We are just hours away from the start of the second MeeGo Conference, the first having been taken place in November, at Dublin. Unlike the last one, the spring conference promises to be focused on a the global direction MeeGo is taking in addition to the technical sessions for the developers. How much of that can be realized remains to be seen in light of Nokia’s recent shift towards Windows Phone as its primary operating system, but one thing is very clear, Intel still remains committed to the OS, and will be looking at other phone manufacturers, perhaps LG, to fill the void that Nokia’s exit has left.

This will probably mean that we are now looking at 2012 at the time when commercial MeeGo smartphones being to pick up, however, in orders to gain developers, Intel will be aggressive conducting their ‘Intel AppUp Application Labs‘ through the world, with events in Hyderrabad, Chennai, Barcelona, Paris, Munich, Pune and Delhi already in place over the next two months.

In terms of interest, the spring MeeGo Conference has seen about 1200 registrations and while there are clearly doubts in people’s minds about how MeeGo will progress from here on, there is still an encouraging level of developer interest. The conference will kick off with an keynote titled ‘The Future of MeeGo Starts Now’, hosted by Jim Zemlin, Executive Director at The Linux Foundation and promises to give a better picture of where MeeGo stands today.

A lot of sessions over the next three days will be streamed live, so you can keep on top of things wherever you are. Here is the detailed schedule and the dedicated live stream.

I will also be tweeting from the floor @TheHandheldBlog and you can also follow me on @v4ibhav for general happenings around the MeeGo Conference.

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The MeeGo 1.2 release is now available, well in time for the MeeGo Conference that kicks off on Monday. This update promises to provide a solid baseline for device vendors and developers to start creating software for various device categories on Intel Atom and ARMv7 architectures.

(N900 MeeGo 1.2 DE, Boot Splash)

If you are looking to for an update for your N900, then there is good news. While there are vanilla MeeGo 1.2 images available for the N900, it’ll make much more sense for you to try the N900 Developer Edition release that has additional applications, contributions and fixes.

While the final release will happen at the MeeGo Conference, you can still try the final release candidate here. If you are attending the MeeGo Conference, then make sure to attend the N900 MeeGo 1.2 DE Session. If you are not, you can still catch the live streaming of this session on May 25, 9:50 AM San Francisco time.

Back to the general MeeGo 1.2 release, on the UX and MeeGo SDK front we now have:

• Netbook UX 1.2 complete set of core applications for netbooks.
• In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) UX 1.2.
• Tablet Developer Preview.
• MeeGo SDK 1.2 for MeeGo Core OS and supported UXs.

Make sure to check out the post on MeeGo.com for more details. MeeGo development continues forward on a six-month cadence, so you can expect MeeGo 1.3 to be released in October, 2011.

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Nokia Conversations has just published a post titled, ‘Future devices and innovation at Nokia‘. Along side is a picture of curtains, awaiting a grand reveal. The post itself is brilliant, says nothing about a particular device, yet says quite a lot. Its a tease, but one which you will only be able to follow if you are already familiar with the N9/N950 leaked teaser video which has since been taken down (but you can still find screenshots here).

I recommend you read it, but if you’re in a hurry here are the real teasers.

“Just a couple of days ago, a whole fresh crop appeared on a number of websites regarding a new mystery device. But it should be no surprise that new things are in the wings somewhere…”

• Obvious reference to the device rumored to be the N9/N950.

“… At the moment, of course, our technology is far from natural. There’s nothing natural about icons and drop-down lists and tickboxes. It would probably be better if you could just swipe through your apps, wouldn’t it?”

• Swipes. That’s what Nokia’s MeeGo UI will play by.
  

“But the possibilities are endless… and very exciting. We can’t wait to show you more – maybe a sneak peek at “Jessie’s Girl” – in the weeks to come”.

• ‘Jessie’s Girl’. That was the exact Rick Springfield soundtrack for the teaser that leaked.

So there you have it, the device is coming in the ‘weeks to come’ and it’ll run Nokia’s very own UI based on the idea of swipes. But the ‘weeks to come’ part means that a we are possibly looking at June as the time of announcement, which means we probably won’t be seeing it at the MeeGo Conference starting next week in San Francisco.

[Update] I just saw that Jay at My Nokia Blog too has a similar post up, where they’re speculating about Nokia’s New Sense message. Remember, ‘See, Hear New, Feel New’ from the old Nseries days, all of them were senses.

Image credit: Wootang01

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We are just 5 days away from the start of the second MeeGo Conference and a very interesting video has just popped up, a promo for Nokia’s first MeeGo device, the N9. The video is nothing more than a teaser, but does manage to reveal a bunch details about the device which may even be called the N950. The only problem is that the OS the phone is running looks a lot like upcoming Symbian releases, right down to the icons, so may be the teaser that Pocket Now has scooped was a work in progress, with the MeeGo parts to be placed in later.

Nevertheless, the hardware does look solid. First, it packs an auto focus camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and a dual LED, no EDoF unit here. My guess is a 12 MP.  Then there is the all aluminum body, with a physical QWERTY and a 4″ screen in a very E7ish design. Here are some images that promise to reveal more.

• Looks like a 12MP AF, dual LED camera with a Carl Zeiss lens.

• The earpiece, just under the top end of the phone. It does have a very narrow bezel.

• Looks like a great QWERTY keyboard, in an all aluminum body.

• Fairly large screen, possibly 4″.

• It’ll come with Ovi Maps with driving navigation.

• An app in action.

• Looks like a very capable browser, with the speed dial screen shown perhaps.

• The QWERTY virtual keyboard.

• The tilt up slide mechanism which is a lot like the E7.

• The bottom of the device, with the camera and speaker grill.

• The calender in action.

• Notice how thin the bezel is.

• The face of the N9/N950, with a front camera. It does look good.

• Notice the sliding transition to move to the next screen.

• Nokia calls it ‘Our Next Sense’. Perhaps they want to get back at HTC.

Now for the video that Pocket Now has been able to scoop:

We’ll probably know more on Monday when the MeeGo Conference kicks off. I’ll be there to bring you the latest.

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Tommi Laukkanen, the man behind the Qt Kasvopus Facebook client for Symbian and Maemo devices has started working on another gem, a great looking Foursquare app called Nelisquare, written in Qt Quick. The fully featured app is currently in the pre-alpha stage and already lets you check in to places, share those check-ins on Facebook and Twitter selectively and view your friends’ check-ins among other things.

The app is being developed for the N900 (Maem0) and future MeeGo devices, but the author is alive to the possibility of a Symbian version as well. Considering the fact that the official Symbian Foursquare app is written in WRT and is a little slow, a lot of users will welcome Nelisquare.

Interested, check this video demo out. Interested in testing it out on the N900? Download here.

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The ‘will LG, won’t LG’ game around has been going on for a while. First it was Valtteri Halla (a member of technical steering group of MeeGo and former Nokia employee) who commenting on Nokia’s exit said  “It’s opening opportunities for the others to come in. Discussions are taking place. You’ll see things coming out this year, pretty soon.”

Then the ‘LG fills Nokia’s MeeGo void’ stories started, but LG quickly poured water on that rumour by saying that they have no definite plans to ‘mass produce’ a MeeGo smartphone this year. This was interpreted as a pretty cold stance. However, a pretty interesting session has just popped up on the MeeGo Conference website, that proposes to “show LGE MeeGo Devices and present porting experience of MeeGo 1.2 into multiple LG devices”.

But if you read further into the abstract:

“To present how LGE’s works on MeeGo IVI/Tablet/Smart Phone and how/what LGE will contribute for the future of MeeGo platform. Also some proposal on SW architecture will be presented. This session will include demonstration of prototype devices. (Will be updated)”

So there you have it, MeeGo on prototype LG devices. It still doesn’t mean that LG will be mass producing a MeeGo smartphone this year, but it does open the doors to it. I will be at next month’s MeeGo Conference and keeping an eye on things.

Meanwhile I wonder if we’ll hear something about Nokia’s only MeeGo device anytime around the same time?

Hat tip to @brainimpact.

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The MIR Translator app, borne out of a school project, turns your N900 into a handy translation tool that covers over 30 international languages. All you do is click a picture of the text, select the phrase you want to translate, select the to and from languages and wait for the app to work its magic. Just the kind of app I needed when I was in Hong Kong, traveling with my N900 and trying to order off a incomprehensible menu.

If the recognition is erroneous, the user is able to correct the recognition via manual segmentation, manual thresholding, and manual candidate selection. If that sounds complicated, the developer has an excellent demo and how-to video.

The app is available from Extras-Devel repositories, if you don’t know what that is, have a look here.

Hat tip to @alextootchie.

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I have great delight in telling you that registrations and calls for proposals for the Spring 2011 MeeGo Conference, scheduled for May 23-25 in San Francisco, are now open. As opposed to the developer focused conference that happened in Dublin last year, the San Francisco conference will be more focused on the industry and not just on the developers.

The hosts are encouraging everyone from application developers to platform designers, hardware vendors to open source enthusiasts, anyone engaged in MeeGo is invited to contribute and participate in the Call for Proposals (CFP). However, if you would just like to attend, here is what you have to look forward to:

• Conference Warm-Up, which will be two days filled with tutorials, workshops, and more, organized by the MeeGo community (dates are 5/21-5/22)
• 24hr Hacker Lounge
• 5k fun run
• T-shirt contest

If you are keen on actively participating, proposals have been invited for a wide variety of areas:

• Device/Product development
• App development
• Platform development
• MeeGo project, process, and progress
• We welcome submissions on any other MeeGo related topics

I was fortunate enough to attend the MeeGo Conference in Dublin last year, and San Francisco promises to be even more exciting. If you care about MeeGo, I strongly recommend that you try and attend. Register here. For more information visit sf2011.meego.com, the SFO MeeGo Conference website.

Nokia still plans on releasing one MeeGo device this year and the MeeGo Conference may very well be the venue for the announcement. You will also notice that the MeeGo Conference banner still has Nokia right next to Intel as the host, despite the Nokia’s recent announcements. Intel has already committed to make MeeGo work, no matter what obstacles they face. All in all it promises to be a cracker of an event, which will probably give the world an idea of whether MeeGo will really take off.

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Its been possible to run MeeGo on the Nokia N900 for sometime now, but the use case has been limited to a proof of concept instead of giving the users a workable solution that will let them use the N900 as a primary phone, while it is running MeeGo. But fortunately, a developer edition of MeeGo has just been announced for the N900 with the aim of making the N900 ‘usable as a primary phone device for a developer/hacker person’.

The developer edition will be based on MeeGo 1.2 trunk content and the focus will be one meeting  non-functional targets such as performance rather than checking boxes for the number of features. The idea behind the move is to encourage more people to use MeeGo on N900, and continue enhancing the functionality or build new stuff.

The core team is being formed in and around Nokia, including current members of N900 HW adaptation team.

If you want more information or want to help, head over to this wiki on MeeGo.com.

[via: @jukkaeklund]

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According to the Finnish site, Taloussanomat, Nokia is offering its in-house MeeGo devs a salary plus 50% bonus to continue with the company and help avoid a mass exodus after the Feb 11 announcement that Nokia was moving to Windows Phone as its primary operating system.

With the help of Google Translate, it appears that the bonus is structured on a quarterly basis. The first slab being end July, followed by September and brought up by the year end. If an employee resigns before a deadline, he/she stands to loose the entire bonus for the said period.

According to Taloussanomat, Nokia has about 13,000 engineers in Finland, half of whom work on MeeGo. Nokia had also been hiring a lot of talent for MeeGo development recently, but because of the February announcement that Nokia was virtually making MeeGo a research project, a lot of people have considered moving on.

Nokia still plans on delivering its first MeeGo smartphone, possibly the N950, later this year and loosing top brains certainly wouldn’t help. But perhaps, the bigger question is, what happens once the phone is ready?

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