DOODLEDRIVE - NEW GAME DEVELOPED IN QT FOR N900 AND SYMBIAN^3 DEVICES

Tommi Laukkanen has released a game developed in Qt and it’s been released in an alpha version state.  The game is a simple side scrolling driving game where player should avoid hitting rocks by jumping over them and it features some awesome graphics by his 6 years old son. Tommi Laukkanen has also made a video of the story of this game.

WINE RUNNING ON THE NOKIA N900

RM based superphone N900 running the x86 wine binary via a statically compiled arm qemu binary, within an x86 chroot.

NOKIA N900 RUNNING ANDROID 2.1 - VIDEO DEMO

This is the first video demo of NITDroid Android port to Nokia N900, showing general android features.

OPERA MOBILE 10 BROWSER FOR THE NOKIA N900

The Opera Mobile 10 browser got released today for the Maemo devices such as the Nokia N900.This Maemo version of Opera Mobile 10 was created as a hobby project by a small team of developers in their spare time. In total, about 6 man-weeks were spent on creating the release. It’s worth pointing out that this is not an officially-supported release. As such, it has not undergone our usual quality assurance processes, and at times may not feel as polished or complete as an official release. This also means that there may never be a “final” release of Opera Mobile 10 for Maemo devices, since it’s just that much more fun to add shiny new features rather than fixing boring old bugs.
There are a number of known issues with this build, listed below:

• Adobe Flash and other plugins are not supported.
• Screen tearing may be visible when panning, especially in portrait mode. We expect to fix this in a future update.
• The built-in on-screen keyboard is not supported. Use the physical keyboard or the on screen keyboard included with Opera Mobile.
• There is no power management support. In practice this means that if you open a page with animations and leave Opera running, you will soon be using a payphone. Power is drained even when Opera is running in the background and/or the screen is turned off.
• If you set Opera as the default browser, for example by installing the Browser Switchboard, an extra empty tab will get opened every time you open a link from an external application.

Download and install Opera Mobile 10 on your Nokia N800/N810/N900 using the phone’s default browser.

NOKIA N900 FIRMWARE 1.2 (PUBLIC RELEASE) LEAKED

A new version of the Nokia N900 firmware 1.2 (public release) have been leaked. I highly recommend you guys to wait with the update until you can download it from Nokia.

FIREFOX 1.1 BETA FOR NOKIA N900 GOES LIVE

Firefox 1.1 beta for Nokia N900 (Maemo) finally went live today. Firefox 1.1 beta is built on the same browser engine as Firefox 3.6 for desktop computers with extensive under the hood work to optimize for mobile. For the 1.1 release, the team listened to your feedback to help improve the browsing experience. As a result, polishing the user interface and improving UI responsiveness and performance is at the heart of this beta release. Secure, powerful and customizable, Firefox 1.1 beta for the Nokia N900 is packed with your favorite features and great improvements. Highlights include:

• Use volume rocker to zoom in and out on the Nokia N900
• Download, First Run and Start page redesign to help you find and use your favorite Firefox features
• Add-ons now auto update and view full add-on gallery from the Add-ons Manager
• Portrait mode support on the Nokia N900
• Form assistant improvements, including autocomplete
• Context Menu with Open in New Tab and Save Image
• Manage site preferences (clearing passwords and others)
• Site Menu improvements and additions including Save to PDF, Forget Password and Add Search Engine
• Web content theme update

Download Firefox 1.1 beta for the Nokia N900 by visiting Firefox.com/m/beta. You can also go to Firefox.com/mobile and send an SMS text message that contains the download link directly to your Nokia N900. If you don’t have an N900 you can download a build of Firefox for mobile to your desktop in order to test, provide feedback, and build add-ons. Desktop builds are for development purposes only and don’t have full functionality:

• Windows
• Mac OS X
• Linux

NOKIA N900 CPU OVERLOCKED TO 1700 MHZ

The Nokia N900 overclocking war continues. The guys at Maemo community successfully overclocked the Nokia N900 CPU to 1700MHz (from 600MHz). Im not sure if the pic is real or not, so you have to decide if you believe in it or not  

NOKIA N900 OVERLOCKED TO 1GHZ!!!!!

Today a member of the maemo community managed to overclock the Nokia N900 CPU to 1GHz with various hacks in the kernel, and this screenshot is the proof that its possible!  So whats the next step?

NOKAI N900 CAR PARKING APPLICATION

EasyPark for the Nokia N900 helps you when you park your car, and it will guide you back when you forgot where you parked it!.

N900 MAEMO OPERATING SYSTEM RUNNING ON THE HTC HD2

Can the Maemo OS (Nokia N900)  run on an HTC HD2 Windows Mobile Phone? Watch the video to find out.....

Tons of flash games on your Nokia N900

If you want to play tons of flash games on your Nokia N900, head over to Jays blog to find out how!

Maemo Select: Applications, Themes & Wallpapers For The N900

Yesterday we told you about Maemo.org’s Maemo 5 application page going live and today brings even more good news. Maemo Select, a section on Nokia’s Maemo site that highlights the best applications, themes and wallpapers for Maemo 5  has gone live today with a few more apps.

Maemo Select will cover applications from the Maemo Community as well as the Ovi Store. Yes, the Ovi Store. The Ovi Store is coming to the N900 by the end of the year and will feature both free and paid applications. Currently the theme and wallpaper section on Maemo Select is empty but you can expect it to fill up pretty soon. On the app front, downloads are already available for the Amazon Widget, Evernote, Bounce Evolution, Documents to Go and for the Facebook widget amongst others. Fring and Mauku (the Maemo micro-blogging client) will also soon be available for download.

Grr Is A Fast & Light Google Reader Application For The N900

If you are looking for a Google Reader application for the N900, I recommend giving Grr by Jan Dumon a try, considering that it has just been released it is a little short on functionality such as starring a post, sharing it and so on but it works well if you are looking for a speedy way to simply browse your RSS feeds on the go. It is in the extras-devel repository (here’s how to easily enable it, the usual warnings apply).

Once you enter your Google Reader username and password Grr immediately loads your subscribed feeds with an indicator showing the number of unread posts from each website.

You can set it to display only those sites while have new content, force a refresh or log into a separate account.

Here tapping on the arrow next to the website’s name you get an option to mark all items as read. A simple tap, opens the relevant post.

Text is loaded immediately, while the images take a little time depending on the connection you are on

Here you have the option of keeping the post unread or opening it in the browser. I would have liked at option to star posts as well, but that will probably come in a future release.

How To Block Unwanted Callers On The N900

There is no call blocking application for the N900 yet, but that hasn’t stopped Vinu Thomas from coming up with a hack that lets you do just that. He clearly mentions that this is a stop gap arrangement until until steps up to create a real application with this functionality. What I’d like is an SMS blocking app as well, as SMS spam has really increased over the last one year or so.

Anyway, if you are being plagued by unwanted callers and have had enough, here’s how to get rid of them.

• The first thing you need is root access. So go ahead and download rootsh from the application manager or use this link.

• Next, if you haven’t installed a Python application in your phone, you’ll need to install maemo-python-device-env from extras-devel (here is how to enable extras-devel with one click).

• Now download this script. Inside the zip is a file callblock.py. Once you open it in notepad or whatever you like, it will look like the picture below.

• Now edit the ‘Blocklist’ in the script and put in the numbers you want to block. You can add as many number as you like, just make sure that you enclose the numbers within the quote and separate each with a comma. Also, do not have a trailing comma after the last number.

• Save and transfer this file (callblock.py) to the MyDocs folder on the N900.

• Open terminal on the device and enter the root mode by entering:

                                       root

• Next start the call block hack by entering:

                                   

python /home/user/MyDocs/callblock.py &

That’s it. All your unwanted calls are now blocked. You will need to run this script everytime you restart your device as there is no auto start functionality yet. Edit the block list in the callblock.py file anytime you want to change the blacklisted numbers. 

NOKIA EXPLORE AND SHARE TECHNOLOGY CONCEPT

 

Nokia Explore and Share enables a new way of selling and delivering services at retail. The demonstration showcases how a consumer can download Nokia content like music or videos into a device easily with this novel technology.

NOKIA N900:FLASH VERSION OF GOOGLE EARTH DEMOED

In this video, Mark from My Nokia Blog demoes the flash version of Google Earth on his Nokia N900.

What Does MeeGo Mean For Maemo?

In terms of branding? Uncertainty. Otherwise? Potential.

• First things first, if you are not sure Meego is, I suggest you read this post – What is MeeGo?

• Back to Maemo. We already know that Maemo 6 will be completely compatible with MeeGo, and according to Ari Jaaksi, we even can consider Maemo 6 already a MeeGo instance.

• We also know that the MeeGo announcement will not affect the Maemo 6 rollout schedule.

• The one interesting thing is that Nokia has still not decided if they want to call Maemo 6, Maemo 6 or MeeGo something. Nokia has already spent considerable time and money populating the Maemo brand name, it may still not be as visible as Symbian or Android, but it is a well known commodity among the geeks at least and a small fraction of the mainstream users.

• Changing to MeeGo will mean that the last six months’ work will go down the drain and leave people even more confused with the sheer fragmentation.

• We also know that the Maemo.org community and the Moblin community will be aggregated at MeeGo.com, the new home of the open source OS.

• Two lines that stood out for me in Ari Jaaksi’s post were, ‘We will put all our force behind making MeeGo THE operating system‘ and that ‘Nokia will ship tons of MeeGo devices‘. A re-branding exercise seems inevitable after reading this.

• MeeGo builds upon the Moblin core software platform and reference user experiences, adding the Qt UI toolkit from Maemo. Maemo was based on ARM, while Moblin on the X86 architecture. This merger will mean that users get the best of both worlds.

I am sure we all would like the Maemo brand to stay, it definitely sounds better than MeeGo, but if you consider the fact that Intel is giving up Moblin, this possibility seems even more remote. Calling Nokia’s MeeGo iterations Meamo MeeGo or MeeGo Maemo sounds silly and it looks as if the community will have to get over the brand.
In its new form, Maemo (MeeGo) is sure to improve by leaps and bounds. Nokia’s MeeGo devices will be powered by cutting edge hardware that will deliver superb speed, multitasking and everything that you need in the palm of your hand. Since MeeGo is targeting not only mobile devices but also Connected TV’s, in-car infotainment systems, Media phones and so on, the reach will definitely grow. Will you see MeeGo on your N900? I don’t think so. Should you get excited about MeeGo? Yes, but now’s not the time for that.
It will be quite sometime before we see the Maemo go away completely, but one thing is sure – Maemo is dead. Long live Maemo.

Download Page For Maemo 5 Applications Now Online

With the N900 release just around the corner, the Maemo.org download page for Maemo 5 applications has just gone online. As you can see from the repetitions in the names of the apps below, the catalogue is currently thin with the total number of applications listed being only 9.

However, with the final SDK becoming available and there being still time till the N900 ships, you can expect this number to swell to a respectable figure with the Maemo open source community also joining in. For now, Ogg Player and OM Weather have my attention, what applications are you most looking forward to?

PhotoTranslator: N900 App That Extracts & Translates Text From Images

I’ve just stumbled on an incredible application for the N900 that can translate text from images into various languages. So in a foreign country you can simply take a picture of a boarding/sign/menu, put a box around the text and the application will extract that text and translate it for you.
The knowledge about the existence of this app comes from a video uploaded by CybercomLab on YouTube, this does not look like a community project and my guess is that we should be seeing it on the Ovi Store soon. Here’s the application’s ‘official’ description from the YouTube page:

Imagine yourself walking on a street somewhere in a foreign country and you face a warning sign, but you have no idea what it says. Just take a picture of the sign and open it with PhotoTranslator, crop the text in the sign and PhotoTranslator translates the text to your language. In addition the PhotoTranslator can be used also for translating copy/pasted or typed text, not just for text from pictures.

NEW NOKIA N900 FIRMWARE VERSION PR 1.1.1 (version 3.2010.02-8). NOW AVAILABLE!

The Nokia N900 has received a new firmware in the form of PR 1.1.1 (version 3.2010.02-8). This looks like a minor update and is available as an image from N900 firmware section as well as over the air if you search for updates. The OTA option is a 16.2 MB download and looks like a precursor to the major PR 1.2 update.

This update adds a number of regions to the N900, as quite a number of countries were earlier missing from the N900’s list. Apart from that there is no changelog available. I will update this post if I see something new.

The changelog is now available here, this firmware fixes the battery drain issue when connected to WIFI and browser improvements among other minor things.

Update: If you get a memory error while trying to update the N900 over the air, trying rebooting the device once. If that still doesn’t solve your problem then disable the Extras-Devel and Extras-Testing repositories and try again.

Update 2: The update is also available via the Nokia Software Updater, however when you update using it, you will loose your applications and settings, while the contacts and other data including photos will remain intact. So please make sure you backup before you update.