Panoman is an application for Nokia Series60 smartphone which allows you to build panoramic shots directly on your phone. It includes a number of key features, such as previewing the picture so far, perspective correction and colour correction. With the ability to link 12 photos together, it can create some very high resolution (and large filesize) panoramic pictures (up to 32MB on a 5 megapixel camera). Best of all, it costs less than 10 Euros to purchase.

Everex, producers of the Cloudbook have been busy. Here’s a mini PC due in the US next month (no word on UK availability yet). It’s features include a 1.83GHz T2130 processor, 120GB hard drive, 512MB DDR2 RAM, a DVD writer and Intel’s GMA950 graphics set. In terms of ports, there are Ethernet, DVI / S-Video outs, Firewire, four USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 multicard reader and audio / in out. It’s also running the same gOS as the Cloudbook.

[Story and picture via Engadget]

Nokia have announced another Beta product, the Nokia Text Messenger Vista Widget. This offers either a sidebar widget (showing the 3 latest SMS messages), or a floating widget, with the capability of showing even more messages. Nokia reckon 15% of all of their Beta testers use Vista already, and this widget will work with PC Suite 6.85 (ie it does not require the new PC Suite 2 Beta).

If you fancy the Cloudbook, but are less sure about Linux, then people are already getting Vista to run on the device, albeit a little slowly. Head over to the Cloudbook forums for more information.

For those that use LinuxMCE to manage your media library, then Java Mobile Orbiter is for you. It’s a Java app that can run on your mobile phone to control your LinuxMCE server via Bluetooth. It should run on a large variety of phones, as long as they support Java and Bluetooth.

[Via Smart Home Blog]

According to Symbian Freak, we may see the launch of a native Skype application for the Nokia Series60 smartphones in the next week or two. Although we’ve seen many solutions that have enabled access to Skype on a mobile (eg Fring), a native Skype app may be even more useful for people at home on WiFi connections. Apparently, there’s a chance the app won’t be released directly by Skype, although no one is yet telling the name of the company who will release it.

If you own a Nokia Tablet and a recent Windows Mobile smartphone, you’ll be aware that many Windows smartphones now only support PAN (Personal Area Network) to allow external devices (such as Tablets) to use the phone for Internet access. Unfortunately, the Nokia tablets ship with only Bluetooth DUN (Dial Up Networking) support built in, meaning that although they will work fine with Nokia phones and many other phones (including the 3 SkypePhone), they don’t work with the WM phones… until now.

You need to be running the latest OS2008 to be able to use it, but the application integrates nicely into the OS to make it appear like the functionality was always there.

Head here for more information. [Via jkOnTheRun]

If you are in the market for an external battery pack for whatever device you own, be it an iPhone, a Nokia smartphone, an iPod, or you just want to be able to spend more time away from your device plugged into the mains for charging, then you may be looking for an external battery pack. Berble.com have reviewed one, and the review is here.

If you haven’t got an Asus Eee PC, an Everex Cloudbook, and weren’t impressed by the upcoming Elonex One, then maybe this HP UMPC is for you, it’s due for launch in April, and has a 8.9″ 1366 x 766 (WXGA) display, ExpressCard/54 slot, Wireless LAN, nearly full-sized QWERTY (95% of full), integrated webcam, and optional SSD drive, and should run Vista or Linux. However, it’s likely to be a fair bit more expensive than the other 3 PCs.

[Via Engadget]

If you have a TomTom SatNav device, and you use the PGPSW (Pocket GPS World) Speed Camera Database, then head over to their website, where you will find a new set of custom speed camera icons. These aren’t compatible with every TomTom device, so you’ll need to check whether they will work with your unit first, but if they will, they provide a much richer icon set than the default.

If, of course, you don’t use their Speed Camera Database, these icons won’t be much use, so whilst you are there, sign up - it’s only £19 per year, and for that you get access to the forums, discounts on new GPS hardware, and access to the speed camera database. Plus, if you report just one previously unreported static speed camera position or a change to speed/location of an existing static camera already in the database or (finally) a new mobile site then you may (subject to verification by PGPSW) get a lifetime subscription (remember only the first reporter will get the lifetime sub).

Picture courtesy of Pocket GPS World.

With the impending death of HD DVD, and companies like Toshiba announcing they are stopping production of all HD DVD players (and remember Toshiba were one of the driving forces behind HD DVD in the first place), Microsoft have confirmed (well, the news has leaked) they are discontinuing the external HD DVD Drive for the Xbox 360 too.  They will continue to support the existing drives, although they have yet to make a statement on whether they will produce a Blu-Ray drive instead.

Although announced some time ago, the Toyota Yaris SR is the first car we’re aware of that is shipping with the TomTom dock solution. The TomTom Duo allows you to remove the actual SatNav element (like most TomTom units) to allow you to still plan routes when away from the car (plus update the maps / speed cameras), but by having a permanently remaining interface, a lot of extra technology is included. This includes acting as an ipod interface, a radio, a CD player, a mp3 / wma player (via USB memory stick); in fact, most of these functions still work even with the SatNav unit removed. In terms of specification, the Duo is a similar spec to the TomTom ONE.

This is standard fitment on the Toyota Yaris SR.

Business Week (in the US) has reported that the release of the iPhone SDK, and Apple’s support of third party applications will now not happen in February as first expected, but is still likely to occur in March.

[Via Engadget]

If you have tried to download maps for your Nokia Maps application, and suffered problems, then Martin Letis has worked out the URL (and also included instructions) to directly download the map files onto your computer, and then transfer them to your Symbian Phone. Head to his article here for more details.

If you have a S60 Nokia, then head to mobile.google.com from your phone, and download the new Google shortcut application for your phone. This installs a Google icon onto the Standy Screen, which when selected brings up a box in which you can type your search, and then Google will return the results in a web page. This should work with a wide range of N-Series and E-Series mobile phones.

Picture courtesy of Google’s Official Mobile Blog.

The Linutop 2 has been announced by French mini PC vendor Linutop. It features a 500MHz Geode processor, 512Mb RAM and 1Gb of Flash. The Linutop 2 measures 5.5 x 1.4 x 5.5 inches (14 x 3.5 x 14 cm), and weighs 20 ounces, and takes about 8 Watts of power. The OS, that’s preinstalled, includes Firefox and OpenOffice by using a version of the Xubuntu LiveCD image in the Flash. One neat feature is the ability to mount it behind a monitor using the VESA mount (although this may be nothing more than a bit of folded steel with a few holes in the right place).

However, at the price of roughly £210, we feel the VIA ARTiGO we covered here, and available from Linitx.com may be better value, and more suitable as an every day small PC.

Specs from Linux Devices.

Even before the Colorado starts shipping in any serious quantities in the UK, Garmin have updated the firmware in these units based on user feedback. The main features added are:

• Displays geocaches on the main screen
• Doubles the number of caches supported to 2000
• Adds the ability to mark the cache as found
• Provides support for Colorado Field Notes, which can be directly uploaded to geocaching.com

If you are looking for another detailed review of the Everex Cloudbook (aka Packard Bell Easynote in the UK), then head over to Meredith Farkas’ website and read all about it.

Nokia have released a minor firmware update for the N810 / N800 OS2008 version. If you are still using the 770 Internet Tablet, there’s an OS2008HE version for you, although you’ll need to read the Maemo website to fully understand the problems / issues you will face using this OS.

Head to here for more details, and a link to the download page (it’s on the right). However, this new firmware only fixes one thing - “This release fixes the power on (boot) problem only.” It’s recommended if you are not suffering from this problem to skip this update. As usual, the Nokia download servers are struggling a little, so you might want to wait a day or two as well.

Update: Having said that, it appears Nokia’s Europe Support Site says it includes stability enhancements, and recommends everyone upgrade - we still say hang tight for a day or two.

Update (2): There are about 4 other fixes included, which relate to underlying libraries, which may be more issues for developers, and not problems that a normal user will see.  As such, it’s probably still not worth upgrading, unless you really really want to.

As part of announcing the 2Gb iPod Shuffle, Apple have now reduced the price of the 1Gb version down to £32, although the 2Gb model (which should sell around the £49 the 1Gb model was priced at) is still not available, although it has been announced.