Ending the mystery for good, MeeGo has now finally landed on our trusty N900s after all. It’s just a co-incidence that it’s the Fool’s day for we ain’t kidding about MeeGo on N900 whatsoever. As promised by Valtteri Halla of Nokia in his March 3rd post, MeeGo has been delivered right on the March end deadline, and is available for free download at the MeeGo portal.

So, now that MeeGo is released, should an average end user like you and me head to the Meego webpage to get the OS? I would advise against it, unless you are a hardcore Linux geek/developer who adores to code in the terminal window, for thats all the present version of MeeGo on N900 is sporting. There goes your hopes for some fancy UI and apps that you have been lusting about for a while now, but hey the folks Nokia never promised that and they did deliver on what they promised. What exactly does the present version of  MeeGo on N900 do? Let’s find out after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, the last couple of days have been attracting a lot of attention from speculators for our dear N900 is all set for another firmware upgrade. Yeah, PR 1.2 is going t o be out soon and though it’s not out yet, screenshots and even the complete changelog have been spotted on the effervescent blogosphere.

While the screenshots and changelog bring a lot of welcome changes: like the all new soft keyboard and customizable menu window, the chances of dual-booting option in view of the MeeGo release due soon is given a miss. There goes early hopes of MeeGo for N900ers, for there are many a changes that are headed the N900 way soon. Eager to know what we are talking about? Catch the story of the break.

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Well, one of the geekiest contests on a smartphone platform to be hosted by a smartphone manufacturer itself has just concluded in the ongoing CTIA Wireless Convention in Las Vegas. Ofcourse, we are talking about Nokia’s PUSH N900 MOD in the USA contest, the one and only of its kind where Nokia themselves threw the door open to hackers to come up with innovative hacks for their flagship device-N900. Hear that Apple? Dare to do something like that with your iPhone? May be Apple can start with first opening up their iPhone with Adobe first, to finally let iPhoners get the feel of Flash on their iPhone.

While the iPhoners can sulk, we N900ers can rejoice: thanks to the open source infrastructure of Maemo and Nokia’s efforts in attracting the hacker community to N900. Coming back to PUSH N900, you would know by now that Niko, the twitter controlled N900 robot, which was earlier covered was in the leading run but “Bike Dashboard”, which pretty much lives up to its name, took the top spot, followed by Niko and “Pit Crew”, bringing slot car racing to the realm of N900s. Catch out more details of the contest, after the break.

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Yeah, you read it right! You can actually control this geeky little robot which is powered by our very own N900, just by tweeting the control commands to @N900Niko. How cool is that?

Wondering the rationale behind the whole twitter controlled N900 robot project? I gotta confess I was more than intrigued when I first stumbled upon it,  but when I checked the project details, I wasn’t really surprised for I always knew our N900 was capable of some really cool stuff. I still haven’t spilled the beans yet but do you remember that PushN900 contest that Nokia US was hosting, calling for the top hacks for its first Maemo 5 device? This is one of the qualifying hacks and is in the run for the top spot. Catch more details of this project, after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been over two quarters since our N900 was launched and the wonder device is not exactly taking the world by storm as one would have expected it to but it looks promising nevertheless. As developers and hackers churn out one amazing hack after another, one of the most engaging genre of apps-Games are rather neglected in the official ovi store, which does have a few head turners like the Bounce Evolution and Angry Birds, but there is not as much variety as one would expect to have, especially with the ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor with PowerVR SGX graphics onboard our N900. But, then there is the Flash equipped browser, which opens up the world of flash based games found in abundance in the web. Add several emulators, courtesy of hackers, the gaming scenario on N900 looks more promising. Let’s now take a look at how exactly these options pan out on our N90o. Read the rest of this entry »

Just when we thought the N900 world couldn’t get any better with the Maemo 5 community coming up with innovative hacks and applications/games for N900, Nokia pulled of a dampener. Backtracking from its earlier disclosure of bringing MeeGo (the new platform adopted by Nokia in partnership with Intel) to our N900s, Nokia has now made it official that N900 will skip the MeeGo ROM.

While the blog post by Valtteri Halla of Nokia, the Nokia member of the Technical Steering Group (TSG) of MeeGo, made it clear that MeeGo repository was headed to N900 as early as the end of this month, I was always sceptical about this translating into the eligibility of N900 for MeeGo 1 upgrade and now my fears seem to have come true with Nokia making an official statement, in response to CNET’s query on the same, Nokia responded wtih a firm negative. Catch the verbatim of Nokia response and more, after the break.

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The ultimate haven of fighting games: Namco Bandai’s Tekken has been now ported to our N900 (courtesy-PCSX emulator). While the latest version of Tekken as available on Xbox and PS 3 is Tekken 6, YouTuber-Smokku, has managed to port the 1995-96’s Tekken 3 on to N900.

Tekken, as you know is one of the most popular fighting video games available across several gaming platforms including PS, PS 2, PS 3, PSP, Xbox, Gameboy Adcance, Wonderswan etc. Such was the popularity of this game that it was made into a well-received movie by Japanese film maker,  Junji Sakamoto in the 90s. Save the Tekken praising for another post, let’s jump to see how Tekken 3 fares on the N900. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that there are a few hundreds of apps/games for our N900, managing them kinda gets into our nerves at times. Well there are 4 home-screens to keep the frequently used apps handy but at times we just run out of space on our homescreen or may be we just need a faster way to access our favorite or rather most commonly used apps. This is where our handy little app-Quick Launch pitches in, by bringing easy access to as many as 5 apps from the quick launch menu. Find out more about this little app, after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

When Nokia and Intel announced their strategic partnership to forge their open source platforms: Maemo and Moblin into MeeGo, during the Mobile World Congress that concluded last month, I was excited and disappointed at the same time. Excited as it meant the availability of a wider range of applications but disappointed as I was afraid N900 would be left out of the domain of MeeGo devices.

Nokia PR didn’t help much over the next fortnight, refusing to divulge any details on the possibility of N900 getting MeeGo and I was losing hope over seeing some Moblin apps on N900 but then, the official MeeGo blog was put-up and Valtteri Halla of Nokia, made it clear that the MeeGo repository is infact headed to N900 and that too as soon as towards the end of this month! What does it mean to your N900s? Find out after the break. Read the rest of this entry »