Video: Bright Sparks. Supported by Nokia

Using the Nokia N8, Nokia challenged 80 creative bright sparks around the world to create an advert in 48 hours for Global Angels, a charity for disadvantaged children across the world. These creatives are called Young Lions, and the competition is part of Cannes Lions 2011, a festival that celebrates creativity.

As well as supplying N8s, tripods, steadycams, macro lenses were also provided.

Here was the winning advert. Unfortunately not in 720p. But good idea.Omar Sotomayor and Gastón Soto.

Winners and Losers of the Nokia-Microsoft “alliance”

So a lot has been made about this ‘alliance” (I hate that word) a lot of negative comments mainly from the Nokia enthusiasts side and also employees and developers that work on Symbian. Nokia and Microsoft make this sound like the best thing since sliced bread but the markets don’t seem to agree, because of the time I am writing this post Nokia’s shares have tanked 12%.

With that in mind I decided to compare the losers and winners of this supposed alliance to, so here it goes :

Winners:

Microsoft: Of course they are one of the biggest winners in this, they get Ovi Maps for FREE which Eldar has claimed on Twitter. It will most likely be rebranded as Microsoft or Bing maps and other WP7 OEM’s will be allowed to use it for FREE !!!!! WTF NOKIA They will probably troll though Nokia’s huge patent portfolio and grab what they can, they also get Nokia’s hardware expertise, which is second to none basically I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft bought Nokia for cheap in a few years.

Samsung : Samsung must be celebrating hard right now, it is obvious now that they will become the largest Handset maker in the world and dethrone Nokia, because the transition that is taking place from Symbian to WP7 will simply take too long for Nokia to respond. I don’t think Nokia will retake that crown either, there is no way. During the transition period no one will buy a Symbian device it would suicide. I personally wouldn’t recommend any Nokia devices until we see some WP7 phone’s, which I am not holding my breath for either.

Apple: Well what can I say Steve Jobs is obviously laughing right now, they have accomplished what they couldn’t do to Microsoft in the PC race which is to disrupt the market place and basically kill Symbian and Nokia couldn’t counter attack. Microsoft counter attacked Apple in the PC business buy just spending bucket loads of money. There is a real possibility that the Mobile OS game is between iOS and Android actually scratch that it already is, the rest will have small shares if they are lucky.

Google : Despite Gartners claims that Symbian is still the worlds most used OS, Android will take that next week maybe, I mean who is going to buy a Symbian device now ?!?!?! Would you recommend one to your friends or family, I know I wouldn’t so yeah Symbian’s market share will completly evaporate sadly. Developers also will have no interest and move on to iOS and Android.

Eldar Murtazin : For years this guy has been doing the best job possible for his employers Samsung and he has succeeded in a way, Samsung’s path to becoming the biggest handset maker is too easy to screw up now, just sell more Galaxy S variants and you are there.

Losers:

Intel: I sort of feel sorry for them remember their alliance with Nokia at last MWC ?……..yeah that went well. An analyst called MeeGo the biggest Tech Joke right know and I made fun of him, but do you know what it is a frackin joke and don’t want to see it anymore Nokia where never interested in it they toyed with it but their execution was amateurish. Oh yeah and where do Intel go from here they are sort of struggling in the tablet and Smartphone are only time will tell…..

Symbian, Qt, MeeGo: Man I feel sorry for every developer that has worked their bums off of getting apps to work for Symbian which was always harder than any other platform. I was very interested in developing for Nokia using Qt but that will not anymore. Whats more annoying is the thousands of Symbian and MeeGo engineers working at Nokia that will get the boot now, how many of those people had amazing ideas that where put forward but where rejected by effin corporate bureaucracy, thats what drove Nokia to Microsofts arms in the end. We can sort of blame ourselves a bit  as well, I mean we where sooooo convinced that MeeGo was going to be amazing and the new UI on Symbian will be hit, but in the end we where thinking with our hearts rather than our heads, it was never going to work with Nokia at the helm any other company would have executed that strategy perfectly and on time. Nokia’s snail pace development is shocking put that together with Microsoft and you will have something that is truly the laughing stock of the market.

Nokia fans: How can we ever believe that Nokia where actually going to execute the whole Symbian/MeeGo ecosystem together with Qt, it was so good to be true and we believed them, but I wish we hadn’t the number of times Nokia have promised and not delivered is beyond believe. Remember the first Maemo 6 device with an iconic user interface coming out middle of 2010, yeah that never happened. The Nokia N8 took ages to come out and when it did the UI was average if you are being nice, What about the Nokia E7…….forget it they will be lucky if 7 people picked it up. Nokia never held any of their promises for the last 3 years and we forgave them and trusted them that MeeGo was amazing. When the leaked pics of the Nokia N9 came out it received unanimous praise from the tech media even Engadget started getting excited about MeeGo but they screwed it up like Nokia are famous for for the last few days. Nokia dropping todays bombshell is like you catching your girlfriend sleeping with your best friend after years of her telling you she loves you.

Nokia: Oh yeah I almost forgot the company that got itself into this situation in the first place. All I can say is they screwed it up for the last few years and they screwed us over as well.

All is not lost though, if Microsoft can develop WP7 fast enough then we could have some cracking devices in the future from Nokia.

One thing is for sure though Nokia will never become the wolds biggest cell phone maker again at best they will be as big as Motorola if they are lucky ……..ouch

MyNokiaBlog unboxes a Samsung Omnia 7 WP7 phone. Hell not frozen yet.

So, this morning I went to the T-Mobile store in Manchester and got myself a Samsung Omnia 7 which runs Windows Phone 7. I got it because Nokia are of course, have shifted focus to Windows Phone so, like Andre, have picked one of these up so we can learn about the subject we’ll be talking about ((in addition to the usual Nokia, Symbian, MeeGo, Qt stuff – btw Andre has an Impressions/Opinions post on his early experience with his Focus)

I’ve done a quick unboxing video, photos below. You’re seeing it pretty much the first time I’m seeing it. I will go through software later, but through the course of my usage I’ll be giving demoes of the Omnia 7 in action.

The main reason I’ve picked the Samsung Omnia 7 is because it’s the only one available on T-Mobile. I was very tempted by the HTC 7′S  (on O2)  massive 4.3″ display after watching @stevelitchfield’s review, I thought against it. Plus it was the majority recommendation of twitter folk 

At the T-Mobile Store. Served by a cool guy called Chris, who just happened to previously work for Nokia.

Their wonderful non functional display unit

Ah, look at that beut!

What’s in the plastic bag?It’s not a very big box. Very minimalistic.

Slide the box open

Quick photo with N8. I will still be using it of course. I’m just having the Omnia 7 for educational purposes. It’s an odd feeling – was probably one of the least excited I’ve ever been about a new phone. I thought it would have been because it’s not Nokia, but not really. I’d be quite excited if it was an iPhone or some high end Android. Yeah, I said it. Only because they’re so highly regarded at the moment. I still have my doubts. Let’s see if the real experience proves me these as my personal misconceptions.

The package is just stacked up. Phone on top, manual underneath, accessories at very bottom.I’ll do device shots some other time, as well as of course, demoes of Windows Phone 7. Man, tell me one month ago I’d be making this post and I’d call you crazy.

Nokia to be dethroned as number 1 smartphone manufacturer?

In December, Electronics Giant, Samsung was said to have been trying to oust Nokia from their top spot as number 1 manufacturer of phones world wide. The time frame for this? 3 years. Note, that Nokia has been number 1 since 1998 (12 years), toppling then Supreme Motorola (which would have all but disappeared were it not for Android).

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/13/us-nokia-smartphones-idUSTRE75C18O20110613

Did you know however that Nokia has been number one in another category for 14 years? It’s the range that they pretty much invented and only until 2008 began showing decline. Smartphones. Nokia had the communicator series back in 1996.

Reuters are reporting that Nokia will be dethroned from their smartphone crown.

“Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will become the world’s largest smartphone maker this quarter, overtaking struggling Nokia Oyj which has lead the market since 1996, Nomura said on Monday.”

They’re still number one seller in total of all mobile phones. Is it really surprising given that Nokia hasn’t even announced a flagship device for 2011? The only new handsets are the somewhat midranged X7 and E6. Plus of course there was the effect of Symbian being issued with EOL in the yes of the media, operators and distributors of Nokia Symbian phones.

What’s worse is that Nokia isn’t just moving to number 2, but to number 3 position. Nomura also sees also Apple overtaking Nokia and pushing it to number 3 in rankings. Apple already has over taken Nokia in revenue back in April. In Q4, Nokia sold 24M smartphones. That’s great. Apple sold 18M.

During Nokia’s transition, Q2, Q3, and possibly Q4 too will look terrible. June 21 at Nokia connect may give us at least something positive to look forward to. It’s doubtful that it will sufficiently positively impact Q3. Until Q4 all will look lost. All I can do is just hope Nokia pulls it off and get back on their feet. There was never any real reason why they couldn’t have trampled all over their competition, snuffed out iPhone and prevented Android from ever getting anywhere, instead from tripping over in 2007 through to 2008, and 2009, and 2010, now on hands and knees. From a time when every single manufacturer COMBINED could not equal Nokia, tough competition, complacency, indecision and incompetent management leads us here.

If another set of analysts from Gartner, IDC and Pyramid Research are to be believed, if Nokia gets things right with Windows Phone, WP will be beating iOS by 2015 (Pyramid Research even goes on to say beating Android too).

Source: reuters

Top Samsung Apps (July) - Health/Life

SAMSUNG’S Nexus S Aboard NASA’s Final Shuttle

Space Shuttle Atlantis

Kennedy Space Center – July 8, 2011 — Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile), a leading mobile phone provider and the No. 1 mobile phone provider in the U.S. 1, and Google™ today announced Nexus™ S, is aboard NASA’s final space shuttle. As a leader in technology and innovation, Samsung is pleased to be a part of this moment which will most certainly be marked in history. 

Nexus S from Google is part of research that will equip small, free-flying satellites called Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) used by the astronauts to provide a broader range of capabilities and give better communication between land and sky. Nexus S is the first commercial smartphone certified by NASA to fly on the space shuttle and to be cleared for use on the International Space Station. The experiment will use the smartphone-enhanced SPHERES as remotely operated robots to conduct interior survey and inspections of the station, to capture mobile camera images and video, and to study how robots can support future human exploration.
The addition of Nexus S to the SPHERES will add to the capabilities of each individual satellite while further increasing NASA’s understanding and exploration of space. Lead engineer in the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., DW Wheeler, explains, "By connecting a smartphone, we can immediately make SPHERES more intelligent. With a smartphone, the SPHERES will have a built-in camera to take pictures and video, sensors to help conduct inspections, a powerful computing unit to make calculations, and a Wi-Fi connection that we will use to transfer data in real-time to the space station and mission control."

“Samsung is proud to have the Nexus S chosen to be aboard NASA’s final space shuttle launch, an event that is historical,” said Dale Sohn, president of Samsung Mobile. “The research that is being conducted with SPHERES using the Nexus S will help monitor and communicate from the International Space Station.”

Dale Sohn, President of Samsung Mobile

Research Overview
In 1999, a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) undergraduate students, in conjunction with the Department of Defense and NASA, built five volleyball-sized free-flying satellites. These satellites are now referred to as Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reporient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) and three of them have been on the International Space Station since 2006. Each SPHERE satellite is self-contained with propulsion, power, navigation and computing equipment. When first designed, the usage possibilities of today were far from conceivable, thus an “expansion port” was built into each of the SPHERES. Additional appendages and sensors can be added to the satellites, allowing wireless power transfer systems and cameras to become parts of the systems. Nexus S is the first commercial smartphone to become a part of the SPHERES via this expansion port.

With the addition of Nexus S, it allows SPHERES a wider range of capabilities on the satellites and improved communication between the land and sky. Mission control can remotely operate Nexus S-enhanced satellites to perform relatively mundane tasks such as running inventory or environmental surveys on the space station. Thus, astronauts will be able to dedicate more time to science experiments and other work rather than having to respond to routine maintenance demands. 

The Nexus S

About Space Shuttle Atlantis
Space shuttle Atlantis will embark on a 12-day mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The STS-135 mission is the final flight of the Space Shuttle Program. Atlantis' STS-135 mission will deliver the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module filled with supplies and spare parts to sustain space station operations after the shuttles are retired.

Free Samsung Apps Chart

This week's free Samsung Apps chart is brought to you by the Monopoly guy! Nooo, not that Monopoly guy

this one!

AccuWeather / Lizard Eye

1. Angry Birds by Rovio
2. Monopoly Here and Now by Electronic Arts Nederland B.V.
3. AccuWeather Clock_m by Chelsea Park
4. Angry Birds RIO by Rovio
5. EA Games by Adam Fulford

So Angry Birds is still top of the stack as the most downloaded app this week, also stealing fourth with its Rio variety. I can see why someone would download it - its the same damn game, but with a different cast.. Not sure what the appeal is with Angry birds, but hey ho, I'm obviously wrong on this one!

Monopoly Here and Now is an interesting app.. Gone are the boot, dog, Iron and hat etc, replaced instead with a laptop, some fries and probably a Royal Wedding Tablet PC.... . I was too tired to play for long so gave up before I beat that laptop into the ground with my successful equity purchasing strategy. In fact, I am too much of a hippy to play Monopoly.. When the game starts, I instantly give away all my money and quit. Its "The Dude" in me... 

Video: Nokia Maps Updated With Heat Maps, 3D Cities, Hotel Booking

Check out maps.nokia.com for new updates. Three more cities got added to 3D view, but the coolest update is probably the heat map. You can now check out where the hot spots are for shopping, nightlife, food, and tourist attractions. They’ve also added an option to book a hotel directly from the map. I made a screencast to show you how it looks on my browser.

You can also watch this video in HD on Youtube. Subscribe to the channel to preview the latest videos before they get published on the blog.

The three new cities available for 3D viewing are Sydney, Cape Town, and Melbourne. Nokia Maps 3D is also truly a great product. Make sure to explore some of the cities if you haven’t yet.

NFC Marketing Posters Hit the US, Nokia Astound Used for Testing

Proxama, a supplier of near-field communication (NFC) technology worked with Nokia on NFC-tagged posters displayed in New York and Los Angeles. The campaign was rolled out this week. The posters let commuters and pedestrians tap an icon on the ads with their NFC-enabled phone to view an exclusive clip of the show Basketball Wives.

Each poster has a pre-programmed NFC chip that transfers the content immediately to handsets that tap the the spot. Nokia provided the Nokia Astound for the tests. The Astound which is also known as the Nokia C7 in other parts of the world, is an NFC-enabled phone. Other phones with NFC will be able to interact with the posters too. Another popular phone that already has NFC is the Samsung Nexus S.

This isn’t the first NFC marketing campaign ever. Last May, Proxama worked with Nokia to develop UK’s first NFC outdoor marketing campaign in support of the latest X-Men movie in London.

Let us know if you’ve seen these posters in your area.

NFC in Nokia N9 Won’t Support Mobile Wallet or Payments

The Nokia N9 contains near field communication technology (NFC), but lacks support for either an embedded secure element or the Single Wire Protocol (SWP). According to NFC World, these elements are needed for use in secure NFC applications such as mobile wallet, ticketing and payments. Instead, Nokia is concentrating on the ‘connectivity’ aspect of NFC for file sharing, device pairing and tag reading.

Rupert Englander, Nokia UK and Ireland’s head of services, sales and marketing, explained to NFC World that the mobile wallet is 12 to 18 months away from being widely used. In the meantime, Nokia’s upcoming NFC applications seem cool and simple. For example, you’ll be able to stream music wirelessly by tapping your Nokia N9 on Nokia Play 360° speakers, or share photos, videos, contacts and more by tapping another NFC-enabled device. Here’s a demo of the Play 360 from Nokia:

TabCo Likes Swipe, MeeGo Tablet Announcement Aug 15th?

Who is TabCo? They’re a real company pushing out mysterious blog posts and videos about an upcoming tablet that is like nothing else out there. At first, I suspected Motorola because the Droid phone showed up in a couple of videos. Now, I’m thinking this is a MeeGo tablet. We’ll know for sure on August 15th.

Today on their Facebook page, TabCo commented they like the word “swipe.” In case you’ve been living under a rock, that word is also largely mentioned on the Nokia N9 marketing page, swipe.nokia.com. Coincidence or major hint?