Garmin have announced a multi-year, multi-device deal with GySPii, who are a location based social networking site. In essence GyPSii is similar to Plazes, who both link the idea of providing your current status (a bit like Twitter), but also providing your current location. GySPii have said they will “provide technology, products, worldwide data
center infrastructure, development licenses, and GyPSii branding rights to Garmin”. It’s not clear whether an existing GyPSii user will be able to use their logon details on their Garmin, or whether Garmin will run a separate service using the same technology. The interesting point about the announcement is that it refers to a “range of devices”; whilst the nuviPhone is an obvious contender, we wonder whether Garmin is planning to start offering more 2 way communication options within it’s devices in the coming years…

BBC have announced that their iPlayer 2.0 interface is now in beta testing. This builds on the success of the current iPlayer website, but will offer a much more personalised web browsing experience, better radio and TV listings, and higher quality options.

O2 will, according to Smartplanet, be showcasing bikes which can recharge your mobile at the O2 wireless festival in Hyde Park from 3rd to 6th July. The bikes will vary from BMX, Chopper-style, and even racers, and will be available for people to recharge their own phones using their own power. The only downside is that the bikes will be at a fixed location, and so you won’t actually get to really ride the bike anywhere.

Both Smartplanet and UK Gadgeteer feel that, unless it’s hideously expensive, O2 should look at getting this released as a commercial product so we can all recharge our phones whilst cycling.  In our search to see if this has already been done, we did find one manufacturer of a bike based mobile phone recharging system, but their 2 UK resellers seemed hesistant to provide any details or pricing online.

Here’s an interesting device, the Flip Video. In the US, it’s referred to as the Pure Digital Flip Video, but in the UK, it’s just the Flip Video (possibly related to the existence of Pure Digital, the DAB radio specialists in the UK). For just under £100, you can get a really small video recorder capable of recording upto 60 minutes before you need to upload the video. It supports easy uploading to YouTube. It comes in Black, White, Pink or Orange.  The built in USB port makes it very handy to use.

How well does it work, well Ewan over at SMS Text News is currently trying one out in the Maldives, and finding it very useful with the underwater housing, although he did need to remember it’s not rechargeable.  Ewan also thinks the Flip  should not exist; the mobile phone manufacturers should have this market sewn up, but with the lack of easy transferring and uploading of the video content, he can understand why the Flip Video is so useful.  Also, James Whatley from SpinVox is trying one out at Glastonbury right now, so hopefully he’ll report back week how he found it.  Without a PC with him, he can’t upload any video until he returns, so will he find the 60 minute limit too small for a 3 day music festival?

Interestingly, James also took a Freeloader Solar Charger and a Loc8tor Lite, two devices we featured last week, so we’ll hopefully report back on how he found these too.

Many people have speed camera databases loaded into their SatNav, and we support and recommend Pocket GPS World as one of the most accurate and regularly updated camera databases for the UK. However, up to now, if you used Nokia Maps on your Symbian phone as your primary navigation device, you were left without speed cameras. This is now resolved. If you head to this HOWTO at Pocket GPS World, they’ll explain what you have to do to get their database working on your phone.

Basically, you have to install a freeware application, and the subscribe to the Pocket GPS World site (if you aren’t already a subscriber), and download the “Nokia Speedcam” specific database from their site, and you’ll have working, and up to date speed cameras on your phone. The software has only been tested on a UK N95 with Nokia Maps v2, although there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work with every S60 3rd edition phone, and, like Nokia Maps, it supports Bluetooth GPS units if you don’t have a built in GPS.

After the success of the Pure ONE original DAB radio, Pure Digital have now released the Pure ONE Mini, which offers the majority of the features of the ONE, but in a smaller package. These include an input jack (for your iPod / mp3 player), an FM radio, station presets (although 16 instead of 20 on the ONE), and support for Pure’s ChargePak rechargeable battery packs. Although rarely needed, we support Pure for two reasons, firstly they are British, and secondly, they build the capability for user upgradeable firmware for their devices, and the ONE Mini is no exception, with a miniUSB port as standard.

Having just released the new N800 / N810 firmware, which supports new firmware updates without the need for a full reflash, Nokia have produced their first (in a long time) OTA update for a mobile phone, the N78. Although it’s only just started shipping, the firmware improves areas such as Bluetooth stability, music playback, optimized camera performance and navi-scroll sensitivity. The key point is that this update also does not need a full reflash, and hence all settings and software are kept intact. In fact, Nokia has (currently) gone as far as only releasing this update as an OTA update, removing the need to use the Nokia Software Updater at all (which is good for some, as they’ve still not fix the Vista compatibility issues). With many other Symbian phones supporting OTA updates, it will be interesting to see whether Nokia continue the trend and release all firmwares this way.

T-Mobile have announced price reductions in their SMS and data costs whilst roaming. SMSes will now cost 25p (instead of 40p), and data will now “only” cost £1.50 per MB (down from £7.50 per MB). Whilst we support these price reductions, we don’t think they go far enough to encourage people to use these services completely (when 3 will give you Mobile Broadband in the UK for £10 for 1GB, it puts into question these data roaming charges). For calls, we recommend you look at MaxRoam, but until they support data, you may still be better just leaving the phone switched off.

These price changes should take effect from next month, according to SMS Text News, but we would recommend you check with T-Mobile if you are going to rely upon the price to use the service abroad.

We first mentioned OpenMoko back in November, and covered them again briefly in January, but it looks like the Opern Source based FreeRunner mobile phone (based on the Neo1973 above, but in all-black) should start shipping from them this month, resulting in stocks being available during July. We’ll provide more details as we get them.

Nokia have announced two major updates today. Firstly, they have announced they are purchasing the remainder of the Symbian shares they do not already own, and will therefore take complete control of Symbian. As part of this purchase, Nokia have also announced that they will turn portions of Symbian (the OS), S60 and UIQ (controlled by Sony Ericsson and Motorola) into Open Source, via the new Symbian Foundation. This process will take a couple of years, but follows in the footsteps of the work Nokia has put into the Maemo community (for their Internet Tablets). This bodes well for the future of the platforms.

In other news, Nokia have also released a major OS (firmware) update for the N800 and N810 Internet Tablets. Apart from lots of bugfixes, and some improvements in the applications, the key new feature is that future OS updates will be able to be installed without a full reflash of the firmware back to factory condition.

NavNGo have announced that users who bought iGO MyWay 2006 can now upgrade to iGO MyWay 8 Europe. If you bought the European version of iGO MyWay 2006 in 2008, the upgrade is free, else it’s just £70. If you only bought a single country version, then you’ll have to wait a little longer, as the memory card supplied is too small to take the new 3D maps.  More details are available from NavNGo.

Story courtesy of Pocket GPS World.

Many people have installed the Google Search shortcut, which provides direct access to Google from Nokia Symbian smartphone’s Active Standby screen. Now Google have updated this, and provided localised versions, including a UK specific version which will use google.co.uk as it’s search engine instead of google.com.

If you want to get hold of this version, point your smartphone to m.google.co.uk. Google are also claiming it’s 40% faster too.

Nokia has bought Plazes, a location based activity social networking site. It’s believed that Plazes will eventually become part of the Ovi strategy, and may even get absorbed into Nokia Maps (Nokia Maps is mainly developed by Nokia Location Service, which is the new name for Gate5, who are based in Berlin alongside Plazes’ development team). Plazes itself today is not very mobile friendly (no m.plazes.com, no mobile specific browser support, no windows mobile / symbian clients, although SMS is supported and there is an iPhone client due soon), so it will be interesting to see how quickly Nokia get those things changed. There is a Nokia Internet Tablet client, although we couldn’t even persuade it to login to plazes, let alone interact with the site.

Given Google’s Android phone OS is likely to be including a whole range of Location Based Services from day one when it ships later this year / early next year, if Nokia want to compete they will need to get a Symbian client created quickly, integrate the Plazes solution into their whole suite of online websites, and get new firmwares out for existing phones as well as their new phones (after all, if you can upgrade your current phone to support all the same features as a Google phone, the need to replace your Nokia with a non-Nokia phone will diminish, and keeping their current customers must be key to Nokia over the next few months as Google and Apple release “must have” phones).

According to Eeeuser.com (who also supplied the above picture), it appears the Asus Eee 900 battery replacement scheme is on hold, with no information from Asus as to why, or for how long.

If you take your mobile phone abroad “on the offchance I need it”, or are a regular traveller abroad, then you may want to look into MaxRoam, an Irish based company. Although there’s a small monthly charge of 1 Euro (clearly and honestly explained on the website), they offer very low roaming charges for calls back to the UK, for receiving calls whilst abroad, and for calling in the country you are visiting. They achieve this by supplying you a new SIM card (so your phone either needs to be unlocked, or they offer a discount on getting your phone unlocked), which you use in place of your “UK” SIM card. Best of all, if you are a regular traveller, you are able to select upto 50 landline numbers that route to your phone (like all mobiles whilst roaming, there is a charge for receiving calls).

Let’s take France as an example, and compare the rates to Orange UK:

• To receive a 5 minute call: 95p (Orange), 75p (MaxRoam)
• To make a 5 minute call back to a UK landline: £1.90 (Orange), £1.34 (MaxRoam)
• To make a 5 minute call to a landline number in France: £1.90 (Orange), £1.34 (MaxRoam)
• To make a 5 minute call to your voicemail: £1.90 (Orange), £1.03 (MaxRoam)

As you can see, there are savings to be made over using your own phone number. We should point out you should go and check the MaxRoam website for yourself to ensure you are happy with the rates; MaxRoam bill in Euros, so there is the exchange rate to take into account, plus the small monthly fee. There are also odd occasions when MaxRoam are more expensive by a few pence. Orange and MaxRoam roaming rates for France, plus Euro/GBP rate taken as at 22nd June 2008. MaxRoam allow you to TopUp over the web.

If you are a regular traveller, you may well find combining a MaxRoam SIM with a local number in the country you visit will work out cheaper for both you and people calling you.

Head off to the MaxRoam website and find out more; for roughly £24 you will be sent a SIM, be given a local landline number in UK, France, Ireland or USA, and get 5€ credit on your account, alternatively, for £44, you’ll get the SIM, the landline number, and 30€ of credit.

berble.com have found a useful application, it allows you to copy files to and from your iPhone / iPod Touch on either a Windows or Mac OS X computer. This saves you carrying a USB flash drive as well, and even better, it’s free!

Head over to berble.com to read more, and then visit the manufacturer’s website here to download DiskAid.

If the idea of leaving your phone with Orange for a while doesn’t appeal (there may be queues to use the facility, or simply you don’t want to be parted from your phone, or you want to charge something else), then you’ll need to consider your own charging options.

Freeloader chargers

Firstly, there’s the Freeloader Charger, currently on offer at Maplin, and shown above.  This will recharge itself from the sun, and then you can use the device to charge your gadgets and phones (it comes with roughly 10 adaptors to fit the majority of devices you would have).  It also can be recharged via USB before you go.  The freeloader comes in Silver or pink.  It will take some while to charge itself (5 hours is stated), which might be too long to wait.

In that case, you’ll need to add the Freeloader Supercharger, which attaches to your bike or rucksack, and will charge your Freeloader much faster (it’s listed as 4 hours, but we would expect a greater difference between the two, so one of them must be stretching the truth).  This comes in green or pink, and includes it’s own case.  If you want a case for the Freeloader to protect it too, they are also available in the same green and pink (but not silver strangely).

Other gadgets

What else has Maplin got for the good weather: a Solar powered fan, a solar powered clock (designed for outdoor usage), a solar powered torch (which also functions as an alarm clock).  Finally, if you are worried about losing children, you might want to look at the Loc8tor Lite, which comes with 2 tags, and you can then use the control unit to locate the 2 tags (and hence whatever is attached to the tag).

Any special offers are valid until July, although if you want them in time for Glastonbury, you’ll need to buy them fast (some offers may be website exclusives).

Missing Sync, a Mac sync program, will soon be available for Symbian phones, according to an article at All About Symbian, and even better, will support S60 3rd edition and the latest UIQ phones too.  Although Nokia do provide some Mac tools, a lot of Windows Mobile users have found Missing Sync a very useful program, and we are all looking forward to the release of the Symbian version.  More details here.

The screenshot shows the Windows Mobile version, All About Symbian have stated the Symbian version will look very similar.

The Asus Eee 901 and 1000 PCs are due to ship in the UK next month, and should be on sale on July 1st. These both feature the Intel Atom chip. We covered the 901 in some detail here, but we’ve attached the Computex Asus specification cards for both for you to compare them…

Eee 900 picture courtesy of Eeeuser.com.

Sony have confirmed that the next PS3 update, v2.40, will include in game XMB menu access, and trophies, for which Sony promise more information soon. A word of warning though, the v2.36 PS3 update needs to ship out first, so it may still be some time before we see the v2.40 firmware.