SYMBIAN FOUNDATION ON OPEN SOURCE OS

The Symbian Foundation is on track to take over Symbian as an open-source operating system in 2010 and will put out its first distribution of software for developers in the first half of next year, its executive director said Thursday.
The foundation is the successor to the Symbian consortium that has administered the OS since 1998. It is being formed after Nokia agreed to buy the remaining part of Symbian, a deal that closed on Tuesday. The world's largest handset maker, which has been perceived as dominating Symbian since its creation, is releasing the platform as competition for developers grows among Google's Android, Apple's iPhone and other systems.

Nokia, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, AT&T and other companies agreed in June to form the foundation. Six new members, including AOL, Fujitsu's Cell Telecom division, and Intrinsyc, were announced Thursday at the Symbian Partner Event in San Francisco. That brings total membership to 64, the group said.
The distribution of code coming in the first half of 2009 won't be entirely open source. It will be released to members of the foundation, under a new partner organization that eventually will supplant Symbian's current partner program, said Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation. It will include elements of Symbian and of Nokia's Symbian-based S60 platform. The group is already working on code for that distribution.
The open-source OS coming in 2010, will unite Symbian with S60 as well as two other platforms built on it: UIQ and NTT DoCoMo's MOAP (Mobile Oriented Applications Platform).
The foundation is now defining roles within its organization and starting to work on recruiting for those jobs, Williams said. By the end of April, there will be staffers answering calls and e-mail for developer support and other needs, he said.

NEW NOKIA 6260 SLIDE HI SPEEDS UPLOAD AND DOWNLOAD

Nokia's 6260 is the company's first phone with support for both faster download and upload speeds using HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), at up to 10.2 M bits per second and 2M bps respectively.
Nokia has been dragging its feet on support for more bandwidth, but there is now enough demand from consumers and support from network operators for the faster upload and download speeds to make it worth the effort.
Users will be able to take advantage of the higher speeds when uploading images and videos to Web sites, blogs and social networks, and the faster download speeds when, for example, watching videos, according to Nokia.
So far Nokia phone users have been limited to download speeds of 3.6M bps and upload speeds of 384K bps.
Other phones that support faster speeds include the T-Mobile G1, Research in Motion's BlackBerry Storm and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1.
The 6260 slide is expected to retail for €299 (US$386) before taxes and subsidies, and will ship at the beginning of next year, according to Nokia.
The phone runs Nokia's Series 40 software and offers quick access to search engines from the home screen. Other features include support for Wi-Fi, a 5-megapixel camera and A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning System).
"Nokia is looking at the current downturn, and I think it sees an opportunity to really consolidate and capitalize on its scale, and keep coming out with more and more feature-rich, aggressively priced devices to put more pressure on its competitors," said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.

A NEW MOTO ANDROID

With no popular phones released for this holiday season, and hardly any this year, Motorola is set to revamp its entire mobile phone division with the help of Google's mobile operating system, Android.
Sanjay Jha, the company's new handset division chief, is planning large scale job cuts and will slash the number of mobile operating systems the company uses at the moment.
Six is the number of operating systems Motorola uses so far in its phone lineup and the new strategy will reduce this number by three. As reported earlier this month, Motorola gathered a 350 strong Android developers team and now revealed plans use of Google's operating system for its mid-tier phones, which constitute the company's largest volume sales.
The other two remaining mobile phone operating systems at Motorola will be Windows Mobile, which will be used for high-end phones and its proprietary system (P2K OS) for its inexpensive handsets.
Google's Android is based on Linux, an open source standard that Motorola was fancying for quite a while, so there's no wonder that the company adopted Android as its preferred platform. Also, Google isn't asking for any royalties from manufacturers that use Android, so here's another well-spent buck for Motorola.
It's hard to predict whether Android is going to save Motorola from further trouble. However, Motorola seems to be taking the right steps toward a rejuvenated future, also making users happy by providing a decent and easy to maintain software platform.
We should see anytime now an Android-based Moto prototype.

NEW NOKIA TOUCHSCREEN 5800 XPRESS MUSIC

Armed with a roomy touch display, stereo speakers, and—eventually—a year's worth of free music, Nokia's long-awaited touchscreen phone, and dubbed as the IPhone Killer, will make its debut in London today. Can it compete with the iPhone and T-Mobile's Google-powered G1?
First, let's cover the specs: Measuring 4.4 by 2 by 0.6 inches, the 3G- and Wi-Fi-enabled 5800 (set for global release by the end of the year, but not in North America until the "early part" of 2009) is more or less the same size as the iPhone 3G and the G1, although at 3.8 ounces, it's significantly lighter than both of its touchscreen competitors (the iPhone is about 4.8 ounces, while the G1 weighs in at a hefty 5.6 ounces}.
Regarding the 5800's 3.2-inch touchscreeen, without a chance to try it in person, but the Symbian-powered display looks (from the press images, at least) reasonably sleek—somewhere between the clunkier interface on the G1 and the iPhone's eye-popping UI. No multitouch (so no "pinch"-type gestures), mind you, but the 5800 has an accelerometer that lets you turn the phone sideways for a virtual, landscape-oriented QWERTY keypad. You'll also be able to enter text using a half-size, portrait QWERTY keypad (with a stylus, if you like), T9 text prediction, or handwriting recognition.

Nokia promises a couple of key one-touch interface features, including a "Contacts Bar" that gives you quick access to your "favorite" four contacts, along with a "Media Bar" that'll let you tap into your music, videos, and images. Not bad, although I'd also like to see a status/alerts toolbar like the G1's.
As its name implies, the 5800 XpressMusic is more about tunes than productivity, so don't expect out-of-the-box support for BlackBerry or Exchange servers (although this being a Symbian phone, there's nothing stopping third parties from filling the void). Instead, the 5800 comes with stereo speakers, support for stereo Bluetooth headsets, a 3.5mm headset jack (which doubles as a TV-out port), and up to 16GB of microSD memeory expansion for your tunes.
The phone also comes with a 3.2MP camera, complete with Carl Zeiss optics, a dual LED flash, and video recording (up to 30fps). GPS and Nokia Maps are included for navigation. Sorry, gamers—no N-Gage support on the 5800, at least for now.
Price:no US price details yet
Europe- 279 euros, or about US$385

NEW CELL PHONES FOR FALL -My Personal Picks In Lieu Symbian Nokia

PC WORLD announced the new cool cellphones series for release this Fall. In this series are 12 new units ranging from LG, Touch Diamond, Blackberry, Samsung, Virgin Mobile, Sony Ericson, Motorola. While eye shopping along these lines I made 3 picks for their {with emphasis on, in lieu of Symbian Nokia, for the SymbianOS tweaks addict that I am} innovativeness, design, with a capital C for curious.


MotoZine ZN5 Packs a 5-Megapixel Camera


The first product from Motorola's partnership with Kodak, the Motorola MotoZine ZN5 features a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, Xenon flash, 4GB of optional external memory, and settings for low-light environments. The camera also has a fun panoramic mode, which stitches together continuous shots into a single extended image. Pictures can be uploaded and shared in one click to the Kodak gallery or any other photosharing site. Other notable features of the Motozine include a 2.4-inch high-resolution screen, dual compatibility for GSM and Wi-Fi, and stereo Bluetooth.
Already available in China, the MotoZine ZN5 is expected to roll out worldwide later in 2008. Motorola has not yet announced pricing or a carrier for North America.


BlackBerry's Clamshell Pearl
Since the beginning of the BlackBerry, this iconic messaging device has been synonymous with the flat, easy-access candy bar style phone. But with the new BlackBerry Pearl 8220 Flip--Research in Motion's first flip phone--the paradigm changes. And it's about time: Flip phones hold a lot of appeal, and a recent J.D. Power study noted that nearly 70 percent of current cell phone customers use a flip phone. The Pearl 8220 Flip is more compact than other BlackBerry models, making it easy to slip into a pocket. The phone has an outside secondary display for previewing calls and messages, and for viewing the time. The keyboard looks similar to that on other Pearl models: It has 20 keys, and uses SureType Technology coupled with a spelling checker. The new phone has surprisingly strong multimedia chops, too: Turn the phone on its side to watch video in wide-screen mode; upload pictures to Facebook or Flickr; or use BlackBerry Media Sync to transfer music from your iTunes collection to your phone. The built-in GPS and integrated BlackBerry Maps (for location-based information and directions) will help you find your way, and integrated Wi-Fi supports phone calls and data streaming.
The BlackBerry Pearl 8220 Flip will be sold via T-Mobile in the third quarter of this year.


Affordable Samsung Rant


Ideal for text messaging, the Samsung Rant has a horizontal-slide full QWERTY keyboard. The handset also comes with a 2-megapixel camera/camcorder, stereo Bluetooth, expandable memory (up to 16GB), and quick access to Sprint Navigation, Sprint Music Store, and Sprint TV. The Rant is one of many new phones to adopt Sprint's new OneClick user interface, which allows users to customize their phone's home screen with their favorite features and content.
The Samsung Rant will be available in October for $50 with a two-year contract. It comes in red or black, though Best Buy will offer an exclusive purple option as well.
Cool New Cell Phones for Fall
Ginny Mies and Melissa J. Perenson, PC World