S60 Open to new features

The extra device prize has been drawn and it goes to Nokius for his Nokia Step Counter entry in the "My favorite application" category. Congrats!

The device price for the winners is a Nokia N82 and the headset prize for second comers is a Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-604. I'll be in touch with you winners during next week!

As Saara wrote earlier, the S60 team is in Barcelona this week for the S60 Summit, the annual gathering of S60 customers and partners. I'm writing this from the Expo floor, where we have a superb collection of demos from around the world. Over in my corner of the expo, we have the latest news about the S60 developer runtime environments, browser and internet services, and the ever-evolving S60 user experience. We're also, of course, showing off the latest S60 devices.

We're happy that Andreas Jakl, who created the ShakerRacer phone-controlled RC truck, joined this year's Expo to talk about that project and some other things he's working on,. He's also helping to show off the new improved S60 trucks that the Nokia DemoLab team prepared for the event. At the S60 party last night, they even took the truck off-road!

--Oren

The winners of the Show your S60 smarts contest are announced! Thanks once again averyone for your effort in making these videos. I can tell you the jury had a very difficult time making the decision, because so many of the videos would have deserved the prize. Half of the judgement was based on the ratings and comments of the video on YouTube and the other half was based on our jury's decision. The criteria was the following:

- How well the video demonstrates your S60 inspiration
- Innovative way of presenting the topic
- Fit with the topic
- General entertainment quality of the video
- Your unique way of using an S60 device

I'll contact the winners personally very soon!

The winners

Winner of the "Show your favorite application" category. "Salvation!" A Google Maps Mobile Movie by Jakaraka.

Second place in the "Show your favorite application" category. Joikuspot on Nokia N95 8GB by Mark from the Nokia Blog.

Third place in the "Show your favorite application" category. S60 walkies by Rafe and Echo the dog from All About Symbian.

Winner in the "Show your S60 insight" category. S60 is what you make of it by Rita from Dotsisx.

Second place in the "Show your S60 insight" category. S60 Tips & trick compilation by XRGO.

Third place in the "Show your S60 insight" category. My Favorite Trick-S60 Quicks by playstation12000.

Samsung and S60 announced today at the S60 Summit in Barcelona that yet another S60 device is added to Samsung's S60 portfolio. This announcement increases the total count of announced S60 devices to 79!

“We are happy to compliment our product portfolio with yet another appealing S60 mobile, Samsung L870 that is fully customized with style, performance and user interface,” says, Jongin Kim, Vice President of Mobile Communication Division of Samsung Electronics. “With S60, we can successfully deliver the latest mobile technology with fully customizable applications and intuitive user interfaces.”

Another great news announced at the Summit was the official launch of the S60 Ambassadors program website. S60 Ambassadors are dedicated fans of S60 who have an S60 device and are eager to learn more about S60 technology and, most importantly, love talking about S60 to their friends or family.

S60 Summit 2008 will be kicking off tomorrow, so I thought I would share some key points about the event before it all rolls out. This year’s seminar and expo themes will be "Reach, Innovate and Experience". A major feature of the Summit will be the key note speeches and seminars by speakers from across the industry including speakers from Nokia, Trolltech, Telefonica, Symbian, Navteq and Adobe among others.

We will have 60 demos in the expo including S60 3rd Edition applications, platform technologies and ecosystem showcases including the infamous S&0 RC cars. At this year’s expo we will also have the "speakers corner", similar in style to the famous soapbox at London’s Hyde Park. Nice to see how that turns out! Hopefully I'll be able to shoot a couple of videos on that to share with you. Below's a sneak preview of the expo area and more about the seminar and expo themes.

S60 Summit seminar and expo themes

Experience

Mobility has fundamentally changed the way people use the Internet. It is personal, always with you and always connected. More than any other mobile platform, S60 provides end users the best experience and open access to several Web 2.0 services. S60 has made the “One Web” experience a reality with the world-leading Web Browser for S60, bringing also the first desktop-like Web Video experience with support for Flash Lite 3. With Widgets, S60 brings end users quick, easy and instant access to the content and services that matter most. Now, S60 enables the development of exciting new services by combining the power of the Web with power of the S60 platform: Widgets are made personal and context aware as they will be able to access S60's numerous applications and services, such as calendar, contacts, GPS, messaging, audio, video.

Experiences are converging and people are demanding more from their smartphones. Innovation and ease of use are critical, and our strategy focuses on giving people choice and simplicity. UI innovations like sensor technologies and flexibility to use or even combine different interaction methods like keyboard and touch are just some of the examples of how S60 is bringing the ecosystem tools to provide consumers with intuitive ways to engage with their devices and services.

Reach

S60, built on the Symbian OS, is the world's leading smartphone platform, with over 75 device models launched and over 150 million devices shipped by January 2008 across several segments. S60 is developed by Nokia and licensed by some of the foremost mobile phone manufacturers in the world, including Samsung, LGE and Lenovo, in addition to Nokia.

With the volumes already here, S60 offers a unique market for innovation and business potential for the whole ecosystem, and offers appealing devices and experiences to consumers across several segments.

Innovate

Openness is crucial to supercharge innovation and accelerate the availability of new mobile services and experiences. New experiences, new business models and greater accessibility of smartphones and services will enable more people to experience more.

S60 is an industry-leading open platform for companies to innovate. The latest innovation enablers – Web Run-time and Open C – are hitting the market and increasing the innovation and reach of services significantly. Our vision for S60 is to lead the way and take innovation to the next level, now and in the future.

Have you been itching to talk to other S60 fans around Boston? Well here's your chance! An Evening with S60 lands in Boston on Thursday June 5th from 8 PM to 10:30 PM at The Living Room. Come join us for an evening fun with good food, drinks, people and of course cool technology! This is a night you don't want to miss!

It's a casual night where you can experience the following:

- You'll get to meet most of S60 ambassador team
- Network with other S60 mobile enthusiasts from the area
- Share your S60 experiences with our engineers, architects ad marketers
- One-on-one demonstrations
- Food and drinks
- Cool giveaways
- And much, much more!

Sign up at www.s60.com/boston

The Show your S60 smarts video contest was closed a little while ago. I'm really happy that we have got 37 great videos in the contest group on YouTube. We will announce the winners on 29th May on the contest site and this blog. Remember to keep voting and commenting for the videos you like best, because that'll be 50% of the judgment!

Here's a great and very thorough movie from Rita demonstrating how she uses S60 in her work.

meritoe61 made a nice video of his favorite app, the Nokia Wellness Diary. Very nice scenery from Poland by the way!

Hey, so the life of an international traveler is oh so exotic, romantic and glamorous, right? Until, that is, you get that mobile phone bill.

¡Ay, caramba!

Recently I've been having all sorts of fun with push email flying into and out of my handset on a more or less constant basis.

The new software update to my N95 that added Flash Lite 3.0 (sweet!) has opened up the whole of YouTube to my ever so inquisitive viewing, and my Slingbox has been keeping it real by sending episodes of "must see TV" that I must see - direct to my mobile with Slingplayer Mobile for S60.

Add that to Yahoo! Go, posting pictures to my VOX site, wayyy too much Facebook shenanigans, a passion for podcasts, a possible addiction to Wikipedia, the worlds greatest mobile browser and, well, you get the picture.

This is all well and good and has never raised the question of an impending intervention or a 12-step data dependency cure as long as I was in my home market where the all-you-can-eat data plan was in its full glory.

until...

As you might expect, I went on a business trip to a trade show where my responsibility was to demo much of the aforementioned capabilities. Problem was, the trade show was in Barcelona..... And I sometimes used my own SIM card to show off all this stuff..... For 10 hours a day..... For four days in a row.....

I used a bit of data.

OK, maybe a lot of data.

Oh, and did I mention my all-you-can-eat data plan was no longer all-you-can-eat when I crossed the border?

The good news (for me) is that I don't pay my own mobile bill.
The bad news (for me) was that my boss called.

Ouch.

It's now only a day until the Show your S60 smarts video contest closes on 20th May, so you better start shooting your S60 movies right away or you'll miss the prizes! Submit your video to the contest group on YouTube. Over the weekend we've gotten many great videos, but we still have room for lots more. And don't forget to vote for the videos you like best, because that'll be used in deciding the winner. Of the newest videos especially the "Salvation" starring Zak and Shay is absolutely brilliant!

Rafe from All About Symbian shows with help from with Echo the dog how to enhance your walkies with the ViewRanger app.

Nokius also has made a great video of the Nokia Step Counter available from the Nokia Beta Labs.

It's a little over a week until the Show your S60 smarts video contest ends (20th May). More videos were submitted to the contest group on YouTube over the weekend and here are a couple of them. Keep the videos coming!

Steve here shows us how to shoot video on the Nokia N95 and how to edit with the phone's video editor. He's also telling how to upload the video to a video blog and all this directly from you S60 phone!

Pizero is featuring the Profimail app. He is telling us about the handy auto-update feature in ProfiMail to have Push email on his S60 phone.

The Show your S60 smarts video contest on YouTube started little over a week ago and I’m happy that we have already videos flowing in. Hopefully many of you are preparing yours, so you will not miss the great prizes: S60 devices, BT headsets and gift vouchers. Remember that the contest is open until Tuesday May 20! Below are a couple of great examples I just picked from the first videos.

Bogdangaliceanu from Nokia Mobile Blog shows Handy Taskman. Handy Taskman basically lets you control your phone in for example, switch to, close, kill any application or close them all in one click or find and start a desired application by typing the first letters of its name. Check out how this is done from Bogdan’s movie.

Gletham from symbianone.com has made a nice presentation of the Nokia Internet Radio application on His N95 8GB and throws in a couple of quick multitasking tips as well.

Lately I’ve been doing some business travelling and have set up my N82 with many nice apps that may become handy on the way. I’ve been a happy user of WorldMate for example because I think it’s one of the most comprehensive travel apps there is. When I visited San Francisco a little over a week ago I noticed that there is still one app that I desperately miss on my trips.

When traveling on business you don’t have that much time of to do shopping, see the sights and all that, but sometimes you just might find a couple of hours to play tourist. Being a huge sneaker freak, I of course always head towards the sneaker stores. The problem for me is that when I’m in a strange city and have only a couple of hours to spend on shopping, I usually do not have a clue where to head for the coolest sneakers, especially if I haven’t had the time to familiarize myself with the city beforehand.

Now, what would be handier than an app that would tell me where to go! I would get a list of shoe shops, what kind of shoes they are selling (sneakers, high heels etc) and a map to locate the store.

Any other good travel apps you'd recommend besides WorldMate? Or even better, has someone already created the prefect sneaker-locator? Managed to find a decent pair of All Stars this time anyway though.