Did u Know?? i sure didn't..

The guys at Yeigo’s blog has rounded-up ten nice 'lil things that you didn’t know about Nokia (neither did i until i read this). The last one is sure to touch a chord for nature lovers..

1) The ringtone “Nokia tune” is actually based on a 19th century guitar work named “Gran Vals” by Spanish musician Francisco Tárrega. The Nokia Tune was originally named “Grande Valse” on Nokia phones but was changed to “Nokia Tune” around 1998 when it became so well known that people referred to it as the “Nokia Tune.”
2) The world’s first commercial GSM call was made in 1991 in Helsinki over a Nokia-supplied network, by Prime Minister of Finland Harri Holkeri, using a Nokia phone.
3) Nokia is currently the world’s largest digital camera manufacturer, as the sales of its camera-equipped mobile phones have exceeded those of any conventional camera manufacturer.
4) The “Special” tone available to users of Nokia phones when receiving SMS (text messages) is actually Morse code for “SMS”. Similarly, the “Ascending” SMS tone is Morse code for “Connecting People,” Nokia’s slogan. The “Standard” SMS tone is Morse code for “M” (Message).
5) The Nokia corporate font (typeface) is the AgfaMonotype Nokia Sans font, originally designed by Eric Spiekermann. Its mobile phone User’s Guides Nokia mostly used the Agfa Rotis Sans font.
6) In Asia, the digit 4 never appears in any Nokia handset model number, because 4 is considered unlucky in many parts of Southeast/East Asia.
7) Nokia was listed as the 20th most admirable company worldwide in Fortune’s list of 2006 (1st in network communications, 4th non-US company).
8. Unlike other modern day handsets, Nokia phones do not automatically start the call timer when the call is connected, but start it when the call is initiated. (Except for Series 60 based handsets like the Nokia 6600)
9) Nokia is sometimes called aikon (Nokia backwards) by non-Nokia mobile phone users and by mobile software developers, because “aikon” is used in various SDK software packages, including Nokia’s own Symbian S60 SDK.
10) The name of the town of Nokia originated from the river which flowed through the town. The river itself, Nokianvirta, was named after the old Finnish word originally meaning sable, later pine marten. A species of this small, black-furred predatory animal was once found in the region, but it is now extinct.
11) They also used to be a Rubber Boot manufacturer before they entered the wireless phone buisiness! Chek dis!! Courtesy Neon.

You know what? When i read things like this about a company it makes me see the company in a more humane perspective. It changed my view of the company to something that we can all associate with.. well sort of...

S60 3rd Edition FP2?!!

The s60 3rd Feature Pack 2 seems to be the next best OS available for SmartPhones of the like of the Nokia NSeries - that is phones that are packed with multiple processors, stand alone graphic processors and huge amounts of RAM (128 in the case of the N95-2). With Feature Pack 2 you get features in your phone that were until recently available only through expensive 3rd Party software. Moreover it increases the User Interface of the phone making it more efficient and usable.

First of all, with FP2, the MultiTasking ability of the phone has been more concentrated upon which I believe will make it more competitive against other mobile OS and also bridging the gap between SmartPhone and Computer(which Nokia seems to love doing..remember "This is what Computers have become!"). From FP2 onwards the Multi Tasking Menu can be activated from the options menu as well. Before, this was possible only by an extended press on the menu button.

More intuitive UI has been another priority ofS60 3rd Edition Feature Pack with the addition of a labeled middle softkey, for more work with less clicks. Another UI update is the Active Idle Toolbar, which now also has a option for being Vertically placed. This results in better screen space utilization for the active app.

The Messaging application is much more smarter than before. You just select create a message and bearer(SMS,MMS,Email) is selected automatically. If the final message has only text, it's SMS. If there are other media components included to message, such as pictures or video, message type is MMS. Small, but it's nice.

Functions that until now were available only through 3rd Party Software which have been built-in into the OS now are as follows:

1. There is RSS/Atom feed support so selected news feed can scroll on the bottom of the idle screen. This is similar to the Nokia Gallery's scroller.
2. FSCaller's full screen caller image has now been included as a built-in feature. This makes caller identification easier. Besides it looks cooler!
3. Personal pictures can be used to personalize your theme. There is a neat slideshow screensaver.,which allows you to select your favorite pics from the gallery. Also the wallpaper has similar slideshow functionality. I don't remember the name of the app that used to support this.
   
4. Users of S60 are very aware of BestProfiles in which you can set time limits and alarms for your profiles to change. This also has been embedded into FP2, you can set a timer for profiles, so the phone for silent for one hour and then it goes back to general profile automatically. Very use full.
5. Web Browsers are the most used application in S60, as browsing is extremely popular and everyone loves to download media files. Currently if you download a music or video file, you have to wait until file is completely downloaded and only then can you open and play it. FP2 supports progressive downloading from browser which allows for instant playback during downloading. Sort of like streaming links. I've never seen these features, especially the streaming download, in a SmartPhone app before! It's more like it was brought from the DAP software for Windows!!
6. As if that wasn't enough Downloading function has also other improvements. When for example a mp3 is downloaded, you'll get a "Save as" option so it's easy to set it as ringing tone. And if it's a picture download you can set it as wallpaper straight away. Cool eH? :)
   

All these features make for a great mobile computing experience, I only hope they bundle in a high capacity battery along as well - high power apps such as these will have little mileage when it comes to battery consumption!

And we bring to you..

Hey guys and gals! Guess what, Nokia's very own WOM-World is going to send me a N800 next week so that I can spend some time reviewing it. And since I won't be needing my N95 then, I'm going to send it off on a vacation - to the Nokia Care Center - for some rejuvination therapy ;) It seems to be a little out of shape lately, with creaking slides, light leaking sides, and a multimedia button that makes a ticking sound..not to mention the system crashes! They seem to have increased after I updated to v20!! It's been long since I've played with a touch screen..my last touch was a 7710. Anyways, the N800 posts will start rolling in a week, so if anyone has anything that you want me to try out on it, just ask. Ciao!

N95 Accelerometer & FlashLite

Watch this video. FlashLite can also do this with the help of N95 Accelerometer APIs. It's been created and edited by Abhijit and Ganesh and Debashish Paul and has been hosted at http://designtraffic.blogspot.com

Nokia N96??!

Symbian Freak has got it's hands on a load of pics of the N96 that's been leaked into their inbox, but they don't seem to be too happy with the phone. One of the reasons touted being that it has a crappy LED flash - but there are 2 crappy LED flashes actually, so I think I wouldn't mind that ;) Anyways the handset does look cool in a N81 kinda way,.. Honestly I don't think it's good enough to be with the N9* series - it belongs with the N8*. Wonder who takes care of naming these sets over at Nokia..?

Another speciality of this set is that it runs on Series60 3rd Edition FP2 - now that's more than good enough reason to go for this phone I'm sure. I'll be posting a review about the FP2 OS soon..watch this space for a link!
Read more about the N96 here.

Courtesy Symbian-freak.

Getting the low down on my N95

Only recently did i realize how much more i had to learn about my precious little Multimedia Computer Phone that the N95 is.. but simply googling for it didn't bring out any more than the usual" N95 for 250$" offers and a slew of free ware apps and review pages. Which is when i remembered my old pal - Wikipedia. I usually only go there for getting info on projects and seminars that i'd wanted to do for college, so i thought why not? Wikipedia must have got something interesting to say about my phone,, and so i clicked on Go in the Wikipedia HomePage. Go ahead click on it to see what I saw! They've got everything over there from the A-GPS details to the acceleromoter - even the technical specs are given clearly in the Specification sheet!

Your very own personal translator-N95

Our great N95, the phone that had almost all the features that you'd wish to have on a smartphone, has just got better by adding yet another feature - and this one beats them all! This is the deal - Nokia has come up with a prototype camera phone application which, among other things, will reportedly make ordering dinner from your favourite foreign restaurant easier.

Named Point & Find, the app incorporates numerous elements such as image recognition, GPS positioning and artificial intelligence algorithms to find out what you clicked! . Bear in mind though, that the actual working out of what image you may have snapped will be done on your network provider’s server because AI and Image Recognition recquires some serious processing power. This is not to say that the N95 is low on this! Once you have taken your photo the phone will connect to the net and hopes are it will provide the user with a selection of online purchase options, or in the case of say a movie image it will show movie reviews, or whatever it can find up on the net.

Yet there’s more, Nokia have hopes of designing the concept to include the translation of foreign restaurant menus as well, so if you visit say a French cuisine restaurant where the menu is in French, just whip you mobile out, snap a picture of the menu and get it translated right there on your mobile screen. Apparently Nokia claims the prototype application is presently able to scan and translate 600 Japanese and 9000 Chinese words, still a bit of a way to go then before they cover all the bases, but Hey! It's still a great start!

Courtesy PhonesReview.

Nokia Energy Profiler

Fed up with those battery drinking programs that you've installed lately? Well why don't you un-install them then? Or is it that you can't find which apps are good on mileage and which are not? Fear no more, with the Nokia Energy Profiler you'll be able to get the battery drain for a particular app in real time! Ofcourse it's of particular use to developers, but there's nothign in it that say we can't use it.

With the help of a Red dot and graph, it will show exactly hoe the app used up your battery.. neat eH?

Read Here.

iPhonic N95

Check out this video that shows an N95 with a iPhone style touchscreen!! It's fake ofcourse :) Psst..Most probably it's done with a bluetooth keyboard. Don't tell any1! Besides whoever heard of a touchscreen N95 anyway?!! But I must agree that th idea seems to be a little enticing..if only it had a bigger screen...

YouTube yourself on your s60 v3 phone!

Now this is what I've been waiting for a long,long time - they had promised it with the v21 firmware for the N95, but then they took it back, giving us a v20. But now we can have it without the firmware update thanks to MobiTubia.

MobiTubia is a Flash Lite video player and YouTube application for the S60 platform. It enables mobile users to access flv clips(read as youtube's videos) using several different methods. Additionally, the application allows users to browse and search for specific content on YouTube right from your mobile making things way easier.

It is not a browser plugin, but a very nice solution to play YouTube on S60 devices. The application is not available yet, but once it is I'll right up in front to get it! :)

Here's a video showing it in action




Yet another MobiTubia video from Symbian-Freak:

ShakeRacer - Shaking in Joy!

This is the best application that I've until now that uses the N95 accelerometer to the max!

Check it out people and give me your view.

V21 for our N95-1!?

It's not a 21 valve engine but for all I know the new V21 Firmware update for the N95-1 is sure gonna rock..considering that Nokia is going to have to add lots of new stuff in the firmware like the Search, N-Gage and a solution to sinister key press bug. Not to mention about On Demand Paging and other features designed to bump up the performance! You know what this means?no?? We're gonna get a N95-1 with more RAM people!!

But the problem is that the firmware pic has been dates as 10th October! How come no one's got it still remains a mystery...:(

There lingers a doubt in my mind however, on whether the Demand Paging feature will make the phone slower upon everyday use. The pagingfeature actually stores bits of software data on RAM.When these data are moved to the main memory there would be more of a lag when the phone fetches the data - which happens when we open a app or run a game. After all there must have been a reason why the original designers decided to place it on the system RAM instead of on the main memory. Oh well,, let's just cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Have you heard of the recent rumours doing the rounds? the one about the total free RAM increasing to a good 30mb. If that's true then I wouldn't give a **** whether the phone's faster or slower... 30MB of free RAM 8-)

If you’re an owner of the N95 classic, you just got more reasons to hold on to your device than I'd provided before. After the screenshots tipped up yesterday, today Symbian Freak has the juicy details regarding this magical firmware that is not only supposed to bring things like Demand Paging, the new Search app introduced on the N76 and new folders and application including the N-Gage app. If that wasn’t enough the device’s free RAM jumps from 18-20Mb to almost a whopping 30Mb! No word if the new multimedia menu has made its way into the old faithful, chances are it will.

The Update is OUT!! read it here

Courtesy Symbian PileUp & symbian-freak.com

N95 NAM ?? = Black, 1900MHz 3G !!

Released on Friday 21st September 2007, weighing 1.44lbs, this phone is most probably yet other US Edition . Because it's based on the N95 Classic and not the newer N95-3 it seems to have been largely ignored. It even uses the same old 950mA battery to go with it! The only major differences seem to be that it has a black back body and is also optimized to work with the North American Network - hence the name.

Find it faster and stay connected on the go with the Nokia N95 NAM. Built-in GPS mapping, location-based mobile search, and the Nokia Web Browser make it easy to navigate to virtually any destination.

View emails and attachments on the device, connect to any compatible PC, or even play stored media on your compatible TV or stereo via UPnP architecture. Store up to 2GB of sound with expandable memory, then listen the way you want. Stream your music wirelessly to your compatible headphones, home or car stereo, even use your favorite headphones or home stereo speakers.

The N95 NAM's camera has 5 mega pixels of clarity, featuring a 2.6" display and Carl Zeiss optics. Shoot in DVD-like quality video up to 30 frames per second. The Nokia N95 NAM is optimized for North American wireless networks.

The handset costs only $649.95 at MobilePlanet and usually ships in 5 days.

Device Status of your phone

Nokia Device Status is a self-diagnosis tool that allows you to collect detailed system information both from your PC and your S60 device. Your current device configuration and phone settings are presented in a detailed summary, which you can use to determine the exact cause, if you run into problems.

With Nokia Device Status, you can save all the collected information to a file, and you can send the file to customer care services for closer inspection and analysis.

Collected data from your PC includes:

●Operating system
●Language of the operating system vs. that of Nokia PC Suite
●Version of Nokia PC Suite currently installed on your PC
●Drivers required to connect your phone to your PC
●Local time zone
●Log files created by Nokia PC Suite
●Regional and language settings

Collected data from your phone includes:

●Device model
●IMEI code of the phone
●Device memory and any available memory card
●Profiles and themes used on the phone
●Locations used to store data on the phone

After installation, you can access the application both from your phone and from your PC.

DownLoad it HeRe.

Courtesy DailyMobile.

N95-2 aka N95 8 GB Manual

What's the next alternate to getting an N95 8GB for test drive?? Checking out it's manual ofcourse!! And that's just what Phat Trance of DailyMobile has done.

He has got a manual giving in detail the many uses and naunces of the N95 8GB version..and being a very nice guy he's posted it over at his blog for everyone to share, it'll make do until we get a personal meeting with the N95-2.these code-names make me feel like i'm talking 'bout a spy!!

You can download the manual over from Phat's blog by clicking over ->here<-.

N95 gets 6X LeNS !

Mobile phones with cameras are proving to be immensely useful for many purposes, mainly because they have the advantage of always being with you.

Sadly, the companies sell u phones with a 3.MPcam now and put-of the 7 MPfor next year, eventhough they could bring it out now if they wanted to. Accordingly, cameras with high quality optics are still rare and optical zoom lenses on cameras are even rarer.The N95 has a hi-res 5MP cam-but with no optical power while the n93i has the optical lens but powered by just a paltry 3.2MP sensor.

So if you’re one of those people who would like to have a 6X optical zoom on your mobile and would gladly pay big bucks for it, here’s one that will do the job for just US$19(excl. of shipping). It has a manual zoom and focus but as you can see from the images , it works very well, particularly at that price.

Shown here, is the kit and a N95 with the lens installed. For ordering you could visit their site HeRe. More personal reviews will be posted if i get to review the product.

Nokia Spices up the Nokia Video Center

Hye, it's more good news for us guys as Nokia teams up a host of companies such as Cnn,IBN,Jamba, Sony Pictures, Roof top comedy,ROK and others..givin us access to videos on the Go! Provided you have a 3G connection ;)

This new feature will give us access to a load of videos from these companies with the single press of a button making life simpler for all of us. Now you'll be able to while away time just like that..but make sure yuor in range of a good 3g network k..!

Read the rest here.

Courtesy DailyMobile.

N95 or N95 8GB..?

The N95 8GB can be said to be a N95 with all it's problems solved. Everything that had gone wrong with the N95 has been taken care of in the new version (batteries etc.) Another thing is that the buttons have also been changed to a thinner look along with a bigger screen. The N95 8GB also looks much more mature than the previous version as you can see in the picture.

Read more about this review from MyNokiaBlog.

We have 6! Only 2 more GBs to go..

WOM-WORLD just got a brand new San Disk 6GB micro SDHC which they test drove on the N95 & N76 and much to the aniticipation of people everywhere it's officially been announced that it's supported. And so all present N95 owners are finally one step closer to reaching 8GB status.

Courtesy Wom-World.

Symbian Review

Every Symbian developer knows that the most of mobile applications for new Symbian devices have to go through the special certification, a Symbian Signing. For many small development companies this new initiative of Symbian has turned to a plaque and made the development of Symbian applications not interesting financially. Symbian market becomes to be dominated by companies, not single developers.

In this article we want to give some tips for Symbian application developers.

What does the Symbian Signing bring?

There are some benefits and some drawbacks as always.

Beneficial is this mobile software certification system first of all for the consumer. Buying the certified applications the consumer can be sure that there is a certification authority that has tested the application, so it can not crash the system or include viruses.
The main drawback is felt by the developers. They have pay more, wait unpredicted time for the certification and have to fill out many papers to pass the Symbian Signing.

Read the rest here.

Courtesy Symbian-review.