S60 Open to new features

OK, this may not be news to everyone, but I just discovered (thanks to the Nseries WOM World blog) that Flickr has a way to search for photos by the camera used to take them. This makes it easy to, for example, compare photos taken with different Nokia cameraphones, and see statistics on the popularity of different models.

At the time of this post, the top 5 S60 phones, ranked by the number of "average daily users", are:
1. Nokia N70 (179 members, 247,891 total photos)
2. Nokia N73 (154, 70,389)
3. Nokia 6680 (77, 178,290)
4. Nokia N80 (73, 62,829)
5. Nokia 6630 (73, 175,474)

Check here for updates.

-Oren

My colleague Florin Lohan has been playing with ffmpeg, a free Linux command-line tool that can transcode your videos into mobile-friendly formats. Jukka wrote earlier about SmartMovie, a commercial (i.e. not free) PC program that also transcodes videos for viewing on your mobile device. ffmpeg sounds like a better option for non-PC users and other lovers of open source software. It ships as part of most Linux distributions. You can also download and compile the code yourself.

Read on for the details of how it works. (Nov. 30: Updated the audio parameters)

We just published an overview of video development for S60 on Forum Nokia. This page includes a description of the S60 multimedia architecture and some guidelines for developing your own video applications for the platform.

As a reminder, we also published a similar guide to music development earlier.

Your comments, of course, are welcome.

-Oren

Unfortunately, I'm not able to attend the big Nokia World event this week in Amsterdam, but several of the lucky people who will be there are writing a group blog, called "From the Floor", to tell the rest of us about what they see and do.

The Nokia World exhibition will feature a selection of multimedia demos on Nseries devices. If you're in Amsterdam for the event, please let me know if you see anything exciting.

-Oren

Darla reports about the first music EP recorded on a mobile phone, and interviewed the composer, Omri Levy. Omri used the Alon MP3 Dictaphone propgram to record his 10-song EP "about:blank" on his Nokia N80.

The Alon software records MP3 files up to 96kbps @ 16 kHz. That's more or less FM radio quality (but of course the phone microphone is not exactly what you would find in a studio). I'm trying to find out more technical details about how Omri did the recording, and will report back what I learn.

Update: Omri reports that he did indeed use the N80 microphone and the maximum settings of the Alon software. He writes: "I know that the sound quality is far from being perfect but if i wanted a 'perfect sound' I would have used my own studio. In most cases I would rather listen to someone recording himself on a 4-track than listen to a bright and shiny production. So the Nokia N80 was more than enough for me." (On his wishlist: overdubbing on the phone)

Let me know if you come across other mobile recordings. Maybe this is a new tool for the Lo-Fi world?

-Oren

Hartti Suomela at the Forum Nokia blogs describes how to get RTSP streaming to work in a Java MIDlet. There's other useful information on that site; I keep up to date by checking the RSS feed.

-Oren

Since Jukka wrote about Orb back in May, Nokia announced that they will "work with Orb Networks to integrate Orb MyCasting into the Nokia N80 Internet Edition" phone (sorry, Multimedia Computer) that is due out this month. (Note for American readers, that phone is available in the US, and the Orb integration "will arrive initially in the United States", according to the press release).

In case you don't know what Orb is, it is a PC application that lets you stream your own photos, music, and video from your home PC to your mobile, using the Web browser and player on your phone. In addition to all that, the clever folks at Orb just announced that they have a solution that lets you watch YouTube videos on your mobile phone as well. Of course, this is not the perfect solution for YouTube fans, as it requires a pretty powerful home PC and broadband connection. You also need to leave your PC on all the time.

If you're prepared with all that, then Orb is a very cool way to take your media stuff with you wherever you go. Don't worry if you don't have an N80; Orb works on pretty much any phone with a decent Web browser, media player and Internet connection, like, say, any S60 device.

-Oren

Tommi brings us news of a new music video filmed entirely with a Nokia N93. In a related story, my local public radio station reported this morning about a class at Boston University devoted to mobile filmmaking. The project is sponsored by Amp'd Mobile, which plans to release the student work on its network. According to the report, the phones used by the students can only film for 15 seconds at a time - a clear sign that they're not using S60-based devices.

Do you know about any other mobile film classes out there?

-Oren

There are certainly plenty of ways to upload your photos to Flickr and other sites directly from your phone, and plenty of evidence that cameraphone users (Nokia cameraphone user in particular) are taking advantage of these tools. But what are the real numbers? Thanks to the public Flickr API, we can find out. I started collecting some statistics a few weeks ago, using some desktop Python scripts. The numbers are quite impressive: read on to see the details.

This may be a bit off the regular topics of this blog, but I just had to pass on this story from Julie Ask of Jupiter Research about a new fan of the Nokia N91 and its multimedia features. Julie recently spent time in the Masai Mara region of Kenya, and sent a Nokia N91 to the manager of the safari camp where she stayed. As Julie reports in her blog, Timothy is a huge fan of the multimedia features of the phone: FM Radio, music, camera and video. (Julie hints that his data services seem to be free, so he might also enjoy the Internet Radio for S60 player as well!)

There's a key insight here for Nokia (and other) product marketing folks: in places like Kenya, a high-end mobile phone may represent the same level of investment and status as, say, a luxury car or big house in richer countries. it is also a practical investment, as it gives you instant access to the Internet and a range of other services. As Julie notes, her friend "is using his cell phone in ways that most Americans don't - and wouldn't bother because we have PC's, radios, ipods, etc."

This story reminded me of another piece of Nairobi-related S60 news from Stephanie Rieger. She pointed me to an MIT program at the University of Nairobi that teaches software development using Python for S60.

Lots of food for thought here - please let me know what you think.

-Oren

Please help me welcome the newest addition to the S60 blog family, the S60 Browser Blog from (of course) the S60 Browser team based here in the Boston office (across the hall from me). Here's your chance to learn more about the impressive and very successful S60 open-source (OSS) Browser, and contribute your comments and suggestions. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear from you.

-Oren