Mobile Karma via eBay offers several used RIM BlackBerry, Motorola, and Nokia cell phones, with prices starting at $17.99 with free shipping. Pay via PayPal and use coupon code "CMOBILEKARMA29" for an extra 10% off, cutting prices further to $16....

Nokia's E72 business messaging phone is one sleek handset which is definitely fun and easy to use, but up till now it only came in business optimized colors of black, silver and topaz brown. Good thing that the folks at Nokia decided to jazz things up a bit by introducing a purple Nokia E72 that makes it look a whole lot more hip. Even nicer is this piece of hardware is not a special, limited edition unit, but you will be able to purchase it in the Lebanese market in due time, with hopes that it might even make the cross over to the global market.

Permalink: Nokia E72 now comes in purple from Ubergizmo | RSS Sponsor: Win a Fellowes Microshred Paper Shredder!

Apple doesn’t like HTC, not one bit. In fact, Apple recently filed a lawsuit against the Taiwan-based company, alleging that it has infringed 20 iPhone-related patents. This has already been discussed to death, but it gives us an opportunity to look at some of Apple’s other forays into the world of lawsuits. It’s terribly exciting.

So yeah, CNET did the hard work, and I’m merely highling the items that caught my eye.

• Psystar. This is probably the most famous lawsuit in the past few years. Pretty much a flawless victory for Apple.

• Nokia. Oh, Apple on the other end of a lawsuit? Hmm. Nokia says Apple infringed a number of its patents with the iPhone. Nokia sues Apple which then sues HTC. Mind = blown.

• Microsoft and HP. Oh dear, it’s a battle royale over user graphical user interfaces. Apple basically got its teeth kicked in on this one.

Flickr

Niko est un robot un peu particulier. En effet ce robot Lego Mindstorm est contrôlé via le compte Twitter @N900Niko et un téléphone mobile Nokia N 900 lui transmet les instructions en provenance de Twitter. Le robot peut aussi envoyer des données vers Twitter, ce qu'il fait d'ailleurs après avoir pris une photo. Il est possible de voir ces photos sur TwitPic. - Twitter

Source : David Taté (s'abonner)

Explorer : Culture, Mobiles, Photographes, Photographie, Réseaux sociaux

Au début du mois de mars, Apple ouvrait un nouveau front en Asie en s'attaquant au célèbre fabricant taïwanais HTC. L'entreprise américaine reprochait à son concurrent asiatique de violer la propriété intellectuelle d'une vingtaine de brevets relatifs à l'iPhone. Dans une plainte richement documentée, Apple visait principalement les téléphones mobiles à écran tactile conçus par HTC : citons ainsi le HTC Nexus One, le Touch Pro, le Touch Diamond, le Touch Pro2, le Tilt II, le Pure, le Imagio, le Dream / G1, le myTouch 3G, le Hero, le HD2 ou encore le Droid Eris.

Après quelques jours de flottement, HTC a finalement réagi officiellement à travers un communiqué de presse publié avant-hier. Dans celui-ci, le PDG de l'entreprise, Peter Chou, a rejeté complètement les accusations d'Apple. "HTC conteste les actions d'Apple et se défendra complètement. La société soutient fortement la protection de la propriété intellectuelle et continuera de respecter les autres innovateurs et leurs technologies comme nous l'avons toujours fait, mais nous allons continuer à être compétitif à travers notre propre innovation comme une façon saine pour les consommateurs d'obtenir la meilleure expérience mobile possible".

D'ailleurs, la firme a tenu à rappeler que si Apple a rencontré un très vif succès avec ses téléphones tactiles, cela ne veut pour autant pas dire que la société est à l'origine du concept. Ainsi, HTC affirme avoir construit les premiers appareils du genre cinq ans avant l'arrivée de la firme dans le petite monde des smartphones... en d'autres termes, les produits tactiles HTC sont antérieurs à la gamme iPhone. "En  1999, nous avons commencé à développer le XDA et le T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition, nos premiers smartphones à écran tactile" a poursuivi Peter Chou. Ils ont "tous les deux été livrés en 2002 aux côtés de cinquante autres modèles de smartphones HTC depuis cette époque".

Cependant, Apple ne visait pas uniquement le système de l'écran tactile. Comme nous l'écrivions à l'époque, la liste des brevets concernés touche également des techniques liées à l'interface utilisateur et au système d'exploitation, en passant par des technologies industrielles directement en rapport avec le produit, comme par exemple la réduction de la consommation électrique, véritable graal de l'autonomie.

Sur le fond, HTC a de toute façon de quoi se défendre. L'entreprise avait prévenu assez tôt disposer de brevets déposés il y a quelques années. "Nous respectons et nous estimons la valeur des droits sur les brevets, mais nous sommes déterminés à défendre nos propres innovations" avait déclaré à l'époque la société. "Nous avons continuellement innové et breveté notre technologie depuis 13 ans". Un combat qui s'annonce également difficile, alors qu'Apple est déjà englué dans un conflit avec Nokia.

The first time you walk into an Apple Store and pick up an iPad, you’ll understand the hype: Apple has managed to create a beautiful, thoughtfully designed, compelling product in a space where mediocrity was, until now, status quo. But odds are you probably won’t buy one — at least not yet. And that’s OK.

For despite the high level of anticipation for and proclamations associated with the launch of the Apple device, the fact remains that outside of a few select vertical uses (like medicine), tablets are constrained by their own form factor, stuck in the nether realm between productivity and portability. Standing onstage during the device’s unveiling, Steve Jobs himself posed a question that acutely underscores the tablet dilemma: Is there room for a third category of product that sits between your two most essential devices, the laptop and phone? As much as I’m looking forward to the iPad, I’m still not sure there is.

To date, no one’s been able to scale tablets as a core personal computing product, though it’s certainly not for lack of effort. Just about every player in the electronics world has given tablets a go, from Nokia with its Maemo-based N-series Internet communicators to Dell with its Android-based mini-slates to all manner of Windows-based convertible and slate tablet PCs. But the problem with all of them — and the iPad may also be included — isn’t that they’ve been unable to offer fundamentally differentiated experiences from the devices we already own and carry.

Think back to the iPod — before it existed, there wasn’t such a thing as taking your entire music (and eventually, video) library with you wherever you went. But the concept proved to be so elemental that it transcended the iPod as a device, and became a staple in nearly every product Apple makes, from iTunes on the Mac to the iPhone. In his iPad launch presentation, Jobs seemed pretty clear about the fact that the iPad won’t replace your phone or laptop (at least not any time soon), and yet Apple has still been deficient in demonstrating more than scaled-up iPhone experiences (like browsing, light email, and gaming) or scaled-down desktop experiences (like iWork).

Of course, it would be a failure of imagination to assume there won’t eventually be something built on the iPad platform that simply couldn’t be hosted on a phone or laptop. But so far Apple hasn’t shown it to us, which may be why so many are still lukewarm on the device’s prospects. This also might be why iBooks was January’s dark horse announcement — it was the only app Apple showed off that seems to call out for the iPad by name. But long-form reading is still arguably better suited to devices like the Kindle and Nook, which benefit from E Ink displays, while shorter-form media (namely periodicals) went all but ignored by Apple, which punted to publication-specific apps like the New York Times reader. Had Apple attempted to create a new, ubiquitous, standard format for magazines and newspapers, and leveraged its sales infrastructure for subscription content, the iPad might have been hailed as the iPod of publishing.

There’s no question Apple has (re)defined the tablet dialog and raised the bar for the space moving forward. For browsing the web, the iPad experience is second to none; the product itself almost seems to melt away, leaving the user to feel as though they’re literally reaching in and touching the content. And by the time the iPad’s price drops in a year or two, Apple may be able to parlay a groundbreaking product into a market leadership position. But in the mean time, the countdown to launch has begun and Cupertino’s set its sights on building yet another market, we’ll have to see just how many people are ready to put their money where Apple’s tablet is.

Ryan Block is the co-founder of gdgt and the former editor in chief of Engadget. Disclosure: gdgt is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

On dirait que le HTC G1 ne soit pas le seul téléphone qui puisse contrôler un robot. Maintenant, on a un Nokia N900 qui commande les robots Lego Mindstorm. La cerise sur le gâteau? Vous pouvez envoyer les ordres à son compte Twitter sur @N900Niko: dire au robot Niko d'avancer, de tourner ou même de prendre une photo. Les photos prises seront postées sur Twitter via Twitpic. Cool, hein ?

Permalink: Le robot Lego Mindstorms est contrôlé par le Nokia N900 via Twitter d'Ubergizmo FR. Aussi en Anglais

Le succès du smartphone d'Apple donne lieu à une intense bataille juridique pour faire vaciller la concurrence. Apple, Nokia et HTC se rendent coup pour coup. Actualité

Continue reading Niko, the N900-powered Lego robot, looks poised to take over Twitter (video)

Niko, the N900-powered Lego robot, looks poised to take over Twitter (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The fourth annual Pwn2Own contest—which takes place at the CanSecWest security conference every year—kicks off next week. Like last year, 2010's contest will offer security experts and hackers the chance to "pwn" a number of mobile platforms in addition to various browser/OS combinations. Though no mobile devices were successfully hacked last year, expectations are high that the iPhone will go down in this year's contest.

"With all the recent research on mobile phone security being presented worldwide, these devices are quickly becoming a ripe target," wrote Aaron Portnoy, security researcher at TippingPoint and Pwn2Own contest organizer. "First to fall: the iPhone."

Mac OS X security expert Charlie Miller, known for his past exploits of Safari and discovery of a possible arbitrary code execution exploit for the iPhone, is also confident that the iPhone will go down this year. "Someone I know quite well says they have an exploit for it and plan on using it," he said recently during a chat with Kapersky Labs' ThreatPost. "From an exploitation perspective, iPhone is no harder than [Mac] OS X now that Snow Leopard has data execution protection," Miller explained.

However, Miller plans to stick to Safari, which he successfully attacked the last two years, netting him thousands in cash and two MacBooks. "There isn't as much exposed code on the iPhone," he said. "The easy to exploit bugs I know about happen to live in the code that Safari has but Mobile Safari doesn't," mostly due to Mobile Safari's lack of support for Java, Flash, and other third-party plugins.

Also, Miller said, "in real life the iPhone is harder because you can't just execute a shell. You have to write your return-oriented payload to do all your dirty work, which can be a pain."

Miller said that attacking Safari this year will be harder than last year, since Snow Leopard has DEP and Safari sandboxes plug-ins in separate processes. However, he noted that Snow Leopard's incomplete support for address space layout randomization still leaves the Safari and Mac OS X combination open to vulnerabilities.

This year, contestants will have a chance to nab a laptop and a $10,000 cash prize for demonstrating exploits for IE8, Firefox 3, and Google Chrome 4 running under Windows 7, or Safari 4 running on Mac OS X 10.6. Contestants that successfully hack an iPhone 3GS, BlackBerry Bold 9700, a Nokia E62, or a Motorola Droid will get to keep the device as well as $15,000 in cash.

Read the comments on this post

The fourth annual Pwn2Own contest—which takes place at the CanSecWest security conference every year—kicks off next week. Like last year, 2010's contest will offer security experts and hackers the chance to "pwn" a number of mobile platforms in addition to various browser/OS combinations. Though no mobile devices were successfully hacked last year, expectations are high that the iPhone will go down in this year's contest.

"With all the recent research on mobile phone security being presented worldwide, these devices are quickly becoming a ripe target," wrote Aaron Portnoy, security researcher at TippingPoint and Pwn2Own contest organizer. "First to fall: the iPhone."

Mac OS X security expert Charlie Miller, known for his past exploits of Safari and discovery of a possible arbitrary code execution exploit for the iPhone, is also confident that the iPhone will go down this year. "Someone I know quite well says they have an exploit for it and plan on using it," he said recently during a chat with Kapersky Labs' ThreatPost. "From an exploitation perspective, iPhone is no harder than [Mac] OS X now that Snow Leopard has data execution protection," Miller explained.

However, Miller plans to stick to Safari, which he successfully attacked the last two years, netting him thousands in cash and two MacBooks. "There isn't as much exposed code on the iPhone," he said. "The easy to exploit bugs I know about happen to live in the code that Safari has but Mobile Safari doesn't," mostly due to Mobile Safari's lack of support for Java, Flash, and other third-party plugins.

Also, Miller said, "in real life the iPhone is harder because you can't just execute a shell. You have to write your return-oriented payload to do all your dirty work, which can be a pain."

Miller said that attacking Safari this year will be harder than last year, since Snow Leopard has DEP and Safari sandboxes plug-ins in separate processes. However, he noted that Snow Leopard's incomplete support for address space layout randomization still leaves the Safari and Mac OS X combination open to vulnerabilities.

This year, contestants will have a chance to nab a laptop and a $10,000 cash prize for demonstrating exploits for IE8, Firefox 3, and Google Chrome 4 running under Windows 7, or Safari 4 running on Mac OS X 10.6. Contestants that successfully hack an iPhone 3GS, BlackBerry Bold 9700, a Nokia E62, or a Motorola Droid will get to keep the device as well as $15,000 in cash.

Read the comments on this post

The fourth annual Pwn2Own contest—which takes place at the CanSecWest security conference every year—kicks off next week. Like last year, 2010's contest will offer security experts and hackers the chance to "pwn" a number of mobile platforms in addition to various browser/OS combinations. Though no mobile devices were successfully hacked last year, expectations are high that the iPhone will go down in this year's contest.

"With all the recent research on mobile phone security being presented worldwide, these devices are quickly becoming a ripe target," wrote Aaron Portnoy, security researcher at TippingPoint and Pwn2Own contest organizer. "First to fall: the iPhone."

Mac OS X security expert Charlie Miller, known for his past exploits of Safari and discovery of a possible arbitrary code execution exploit for the iPhone, is also confident that the iPhone will go down this year. "Someone I know quite well says they have an exploit for it and plan on using it," he said recently during a chat with Kapersky Labs' ThreatPost. "From an exploitation perspective, iPhone is no harder than [Mac] OS X now that Snow Leopard has data execution protection," Miller explained.

However, Miller plans to stick to Safari, which he successfully attacked the last two years, netting him thousands in cash and two MacBooks. "There isn't as much exposed code on the iPhone," he said. "The easy to exploit bugs I know about happen to live in the code that Safari has but Mobile Safari doesn't," mostly due to Mobile Safari's lack of support for Java, Flash, and other third-party plugins.

Also, Miller said, "in real life the iPhone is harder because you can't just execute a shell. You have to write your return-oriented payload to do all your dirty work, which can be a pain."

Miller said that attacking Safari this year will be harder than last year, since Snow Leopard has DEP and Safari sandboxes plug-ins in separate processes. However, he noted that Snow Leopard's incomplete support for address space layout randomization still leaves the Safari and Mac OS X combination open to vulnerabilities.

This year, contestants will have a chance to nab a laptop and a $10,000 cash prize for demonstrating exploits for IE8, Firefox 3, and Google Chrome 4 running under Windows 7, or Safari 4 running on Mac OS X 10.6. Contestants that successfully hack an iPhone 3GS, BlackBerry Bold 9700, a Nokia E62, or a Motorola Droid will get to keep the device as well as $15,000 in cash.

Read the comments on this post

Palm shares plunged in late trading Thursday after the company posted yet another dismal quarter and warned that revenue for the current one will fall far short of Wall Street expectations. The company will have to take substantial charges to help its carrier partners eat through excess inventory, and whatever luster once existed for its flagship Pre is long gone. The question now is, who’s going to pick up Palm?

Palm’s last-ditch gamble on webOS has been a disaster. The operating system — which debuted last summer on the Pre — has received solid reviews, but an utter lack of effective marketing from Sprint — and more recently, Verizon Wireless — shackled handset sales. And an upcoming partnership with AT&T — which looked to be Palm’s last chance at redemption — is reportedly fizzling already after the carrier delayed the launch of webOS handsets, slashed its order and cut its marketing budget.

So what are Palm’s options? CEO Jon Rubinstein is projecting a “stay the course” attitude, saying better training of Verizon Wireless sales staffers will begin to pay off — a questionable theory given the flat-line demand for the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus so far. Producing a tablet would be an interesting strategy, as James over at jkOnTheRun suggested yesterday. But the market for tablets is still very uncertain, and there’s little reason to believe Palm can move a different kind of hardware when it can’t sell phones. So a suitor will likely sweep in and pick up Palm, snatching up webOS — the company’s most valuable asset — and a sizable patent portfolio. Here’s a quick rundown of the most likely (or most highly speculated) candidates for acquiring Palm — including their odds of doing so:

• Google : The most intriguing play on the board, Google might be compelled by Palm’s patent portfolio, as Gizmodo noted yesterday. What’s more, Google and Palm both operate Linux-based mobile operating systems, which would make it easy for Google to cherry-pick the best features from webOS and add them to Android. Google could easily afford Palm, and as a bonus would keep it from falling into the hands of a competitor. Odds: 7-1
• Dell : The Texas computer vendor joined the smartphone space a few months ago, launching handsets in Brazil and China, and will soon launch an Android-based device through AT&T. But its late entry means Dell will have a hard time differentiating its hardware, and coming to market with its own mobile operating system, app store and developer community could be a great way to stand out from the crowd. Odds: 7-1
• Hewlett-Packard: HP’s tiny smartphone business is dissolving in the superphone era. Picking up what amounts to a turnkey mobile OS would be a huge — if costly — move to attract attention and breathe life into its mobile business. Odds: 11-1.
• Nokia : Nokia has long been mentioned as a potential buyer for Palm, but successfully marrying the two has become an increasingly difficult proposition. Nokia already claims the world’s most popular smartphone OS in Symbian, and its Maemo — um, sorry, I mean MeeGo – operating system appears to be its long-term strategy. What’s more, Ovi has gained impressive traction in recent months. Adding another platform to the mix would only serve to distract Nokia just as it finally appears to be regaining its focus. Odds: 25-1
• Motorola : Another hardware maker that might be compelled by the idea of owning its own OS, Motorola’s $8 billion in cash ensures plenty of capital to pocket Palm. Yet despite what Om suggested earlier this year, taking on a mobile operating system would likely be more than Motorola could handle, given its difficulty in regaining its once-dominant market share in smartphones. Marriages of two weak players from different spaces rarely end up happy. Odds: 30-1
• Microsoft : Palm and Microsoft seemed like a great fit just a few months ago. But that was before the gang from Redmond went public with its plans to scrap Windows Mobile in favor of Windows Phone, an impressive, consumer-targeted platform set to debut late this year. Windows Phone may fail gloriously, but there’s no reason to bring another OS into the fold — and webOS is largely considered to be Palm’s most valuable asset. Odds: 35-1
• Cisco : An acquisition of Palm would enable Cisco to immediately expand beyond infrastructure into the mobile consumer market. Such a move wouldn’t exactly be unprecedented for Cisco, which last year bought the maker of Flip Video camcorders for $590 million, but maintaining a mobile operating system is a far more sophisticated endeavor than simply churning out camcorders. Odds: 40-1.

This is only a partial list, of course, and new potential suitors are sure to emerge as Palm begins to circle the drain. The clock is ticking, and there’s almost no hope Palm can reverse course at this point. So someone in the mobile space might be able to do very well by picking up a dying company at a cut-rate price.

Related content from GigOM Pro (sub req’d):

Could Games Redeem Windows Mobile and Palm’s webOS?

Image courtesy Flickr user nathangibbs.

Niko, un robot construit à partir d’un LEGO Mindstorm NXT 2.0, a la particularité d’être motorisé par un Nokia N900 ! Mieux, son créateur a même ouvert un compte Twitter (@N900Niko) sur lequel il est possible d’envoyer des commandes basiques au robot comme tourner, pivoter, avancer, reculer et même prendre une photo et l’uploader sur Twitpic.

Lire la suite..

One of the first questions I came up against when I started working with the Nokia N900 was, “Can it run Java?” According to the Java page on the Maemo Wiki, the answer was, “It’s not supported, but here are a few things you can try.” So, I poked around and made a little progress.
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I figured the best starting point would be Sun (Now Oracle)’s Java, so I went to their Java SE for Embedded Downloads. There, I went through the steps to download ARMv6 Linux - Headful (Early Access), EABI, glibc 2.5, Hard Float (VFP), Little Endian. I figured I would start with a headful installation, and if that failed, try the headless install.

The process of getting the Early Access was a bit cumbersome. You needed to fill out a form with about a dozen required fields and dozens more optional fields. I don’t remember if I ended up filling out all the optional fields, or simply got bored part way through and only filled out some of them. Once I filled out the form, I received an email from Sun with a special location where I could download a ninety day free trial.

After decompressing and extracting files the compressed tarfile that I downloaded onto the N900, I ended up with a directory ejre1.6.0_10 which I put in my /home/user directory. I didn’t want to put it anywhere that would take up valuable rootfs space and wanted to be able to easily remove it when the time came. Uncompressed, it took up about 45 meg.

I then created a simple Hello World java application. I created it on different Linux box and compiled it there. I then copied over the .class file and it ran fine at the command prompt on the N900. I search around through the files, but could not find a plugin for any of the browsers, so I set the project aside.

Later, I did find “ejre1.6.0_10/lib/arm/libnpjp2.so” which I believe is the plugin I need, but by then, My trial from Sun has expired.

Recently, others have been asking about Java on the N900, so I thought I would revisit it. Since my trial from Sun has expired, I thought I would try the OpenJDK approach. The first pass of this went incredibly easy. I went to the Cambridge Software Labs’ OpenJDK Binary and Source Release page and downloaded the runtime.

Running the java program from the installed directory worked nicely. There is also a pluginappletviewer, but that seems to rely on ‘IcedTea’ which I have not been able to find for the N900 yet.

So now I have the ability to run Java applications from the command line with a version that is not scheduled to stop working in three months. I still don’t have applets running, but I’ll revisit this again when I get the urge. Scanning through the JAVA on the N900 is possible! thread and talk.maemo.org, it looks like I’ve gotten about as far as others have. I’ll keep trying things and checking the talk thread. Hopefully someone will have an interesting break through one of these days. Meanwhile, there is the question of what sort of support MeeGo will have for Java.

Many people point out that Maemo, Moblin and Meego all have rich development environments, so Java isn’t really needed, but I think this is short sighted. There are a lot of great projects already built in Java and deployed to the web that it would be great to be able to access from a Maemo, Moblin or Meego device. Someday, someone will manage to get it to work.

Quelques clichés du successeur direct du Nokia X6 ont donc été apparemment leakés il y a quelques heures seulement. Là où c’est intéressant, c’est que ces clichés nous permettent en même temps d’en savoir un peu plus sur Symbian^4. A côté de ça, le mobile devrait être équipé d’un processeur Cortex A8 cadencé à 1GHz (une version plus évoluée du processeur de l’iPhone 3GS…), d’un capteur 12 megapixels, d’un écran AMOLED 3.7″, de 32Go de mémoire interne, des WiFi, aGPS, 3G et d’un port HDMI.

Espérons qu’il ne s’agisse pas d’un fake…

Lire la suite..

Thanks everyone for your questions to my previous post on this subject. Now the results:

Everyone should install the Maemo Extras application catalog. Just unleash your phone by installing this repository.

After you are done installing this we go to the questions:

• How is XMPP working out?
  Good, so go doing your Facebooking or Jabbering everywhere. not to speak you Google Taking
• The “Unlocks with ’sudo gainroot’” needs a footnote:
  * you need to enable the Maemo Extras application catalog (see above) and install “rootsh”
  * or, alternatively (and less conveniently), you need to enable R&D mode with the flasher command-line tool on a PC, with the N900 connected over USB
• Does the browser (fennec iirc?) include support for playing back Ogg video and audio?
  Ogg support can be added as an additional download. You do have the real Firefox now, or so claims Nokia.
• Telepathy supports skype? Haven’t heard of this, but it would be _really_ cool!
  As written in my post “you have skype, but no skype app which is a plus.” Yes telepathy handles skype as it handles any other protocol. MSN call support is coming soon as well.
• I’d really like to know how easy is to exploit all the cool features of N900 in a self made program (with Maemo SDK or maybe QT 4.6). I mean, the N900 has a built in camera, AGPS, accelerometer, FM-transmitter and so on... is it possibile to write a custom program that uses one or more of these things? For example (it is really just a weird example) if I want to take a photo with the camera each time the phone is “shaked”, I could do it? If I want to save my GPS coordinates every 30 minutes in a text file, I could do it?
  I guess I won’t be answering that question in this life time… If (and only if) I ever try programming anything for maemo it will be in Python. I guess you can do pretty neat things with QT + other libs as this application shows. A detailed example of that app here (De-Spotify related).
• Test a/v calling on gtalk,jabber using telepathy works or not?
  tried once and didn’t work. It could have been me or my other peer either being retarded or just using Linux with the wrong sound config (experienced it before and it had nothing to do with i.e. skype being wrong)
• I have seen many people talking about unexpected errors, slow performance, etc. What´s your overall experience?
  I experience it as the easiest piece of tech I have ever had. It really is fast and gives me no headaches.
• Can you install .deb packages that are valid for a standard PC?
  I guess I should elaborate in this question but I won’t. A deb package made in your PC for the N900 architecture (armel) should work. But a standard x86 deb will not.
• Can you install pidgin?
  Why on earth would I want to do that? Telepathy is totally integrated in my contact list and relevant applications… Pidgin in this context would be like having a skype application: Just overhead! Think of this as a new approach at the way you communicate, not a reproduction of an ineffective way of doing things.
• I assume you mention OpenSSH from a client perspective. Can the N900 run the server side? (not sure that makes sense, but I am curious)
  It can and it rocks.
• How many apps you feel it can run in parallel before it feels bloated?
  I have my screen full of phone related apps, browser windows, multimedia stuff and random apps (terminal, chess, camera) and it still does not feel bloated at all. I really mean it. I never get irritated by this phone!
• For how much you bought it and from where i am in Egypt and i want to buy one?
  I did not buy it. I am just borrowing it (sort of) from a friend @ Nokia.
• Its usefulness ...
  It helps me being more effective when I am on the move and at the office. So it really is useful. Not to speak of its awesomeness when enjoying my private time (i.e. camera & video features)
• I’ve ordered one that wont arrive for another month =( A few questions related to barcodes. Can you take a picture of a barcode show it full screen and have scanners scan it?
  I read somewhere that you should be able to do so. Google it mate. I don’t need that and really don’t have time to test that, sorry.
• Is there a barcode scanner tool? Bonus for price comparison tools. Sometimes I’ll be browsing used game stores and see a game fairly cheap and wonder whether I can get it cheaper elsewhere.
  Read  questions #14
• If it isn’t too much trouble, I would like to know how well emacs works on the device, I notice it doesn’t have a meta key.
  Have given emacs way too many chances in other devices to make my life harder in this one. I am really not the right person to ask as I do not feel emacs works at all anywhere (and the same goes for vi/vim so do not hate the player, hate the game!
• Web browsing while playing music (recorded or streaming); heard complaints that playback may become choppy.
  Works like a charm even under crappy wi-fi conditions.
• Listening to music over BT stereo headphones and answering calls. Voice commands over BT?
  Lost my BT headset for a while ago and I really am not interested in buying a new one. If someone has experience on this please answer in the comments.
• Video calling. I know it’s not there yet in the integrated skype. But what about Fring or Gtalk or Ytalk?
  Tried skype and it worked like a charm. Do not use any of the others, sorry.
• Voice announcements of incoming messages while listening to music over BT?
  No idea. Read #18
• Smoothness of video playback, whether recorded or streaming? (Again, heard complaints of choppiness.)
  I recorded the audio and video at a concert last weekend and it really worked well. It might just be me and my lack of interest in video/audio quality in general.
• Does it have what it takes to play h264 videos in mkv containers?
  How can i test that?
• Can you try different resolutions?
  Why should I ever wish that? Drop me the command and I will run them
• How is the sound quality on mp3, ogg and flac files?
  Great. Nokia ere is king among mobile producers. Nothing can even compare to it, specialy when playing from the speakers. When using headphones it just rocks!
• How is the performance like for traditional desktop apps(amarok, akregator, openoffice.org)?
  I dreamed of installing the debian extra for maemo but never got far with it. Now I really do not feel like blowing up my preciously nice working N900.
• How is the performance of the ‘big’ desktop environments (xfce, gnome, kde)
  Hope I never have the time to go through that operation so I won’t have an answer.
• I’d like to see tested is how well this device works as a phone while all the other crazy hacks are going on.
  Works like a charm!
• Test call quality, battery life, address book functionality, etc.
  Cal quality is good. Battery life could be better (will last one day and two at the most)  and Address Book functionality is very nice specially if you think about how well integrated everything is. I have had several smartphones over the years and never seen anything like this.
• I am curious how well the calendar works, and more importantly, how well it synchronizes with Google Calendar.
  I’ve heard it works like a charm although I do not use Gcalender so I couldn’t tell.
• Does it run X11?
  I want to know but I don’t. It might do as I can connect to external machines with ssh -X and get apps running on the N900 (such as eclipse)
• In other words, is it pie-in-the-sky to expect to use it as a full-blown Linux box?
  It ain’t a box, it’s a pone with debian. Isn’t that enough for you? It certainly works for me!

Thanks for reading!

The first turn-by-turn voice guided navigation application for Maemo phones has got available for European Nokia N900 users at Sygic web e-shop.

With the full set of navigation features, multiple user settings, fast route calculation, user-friendly operation and the latest maps situated on-board of the device, Sygic Mobile Maps turns Nokia N900 into a full-featured personal navigation device, and provides for superb user experience and reliable navigation.

We truely appologise for delaying this official information by one day - yesterday the demand for download hit our server infrastru... .. .

The Palm Pre feels at times like the Jan Brady of the mobile world — lacking the Marsha-ish confidence and good looks of the iPhone, or the Cindy-like next-big-thing appeal of the Droid. Thus, no one pays it much attention or takes it terribly seriously. But that just means fans of the device gotta do for themselves, as in the case of Pre user Alexander Slansky, who created an app that turns your Palm OS device into a Boxee remote.

I was only able to use the Pre remote with my laptop, as I don’t currently have a TV hooked up to the software, but installing the app and getting it working didn’t take more than five minutes, and while some small beta-version bugs do exist, overall the app is pretty smooth.

The major catches seem to be that you have to have the WiFi on your phone enabled (which I find to be a big battery drain), and the UI design isn’t extremely intuitive — for example, the controls for play/pause/back/forward are hidden on the main screen in favor of the volume control, when both are essential pieces of functionality.

But now I have a remote for my computer without having to shell out twenty bucks for one of Apple’s flimsy-feeling clickers — and thus the important thing is this: I’ll be able to control my media remotely the next time I put my laptop on top of the toilet seat to watch TV while taking a bath (don’t judge if you haven’t tried it — because it’s awesome).

Boxee released a remote app for the iPhone/iPod Touch last year, and according to VP of Marketing Andrew Kippen via email, there is also a desktop control widget and a web-based remote that works on the Nokia N900. So far, there’s no remote yet for Android mobile devices, but “someone in the community” is working on it.

When asked if Boxee would be creating any new apps itself in the foreseeable future, Kippen replied, “While we may look at retooling our apps as we add new features, in the short-term we’ve seen the community respond (and respond well) to these needs, which allows us to focus on making great software to use the remote with.”

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Why Boxee Must Evolve or Die

Sygic has finally announced the public availability of Sygic Mobile Maps with Turn-by-turn navigation for the Nokia N900 Maemo devie. It’s available for purchase for around 60 euros and you need to download around 1.8 Gigabytes of maps data to your phone !

Official Press Release Below

The first turn-by-turn voice guided navigation application for Maemo phones has just got available for European Nokia N900 users at Sygic web e-shop. With the full set of navigation features, multiple user settings, fast route calculation, user-friendly operation and the latest maps situated on-board of the device, Sygic Mobile Maps turns Nokia N900 into a full-featured personal navigation device, and provides for superb user experience and reliable navigation.

The first available region, launched today, is EUROPE. It costs EUR 59,99, it has no time limit on use after purchase, and it includes countries of Western Europe and Eastern Europe as follows:
- Maps included: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vatican.
- Maps with transit roads only: Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Belarus, Moldova, Montenegro, Bosnia -- Herzegovina, Romania, Ukraine.
Further regions will be added and announced gradually. Sygic Mobile Maps navigation application for Nokia N900 Maemo OS phones features Navteq maps.

Product description
Sygic Mobile Maps is a turn-by-turn voice guided navigation software that converts mobile phones into full-featured navigation devices. It is fully operable on hundreds of mobile phones and smartphones running major mobile operation systems, incl. iPhone, Symbian, Maemo, Android and Windows Mobile, incl. Windows Mobile 6.5. It also supports various PDA, PND and MID devices based on Windows CE, Windows XP/Vista or Linux. Sygic Mobile Maps uses latest maps located on-board of the device, which means that the use of the navigation is not conditioned by mobile network signal availability.

Features and benefits of the Mobile Maps:

• All latest maps are with you on your phone.
• Speed cameras, speed limits and railway crossings warnings provide safety for you and others.
• Signposts help you to head in the right direction.
• Lane assistant informs you about the correct lane to be in.
• Automatically adapts to horizontal or vertical view with
• Automatically or manually adjustable color schemes for day and night use.
• User interface and voice guide speak your native language.
• Search for millions of restaurants and other points of interest, with an option to call in, find parking, and navigate to.
• Design your trip with multi-stop route planning before you head out.
• See the summary of your trip before you set off.
• Avoid a roadblock with a single click.
• Save and organize favorites according to your needs.
• Customize what you want to see on the navigation screen.

Download Sygic Mobile Maps for Nokia N900 from: sygic.com/maemo

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Enfin, Ovi Maps 3.3 qui inclut la navigation GPS gratuite, est disponible pour le Nokia N86, et on peut le télécharger via l'application Software Update. L'Ovi Maps 3.3 a une taille de 8240Ko, alors assurez-vous que vous avez un forfait de données illimité, sinon, ça va faire mal. Ovi Maps 3.3 sera disponible pour des appareils sélectionnés S60 3.2, et pour ceux qui ont déjà mis à jour leur N86 avec ceci, comment le trouvez-vous?

Permalink: Ovi Maps 3.3 arrive sur le Nokia N86 d'Ubergizmo FR. Aussi en Anglais