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If you missed the MeeGo Conference last week or for whatever reason can't remember what went on at the party, here's a short video of San Francisco, the party at the Exploratorium and of course some Hacker Lounge activities:

Huge soap bubbles, a red bridge, mini-tornados, glass bottle ping pong, real-life Mong, losing at Lunar Lander (it was really, really very hard ;)) and Maemo community members dancing to Jessie's Girl performed live (and wondering who ordered that song..) - Enjoy :)

Digia is the company that recently acquired commercial licensing and professional services components of Nokia’s Qt software group, so if you can expect someone to make high quality Qt based applications, its them. At the MeeGo Conference, they had a concept eBook application written in QML running on MeeGo tablets, that presents a pretty impressive picture of what you can do with Qt.

The application aims to be not just a eBook reader, but also a recommendation engine and a store to buy books from. While the current application is still in development, it still presents a compelling look at what can be. In terms of deployment, the company is looking at both smartphones and tablets as a market once the application is ready for commercial deployment.

Special thanks to Kari Sievi of Digia for the demo, unfortunately due to the background noise I was forced to do a voiceover later on.

Similar Posts:

• Demo Of MeeGo 1.2 Developer Edition On The Nokia N900
• The MeeGo Conference Kicks Off In San Francisco Today
• Intel Disappointed With Nokia’s Move, But Puts Its Weight Behind MeeGo
• Microsoft & Nokia Tie Up, Nokia Still Plans To Sell 150 Million Symbian Devices, MeeGo Barely Hanging In There
• What Is MeeGo?

Hi all,

The first Embedded Systems Conference Brazil was held at São Paulo on 24 to May 25 2011 and ProFUSION was there to do a technical talk.

source: maemo.nokia.com

Bloomberg Businessweek has published an in-depth article, titled 'Stephen Elop's Nokia Adventure', which describes how Nokia's new CEO is trying to turn the company around. It covers his first 8 months at the company and looks at the story behind Nokia's new strategy. There's a lot of interesting detail about the decision making behind Nokia's smartphone strategy, which took place in the first few weeks of 2011.

Hi all,

After a while not even opening my blog, yesterday I did two posts. While the administrator interface seemed fine, readers quickly notified that it was showing lots of spam in the regular view which I confirmed using Chromium’s private browsing. Investigations led to dozen administrator accounts in WordPress database, then I decided to reinstall from scratch. Unfortunately yesterday was a busy day and I could barely stay at the computer to do so.

Anyway, this morning I restored my blog and I’ll try to keep it updated I also changed the comments rule, instead of requiring people to register, I instead opted to close comments after 14 days, since most spammers seems to look for pages with reasonable pagerank and new pages do not have them that soon.

The MeeGo Spring Conference in San Francisco was nice, perhaps not so much for the press folks (uninspiring key note, no product announcements). As a speaker, I was fortunate enough to receive sponsorship from the Linux Foundation (special thanks to Brian Warner for the unbureaucratic approach to this). I got to meet a lot of people face-to-face and the hallway track spawned interesting discussions, circling around questions such as:

• Why would 3rd parties pick up MeeGo if it comes with an unfinished and unpolished UX?
• Why would 3rd parties perceive the MeeGo Conference as the wrong place for product annoucements?
• Is the MeeGo community inherently hostile towards the Open Core model of MeeGo?
• Where is the place for commercial engines in MeeGo?
• Why is Nokia's Qt development generally not regarded as an active MeeGo contribution coming from Nokia? QML scene graph, anyone?
• Why does a company such as Intel, which does not see itself as a MeeGo vendor, come up with its own app store?

And, of course the poisonous:

• Is MeeGo dead?

(I am going to be mean and won't answer the questions for you, as I am too opionated here, sorry.)

Other than that, San Francisco was of course great. I also spend some time travelling through California; the country side is simply gorgeous.

Disclaimer: I'm a software developer with a background in Nokia's Maemo mobile Linux ecosystem. I've built both software and community services for it. As a Maemo enthusiast, I've also been following MeeGo with interest, and am helping to build some of the project infrastructure there as well. But I do not speak with the authority of the MeeGo project, and what is written below is my personal view into what MeeGo is.

A Quick Look at Extras in Bugzilla
2011-05-30 through 2011-06-05

Front Page

The moment Nokia realised MeeGo wouldn't meet their requirements

An article in Business Week, pointed to by Engadget, documents the moment that Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia decided that MeeGo could not provide the future platform for Nokia: "At its current pace, Nokia was on track to introduce only three MeeGo-driven models before 2014-far too slow to keep the company in the game." The problem with the account, which strives hard to present Elop as a considerate CEO with few remaining options besides turning to Microsoft, is two-fold. Absolutely, Nokia needed a shake-up, but Lou Gerstner faced simiar challenges at IBM in the early 90s and solved it by improving cross-company collaboration, reorganising the business and cutting swathes of middle managers. This, combined with the resulting cost savings from cutting headcount, should've meant Nokia were able to release three high-end MeeGo devices by the end of 2013; with Symbian filling in the featurephone market below it.

Ignoring iPod Touches, Apple release 2 iOS devices a year: a phone and a tablet; often with relatively minor improvements over the previous year's model. It's hard to believe that this business model around MeeGo devices couldn't have been similarly successful for Nokia. The organisation and pigeon-holing of devices into N-series for multimedia or E-series for business is the business organisation that needed to be addressed. The iPhone can do multimedia and busines requirements equally well, why couldn't a single MeeGo device from Nokia?

Elop's solution of going to another company to provide their platform fails to address the core issues plaguing Nokia that prevent them from being competitive in the market (namely middle-management bloat and incompetence; a multitude of confusing, unfocused compromise devices; and the inability to ship a quality platform). While, arguably, moving to Microsoft as the platform provider enables Nokia to focus on the hardware that has always been their strong poin; hitching themselves to what's currently not a winning horse (nor likely to be) while eliminating much of their differentiation potential isn't likely to put them in a good position.

Read more (engadget.com)

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • The moment Nokia realised MeeGo wouldn't meet their requirements
2. Development
   • PySide 1.0.3 release officially supports MeeGo 1.2 N900 DE
   • Translation freeze for MeeGo 1.2.1 on 15th June
3. Devices
   • Asus announce MeeGo netbook
   • Acer Iconia M500 tablet runs MeeGo on an Atom CPU
   • Nomovok port MeeGo to Nook Color
4. In the Wild
   • Is one of MeeGo's problems its name?
   • Does MeeGo have a $32 license fee? No
   • Understanding MeeGo
5. Announcements
   • Desktop flip clock
   • Extshortcut - desktop shortcuts in Maemo 5 of any size & icon

I've been ranting about packaging requirements for app stores and the long roundtrip time and back-and-forth messaging that needs to take place until a package really gets published into an app store before. My experience here is with Nokia's Ovi Store and Intel's AppUp Center, and I'm obviously more interested in the Maemo and MeeGo-related parts (Ovi supports Symbian too, and AppUp supports Windows). First up, here are the documents that formalize the requirements:

• Maemo 5 Ovi Store Entry Requirements
• MeeGo Packaging and Compliance Guidelines

Both documents basically describe how packaging should take place, and this diverts somewhat from what upstream distros' packaging guidelines say (i.e. Debian in case of Maemo and Fedora in case of MeeGo). You have to install things in /opt, your binaries have to have a namespace to avoid clashes, there are different requirements for .desktop files and don't get me started on icon installation locations and sizes. Most of these things are already defined by freedesktop.org, but stores tend to have their own, incompatible rules. This means that as an application developer, you basically have to "rewrite" your packaging for every store/target/device, which is tedious and error prone.

I was attending the MeeGo Spring Conference as an invited speaker, talking about Maliit - the MeeGo Input Methods - and how to develop custom input method plugins for it.

We had more people going to the talk in Dublin than to this one, but at least the slides and the recording are available online now.

Every now and then I try to devote some spare time to add new features to ReSiStance. For this release there are 3 major changes:

• Item window new appearance
• Open links in external browser
• Labels support

The item window (aka the window that shows the contents of a particular blog post/news/whatever) has been completely reworked. The header (with the title of the post, the name of the author and the date) used to be an static label on the top that was always visible. That was not a good idea taking into account the size constraints we have for this kind of devices. That’s why I decided to embed all that info the the HTML of the feed item. Next/Prev buttons were also removed from the header. They’re now located on the right in landscape mode.

Another long awaited feature by users was the “open links in browser”. Finally I got some time to implement it.

Last but not least, ReSiStance got labels support (thanks to  Chus Picos again for the initial implementation). This means that you can decide whether to start ReSiStance with the “classic” window with all the feeds, or with a new window that shows a list of labels created by the user. Users can add feeds to one ore more labels and that way they could group them by topics, interests, languages…

This screencast shows these three new features in action:

ReSiStance 0.9.2 from Igalia on Vimeo.

PS: as usual you can checkout the code from gitorious.

Offscreen Technologies has announced the release of its in-house integrated development environment (IDE), free of cost to anyone who wishes to use it. Named Origo, it can be downloaded from origo.offscr.com, along with various guides and further information on its use. Origo allows users to write once and automatically package their application for Symbian^3, S60 5th Edition, S60 3rd Edition, Maemo 5 and Windows Phone 7. Offscreen Technologies Ltd. states that it has published over 150 applications, and has had over 70 million downloads via the Ovi Store.

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Nokia's Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Rich Green, is to take an indefinite leave of absence for personal reasons. Green joined Nokia in 2010, and was brought into its leadership team in February 2011, reporting directly to new CEO, Stephen Elop. As CTO, Green was charged with overseeing the direction of technological advancement in both Nokia's software and hardware groups. Henry Tirri, head of Nokia Research Center, has been appointed acting CTO.

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Jon spent a lot of time in the last weeks improving our documentation for Maliit. However, while documentation is good (and necessary), Jon thinks that examples are better. I can only agree with that.

I am planning to use Jon's example material for an input method workshop at one of the upcoming MeeGo Freedays (German only) here in Berlin, just to see how useful it is for newcomers.

Maliit starts to feel more and more like a real open-source project, and I am proud of that. Just compare our wiki from end of February with the current, information-packed version, or take a look at the steady traffic on our own mailing list (started only in March this year). Or perhaps just try googling it!

I am really happy to eventually see real contributions and input method plugins from others, which makes me think that we are on a good way.

But this is still only the beginning, and more interesting news will follow soon.

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image source: http://creattica.com

A Quick Look at Extras in Bugzilla
2011-06-06 through 2011-06-12

Front Page

Nokia's CTO, Rich Green, allegedly leaving Nokia over MeeGo and Elop's strategy

BBC News, amongst many others, carried the news that Nokia's Chief Technology Officer, Rich Green, is no longer working at Nokia: "An official Nokia statement said he had left to resolve a "personal matter" and gave no date for his return. However, a Finnish newspaper quoted sources inside Nokia saying he had left because of differences over strategy and would not return. Mr Green was known to champion the MeeGo mobile operating system which Nokia recently sidelined." If, as seems likely, it is a disagreement over strategy, it is unclear what - if anything - triggered Green's decision now. Recent statements from Stephen Elop, including those we covered last week, pour even more cold water over MeeGo; a move which does not seem sensible when about to launch a MeeGo-compatible device. This has led some to conclude the Harmattan programme - even at this very late stage in its development, and about to launch - may be cancelled.

Such an outcome would be very unfortunate, both for us in the community and those in Nokia who've been working so hard on it for so longer. However, in your editor's experience, it's not unheard of. Acorn's next-generation ARM-based desktop, Phoebe, was cancelled weeks before launch in a strategic shift of the company after a change in the board. After Acorn & RISC OS, Psion & EPOC and Nokia & Maemo, companies should strongly resist having your editor as a champion.

Read more (bbc.co.uk)

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Nokia's CTO, Rich Green, allegedly leaving Nokia over MeeGo and Elop's strategy
2. Applications
   • Fixing Twitter authentication in Maemo Conversations app
   • Tweed Suit (Twitter client) now in Extras-testing
   • Got a MeeGo ExoPC? Mong now available in pre-built binary
3. Development
   • Offscreen's cross-platform IDE now available free-of-charge
   • That Rabbit Game running on an ExoPC
   • Maliit, MeeGo virtual keyboard, moves to its own home to target multiple OSes
   • BOSS, MeeGo build workflow tool, development discussion
4. Community
   • Provide feedback on MeeGo Conference
   • "MeeGo Pong" (re)naming competition!
   • Full video feeds for MeeGo Conference?
   • MeeGo Community Office meeting, Tuesday 14th June
   • Stskeeps drops out from talk.maemo.org due to noise & trolls
5. Announcements
   • WolframAlpha front-end
   • ReSiStance RSS client updated
   • Stockona - Yahoo!/Google finance app
   • Mieru - a flexible manga & comic reader

I will be mostly interested in discussions about Qt5 graphics stack, qml-box2d, QtQuick 2.0 and of course QML Scene Graph. So whenever something related to these is going on, please grab me in!

I was attending the Qt Contributors' Summit 2011. During the key note, it was promised that everything is up for discussion so I took my chance to discuss about improving input methods support for Qt5.

After some initial discussions with Kristian Høgsberg (Wayland, of course) and Jørgen Lind (who works on Qt Lighhouse), I also addressed Wayland. It became clear that one needs some kind of input method interface directly in Wayland. Kristian immediately started with a small prototype, in order to explain better how a Wayland compositor can provide a much better window management policy than what we currently have with Maliit and X11.

I think the session itself was really successful. I was surprised at the strong interest in this topic.

It became apparent that we should do something about Qt's input context API. For instance, add more input methods hints, come up with a better interface that describes the focus widget, preedit handling, orientation support and so on.

Now we only need to agree on how to make it happen :-)

Really enjoyed the Qt Contributors Summit. Nice, open minded people. Café Moskau turned out as awesome location for technical orientated meetings.

Even held my own little session about my griefs with QObject life-cycle. We found some few chances for improvement, but we also sadly had to conclude that proper two-phase construction and destruction isn't possible in C++, unless you forbid stack allocation and usage of the delete operator. Actually had my little pervert moment of pleasure when realising that Thiago seems a bit jealous for the freedom GObject gets from plain C.

Still wondering a bit if there's really no way to implement proper two-phase destruction in C++. Must we really bribe the C++ standard committee to enhance the specification?

A long time ago, in a book whose title I have forgotten, I read something that went like:

A Quick Look at Extras in Bugzilla
2011-06-13 through 2011-06-19

Front Page

Harmattan to be unveiled tomorrow?

Tomorrow, in Singapore, Nokia Connection will "unveil the next chapter", with presentations by Stephen Elop (CEO), Mary McDowell (EVP of "mobile phones"), Marco Argenti (SVP, "developer & marketplace") and Marko Ahtisaari (SVP, "design"). Simultaneously, a number of invites have been sent out to Nokia events around the world; with the one in Australia gathering most of the attention. ITWire describes their invite: "Nokia is set to take the wraps off its “newest, soon-to-be-named” device, with a live on-site demo of the product and then the live broadcast of Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s Nokia keynote in Singapore on June 21. With a real Nokia event invitation in my inbox that’s thin on details yet, leaving the mind to conjure up a universe of speculative possibility, Nokia’s June 21 announcement promises a new market disruptor." MeeGo fits into Elop's new strategy under the "Future Disruptions" banner, so the use of the word "disruptive" to describe the new device favours the suggestion that this will (finally) see the wraps being taken off Harmattan and one or both of the rumoured devices (the older, keyboarded model for "developers" and the sleeker, tightly controlled "consumer" device - of which very little is known, or even suspected).

The reawakening of the "WeAreMeeGo" Twitter account and Jussi Mäkinen being in Singapore for the event, adds some Twitter-fuelled hopes to the rumour mongering.

Read more (nokiaconnection.net)
Read more (itwire.com)
Read more (twitter.com)

In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Harmattan to be unveiled tomorrow?
2. Applications
   • Become the voice of Marble
3. Development
   • Formally launching MeeGo Community Device Programme
   • MeeGo Coding Competition extended to 31 July
   • N900 MeeGo "Developer" Edition is renamed "Community Edition"
   • Planning for Wayland in MeeGo 1.3
   • Changes to desktop launching in MeeGo trunk
4. Community
   • Quim Gil steps down from Meego Community Office due to changed role at Nokia
   • LinuxCon Brazil & Prague, submit MeeGo sessions by 8th July
   • IT infrastructure for meego.com
5. Devices
   • Mapping a "back" key on Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t for MeeGo Tablet UX
6. Announcements
   • Internet Radio Player
   • Kall - kill calls on a timer
   • Accelerometer mouse control

Nokia Connection, a regional showcase for Nokia's South-East Asia and Pacific customers, takes place tomorrow at the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore. Keynote speeches, starting at 10 am Singapore time (3am UK time), will be given by Stephen Elop (Nokia CEO), Mary McDowell (EVP Mobile Phones), Marco Argenti (SVP Developer) and Marko Ahtisaari (SVP Design). The event's website notes that these will include the "global launch of brand new mobile devices and related services".

Looks like Nokia Vietnam has spilled the beans about the upcoming Nokia Meego Phone – the N9 which is codenamed Lannku. The banner above translates roughly to ” a masterpiece from Nokia will be introduced on 21 june 2011. Don’t miss it”. The source code on the page confirms the existence of Nokia N9 aka … Continue reading "Nokia N9 Meego Phone codenamed Lankku coming tomorrow ?"

The post Nokia N9 Meego Phone codenamed Lankku coming tomorrow ? first appeared on Fone Arena.

PocketNow has got their hands on the Press Images of the rumoured Nokia N9 / Lankku / N950 . The images almost confirms that the device will be a Touch only device without a QWERTY keyboard. Full specs or a final name is still not out, but the handset is likely to arrive in Pink, … Continue reading "Nokia N9 Press Images Leaked"

The post Nokia N9 Press Images Leaked first appeared on Fone Arena.

Today, we managed to get out the first release of Maliit as an independent project. As far as possible without API break, we started to use our own Maliit naming convention for installation paths, library names, etc.

During that cleanup, Jan Arne did a tremendous job improving our build infrastructure. Instead of Qt's .prf files, Maliit now uses pkg-config everywhere. Plugin developers don't have to think about install paths - they can simply read it from the .pc files, for instance:

pkg-config --variable pluginsdir maliit-plugins-0.80

The version number at the end indicates another nice improvement: versioned libraries and plugin interfaces, which means several Maliit versions can be installed in parallel (although you never want to run more than one server per session).

To install the Maliit framework into a custom directory (say, $HOME/install), simply use:

qmake -r M_IM_PREFIX=$HOME/install

Afterwards, set your PKG_CONFIG_PATH to $HOME/install/lib/pkgconfig and compile the Maliit plugins. Quite honestly, it has never been easier to develop input methods for Maliit than with this release.

Leave it to a crafty Nokia press event announcement and a 49-character burst from a long-dormant Twitter account to fire up the imagination of the collective MeeGo and Maemo communities– especially the latter.

I’ve posted before about Nokia’s shaky prospects for this year, and the need for the first official MeeGo device to launch big.  Based on the caginess around this event, I think Nokia’s PR folks are getting it– “it” being a launch management system close in form to Apple’s own.  Of course we need to watch the event itself to see if the hype and hope aren’t squandered.

Speculation is running wild over what will be announced, but Nokia has promised it will be “disruptive”.  That could manifest in so many ways I’m not going to bother exploring them here… instead, I’m going to wait the 2-and-a-half hours for the actual event and start twittering as it develops.  Just follow!  I’ll post a wrap-up here sometime afterward.

Update: add an hour to that countdown.  I hear the event is delayed.

Filed under: Mentioning Maemo, Mentioning MeeGo, Ways of Rocking

At the Nokia Connections 2011 event in Singapore, the company showed of it’s new strategy. Symbian Anna was demoed and is expected to hit devices in July-August. Nokia N9 was announced and also a couple of Dual SIM phones were announced.In  other news S40 phones will get Maps . Press Release Nokia shows its new … Continue reading "Nokia shows off new strategy at Nokia Connection 2011"

The post Nokia shows off new strategy at Nokia Connection 2011 first appeared on Fone Arena.

The Nokia N9 was just announced at Nokia Connection in Singapore, but missing from the action was the leaked N950, which was supposed to be the developer phone. But if you are a developer looking to get your apps ready for the N9, there is hope, the N950 is still very real and will be made available to developers through selected developer programs, such as Nokia Developer LaunchPad.

More information about developing for the N9 can be found here.

[Update]: Another avenue where you can request a unit of the Nokia N950 is via the MeeGo Device Program.

Candidates must be community developers ready to start working on new or existing open source applications, to be published in apps.meego.com and the Nokia Store. Links to your current projects are relevant! Deadline for applications: end of Tuesday, June 28th.

Good luck!

Further reading: With The N9, Nokia Shows The World Its Still Got It.

Similar Posts:

• 50 More N950 Developer Kits Available Via The Community Device Program
• Huge: Nokia's Maemo & Intel's Moblin Combine To Become Meego
• MeeGo 1.2 Summer Release For The N900 Out Now
• Video Demo Of MeeGo For Handsets – An Installable Version For The N900 Is Available
• Intel & Nokia Merge Maemo With Moblin – Call It MeeGo

Nokia has unveiled what comes next in its Linux and Qt fronts. Here you have links to the sources and a summary of the implications for the MeeGo and open source communities:

N9

The Nokia N9 is the ultimate Qt-powered mobile device. I find it a pleasure to watch and play with. Its polymer unibody chassis complemented by a strong and scratch-resistant curved glass makes it both solid and smooth in the hand. Multitasking is pushed forward with a combination of open tasks, events and apps. You navigate through these views with a simple gesture, a swipe of a finger. Get a grasp of this beautiful (and open!) product at http://swipe.nokia.com.

N950

While the N9 becomes publicly available, Nokia has produced a limited edition of N950 devices for the most devoted Qt and MeeGo developers with apps in the works. We are offering 250 devices to open source community developers through the MeeGo Community Device Program. Nokia Developer has more for champions, partners and other professional developers.

MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan

Nokia’s implementation of the MeeGo platform has been released. It combines a playful multitasking UX with an efficient OS that shares the same API and architecture pillars of MeeGo upstream. It’s a great demonstration of what can be done with the MeeGo platform on a mobile device. Check http://www.developer.nokia.com/swipe/ux/.

Qt updates

The Qt SDK has been updated with a Harmattan target including the Qt Quick UI Components. The way for Qt developers to target MeeGo, Symbian and other platforms is being paved. Nokia is also making Qt core to its strategy to take the Internet to the ‘next billion’. Qt is a star in the OSS stack and is at the backbone of all these announcements. The Qt5 governance plans becoming reality as we speak make it even brighter. More at http://qt.nokia.com.

MeeGo Community Edition

The community team that has brought usable MeeGo upstream releases to the Nokia N900 will add now the new devices in its scope. The planning and work will happen in the open, just like the rest of the Community Edition activities. Remember that these are not Nokia official releases, but fun R&D experimentation open to all community contributors. More at http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900

The wait is over for MeeGo developers. Now it’s time to show off your apps!

Today in Singapore, at the Nokia Connection event, Nokia announced the Nokia N9. Key hardware features include 3.9 inch touchscreen (854 x 480), penta-band 3G, comprehensive connectivity (WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, USB), up to 64 GB of internal memory and 8 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Tessar optics. The device is housed in a single piece polycarbonate body with seamless curved glass screen.

The Nokia N9 runs on MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan (MeeGo for Nokia N9). The UI features three home views (events, applications and open apps) with the primary control being a single swipe gesture. The N9, which is a Qt enabled device, will ship with a range of services and applications including Nokia Maps, an HTML enabled (Webkit2) based browser and Skype, Twitter and Facebook integration. Nokia will be announcing a release date and pricing in due course.

The N9 release is a monumental step for Nokia, it is the culmination of the years Nokia has spent creating a premium high end smartphone that not only excels in hardware, but also shows that when it comes to software, Nokia’s still got it. Feb. 11 changed everything inside of Nokia, yet Nokia’s MeeGo Harmattan project was not killed completely. Perhaps Stephen Elop felt that it would be a good way to demonstrate to the world what Nokia is capable of, or perhaps it was the internal resistance that forced him to release this one last MeeGo Harmattan device, the end result of the sweat and blood of hundreds of Nokians who had devoted themselves to create what in their mind was the pinnacle of modern smartphones.

It is still early days and the N9 has just been announced, so may be we shouldn’t be reading too much into the check availability page, but from what it currently states, the N9 may only be coming to 23 countries around the world with major markets such as India, US, UK getting a miss.

So far the list is limited to:

1. Australia
2. Austria
3. Bulgaria
4. China
5. Croatia
6. Finland
7. Greece
8. Hong Kong
9. Hungary
10. Malaysia
11. New Zealand
12. Portugal
13. Poland
14. Romania
15. Russia
16. Saudi Arabia
17. Serbia
18. Singapore
19. Slovenia
20. Sweden
21. Switzerland
22. UAE
23. Vietnam

The N900 came to India after ages, months after it was launched in other parts of the world so I could foresee India missing out, in the US Nokia wants a fresh start with operator support so I can understand that decision, but the UK’s exclusion is surprising. Perhaps, they are choosing markets where the operator’s role is underplayed to an extent and the market is more responsive the SIM free devices. But that would make India an ideal platform, where Nokia’s brand is still strong.

May be the list will be updated and the above only represents the countries where the initial rollout takes place, time will tell.

Bringing a device to a country involves huge costs for Nokia, in advertising, promotion, getting the support centers staff trained, repair and so on, and if they plan to sell very little of these ‘proof of concept’ devices, then it makes sesnse to avoid certain countries. But for fans sake, I hope Nokia reconsiders.

You can expect the N9 by the end of Q3, at upwards of the 600 – 750$ (27,000 – 34,000 INR) price bracket for the 16, and 64 GB versions. It will come in Cyan, Magenta and Black.

Further reading: With The N9, Nokia Shows The World Its Still Got It.

Similar Posts:

• Nokia To Support The N9 For Years, May Be Bringing It To Even More Countries
• Online Retailer Lists The Nokia N9, Says Expected In India Come October
• Nokia Is Giving Away 97 N97′s Globally – Search For The ‘N’
• Axel Meyer Is Coming To India For The N97 Blogger’s Meetup – Line Up Your Questions Here
• Reactions From The Nokia Music Bootcamp

Some time ago I received a private email directly from Elop (just me, nobody else in CC, I am not going to go into details as to why), in which he explained that the biggest problem was the small amount of MeeGo devices in the years immediately ahead. This is simply not true. Before explaining … Continue reading My disagreement with Elop on MeeGo

Alongside the high profile release of the Nokia N9, limited details have emerged about another MeeGo Harmattan device. The N950, which was not talked about at the Nokia Connection event, has been created for developers who will target the N9 and general MeeGo handset UI applications. The Nokia Developer website published a list detailing the hardware differences between both devices. Read on to find out about the N950's software stack and how to obtain one.

Through unimaginable hardships, we managed to pull a rabbit from the hat and get N9 done.
Schedule was just insanely tight, we got blows from all directions: Vanjoki leaving us, Ari leaving us, Elop dropping of meego from strategy, key developers leaving the company when we needed them the most.

Swipe UI, that we are now admiring, required every single application and framework to be rebuilt almost from scratch. All the blows and all the work in the course of 9 months. I never knew how much sweat and tears there needs to be to get this baby out.

What I want to say to the people who beared all that: Respect. You have my utmost respect and admiration. We didn't just do our best, we crafted the software to near perfection. Simplistic UI is easy to imagine, but extremely hard to execute. And execution includes design. Devil is in details and temptations are many. Keeping the boat steady on course needed a lot from you design and product management.

It's nothing short of miracle that the fruit of our labor is now admired by millions.

I am extremely proud of what I am holding in my hand right now. As a user, I'm loving every minute of using it and wouldn't change it for a thing.

All of maemo: I salute you. Job well done. Be proud.

The Qt Labs Developer Blog has just announced an update to the Qt SDK. In a case of good timing, the Qt team have released Qt Creator 2.2.1, which is mainly a bug fix release, at the same time as integrating support for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan. Support for MeeGo Harmattan comes on the day that the N9 was announced at the Nokia Connection event in Singapore. Read on for more details.

It was like a group of friends watching Superbowl, or World Cup, or Olympic Gold Hockey. Last night, a bunch of Maemo veterans gathered on #nokiacnxn on freenode to watch Nokia Connection 2011 go down. When the N9 was announced, irc erupted with joy, URL's to Nokia's 'swipe' pages were revealed and shared, and the banter went on into the night. It was exciting, and also somewhat disappointing once the realization sunk in that MeeGo-Harmattan could be a game changing OS for end users.

It remains to be seen how 'disruptive' this device will be. I hope it is, and so do others. Let us pass this message back to Nokia executives: We Want Nokia to Keep Meego. That is all.

You must have surely read about the Nokia N9 and how awesome the hardware is. The device was announced today at Singapore. The N9 proves that Nokia can still make awesome phones. The phone is powered by MeeGo which means the device is truly open source. FoneArena’s Michael Hell was at the N9 Meetup in … Continue reading "Exclusive Photo Gallery : 99 Photos of the Nokia N9 !"

The post Exclusive Photo Gallery : 99 Photos of the Nokia N9 ! first appeared on Fone Arena.

Having thought about the Harmattan UI a bit more, I realized that since there are no 'desktop screens' as the N900 has, there are also no widgets!  The demonstration at #nokiacnxn showed the three aspects of the UI: Events, Applications, and Open Applications.  It appears that certain application events can populate the Events View.  For instance, the AccuWeather application puts the current weather conditions in the Events View. 

One of the most useful N900 widgets I use is the contact card, providing one-touch access to frequent contacts from the desktop.  It will be interesting to see if users will miss the N900-style widgets, and if Events View and/or the Swipe UI can make up the difference. 

So Nokia have finally announced the shiny new N9, the next in their Open Source line of devices, and maybe the last. Allowing for a fairly normal lead time, it should hit markets about two years after its predecessor, the N900. (Though Nokia is not famous for getting devices out for due dates, something their new Powers That Be claim to have fixed.)

So Nokia have finally announced the shiny new N9, the next in their Open Source line of devices, and maybe the last. Allowing for a fairly normal lead time, it should hit markets about two years after its predecessor, the N900. (Though Nokia is not famous for getting devices out for due dates, something their new Powers That Be claim to have fixed.)

Its been just about 24 hours since Nokia announced the N9 and since then the interwebs have been going crazy with tons of N9 chatter, every small seemingly inconsequential detail is also being lapped up, every hands on scrutinized and people are still hungry for more. Not for a long time has there been so much excitement about a Nokia device, not even the N8 produced the kind of euphoria that has swept across Nokia fans the world over.

Nokia has the announced the dates for its big annual conference. Nokia World will take place on October 26th and 27th, at the ICC Excel venue in the East of London. The event will include keynotes, an experience (demo) lounge and developer focused activities. The timing of Nokia World makes it a likely candidate for the announcement of the first Nokia Windows Phone device, but we also expect to see other device and service launches.

In this gallery we offer you an exclusive hands-on visual tour of the Nokia N9, Nokia's first MeeGo Harmattan smartphone for consumers. It's one of the most beautiful handsets we've ever seen, with the combination of the single piece polycarbonate shell and gorilla glass creating a contoured shape that fits in the hand and is warm to the touch. We've also included a few shots showing some of the key MeeGo Harmattan functionality and applications.

Damned guys, we’re too shy about what we delivered. When the N900 was made public we flooded the planets with our blogs about it. And now?

I’m proud of the software on this device. It’s good. Look at what Engadget is writing about it! Amazing. We should all be proud! And yes, I know about the turbulence in Nokia-land. Deal with it, it’s part of our job. Para-commandos don’t complain that they might get shot. They just know. It’s called research and development! (I know, bad metaphor)

I don’t remember that many good reviews about even the N900, and that phone was by many of its owners seen as among the best they’ve ever owned. Now is the time to support Harmattan the same way we passionately worked on the N900 and its predecessor tablets (N810, N800 and 770). Even if the N9′s future is uncertain: who cares? It’s mostly open source! And not open source in the ‘Android way’. You know what I mean.

The N9 will be a good phone. The Harmattan software is awesome. Note that Tracker and QSparql are being used by many of its standard applications. We have always been allowed to develop Tracker the way it’s supposed to be done. Like many other similar projects: in upstream.

As for short term future I can announce that we’re going to make Michael Meeks happy by finally solving the ever growing journal problem. Michael repeatedly and rightfully complained about this to us at conferences. Thanks Michael. I’ll write about how we’ll do it, soon. We have some ideas.

We have many other plans for long term future. But let’s for now work step by step. Our software, at least what goes to Harmattan, must be rock solid and very stable from now on. Introducing a serious regression would be a catastrophe.

I’m happy because with that growing journal – problem, I can finally focus on a tough coding problem again. I don’t like bugfixing-only periods. But yeah, I have enough experience to realize that sometimes this is needed.

And now, now we’re going to fight.

Janet Echelman – at TED

“Sharing the rediscovery of wonder“… At 08:38 I’ve started to feel something awfully important is going to be revealed: the sharing of the rediscovered wonder.

This wonder was apparently made possible by Janet Echelman alone; on a second look, you’ll notice there are thousands of people involved, from mere fishermen to mayors, designers, engineers, NOAA, all along 14 years of pursuing Janet’s dream.

The real wonder is neither a laced net transformed into art nor are Janet’s wild dreams, nor are those seven art schools that rejected her.

The real wonder is making those thousands of people fall in love with her dream, a love that deep that it transformed the cotton into steel.

And we are only half the way; the other half of the wonder is revealed by Janet’s friend, the attorney from Phoenix: the cotton turned into steel was not just art, it was magic. The laced net turned out to be… Magic.

I feel like I’ve seen that before…

(via Creativebits)

 

N9 video

Oh my God, you’re looking at a MeeGo OS running on a Nokia, which looks and feels some 255 times better than a Windows Phone 7…!

There are two very bad news, though:

First, the N9 is supposed to be launched in September, therefore, perhaps, it’ll be entirely overshadowed by the launch of iPhone 5 and iPad 3.

Second, this would have been a killer in 2009 – 2010, when Nokia was trying hard to forget entirely abut their new born at that time – the Maemo project. I don’t see Microsoft paying for this.

The developing platform for N9 would be QT. I have no idea who are the developers though.

 

source: http://swipe.nokia.com

The Nokia N9 is out.

Yes, after all what happened lately there are many reasons to be sad, cynic or pessimistic, particularly considering all the excitement and hopes that many people (including me) had when the N900 came out.

But still, even if this is a dead-end product and this team’s swan song, it’s a hell of a beautiful one.

I’m happy to see the N9 out. Philip is damn right, and Urho is damn right. I think this is a great achievement, I’m personally proud of all the work we’ve put into it and also very glad for all the good reviews it’s getting.

Free software can produce amazing things, and this is just one more proof. Our hopes will not die here. No pasarán.

When I say “ugly”, I say futile, un-beautiful, hard to understand, non-intuitive, crooked, difficult, sterile thing.

An ugly GUI is something you only use because you need the service behind that GUI. The companies that don’t care about it, they don’t care about their users. Or, worse, they are so lazy and are making so much money, that there’s no way they would change anything for their customers.

The uglier an interface, the more probable the developers forgot they were building things for human beings; instead, these developers are building things for… things.

 

The Silver Medal goes to Gmail:

 

The Gold Medal goes to Facebook settings panel:

The only problem is those two giants are spreading their “ugly love” in almost every digital soul of the WEB.

This is “Microsoft-ugly”.

For the loyal N900 users, the community keeps on giving. Fresh in the footsteps of the MeeGo Conference release, comes the Summer Edition of MeeGo goodness for the Nokia N900. MeeGo for the N900 is now called the Community Edition instead of the Developer Edition and the current release concentrates on making everything ‘faster and fancier‘. The focus has been on improving the performance, e.g. the application start-up time and boot up.

There release also brings critical bug fixes to the phone, SMS, browser and camera apps, while adding new apps like Terminal, Package manager and GPRS settings along with a bunch of community applications and an extras client. Click through to this page for more details.

If you are keen on trying it out, head to the N900 MeeGo Community Edition page and get downloading, you will find detailed installation instructions there. If you want to come back to Maemo 5 on the N900 as your only OS, there are instructions for that as well.

Similar Posts:

• Demo Of MeeGo 1.2 Developer Edition On The Nokia N900
• N900 Hack: How To Get Faster Scrolling In The Menu Post PR 1.2 Firmware
• MeeGo 1.2 Release Now Out – N900 Developer Edition Release Set For MeeGo Conference
• Video Demo Of MeeGo For Handsets – An Installable Version For The N900 Is Available
• TweeGo Is A Great Looking N900 Twitter App

Here is some great news for those of you who love FM transmitters on your Nokia devices, the N9 indeed has support for both an FM transmitter and receiver, the only hitch is that there is no software to take advantage of it, yet.

I personally am a huge fan of FM transmitters on Nokia devices, it is something only they seem to put in smartphones and I would very much like Nokia to keep doing that, its an extremely convenient and wireless way to share music and even the not so technically inclined people love it. FM Radio is also a nice thing to have in case you get bored on your own music collection.

The confirmation comes from Nokia’s very own Quim Gil on the MeeGo Forums. If you recall the Nokia N800, N810 and even the N900 all shipped with an FM receiver, but without software to take advantage of that functionality. I am hoping some of the smart hackers of the community can figure out a way to get these things working by the time the N9 ships commercially.

Major props to @mwkn for the heads up!

Similar Posts:

• How To Install MeeGo On The Nokia N900
• What More Would You Like The N900 To Do?
• What Does MeeGo Mean For Maemo?
• MeeGo 1.2 Summer Release For The N900 Out Now
• MeeGo 1.1 For The N900 Is Here

HTML5 seems to be the new buzz word for the cool kids, with most manufactures moving from Flash to HTML5 for their video streaming and other needs. So with that in mind, I though it’d be good to see how MeeGo/Harmattan, Android and iOS perform in an HTML5 faceoff.

The devices used for the purpose are an N9, the Galaxy S2 and Apple’s iPad 2. Here is how each of them perform. The tests were done by pointing the browser to html5test.com and noting the score out of a maximum of 450 points. You might be surprised by the results!

Lets start with iOS and the iPad 2, running iOS 4.3.3:

Followed by Android and the Galaxy S2 running Gingerbread 2.3.3:

And finally the MeeGo/Harmattan and the Nokia N9 running pre-release software:

Winner!

Surprised by the results? Its some times hard to believe that Nokia is the same company that makes the Symbian browser! To recap:

1. MeeGo/Harmattan: 283 and 14 bonus points.
2. iOS: 217 and 7 bonus points.
3. Android: 184 and 1 bonus point.

Finally some trivia, the latest Firefox 5 turns in a score of 286 and 9 bonus points, Safari tuns in 253 and 10 bonus points and the Symbian^3 browser, barely manages 36 points!

The Nokia N900 had a great browser and it seems Nokia’s made it even better with the N9!

[Update: Some people will say that its unfair to compare existing products with upcoming ones, and I agree. So for some perspective, as @coolkamio informs me on Twitter, iOS 5 manages a score of 304 + 9].

[Update 2: I've updated the N9 scores, based on the results from the Nokia Conversations post].

Similar Posts:

• Exclusive: Nokia Maps Come To iOS & Android Via The HTML5 Route
• Samsung Galaxy Tab Debuts – Will It Have Far Reaching Impact?
• Its Official: Nokia Is Dropping The Maemo 6 Brand
• Samsung Releases Facebook S! Facebook For Android Alternative
• PVR Cinemas Releases Apps For Android & iOS

... and those people are right, if we followed the MeeGo Compliance Spec to the letter.

But at the same time, Nokia's N9 is one of those devices that the MeeGo community has always been waiting for.

If "This is not MeeGo!" is the only thing that comes to your mind whilst reading about all the N9 excitement then you still haven't realized MeeGo's biggest problem: No. Compelling. Devices. And if - at the same time - you are one of the MeeGo project leaders, then you should do yourself and everyone else involved with MeeGo a favor and simply resign.

We need more visionary leaders than you.

Recently Google updated their XMPP servers to use standard Jingle for audio and video calls; see the “Google: The Future is Jingle” post on xmpp.org for some more details.
This would be good news for us, except that, by doing so, they broke calls in telepathy-gabble (so in Empathy, the N900 and MeeGo) in multiple ways.

Luckily GTalk developers were really cooperative and they agreed on fixing their servers and Will and Olivier already fixed Gabble too. The new version of Gabble (0.12.2 for the stable branch and 0.13.1 for the development one) should make calls work again on the desktop, MeeGo and on Harmattan (i.e. the N9 and N950) too.
For the N900 we don’t have any way to release updates, but Google will push an update to their servers (in the next week or two hopefully) with a N900-specific workaround.

Sadly video calls on the N900 will keep not working; the version of gst-dsp on the N900 doesn’t properly handle changes in the parameters of the stream .

Update: just to be clear, this affects only calls from GTalk to gabble. Calls in the other direction still work and calls between two devices of Gabble work too.

My third Nokia N900 lost the ability to recognize a SIM card recently.  And the usual home repair tactics (bending the SIM, adding padding between the SIM slot and battery) had no effect.  I tried a cold reflash to no avail.

So I went back to my previously-trusty Nokia E71x only to find that the infrequent odd behavior it had been exhibiting (mainly going unresponsive when I needed it most) has now become the norm.  The little thing spends most of its time now in a coma and requires measures just short of serious abuse to awaken.  Factory reset didn’t help there, either.  It’s also not a mobile computer.  

I’ve been blessed with Nokia N8 and E7 devices thanks to Nokia’s Developer Champion (formerly Forum Nokia) program, but those ended up in the hands of my two young sons and good luck getting either back.  Despite adult reviews to the contrary, my teenagers love the things (their friends are actually jealous).

So I need a new phone.  Fast.

As I wrote yesterday I am (almost completely) enthralled with the MeeGo-ready Nokia N9.  Not the drama developing around it, for sure, but the device itself.

But it’s not out yet, and even if/when it’s made available I don’t expect to see it in the US any time soon.  Nokia apparently has a similar handset in the wings meant for Windows Phone 7, and it’s clear now that the two products will be launched in mutually-exclusive markets.  Even if the N9 makes it to the US, I won’t be able to afford it thanks to a severe reduction in salary since falling out of the Nokia nest and I doubt I’ll see this subsidized (although there are rumors of an AT&T offering at some point).

I’m tempted to turn to the AT&T store to grab something there.  In fact I even went so far recently as to purchase an HTC device, but the server choked on my order.  There’s some karmic irony in that, no doubt.

There are still some legacy Nokia phones gathering dust in my house.  My oldest son has an N93 that was never used since Nokia inexplicably chose to support T-Mobile bands but not AT&T’s.  I also have an E70, which I believe Nokia should resurrect with some modernization.  I think we have an old candy bar or two lurking somewhere as well.

I really, really miss using my N900 though.  Regardless of its faults, toting a mobile computer with cell radio capability worked best for me.  Hmmm… maybe what I really need is one of those N950 developer devices…

Filed under: Mentioning Maemo, Mentioning MeeGo, The Write Stuff, Unusability, Views and Reviews Tagged: AT&T, forumnokia, LinkedIn, N9, N900, N950, Nokia

In this episode of the All About MeeGo Insight Podcast we talk exclusively about the Nokia N9. We talk about the reactions posted on the Internet, along with our own thoughts and Rafe's first impressions after getting hands-on with the device. We get into detail on the hardware, from the N9's unibodied polycarbonate construction, to its "2.5D" glass screen. We then get into a discussion about the N9's Swipe UI, describing how to use the device. We then get into discussion comparing the design patterns of the competition to the N9's unique UI. Finally, we address questions sent in via Twitter from our listeners.

Nokia has just released our new great MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan device, N9, it is a developer device N950 and Harmattan SDK beta release. New Qt Quick components library is now part of Harmattan SDK for N9 and N950 devices. When I had my previous blog about Qt Quick components in November 2010, components were just at very early development stage. Nokia moved development as closed in January 2011 because we started to develop them for new great UI concept that you can now see in our N9 and N950 devices.

Don’ know.

Firefox for Mobile London Ice Cream Truck Moved to June 27-29 - http://blog.mozilla.com/mobile... June 24, 2011 from Mobile Blog - Comment - Like

There is no direct or natural connection between human values and money. 

Money is a symbol, the same way a word is a symbol. Money is also a mutual agreement saying “This is just a paper, but it certifies that this product has human value of X; I am, therefore, X”.

The similarity between money and words is that both are symbols and agreements. The difference, though, lies in how they are that “symbol”. A word says “I am a symbol which could never be substituted for the thing it means”. You never equal the word “horse” to the real animal. 

With the money, things are just the opposite: money is a symbol that stands more and more for the real value it symbolizes. The more “money” stands for “human value”, the more we’re driven away from reality. 

Skype was 8 billion. Apple has 60. None of these cash piles has any real connection to human value. If you’re looking for real values you have to look at people, and not at what stands for them, but at what they are standing for. 

It took Elop 2 days to kill another new born Nokia engineers strove too hard to give birth.

It turns out the N9 is just a dummy, a mere prototype of future WP powered Nokias. Elop carefully misses every opportunity to enter Nokia’s history; he’s busy building Microsoft’s with Nokia’s flesh and blood.

I wonder whether MeeGo could have become a solid technological and architectural competitor to iOS, both Android and WP being just simple hoaxes against it. I also wonder whether Jobs could use such a sound competitor as a secondary route.

(via Daring Fireball)

Killing good ideas is killing babies.

source: http://www.cellfanatic.com/

In July and August Intel will be holding a series of Intel AppUp Application Lab events, aimed at developers, in a number of cities around the world (Munich, London, Pune, Delhi, New York, Berlin, and Cologne). Topics covered include the benefits of the Intel AppUp developer program and an introduction to developing for MeeGo. The events are free to attend, but you will need to register to guarantee a place as the number of available seats is limited.

In episode 10 of the All About MeeGo Insight podcast, we take a critical look at the N9's future. We tackle the elephant in the room, how much will the N9 suffer for its lack of ecosystem? What is Nokia's position with longterm support for the N9? Will this be Nokia's only MeeGo device? Is the N9 more of a phone device, than an app device? Then we finish with a discussion about whether Nokia should have gone with MeeGo, rather than Windows Phone? Could Nokia have gone it alone?

With the 0.9 version of oculo, your N900 homescreen gets one level up: beautiful wallpapers that will never be the same. Well, whether they are beautiful really depends on you: you decide what tiny part of the World Wide Web should be rendered in there!

Of course you are not forced to have Oculo manage your wallpapers. :-) Oculo can still render the web content into a homescreen widget, and you can run multiple instances of it, in different modes. Also, you can have Oculo render only some of your homescreen views, while keeping the rest static.

Version 0.9 of Oculo is in the extras-testing repository, and you can directly download it from here. Be warned that I just tested the widget for a couple of minutes, so anything bad can happen. :-)

Finally the project that I’m working on at Nokia was shown to the world, very proud of this achievement in such difficult times for the people involved on the project. Congrats to everybody that believed and stay fighting with us.

Nokia N9

Frederic Filloux writes on Monday Note: “It’s all about accountability”.

The argument is easy: because French don’t have a culture of correcting what they have already published, the articles have to come out as good as they can get; there’s no second chance to correct and rectify them. Therefore, the government found appropriate to cut Twitter and Facebook from the sources of mass media because:  a) Those sources aren’t always reliable b) Social media is always an open door for abusers.

The government thus considers the new age social media cannot be made or hold responsible for the data it generates and transmits.

(Filloux says these are the arguments, not necessarily that he embraces them)

I like the argument; it expresses entirely my feeling that the main differentiator between socialism and capitalism (at their core) is that capitalist journalism lets you know what’s happening around you, while the socialist journalism tells you what you need to know about what’s happening around you. 

The tyranny of the accountability has its roots in the mindset that the public has to understand precisely and specifically only those certain things it’s told and nothing else. The socialist public is not allowed to see the picture and then let to form its own opinions about it; that’s way too risky. In the socialist countries the public is told what the official or “natural” opinion is about something or anything. You don’t taste the strawberries, you’re only told how they taste.

It’s only then the media gatekeepers get the feeling of “over-accountability”: when they feel responsible for what people might understand by their own.

In this line, besides accountability, I’d add a second argument for French government getting against Twitter and Facebook: these social networks differ from “curated” media maybe by being “unreliable”, but most important by being “un-curatable”. Which is “extremely hard to be censored”.

I am convinced this is not a correct or fair mindset, no matter which time, country or medium; after some more other years of decay, this usually ends up in bloodbaths, when hundreds of years of evolution are wiped out in hours.

A Quick Look at Extras in Bugzilla
2011-06-20 through 2011-06-26

Proxies can be a powerful way to enforce anonymity or to bypass various kinds of restrictions on Internet (government censorship, regional contents, …). In this post, I’ll describe a simple technique to create a transparent proxy at the system level. It’s especially useful in cases when you want to make sure that all connections make it through the proxy or when your application of interest doesn’t have proxy support. I don’t think this technique is that well-known, hence this post.

1. Create SOCKS proxy with OpenSSH

If you have a user account on a remote machine, the simplest way to create a proxy is to use the following command.

$ ssh -N -D 1080 username@serverhost

It creates a SOCKS proxy listening to port 1080 on your local machine. The main advantage of the SOCKS protocol is that it can route connections from any port between the client and the server.

2. Forward connection transparently with iptables or ipfw

Most modern browsers can let the user define a SOCKS proxy in their advanced networking preference section. Yet, many applications may not support the SOCKS protocol at all. The solution is to use system tools such as iptables (Linux) or ipfw (FreeBSD, OS X) to enforce the routing at the system level. For example, on OS X, I use the following command to redirect port 80 (HTTP).

$ sudo ipfw add 100 fwd 127.0.0.1,12345 dst-port 80

3. Redirect connections to SOCKS proxy with redsocks

iptables and ipfw don’t have built-in support for the SOCKS protocol. It is thus necessary to use an additional program to transform the connections on the fly. This is where redsocks comes in.

$ redsocks -c config_file

In the configuration file, you need to configure redsocks to listen to port 12345 and to redirect to port 1080. “generic” can be used as the redirector option. The github repository includes a sample configuration file.

And voila! We now have configured the system to transparently route connections for us. To summarize, here is the big picture:

local machine -> redsocks -> SOCKS proxy -> target server

Gassee in MondayNote:

[...] for all Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto, the company has now reached a point where the more it excels, and it often does, the more it is perceived as a threat by individuals and governments around the world.

I’d add a corollary: The more it tries to bring solutions to everybody and for everything, the more their “Each individual served with relevant ad” goal becomes just a mere byproduct.

There’s no difference between Google reaching its goal and an increasingly powerful and over-responsible government; they both can say they pursue the best for each and every individual, but never mention the cost that individual has to pay. That cost is very hard to measure until it’s already too late: it’s usually called freedom.

Cameras is what Nokia does best, the N8 is fair testament to that and the Nokia N9 aspires to mimic the N8 in its quality, but with a much smaller camera footprint that does not protrude from the back and flows in beautifully with the rest of the body. Infact the module of the N9 is 70%(!) smaller than the N8, but according to Nokia, still manages to give the N8 a run for its money.

(click to enlarge)

It packs a f/2.2 aperture, the largest ever in a mobile device, an 8.7 megapixel sensor that lets you shoot in 4:3 and 16:9, with the 16:9 mode actually providing more width, unlike other cameras where the top and bottom is cropped to produce the 16:9 effect. That’s not all, the N9′s camera has pretty long list of other accomplishments that Nokia’s camera guru Damien Dinning shares with us:

• Industry-first imaging sensor which is FULLY optimised for BOTH 16:9 AND 4:3 images
• Industry-leading Carl Zeiss optics
• Super wide-angle optics – the widest in the industry. Up to as much as 60% more viewing area than other broadly comparable devices
• f/2.2 aperture – largest ever in a mobile device
• Extremely responsive, especially switching from stills to video and vice-versa and shot to shot
• Touch AF for both video and stills
• Full time continuous AF in BOTH video and stills plus face detection
• HD video with stereo audio (still one of very few devices that provide high quality audio recording in video)
• Seamless workflows optimised for speed or editing & sharing
• Zoom in to images directly in the post capture view, edit and share all without leaving the camera – the most seamless mobile imaging experience
• Non-destructive editing of images – go back to the original image at any time. Undo or redo edits even months later
• New high power dual LED flash – 20% more powerful than our previous most powerful LED flash despite its compact size
• Geo tagging with place names rather than just co-ordinates
• AMBR – Automatic Motion Blur Reduction
• Not forgetting the touch to share of images between handsets using NFC technology

Impressive to say the least, but I suggest to jump over the the Nokia Conversations blog, and read in detail how everything works. You’ll want an N9 in your hands even sooner.

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• HD capture @ 720p + S60 5th Edition – Samsung Acme i8910
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Front Page

Nokia N9 and N950 phones announced, running "MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan"

As you'll probably be aware, on Tuesday Nokia launched Harmattan into the world. From the Nokia Connection event in Singapore, a decent presentation and coordinated online presence swung into action. The reaction to this touch-focused, slickly designed device has been overwhelming positive, leading several - including Engadget - to question the wisdom of Nokia's move away from MeeGo to concentrate on Windows Phone 7 smartphones.

"The team behind the MeeGo-based Nokia N9 brought together elements of industrial design, software development and user interface advancements, as well as a developer platform to create a better way to use a phone. All that’s needed to use the Nokia N9 is a simple gesture, a swipe of the finger. It is an intuitive way to use all the different features and functions. Whenever you are in an application, you just swipe from the edge of the screen to go back home."

This issue is, obviously, very N9 focused - and there's been a lot of news and discussion this week. We're going to highlight what we think are the stand-out items, to reduce the volume to the things we think you should read.

Read more (conversations.nokia.com)
Read more (gsmarena.com)
Read more (meegoexperts.com)
Read more (engadget.com)
Read more (flors.wordpress.com)

MeeGo 1.2 Community Edition for N900 "Summer Edition" released

With a one day delay for last minute fixes, the widely anticipated second release of the MeeGo Community Edition for the N900 was released. Jukka Eklund announced the release, saying that the "good news is that we made it! We set our targets as "Faster and fancier. More applications, better settings." and we delivered on that. You can see the improvement eg. in application start-up time and overall performance. There are more applications carefully selected, for example some of the new MeeGo UX-based ones, new cool Terminal, Package management, IRC, and MeeGo Extras apps client. And a new game :)" A few further bugs have been found, so there'll be an update posted next week.

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In this edition (Download)...

1. Front Page
   • Nokia N9 and N950 phones announced, running "MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan"
   • MeeGo 1.2 Community Edition for N900 "Summer Edition" released
2. Applications
   • Continually updated wallpaper for your N900
3. Development
   • Nokia porting Qt Quick Components to Ubuntu, Maemo & MeeGo
   • Information on N9 Open Source Developer Device Programme
   • Reporting Harmattan development system bugs
   • ...and 5 more
4. Community
   • Testing community apps for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan
5. Devices
   • Concerned about N9 availability in your country?
   • Future Harmattan release may have homescreen folders
   • N9 Camera in-depth
   • ...and 3 more
6. In the Wild
   • A Nokian's argument with Stephen Elop
   • "We Want Nokia To Keep MeeGo" petition
   • Quim Gil's thoughts on future MeeGo devices from Nokia
7. Announcements
   • Enhanced N900 lock screen

In the graphics side, the major differences between ARM and X86 systems is that on ARM 3D acceleration is done with OpenGL ES. It is mostly a subset of modern OpenGL used on X86 desktop machines. From QEMU point of view this could mostly be ignored, as OpenGL was mostly used on games and specialist applications. This has now been changing, as desktops and user interfaces have started OpenGL to render graphics. Without acceleration, these user interfaces become slower than slugs crossing a tarpit.

For this reason, MeeGo introduced OpenGL ES acceleration support to QEMU. With the lack of easily available MeeGo QEMU images and test setup, I've created a test setup for Linaro 11.05 image.

Running torus opengl es1 demo from mesa-demos inside QEMU.

In the graphics side, the major differences between ARM and X86 systems is that on ARM 3D acceleration is done with OpenGL ES. It is mostly a subset of modern OpenGL used on X86 desktop machines. From QEMU point of view this could mostly be ignored, as OpenGL was mostly used on games and specialist applications. This has now been changing, as desktops and user interfaces have started OpenGL to render graphics. Without acceleration, these user interfaces become slower than slugs crossing a tarpit.

For this reason, MeeGo introduced OpenGL ES acceleration support to QEMU. With the lack of easily available MeeGo QEMU images and test setup, I've created a test setup for Linaro 11.05 image.

Running torus opengl es1 demo from mesa-demos inside QEMU.

Horace Dediu @Asymco is talking about the huge prepay market:

“It may be time for the iPhone to more than just grow. It may be time for it to grow up and take on the whole market. Five billion people are waiting”.

The prepaid market usually means two certain things: cheap phones and low monthly service costs. I do think though the number of users that don’t want their hands tied for 24 months contracts is increasing, but not by that much.

A cheaper iPhone although possible, shouldn’t be a compromise compared to a full fledged one.

Now, let’s make an exercise of imagination; say you’re Apple: what would you get rid of from you iPhone 4 in order to make it cheaper, without compromising the quality or the functionality? Start naming software and / or hardware features.

Is it the camera? Maybe, but it’ll compromise the pictures quality. Is it the display? Maybe, but you’ll have to forget about retina display shout. Is it the RAM? It’d be like downgrading the iPhone 4 to iPhone 3G: forget about it running flawlessly the Infinity Blade… How about putting cheap plastic instead of Gorilla glass? Yeah, right, over Jobs’ dead body maybe.

The only thing a “prepaid iPhone” would have to do is to cope with the apps / iOS; this means: same display resolution, same CPU, same RAM, same connectivity, same interface; maybe not necessarily the same storage (I wonder whether that’d be enough to lower the price with 200$…). Altogether, let’s not forget the iCloud that can possibly act like a remote storage…

I don’t think lowering the specs is a solution; the only one I can imagine now is a dramatic change in iPhone’s architecture, which means a new production line, from scratch. The result could hardly be named “another iPhone”, but “another Apple product”. Wouldn’t that better be some kind of iPod, instead?