While Chris Pirillo (of TechTV and lockergnome fame - Wikipedia bio) was talking to Robert Scoble about his iPhones, I recorded a portion of his live feed playing on the N800 and sent it in video mail to him. He and I then talked about it for a while but then I had to sign out. The next morning, I found the following video in his video blog this morning:



He and I chatted a bit since and he's trying to get one to play with through his contacts at Nokia. I hope he does and that he has some fun with it.

UKTUBE 0.6

If there's anyone in Europe who wants to call my cell phone and wake me wherever I am to tell me when the new firmware is posted, let me know. I've been reloading the repositories like crazy. The Tableteer catalog shows some Skype UI .deb packages in the Bora tree, but of course these don't install all of Skype.

In any event - I was involved in a conversation about Skype on InterentTabletTalk forums about WHY Skype is so important to the N800. Since Gizmo Project and Google Talk are already there for VOIP, why is Skype needed?

I am replicating some of response below:

It's not because it offers so much - it's because it offers something TO so MANY. There are tons of Skype users out there. More than you expect. If you don't use it yourself, you can find a few friends who do and will be glad you have it on your tablet.

Consider the iPhone's YouTube module. They SHOULD have put a real Flash implementation on their web browser, but since they were probably too stingy to cough up the license deal with Macromedia over Flash, they went right to YouTube for a partnership. Apple's implentation doesn't give the full experience, but it gives a big partnership to an in-demand service.

Skype does the same on the N800.

Software Edition 2007 version 4.2007.26-8 for Nokia N800 is official.
Time to fire up those firmware updaters.

Thanks for the overwhelming positive feedback on my Liveblogging of the N800/Skype/Firmware upgrade. One commenter suggested that the text field and browser rendering issue can be solved by changing the theme, then changing it back and rebooting. This must be some kind of glitch from the backup/restore functionality. It worked!

Thanks again to those who Digg me, too.

It's out now. Flash 9, Skype etc. See the maemo pages for further details.

The long awaited upgrade has finally arrived. Nokia just announced the new Internet Tablet 2007 update v4.2007.26-8. Nokia N800 owners can now enjoy three new much anticipated features: Skype client support, Adobe Flash 9 browser plug-in, and 8GB SD memory card support. Battery life has also been improved on this update, as well as a better touchscreen sensitivity. Nokia however decided to end the beta version of the Call Invitation app by August of this year.

Read more at Maemo.org.
Download the new Firmware.

From maemo.org:

Nokia has just announced an update to the Internet Tablet OS 2007 edition, feature upgrade release is now available for download. The update (version number 4.2007.26-8) includes Skype client support, Adobe® Flash® 9 browser plug-in, improvements in online use times and single memory card support up to 8 GB.

I’m at work and haven’t had opportunity to flash the new OS.

A long awaited firmware is out today … Internet Tablet OS 2007 edition>

Offering Skype support and Flash 9 as well as general system improvements it’s a welcome update and something suggested for all N800 users. There’s no word on whether this works on the 770 running the hacker edition, though there may be device specific requirements for both skype and the latest Flash.

You’ll also be able to use larger SD cards up to 8GB including those with SDHC support! I”m looking forward to carrying 16GB of multimedia in my pocket!

I have yet to update mine, but am looking forward to getting the new OS running soon.

Technorati Tags:
Nokia, Internet Tablet, Maemo, N800, Skype

As discussed in forums already and briefly in my megapost a day ago, YouTube behaves strangely on the N800. During the video downloading, the playback is choppy but audio is pretty stable. When the download is complete, video is smooth. Take a look.

I also ran the same video through Orb (as can be seen later in the video) and playback is much nicer still. A little wiggle-room for improvement, but still on the right track! You can see my N800/YouTube/Orb article here.

Finally, I mention uktube briefly. Expect more about that in the near future. In the meantime, watch this video of it in action and subscribe to his channel for more.

The video used is a piece of artistic brilliance: Such Great Heights by The Postal Service.

I just got invited to Pownce. Thanks to salvatore for that. It’s like Twitter but way better. It allows users to do micro-blogging, and share links and files between each other. You can follow my public profile here. I just wish I could use Pownce also from my Nokia N800 or from my mobile phone. It would be more real-time that way since I’m carrying those with me pretty much all the time. Well, maybe they’ll open an API soon so I could write some client for that purpose then. Btw, I’ve got couple of invites left to share if someone is interested.

As discussed in my liveblogging of the last firmware update, Skype is now included on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. I already covered the application installation, launching, and posted a video of the first call, but a more in-depth view of Skype is deserved.

Thoughtfix tells us there are 100 million registered Skype users.

So when people wonder what the advantage of having Skype is, it’s to take advantage of the network effect.

Walkaround internet calls, to lots of people, anywhere, at no cost and anybody at all for a low cost.

Will the Nokia N800 work on Sprint? Verizon? AT&T? T-Mobile? Does it have EV-DO? Does it have UMTS or HSDPA?

People ask me this over and over. With the recent jump in traffic to this site, I've had no fewer than 30 people ask me directly through comments here, YouTube comments, YouTube mail, Skype, or regular Email. Finally I lay it all out and explain it in Volume 4 of Coffee with ThoughtFix. Watch the video below.

I’m not sure what the deal is but my framerate performace is pretty bad when viewing YouTube still. I’m connected on WiFi and it’s better, but not great. Do we think this is a CPU, Memory or Opera issue?

I was also able to view Viddler for the first time as it only supports Flash 9 but the same low refresh issues exist. Not to be a downer here, but why do we have the support when the experience is less than ideal?

Technorati Tags:
Nokia, Internet Tablet, mobile, Maemo, N800, Firmware, Flash

Posts that contain IPhone per day for the last 30 days:

I proudly announce that on the 6th of July I became father for the second time! Nokia has in fact announced the Internet Tablet OS 2007 edition feature upgrade release. This release, which can be downloaded for free by all the N800 owners, features several interesting updates:

Click to read 562 more words

First, a big shout and thanks to Engadget for giving me permission to reproduce these photos spotted by their tipster. Check out their post on the subject to see how they obtained them and their own commentary. After viewing that, come back and read this picture-by-picture commentary.

Thanks to Danny Milosavljevic there is Unzip’s new version.

Danny sent a patch in order that the File Manager support Unzip. That’s to say, already you don’t need osso-xterm for unzip a Zip file, only with a click on it in the File Manager and voilá.

You will see an icon in the menu that is ‘Uncompress zip files’, well this access doesn’t do anything if tap on it, but it’s necessary for the File Manager support. The icon is from File-Roller. Thanks:)

You can download the new version (5.52-11) from the Garage: Unzip Project
or from the Extras repository:
Install Unzip OS2006
Install Unzip OS2007

Now already it’s not necessary to be a great linux hacker for uncompress your zip files in your Internet Tablets

Thank you very much Danny.

Technorati Tags: unzip, maemo, n800, 770, nokia,

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Engadget has some very interesting images…

I had been thinking the next unit would be a modified design with WiMax to support the Sprint partnership, but this looks like a redesign… much more like the MID Platform.

I guess the competition is heating up in the mobile tablet space. iPhone, Ubuntu and MID are all coming on … I know the iPhone is not really in the same class of device, but it’s impossible to keep it out of the comparison - especially for average consumer.

Technorati Tags:
Nokia, Internet Tablet, WiMax, Intel, MID, Ubuntu

I took some pictures showing the size difference between the 770 and iPhone. iPhone is really is smaller than you’d first think. Unfortunately, it also has a lower resolution screen than the 770. The zoom feature makes up for that somewhat (see the last picture in this post for an example of a zoom). It is nice that Safari always renders the whole page, so there is not any horizontal scrolling (unless you pinch-zoom). On the 770, boing-boing was wider than the screen and so it used a horizontal scroll. You can see that Safari didn’t render the flash banner add on the top of boing-boing. You can also notice in the first picture that Safari does a better job of using larger fonts- the smaller screen is more readable than on the 770.

The touch-screen on iPhone is remarkably different than what is on the 770- it only requires the lightest touch of a finger, not physical pressure. Using a stylus on iPhone doesn’t work- the screen is using the conductivity of your flesh to make contact, more like a touch pad on a laptop than a traditional touch-screen.

You can click on each of these to load a larger version in a new window.

The iPhone and the 770 both rendering boingboing.

Size comparison- stacked up.

The iPhone’s tabs - multiple windows open. You slide the windows left and right to go to each one.

Safari zoomed for the main column of text on boing-boing.