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.

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.

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).

After our story of last week, it appears Nokia have rebuffed their own CFO. Nokia are now saying they have no plans to release Linux based phones. It’s possible that Nokia’s Linux strategy for Internet Tablets (where it is likely to be announcing more Linux *devices* in the next year) got confused with pure mobile phones, but we would have thought their CFO would know the difference. We’ll have to wait and see whether we see any Linux mobile phones from Nokia over the next year or two to see whether he was actually right…

As well as the existing Nokia Internet Tablet range, Nokia are definitely preparing Linux based cellphones. The comments have come from Nokia’s CFO, Rick Simonson. Whether it’ll be their own OS, Android, or LiMo, is unknown, as is whether it’ll use Trolltech’s Qt UI, a company Nokia bought earlier this year, but we can be sure of one thing; it’s likely Nokia will not stop at a single device, and we should, over the coming years, expect to see a whole range of devices. We don’t suspect Nokia will give up on Symbian S60 anytime soon, so it’ll be interesting to see if the Linux phones compete in the high end smartphone sector, and how much overlap of technology and applications they bring from the current tablets.

Story from Thumb Report, a new smartphone news service, which tried to encompass the news within 160 characters.

Well, no big surprise, but more and more companies are confirming the 3G iPhone is coming in the next few months. Various telecom operators are stating they will be announcing the next generation of iPhone in the coming weeks. It also appears that Apple may be launching an Internet Tablet type device in June too. Apart from having a more powerful processor, the rumours are suggesting a 720×480 screen size, in a slightly larger form factor than the current iPhone.

Here’s an interesting snippet of information. Google have released an updated version of their iPhone version of their Google Reader, and it’s been noted that any device can access the URL, which is http://www.google.com/reader/i/. This version works well on both Symbian S60 smartphones, as well as the Nokia Internet Tablets, both of which seem to benefit from the additional effort Google has put into the user interface. It offers a better interface over the traditional mobile version by offering you easier access to each post. If you are a regular Google Reader user, and have never got on with the mobile version, then give this version a go…

GPXView started out as simply as a viewer for the geocaching.com GPX files used by geocachers. However, it’s now expanded, and offers a near paper-less experience for those who own a Nokia Internet Tablet, and even has basic GPS support for those with a Bluetooth GPS or an N810 (with built in GPS).

The author plans to integrate the program into with Maemo Mapper or into navit, but in the meantime head off to his website for more screenshots and the install link.

Nokia has released details of it’s newest Internet Tablet, the N810 WME (WiMax Edition). Although it will only be available (for 2008 at least) in the US, it still brings some interesting features to the current range. It’s based on the N810, so still features the QWERTY keyboard and built in GPS added with the N810. On top of that, Nokia have added WiMax (which adds a little extra depth to the back of the unit to accommodate the WiMax antenna). Nokia have managed to keep the WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity options for when WiMax isn’t available (or you are at home /work, and want to utilise your own existing connections).

The most interesting features, though, come with the new version of the OS. This includes a number of bug fixes and an improved email client. However, it also features “Seamless Software Update” which Nokia claims to remove the need for periodic system updates. It’s not clear whether this is an automated version of the current Application Manager update process, or whether it’s similar to the User Data Preservation feature of some of the newer Nokia N-Series devices. The new OS should be available in the Summer for both the N800 and N810 devices.

In the last few weeks, there have been all sorts of agreements over various technologies on mobile devices, so we thought we would summarise them all…

• Adobe has announced it will be producing a Flash player for the iPhone, despite Steve Jobs not being happy with it (claiming Flash Lite was too light, and normal Flash was too “bloaty” for the iPhone)
• Nokia has announced the new Microsoft Silverlight technology will become available on Nokia Symbian S60 devices, traditional S40 devices, and their range of Internet Tablets.
• Microsoft has signed a deal with Adobe to bring Flash Lite to Windows Mobile devices, which will be used within the Internet Explorer Mobile browser. The deal also includes Adobe Reader LE for reading PDF documents.

It’s nice to see the main competitors supporting each other’s technology, and not limiting us users, and ensuring each technology has a future irrespective of your chosen mobile device.

There are rumours flying around that Nokia will announce the WiMAX version of the N810 Internet Tablet on 1st April at CTIA (the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association event). This would seem to match the logical timeframe to meet Sprint’s plan for having their WiMAX network available to the public during 2008. Although not yet directly relevant to the UK, WiMAX is likely to come in the next few years.

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]

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.

The above picture was spotted by a keen InternetTabletTalk.com user in a Best Buy Mobile buyer’s guide in the US. This has a new black finish with an orange backlit keyboard, and is believed, by some, to be a WiMax version(Best Buy have used the same product code, so it’s not 100% clear). Zooming in on the picture seems to show an N830 label, which may well imply some hardware changes, and WiMax is the most likely. More news as and when we have it.

Story and picture courtesy of Tablet Guru.

Although technically only available in the US, the Chumby (which we featured before here) has just had a major firmware update, and is now on general sale in the US. We note that the device includes compulsory adverts, a feature which has not featured heavily in their advertising. With these ads being US-centric, we expect this will be one of the reasons limiting the device to US only sales right now (they’ve told us that once sales in the US are established, they will look to broaden into new markets). Chumby have recently updated their website too.

If you are interested in the Chumby, here’s an interesting option - Thoughtfix over at Tabletblog.com has written an article on how to get the Chumby emulator working on an Nokia N810 Internet Tablet.

Nokia has updated a couple more of it’s beta applications - Nokia PC Phone (which allows you to access many functions of your S40 / S60 phone from a PC browser; but only over USB), and the Internet Tablet Video Converter (to convert videos into an optimised format for your 770 / N800 / N810 Internet Tablet). The latter now supports Vista, has some minor UI updates, new input video codecs, and new output video codecs supported (for even better video output).

As well as updating the Nokia Channels app, Nokia have released an updated version of the Video Converter for their Internet Tablet range, which we previously covered here. Head over to the Nokia Beta Website for more information on the update. A key new feature is the creation of an API, allowing other developers to expand the functionality of the software. We’ll note that they are working on Vista and OS X versions of the Converter, and have not ruled out supporting a Linux desktop version in the future.

Play.com are currently selling the N800 at £129.99 with Free Delivery, and are showing the item as in stock. Couple this with a Bluetooth GPS and a Bluetooth Keyboard, and you have the equivalent of the new N810 without the price.

Whether you are running OS2008 on your new N810, had previously run the OS2008 Beta on your N800, or were simply waiting for the formal release; this week Nokia released the formal release of OS2008 for the N800, and at the same time released an updated firmware for the N810. In fact, the firmware is identical to both units, which bodes well for the future support of both units in the near future. The Nokia download site is still a little busy with everyone downloading this update, so you may want to wait another day or so before trying.

If you are interested in what comes with the new OS, Nokia has also launched an OS2008 website.

Nokia UK now has stocks of the new N810 Internet Tablet, and they are now available from the Nokia UK Store. We’re hoping to bring you a review of the N810 soon.