Tag Archives: mobile phones

in english

Sports tracker

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I went skating yesterday. Not any kind of skating, but one special modality called nordic blading, which is done with poles as if you were skiing. I am now the proud owner of an N95 and was using the Sports Tracker application, which is able to calculate the kind of route I took, how many kilometres I did and my speed and altitude. You can even export your workouts to Google Earth! Quite a nice thing, I should say.

 

P.S. For those interested, I skated 15.4 km at an average speed of 10 km/h and a maximum speed of 49 km/h.

in english

The kid that knew about mobiles

In Prague, while enjoying the they at a restaurant in the middle of the city, I couldn't help but eavesdrop in another table's conversation. The reason for my behaviour was a 15 year old kid that, after seeing my N95, started to talk about the state of the mobile industry in his country. I was amazed not only by his level of interest, but also by his expertise on the subject. In fact, he knew much more about the situation in his local market and was visibly a Nokia fan.

After seeing his enthusiasm I just had to ask him what his age was. After he did so, I commented that if he would like to work in our industry he should probably study a couple of subjects. It was nice meeting a fan of what you do for a living.

in english

It’s so nice being back

Today I really felt back at work.  Even though July is high holiday season in Finland and some parts of Europe, there is enough interesting people and interesting projects to work on.  Starting was a little slow, but now we're doing what we're supposed to: helping bring interesting services and devices to consumer's hands.

You may have heard that we're working with Flickr and have teamed up with Vox.  What you probably didn't know was that if you're living in Europe you can order prints of your photos (not only in quality paper, but as calendars, posters and teddy bears too).

If you're interested, would you try these out and give me your thoughts?

in english

WidSets

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been using WidSets for a while.  They are basically widgets for mobile phones and related devices running under Java.  Having been used Yahoo! Widgets for a while, I truly welcomed this development.

There are hundreds of widgets available, but the ones I use the most are news rss readers and special widgets for updating Jaiku and Twitter on the go.  If you have an unlimited data cellular contract and/or Wi-Fi capabilities in your device of choice, I'd really recommend you to try it out.

in english

Fring

For the past few days I have been using Fring, a mobile VoIP application for mobile devices.  I truly like that it has support not only for its own network, but also for calls and chat using Skype, MSN, Google Talk and SIP.

The application, however, is still in advanced beta stage, so some parts of usability and especially stability are still issues.  If you have a S60 device with WLAN (such as a N93) or unlimited 3G, I'd say it's almost a no-brainer, especially since Skype hasn't released its version for S60 yet to the general public (other than owners of the X-series).

Now I wonder, who will have the idea of joining this with a Fonera?  That would be something.

in english

News from 3GSM: Nokia and YouTube sign deal

3GSM, the largest mobile industry gathering, is taking place in Barcelona this week. I just read in the news that beside the usual product launches from device manufacturers, Nokia and YouTube have announced a deal in which YouTube’s videos will be available for Nokia Nseries users. Being a heavy user of both a Nokia N93 and YouTube, I am really waiting for this.

For more news on 3GSM, you can check out the coverage from the FT, the Guardian, or The Register.

in english

3G and sign language

I couldn’t help but notice in Babel the usage of 3G mobiles by deaf people: using video call to transmit sign language. I was very surprised to discover that this usage is not exclusive of Japan, as in Sweden the municipality of Örebrö gives customer service to its large population of deaf people using sign language (link in Swedish). That’s the kind of uses of technology I like: simple and relevant.