Nokia N8 Official, With 12MP Camera and 720p Video Recording [Nokia]

Well now, this is awkward. Only yesterday Mobile-Review was calling the N8 an unpolished turd, and now Nokia's gone and announced it to the world. As leaks foretold, it's got a 12MP camera with Xenon flash, and runs Symbian^3.

It's Nokia's first Symbian^3 phone, and while initial videos and photos made it look pretty special indeed, Mobile-Review's early look at it warranted a big, fat "do not like." As I said yesterday, that could be because it was an early prototype—time will tell, in any case.

Onto the specs, and that camera has Carl Zeiss optics and the Xenon flash most Nokias are blessed with. It can record video in 720p and thanks to the HDMI output, can play footage on HDTVs.

The screen is a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen, and there's 16GB of inbuilt storage, expandable up to 48GB if you've got the requisite microSD memory card. As with all the next-gen Nokia handsets, free Ovi Maps is included.

The US pricing and availability hasn't been confirmed by Nokia yet, but for now we've been told the pre-taxes European cost will be but it'll of course be available for free on contract. Out in the third quarter, so we're looking at another few months at the very least.

Full list of specs here.

[Gizmodo via Nokia Conversations]

Nokia launches 16GB X6

A somewhat tame version of the X6 has been announced by Nokia today and will become available this quarter. The new 16GB X6 has half the memory capacity of the 32GB version, and it’s also missing the Comes With Music feature. If you think you can live with that, the 16GB X6 has an impressive battery life of 11.5 hours talk time and 18 days of standby, 4.5 hours of video playback and 35 hours of music playback. Of course, Nokia doesn’t cut any corners with cameras on its high-end devices, and this one features a 5 megapixel shooter with Carl Zeiss optics and a dual LED flash — pretty much par for the course on Nokia devices these days. The new X6 also has in-phone video editing capabilities and TV out support so you can watch your amateur cinematography on a big screen. No details on pricing, but we’d imagine it to be less than the full-fledged 32GB version.
[BGR]

Nokia Files Patent For a Bendy Phone With Many Functions [Patents]

Images of the Nokia Morph, a flexible concept phone with a transparent screen, cropped up nearly two years ago. The company's recently-filed patent for a device with a bendy screen suggests that the Gumbyphone may still have legs.

Nokia recently filed a patent for a device with a flexible screen that takes on different applications when the hardware is bent into different shapes.


While that diagram might make it seem like Nokia is trading in camping gear, the patent illuminates some of the phone's possible uses:

In one embodiment the pre-specified shape is also associated with a movement. As a pre-specified shape is detected and followed by the detection of a pre-specified movement an associated function is executed.'
'FIG. 10a shows a device having been bent to resemble a can, possibly used to hold beer or soda. A search will thus be performed for a bar or a pub either a specific franchise or any bar or pub in the neighborhood.
FIG. 10b shows a device having been bent to resemble a bowl. A search will thus be performed for a restaurant either a specific franchise or any restaurant in the neighborhood.
FIG. 10c shows a device having been bent to resemble a roof or a tent. A search will thus be performed for a hotel, motel or guest house either a specific franchise or any hotel, motel or guesthouse in the neighborhood.

There's no telling if this patent will amount to anything, but for now just be happy that Nokia's bendy phone may eventually see the light of day.
[Gizmodo via Go Rumors via Slash Gear]

Nokia Gives Us a Glimpse of the New Symbian UI

The folks at Nokia are working hard on the new Symbian^4 platform, and now we can see a part of their progress, at least where the UI part is concerned. Granted, this is just a proposal for Orbit and Direct UI, but it shows Nokia’s commitment to rectify all the issues that current implementations of Symbian undoubtedly have, especially when compared with the iPhone OS or Android.
In a nutshell, the new visuals seem to be better suited for a finger-controlled touch-phone, with a toolbar at the bottom of the screen, floating dialogs and drop-down menus from the top navigation bar.
It’s all distant future, though, as we won’t see Symbian^4 based phones at least until the first half of 2011, but one can’t deny the UI looks better than what we see on current Symbian phones.






[Mashable]

Suck It, Street View, Navteq Maps the World in 3D... With Lasers [GPS]

Google's Street View team famously photographs all kinds of weird stuff as they drive the world, but Navteq, who basically invented this stuff, just built a mount with seven cameras and 64 lasers to see everything better, in 3D.
Mounted atop a VW Jetta wagon is this crazy apparatus with a 12-megapixel panoramic camera on top and six more cameras pointed in specific directions to pick up signs and other data points. But the best gadgetry—the laser array—is housed inside a rapidly spinning barrel positioned at an angle. By using LIDAR, basically radar but with lasers, they scan everything within view, capturing 1.2 million points of data every second. The result is all kinds of terrain data that is not possible using just cameras.

The goal is "high accuracy maps," a deliberately vague notion that ranges from additional information—bridge underpass clearance heights, multilayer cloverleaf navigation and other obvious issues—to super rich 3D environments like the ones you see below. Those aren't CG renderings, in the traditional sense, it's laser-enriched photography.

Navteq, a Chicago company owned by Nokia who has been driving around making maps since the first GPS satellites were hurled into orbit, still provides a massive share of map data for web and devices, so the fruits of this tech might get to you sooner than you know.
As for your own personal rig, I sure want one, and my guess is that Google wants one too—if they don't have it already.
[Gizmodo via Navteq]

The Nokia N900 Isn't A Phone, It's A Psychotic Shapeshifter [Nokia]

While we've been sitting, waiting, wishing for the Nokia N900, we missed something very important: It's not a phone. As this Nokia ad shows, it's actually a psychotic shapeshifter. At least I think that's the message they're trying to send.
If you don't feel like watching the whole ad, jump to about 1:50. It's where the truth is revealed. It's also the moment when I began to daydream about the days when ads actually showed the product for more than a few seconds.
UPDATE:

Offers up the following:

• Maemo 5 OS
• 3.5-inch WVGA (800 x 480) resistive touchscreen display
• 110.9 × 59.8 × 18mm, 181g
• Portrait-orientation sliding QWERTY
• Mozilla-based browser, full Adobe Flash support
• ARM cortex A8 processor
• 32GB internal memory
• 5.0 MP Carl Zeiss camera with dual-LED flash, auto-focus and sliding cover
• MicroSDHC support up to 16GB
• FM transmitter
• Quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, WCDMA 900/1700/2100, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP
• GPS
• 1320 mAh battery

[Gizmodo via GitEmSteveDave!]

Slick Looking Nokia Erdos OLED Concept Could Become Real Next Month [Rumor]

The Nokia Erdos concept, suspiciously not profiled at the recent Nokia World Expo, may be sexy enough—and more importantly have just enough tangible features—that a proper reveal next month is entirely within the realm of possibility.
Again, there's nothing concrete here beyond a fuzzy footage and a laundry list of completely believable specs listed in the video:

OLED
stainless steel casing
2.4-in. QVGA display
3G
GPS
8GB storage
USB
Wifi
5 megapixel camera
Docking stand with wireless headset

So, just a hunch so far, and nothing from Nokia on this just yet. For now, I suppose, enjoy that sultry piano solo on this fine Sunday morning. [YouTube, Hear No Evil TV via Engadget]

Nokia N900 U.S. Preorders Are Go: $650 No Contract [Cell Phones]

The N900 is up for preorder, and Nokia is throwing in its BH-703 Bluetooth headset to sweeten the deal. That's beats €500 ($710) in Europe. The N900 packs some hot specs, but remember it needs T-Mobile's network for 3G. [Nokia]

Nokia N97 Mini Gets Official: €450 ($640) in October [Cell Phones]

An extensive preview filled us in on the N97 not-so Mini, but it now has a price: €450 ($640) pre-taxes and subsidies. It should be available off contract in 'many markets', and includes Lonely Planet guidebooks and Facebook 'Lifecasting'.
Premiering on the N97 Mini, the Lifecasting with Ovi feature lets you publish your GPS location and status direct to your Facebook account, all from the home screen.
As a reminder: the N97 has a 3.2-inch touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard, and is only 'around a centimeter' smaller than the N97. [Nokia]