One interesting extra feature of the D60 has now been announced - it is compatible with the Eye-Fi SD card, and adjusts it’s power settings when the SD card is inserted (to allow extra time for those large files to be copied over the Wi-Fi link). The Eye-Fi SD card is a 2Gb memory card that also has Wi-Fi, and, once setup, will copy each image either to your PC running their dedicated software, or to one of various online sites (such as Flickr, Picasa Web, Faceboook). As part of this announcement, Eye-Fi will also expand their support to cover Nikon’s “myPicturetown”.

Picture courtesy of Engadget.

As discussed before here, Sony have now (finally) released the new PSP-Lite firmware (v3.90) which includes Skype support. You additionally need the PSP Skype Headset. This offers a full Skype experience, including SkypeIN and SkypeOUT. It is currently only available via the Network Update facility direct on the device, but a PC download option should appear soon.

Garmin have announced the Nuviphone, a mobile phone with SatNav capabilities. It has a 3.5″ touchscreen, full browsing and PIM capabilities, HSDPA, Quad-Band (3.5G), WiFi, Bluetooth, and is roughly the same size as the iPhone. As it uses a variant of the same proprietary OS as that on their SatNav devices, the UI will be familiar to many, and will have “millions” of POIs, and will have turn-by-turn voice prompts. However, it will also have Google Local Search capabilities (and potentially other Google apps such as Google Talk, and the camera may integrate with Google Panorama). Finally, it will use the phone network connection to get updates via Garmin Online for real time traffic, fuel prices, news, weather and stock prices (although historically these have been US only data). It is expected to be released in Q3 this year, so in time for Christmas.

In an article discussing Asus’ plans to expand the Eee brand name to other devices (device PCs, all in one PCs, and monitors), they also mention that Asus have stated there is not sufficient demand for a touchscreen Eee PC.

If you still think it’s a worthwhile mod, we covered one touchscreen option here (the Linitx.com 7″ touchscreen), in the second half of the article, although their stocks are limited for the next couple of weeks due to high demand from Asus modders.

Nokia Beta Labs have been busy of late, and the latest is very impressive. They have already released the Mobile Web Server, which runs on your Symbian mobile and provides access to certain features via a web browser. However, Nokia have now released a number of Yahoo! Desktop Widgets which can access this information. As you can see, you can access general information about the phone (Battery and Signal status), but you can also access pictures, SMSes (you can even send SMSes directly).

O2 has updated the iPhone tariff (to bring them into line with the similar changes they have made to their standard tariffs). The main changes are:

• If you pay £35/month, inclusive calls change from 200mins to 600mins, and texts from 200 to 500.
• If you pay £45/month, inclusive calls change from 600mins to 1200mins, and texts stay at 500.
• If you pay £55/month, you should get moved to the £45/month tariff (which offers better value), although…
• A new £75/month tariff will be launched, which gives 3000mins and 500 texts.

These new tariffs will become available for new customers on Friday, and all existing customers will be moved over during February / March (so don’t go out using all these extra minutes / texts until you are sure you have been moved onto the new rates).

Hot on the heels of Canon’s 450D announcement, Nikon have announced their D60. This is a 10.2 megapixel DSLR, and features Nikon’s new dual dust removal countermeasures, a 0.18 second startup time and a “split second” shutter response time, 2.5″ screen (no Live View though). In the US, this will ship with the AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR (Image Stabilising) lens, and will be available in February (no price yet though). Details of UK pricing and availability are not yet available.

More information here.

Virgin are apparently about to start the process of upgrading (for free) it’s broadband customers from 4Mb to 10Mb. This upgrade process will start in February, and take until the Summer to complete. As part of this, they are also upgraded the upload speed to 512Kb. More information here.

Story courtesy of TechDigest.

When Nokia announced the Share Online! v3 beta, we contacted Nokia and discussed with them the lack of geotagging of photos - ie the embedding of the location where the photo was taken (other products such as ShoZu are used in preference to Share Online due to this missing feature). Nokia told us they would be adding this feature in due course, and yesterday they released an application which is a step towards this.

The Nokia Location Tagger will add GPS information (via the EXIF image header information) to a photograph. Although a standalone application per se, it requires Share Online! v3 to be installed right now for uploading photos (in time Nokia plan to integrate the facilities of Location Tagger directly into the Camera and Gallery applications).

Sites such as Flickr, Panoramio, and Picasa Web support displaying geotagged pictures on a map, so we expect utilities such as this to make geotagging even more prevalent in 2008.

On related Nokia geotagging points, two interesting snippets of information have come out as a result of this release:

1. Currently Nokia Sports Tracker relies upon the website linking the time a photo is taken with the GPS log to determine the position of the picture - Nokia intend to change Sports Tracker to directly embed the location information into the EXIF data on the device itself.

2. Nokia plan to integrate the Gallery with Nokia Maps, so you will be able to see where pictures were taken directly on the device.

It looks like at some point in 2008 Amazon will move to a new music selling model, offering DRM free 256kbps mp3 files that can be played on any device. Amazon MP3 Store has 3.3million songs from over 270,000 artists, and in the last week Amazon has announced this store will be available across it’s International sites during 2008.

RIM are apparently planning some major updates to their BlackBerry OS this year (potentially before June). Mail will see Rich Text Format and HTML support (which will include the ability to read as well as forward emails in the same style they were sent in), mail will also get search functionality, a contact availability feature for meeting requests, and presence features for the IM application (which will now also support emoticons). RIM are also planning on adding Office file editing capabilities via Dataviz’s Documents To Go software.

Story courtesy of Phone Scoop.

Canon have today announced a new DSLR, the 450D. This is a 12.2 megapixel camera, with a 3″ LCD screen (with Live View), a new 9 point AF (AutoFocus) systems, the DIGIC III processor, and the EOS Integrated Sensor Cleaning Solution. For a consumer DSLR, this is the first Canon to move from Compact Flash to SD / SDHC cards. Canon have used this new space to also change the battery format, and now include a larger capacity battery. Price is expected to be £600 (Body only) and £680 with the 18-55 Kit Lens.

As we first mentioned here, Nokia have now released the new N82 firmware with User Data Preservation. This means that when upgraded the firmware, none of the user data or applications are lost, saving a lot of work of installing / reconfiguring. The actual update is mainly minor bugfixes, but we hope to see UDP on all future Nokia Symbian devices, and would also like to see it made available for some existing phones.

Gizmo, the VOIP service provider has launched a new service in the US, called Backdoor calling. Gizmo have discovered that a whole range of standard landlines and mobile phones are directly accessible via VOIP (ie without the call going over traditional phone lines). As such, Gizmo offers free calling to these numbers. Even better, the called party can use the Caller ID number to return a call back to the Gizmo user too.

Gizmo are looking to extend this to other countries, so we’ll keep you informed if and when the UK gets included, and which UK providers are included.

emTube has been upgraded again, fixing some of the problems with the last update. As always, download it direct from the developer.

The IBM Lotus Notes support for the iPhone we mentioned here has been delayed by IBM (ie it wasn’t launched at LotusSphere). It’s not clear if the decision was from IBM, or forced on them by Apple, but we expect it should be announced in the next month or two alongside the Apple iPhone SDK.

According to Engadget, Sony has had to delay the launch of their Skype service, as the hardware involved failed Skype certification. This should only be a delay of a few weeks.

According to various rumours, Nokia is in talks with Facebook. The exact nature of the talks seems unknown, although some are suggesting Nokia may take a stake in the social networking site. The most prominent features will be opening up the Facebook users as an advertising target for Nokia to target, especially in the US, where Nokia do not have the market share they do in Europe. Another option will be putting a Facebook icon on their phones, in a similar way that the iPhone has a YouTube icon. In return, Facebook may well get advertising space in Nokia’s retail displays.

Air France are spending most of 2008 running trials of mobile phone technologies on European flights that use some of their Airbus A318 planes. On these flights, once the “No Mobiles” light goes off, users can use their phones for sending and receiving SMS, MMS, and emails. In the second half of the year, they will also include voice support. The plane contains a picocell, which then transmits the signal via satellite. This will involve international roaming rates, which may limit the number of people actually using the trial.

Story courtesy of Engadget, Picture courtesy of vliegtuig.

If you have a Nokia Symbian phone with Flash Lite support, then this app may be for you. Design Province display live animated and interactive pictures on either a screen saver or wallpaper that varies throughout the day. What’s more, it’s freeware. Since being first released, they have added support for many more phones, and even have versions for some non-Flash Lite phones.

Nokia have been slowly included Flash Lite in their latest firmwares, although versions of Flash Lite are available for nearly every Symbian phone produced.

LiveU! - Garden View can be downloaded here.