.Net and Qt move forward on S60

Qt Software announced a new technology preview of Qt for S60 and Forum Nokia released Mobile Extensions for Qt for S60. More or less at the same time Red Five Labs announced the availability of Net60 version 2.1 with many improvements and support for the S60 5th Edition touch UI.

The latest Qt for S60 Technology Preview is an incremental step towards full Qt support on S60 devices. Code named ‘Garden’, this version is based on Qt 4.5. In addition, Forum Nokia has released the Mobile Extensions for Qt for S60 (try saying that in a hurry!) Mobile Extensions provide a number of Qt style APIs for accessing S60 features such as the contacts records and device location information. It appears some of these APIs depend on the Extensions APIs for S60 and a forthcoming update of Open C/C++, so this is still something for the hardcore coder.

More information can be found on the Forum Nokia Qt for S60 page.

Net60 has now arrived at its fourth release and Red Five Labs are claiming it offers a much improved WinForms UI and overall performance. In addition, support for touch screen devices has been added for the first time.
In my view Net60 is one of the more interesting independent runtime options for S60, opening up the possibility for both commercial and enterprise software developers to take advantage of S60 devices.
A 30-day trial is available, even if you trialled an earlier version. In addition, you could get a Free Net60 Professional license by responding to a survey Red Five Labs is conducting of its evaluator community.

More information can be found on Red Five Lab website. The web demo is a good starting point if you are unfamiliar with the technology.

Tajikistan bans cell phones from schools

The Central Asian state of Tajikistan Tuesday banned cell phones from all schools and universities in a bid to boost education.

"This measure has been taken in order to improve the quality of teaching at schools," deputy Dodikhudo Saimutdinov said after a vote in parliament.

Offenders, including those who carry phones without using them, will be fined.

Although Tajikistan is considered Central Asia's poorest nation, 3.2 million out of 7 million Tajiks use cell phones.

Do you think it is right decision and should be applied to other countries too?

Airtel Removes '95' Dialing from Fixed Line Phones

Airtel announced the withdrawal of '95' dialing for long distance calling on its fixed line service as per the directive from Department of Telecom (DoT), Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India. This withdrawal will come into effect from midnight of March 9, 2009.

Airtel's fixed line customers will now be able to call these telephone numbers (earlier accessed through 95) by activating the STD facility and dialing the city STD code prefixed with 0. For example - to call Mysore, Airtel fixed line customers in Bangalore will need to dial 0821 instead of 95821. Similarly, to call Bangalore, Airtel Telemedia customers in Mysore will need to dial 080 instead of 9580.

Airtel customers within 500 kms of a telecom circle and less than 50 kms of the adjoining SDCA can do without activating STD facility. They will need to dial the city STD code prefixed with 0. To access numbers outside of this perimeter, the customer will have to activate his STD facility by calling 121 from his Airtel fixed line number. The customer will continue to be billed for all calls as per the prevailing tariff.

India Moves Closer to Mobile Number Portability

The much-awaited Mobile Number Portability (MNP) looks finally set to arrive. After discussions dragged on for months, there were reports that we could see the introduction of MNP by August. Today, US-headquartered Syniverse Technologies said that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has sent them a Letter of Intent (LoT) for implementation of MNP services in the country.

Syniverse is one of the two companies selected, the other being Telcordia Technologies, also a US firm. Syniverse will provide a number portability clearing house and centralized database solutions to telecom operators for the next 10 years.

The DoT has already divided the country into two geographic zones for number portability implementation, each of which will be handled by a different MNP provider. Each zone is further broken down into 11 service areas that represent cities within the zone. Syniverse will implement services for the first zone that covers the northern and western regions of the country.

Syniverse has previously implemented MNP in Singapore, the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong.

Source: CXOtoday.com

Fring announces Nokia 5800 version

ring announced yesterday the launch of a brand new version of its social community and communication service for the successful Nokia 5800 touch screen device.

“This has been one of the most hotly anticipated Fring launches ever; as soon as Nokia announced the launch of its 5800, Fring's forums, Twitter and Facebook pages have been red hot with fringsters asking for a new fring version to run on the device,” the company press release said.

Fring created an early access group of around 100 users to receive R&D versions of the release and provide feedback during the development phase, helping Fring to bring its 5800 version to market as quickly as possible.

The newly designed Fring supports of all of the 5800's touch and motion sensor screen features,

The users with a 5800 can download the new version from Fring web page.

Windows 95 on the Nokia N82

Rita has manged to hack her phone to run windows 3.1 and 95 on the Nokia N82 ..

See it for yourself in the video below ..




More details : Windows On My N82, Now This Is Mobile Technology!

Now Recharge BSNL Mobiles Online!

On 9th March 09, BSNL has announced the launch of a new service, wherein, Prepaid mobile users can easily recharge their mobiles online using their net banking account or credit cards.

For recharging your mobiles just head over to this page, and create an user id. Once you have access to login to BSNL portal, you can recharge your mobiles online at any point of time.

Quick highlight:

• BSNL customer can recharge Prepaid mobiles online by logging into BSNL Portal
• Mobiles can be recharged either with recharge vouchers or top up cards
• Customer needs to use net banking a/c or credit cards to pay for the recharge
• Customer will receive an SMS confirmation once the recharge has been done.

Link: BSNL Online Recharge

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic to be launched today Virtually

Nokia is certainly cutting costs . Its unveiling more and more handsets virtually online .

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is most likely to be launched online today at events.nokia.com

The 5730 looks like a clone between a XpressMusic phone and a Eseries phone. The 5630 XpressMusic was out Just before MWC and 5730 looks like a fully loaded version of the former

Interesting features include

• - QWERTY keyboard
• - 3.2 MP Camera
• - 3.5mm Audio Jack
• - Inbuilt GPS
• - 8GB MicroSD Card
• - Music battert Life (With Earphones) 25.5 Hours

Expect it to be priced around Rs.20000 -25000

Lets wait for the official confirmation.

Googles dreams to turn phone into TV

Google CEO Eric Schmidt painted a picture of Android-powered devices turning into TVs (and disrupting the current TV model):

It’s worth noting, by the way, that if you imagine the power of these mobile devices over a five or 10 year period, they must be possible to do almost everything that we do today with other means . . . . It should be possible to watch television and watch your show routinely on these devices, in very high quality. The technology is just getting there. And when that occurs, it’s a different experience because it’s a personal experience. When I turn on the television, it shows the same shows that I saw yesterday and I watch them and it doesn’t know that I watched them yesterday. What a foolish television. Why is it not smarter?

Full transcript is here.

Nokia into Laptop market

Boy it's funny how the economic crunch is pushing many companies outside of their primary market. After posting about longtime PC manufacturers (Dell & Acer) looking to get into the smartphone game, the opposite transition could very well be coming soon from Finnish Cell phone manufacturer Nokia.

Indeed the world's leading mobile phone maker is giving serious thought of entering the laptop business according to Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo's Thursday announcement.

"We don't have to look even for five years from now to see that what we know as a cell phone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging," Kallasvuo said.

The industry has rumored Nokia's possible plan to enter the PC industry since late last year. While strong profit margins in the smartphone industry have been attracting PC builders in droves, the attraction of the low-margin computer industry is less obvious.

Perhaps Nokia is betting on the fact that eventually the laptop PC, the PDA, and the converged smartphone will morph into a single portable device.