We’ve covered fring before, but the latest version of the client has a new feature; add-ons. This allows connections and data from systems to be integrated into the one application. The key add-ons so far are facebook, Orkut and a GMail notifier, with more due over time. This facility could make fring even more appealing to new customers; not just the ability for free chat and calls, but now the ability to interact with those same friends through a variety of online social networking sites.

If you want to try these add-ons out, get the latest fring client, and then select Options / Select / Manage add-ons.

Well, after we covered the upcoming PS3 firmware update, v2.40, we hope you weren’t one of the unfortunate people who had problems with the new firmware, which Sony soon pulled. We’re hearing that it’s likely v2.41 will be released this week, which should be what v2.40 claimed to be.

Of course, many people won’t care about their PS3 this week, as they continue to try to get the O2 website to accept their iPhone 3G upgrade order, which has failed for many people.  Some people are claiming that it’s deliberate marketing ploy by Apple to keep stocks limited to add to the hype.

We’re not sure if we would say these are wonderfully good value, but SMS Text News has reported that Orange are in the process of upgrading all customers on their latest animal tariffs of £35 and above to now include 500Mb of data automatically. Now, this isn’t unlimited (*), and there doesn’t appear to be any option for increasing this limit, without paying Orange’s standard out of allowance data charges, but it’s certainly a start, and moving existing customers onto these new deals automatically must be applauded.

The migration should take place on your July bill date, and you should receive an SMS from Orange confirming it too. If you want the data bundle before then, you can try ringing up Orange to ask them to add it to your tariff, but SMS Text News report that it appears not all Orange Customer Service staff are aware of this new deal.

In other news, some Racoon plans are getting more minutes, and some Canary plans are getting more texts.

(*) It’s actually being advertised by Orange as unlimited, with a fair usage limit of 500Mb.  We’re sorry Orange, 500Mb is not unlimited, by any definition of the word…

The current rumours flying around the internet are that Garmin is going to release a new range of GPS devices in the next few weeks. The Oregon range will be a similar device to the Colorado range, although it will be slightly smaller, and feature a touchscreen. One colleague we recently spoke with said he was always trying to use the Colorado screen as a touchscreen, so welcomed a true touchscreen unit.

Although Garmin are usually tight lipped about new devices, it appears that somehow these devices made it onto both Amazon and Buy.com before being removed. As such, a fairly reliable spec has been obtained, and this includes:

• High sensitivity GPS receiver for improved performance and reception
• Easy to use, touchscreen interface
• microSD card slot for optional mapping and data storage
• Electronic compass, barometric altimeter, temperature sensor
• Built in 3D Basemap /Digital Elevation Model
• 3D elevation view
• Wireless exchange of user routes, tracks, waypoints, geocaches and images
• Unit dimensions: 4.5 in x 2.3 in x 1.4 in
• Display size: 3 in color, touch screen
• Pixels / H x W: 240 x 400
• Waterproof standard: IEC 60529 IPX7
• Battery type: two high capacity or lithium ion AA batteries
• Weight: 6.8 oz with batteries

The specs above are for the 200 unit, with a 300, and a range of 400 units (similar to the Colorado 400 range) will also be available in the US. Given the main difference between the Colorado 300 and 400 models is the amount of memory to fit in the included US maps on the 400 range, we suspect that again the 400 range may not make it to the UK, leaving us with the 200 and 300 though. The main missing feature from the Colorado will be the Naviwheel, which isn’t needed due to the touchscreen.

Story via the Groundspeak Geocaching.com forums (no registration required to view).

Roberts, who we have featured before, have now released a solar powered DAB radio, a first in the UK. It can be solar, battery, or mains powered, and the built in rechargeable battery pack is being recharged whenever the unit is in the sunshine. Once charged, Roberts claim it will last 27 hours before needing another recharge. It comes it green, pink, red, white or black, includes a headphone socket and an mp3/iPod line-in socket. At a price around £79.99, it also seems good value for a device that won’t need charging too often.

More information at Roberts [Via Tech Digest]

Both Nokia and the wider community have been busy with a lot of updates, some of which we summarize here.

Firstly, Nokia has updated both the Nokia Maps application for your Symbian device, but also a new Nokia Map Loader. Symbian Guru has kindly worked out the direct download links, which are Nokia Maps and Map Loader, if you don’t want to go via the normal Nokia Maps flash webpages.

Symbian Guru also points out that Python for S60 has been updated too, and is now at v1.4.4.

In other Nokia news, Mobile Web Server has been updated to v1.4, and Nokia have also released the new v7 PC Suite, and the Nokia PC Music client is now at v1.5.

Finally, the plan for Nokia to buy Navteq has now been approved by the EU, so it will be interesting to see what impact this has as the companies merge together.

Freeview has announced that it will be rebranded the Freeview Playback PVR brand to Freeview+ bringing it in line with Sky+ and V+. The Freeview DVRs already have a similar spec to their rivals, including recording programmes and pausing live TVs. Of course, many of us would love to see a TiVo Freeview+ device as we first discussed here.

Story courtesy of Tech Digest.

ShoZu have been busy people. First of all, they’ve announced ShoZu for iPhone, which should be available in the next few weeks, in line with the updated Apple iPhone 2.0 firmware, and the Apple App Store. ShoZu allows you to take photos, and then ShoZu will organisee uploading those pictures to your selected sites in the background. A very popular Symbian S60 app, and now available for the iPhone, supporting the same range of sites. As well as the traditional upload facilities, there are now facilities for downloading pictures from your friends, reading and commenting on your and your friends’ photos / posts, interaction with Facebook, and geotagging your photos for you. It even supports a variety of “Citizen Journalism Sites”, such as the BBC website, Scoopt, CNN and ITV.com.

ShoZu supports many sites, and the other big news is that they have recently added support for Ovi, the new Nokia sharing site. Interestingly, two months ago they only support 29 site; now they support 46, and looking through the list the majority of picture based sites we could think of were included. Although they support Twitter, they need to expand their range of text based sites (such as Plazes and Jaiku that add location information to the messages) to complete their support and claim to be able to support the majority of Web 2.0 sites.

Some content thanks to Jonathan at atmaspheric | endeavours, and Darla Mack at her website.

Well, with the 900, 901 and 1000H recently launched, here are rumours of the 903, 904 and 905 devices too! However, it’s most likely that not all these model numbers are real, or due for immediate release. The best information we have seen is that the 904 will be released in the next few weeks, for £269 (compared to the 901 at £299). The device has the keyboard size from the 1000H, but with the smaller 8.9″ screen of the 900 series, and will feature a hard disk (ie no SSD storage). Of course, whether this will replace the 901, or run alongside it isn’t clear yet, neither is the exact release date.

Story courtesy of Tech Digest, picture courtesy of Eee PC News.

Clove Technology, a well established company who used to specialise in all things Psion, have released for sale two extended batteries for the Asus Eee range, and Eeeuser.com (who also supplied the above picture) have a full review of them.  For just over £40(inc. VAT) for the larger extended battery, Eeeuser gained a lot of extra time using the device.  The battery does stick out a little at the back, but we think that will be fine for most users.  Head over and read their review.

We’re all getting used to HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) for fast downloads on mobile broadband and our mobile phones, but T-Mobile has today switched on it’s HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) facility, which does the same thing for uploads.  Limited to a maximum of “only” 1.4mbps, it’s faster than most broadband download speeds! Not all kit supports HSUPA today, and it’s not clear how widespread T-Mobile’s roll out is today, but it’s a start.  They’ve also upgraded their HSDPA to a maximum of 7.2mbps, but again, without coverage information, this may not benefit many people either.  The only good thing is that T-Mobile have at least stated that the 7.2mbps network is likely to result in real world speeds of 4.5mbps, in line with other providers.

If you have a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, and have been fed up with the slow GPS lock times, then there is a solution.  Firstly, you need to install the new OS firmware (Diablo) onto your machine using the Nokia Internet Tablet Firmware Updater (Windows only).  Then, you need to install the A-GPS additional program. The A-GPS program, will help locate you whilst the GPS continues to try to lock.  You give the application a very rough location in the world (by clicking on a map), and it will then use an internet connection to improve that link.  However, as well as supporting a link via Bluetooth to a mobile phone (which will use the phone’s cell tower IDs to locate you), it’s also possible to locate you via WiFi.  It achieves this by feeding the initial GPS data back to a central computer at Nokia which helps process those fragments of GPS information to produce a location faster than the lock.

This update makes the Diablo update well worth applying.  Although things are perfect yet (most apps need the author to confirm compatibility and provide their applications to the new application repositories), you can still access the old “Chinook” software respositories (unlike the last major OS jump, everything is binary compatible this time).

Now the only thing remaining is for Nokia to have a word with Wayfinder and get them to update the actual maps.  The maps included with the tablet are from 2006/7, and since then Nokia have updated the Nokia Maps (for Symbian) a couple of times, so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t sort this out.  In the meantime, you may want to look at Maemo-Mapper, which uses OpenStreetMap map data, which is constantly being added to and updated, and because Maemo-Mapper uses the built in GPS support, it also benefits from the new A-GPS faster lock times.

If you are a semi-regular visitor to London, and you’ve ever been fined for forgetting to pay the London Congestion Charge, then the KenBuster may be for you!  It’s a GPS based device, and whenever you go inside the congestion charging zone, it notifies back to the KenBuster HQ, who arrange to make the payment for you automatically; no more forgetting to pay!

This looks a very interesting device, and it knows the charging times throughout the day, so won’t automatically charge you unless the rules require payment.  Obviously, you have to provide the company with your car and credit card details to allow them to pay on your behalf.  Whenever a payment is made for you, you receive an SMS and an email confirming the payment has been made, and they provide a “secure website” for you to see the payments they have made for you.  It also sends a daily SMS, which will help alert you if for some reason the device has failed to register you entering the zone (or of course, you simply left it at home).

The device costs £200 with no monthly ongoing costs (alternatively, you can buy it for £50, and pay £8 per month with a minimum 12 month contract).  Finally, for those who forget, but don’t want the automatic payment system, you can simply pay them £8 per month, and they will send you a daily SMS reminder, and if you have been in the zone, you can reply to the SMS, and they will then make a payment for you.

A nice device, integrating technology (GPS, and “communication provided by Orange”) with a real problem, it only takes a few fines for this device to pay for itself, and the additional lack of having to deal with the payment daily may make it worthwhile to others too.  With the fine currently at £120, and 5,000 people being fined daily, there appears to be a big market for this device!  The only question remains: will they remain the device to be the BorisBuster…? [The answer is no; “The Congestion Charge was Ken’s idea and will be his legacy.”]

Thanks to Pocket GPS World who alerted us to the device in the first place.

We’re nearly there, so we thought we’d provide some more details on the iPhone launch, courtesy (in the main) to berble.com. Firstly, it looks like O2 stores will open at 7:02am (in comparison to 6:02pm last year), to allow a greater amount of time throughout the day to process the credit checks and activate the phones instore for all those who want to walk out of the store on the first day. Secondly, for upgraders, your phone will be sent out to you in the post, and you will not need to go to the store at all. berble.com’s O2 contact also stated that upgraders will be provided with a “Jail Break Code” to allow the old iPhone to be used on any network. Finally, it looks like the 8GB iPhone 3G will cost £299.99 on PAYG, with the 16GB version costing £359.99. Although that sounds a lot for a phone, let’s remember people were paying £269 for the old version *with* a contract, so £299 without a contract is not that unreasonable.  Included in that price is 6 months WiFi and Internet access, and after those 6 months, a monthly topup of at least £10 will keep those features available.

Expect many many more people to be walking around with iPhones over the next few months.

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, 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.