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New Nokia Concept Phone Has a Touchscreen All Over

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Nokia makes the coolest concept phones. More than a decade ago they came out with a cool concept phone where the phone fits inside a ring. It was a marvellous concept in miniature technology and diminutive devices. More than a decade later they revisited the ring idea with the Nenya magnetic ring, a ring that can control your phone remotely. This year, Nokia has once again presented a cool concept phone that is cool beyond words.

The new concept phone was developed by the Nokia Research Center to mark its 25th year anniversary. The Nokia Gem pushes the touchscreen fad to an insane degree – the whole surface of the phone is a touchscreen. The whole touchscreen will change its image or what it shows depending on what function is being used by he user. [Read more…]

Nokia Windows Phones to Be Announced Next Week

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Nokia has been taking a beating in the world market the last few years. The mobile phone manufacturer was once the top dog in the mobile phone industry. But its failure to adapt to changes in the mobile phone preferences of consumers – mainly from the typical mobile phones to smartphones – has resulted in a dwindling market share. In fact, the situation has gotten to a point where it is leaving certain markets because of poor sales. For example, Nokia has basically left Japan and it also hasn’t released any new phones in the United States for the last couple of years. [Read more…]

Nokia Wants to Join the Tablet Wars

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Nokia holds the record of being a major mobile industry player who came late into the netbook wars. Although its first netbook venture, the Booklet 3G was not even close to popularity of other manufacturers’ netbooks, there’s not doubt that the Booklet 3G is a pretty powerful and well designed netbook. The problem with Nokia’s Booklet 3G was not so much about what it can do but more because of the fact it came in a little too late.

So, now with the current trend in the computer industry on mobility through tablet PC, Nokia is not going to waste time in joining the tablet wars. Reports by the street.com is indicating that Nokia will soon release its own Nokia Tablet PC.

Actually, it’s quite ironic that Nokia has not yet released its own branded  tablet pc wherein fact it was one of the pioneers in the industry. In case you’ve forgotten already, Nokia pioneered in the tablet market with its old N77 handheld Internet device. Incidentally the N77 got nothing much to offer for us mobile nomads.

The question now is that will Nokia be able to penetrate the tablet market?  Will it be more successful than the Booklet 3G?

Intel Moblin and Nokia Maemo Combine into MeeGo

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Intel and Nokia made a surprising announcement at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. It was so surprising that nobody saw it coming. We’re talking here of MeeGo, a new open source, Linux project that combines Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo software to form the said Meego platform. Meego will power a range of devices including mobile computers, netbooks, tablets, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment system.

If you’re not aware Intel’s Moblin OS is currently being used on various netbooks by those who prefer not to use Windows OS in their low-cost netbooks. Moblin was also recently demonstrated to run on smartphone during the CES 2010. Nokia’s Maemo platform on the other hand is currently being used on the N900 smartphone which is being touted as Nokia’s “mobile computer.”

Specifically MeeGo will include the following:

  • Performance optimizations and features which enable rich computational and graphically oriented applications and connected services development
  • No-compromise internet standards support delivering the best web experiences
  • Easy to use, flexible and powerful UI/app development environment based on Qt
  • Open source project organization managed by the Linux Foundation
  • State of the Art Linux stack optimized for the size and capabilities of small footprint platforms and mobile devices, but delivering broad linux software application compatibility

Other information about MeeGo include – current Maemo and Moblin will run on top of MeeGo, support for ARM processors, will include support for tablet PCs, apps can be recompiled to run on Symbian, MeeGo apps will be marketed through Nokia’s Ovi Store, and MeeGo will be released in Q2 2010 while products that support the software will be out in the second half of the year.

Nokia Feel App Tells You What to do Based on How You Feel

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The Nokia Beta Labs released a nice little app with a little touch of ingenuity called – Nokia Feel. This app is pretty simple: you tell your Nokia supported device how you feel and then the app will suggest various activities that you can do that will complement how you feel at that moment.

Sounds cool? Actually it is. Although it would have been cooler if a Nokia phone supports voice recognition like the Google Nexus One so that you can just voice out how you feel. But in this case, the app works only with Nokia phones that are touch-enabled. So, to use the Nokia feel app, you need the sense of touch.

The app has a pre-programmed list of feelings that you can choose from and these include – Lucky, Lonely, Hungry, Energetic, Bored, Creative, Caring and so on. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Nokia so I can’t check out whether the app supports “rage” or “rave”. It would have been interesting what the app will suggest if you’re in a rage or raving feeling.

Some of the activities that the app suggests if for example you’re bored are – to find the nearest restaurant, ask friends to go out to eat or find a recipe and cook some food.

If you have a touch-enabled Nokia phone, you may download the app from the Nokia Beta Labs website.