This is it, now we have Skype for the Symbian available for download and use. It is a full feature rich Skype and not a run down version of the popular application. The beta was launched a few months back but this version id presumably free of errors and necessary fixes have been made. Oh and off course the Ovi store is hosting it.

The app will allow users to make Skype to Skype calls on their data connections thus reducing massive phone bills, both local as well as long distance. The app also lets users share and send images  video files. The list of supported devices is rather long and you will find it at the end of the post.

Now is the tie people can really benefit from a WiFi enabled Nokia or even some other device running the Symbian. They say support for Sony Ericsson is coming shortly so hopefully the newest Vivaz might run the app. Those going out of country might find this app extremely useful in cutting down on International calls. However, the preferred medium would still be a WiFi network rather than a 3G Volume based connection. Download from the Ovi store.

The supported devices are enlisted below:

Nokia N96, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N85, Nokia N82, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8 GB, Nokia N79, Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 classic, Nokia 6210 Navigator,  Nokia 5320,  Nokia E72,  Nokia E71,  Nokia E90,  Nokia E63,  Nokia E66,  Nokia E51,  Nokia X6,  Nokia 5800,    Nokia 5530, Nokia N97 and the Nokia N97 mini

PocketGear has acquired Handango, the announcement was made just a few days back. This might come as a surprise but the benefits are truly amazing, at least for PocketGear, quite simply because this lone move now gives it access to some 140,000 apps of various categories. This includes paid as well as free titles. This might as well be termed as  the creation of so far the largest cross platform, open app store on planet Earth.

The two stores are known to have generated over $ 400 million in revenue resulting from sale of mobile apps. This they say is spread across 175 countries, and the variety of mobile devices supported is well over 2000 in number.

PocketGear’s developer base alone has expanded to some 32,000 strong giving it more variety and reach. This will help improve its stats further as the company has already worked in conjunction with Samsung, Microsoft, LG, Sony Ericsson, RIM, Verizon and AT&T. Simply put more developers and more companies mean more variety and hence more revenue. And remember this is for a variety of devices unlike Apple.

PocketGear supports supposedly all brands less the “i” category Some of the brands under its belt are Java, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Android, Palm, Blackberry and the ever present Symbian.    

PockerGear’s strength comes form its business model which supports developers more than other competitors. PocketGear’s developers get to keep up to 90% of the share as against 70% in case of other models. Besides this the company CEO Jud Bowman says it has perfected its systems in a big way and Handset manufacturers or carriers can now launch their own customized stores in weeks.

It has been a little over a week since Nokia’s Ovi maps (free) was launched. The word “free” is enticing in many ways, it is attractive, inviting and conjures up curiosity in almost everyone. So now there have been over 1.4 million downloads of this application in this small period. By the way Ovi Maps offers free walk as well as drive navigation.

From next month onwards all Nokia devices with GPS will come with Ovi Maps pre-installed sparing users the trouble of downloading and installing the app themselves. Also included will be local country maps, drive and walk navigation, access to Lonely Planet and  Michelion Travel guide.

Supported devices include Nokia X6, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia N97, E72, E55, E52, Nokia 6730 classic, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic, Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, Nokia 5230. Support for other devices can be found at the Nokia website. The app can be downloaded from the same page and is available in over 70 countries.

Not a day passes by when I am not amazed and dazed at how technology is evolving and innovation is shaping things. I blogged about the Airnergy Wi-Fi signals harvesting device a couple of days back, and just now happened to chance upon some very impressive gadgets that are totally out of this world, they really are impressive. I won’t bore you with more adjectives just read on…

SLIMDATA is a USB 2.0 storage device that is easy to carry around. It is not fat and ugly, in fact it is the size of a Credit card and can therefore sit in one’s wallet. To use it simply fold one side to reveal the USB port and insert in your laptop/PC. Currently it is available in 4 GB capacity and comes in five colors. Works with Windows, Linux and Mac. If you place a big order the company will print a customized message or logo. Check out the website for more info.

Washable Mice, Keyboards and TV Remotes. Now eat this, keyboards, mice and remotes that are washable! But why, I mean why not just use a vacuum cleaner instead or may be use a lint free cloth with some liquid? Well the developers of these smart products say that it is good for the health since the product they are made of repels bacteria. Moreover, since these things can be washed just like clothes in a dishwasher, kitchen sink or whatever so there are lesser chances of people infecting each other. This brings us to another problem, when can we see a keyboard, mouse or TV remote washing machine? Just kidding, check out the company’s website.

Mobile TV. This is a portable device that lets users view TV via a Notebook, Netbook and  smart-phone. It can be charged from Mini USB port, has WLAN and weighs just 71 grams. It will work with Symbian, Android and Windows Mobile based devices. Check out the website for more in depth information.

Samsung unveiled a new Smartphone OS for Samsung mobile phones called as Bada. Whatever that means is of no importance, the fact is that now the competition is steeper than ever since iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian now have a competitor which has a growing market share.

The OS is an extension of the Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. The OS is meant for touch screen phones only and Samsung hopes to increase the market share by some 50%. Developers have been encouraged to develop applications on for Bada. Since it is meant for smart devices therefore the apps are themselves going to be advanced in any and every form. Features will include motion sensing, face detection, web control, weather updating and sensing various activities etc.

Some of the service features of the Bada OS include device synchronization, e-commerce services, location based services, content management and social networking that is location based. The SDK is available for download at a dedicated website.

Linked closely to this whole story is the Bada challenge award for developers to share an amount of $ 2,700,000 by simply submitting apps for the OS. Users will be able to buy apps form the Bada store and make payments via their mobile phone bills. Upon launch the app store will be available to some 50 countries and by the second half of 2010 it will be global.

Handsets are expected to be released in first half of 2010. More info at the Bada website.

In Spanish DondeEsta means where is he, she, it or you. In Nokia mobile phones running Symbian or other ones running Windows Mobile it means a lot more. It means being able to locate the mobile phone and hence its owner wherever he, she or it may be. The application is a mere 52 kb in size and can be downloaded from the DondeEsta website or even Getjar.

Download the application, install it and simply add the users from your directory who can trace you. In order to trace a person the other party simply has to send an SMS with the “???” in the text portion. The mobile phone with the DondeEsta will reply with an SMS indicating its location. The coordinates can be searched on Google Earth for finding the exact spot on planet Earth.

The interesting thing is that the tracker or the finder does not need this application, it is only required for the mobile phone which is being tracked. The interface is simple and user friendly. The application website also has a list of phones that are DondeEsta compatible. The application has been downloaded over 27,000 times and if the number of downloads is a measure of its popularity we say it is quite popular.

Mobile phone with integrated A-GPS will show more accurate results but the app still works on non GPS mobile phones with some trade-offs in accuracy. DondeEsta can be used for Safety of family members, for exercising Parental control, for locating your vehicle or even for companies on the lookout for field workers antics. A good application for any of these purposes or fun, I say give it a try.

A research by Gartner, Inc has released that Android share will raise upto14 percent by 2012, making it the number two phone OS in the world (after Symbian OS). With Google being the maker of android, anybody can guarantee that Android will remain a success for a longer period of time.

The Gartner forecast gives Android such an enormous surge in popularity because of a variety of factors, but chiefly because of Google Inc.’s backing of Android and the range of cloud computing functions and related applications that Google will make available in coming years.

Continuing with this, we now have a new Samsung Moment Android phone (this time on Sprint) , after our last news on Biggtech of “Samsung’s Behold 2 to run android in its chest”.  The new moment Android phone includes all useful features like Wi-Fi, integrated GPS, a 3.2MP camera/camcorder, QWERTY keyboard and 3.2″ AMOLED touchscreen display.

What’s more

- 800 MHz processor

- 3.2 Megapixel Camera

- GPS Navigation

- 32 GB expandable memory

This is the second Android phone available on Sprint which also confirms its Sprint’s decision to be a member of Open Handset Alliance.

How to get it?

I know most of you can’t resist the phone by seeing it. Well right now, you can order the Moment by November 1 for $179.99 (excluding taxes) after a $50 instant savings and a $100 mail-in-rebate with a two-year service agreement. Pre-registration begins today at www.sprint.com/moment.

You have Internet Explorer or Opera installed on your windows mobile / nokia symbian phone and you think its good enough, think again. Try SkyFire on your mobile device and you’ll be amazed by the features and speed this little and FREE mobile browser comes packed with.

The features include AJAX, Javascript, Java, Quicktime, Web 2.0 standards, Silverlight and most importantly Adobe Flash 10. It can play videos from your favorite video site such as YouTube, hulu etc and support flash and windows media file types. Using twitter and facebook on this browser is a breeze. In short it can render any web page which your desktop browser can without any limitation and performance downgrade.

It is very fast and use Gecko based rendering engine under the hood, and for advance rendering a server based rendering technology is used explained below.

As is Nokia N97 wasn’t enough now we have N97 Mini coming out which is a stepbrother to the hottest selling mobile phone on the planet. The mini is very much a N97, with a smaller form factor and some changes. The notable differences are:

• Size: 113 x 52.5 x 14.2 mm against 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm
• Weight: 138 g against 150 g
• Standby Time: 320 hours GSM, 310 hours WCDMA : 430 hours GSM, 400 hours WCDMA
• Talk Time: 430 mins GSM, 240 mins WCDMA against 570 mins GSM 360 mins WCDMA
• Internal Memory: 8 GB against 16 GB internal
• slightly reconfigured keyboard, no camera lens cover.

Other than these it is very much the original N97 running Symbian OS version 9.4, S60 5th edition. There is WLAN, A-GPS, Quad band, Bluetooth, 5 MP camera etc etc. The big question is why have another smaller mobile phone with almost the same space? Is it to confuse the general public, a marketing gimmick or the rather reduced price tag? Actually rumor has it that a competitor had planned to launch a smaller version of the phone with the name “Mini” and Nokia decided to thwart off the effort; what a pre-emptive launch of a Nokia N97 Mini. They say it is going to cost a little less than the original, at least Vodafone has confirmed its availability in the UK for free on a £35.00 per month package deal. Elsewhere it is going to be launched by mid October 2009, till that happens let us keep our fingers crossed.

Just a month in to its release Nokia 5530 is making headlines and going strong. This is very much a touch-screen phone which doesn’t carry a hefty price tag, and hence suits the average phone junkie. The following are its glaring features:

• Network: Quad-band GSM
• Dimensions: 104 x 49 x 13 mm
• Weight: 107 grams
• TFT Resistive touch-screen, 16 M colors
• Screen size: 2.9”
• Memory: up to 16 GB MicroSD
• Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, HSCSD, Bluetooth, 802.11 b/g
• Camera: 3.15 MP (Max Res 2048 x 1536 pixels, LED Flash, autofocus, video at 30 fps)
• OS: Symbian 9.4, Series S60
• Additional Goodies: SMS, MMS, E-Mail, IM, Browser, Music (multiple formats), Stereo FM Radio, Games (Java supported), T9, photo editing, voice commands, accelerometer, handwriting recognition
• Battery Life: Talk: 4 hours, Standby : 336 hours, music: 27 hours (Non-stop maximum)

The phone is available in 5 colors to choose from. It is enclosed in a stainless steel body and is a sleek beauty. This is not a 3G phone, the addition of Wi-Fi is a welcome feature, something which the Samsung phones in the GSM category lack. Symbian OS means OVI connectivity is supported. Its price is also attractive at around $250. The built-in music support means it is generally targeted towards the younger audience. Not a bad phone by any standard.