nokia
How would you change Nokia’s N900?
Maemo 5 didn’t stand on its own for long before being mashed together with Intel’s Moblin, but Nokia’s N900 still stands as one of the best handhelds for web browsing.
Vodafone’s Wayfinder is first victim of free smartphone navigation services
Back in January 2009, as Vodafone was preparing to close a ?20 million ($30 million) deal to buy Swedish mapmaker Wayfinder, it was seen as a bold move from a carrier intent on entering the apparently lucrative market for location based services. Fast forward to the present day — past the bit where free Google Maps Navigation destroyed TomTom and Garmin share prices , and past the introduction of free turn-by-turn navigation to Nokia’s Ovi Maps — and you’ll find Wayfinder gently sobbing into a handkerchief as it permanently closes up its doors. Vodafone’s Anna Cloke gives us the reason for it with devastating concision: “We could not charge for something that others gave away for free.” So there we have it, the paid navigation services deathwatch has its first fatality, and it’s the unfortunate nature of the beast that plenty of others will be following suit, unable to resist the destructive effects of the free and ubiquitous services now on offer
Another one bites the dust: Cisco steps out of the WiMAX game
It’s still far, far too early to call WiMAX a dead technology, but with the second major infrastructure supplier moving away from it in as many months, that’s a pretty damning sign, isn’t it?
HTC HD2 breaks free in the T-Mobile USA wilds
HTC’s HD2 is a near perfect combination of physical hardware and silicon that delivers impressive performance on a device that’s surprisingly sleek given the display’s massive 4.3-inch exapanse. Even Microsoft’s much maligned Windows Mobile 6.5 is expertly masked by HTC’s Sense interface.
Nokia’s Terminal Mode spotted in the wilds of the Geneva Motor Show
Those lovely people over at Nokia have furnished with a few images of what their dashboard integration will look like, as well as the names of a few more partners for its Terminal Mode initiative. Intended to smarten up your car’s hardware with the phone’s capabilities — whether that be to play back music, use Ovi Maps, browse the web, or whatver else — this was announced in partnership with Alpine yesterday , but today we’re hearing that Fiat , Harman Becker and Valmet Automotive are also getting in on the fun. The gallery below shows off a mockup from Valmet, which plops your Nokia into a cradle just under the Eva concept’s “on” button, and then transfers all the important stuff onto an LCD integrated into the dashboard above.
Apple vs HTC: a patent breakdown
Apple suing HTC over 20-odd patents before both the US District Court and the International Trade Commission has certainly caused some chaos this morning, but we thought we’d take a quick breath now that we have the complaints and tease out exactly what patents are at stake here. Of note, most of the patents were granted in the past year, but overall they span a range from 1995 to February 2.
