nokia

I co-hosted the Buzz Out Loud podcast with Molly Wood today. Topic (suprise): Gphone. What else? Also covered: Why the Asus eee PC rocks and why the Foleo was killed too early.

As mobile phones continue their evolution as uber-devices for music and everything else, they've struggled with such things as external speakers--with some particularly strange ideas surfacing along the way. But here's an interesting twist: Why not make a pair that resembles the speaking end of an old Ma Bell analog receiver?

That's our impression, anyway, of these new portable Philips speakers made for Nokia handsets. Gadgetizer says the mini-system, which comes in black or white, also has an FM radio built into the dock. All it needs is an old-fashioned dial for navigation. Of course, if … Read more

Following Nokia's high-profile acquisition of Navteq last month, it's not surprising that the world's largest phone maker is using SEMA 2007 for the debut of its N500 portable navigation device. The N500 boasts a 4.3-inch color touch-screen display and a built-in speaker for giving turn-by-turn voice guidance; the system also features text-to-speech technology for reading out the names of individual streets. An integrated FM transmitter allows drivers to stream spoken directions via their car speakers. Being a Nokia device, the N500 naturally comes with cell phone compatibility and can be used as a hands-free Bluetooth calling … Read more

Homegrown music talents in the Asia-Pacific region now have a new platform to showcase their latest song creations. The Independent Artists Club Web site launched recently by Nokia aims to promote local artists in the region by allowing them to upload their songs on the Web for music fans around the world to enjoy.

The IAC program will launched in Singapore and Thailand first, before being rolled out over the next six months to selected Asia-Pacific countries including Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand.

With each IAC country launch, selected local artists will initially be invited … Read more

Nokia remains the king of the cell phone world and it shows no signs of being pushed from its throne anytime soon. According to figures that IDC released yesterday, the Finnish mobile giant held a 38.6 percent worldwide market in the third quarter this year, an increase from 34.8 percent during the same period a year earlier. As for phone shipments, Nokia shipped 111.7 million devices in the third quarter. That's a big jump from 88.5 million devices in the third quarter of 2006, mostly because of increases in the entry-level market.

Samsung came in … Read more

Over the past couple of days Crave had the privilege of visiting Nokia's R&D facility in Oulu, Finland, at an event entitled the "The Way We Live Next." Among a plethora of cool futureware, one of the first things that caught our eye was a quick demo of Nokia's iPhone-alike, running the brand new S60 Touch user interface. These pictures first appeared last week at the Symbian Smartphone Show, but we got a better look at it this time round. Click here to see more.

(Source: Crave UK)

If you start seeing people pointing their Nokia camera phones at books, product packaging and other print materials, it's not that they have some weird cell phone-related tic. More than likely, they're using the Thrrum Visual Browser for Cameraphone Search.

The browser lets users point the camera in their phones at objects of interest and get relevant information, product prices and more, right on their handset. Mountain View, Calif.-based 23half, which makes the software, just announced that the app will be available for select Nokia Nseries phones, including the N73, N73ME, N95 and N95-3. It's also … Read more

Reuters and the Nokia Research Center have announced that they are working on a joint project to enable journalists to file and publish stories and multimedia news content from handheld devices instead of computers. Called Reuters Mobile Journalism, the initiative relies upon connecting peripherals to Nokia's high-end N95 device--a Bluetooth-enabled keyboard, a small tripod for video interviews, and a microphone that can plug into the mobile handset--as well as software to make it easier to put together text, images and streaming media.

"By running on handheld devices, rather than on bulkier laptop computers, the mobile journalism application enables … Read more