Nokia N95 8GB NAM approved by the FCC
January 30, 2008
The North American Nokia N95 8GB, officially known as the Nokia N95-4 has been approved by the FCC. This baby is virtually the same piece of hardware as its European cousin, except for the adaptation to American networks supporting 850/1900 MHz HSDPA.
Nokia announced the N95 8GB NAM earlier in January and will be shipped during the first quarter of 2008 meaning sometime before April.
[Via: thenokiablog.com]
ShakerRacer goes OpenSource
January 30, 2008
Austrian Andreas Jakl whom I met in Budapest reports that their cool application ShakerRacer now goes OpenSource. We’ve earlier reported on ShakerRacer where you also find a video demonstration.
ShakerRacer allows you to control a real RC car with the accelerometer of the N95. This means that you can turn and accelerate simply by tilting your phone. The source code is now finally ready and has been released along with some documentation.
Read more and download the sourcecode from Andreas blog.
Nokia Location Tagger
January 30, 2008
Nokia Location Tagger is yet another awsome free application from Nokia Beta Labs. This application allows users to automatically tag their location data to their pictures. This basically works like this:
- The user snaps a picture
- The location data is automatically saved to the EXIF header of the JPEG file.
- The location data can be used in other applications, such as google maps to visually display where the picture was shoot.
In the near future, we hope to make location tagging a seamlessly integrated part of your Nokia experience. Until then, Nokia Location Tagger is a small standalone application that gives you a sneak preview. We are not planning to productize this application as such, but we’d love to hear your thoughts already now, so that we have time to take it into account in the mainstream development.
- Launch Nokia Location Tagger application.
- On the main screen, you will see the status of your GPS module. It will show the coordinate if GPS module is active. Otherwise, it will show “Searching”.
- To tag pictures with GPS coordinates, simply use the built-in Camera application. Press the Camera button of your device to take pictures as usual. When Nokia Location Tagger is running in the background, you will see small icon at the top left corner of Camera’s view finder. This indicates the status of GPS module:
- Green: GPS module is active.
Amber: Nokia Location Tagger is connecting to GPS module or searching for GPS coordinate.
Red: GPS module is inactive.
SimplySymbian just loves Nokia Beta Labs! Read more and download Nokia Location Tagger, its free!
Review: Nokia N81 8GB, part 1 - The Hardware
January 29, 2008
Update: Part 2 on the N81 8GB review has been published, check it out here: Review: Nokia N81 8GB, part 2 - The camera
Introduction
Ever since the good people at WOM World sent me the Nokia N81 8GB I’ve been using it as my main device (thats about 15 days now) in order to write you guys an honest review. The N81 8GB is a cool gaming and music device with most of the other goodies you normally get with a smartphone. It’s powered by Symbian OS 9.2 and the S60 FP1 user interface. The new N-Gage gaming platform together with specially designed gaming buttons and great music capabilities such as super loud stereo speakers, 3.5mm connector for your favorite headphones and tons of storage capacity with the 8GB built-in flash memory are all nice features. But the big question still remains, is it what computers have become? Is this the next episode?
We did like
- The 8GB memory, great to store all those music and video files.
- WiFi, allowing us to browse the web and access entertainment cheap and smooth
- N-Gage gaming platform and dedicated gaming keys, nothing like killing some time at the metro
- 3.5 mm audio connector together with the Bose Quiet Comfort 3 headphones, what else you need to know?
- Great sound quality and loud speakers
We did not like
- The 2 megapixel camera, it’s good for…uhm…my grandma?
- No HSDPA means slow data transfers, we want…no we demand HSDPA!
- No built-in GPS
- Cheap plastics
- Gaming buttons cracked
- The price
Keep reading for our full Nokia N81 8GB review.
New Nokia N82 firmware available (v.11.0.117)
January 28, 2008
Another firmware update is made available for the Nokia N82, this time its numbered v 11.0.117. The update includes the regular list of bug fixes and stability improvements. It also supports a new feature for the N-Series known as User Data Preservation (UDP). The UDP feature basically means all data stored on the phones internal memory will be preserved despite a firmware update, the purpose is to eliminate the need for time consuming backups and restorations.
I have no N82 myself, thus I could not try out the UDP feature, however users who do report that their contacts, calendar and web bookmarks were kept intact and even 3rd party application worked without problems. Still, SimplySymbian recommends you to make a backup if you don’t want to take any chances.
The update did not include the anticipated Flash Lite 3 support which recently was made available in the latest Nokia N95-2 (the 8GB) firmware, but will surely be included in the next update.
The update is initially made available for EURO1 product codes, for instructions on how to update your Nokia N82, please read our How to: Upgrade your Nokia N95 (classic, US or 8GB) firmware, the procedure is basically the same as for the N95.
