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.

If you are heading to Glastonbury and don’t have a solar charger (or of course, it rains), and you need to recharge your mobile, you may want to head to the Orange Recharge Pod. Inside are mini-lockers where you are able to lock your phone into whilst it recharges, so you don’t have to stand there. The tent has 500watt solar panels and a 500watt wind turbine, which Orange are hoping will allow them to recharge upto 100 devices an hour. No mention as to whether or not Orange will recharge your phone for free, but we applaud the idea, and hope that such recharge tents can become regular fixtures at a whole range of events.

Picture and some content courtesy of smartplanet.

As predicted a week ago, Nokia have announced the E66 and E71 phones.

The E71 has a built in GPS, QWERTY keyboard, a 3.2megapixel camera, is 114mm x 57mm x10mm and weighs 126g.  It should be with us in Q2 or Q3, and features a new Calendar application, which we’re certainly interested to learn more about.

The E66 is the successor to the E65, and is a slider.  It features a 2.4″ screen, but packs HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, and also has a 3.2megapixel camera. Both phones support the latest Ovi sharing tools Nokia is promoting, ie Nokia Maps (both features A-GPS), as well as music and media sharing, features that might more traditionally have been only seen on the Nseries range of handsets.  As part of their Eseries Enterprise capabilities, both can encrypt both their internal memory and memory cards, both can access Microsoft Exchange Servers, and both feature the MobileVPN client.  Some security settings can be managed centrally as well, which will make them even more popular with large corporate customers.

Nokia have also announced they have finally released their PC Music Client for managing your music between your desktop and your smartphone. However, you need an N95, N95 8GB, N82, 5610 XpressMusic, N81, as these are the only phones supported (read: tested) right now, and despite the beta client already being at v1.5, it does not support the Nokia Music Store, which would be an obvious integration we would expect to see in the final product (it’s actually “deactivated”, so support is likely to be available before the product comes out of beta).

Interestingly, Nokia have adopted a standards based approach with this software, and hence it should actually work with “any MTP-compliant device, whether it be a Nokia device or another brand MP3 player.”

Head over to the Nokia Beta Labs PC Music Client website for more information and to download.

If you are into your music, and have a last.fm account (which allows you to publish your music tastes, and what you are and have been listening to), then Michael Coffey has released a native last.fm client for Symbian S60 phones. It has a simple interface (you provide it your last.fm username and password and that’s it!), and whenever you play music it will silently in the background update your last.fm account (it also remembers the music should you be disconnected and will upload the data when a connection is available again).

Download it here.

If you are a 3 user, they have signed a deal with Sony BMG to provide free music videos (free of all charges, including data download charges). This service will encompass a whole range of Sony BMG’s signed artists. The downside? There will be a targetted ads at the start of every music video.

Nokia have expanded the countries covered by the Music Store by adding Ireland as well. With a similar pricing model to the UK Music Store, tracks are €1 and albums €10. The site still requires IE though (although you can use the IE Tab plugin within Firefox).

Story courtesy of Symbian Guru.

Although designed for BlackBerry devices, there are rumours (although they are just rumours right now) that this device will work with other devices. This will take the Bluetooth signal from the BlackBerry, and then provides a 3.5mm standard audio connector to play the music through a traditional stereo. This will sell in the US for approximately $80 in the US, although whether that will result in a £40, £50 or £80 price in the UK we don’t currently know.

It’s possible, although not confirmed, that the device will also take the stereo music and play it via Bluetooth Headphones.

[Via Engadget]

This little device allows you to use your iPod Dock (not included), not for playing music from your iPod, but from your Bluetooth A2DP mobile phone. Plugging into the standard iPod dock connector, it transforms that dock into a Bluetooth compatible dock.

This is available now for £33 from Amazon, either direct, or through our Amazon Store.

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.

JBL have announced an iPhone speaker dock, the JBL OnStage IIIP, which is similar to previous OnStage docks, but is for the iPhone. It comes with a remote control, and a mini stereo jack for other music devices, and is powered from the mains or from batteries. It will charge the iPhone, and has connections to allow you to sync your iPhone with your PC / Mac. No details of UK availability yet though.

Logitech, who recently bought Slim Devices, have announced a new device in the range at this year’s CES show. The Duet controls your musical devices with a wireless controller in a similar style to the Sonos controller. The wireless controller (a 802.11b/g device in its own right) should be able to additionally control any of your existing devices, although you’ll need to be running the latest version of the server software. The pair cost $400, with additional music devices costing $150, and additional controllers $350, although we’re still awaiting UK prices.

Update from Slim Devices: The Controller also has a small built-in speaker and headphone jack which are used for sound effects for the user interface. Future software updates could make the Controller a player itself, streaming your music (or any of the internet radio or music services on SqueezeNetwork) to the headphone jack. If and when that software update happens, the Duet bundle would be like getting two players in one box.

There’s also an SD card slot in the unit, an IR transmitter, a 3-axis accelerometer and an expansion port on the bottom. What software features get added depends largely on what the community comes up with, there’s already a bunch of neat applets and other software that have been created during the beta program.

We’ve already covered the Revo Blik range here, but Revo have also created the Mondo, an Internet (WiFi) radio designed to link into your existing HiFi. The unit includes a remote control, and connects to your stereo via RCA cables (included). It has a digital alarm clock built in, and that subtle white on black LCD display. As well as over 7,500 internet radio stations, it also supports Listen Again facilities, like those provided by the BBC. It also has WMA and MP3 support, and can play music wirelessly streamed from your PC or Mac.

It’s available now for roughly £100.

As we first mentioned back in November, Nokia has today announced a deal to allow free access to the Nokia Music Store from all The Cloud WiFi hotspots. Although it only provides access to the Nokia Music Store, this brings Nokia’s offering inline with the iPhone.

There have been plenty of options for connecting your mobile phone to your Windows PC to allow you to control it, either music, or full remote control, but historically, Linux users have been a little left out. There are two components, a server component for the Linux PC, and a client for your Symbian Series60 phone. Although early days, it looks interesting…

More details here [Via Linux.com]

Nokia today has launched a new innovative program, Comes with Music. This offers unlimited music downloads for a 12 month subscription, but the interesting proposition is that at the end of the 12 month period, you can continue to access and play the music. Similar to the current Nokia Music Store, downloads will be available on both your mobile phone and your PC. At the moment it’s limited to Universal Music Group music, but Nokia are in talks with others to expand their portfolio before the service is actually available in the second half of 2008.

Nokia has recently released a new client for a number of it’s phones. The Nokia Internet Radio client allows you to connect to many internet radio stations, and works on a number of Nokia S60 phones (so far they have released a beta client tested on: N82, N91, N95 and N95 8Gb) over both 3G and WLAN networks. More phones should appear in time.  IN time, Nokia are planning to include the Internet Radio client in new phones (and new firmwares for existing phones).

This shows Nokia’s commitment to it’s new Ovi services, which already include the Nokia Music Store.

If you own an N95, whether the original version or the newer N95 8Gb version, you should keep an eye on the Nokia Software Updater to see if a new firmware is available for your phone (it depends on the product code of the device). Last week, Nokia released v11 for the N95 8Gb, and today released v20 for the original N95.

The N95 8Gb v11 update is mainly bug fixes, although it may well be worthwhile applying to your device.

The N95 v20 update, however, brings a number of new features to the N95 bringing it into line with the N95 8Gb. These include:

• New camera application
• Demand paging giving more free memory overall
• Search 4.0 integrated into the Standby screen
• N-Gage support
• Nokia Music Store client

It’s recommended to sync all your important information, and then apply the update, and then resync your data. Performing backup / restores is not recommended when you change firmware versions, in case some applications have changed which results in incompatibilities between the software.

Update: Symbian-Freak have listed a fairly comprehensive changelog for the v20 N95 firmware here.

Philips have recently announced this £100 bedside clock radio which is also a 7″ (non touch screen) digital photo frame. The unit has both an SD/MMC slot and a USB socket for attaching USB Flash Drives and will play videos (DivX, MPEG4), Photos (JPG), and Audio files (MP3, WMA). It also has a nice feature whereby it gentle increases the volume of the music / buzzer / radio station in order to awake you kindly.

Thanks to AutomatedHome for alerting us to this device.

If you want to download Kylie’s new album a week before it goes on general sale, it will be available for download exclusively from Nokia’s Music Store from today for £8.