Finnish company Nokia has recently announced that they will start providing SNAP Mobile multiplayer games for download and purchase through its Nokia Content Discoverer on-device portal solution. The Nokia Content Discoverer is embedded with millions of Nokia devices based on S60 and Series 40 currently available in markets worldwide.

This kind of arrangement will give mobile gaming publishers and developers a global distribution channel... in English, more and more mobile games will be sold since getting them was made easy as 1-2-3 by Nokia.

In case you aren't familiar with the Nokia Content Discoverer, this feature that is unique to selected, top-of-the-line Nokia phones offers a collection of shopping mall “stores” or “catalogs” that gives mobile subscribers easy access to downloadable content from branded content providers, leading content aggregators and their mobile service provider. Which means that if you wanna try out a new mobile game, you need not follow a tedious step-by-step process, because it's all there, in one push of a button.

With the Nokia Content Discoverer, mobile subscribers are able to easily discover, download and purchase localized content, applications and services, including Symbian C++ applications for S60, Java games and productivity applications, logos and background images, ring tones and True Tones, video clips and files, full-track music and Flash content.

Beginning in the second half of 2006, connected multiplayer titles developed on Nokia’s SNAP Mobile platform will be available in selected markets through a dedicated catalog location to any user with a Nokia handset that features the Nokia Content Discoverer client. So far, nine Nokia babies are sporting the on-device portal, six more will follow suit by the end of 2006.

Every cellphone owner has wanted a decent camera for their cell since thy were first released years ago. Having a camera integrated into your cellphone was great, but I for one was very disappointed with the quality of cellphone cameras. They cannot replace the old-fashioned Digital Camera because it has a great zoom feature. Well now you can have 6x optical zoom on your cell too!

This cellphone telescope from Mobile Brando offers 6x optical zoom as and add-on to your cellphone, attaching in an instant. The problem is, this cellphone telescope is currently only compatible with these selected Nokia phones:

• Nokia 6230/6230i
• Nokia 6680
• Nokia 6600
• Nokia 6630
• Nokia 7610
• Nokia 6681

But for just $19US, you can have cellphone camera perfection! Hopefully the range will expand to support other brands of cellphone soon, the potential of this gadget is huge!

From this:   To this:

They might be, judging from the US patent application form apparently filed by phone manufacturer Nokia for one of its mobile handsets. From the details given, this new unit will be packed with interesting features.

Nokia's new mobile has been fitted with an induction coil that will make it possible for people with hearing difficulties to get a clear audio signal, making it easier for them to hear the person on the other end. The more interesting feature of this phone on the other hand, is that it can also double as a metal detector. It will be able to detect metal (like concealed guns, car keys, or even hidden electrical cables) at short distances.

There's still no news when Nokia will be introducing this mobile handset to the public, but we can expect this unit to be popular in the US (and, we suppose, in several other regions).

Nokia has been one of the leaders in the mobile phone business but it needs to keep an eye to the Japanese market as Japanese mobile company Willcom is now ready to give them a run for their money. Willcom's W-Zero3 WS700SH is manufactured by Sharp and is geared to compete with Nokia's Communicator series. This Windows Mobile 5.0-based phone will sport a 416MHz Intel XScale processor plus a slide-down QWERTY keyboard.

The 2.8in., 640x480 display of WS700SH can showcase up to 65,536 colors. Also packed in this Willcom phone is a 1.3 megapixel cam, 64MB RAM, 60MB Flash memory, and MIniSD slot. Aside from the Windows Mobile Microsoft bundles, Opera browser will also be squeezed into this 175g, 13.5x5.6x2.1 handset. A total of seven hours talk time and 500 hours operation in standby mode mode can be enjoyed in Willcom's WS700SH.

The W-Zero3 WS700SH will ship in black or white and will be available in Japan this July 20 for ¥29,800.

Nokia have updated their inconspicuous Linux PDA, the 770 series. It is a little known fact that Nokia's Maemo platform is a Linux-based distro; and the latest version, 2.0, introduces system level performance improvements as well as support for VoIP clients, including popular VoIP application Google Talk. System level performance improvements include bug fixes, auto-fill for the web browser, image support for the RSS reader and a brand new spanking application manager.

There's always a downside to pretty much everything in life, here's the achilles heel of Maemo 2.0. According to Nokia, the update breaks backward compatibility. "Installed applications designed for OS 2005 will not be compatible with OS 2006 edition and will not be restored even from backup,". Considering that Maemo 2.0 is currently in the beta stage, this is quite worrying. Update if you dare!

Maemo 2.0 beta can be downloaded here.

We have featured earlier about the possibility of a web-surfing device by Google and Nokia that would be enjoyed tremendously by the Nokia 770. Well, that project is still in its development stage, but the Nokia people is bringing some updates to the Nokia 770's Internet Tablet Software. This update includes small feature enhancements and corrections which provide improved performance, and it is also available for Nokia 770's European users.

To be able to take advantage of this update, check the version number of the current software on your Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, tap on the task navigator, and select Control panel > Device > About product. The update entails the following system requirements:

    * A compatible PC running
          o Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 or newer
          o Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 1 or newer
    * Nokia Connectivity Cable DKE-2 (USB) for connecting the Internet Tablet to your compatible PC
    * A fully charged battery for your Internet Tablet

When all these are met, enter your tablet's product ID which you can find  printed on the tablet's packaging or on the label underneath the tablet's battery. In order to  access the files, you must have cookies enabled on your PC.

Nokia has been busy revolutionizing the cellular phone world with great contraptions smashed with aesthetically satisfying designs and features fit for the tech-savvy. Specifically, the N9x series of the Finnish communications giant is making all the difference. The N93 is known to have a great camera whose pictures could compete to those taken by a digicam. The N91's niche is in music, and maybe it could even give mp3 players a run for their money.

But according to the grapevine, there has been some backfence talks that Nokia is busy preparing for another addition to the N9x series - this time its allegedly tagged as the N95, a dual slide phone. It seems to combine the features of the earlier mentioned N9x models because apparently, the contrpations would give you a keypad section when you move the slider downward, and give another music control panel when you move the slider upward. Cool!

Other unconfirmed features include a 5 megapixel camera using the Carl Zeiss lens with manual shutter, movie recording qith DVD quality, expandable memory thanks to Micro SDs, supports high speed HSDPA network, 3.5 mm jack for music listening, podcasting support, GPS with world maps of over 100 different countries, USB2.0 among many others. Here are some of the rumored latest Nokia innovation.

 

 

No calls, just text messages. Thus says the new rules of diplomatic engagement at the start of Finland's European Union (EU) presidency. This is not a surprising move, after all, Finland is home to the world's largest cellphone manufacturer, Nokia. It's a mobile phone-crazy country.

The new mode of communication, which was set down by Finland's foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja, hopes to bring EU closer to its constituents. With 500 scheduled meetings and a dozen summits to attend, Finnish officials will try to survive its 6-month tenure as EU chair with the help of texting. 

To keep up with the times, Tuomioja will also set up a special web blog so that reporters and citizens could keep track of the foreign minister's day-to-day activities.

With transparency in running EU being a top priority, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen promised that EU talks and negotiations would be televised in Brussels. He also said that all the names and telephone numbers of ministers will be found on the official website. Well, so much for privacy.

Finnish communications giant, Nokia, just slapped several Chinese companies with a lawsuit for allegedly manufacturing and selling copycats of Nokia's 7260 cellular phone model. The said phone model possesses legally protected industrial designs and any form of unauthorized copying and selling is punishable by law.

The Chinese phone manufacturers that were dragged by Nokia in a civil litigation are the Shenzhen Telsda Mobile Communication Industry Developing Co. Ltd and Song Xun Da Zhong Ke Electronic (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd. Both companies are based in Shenzhen, China. Aside from the two, Nokia also named Chinese mobile phones distributors, Beijing Tongwanbao Commerce & Trade Co. Ltd An Wai Avenue No. 2 Branch and Beijing Xin Tongwanbao Commerce & Trade Co. Ltd as co-defendants.

In Nokia's complaint, they are requesting the Court to order the defendants to cease manufacturing and selling of the mobile phones that copy the protected designs of the Nokia 7260. They also want the defendants to pay monetary damages and costs which may sky-rocket to alarming amounts. The lawsuit is now being handled by the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court which accepted the case filing of Nokia on June 12, 2006.

Your mobile phones might be the next game controllers in the near future. Or at least that's what New Zealand's Human Interface Technology Laboratory would want to happen.

Researchers at this new Zealand lab were able to demonstrate using a pair of Nokia Series 60 phones how cellphones can be turned into motion-detection game controllers (think: Wiimote). A game called AR Tennis (AR meaning augmented reality) was played by two people by placing a piece of paper on a table that served as the framework for the virtual space. The players then swung their phones like crazy from left to right...Okay, that was exaggeration.

The players just swung their phones like they were real tennis rackets while vibration and sound coming from the phone indicated they've hit the ball.

Developers want to be able make inexpensive and compelling AR games easily available to the average consumers, and mobile phones are the ideal platform. A lot of people have cellphones nowadays, so sharing AR games and playing with other mobile phone users via Bluetooth might really be feasible.

Researchers are currently working on identifying games that are best suited for the current generation of mobile phones with slow graphics and limited processing power. Prototype AR games for next-gen phones are also being formulated by the team.

At present, AR Tennis can be played on Nokia Series 60 phones. A little more movement aside from moving your fingers when you call or send SMS to others is always welcome. Exercise is good anyway. Just make sure you don't let the phone slip from your hand when you serve that ball on the virtual court.