Firefox Mobile for Android and the Nokia N900 has been pushed out, or at least Mozilla’s Alpha release of the smartphone browser. Natively supporting Firefox Sync – bringing desktop browsing history, bookmarks, passwords, form-fill data and open tabs to the mobile app – the new browser apparently concentrates on increasing speed and responsiveness, with Mozilla debuting their new “Electrolysis” and “Layers” technology.
Video demo after the cut
Electrolysis splits the browser UI process from the web rendering engine process, which apparently keeps app responsiveness high even when there’s plenty of page loading or JavaScript crunching going on in the background. Meanwhile Layers – which will arrive in the Beta version of Firefox Mobile – will improve zoom, animation, video and scroll performance, including taking advantage of whatever hardware GPU acceleration might be present.
No word on when that Beta might be released, however, so for now it’s the Alpha – as with any such software, it might not be the most stable thing you could install on your smartphone. You can download the new version of Firefox Mobile here, while the release notes are here.
Say what you will about Nokia‘s strategy (or lack thereof), but there’s no denying that the N900 is one capable gaming machine. Thus, it makes perfect sense for the blokes at Game Gripper to mold a controller specifically for that very handset, no? We’ve already spent a fair amount far too much time with our made-for-Droid edition, and if you’re looking to boost your enjoyment level when playing NES ROMs, you can toss your pre-order in this very second. The company’s offering the complete Game Gripper N900 for €14.95 ($20), or the button set alone for €3.95 ($5), with initial shipments expected in around a fortnight. Head on past the break for a taste of that aforementioned Mario action.
Mobile photography could get a shot in the arm thanks to the combined efforts of Stanford University researchers and Nokia Research, who have pushed a new open-source digital photography platform out the door. FCam – or “Frankencamera” – is initially available for the Nokia N900, and unlocks high-end functionality like RAW image capture, full manual controls and low-light imagery through combining multiple shots of varying ISO and exposure settings.
FCamera is an example camera application that uses FCam libraries and drivers. It is released in source code to serve as a starting point for programmers to create their own camera applications.
Low-light Assistant helps in situations where there is not enough light to avoid the choice between a quick exposure that will look sharp, but dark and noisy, and a long exposure that will have enough light, but likely be blurry. Instead, the app captures two images in rapid succession and then automatically combines them, resulting in a photo that is both bright and sharp.
HDR Capture helps in situations where there is too much light, such as a portrait of a person with a bright sky behind her. The camera takes up to three images with different exposure settings and combines them to an image that shows the details of both the foreground and background objects, without under or over-exposing any of them.
Meanwhile there are various ongoing projects yet to spit out a working program as yet, including one looking at capturing the movement of playing cards tossed into the air, using two independently controlled flashes. Thanks to the open API the FCam team expect other photography-minded developers to jump on board, and hope to extend the platform beyond just the N900.
The end result could be a higher standard of images coming out of mobile devices, and when you consider the sort of optics available in upcoming models like the Nokia N8, that can only be a good thing. The FCam project picked the N900 because “it runs a version of Linux almost as complete as that installed on personal computers,” says Nokia’s Kari Pulli, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that versions get ported across to other Linux-based devices such as Android phones.
Two months after an impressive beta, Mozilla’s finalized its first full mobile browser for Maemo — beating iPhone, Android and most assuredly Windows Mobile versions to the punch. Though it doesn’t seem to have gained any new features in the interim, what it does bring to the table is sweet indeed: portrait browsing, auto-updating add-ons and the ability to magically convert webpages to PDF right on your phone. If you have a Nokia N900 or N810, do your device a favor and download it right now; if not, you’ll find a handy guide to your burning jealousy at our more coverage link.
Qualcomm’s Uplinq developer conference has been taking place this week, and SlashGear has been here keeping track of the news. The silicon company has been demonstrating new Augmented Reality apps based running on their Snapdragon processors, kicking off a new AR Developer Challenge – with a $200,000 prize fund – and showing how its system-agnostic peer-to-peer gaming technology can be used with the Unity 3D game development tool for true cross-platform local gameplay.
Video demo of Peer-to-Peer gaming and more after the cut
Qualcomm demonstrated three devices – a Nexus One running Android, an N900 running Maemo 5 and a Dell notebook running Windows – all taking part in a local game, with automatically created peer-to-peer connections made over Bluetooth and WiFi. As the video below shows, the game could search for local players, send out invites by itself and then manage whatever wireless technology the devices could support. Play happens in real-time with minimal lag. CEO Paul Jacobs also sees the peer-to-peer system as being used in multimedia applications, such as automatically showing photos or video on any nearby screen.
As for Unity, they’re working with Qualcomm to add the company’s Natural Feature image recognition system into their gaming development engine. Natural Feature uses a shots from a device’s camera to calculate an individual signature based on target points on a person, object or glyph; those signatures are then used to track movement in real space, with the device superimposing digital content on top.
Mattel brought back its 40-year-old Rock’em and Sock’em flighting robots to Uplinq, taking advantage of the new AR technology. The toymaker a printed battle-ring image and a pair of smartphones, with the robots themselves represented on-screen. Mattel developed the title entirely in the Android version of the AR add-on toolkit; however Unity CEO David Helgason says his company’s development engine not only works with multiple platforms – not just Android – but makes AR integration even easier.
Developers interested in taking part in Qualcomm’s AR challenge will be able to download the public beta of the Augmented Reality SDK later this Fall. The SDK will be free, and will support Android 2.1 and higher.
While the various and sundry Android manufacturers are all scrambling (or casually strolling) toward official Android 2.2 updates for their manifold handsets, someone managed to get Google’s Froyo running on the Nokia N900. Turns out, the two are a pretty great pair, with some super speedy browsing (like, really fast) and decent hardware support outside of an unfortunate lack of memory card support. Hit up the video after the break to see it in action, the browser starts kicking around the 4:45 mark.
Analyst predictions – like any other – should generally be taken with a pinch of salt (the Steve Ballmer at WWDC 2010 speculation is good evidence of quite how much sodium is necessary), but it seems someone at Gartner has been seriously mistaken in their counting. They’re quoted as claiming under 100,000 Nokia N900 units were sold in its first five months on the market; however, a source we spoke to at Nokia today told us that in fact the Finnish company sold “well in excess of 100,000″ N900 handsets in the first five weeks.
In fact, Nokia apparently had trouble meeting demand for the N900, and have seen sustained sales of the handset since its launch. Nokia won’t disclose exact sales figures for the N900, but it seems Gartner have gotten considerably confused somewhere along the line.
The N900 was one of Nokia’s most anticipated devices of 2009, and has recently seen an update to not only Maemo 1.2 but MeeGo v1.0. Nokia had previously said that the handset wouldn’t be offered officially with MeeGo, though it seems aftermarket updates will be coming thick and fast.
Nokia Research have pushed out a second video demonstrating their Nokia Instant Community system of WiFi-based group messaging, and while first time around it was portrayed as a way to share sport event and concert opinions with those nearby, now everything has gotten a bit cruisy. The principle is the same – ad-hoc WiFi connections are set up with nearby devices, and you can send out text, photo and video messages as well as see how many of your previous contacts are within range – but now it’s being used to woo with amateur poetry, reconnect with random people you “encountered” at the gym, and get yourself invited to parties.
Video demo after the cut
There’s a nifty “Sociometer” gauge which shows how many previous contacts are nearby, and user-customizable profiles – such as “Party” or “Public” – which can be used to set how contactable you are. The system automatically makes WiFi connections and uses each compatible device as a network repeater, bridging the links so that your poetry can be shared by even more people.
According to the Nokia Research team, they built Instant Community with openness in mind; even though there are only Nokia devices shown in the video, if the system ever gets released we’ll hopefully see it spread to other platforms too. Just make sure to turn off key-sounds, and remember that amateur poetry is generally best kept to yourself.
MeeGo v1.0 for netbooks and the Nokia N900 has now been released, complete with Qt 4.6 support, the MeeGo SDK with an integrated application development environment, and various other OS tools. The MeeGo experience is centered around the Myzone, with various social networking, email, calendar and contacts widgets; these aggregate content from multiple networks, together with synchronized calendar, tasks, appointments and recently used files.
Video demo after the cut
There’s also the Google Chrome browser (or support for Google Chromium) and, when the MeeGo Handset version is released in June, the Fennec Mobile Browser will be implemented. An early developer release of the MeeGo SDK – also in June – will support touch-based devices.
As for what’s further around the corner, the MeeGo team plan to release v1.1 in October 2010, complete with support for touch-based devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and “In-Vehicle Infotainment systems”. You can download MeeGo v1.0 for netbooks here and v1.0 for the N900 here. Demo video below by Brad Linder.
You’ve seen it teased, and now it’s time to shelve whatever you had planned for this evening (or morning, depending on your current coordinates) and slap the first bona fide 1.x MeeGo release onto whatever device you’ve got handy. As of right now, MeeGo v1.0 for Netbooks and v1.0 for Nokia N900 are available for download, with the former supporting Atom-based machines and the latter supporting… well, we’ll let you take a stab there. The API that’s being released includes Qt 4.6, and while the current SDK is tailored for netbooks, the next version — slated to hit devs in June — will support “touch-based devices, such as handsets and tablets.” We’re also told that v1.1 will be outed in October, with the development tree already being open. We’re certainly digging the layout shown here at a glance, but why not give that source link a visit and find out how it suits you in real life? We heard Snooki totally digs it, too.
Firefox Mobile for Android and the Nokia N900 has been pushed out, or at least Mozilla’s Alpha release of the smartphone browser. Natively supporting Firefox Sync – bringing desktop browsing history, bookmarks, passwords, form-fill data and open tabs to the mobile app – the new browser apparently concentrates on increasing speed and responsiveness, with Mozilla debuting their new “Electrolysis” and “Layers” technology.
