The Symbian Foundation’s announced that it would make its code open source in 2008 and has now completed the move. It means that any organisation or individual can now use and modify the platform’s underlying source code “for any purpose”. Symbian has shipped in more than 330m mobile phones, the foundation says. It believes the move will attract new developers to work on the system and help speed up the pace of improvements.

“This is the largest open source migration effort ever,” Lee Williams of the Symbian Foundation told BBC News.

“It will increase rate of evolution and increase the rate of innovation of the platform.”

Ian Fogg, principal analyst at Forrester research, said the move was about Symbian “transitioning from one business model to another” as well as trying to gain “momentum and mindshare” for software that had been overshadowed by the release of Apple’s iPhone and Google Android operating system.

Labels: Symbian, Symbian OS

Mobile leaders of the Symbian Foundation just announced that several new companies have joined them. The foundation’s new members are including Sharp, Opera and Korean Telecom, as well as a few other companies. Since June 2008, 40 companies have joined the group, including all major mobile phone maker like Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and NTT DoCoMo.



Indeed, the foundation has became more powerful. Three months ago, they announced that their intent to unite Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP to create one open mobile software platform. According to Symbian, the foundation’s platform will build on the leading mobile software platform, with more than 200 million phones, across 235 models.

Of course, this move is a kind of anticipating Google Inc’s Android’s challenge over who will dominate mobile phone software market in coming years.

Labels: Symbian

what is emTube?
- emTube is an application for Symbian S60 3rd edition phones that allows you to:
- Search and browse videos on YouTube.
- Download selected videos onto your phone.
- Stream FlashVideo files directly from YouTube.
- Play local FlashVideo files.

Other features:
- Audio and position control during playback.
- Normal and full screen (portrait and landscape mode) video playback.
- Ability to use built in accelerometer to rotate video between portrait/landscape mode.

Screenshots

Download:
emTube for Symbian s60 3rd edition
1.0.0
emTube for N95 with accelerometer support enabled.
1.0.0
libavcodec/libavutil source code including Symbian specific modifications.
1.0.0

Usage:
Documentation is available in pdf.

Labels: Nokia, Symbian

This is one really nice P3 concept by S4k1s from esato. He posted the front of the phone before but now he added the back. The phone is Cyber-shot branded and has a 6 mega pixel camera with xenon flash and a Vario Tessar lens by Carl Zeiss. Nice!

Labels: Sony Ericsson, Symbian

According to the online Sony Ericsson shop in the UK here are the release dates of the latest phones.

August
T650
K530

September
Z250

October
K850
W910

December
W960

Labels: Sony Ericsson, Symbian

Do you also have ICQ withdrawals when away from your PC? Fear no more! Now your ICQ buddies are in your pocket at the beach, pool, countryside… anywhere you have 3G, GPRS, EDGE or Wi-Fi coverage!

ICQ functions just like our other fring-integrated IM services, integrating all your ICQ buddies into your fring contact list together with your Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk and regular phonebook contacts.

So how can you start fringing with ICQ? It’s very easy!

If you’re already a fringster, go to Options –> Settings –> Configure Services, scroll down to select ICQ. Just add your ICQ number and password, and we’ll do the rest to make sure all your ICQ buddies are integrated into your fring contact list so you can start chatting & calling buddies right away!

If you’re not yet a fringster, become one download here and during your quick download process it will prompt you to add services.

Note: Depending on your handset display, the ICQ icon may not yet appear on your fring contact list. In the meantime, the fring icon will be highlighted to indicate fring or ICQ buddies.

Click for fring

Labels: Miscellaneous, Nokia, Other mobile phone brands, Sony Ericsson, Symbian

I just get all excited when I stumble upon some unboxing of a Japanese phone since it's so rare. These unboxing pics feature the 911T for Softbank made by Toshiba. It is a slider with a huge screen, 3.2 mega pixel AF camera and is DVB capable. Just looking at the screen makes me drool...the phone is gorgeous in it's ceramic white and despite it's overwhelming size...I am willing to neglect. Also what you don't see everyday is a Japanese phone compared with an out of Japan phone...in this case the N73. The 911T makes the N73 screen look tiny (and I always thought the N73 had a large screen) and the 911T just looks so much cooler. Enjoy the pics!

Labels: Miscellaneous, Nokia, Other mobile phone brands, Symbian

Long time I haven't seen this phone. This is Nokia's second DVB capable phone and like the N92...I have yet to see someone use it. The phone's design looks a lot like the N73's and the back has similar styling to new N81. I didn't notice this before but on the N77 it says Nseries on the back and now the N81 will be the second phone to have that.

Labels: Nokia, Symbian

About Long Way Down
Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman will take to the road together once more as they bike through Europe and Africa taking the Long Way Down. Along the way they will stop to experience African culture, meet local people and visit UNICEF sites. Starting at John O'Groats and finishing in Cape Town, Ewan and Charley plan on going down the East coast taking in such countries as Libya, Sudan, Ehtiopia, Rwanda and Namibia before reaching South Africa. www.longwaydown.com contains all the latest information on the trip. Producer/ Directors Russ Malkin of Big Earth and David Alexanian of Elixir films will produce the six part TV series for the BBC.

Labels: Miscellaneous, Nokia, Symbian

Some more concepts from alexandra from esato. This time a camera was added to the cameraless W950.

Labels: Sony Ericsson, Symbian

Pity they didn't give her a real N95...

Labels: Nokia, Symbian