Nokia will be able to customize 'everything' in Windows Phone 7, but likely won't

Nokia will be able to customize 'everything' in Windows Phone 7, but likely won't: "

Stephen Elop, in his financial and strategy briefing continuing Nokia's marathon Capital Markets Day, just posed an interesting rhetorical question: will Nokia be able to 'customize everything' on Windows Phone 7 in order to differentiate itself? 'Yes!' was Elop's ebullient proclamation, though he quickly pulled it back to say that Nokia likely won't make extensive use of this freedom to tailor Microsoft's OS. Instead, the company will be cautious and seek to maintain compatibility rather than pushing the boat out too far in tweaking the underlying software. That's a major shift for Microsoft, who forbade HTC from skinning Windows Phone 7 with Sense, something the Taiwanese company would surely have loved to do, and limited it to the introduction of a self-contained Hub. Now Nokia's saying it -- perhaps exclusively -- has been given the liberty to play around inside WP7 to its heart's content. We'll see how important that turns out to be whenever Nokia delivers its first device bearing its new smartphone OS. An insider tip tells us the current plan is to introduce such a handset by the end of 2011, potentially based on current hardware. Who's ready for Xbox Live on a future version of the N8?

Nokia N8 Ad - Virtual Game Concept

Nokia N8 Promo Ad

How Fxstudio works on N8

How it works on your phone from Framestore on Vimeo.

An Intro to Framestore

Nokia Plug and Touch turns any display into a touchscreen [Video]

Nokia Plug and Touch turns any display into a touchscreen [Video]:

Amazing app from Nokia. The Nokia Blog spotted “Plug and Touch” running on the Nokia N8, an app which basically turns any HDMI-connected display (whether HDTV, projector or something else) into a huge touchscreen.

The app takes advantage of the N8′s HDMI port, putting the Symbian^3 smartphone’s display up on your big-screen TV.  Then the handset’s 12-megapixel camera is used to keep track of where your finger is, basically working as an impromptu optical touchscreen.

Right now, it’s apparently not entirely accurate or polished, and Nokia’s people are working on the speed of responsiveness.  At some point they’re hoping that the phone itself won’t need to be clamped into place and the physical connection cut, perhaps using WiFi streaming with DLNA instead.  With more of Nokia’s high-end handsets packing HDMI connections, we’re hoping this is something that graduates from the labs and appears on shipping devices – it’s just the sort of thing Symbian needs to show people it’s still a relevant OS.

N8 Design by Community: the finished concept

Design by Community: the finished concept: "

GLOBAL – It seems like a world away from when we first unleashed Design by Community. The idea was simple. Gather your collective thoughts to create your ultimate concept device. There were limits, as there are with any design process and so we ushered you through a series of stages, tackling each element of the device’s build. With the specs refined, we handed these over to the Nokia design team to create some concept sketches. You responded in your droves, with over 18,000 votes cast to decide which of the three concepts should be turned into a final render. Oh, and you also suggested and voted for the concept’s name. Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you the Nokia U (concept device).

Check out the images below and further down you’ll find the specs you as a community came up with.

Display and user interface

Display: 4-inch capacitive 16:9

Power button, camera, zoom and volume button controls

Size and shape

Shape: Monoblock

Dimensions: 60 x 110 x 6-10mm

Extras: Auto lens cover

Materials

Material: Aluminium

Finish: Soft touch

Colour: Single colour

Durability: Super strength

Operating system

Open source operating system with unlimited multitasking.

The DbC OS 1 sports temperature and location sensors so your device constantly monitors your whereabouts and the local conditions.

Device-based storage is supported.

The majority of OS functionality responds to touch control.

Connectivity

Support for 802.11 n/b/g wireless standards.

USB 3 connectivity.

HDMI connectivity.

Cable charger.

Dolby Surround Sound.

Camera

8-megapixel

4X optical zoom

Dual LED and Xenon flash

HD video capture

Instant image capture

Enhancements

Kinetic power booster

Multiple OS support

Surround Sound Speakers

Upgradable Flash memory

Upgradable image sensor

And here she is:

"

Symbian^3 is OPEN !!!

When the Nokia N8 arrives, it will be Nokia’s first device to run Symbian^3, the Symbian Foundation’s newest mobile platform, and their first entirely open source release.

If you’ve used a Nokia smartphone in the past 10 years you’ve used Symbian, the platform that powers Nokia’s smartphones, as well as those of several other device manufacturers. With more than two-fifths of the worldwide smartphone market share, Symbian is by far the world’s most used smartphone platform. To understand just how dominant Symbian is, that means that out of all the smartphones in the world, a little less than half run Symbian, and the other half run a mobile OS from one of about four major competitors. During Q1 of 2010, roughly 260,000 Symbian devices were shipped globally every day: an average of just over 3 phones a second. Symbian^3 is the next evolution of the Symbian platform, introducing improvements and features such as HDMI support, touch gestures, and multiple, 3D-accelerated home screens (a more comprehensive feature list can be found here).

The Benefits of Being Open

Right now, you must be thinking, “Great, but how is any of this of benefit to me?” Essentially, by becoming open source, the Symbian platform will be able to evolve and improve more quickly than has been possible in the past, as anyone in the world will be able to suggest and contribute modifications or improvements to the platform. Symbian already multiple programming languages and application environments, including Qt – now it will be easier than ever to write programs for Symbian, as programmers have access to the system’s complete source code. For one, this will allow them to integrate their programs into the platform in ways not possible in a closed system. Also, by reading the source code, programmers will be able to create more cohesive and elegant code.

An open-source approach allows users to be more pro-active with their devices as well. For example, as Ovi Suite is currently Windows only, many users find it difficult to sync data between a Nokia phone and a Mac/Linux machine. Now that the codebase is open source, someone will be able to come along, look at the operating system’s sync mechanisms, and write their own solution to interface Symbian and the personal information manager of their choice.

When the Symbian Foundation released its entire codebase as open source (tens of millions of lines of code) a full four months ahead of schedule, it was an amazing feat. Here at Nokia, we’re excited about the experience that the new open source Symbian^3 platform promises to deliver on our new Nokia N8 device.

Reasons you will love Symbian^3

We’re often told not to believe everything we read in the newspapers. When it comes to smartphones, you can see why. Certain devices, it seems, are always in the news. But is the huge amount of media coverage a reflection of their sales? The simple answer is no. In the 2nd quarter of 2010, Symbian smartphones had a whopping 47.2% of the market. More Symbian devices are being shipped than ever. According to the research company Gartner, over 80 million Symbian devices were sold worldwide in 2009. Whatever way you look at it, Symbian is the world’s most popular mobile operating system.

A labour of love

Symbian^3, the latest version, was officially completed on June 17th. In the months since, Nokia’s brainboxes have been busy testing and refining to ensure it works brilliantly in the soon to be released Nokia N8 and the devices to follow. According to the Symbian Foundation there are more than 250 new features in this latest release, all of which are documented at the Forum Nokia Library. There are hundreds of pages to get through, but rather than have you trawl through them, we’ve found three developments that we think will make you fall in love with Symbian^3.

Graphics you’ll adore

Everyone loves fantastic graphics, and the Symbian^3 delivers with new graphics architecture that combines hardware acceleration and speedier software. That means an even more responsive interface, with cool added features like kinetic scrolling that’s sure to dazzle your buddies when you show off your phone. Add to that the fact the interface is programmable and you can expect developers to go crazy creating fantastic themes and apps to make your phone unique.

Multimedia you’ll lust after

Now more than ever before, our devices are multimedia centres. Symbian^3 takes this to a whole new level by supporting output to HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface). Imagine, you’ll be able show your pics or videos on television and hear sound on Dolby Digital Audio. Steven Spielberg eat your heart out! And that’s not all: the music player includes a home page widget for faster control of your song list and there’s a new Fusion Player for stored and streaming video.

Multitasking you’ll cherish

If, like us, you never seem to have enough hours in the day, you’ll know how important Symbian’s multitasking is. Well, with Symbian^3 your life is set to get even more efficient. Thanks to improved memory, you can run even more apps at the same time without running out of space. Plus, you’ll be able to use an ‘Alt-Tab’ style task switcher to move between the applications you’ve got open.

Lets see what's coming .

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