Technology Revolution

The Symbian Foundation is in the process of transforming the Symbian OS. Nokia has given the world its first glimpse of what the user interface for next version of this operating system is going to look like. Symbian is in the process of a major transition. Until now, it has provided the back-end software to run phones, and a variety of user interfaces were then layered on top, like S60, S40, UIQ, etc. That's changing, and next version will have its own user interface, drawn from the current ones. Version 3 is expected to debut next year, but Nokia started showing it off this week. What's New? Symbian^3 will clearly show its evolution from S60, but there are changes. The most noticeable of these is support for addition homepages which the user can scroll through with a flick of their finger. These will hold the links and widgets the user has chosen. Some changes are less obvious. Nokia promises it will support the capacitive touchscreens that are rapidly ...

Nokia today offered a rosy outlook for the mobile handset market in 2010, saying it expects industry volumes to grow by roughly 10 percent over 2009. The forecast the Finnish manufacturer gave for itself, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so optimistic. The company said at its Nokia Capital Markets Day in Helsinki that it expects its market share to be flat next year compared to 2009, although the average selling price of its devices may erode less in 2010 “compared to recent years.” Nokia also said it plans to re-engineer its Symbian user interface — which has long been a serious vulnerability — and deliver two “major product milestones” in both the first and second half of next year. Nokia also said it plans to launch its first Maemo 6-powered mobile computer in the second half of 2009 and vowed to provide third-party developers with better tools for building apps for the company’s Ovi service. And, as EVP Tero Ojanperä told Om earlier this week, Nokia will continue to e...

Symbian's problem isn't that it lacks capabilities, it's with the user experience: namely the clunky, awkward, and occasionally terrible S60 interface. Enter Maemo , to save the day! And also, apparently, a newer, friendlier Symbian. Nokia wants to get better , please. The latest of Nokia's reliably rousing Capital Markets Day reports points to two goals, both of which sit decidedly forward from here: In 2010, we will drive user experience improvements, and the progress we make will take the Symbian user interface to a new level...[Nokia will] deliver our first Maemo 6 -powered mobile computer, with an iconic user experience, in the second half of 2010. Forward in terms of time, obviously, but more importantly in terms of progress: Symbian is getting stale and needs this UI update badly, while Maemo, despite a generally positive reception, is still a little raw, with a slim device selection for at least another year. You can...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - So you're moving from the United States to another country and the most important thing you can think of is how you can watch the new season of "American Idol"? You're not alone -- "placeshifting" is one of the hottest new areas in TV technology. People no longer need to live in a country to see all of their local TV stations. In fact, they don't even need a TV anymore. There are platforms for watching popular shows on the Internet and there is technology to actually make a full television feed available just like in the living room. Either way, it can be relatively cheap and surprisingly easy to keep up while on an overseas assignment. PLACESHIFTING The best-known technology for moving an entire TV feed from one place to another is the Slingbox ( www.slingbox.com ), which came out a few years ago. Although the developer was later acquired by satellite company EchoStar, the device works with any platform,...

Gmail: push it real good! Google's finally come up with a solution to bring Push Gmail to iPhone, iPod Touch, Windows Mobile and Symbian phones. Until now, Push Gmail on the iPhone was only possible through 3rd party apps like the super-simple GPush app . If you're an iPhone or iPod Touch user you'll need iPhone OS 3.0 as that's the first version of the OS to support push notification from 3rd party apps. Hope over to m.google.com/sync for the instructions . The only problem for iPhone users is that if you've already got one Exchange account set up (probably a work one), you may not be able to add Push Gmail as a second account. Let us know how you get on with Google Sync and take a look at our smartphone top 10 to get the low down on the best pocket emailers.

ProfiMail ProfiMail is a powerful e-mail client for mobile devices. It allows you to read your mail on the go, and send text with attachments directly from your device. Send photos, recorded sound or simply text messages to friends, from anywhere. Version: 3.14 What you get ProfiMail is an application for your everyday life. It is a communication solution for your mobile device. Wherever you go, you have your e-mail with you. With the program's user interface, you can see a great part of the message on the screen at a time, and easily navigate during reading. You can use ProfiMail for your professional work - reading documents sent in messages, comfortably answer to sender, or send documents from the device. You can also use ProfiMail for being in touch with your friends, who use e-mail on a desktop computer. For example, you can immediately send photos taken with the phone's camera. The program was designed to be as simple as possible, w...

SmartMovie SmartMovie is a video player for your mobile device, with a counterpart converter utility for the PC. With the converter, you may prepare any video clip for optimal playback on your mobile device. How it works Locate source on your hard disk Load it into Converter utility Let PC converter make it smaller Transfer to your mobile device Use mobile player to play the clip Play your videos on your mobile device, anywhere, anytime, you need just a few steps Convert any video file on your PC into a phone-friendly video file Upload video into device/memory card Play the video in SmartMovie Player installed on your mobile device Features Standard AVI format, allowing you to preview converted files on your PC Also plays MP4V , FLV and 3GP file formats Player uses the phone screen in portrait or landscape mode, ut...