The Nokia N9 is a solid unibody with 3.9-inch AMOLED screen (854 x 480) void of any kind of keyboard or hardware buttons other than camera a volume buttons. The N9 would ship with 16GB or 64GB of onboard memory and 1GB of RAM.
The body is nearly perfectly designed with polycarbonate shell and pretty much scratch proof.

Coming to the N9 specs, it has:

• CPU: OMAP3630 1 Ghz processor with a PowerVR SGX530 GPU
• Radio: QuadBand GSM, penta-band WCDMA radio
• Connectivity & Sensors: 802.11 abgn Wifi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, NFC, proximity senor, magnetometer, accelerometer, light sensor, compass, orientation sensor, a micro SIM slot, tethering support and a 3.5mm “AV connector
• Display: 3.9″ AMOLED 854×480 resolution display.
• Camera: 8 Megapixel CArl Zeis camera, capable of aperture F2.2 for low light picture taking and true 16:9 720p video recording
• Dimensions: 116.45- x 61.2- x 7.6-12.1mm
• weight: 135 grams
• battery: up to 50 hours (music), 4.5 hours (720p video), o7-11 GSM phone operation
• OS & apps: MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan, with apps being compliant with Qt 4.7 and HTML5 support bundled in
• Inbuilt Apps:  turn-by-turn drive and walk navigation with voice guidance in Maps, a dedicated Drive app. Angry Birds Magic, Galaxy on Fire 2, Real Golf 2011 and OpenGL ES 2.0, Webit2 browser,  pinch-to-zoom support, unified notifications for Facebook, Twitter and RSS feeds in the Events view as well as social networking profiles and status updates merged into phone contacts. Ovi Store apps soon.

Nokia N9 Impressions
Basically, MeeGo has a user interface simplified to three home views — events, applications and open apps. The Nokia N9 is a very thin smartphone. The official specs say it is 116.45 x 61.2 x 7.6-12.1 mm. In comparison, the iPhone 4 is 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm. N9 in terms of hardware is nearly perfect, but the software is something that still needs improvement, and it would get better within 2011.

There’s also an NFC chip for mobile payments and touch-and-go contact and photo sharing, an 8 megapixel camera with HD video capture and a wide-angle 28mm Zeiss lens, and Dolby Headphone and Dolby Digital Plus audio in case you like your jams with a side of sonic sweetener.

N9 specs, UI demos, Spec PDF

We’re also a little disappointed in the plastic body, although Nokia says it offers “superior antenna performance” and it does come in cyan, black, and magenta, so that’s fun.

Apps place (appy place)
The central home screen is where you get to see all the pre-installed and user-downloaded apps. Ovi Store and the pre-installed Facebook and Twitter clients  are included in the MeeGo firmware.

Notify!
A screen that many iPhone users will soon be familiar with, and android users already love it — the notifications screen — lives to the left of the apps drawer. The top fragment is the weather, and can be selected for a more detailed view, and beneath it is an aggregation of all incoming messages, including social network updates.

Multitasking
A screen is dedicated to Multitasking. MeeGo UI is a multitasking display, showing all recently used apps and the their saved states. Nokia tells us that while the N9 won’t run videos in the background, tasks like loading a webpage will continue if you switch to a different task in the middle of the page load.

Update: Handson Video:

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Nokia diverted its plan towards new Open source mobile OS, MeeGo. The strategy had big backing from Intel but it never paved off, and Nokia nearly ditched the future of its own OS. Now that Nokia has moved to Windows Phone 7, Nokia would no longer support existing Symbian OS devices, but would continue to play tits n bits with the code. ITs of course a good time to Open source the whole of project and let innovators from around the globe pitch in.

Nokia is now announcing that the Symbian code has been fully Open sourced and is available at symbian.nokia.com. The transition phase is pretty much in works, but once done collab.symbian.nokia.com will have full documentation & tools available for developers.

The documentation page shows “coming soon” for all but the GIT repository guide. However, any interested and informed parties can always go and contribue to the Symbian Wiki.

According to Nokia’s head of open source, Petra Soderling:

“We have been working hard to turn most Symbian Foundation era materials into the new framework – for example, checking ownerships and use of rights for masses of documents – and are proud to announce that almost all of the source code is now uploaded to collab.symbian.nokia.com. The few remaining source files, tools and documents will be uploaded over the next few weeks.”

The situation surrounding contributing code back to Symbian’s source code. She responded by stating:

“As we committed when the Symbian Foundation announced its plans to ramp down, Nokia is offering Symbian through an alternative, open and direct model for those who wish to use the platform. We encourage potential collaborators to discuss with the package owners at Nokia if they have enhancements that are really useful and they believe could be incorporated into the platform. Currently they can get in touch with us through the ‘Contact us’ function on the website.

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Despite what people, Nokia had to take a move, either could be MeeGo, Android or WP7. Nokia chose x-Microsoft Employee’s decision.

Nokia has dropped the plans from upcoming N series phones, but has revealed new WP7 concept phone which is expected hit market within 2011. We have it on good authority that the technicolor phones on show are conceptual devices produced by the two companies. The shape of these handsets is somewhere between its recent N8 and C7 Symbian devices and there is, as usual for Nokia, a choice of sprightly colors

Even when the partnership has just been announced, the Microkia has actually spent lots of time working together and the phones are coming soon.

image credit: engadget

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Android can already be installed on iPhone, but Myriad group is working on a new Virtual machine that would enable almost any platform to install Android Apps. The the new VM would be called the Alien Dalvik, bearing its name from Dalvik, android’s native VM.

Alien Dalvik will let the “majority” of Android apps run without modification and will appear as native apps. Myriad will be demonstrating this at Mobile World Congress on a Nokia N900 with commercial availability on the MeeGo platform and other non-android platforms, soon after.

Alien Dalvik enables the majority of Android applications to run unmodified, allowing application store owners to quickly kick start Android application store services by simply repackaging Android Package (APK) files.

From a user perspective, Alien Dalvik is completely transparent. Alien Dalvik applications appear as native and can be seamlessly installed on device without user disruption. All the user sees is that he now has access to a wider range of applications, thus encouraging a higher frequency of downloads and increased ARPU.

Myriad Group Chief Executive Officer, Simon Wilkinson, stated..

“The proliferation of Android has been staggering, but there is still room for growth. By extending Android to other platforms, we are opening up the market even further, creating new audiences and revenue opportunities.”

As a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), Myriad has been playing a key role in Android solutions since its early days. When partnering with Myriad for Android application development or porting, operators, OEMs and application store owners will benefit from Myriad’s rich heritage in Java technology and unique Android expertise.

Update: Handson video:

It would be interesting to see how they come up with a VM port for every platform and ultimately creating a huge revenue stream for Android developers.

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ThinkContacts is an app for the Nokia N900’s Maemo platform, which is able to dial a contact using only the power of thought.

Originally, the idea is to create an app for “Motor disabled person”  to enable them to make phone calls to a desired contact by himself/herself by using power of thought, alone. But if it gives good results, it can be made available to masses.

How it works

The app uses a special headset to read users’ brainwaves. These brainwaves provide brain activity giving valuable information which helps in determining determine which of three contacts on the screen the user wants to call.

At this stage, app is at its early stages, and has high probability of achieving high accuracy. As per the official Wiki:

“The user controls the selection of the desired contact by controlling his/her level of meditation and attention. If the user’s level of attention is higher than 70% the software switches to the next contact in the list, if it is lower than 30% the software switches to the previous, otherwise the current contact will not be switched. If the user’s meditation level is higher than 80%, the software makes a phone call to the contact located at the center of the screen.”

Future of Input is Mouseless, it can be even that Intel will put chips in your brains, after all, Scientists are pretty near to simulating a Brain.  Fascinnating, isn’t it? Watch the video:

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The business proposition is easy: The dying Motorola’s business would prove out to be profitable for Nokia Siemens, as they now achieve #3 spot in Top wireless network vendors in the United States and hence expand business propositions with Motorola’s existing customers.

The acquisition gives  Nokia Siemens 7,500 employees plus solid relationships with Clearwire, Sprint Nextel, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and China Mobile.

In the press release from NSN, Rajeev (CEO) said “Motorola’s current customers will continue to get world-class support for their installed base and a clear path for transitioning to next generation technologies while employees will join an industry leader with global scale and reach. Nokia Siemens Networks will see the benefits of a deal that is expected to enhance profitability and cash-flow and to have significant upside potential.”

But at the end of the day, ROI of the  acquisition will depend on how successfully the operations of the two companies are merged  and how well they streamline the development, manufacturing, distribution, bringing overall efficiency.

The acquisition is also aimed to build a stronger infrastructure for 4G/LTE wireless networks being setup all around US.

Most of the industry leading Telecom operators, like Verizon, believe that this is good move for the betterment of wireless industry.

Motorola intends to build a separate entity called  ”Motorola Mobility” out of its cellphone division which has got some industry appreciation after the launch of Android smartphones starting with Droid and then Droid X, but that plan has been postponed due to heavy losses in that unit.

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Qt (pronounced “Cute”) is cross-platform application and UI framework developed and maintained by telecom giant, Nokia. As far as I can tell you, this is the most portable, and yet most feature-ful UI, I’ve seen lately. Surprisingly, it works on both PCs and mobiles, alike. It supports embedded-Linux, Mac OS, Windows, Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Maemo:

Almost, every popular platform is included (I wish iPhone was bit more open).

Qt is most widely used in Google Earth, KDE, Opera, OPIE, VoxOx, Skype, VLC media player and VirtualBox and 100s of other applications. Qt uses standard C++, but makes extensive use of the C pre-processor to enrich the language. Qt can also be used in several other programming languages via language bindings. Qt uses native widgets and wraps them in a common API across all platforms. Non-GUI features (discussed later) include SQL database access, XML parsing, thread management, network support and a unified cross-platform API for file handling.

Apart from all that, it’s quiet good on features:

• Advanced GUI: A big set of widgets (with stylesheets), from buttons to tables. Advanced formatting, scaling, orientation layouts. Support for vector graphics, and hardware acceleration
• 2D, 3D Graphics & OpenGL: Full 2D, 3D acceleration enabled apps with OpenGL ES (mobile), Direct 3D (windows)
• Fully Multithreaded: High-level Multithreading API, Easier data management and synchronized inter-object communications.
• Rich Multimedia Framework: Supports multiple media codecs, streaming technologies.
• WebKit, XML, Networking Integration: Local content can be blended with Web content seamlessly.
• Databases: Supports all major databases.

It’s available via APIs for a number of Languages: C++, C#/.Net, Python, Ada, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Ruby and Java.

If we talk about Java in particular (Platform independent code + platform independent GUI makes sense right?), few factors that favor Qt more than Java Swing or Java SWT are:

• Easy to use and learn
• Good documentation
• Good support
• Active development

The official video below talks about the some of the most widely applied use cases and application in industry which vary from space to embedded systems in industries:

They have a number of Videos demoing various applications, you can check them out at their Official Youtube channel. Pretty interesting stuff, full multitouch on phones, Maps, simulations and more.

Qt has a much steeper learning curve and the API is much more consistent, not to mention that Qt has been improved the last seven years while Swing hasn’t. The Popular KDE is based on Qt, so there are lot of people out there using it, and user-experience is great.

The SDK is available under LGPL and as commercially supported licensed product too. Go ahead and proceed to Downloads section, I’m sure you will have great first-hand experiences.

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Hackintosh is a state of the Art but it was never meant for smartphones. But Virtualization makes it possible to do it.

A Nokia geek managed to Run Mac OS X 10.3 on a Nokia N900 using PearPC.

OS X would be an overkill for this device that too running in a VM. I must admit it’s painfully slow but the joy is all about having it. It took hours to boot up! That’s what you would expect from an 600Mhz ARM with limited RAM.

With that said, the project is a good attempt full of fun and creating a history by making N900 the first smartphone ever to run a full version of OS X.

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A new Prototype from Nokia is kind of a strange innovation. Charging the phone is as easy as pouring Coke, the popular beverage, into the phone. Under the hood, it generates energy from sugar, making it possible to manufacture Green phones that virtually are non-polluting.

This concept phone was created by designer Daizi Zheng, who says:

“The concept is using bio battery to replace the traditional battery to create a pollution free environment. Bio battery is an ecologically friendly energy generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst. By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out.”

It’s a great idea, but will it be adopted anytime soon? I seriously doubt. But following us @taranfx will definitely keep you updated.

P.S. Diet coke may not be suitable for this phone’s health

Today, Apple decided to respond back with strong statements. They have filed counterclaim the U.S. District Court of Delaware, Apple  denies infringement and stresses that Nokia attempted to copy the iPhone and infringed 13 Apple patents in the process.

The key takeaway on the counter fight was:

“Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours,” Bruce Sewell, Apple’s SVP.

Apple’s counterclaim makes thing more clear:

In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone a ground-breaking device that allowed users access to the functionality of the already popular iPod on a revolutionary mobile phone and Internet device. The iPhone is a converged device that allows users to access and ever expanding set of software features to take and send pictures, play music, play games do research, serve as a GPS device and much more…The iPhone platform has caused a revolutionary change in the mobile phone category.

In contrast, Nokia made a different business decision and remained focused on traditional mobile wireless handsets with conventional user interfaces. As a result, Nokia has rapidly lost share in the market for high-end mobile phones. Nokia has admitted that, as a result of the iPhone launch, “the market changed suddenly and [Nokia was] not fast enough changing with it.

In response, Nokia chose to copy the iPhone, especially its enormously popular and patented design and user interface….

As Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s executive Vice President and General Manager of Multimedia, stated at Nokia’s GoPlay event in 2007 when asked about the similarities of Nokia’s new offerings to the already released iPhone: “if there is something good in the world, we copy with pride.” [proof] True to this quote, Nokia has demonstrated its willingness to copy Apple’s iPhone ideas as well as Apple’s basic computing technologies, all while demanding Apple pay for access to Nokia’s purported standards essential patent. Apple seeks redress for this behavior.

[via allthingsd ]

And these days we see a choice between Symbian and Maemo on most N-series. Fortunately, things are starting to become a bit more clear, Maemo’s marketing team  meet-up in London last night, declared future for Maemo.

Nokia will drop Symbian S60 from all of its flagship N-series consumer devices in favor of Maemo. Apparently, Nokia has been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic response to the N900 OS even though the enthusiast package is not quite ready for mass-market appeal. However, the transition won’t be instantaneous as anyone with an N900 (and a clear mind) can attest — the OS, services, and apps just can’t compare to the mature S60 platform regardless of Maemo 5′s superior user experience.

The transition will be a gradual one with further Symbian-based N-Series handsets already in development.  Whilst the N900 was acknowledged to be a ‘bridge’ device firmly aimed at the developer and enthusiast community, subsequent devices will target the mass-market and Maemo-based devices will grow to fill all of Nokia’s flagship range by 2012. There are no current plans for Maemo devices in the new video-focused X-Series range or popular E-Series enterprise range, but Nokia had been surprised by the enthusiasm with which the N900 and the latest incarnation of Maemo have been received so further expansion isn’t out of the question.

‘Maemo Select’, the current community-portal for Maemo applications, will initially run alongside Nokia’s Ovi store, which is due to launch for the N900 via a software update next month.  However, in the longer term it too will be retired leaving only the Ovi Store as the official Nokia source for free and paid applications promoted on Symbian and Maemo devices.

As such, we’ll continue to see N-Series handsets already in development pop with S60 on board alongside mass-market Maemo devices as the platform matures to the point that Nokia can make the full switch by 2012. Looking at the current scenario, I won’t be surprised if Nokia endsup adding Android to its cart .

N900, integrates the open source browser with delicious gestures and smoothness to it. Of course, gestures are different from that of the iPhone, coz they are patented, but equally good on daily use. The browser features a Full-Flash instead of Mobile flash and probably it will find it’s way to Adobe Flash 10.1.

There are couple of new features like Browsing history which you cna get on swiping the finger across, horizontally. Watch the official Video:

On the other side,

The Screen has impressive resolution of 800 x 480, relatively compact dimensions for such a loaded phone. The touchscreen is resistive (which is bad) but better than N97.  The screen gets scratchy on use with stylus, screen protector is recommended.

The best part: keyboard is small but very easy to type on, a major improvement over the N97′s.

It’s powered by a 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU with great video recording grabbing capabilities. Still photos are average with 5MP camera.

Nokia finally seems to have ditched Symbian and adopted Linux for this smartphone, which makes this phone a worth go.

The device is capable of  holding 48GB of total memory.

the overall feel of a well-built device.

Nokia unveiled its first netbook. Called the Nokia Booklet 3G, the long-rumored device features a 10-inch screen, weighs 2.75 pounds, runs Windows, and has Wi-Fi 802.11g as well as to cellular 3G wireless networks.

Throw a stone in the dark with All Electronics companies around and chances are high that you will hit a company who has a Netbook  released or upcoming. Whether it’s a Graphics leader like Nvidia or a small computer manufacturer like CompuTex any brand can have a Netbook.

All you need is marketing and a supplier. This Finland based comapny already has a Big Marketing thick on the ground.

Specs:

You could call it a fancy netbook, what with its Atom processor and 10.1-inch display, but that screen is higher res than your average Eee, and it also sports integrated 3G wireless and a hot-swappable SIM card, so it’s definitely trying to define its own niche. It looks to be running Windows 7, which isn’t particularly netbooky, and also has integrated A-GPS with a copy of Ovi Maps, HDMI output, a rated 12 hour battery life, and the usual Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, all in Dimensions of 2cm (.78 inch) and weight of 2.7lb aluminum body that’s understated, sophisticated, and should make most Nokia fans very happy.

There’s a fancy promotional video after the break, and while we don’t have any anticipated release date or price just yet, we’ll be learning more at Nokia World 09 on September 2.

Here’s what distinguishes this Netbook from others -

1. It’s a HD Multimedia Netbook
A 10.1-inch screen is par for the netbook course, but a glossy screen promising HD isn’t. Nokia hasn’t said what the resolution is, but we reckon it’ll spit out 720p no problem – unlike the Sony VAIO P, which bucks the low-res trend too, but can barely handle video at all. Though Nvidia TEGRA Netbook would be even better but since that will run windows CE, Nokia takes advantage over here.

The Nokia Booklet 3G will be one of a select few 10-inch laptops to pack HDMI, so you’ll be able to hook it up to your flatscreen and playback hi-deffy video on it whenever the urge grabs you – and since it’s so small you know it’ll be ninja silent too.

2. Great battery life
When Nokia says the Nokia Booklet 3G will run for 12 hours, you know it means it. The chaps at Espoo are legendary for cranking out phones with battery lives that last longer than most celebrity marriages – don’t expect the Nokia Booklet 3G to be any different.

3. Hot swappable SIM slot
So you pick up the Nokia Booklet 3G subsidised with a 3G mobile broadband bundle. Imagine the horror when you turn it on one day to discover no signal where you are. The horror! Not to worry though, you can just swap it out for your phone’s SIM card instead and you’re away surfing.

4. GPS
The Nokia Booklet 3G comes with it out of the box. Add that to Nokia’s powerful Ovi Maps service and you’ve got one convenient way to get around. Nokia says an Ovi Maps “gadget” will be included – we’re hoping that means as an instant-on app. Though there exists other Netbooks which have it too.

Who could beat this Netbook?

1. Nvidia Tegra

2. MacBook Air look-alike Alternative – iiView

Nokia’s Plan

This may be a move by Nokia to grab initiative from rival Apple. In the past several years, the iPhone maker has managed to grab significant share in the lucrative, fast-growing market for smartphones away from Nokia. Apple is also rumored to be developing a tablet netbook. With this announcement, Nokia may be trying to beat Apple to the punch.
Netbooks should help fuel Nokia’s growth, which has slowed down in recent months. The cell phone business is not what it used to be. Amidst the global economic downturn, the industry’s sales of handsets should decline 10% this year, according to Nokia’s forecasts. Meanwhile, netbook shipments should double this year, according to analyst estimates.
Many netbooks are sold through traditional Nokia customers, carriers, and, thus, represent a natural extension of the company’s business. In Europe, wireless service providers account for more than 25% of all netbooks sold, according to consultant IDC. The carriers typically sell the small, cheap notebooks bundled together with Web connectivity services.
Carrier subsidies on netbooks are roughly similar to those for smartphones, which is why, for Nokia, entering this market makes perfect sense. Nokia is entering a market that offers fairly good margins.

In Nokia’s case, to sell it’s Ovi data services, Maps, photo exchanges, data syncing — sure sounds like PC data. So why not put it into a PC while you work on a handheld people will buy?

It’s the connection between hardware and services that makes this story of interest to open source users. Services are the key open source business model. You can’t make someone buy a support subscription, but if they are buying the services provided by your software their checkbook is open to you.

“Learn from Nokia – meld a kick ass, industrial design with customized software experience and have it subsidized by an alternative business model, be that subsidy or services offering, movies and entertainment – that’s a better way to skin this cat,” Zemlin told in March.

This is what Moblin is about, what Android is about, and what Nokia’s own open source Symbian is about. Service revenue driving open source adoption.

That netbooks would offer good margins may seem counterintuitive. After all, traditional PC industry’s margins are razor thin. But consider: In its latest, second quarter, Nokia’s devices and services business’s margins hovered around 4.3%. PC maker Hewlett-Packard’s operating margins in personal systems, which encompass PCs and notebooks, fell to 4.6% in the quarter ended July 31. So, in actuality, Nokia’s and H-P’s financial metrics are not that different.
Meanwhile, netbook margins should be fatter. Here’s one reason: Nokia’s Booklet comes bundled with Nokia’s Ovi services, which will, in the long run, allow Nokia to make additional revenues on mobile e-commerce and extra features.
The big question that remains: Will consumers love Nokia’s netbook? Nokia has a strong brand and a loyal following in most global markets, except for the U.S. The netbook comes equipped with Windows, which consumers want.

But it’s going to be a multi-corner race among open source, Apple, Microsoft, and RIM. The Netbook gets Nokia into that game.

In all the talk about Nokia acquiring Symbian, setting up a foundation to support it and scouring the world for sales, one key question remains unanswered.

Is the software any good?

Symbian is a Real Time Operating System for managing telephone functions. It is just a little smarter than a toaster. The phone’s functions are not integrated and the data applications are on the level of tweets.

But that is not the market. That is not what people want. People want an Internet terminal they can hold in their hands, one capable of easily handling basic Internet functions. Like e-mail, and browsing, and organizing real file downloads.

Every day its virtual monopoly remains on such devices, Apple gains share, and that share gains legs. Not just in terms of long-term contracts, but in terms of trained users.

I am now starting to see iPhones behind the counters at my YMCA, held by people whose salaries can’t be very high. That means the device has already moved into the sweet spot of the mass market, the heart of the s-curve.

Can Symbian deal with that threat? Because from the point of view of pure functionality, the Android can. LiMo can. The Blackberry can. Even Windows Mobile can. Whether they will is another question.

Symbian can’t.

I don’t think we have time to “train” this toaster into being a Real Boy. I don’t think Nokia had the money to do that, either, which is why they threw it into this open source foundation.

This is beginning to look a lot like they want to make a better buggy whip when the market is already buying cars. Why is even looking at Symbian not a waste of my time?

And don’t tell me it’s because they’re the leader in buggy whips.