Nokia wants to help Indian tigers

Finnish-based mobile telephone giant Nokia has joined hands with the wildlife conservation organization, World Wide Fund for Nature, (WWF) to help conserve tigers in India.

Under this initiative, Nokia and WWF-India, will work jointly towards providing education for sustainable growth, increasing knowledge on tiger conservation in the villages surrounding tiger reserves.

Full story here.

S60 : Autocomplete works in browser

Noticed this on N78.

N78 : Where's the memory card?

Quiet some things have changed on S60 FP2, location of the memory card is one such thing.
I wanted to format the memory card but could'nt find its icon in the Tools menu, where its always been since the 2nd Edition.
Its now shifted in the FileManager application, along with its options ;)



Even timed profiles are back with FP2 and Darla is very happy about it.

A little about the N78

Been fiddling with the N78 the whole day and here are my thoughts about the device.



Good:
- It's one of the slimmest N-Series I've handled and its a candy bar.
- NaviWheel : Touch sensitive navigation wheel
- GeoTagging : Location information attached to the photos you take. I tried this out and it works really well. Worked well even from my balcony. A GPS lock is really quick on the N78.
- Really impressive is the Maps application. Although I didn't download the voice module the navigation option was really cool, I searched for a nearby Chinese restaurant and went all the way following the route on Map's.

Rest of the good features are because of Symbian OS 9.3 on it
- *#0000# now opens up Device Manager instead of the standard dialog, showing some more info. The best part is finding new firmware availabiltiy is now just *#0000# ->Options->Check for updates. I did a firmware upgrade OTA in just 3 mins ;)
- The 'Open recent photo/Gallery' key next to the camera key is no more. Wasn't required at all, thanks.
- Access point grouping : Set priorities to access points, cool feature.
- Internet radio now available in Radio application itself.
- More 'Menu View' options, Grid/List/Horse Shoe/V-Shaped
- Standby themes : Horizontal icon bar/ Basic / Vertical Icon bar
- Themes with lots of effects and transitions. Worth mentioning is the Haze theme.
- Bluetooth with option to block specific devices.
- Contacts now has option to show Phone memory/Sim memory/Service numbers.
- Alerts and other messages have been changed , like when switching off the Alert is "Good Bye".
When battery is full , "Battery full. Unplug charger to save energy" etc... have been added.

Lots of such settings and options now available.


Bad:
- As I've already said, the keypad is really bad. Its all cramped up. 5 mins of continuous use will definitely give a painful thumb.
- 3.2 MP camera. With 6220 and N82 having the same price margin I think this phone should have got a 5MP on it.
- As I did with the auto-rotation feature on the N95, I switched off the NaviWheel feature. I feel a lot of work needs to make the NaviWheel operating smoothly.
- When outdoors its really difficult to hear any voice even with the earpiece volume set to full. There's a little improvement after I upgraded the firmware.
- The radio stops taking next/prev button commands from the headset once the radio application goes to the background or the keypad is locked.
- Can't see any screensaver :( , not even the default one. On keypad lock it feels the phone is switched off. This feature (which started with the 6630) , the light sensor, would turn on/off the keypad lights depending upon the surrounding light conditions is of no use on this phone. To see the numbers the lights should remain ON.

New PC Suite 7 feature

"Be informed of incoming calls and new messages received" -- as stated here.

This is how it looks

Incoming call & message notification

Free E71 or What?

Yesterday while googling something I came across this sponsored link


The Nokia Prize contest link led me to this page


Submitting the page gives a HTTP Error 500 :(

What I understand is, it's just information to get in touch with you and market the E71 but whats the CONTEST thing all about.

China mobile , China mobile , China mobile

That's what people are talking every where I go. I've just seen these phones with some people in trains and they look jaw dropping. So what all have I heard about the China Mobiles :

1. The have upto 12 speakers and sound better than any high end phone.
2. You can watch TV on it
3. Large screens ( have seen this myself, screen is as big as iPhone's and really bright)
4. Some even touch screen enabled
5. No guarantee or warranty, No bills
6. Can buy 5 of such instead of 1 N95.
7. They usually look like a mix of two or more Nokia phones

Any one has any experience with these phones, do share.

Whats new in PC Suite 7.0.7.0?

Upgraded to the new version of PC Suite (v 7.0.7.0) . Noticed some new stuff:

1. Asks for a Firefox extension to be installed

Seems like it does not work with Firefox 3.

2. Memory status on mouse over on main window


3. Phone specific icons in Explorer

For N958G

For N95 Classic

4. Contacts and Messages open in Communication Center.

N78 Fusions challenge Howto

Just wanted to clarify that you do not need any GPS device to participate in this challenge.
The challenge is open for Indian residents and is pretty simple.
1. Register yourself here.
2. Play a simple flash game - A location related question will be asked and you just have to guess its location on the map. The more accurate you point the more points you score.
3. Once you finish the ten questions you'll have a personal page.
4. Spread this page with your friends and ask them to become your fan. More fans = more chance of getting shortlisted.
5. 10 shortlisted will get a technical lesson on how geotagging works. Depending upon the clues given, geotag places in your city as fast as possible.
6. 2 shortlisted teams from the city race will now compete to become the ultimate winner.

Prizes :
City winners - N78 for the leader and Bluetooth accessories for the team
Final winner - N78 for the team and leader goes to Turkey.

Although the challenge is open to Indian residents while registering choose one of these cities, preferably the one you know well or the one closer to you , Mumbai/Delhi/Bangalore/Pune/Kolkota/Hyderabad/Ahemadabad/Chennai.

S60 : Greedy penguins top score

127, that's my wifes top score. Trying to beat that for a long time now but :(


Get it here.

S60: Aamir Khan's Samsung Beat 450 commercial

I have always enjoyed Aamir Khan commercials, especially his Coco-Cola ads. Also been hearing that he is really choosy about the work he does. But off late I think he hasn't been making good choices when it comes to commercials. I hate his monacco commercial and dont like his Samsung's S60 phone ad either, I believe they could have done something much better.



Its my personal opinion.

N78 Fusion Challenge update

The challenge has started.

Register here.
N78 Fusion Challenge blog here.