NRC, TUT, What the heck am I talking about? If that’s what you are wondering, let me first start by introducing these institutions to you. NRC is nothing but the Nokia Research Center based in Tampere, Finland which in collobaration with another local institute-Tampere University of Technology (TUT) demoed an interesting social networking concept where mobile devices create ad-hoc wireless networks, thereby allowing users to wirelessly browse the web.

While there are many social networking services out there, NRC is cashing-in on the reluctance of some users to connect to the web from their phone. Instead of relying on network operators to provide mobile internet, Nokia Instant community creates ad-hoc network using the device’s Wi-Fi radio. The network in absence of any mobile internet plan, nor does it need bluetooth or InfraRed port for interacting with other devices. How exactly does this work out? Let’s find out after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

After months of speculation and widespread rumors among N900ers and Linux enthusiasts, the Nokia-Intel initiative- MeeGo has finally been released for netbooks and N900s. Yeah our very own N900.

The release though is not a full release in the sense that it’s not ready for the end users. It’s more for the developers and hackers and the core version of the platform, which is available for our N900s doesn’t yet support the phone functions. Find out what goodies are actually included in the package, after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

The phrase: Third Time Lucky, couldn’t have been any more apt than it’s for the v1.2 N900 firmware saga. The blogosphere was strife with speculations way back in March, when an exhaustive changelog was posted over at the Maemo Arena.

Then the fire doused for a while, only to re-emerge in early May, with an unofficial release in torrents and other file sharing services. Nokia insisted it was an incomplete release and went on to warn the N900 community against installing this update. Finally laying to rest all the build-up to the v1.2 firmware, Nokia officially announced the availability of the firmware update over “Over The Air” channel, first in UK, followed by phased launches in other parts of the world. I know you have seen the changelog on more than one occasion of this firmware, but those were mostly unofficial compilations. Let’s see what Nokia has to say in their changelog, after the break though. Read the rest of this entry »

Soon it may start raining Windows applications on the N900! Yeah, the dearth of good apps/games on the platform has convinced a certain Damion Yates to get the Wine running on his N900. Windows applications and Wine! What’s the connection? Well, for the uninitiated, Wine is a program which brings Windows libraries to Linux and is widely a part of many a Linux distros doing the rounds on the desktop platform. Coming the mobile platform, where our Maemo and N900 stretch their wings, unfortunately Wine is not compatible wit ARM processors, which is at the core of our N900 hardware. Thanks to Damion though, who figured out a way around this limitation by using QEMU emulator. The project is still in its stages of infacy and the full tutorial is not out yet. Till then, lust on this video showing Notepad running on Wine, via a stastically compiled ARM QEMU binary, which you can catch after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

Looks like Eclairs is the flavour of the day! Yeah, am talking about the latest version of Android and before you think about HTC or any other android manufacturer, let me tell you that our very own Nokia N900 is man enough for this beast of an OS! Thanks to dj_steve of Maemo Talk, you can now get the season’s hot favorite Android 2.1 on your N900. I know you are getting restless to see this in action, and am I am not going to keep you from it for long. Hit the jump button and the demo video and hack details are all yours. Read the rest of this entry »

The original browser of the Maemo platform is back in its latest avatar. Yeah, Opera the team behind the browser on the first Maemo device Nokia N770 has now released a preview build of Opera Mobile 10 for the Maemo 5 platform. The Opera Mobile browser as you may know brings the legendary data compression technology of Opera Turbo, along with other Opera goodies like the Bookmark and Speed Dial Sync across Opera browsers on multiple platforms. Find out more about what goodies Opera have packed in their latest Maemo package, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you miss that trusty Paint Application on your desktop/notebook when on the move? Well, if you have a N900, then may be you have been trying your hands at the onboard drawing app, but as you may have realised by now it ain’t as powerful a paint client as the one you are used to on the bigger screen. So here comes MyPaint, an open source paint application for the Maemo platform which can put any paint client even on a desktop platform to shame. No kidding, this is one of the most powerful drawing clients that I have seen on the mobile platform. Don’t believe me? See for yourself in the demo video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

The mobile version of Firefox also known as Fennec has now been updated 1.1 beta. If you have been using Fennec 1.0 on your N900, you would agree with me when I say that the handy tab management and Weave is something, that we N900ers can’t live without now, what say?

Well, the best mobile browser by a mile, is about to get better, much better than any mobile browser can ever dream about: with options like save to pdf (directly from the web page)! If that’s not urging you to head straight to Mozilla webpage to download the latest browser, I don’t know what will! Changelog and more screenshots after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember that Firmware 1.2 that I posted way back in late March? Looks like there is more to it than the super exhaustive changelog we pulled up from Maemo Talk, for this time there is more evidence of this firmware being actually existing in the Nokia servers. It gets better, a video clip showing the new firmware in action on a N900 has landed on YouTube as well. Isn’t that just what we asked for? Perhaps a public release of the firmware by none other than NSU or OTA could be the elixir we are looking for but in the meantime, you can fire up your favorite torrent client, for a version of this firmware is now available for download (.bin). Catch the download link (for torrent), along with the video and changelog after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

You know how the world is heading the 3D way with more than cinemas adopting the most engaging of the video formats. It turns out that apart from those fancy 3D equipped LED/LCD panels that cost you a flesh and bone to add that extra dimension to your personal viewing experience, may not be the only gateway for 3D experience. Our N900s, yeah the very N900 is capable of rendering 3D content and that too in absence of those 60s looking 3D glasses!

Surprised? Yeah, how much graphics capability can you pack in 633 MHz processor after all! But you don’t need all that silicon to render 3D content, as Johny Lee first demonstrated using a Wiimote using the face tracking technology to add third dimension to conventional display panels. Working on similar lines Johannes Kuhlmann has managed to get 3D content on his N900. Catch the video and more details of the project, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »