, and mobile world. 

I have to agree with Rafe on this addition, and welcome it with open arms too.  Rafe has been really busy over the last few days too, where he has been in attendence of the Maemo Summit, in Amsterdam, Holland, and he has frequently been keeping us all up to speed with the day to day happenings from the event from tweeting on twitter from the various conference’s, and keynotes. 

Three days of pure Maemo related knowledge, experience, and insights.  I will be posting up a Maemo Summit roundup later today, mainly based on AllAboutMaemo’s superb Twitter updates, so keep your eyes peeled for that.  I will also be posting up several videos from the event, including the very first N900 unboxing.

Thanks, and Credit to Steve Litchfield of All About Symbian for this detailed information regarding the two major flaws with earlier models of the Nokia N97 Flagship device from Nokia. 

Steve goes on to let us all know, that these issues are covered under the standard warranty, and will be rectified FOC (Free Of Charge) providing you have not voided said warranty by either changing your N97′s product code, or replacing the camera lens itself DIY style. 

If you have indeed lost your N97 warranty, the Nokia recommended replacement part is available from here, and is the rectified part. 

“The two big hardware issues which have plagued owners of the first N97 devices off the production line are, of course, the easily-scratched camera glass cover and the very poor GPS reception. Having ordered fixes for both from my local service centre a while ago, I finally had them attend to each and managed to get quite a bit more information for the rest of us in the process”. Read on…

Last month I introduced you all to a friend of mine from The Symbian Foundation, Julien Fourgeaud, Roadmap Catalyst – Roadmap and Propositions.  Back then, I promised you an exclusive interview with Julien.  I did met up with him at Nokia World, but sadly due to meetings, and appointments, we didn’t get the chance to get together for an in-depth video interview as planned. 

We have both been so busy since Nokia World too, it’s been a mission to find the time to put together this interview for you all, with Julien jetting off around the world for various meetings, and events, the only time I have seen or heard from Julien was on Twitter when he was in-between airports and alike. 

I am however, really pleased to tell you, we have now, finally got an in-depth interview for you, but instead of the video interview, it’s in the form of a texted based Q&A, but I’m sure you will enjoy it all the same.  I wish to take this opportunity to thank Julien for his time on answering my questions for this interview; it’s really appreciated, and valued.  Ok, onto the interview, grab yourself a cuppa, and get yourself comfy, its a great read.! Click read More for the Nokia Users Exclusive.!

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Fancy a nice new Nokia N97, but don’t have the spare cash? Well here’s your chance to win your very own Nokia N97 from Steve Litchfield, and WomWorld Nokia. In the video below you will see the N97 Product Manager, Tomo talking to you through an N97 about his own N97 device, and how he uses it to his advantage.  Talking about his experiences, and uses of Homescreen widgets, to using his N97 to find out things he wants to know, or to remind him of things he don’t want to forget.  He goes in detail about some of the prototype he worked with too.  Here’s the video.  

After you have watched the video, all you have to do is film yourself for no more than sixty seconds, with wit, interest, and humour wouldn’t go a miss either, make it fun, explaining why the Nokia N97 device would be right for you, and how it would benefit you over your current mobile, or smartphone. Simple.  Simply upload your video to Youtube as a Video Response to the video above, here.  Good luck.!

We all love free internet these days, and with more, and more mobile devices coming equiped with WiFi as standard these days, its all too easy to take this means of connectivity for granted, but have you ever wondered how Wifi come about?  When was the first time Wifi was used, and what use was it initially intended for? 

Most of us have a wireless router in our homes, and again, its so easy to set up, and forget about it, and in turn, take it for granted.  We are also being introduced to more and more WiFi Hotspots around the world, with more, and more third party applications, also offering services, and subscriptions to more WiFi hotspots too.

Below, is a basic rundown of the history of the Wifi technology, and its initial usage purpose.

Back in 1991 Wi-Fi was invented by NCR Corporation/AT&T (later on Lucent & Agere Systems) in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands. Initially meant for cashier systems the first wireless products were brought on the market under the name WaveLAN with speeds of 1Mbps/2Mbps.

Vic Hayes who is the inventor of Wi-Fi has been named ‘father of Wi-Fi’ and was with his team involved in designing standards such as IEEE 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g. In 2003, Vic retired from Agere Systems. Agere Systems suffered from strong competition in the market even though their products were cutting edge, as many opted for cheaper Wi-Fi solutions. Agere’s 802.11abg all-in-one chipset (code named: WARP) never hit the market, Agere Systems decided to quit the Wi-Fi market in late 2004.

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If like me, you were smitten with the Nokia N97 when first announced at Nokia World 2008, then you would of possibly also viewed many of the videos that surfaced from Nokia World, CES09, CTIA09, and the Nokia Developer Summit, showing the N97 in action.  One, or two of these very popular videos showed Julien Fourgeaud demonstrating the N97 to Press members, and of course, Bloggers, who in turn, all asked Julien many questions about the N97, and what it could do.  You can still watch these videos here, and here. 

After personally watching these videos, I took it upon myself to track down Julien, and find out more about him, and his position at Nokia, which I found very very interesting.  I mean, working for Nokia, and showing off a prototype device to the public at an event such as Nokia World has to be a dream job no?  It certainly had me interested in finding out more.

I managed to track Julien down, on Facebook, and then Twitter, where we started engaging conversation.  I had to reasurre him of course, that I was not a stalker, but a Nokia enthusiast!  Over the months up until the actual launch of the N97 to the public, myself and Julien had formed a friendship, which to me is invaluable, and has put me in contact with the likes of David Wood Futurist and catalyst, The Symbian Foundation, and Executive Director, Lee Williams.

Now, having never even met Julien face to face, I was really excited to find out that myself, and Julien would both be attending Nokia World 2009 in Stuttgart, Germany next week, so now I could finally meet the one person who has the job at Nokia that I admired so much.  Actually, Julien moved from Nokia quite recently, and started working for The Symbian Foundation, as Technology Catalyst, Roadmap & Platform Propositions.

I will be interviewing Julien whilst at Nokia World next week, so if you have any questions regarding The Symbian Foundation you want me to ask him, please let me know in the comments below, and I will do my best to put them to Julien. 

Ok, what now follows is a little background information on Julien Fourgeaud.  This is actually taken from Juliens Profile over on LinkedIn…

“As Technology Catalyst for the Symbian Foundation, Julien’s primary role is to help define and communicate the future of the Symbian platform. Prior to moving to London to take up this position, he worked at Nokia, initially joining the E-Series division in 2007 before moving into the newly formed Devices Organization. During his time at Nokia, Julien developed his productization expertise on devices such as the E71, contributed to key projects such as the transition from keypad to touch interface, and led the major effort behind third-party integration for the N97 in 2009.

Julien’s earlier experiences in the mobile industry include participating in leading research projects in the field of Micro and Nano Sensor Networks, conducted by the Tampere University of Technology in 2004, and working to develop a mobile platform at PurpleLabs in 2003. He also holds an MSc in Computer Sciences, Telecommunications and Networks from the Ecole Francaise d’Electronique d’Informatique (EFREI), in France“.

Now, as mentioned earlier, Julien no longer works directly for Nokia, although still has that all important bridge of course, and now works for The Symbian Foundation. 

Regarding his role at The Symbian Foundation, I will be finding out more about this during my interview with Julien at Nokia World next week, so just to remind you, if you have any questions you want me to put to Julien at Nokia World, please let me know in the comments below.  Thanks.!

Just a couple of weeks ago now, I posted up an article asking our readers if their N97 was self harming.  Were scratches appearing on their N97′s main camera glass.?  So far, from various sources, including a bloated flood of complaints on Nokia Discussions, we are now well in the 100′s of people who have purchased this latest flagship Nokia device, only to be dissapointed with the main camera slider cover, which actually scratches the glass that covers the lens when slid open, and closed.

We have also found out, thanks to Nokiausers member, brkix in Croatia, that the blue pad that you see under the slider, is not in any way, shape, or form, there to clean the glass that covers the camera lense.

brkis reports after dismantling his N97′s Camera cover, exposes a very cheap, and tacky piece of hard plastic, with an embedded metal square magnet, which is used with a metal trigger in the N97, so it knows then the slider is open, or closed.  This very blue pad, is the cause of all the scratches we are seeing. This is due to it being too close to the glass, but not close enough to prevent any foreign bodies getting trapped inbetween it, and the glass.  Checkout after the break for full sized photos, reports on Vodafone’s N97 return rate, and links to our public N97 Camera Glass Scratch Poll, and Discussion thread where you can let off some steam about your frustrations about this issue.

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If you have been using the Strands Social Player on your S60 device to share your music playlists, and favorite tracks with your Twitter followers, you will of noticed that for some time now the Twitter log in with the application always failed to accept your log in details. 

I have been in contact with the Strands team about this for some time trying to find out why its not been fixed.  Well as of yesterday,  the Strands Social Player has now been discontinued, however, MyStrands now have three brand new services available to you with your existing Strands accounts.  Checkout the Press Release on the next page..

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