Just shelled a couple of grand (probably more and am talking about USD here) on that unibody Macbook or Macbook Pro? It does burn a hole in your pocket and it hurts especially when you haven’t got a deep one to start with. Anyways, lest you be thinking of getting that Apple remote which unfortunately isn’t part of the standard package, let me save you 20 bucks (that’s like 1/10th of the Macbook, but then still it’s money saved), by suggesting this amazing desktop widget going by the name of RaeMote, which lets you control your Macs (Mini, MacBook and MacBook Pro) via the N900’s CIR (consumer infrared) port. It’s available in the Maemo’s Extras repository and before you jump there, let me show you the widget in action, after the break though. Read the rest of this entry »

Face Detection, Tracking! Looks straight out of that James Bond or Jason Bourne movie, ain’t it? But yeah these technologies are so cliche now that even our N900 can boast of one. Seriously no kidding, as demonstrated by German developer Johannes Kuhlmann, with his unique game based on face detection and tracking- Burger Face.

The concept of the game is pretty simple, your face is the controller and you have to dodge the knives and eat the burgers. While game may not be that impressive with graphics and the like, what really impresses me is the innovative control technology. Based on face detection and tracking, this is another contactless control technology successfully implemented on the N900. Catch the demo video and further details, after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

The folks at Nokia Research Center (NRC) just can’t help making things easier for us. While there has been a lot of speculation about Symbian Foundation going open source and Symbian^3 demoed, even our Maemo brothers have got new company with MeeGo, the researchers at NRC thought it was time to flaunt some hardware technologies to the world. So here it comes in the name of Nokia’s Explore and Share technology which at this stage is still a concept but I see it coming on the mainstream N900 soon.

So what really is this Explore and Share Technology? It’s a new wireless data transfer concept which promises blazingly fast transfer speeds. How fast? Imagine transferring an entire Bruce Springstein album in less than 10 seconds, that fast! Seems out of bounds? Check out the demo video after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

First came Windows 98 and then the Android and even Mac Os X paid a visit to our N900, but now it’s the turn of none other Ubunto Mobile the popular Linux distribution for mobile devices, to boot on the N900.

First attempted by YouTuber lifenexus, this is one of the most complete attempts at loading a foreign operating system on the N900. It’s fully functional and more importantly there is no lag, even when the OS is booted from the memory card. Now that must have gotten some Linux geeks excited out there, so this one goes for you guys. Catch the demo video after the break.

Demo Video-

Doesn’t that look cool? I just love the LXDE desktop and the fact that there is no lag means you can as well use Ubuntu as the main OS. What a pity, that there isn’t room for phone functions in this OS, which otherwise looks very promising as a mobile OS. So Linux hackers: can any of you get some phone functions on to the Ubuntu Mobile? Not that we are complaining about Maemo 5 but having options is always better and plus it pushes the competition to come up with better solutions.

Have you ever found yourself in a foreign country with little to no knowledge of the local language? Sounds very familiar right? Most of you will definitely will relate to that lost feeling and guess what you don’t have to anymore. Thanks to Photo Translator- an amazing translator tool for our N900s.

You would have probably used the translator services of mighty Google, which I covered previously but that doesn’t really help when even the script is as alien to you as the language you are trying to decipher. That’s where Photo Translator pitches in with its OCR based translator engine. OC what? Find out after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

As if we were not having enough of Linux in Maemo 5 flavour, bdogg64 has managed to taste the android flavour on his N900. No kidding, he has some video evidence apart from the screenshot I captured from the video, that you see to your left.

So basically what bdogg64 has done is, he/she has added multi-boot capability to the multi-tasking GOD of smartphones-N900. It’s not fully function yet and hence out-of-bounds for laymen N900 users but Linux geeks, would probably get it working on their N900s with little to no help from bdogg64. While the Linux hackers and nerds get their act together, laymen users like me and you can only ogle at their work. Let’s take a look at what bdogg64 did, after the break though. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are one of those N900ers who are praying day in and day out for portrait mode on your N900, I have some good news for you. Contrary to earlier attempts, you don’t need a bug to enable the portrait mode on your N900, but just a soft touch of a short-cut key(s) to enable portrait mode on your N900 browser. Yeah you read it right, it’s built-in and just wasn’t known to the N900 community as such. Thanks to MaemoCommunity for digging this out of nowhere, but seriously Nokia: Why did you leave such an important function out of the official changelog of PR 1.1? Yeah, the new firmware unlocked this feature on the N900 browser.

Needless to say, the advantages of portrait mode for one-handed operation are innumerable. Now only if all the applications were to function in portrait mode, would the N900 community breathe a sigh of relief but having got the best feature of N900 working in the portrait mode is a big consolation for ardent N900 fans. So guys before I spill the beans on short-cut key(s) that enable portrait mode on microB on N900, take a look at this demo video below, after the break though. Read the rest of this entry »

While it has been said like umpteen times here and elsewhere N900 is a Linux hacker’s dream phone and adding more weight to this statement is PC Magazine’s (Middle East edition) latest review on N900. The review, though not an exhaustive one goes on to declare the flagship device from N900, an “Ultimate Linux Geek Phone”, mostly for it’s open source infrastructure allowing users to customize the phone from command line (also). Catch the highlights of the video review and my take on it, after the break.

Video Review-

Well, thats pretty basic as such, you can check the full review at their website here. Well I do totally agree with their Linux Geek phone part but I beg to differ from their verdict saying that the device is not yet ready for  a casual smartphone user. True, it’s not as optimized as some of the other mobile platforms today but it’s not that complicated to call it unsuitable for a casual user.

Another interesting thing to note from this review, is the absence of mention of anything worthwhile on the browser, which as you know is the killer feature of N900 with no mobile browser coming nearly as close to it when it comes to rendering websites which are not designed for mobile usage. This is another reason why I chose to differ from the verdict of the review. True, N900 is not as market-ready as say the iPhone but we shouldn’t forget that iPhone reached the iconic status only when the second generation version was released and the entire iPhone app boom started sometime after the second generation device was released. What we should learn from this is that we need to give the nascent Maemo 5 platform, a year or two to evolve into a market-friendly platform.

As expected, Nokia launched the Ovi store for N900 today and the store looks promising, though it needs a boost of apps and games from third party developers. The content that I saw today is basically the same, I saw when I sneaked into the ovi store a couple of months ago, the only difference being that the applications can now be directly downloaded from the store without having to punch in a few lines of code in the terminal window. So now we know what the minor firmware update was all about.

Application downloads are handled by application manager to which every N900er is familiar by now. At the moment, the store is pretty light on content and is expected to pick up momentum over the next few weeks. The store as such is a great start for the N900  community and before you head to store.ovi.mobi, take a look at the Mark’s demo tour on Ovi store on N900, after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

Need an extra wireless controller for your PS3? Instead of shelling out 50 bucks on a dual shock PS3 controller, you can as well use your N900 as a PS3 controller, harnessing the bluetooth connectivity of PS3 and N900. Sounds to good to be true, right? Just don’t take my words on it for you can check for yourself in the appended video, after the break.

Well, I have been maintaining that a true linux platform like the maemo is every hacker’s dream and with Nokia being spot-on with their choice of hardware for its N900 (except may be for its resistive screen), hackers and developers are unleashing the hidden power of N900. I can go on and on,  glorifying the Maemo 5 platform and the N900, but lets check the PS3 controller capabilities of our N900 first. Read the rest of this entry »