The mobile video broadcasting space is home to a pretty interesting fight right now. Ok, maybe fight isn’t the best choice of words, or perhaps it is. There are a few big boys when it comes to live interactive video feeds streaming from a mobile handset and they are continuously trying to outdo each other. Qik has the buzz generated by many high-profile celwebrity users, Kyte is the new kid on the block entering the space with an already-substantial user base from their existing web service, and Flixwagon is the well-funded video quality leader with an exciting feature set. With the latter, things just got a whole lot more interesting as Flixwagon has just announced a new client version that brings with it a host of functionality that its competitors will surely be interested in. Take a look:

• Share on Twitter and YouTube directly from phone: you can share individual videos on twitter and YouTube directly  from your device, as well as customize the message or titles. All you need to do is add your Twitter or YouTube account details on Flixwagon.com, and then you can customize posts directly from your phone.
• Detailed sharing from device: on your device you can now easily choose which specific groups (friends, family, etc.) can access your video. Make sure you set up your contacts, groups, and alerts first on flixwagon.com and you can start sharing flix with them on the fly.
• Digital zoom-in and zoom-out.
• Post messages back to chat. You can send IM messages back to the video chat room, making chats around your video 2-way. This is especially useful when you want to respond to your viewers’ comments without interrupting the video or audio in the broadcast.
• Change title: you can now change the video title directly from the phone while broadcasting.  This is great when the ‘right’ headline comes to you while you broadcast (and can help more viewers discover your broadcast while you’re still broadcasting live).
• Choose between delay or video quality: in the preferences section you can determine whether your broadcasts will be optimized for the shortest delay, or highest video quality.

Whew! The two things of particular interest to us are digital zoom and the ability to chat while broadcasting. There are plenty of times while streaming event coverage, observation etc where typing a response to an on-screen comment is much more appropriate than speaking a response. Flixwagon also announced a few tweaks to the website such as RSS feeds that help round off this round of improvements. Definitely worth looking into.

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Ahh FP2. There’s no question that there’s plenty that Nokia’s latest flavor of S60 doesn’t address, but there’s also plenty it does address. Remember the SSU functionality we just spoke about in our post on Diablo? Well it’s not just for Tablets! Feature Pack 2 brings with it Seamless Software Updating (SSU) that allows users to update pieces of the operating system without the need for a full flash. What does this mean for N78 owners? It means you can update your firmware without losing your data! This initial OTA update is a minor release but we ran the update earlier and confirm that it went perfectly with no data loss whatsoever. Firmware version 11.043 change log highlights:

• Improved Bluetooth stability
• Improved Music Player stability
• Improved Camera performance
• Naviscroll performance tweaks

The only other thing we’ve noticed so far is that the maximum display brightness has been turned down a few clicks. We liked the bright display but the simple fact that we’ve now confirmed lossless software updating works is more than enough reason to go through with it.

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Oooooh Android. Things are not going well for you lately. First the Wall Street Journal reports that your release has been delayed and now Symbian, the most popular Smartphone Operating System in the world, will be opening up. Open?!? That was totally your thing! Well maybe not It’s ok, don’t worry; you’ve still got the Google juice going for you. Nokia has made a few major announcements this morning with regards to the heavyweight title holder that is Symbian. First and foremost, 48% ownership is not going to cut it anymore. Nokia will soon pony up €264 million ($412 million at today’s exchange rate) for the remaining 52% of Symbian to become the sole owner. Then what? Nokia has also announced the formation of a new organization: the Symbian Foundation. Foundation members currently include AT&T (huh?), LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, and more. The foundation will be the backbone of efforts with regards to creating “the most proven, open and complete mobile software platform - available for free”. The acquisition of Symbian is expected to be completed in Q4 of this year and it will likely be at least another year or so before we see the tree bear some fruit. We can’t wait.

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Just a few days before Apple dishes the official skinny on the upcoming 3G iPhone and puts an end to all of the rumors, photoshops and speculations (thankfully), S60 has issued an updated video showcasing the upcoming S60 Touch UI. You’ll recognize plenty of the content from the original clip they released, but tons of additional demo footage has been added and we get to see a whole lot more of the UI. Nice. From a visual standpoint plenty is still vanilla S60 but now that more of the UI is visible we can see several nice additions and refinements. Actually, the updated OS is looking pretty sweet. Of concern however, is the part of the video where the woman opens the browser and accesses YouTube. You can see a close up of the YouTube page as the woman drags her finger downward to scroll down (2:06). No, no, no. This is fine if you’re dragging a scrollbar because the scrollbar will be following your finger while page content moves in the opposite direction. It you’re touching the page content itself however, the screen needs to move with your finger and never against it. If you place a piece of paper on a desk and drag it around with your finger, the paper is not going to move away from your body as you drag your finger towards your body. Counterintuitive.

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It looks like the changing of the guard may happen sooner than some would have thought. According to the play.com shop, Nokia’s N96 will begin shipping on July 31st for a whopping £600 or $1,185 as of today’s exchange rate. It will be interesting to see what price point it gets in the US, but our friends across the pond may end up saving money by flying over here to snag one. Ok, maybe not. The N96 as you know, is the peppy heir to the flagship Nseries throne and will be the second Feature Pack 2 device issued by Nokia. It’s a multimedia powerhouse with stunning specs, a solid design and a shiny new chipset that should help tremendously with power consumption. We’re very excited to check this sucker out. The big question of course: Does the N96 build nicely upon the precedent set by the N95 8GB or just basically repackage it? With details like up to 32 GB of memory, Feature Pack 2 and plenty more, we’re thinking the former might just be the case.

[Via S60 Blogger]

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Samsung used the S60 Summit in Barcelona Spain today to announce a new S60 slider that has the blogosphere talking. With a sexy brushed steel face, a slender physique and RAZR-esque flush keypad, the L870 is bound to turn some heads once released. The specs aren’t too shabby either:

• HSDPA (2100MHz) 3.6Mbps + EDGE/GPRS 900/1800/1900
• 2.4 inch QVGA 16M Color TFT display
• 3 megapixel Camera
• Symbian 9.3 (S60 Feature Pack 2)
• Safari browser (huh?)
• New Thematic UI
• Advanced PIM Applications
• Music Player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, RA, AMR, WMA)
• Video Player (H.263 + AMR, MPEG4, Real One, WMV)
• FM Radio (RDS)
• Bluetooth v.2.0 EDR / USB 2.0 (Full Speed)
• Memory: 100MB internal memory + microSDHC support
• Size: 103.5 x 50.5 x 13.5mm

Of course the L870 lacks US 3G compatibility and GSM 850 MHz so we can’t say we’re overly excited, but this is a sharp handset regardless. Maybe someday Samsung will decide to issue an S60 smartphone with a little US love. Until then, moving along. Oh and we sincerely hope Nokia makes note of the fact that this is an S60 handset sporting USB 2.0…

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Hot on the heels of the N95 NAM, the N95 8GB NAM has just received a firmware refresh courtesy of Nokia. The changes? You guessed it; just about the same as all the other v20 firmware out there, although N95-4 owners already had much of the functionality N95 NAM users had been waiting for. After a false start of sorts last month we have to wonder if the N95 8GB NAM update wasn’t delayed until one day after the N95 NAM update in order to avoid the public outcry that would have ensued. In any event, start backing up your 8GBs and get ready to have a blast manually reinstalling all those apps! The speed and performance improvements brought about by v20 firmware should make it worth your while though. We just wish Nokia could nail the updating thing already. The process should be a 10-minute cake walk, not a 4-hour endeavor…

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S60 people, stop drooling over the E71 for a few minutes so that we can give you some important news. Remember how we reported on the guy from Nokia stated that the new v20 firmware for the N95 NAM would be out in early June? Yeah, he totally lied. Ok, maybe he didn’t lie and plans were just changed a bit. As of early this morning the updated firmware is available for all to enjoy, possibly to celebrate Memorial Day. Whatever the case may be, it’s taken entirely too long but it’s here so back up your phone and get to flashing. Some noted improvements:

• Flash Lite 3 support
• Faster bootup
• Faster camera load time
• Integrated Search
• Demand paging
• No ASR
• N-Gage demos

So there you have it; better than any Memorial Day sale we can think of. Hit the Nokia Software Updater and get rolling.

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So there’s this phone called the Nokia E71. It magically showed up on our doorstep yesterday (shout out to FedEx Sameday!) and was begging for us to review it. Well, we’re not going to disappoint you. In fact, there will be no disappointment at all as you’ll see in our review. The Nokia E71 has officially entered the ring, and it’s coming out fighting. Spoiler Alert: we love this phone. Full review is after the break!

Design:

Obviously this is subjective, but this could really be one of the sexiest damn phones we’ve seen in a very long time. We could do without the tacky pattern on the back battery cover, but we’ll let it slide this time. The entire phone is chrome and while it’s definitely a fingerprint magnet (just have your assistant wipe it down for you) it looks really sharp in person. Everything is proportionate and sort of just works well together. The middle select key actually serves as the notification light, too. So when you have a missed event, the border around the middle key will glow white until you cleared the event, or until the expiration time you set for the notification light expires. It’s a nice touch and a creative way to get rid of the annoying older-fashioned status light. Oh yeah…did we mention this thing is thin? Seriously, we don’t know how they did it. Especially with everything that’s packed in here…man, that BlackBerry Bold is just huge compared to this. Everyone is going to have to step it up after this because as of now, we can’t find one single thing Nokia sacrificed to make the device this thin and compact.

Screen:

There’s a 320×240 screen on the E71 and it looks very sharp. It’s not as bright as the N95, but it’s very clear and easy on the eyes. Screen real estate isn’t a problem at all as we find it more pleasurable to use than an N95. Pictures and video look very detailed and clean. There’s a decent amount of contrast when looking at media, and you’ll especially appreciate the screen during some heavy web browsing.

Connectivity:

The world must be changing. Remember when Nokia would hold every single feature above your head and never give you the perfect phone? Well, we’re finally getting past that. We’re not positive if there’s support for the 2100MHz band here, so for now, we’ll assume it doesn’t have it and there will be a US NAM model, and European model. In terms of the hard connectivity specs, you’ve got a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone with 850MHz/1900MHz UMTS/HSDPA support, Wi-Fi 802.11 a,b,g, Bluetooth 2.0, and GPS. Like most recent Nokia’s, the GPS is assisted by the network, but fret not because there still is a physical GPS chip in here.

Sound:

Like the E61 and E61i before it, the E71 houses a single speaker in the upper left of the phone. It seems louder than the E61 and it’s pretty clear for ringtones and alert sounds. Music sounds fine on it, but it’s not perfect. Bass is seriously lacking and you do get a “tinny” sort of sound. It is very, very loud, though, so you can be sure that alarm is going to get your ass out of bed in the morning.

Email:

What good would an E-Series device be without email? Besides the normal POP3/IMAP supported protocols, Nokia’s Mail For Exchange comes with the device out of the box and is incredibly easy to setup. The handset supports BlackBerry Connect (though we didn’t actually try it) and we’d imagine Goodlink as well. The messaging application had a little bit of a visual makeover, and it’s for the better. Text is extremely readable and emails look great. We’d have loved to see support for HTML email, but oh well.

Keyboard:

If there had to be one negative to the E71 (relax, it’s not the end of the world) it’s going to be the keyboard. Again, not a huge deal, but if we had to pick one thing to single out it’s the keyboard and it quite possibly won’t bother you. It did annoy us, though. Think of the physical keys on the E71 the same as the E61, just a lot smaller. They’re also not as squishy which is nice, and they’re pretty easy to press once you get it down. Our issue is, again, Nokia has not learned the basic keyboard layout and we personally can’t stand it. On a normal QWERTY keyboard the letter “z” is not directly under the letter “a”. It’s either under the letter “s” or somewhere in between the two. This makes typing a royal bitch if you’re not looking directly at the keyboard and is totally unnecessary. All they had to do is stick the damn period key in front of the “z” key and all would be well. Again, this might not be a big deal to you if you’re coming from a QWERTY E-Series already, but for us hardcore freaks who bang away constantly on the keyboard, we’d like the normal layout that’s used on basically every other QWERTY phone on the planet. Fix it please, Nokia. The keys have a nice white backlighting which makes them very easy to read. Just like the other models, the actual keys don’t light up, just the letters and symbols which makes for a very clean and sexy look.

Something also interesting is the inclusion of predictive text on here. You might be thinking why you’d ever need predictive text when you’ve got a QWERTY keyboard, but it actually helps more than it gets in the way. It sort of works like how the iPhone does. If you’re typing fast and accidentally misspell a word but keep typing and hit the space bar, it will auto correct and suggest that word for you. It can also save you a good amount of typing time as it will suggest words for you when you are halfway through them and a simple press of the space bar selects the suggested word and keeps you moving.

Expandability:

There’s a microSD card slot right above the microUSB port on the handset, so you should be able to expand the memory of the phone to the largest microSD card you can find. We haven’t checked data transfer speeds to the memory card over USB yet, but we’re assuming it’s on par with the rest of the Nokias.

Call quality:

Nokia and call quality go together like ham and burger. Kool-Aid and sugar. The E71 doesn’t disappoint. We’ve had such a pleasurable experience with it that we’ve been calling people randomly just to talk on the phone. In all seriousness, it meets or exceeds what we’ve come to expect and love from Nokia. A phone that excels as a phone, as it should. It actually went toe-to-toe with our BlackBerry Curve in terms of holding onto a signal in low coverage areas. And all you BlackBerry lovers out there know that RIM makes one hell of a cell radio in those things.

Battery:

There’s a 1500mAh battery in the E71, and with a full day of heavy use like constant email, phone calls, web browsing, and all around messing with the phone, we’ve still got around 2 bars left. There should be no concern with the battery life here.

Conclusion:

We’re at the end of the review, but by now, you’ve seen how impressed we are with the phone. It takes a lot to get us excited but the E71 has done it. This thing, in our opinion, is the best phone Nokia has made to date. That’s a very bold statement, we know. But this really is going to be the phone to beat by a lot of manufacturers. From the design, to the specs, to the size, the feel — it has the entire package. It’s not for everyone, though. Some people prefer a straight up phone like a flip phone, but in terms of a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard, this takes the cake. It is just striking compared to the shit device the E61 was. It’s ok, we still love y’all that carry the E61, but this puts it to shame. One thing I personally can’t get over is the awesome dimensions of the device. It’s so perfectly thin, yet incredibly comfortable to hold and use. We just hope Nokia doesn’t wait too long to bring this to market as they need to strike now. Like right now. This second. After seeing all of the detailed shots and our impressions, how do you guys feel about the phone? Are you foaming at the mouth waiting for it or ice-grillin’ us?

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Developer Morten Hjerde was inspired by the upcoming Nokia Tube 5800 and built an interesting concept for an intuitive music player with some concepts that will surely be utilized in future media interfaces. Dubbed “Flat Music Player”, Hjerde’s design makes use of album artwork and the touch interface to create an experience that adapts so the user’s needs and eliminates antiquated text lists and menus. As he puts it, “The core idea here is to use the content itself as the interface.” As simple as it sounds, this concept goes great lengths towards making the user interface more streamlined and intuitive. So kudos to Hjerde; maybe if Nokia brings him on as a consultant we could see a music player on a Nokia handset some day that doesn’t look like it came from the first wave of MP3 players.

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It’s my first day back but that’s not stopping us from bringing you guys a little hardcore Nokia action! We’ve got a Nokia E71 in hand and we’ve got to say, this thing is nice. It’s the perfect size — a cross between the Nokia E51 and E61 — and it’s built like a tank. Did we mention that it has US 3G bands? Oh, ok then. The keyboard is going to take some getting used to, but it’s worlds better than the old E61 and E61i. Also, this bad beast of an Eseries is thin, and thin is in folks. It is noticeably thinner than the reigning thin smart phone champ, the iPhone. All in all, we can’t seem to put this thing down. Our resident S60 nut Zach confirmed to us that the E71 will definitely be launching with the US 3G bands, so we’re just going to have to do a little bit of waiting game to see when this is finally released. In terms of specs, the E71 we have is a quad-band GSM EDGE phone with 850MHz/1900MHz UMTS/HSDPA. It’s rocking a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, Wi-Fi and GPS. We’re putting our full review together and we’re doing a video walkthrough but in the meantime, hang tight and hit the gallery. We’ve got some shots of the E71 with the N95 8GB and iPhone so you can really see the size of the thing.

Click on over to our Nokia E71 hands on gallery!

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Meet Scrooge McNokia. He loves his recently-launched N-Gage platform because it does an amazing job of putting access to payware games in the hands of countless S60 device owners. It couldn’t be easier for them to fire up N-Gage on their handset and fork over some cash for a few titles from the ever-increasing N-Gage catalog. McNokia even worked out a few deals with top gaming labs Electronic Arts and Konami to include top notch titles that no mobile gamer can refuse. Already garnering acclaim across the internet, N-Gage popularity is growing every day as more compatible handsets are released. All this should give McNokia enough gold coins keep him swimming for years to come, right? He wouldn’t try to milk his customers for even more would he? Oh yes, he would. Despite information presented by N-Gage reps at Nokia’s Go Play event last year, we are now learning that N-Gage titles are not - we repeat, not - transferable from one device to another. Reps at Go Play clearly stated that N-Gage purchases would be tied to a profile rather than a specific handset. It only makes sense; after all, a customer who ditches one Nokia handset to purchase another Nokia handset is the prefect customer! But no, word is now coming through that despite initial info from the N-Gage team, purchases are locked to a device’s IMEI. Buying a new handset means you’ll have to either repurchase all of your N-Gage titles or simply lose them. The only known caveat to this point applies to handsets with manufacturer defects that are exchanged by Nokia customer care. Makes you think twice before clicking that purchase button…

[Via Symbian-Guru]

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No, the graphics won’t be quite as sweet as pictured above. All the same, S60 gamers are very excited to learn as of this morning that Nokia and Konami are officially teaming up. The partnership will bring a variety of popular high-quality Konami titles to Nokia’s N-Gage portable gaming platform, first and foremost is a mobilized version of the extremely popular Metal Gear Solid game. The award-winning Konami title takes players through an epic packed full of espionage and covert ops, but you already knew that. Creator of the Metal Gear Solid franchise Hideo Kojima states:

I believe that this cooperation between Nokia and Konami will form the perfect match to share the vast potential of mobile entertainment content with users all around the world.

Gregg Sauter, Director of Third Party Games Publishing at Nokia adds:

We’re excited to see Konami tap into the performance and community features we’ve built into the N-Gage platform… Metal Gear Solid on N-Gage will raise the bar with respect to graphical detail and made-for-mobile features. We look forward to the launch of this great franchise on N-Gage.

Right on; quite a pair indeed. Nokia’s N-Gage platform has a vast reach to say the least and Konami titles will only enhance the already-solid offering that is N-Gage. Electronic Arts, Konami… We have to wonder who’s next!

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We’re really not sure that this one has any weight to it all, but word is buzzing around the Symbian blogosphere in response to an assertion that S60 may be looking to TAT to help it modernize the UI. The rumors began in a forum and so far there hasn’t been much if any evidence to support this theory, but it would certainly be in line with the direction that S60 needs to go. Not that TAT’s Kastor UI is anything overly special, but this would go a long way in showing us that Nokia does in fact know that the look and movement of S60 is a bit antiquated. If the Kastor UI does make it to the S60 platform in one way or another, expect heavy customization as the UI shown in the screenshots above (and in this video) are hardly reminiscent of Nokia’s look or feel at all. It shows a great deal of potential though; Kastor’s smooth movement and focus on movement and transitions would go a great way to modernize the user’s experience with S60. We have heard that a lot of work has been going into this area of the user experience lately, but only time will tell. Note that the video in the post linked below is a mash up of the core Kastor UI and parts of TAT’s customized UI framework called Cascades. It is unclear if the rumor encompasses just Kastor or Cascades as well but we assume since the article makes no mention of Cascades, it was included by mistake.

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We had heard from our own sources that the firmware update would be available by the end of this month but since this statement was issued publicly, we’ll run with it. According to a Nokia support forum administrator, N95 NAM (N95-3) owners will soon be able to wipe those tears off of their tired faces. The long-awaited and highly anticipated firmware update is finally going to be issued by Nokia in early June. The following statement is from the Nokia Software Update team:

Nokia is aware of consumers’ demand for a new software release, and our development teams are working to produce the new software as soon as possible. We estimate that the new software should be available early June.

Please note that your mobile service provider, operator, or carrier may not have approved the latest Nokia device firmware available. Nokia produces many different variants of each product (for different countries and languages) and not all variants will have the latest Nokia device firmware. It is our priority to update all variants as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any delay.

To say that the update has taken an incredibly long time would be an amazing understatement. Of course many of us have moved on to the N95 8GB NAM so none of this matters anyway. While the official change log is unavailable, we can expect the new firmware to support demand paging, web runtime and all the other goodies that other N95 variants have been enjoying for a while. Sweet.

[Via Symbian-Guru]

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This could be one of the hottest UIQ devices… Ever! Spy shots of the Sony Ericsson Paris (P5i) made the rounds a while back but this is the first time we’re seeing crystal clear live pictures of this hotty, and we’re in love. Slim form, sleek styling, finger and stylus-operated 2.8" touchscreen; it’s all good. The Paris will run UIQ 3.2 supported by a 360 MHz CPU. Integrated GPS, WiFi, UMTS and an M600-style keypad are just a few of the highlights that we’re really loving. And let’s not forget the 5 megapixel camera that we know will be solid Sony Ericsson quality. Still no word on a firm release date for the Paris but we’ll keep an eye peeled as we’re definitely looking forward to getting our hands on one.

[Via Unwired View]

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Ok seriously, we want it. Italian mobile site Cellulare-Magazine managed to get their hands on the N96 and popped a sweet 10-minute hands-on video up on YouTube. This thing gets sexier every time we see it. Solid build, smooth lines, sleek case and form factor; it’s all good. Cellulare-Magazine does a pretty good job touring this prototype and it’s definitely worth a watch if you’re interested in seeing where Nokia flagship devices are headed. They left some cool stuff out of the video however, such as showcasing the dedicated multimedia keys that illuminate to the left of the screen when a media player is accessed. Rotate the device 180 degrees and open N-gage (or "N-gadget" as the narrator says) and gaming buttons are illuminated giving the N96 a classic "dpad on the left, buttons on the right" gaming configuration. The narrator also mentions that the handset includes tri-band UMTS with US-compatible frequencies, but then lists only European frequencies so we’re still a bit unclear in that department. Either way, that 950 mAh battery is going to last about 45 minutes if you plan to make solid use of UMTS. Hey, that’s why Proporta makes battery packs we suppose…

[Via All About Symbian]

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One of the biggest and most common complaints when it comes to S60 is the way that data connections are handled. For those who haven’t had an S60 handset, it’s pretty bad. Each connection path is stored as an individual Access Point (AP). Applications that need internet connectivity to operate most often have one and only one AP defined within the app settings. This means that users who pass through multiple WiFi networks for example, can only define one WiFi AP in an application’s settings. S60 tried to solve the problem by implementing AP Groups on some Eseries devices but only allowed a handful of OEM applications to access the groups. Crazy, we know. All that has changed as of this morning however, and we have the team at Psiloc to thank. Its latest application, a utility called Psiloc Connect, creates a new AP on your S60 device. Any app that uses the new Psiloc Connect AP will first try to connect through WiFi and will search for all WiFi APs, not just one. If no WiFi is available, the app will then connect through 3G / EDGE / GPRS or not at all if you configure Psiloc Connect to use WiFi only. Fantastic. This is how data should work on a mobile handset and it’s pretty crazy that it doesn’t on S60. Let the device worry about connecting via the fastest available data network and leave the user and individual applications out of it.

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Just three days ago we told you about the security issues with iSkoot’s S60 application that were discovered over this past  weekend. We still don’t like the way that iSkoot handles Skype calling - using a data connection for updates and chat along with a voice connection, cellular minutes and Skype credit for voice calling - but we have to give them credit. In less than a week since its security issues were outted, iSkoot has issued an update that [re]implements SSL encryption to secure most of the data flow. Any data of a sensitive nature is covered and only some non-personal data is sent through in the clear. If only all developers responded so quickly! Kudos, iSkoot.

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It’s only Tuesday and this has already been quite a week for mobile software updates. Sling Media is continuing the trend with some solid new updates of its oh-so-great SlingPlayer Mobile application. The lucky platforms? Windows Mobile PocketPC, Windows Mobile Smartphone and Symbian S60. Here are some highlights:

• Added support for additional handsets (Nokia N95 8GB, Samsung i760, Treo 500v and more)
• Improved video streaming quality on select handsets (Sprint HTC Mogul for example)
• Added support for additional set-top box models and improved control on some currently supported models
• Added new channel favorite logos
• A few additional behind the scenes tweaks

Of course the upgrade is free for current SlingPlayer Mobile users so definitely hit the read link to fire up the latest builds. If you have a compatible smartphone and a Slingbox but haven’t made the leap yet, you’ll be happy to know there’s a generous 30-day trial; definitely worth checking out. Also of note, the BlackBerry and Symbian UIQ versions of the player are still under development and are slated for release later this year.

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We’ve been waiting for a long time for this update and it’s finally here! What was likely already the best music player / recommendation service available, MyStrands Social Player, has just received a major revision and trust us when we tell you, you can’t get it installed soon enough. The newly renamed Strands team has outdone themselves, and there are three key highlights to take note of:

• New native S60 application and Java version (S40-optimized) released!
• New Player UI - vastly improved interface, better controls
• Scrobbling support! Send track data to Last.fm as you listen

The post on the Strands Blog includes links to download both the native S60 app as well as the Java app. Now there’s really no reason why you can’t enjoy the complete interactive experience that Social Player provides on any Nokia (or other) device. Kudos to Strands!

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If for some reason you enjoy draining your cellular minutes and your Skype credit simultaneously while making Skype calls from your S60 handset (even for calls to your Skype contacts!), you probably use iSkoot instead of the true MoIP solutions offered by fring. Ok that’s fine, we all have our crosses to bear. You might be interested to learn however, that a serious security flaw was recently uncovered in the way iSkoot transmits your credentials. To make a long story short, it forgoes all encryption and passes all information including user name and password data in the clear. Yikes! The discovery was made over the weekend by popular Nokia blogger Phoneboy, and evidence in the form of tcpdump records provided indisputable evidence. iSkoot promptly responded to the post and claimed that a "non-production version" of the S60 client had accidentally made its way onto its site for public download. It also insisted that versions other than the native S60 client were not affected. We’re not clear on why an internal test version was signed with a public certificate but whatever the case may be, iSkoot users with S60 handsets should probably seek an alternative solution until an update is issued; especially if public WiFi is used frequently while iSkooting.

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Some might say the fact that the S60 3rd Edition OS took so long to crack is an impressive feat in itself. At this point however, it doesn’t matter. Fueled by the restrictions of Symbian Signed, last month S60 3rd got its first taste of hacker love as protected system files became accessible and the Symbian Signed certificate-checking process was circumvented. This was a huge deal to many of course, because it granted easier access to applications built by small developers who didn’t want to pay to have their apps signed or wait through the long arduous freeware signing process. Until recently, Symbian Signed allowed just about anyone to obtain a personal certificate in order to make these "unsigned" applications installable on a personal handset. When Symbian Signed decided to limit personal certificates to developers only, hackers weren’t having it. Fast forward to yesterday and it’s pretty much game over for the time being. A Russian hacker named ZoRn has developed what he is calling ROMpatcher. In a nutshell, ROMpatcher does exactly what the name dictates; it allows you to quickly and relatively easily apply patches to the ROM on S60 devices. For the time being there are only a few patches available which essentially just a few tasks that already existed (access to protected directories, circumvent certificate check) but now that the flood gates are open, expect the water to start roaring soon enough. S60 handset owners, what do you think? Are you planning on taking advantage of ROMpatcher?

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Regarding recent rumors that Nokia may be ditching the current Webkit-based browser found on S60 devices, Peter Harbeson of S60 clears the air:

OK, (ouch) everybody out there (bonk) in the blogosphere just (oof) take a deep (splat) breath! We are not backing away from Webkit no matter what you might have read on one of those new-fangled "website" things…

Harbeson goes on to explain that the focus of the browser team has shifted as of late. S60’s labors with regards to the Tiger branch of the Webkit project have laid idle while attention was turned toward the newer Leopard branch. Development related to Nokia’s recent acquisition of Trolltech is also cited as one of several projects requiring attention from the browser team. Long story short, they’re just busy. So there you have it: Webkit it is.

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Love it or hate it, the S60 Browser can be found on more smartphones in the world than any other browser. It was the first Webkit implementation to be so widely adopted and it played an enormous role in opening the eyes of the masses to "real web on a mobile phone". As other popular browsers such as Opera Mini and mobile Safari (also based on Webkit) have adopted the concept of displaying real web content as well, the S60 Browser has remained essentially static as far as end user experience is concerned. Today we learn that we’re not the only ones with our eyebrows raised. Eric Seidel of Webkit recently posted an open inquiry to Nokia after noticing that no one had checked in on the S60 project in over eight months. The response he received from Nokia didn’t provide any specifics, but a Nokia employee kindly closed all related bug reports and noted that if any additional cleanup was required he could be contacted. So where does that leave the S60 Browser? Obviously Nokia isn’t leaving the mobile browser game any time soon. After all, Nokia is an Internet Company now. Can we expect a new breed of browser on S60 handsets in the not-so-distant future?

[Via atmaspheric endeavors]

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Qik users rejoice! The video life-streaming service provider has just announced the addition of some sweet new add-ons to its increasingly-popular service. For those unfamiliar with Qik, it’s an application-based solution that allows users to stream high quality video from an S60 handset. Fans can tune in live while users are streaming and post comments that will pop up on the Qikker’s display while streaming. Very nifty service. The only catch has been that viewers must be on a desktop / laptop in order to watch videos and post comments. All that has just changed though! Well actually, half of that has just changed. Qik just launched a new WAP site that allows users to search for and watch Qik videos from almost any handset capable of .3gpp playback. WAP site features:

• View and play the latest Qiks
• Search for Qikkers’ profiles and play their Qiks
• Login and play your own videos
• Change Title and Privacy settings of your Qiks

Users still can’t play live streams on a mobile or post comments of course, but this is definitely a great start. From what we’ve heard, Qik may currently be working on a solution that would allow live stream viewing on certain mobiles but it’s unclear if the solution would include the ability to comment. We doubt it. In the meantime, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

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Zumobi calls it a widget-driven "zooming user interface" and we call it a cool and inventive way to interact with your handset. This advertising-backed UI enhancement is 100% free to users under the current model and is already available for Windows Mobile devices. For those unfamiliar with the application, it essentially provides a widget service that allows users to drill down on content tiles using a touchscreen or keypad. There are currently about 100 widgets available and once set up, Zumobi updates in the background so that content is always fresh and waiting. Widgets even provide live content pre-zoom, so for example your stocks widget will display a fresh quote for the first stock in your portfolio before you even touch your device to interact with the application. We had the chance to chat with Zumobi at CTIA and we were pretty impressed with the direction the company is headed in. Having launched only a month and a half ago, the Zumobi folks have already accomplished two great feats: They’ve landed their first carrier deal and they’ve achieved native status on Windows Mobile 6.1. This means that any manufacturer utilizing the newest variant of the Windows Mobile OS on a device can easily opt to include the Zumobi product as OEM. The app is quite attractive to all three parts of the mobile equation; it provides a great launch point / content-delivery experience to users, a nice unique option that can draw attention and advertising revenue to manufacturers, and an ad and data revenue-driving product to carriers. If you’re not packing a Windows Mobile device, don’t fret just yet. We spoke to Zumobi about its future plans and we’re happy to report that Zumobi plans to issue a BlackBerry client as soon as next month. A java client will then follow and we might even see a native S60 client in the coming months. With all the major bases covered, expect to be seeing a lot more from Zumobi as it continues to expand its reach and content.

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Admit it, as much as you love your Nseries you would gladly trade it in this second for a QWERTY S60 handset that was just as capable spec-wise. It’s ok, so would we. We know it’s coming down the road but we need something to tide us over in the meantime. T9 is terrible as far as text input goes, but there are a few other options. Our favorite by far is Adaptxt. It’s been around for a while on Windows Mobile devices and a few months ago S60 users got their first taste of true predictive goodness. For those who don’t know, Adaptxt is an intuitive text entry system that not only predicts words for you, it learns how you write and predicts the current word as you type, the next word, phrases and even sentences. It really is a fantastic app. The initial release had some issues that lead to the application being pulled for a while, during which time Keypoint tweaked the app to work a lot better with third-party applications among other things. The result is a brand new version arriving just in time for CTIA. The new version is dubbed beta but don’t be fooled, our tests have gone very well for the past few days. What’s more, Adaptxt is a payware application but while the new release is in beta it is available for free during the trial period. Not for the standard seven-day trial mind you, we’re talking a full 90 days of free Adaptxt love. Granted, you’ll know you can’t be without it after 24 hours but hey, free is never a bad thing.

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Austrian developers Alexander Erifiu and Mario Grammer have dumped previous projects WiiConnect and WiiRider to put out an exciting new application dubbed mobiPad. Perhaps the choice of name is a bit odd, but the app itself is quite exciting. With mobiPad, S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3 users alike can connect a Wii remote to their handset and control device operation with the remote. Badass! The app itself is essentially a bluetooth driver that enables the handset to connect to a Wiimote via bluetooth and decipher commands related to key presses on the remote. The Wii nunchuck is not currently supported but it is planned for future versions along with a variety of cool new features such as the ability to define custom key mapping. The app is Symbian Signed and available for download from the developer’s site as freeware. Got a Wiimote? Got an S60 or UIQ handset? To say that mobiPad enhances your mobile gaming (and other) experience is a huge understatement. Definitely check it out, and hit the FAQ on the developers’ site for key mapping details.

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Our buddies over at MyFrame have been busy little beavers lately and this morning we finally found out what they’ve been up to. For those who aren’t familiar with MyFrame’s Flixwagon service, it is mobile streaming application that allows S60 handsets to stream video in real-time to the Flixwagon site. Viewers can comment during a broadcast and each comment will be displayed on the broadcaster’s screen. Once posted, videos can then be embedded to any site with a simple copy / paste of some code. You remember, the app MTV used for live Super Tuesday coverage. So what has MyFrame been up to these days? First and foremost, FliXee. FliXee is a customizable widget that can be embedded on just about any blog or website as well as many social networks and the like. Once embedded, users have the ability to broadcast directly from their mobile to the widget. That’s right, real-time high-quality video streaming right to your site of choice. What’s more, Flixwagon now allows users to automatically upload videos to a YouTube channel as well! MyFrame continues to expand its Flixwagon service at an alarming rate and if you have an S60 handset, there’s really no excuse for not having checked the service out.

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