Today is the ‘unconference’ day of the first ever ‘MeeGo Conference’ and thus much more relaxed. The last two days have had the Aviva Stadium abuzz with packed sessions, lots of energy and a ton of chatter about the future of MeeGo. Add to that that every attendee of the MeeGo Conference is being given away a MeeGo touting Lenovo IdeaPad and you can image what the atmosphere is like.

But instead of trying to convey what is going on in words, here are tons of pictures from day 1, 2 and 3. Time to put the ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’ proverb to the test.

Find the entire set on Flickr, or watch the slideshow below.

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WOM World Nokia is currently having a series of giveaways, over the last week they gave away two Nokia N900′s and trips to the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. The giveaway is still on and you should keep your eyes peeled on http://www.womworld.com/nokia/ and to make sure you do not miss out.

Over the weekend, they also had a competition where you had to make a video entitled ‘Dear Nokia, I should go to SXSW because…’ giving reasons why they should take you to #SXSW. Based on these videos, Nokia will pick three winners. The catch is that a part of their decision will be based on how the community responds to these entries.

The deadline to enter passed away three hours ago, but I was able to submit an entry of my own at the last minute. If you think I should go/deserve to go/don’t deserve but still should go – then please let Nokia know. Kindly leave a comment on the video, tweet about it with the #nokiacomp hashtag or just give @WOMWorldNokia a shout. You can follow me @TheSymbianBlog.

Your support is greatly appreciated!

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Nokia has just started rolling out the v40 firmware for the Nokia 5800 via the Nokia Software Updater. The chief changes are the implementation of partial kinetic scrolling to the device and a reworked homescreen to match the new 5530. Other changes include auto-switching to the on screen QWERTY keyboard when you turn the device and a few optimizations to the tap/double-tap selection process and the addition of Ovi Contacts.

The update is now available over the air as yet and may not even show up on the NSU across all regions, as always patience is the key. This update is a definite must do, although if you care about ‘hacking’, it appears that has been blocked with this release.

The Nokia 5800 features user-data-preservation (UDP) so you will not loose any data when you update, but backing up the device is still a good idea.

[via: AAS]

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A few days ago I told you about Ovi Journeys, that was described as the evolution of the Sports Tracker application. On the same post, I received an anonymous comment pointing us to the Nokia Technopolis Innovation Mill, which revelaed that four new companies have been created through the Nokia Technopolis Innovation Mill IPR spinout and that a company called Sports Tracking Technologies Ltd was one of them.

What this means is that the two member team of Jussi Kaasinen and Ykä Huhtala, the core developers behind the hugely successful Sports Tracker application have come together to start their own company Sports Tracking Technologies. This explains the apparent lack of development of the application and the subsequent stagnation. Nokia therefore is no longer directly behind the application but will turn into a client of the said company. The reasons for this lull, as explained by Jussi Kaasinen were intellectual property issues relating to the migration. We now also know that the team at STT has grown and is working on ‘feature enhancements and compatibility refinements for products and services which promise to remain wholly sports-centric‘.

These are interesting developments indeed and I am pretty interested in seeing what new functionality does the team bring to Sports Tracker. We currently do not have a timeline for updates, but I hope to see some action on this front soon. With this I would like to wish the team at STT the best of luck in their endeavors.

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I have been using the N97 for over a day now and for the first 12 hours I decided to use the phone with the predictive text turned off. However after turning it on I have found my typing experience to have improved to a large extent. This will not be a review of the keyboard as I want give myself a little more time with it before I make a call. Instead this is a simple tip which might just make your experience better if you’re not already using predictive input.

This is how you can activate and customise it:

I have found that if you dig a little deeper in and navigate to the settings, you should be able to get it to work for you even better. The above settings work well for me, auto correcting words, predicting them and so on. Although I am still not sure if I want to keep the ‘Text Correction Level’ at ‘High’ or ‘Medium’, the choice will vary for you depending on the way you type.

The ‘Text Correction Mode’ has two options, you can either get it to show the suggested word or what you have written. I chose to show the suggested word because the suggestion would most likely be because I’ve made a spelling mistake and with this I can simple hit space to accept the change and move on. Had I chosen ‘Show Text As Entered’, I would then need to manually accept the change everytime.

All of this said and done, the predictive/corrective experience on the N97 is no where near the one on the E71. The software doesn’t automatically capitalise the ‘I’ nor does it add apostrophe’s such as ‘dont’ to don’t. There are other gripes as well such as there being no difference shown between the predicted word and the one you entered. Having been a E71 user for a long time, I am accustomed to predictive input, if you are not, getting used to it will take time but as I have come to learn its worth it.

Nokia, please fix the short comings on the predictive text with a new firmware and that I’m sure will go a long way in making people like the keyboard and the general experience. While you are at it, please enable a long press for number entry as well. Just put the E71 module in.

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httpv://in.youtube.com/watch?v=vQSE1JrC1Vg

I am not a huge gaming person, but I like the odd racing game and I definitely had a good time with Asphalt 3 on the N85. That left me waiting for more and I’m pleased to say that the new Asphalt 4 is now available via the Showroom section on the ‘on device client’, you might need to use the update option to see the game there.

Asphalt 4 brings support for the multiplayer mode over Bluetooth, 28 cars and bikes to choose from, a new drift engine for a more realistic experience amongst other things. The game is about 12MB in size and the demo is short, so you won’t have much gameplay to base your US$13.49 purchase decision on.

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Its a little late in the day but still here are a few thoughts on the Android Video Demo below.

What we see in the demo is pretty average. Thedemo starts with basic functionality i.e. making calls and text messages. Calls is fine but I don’t really like the way texts are handled. Somehow and I’m not prejudiced.

Next comes a touch based device on which the Browser and Maps are demoed. Nothing special. A webkit based browser and google maps. Hell, even the maps are not stored on the device. I hate to be having to use GPRS/EDGE/3G everytime I use GPS navigation, this is a real turn off. However, there was something called Street View which was really cool. There were actual shots of the place you a looking at the map and which you could zoom into and the shots were not from the top a.k.a. google earth like. The video ends with a line to the effect that the best apps are yet to be made and Google has set aside $10 million as incentive. Apparently Stefan from Intomobile isn’t too impressed either. There is even talk about multitasking troubles. What do you think?

More Android videos are available here.

Trackback URL is here.

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Recently I happened to come across this application called GAFM which believe it or not turns any java compatible phone to a mosquito repellant. I remember trying such an application out on a Nokia 6600 ages ago and somehow wasn’t really convinced.

According to the developers, the effect of this program is based on the following scientific data and information:

Only female mosquitoes require a blood meal and bite warm or cold-blooded animals. Acquiring protein through a blood meal is essential for egg production. Male mosquitoes do not bite, but feed on the nectar of flowers or other suitable sugar source. Bloodthirsty female mosquitoes tend to avoid their non-biting male counterparts. (I wonder why we still have such a large mosquito polulation then!)

GAFM emits a noise similar to the buzz of a male mosquito and keep the biting females at distance. The program is capable of clearing the insects within a range of two meters. The sound plays constantly and is, if at all, faintly audible to the human ear. This way of repelling the bloodsuckers will use up to 30 percent more of the phone’s battery power. That is why it is advisable to use it with the battery charger switched on.

Available Here:

- Symbian Gear

- Click Apps

I doubt if anyone would want to buy this, however it just goes to show the sky is the limit for 3rd party developers!

Trackback URL is here.

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