Nokia Tune is one of world most recognized audio brand assets and is estimated to be heard over one billion times a day. Nokia is launching a global crowdsourcing campaign to find a fresh version of the Nokia Tune. This is the first time Nokia is inviting people to work with the iconic tune with the winning tune to be placed next to the standard Nokia Tune to all New Nokia products of 2012.

If you want to submit a tune, the website rwquire "The tune should be fresh, expressive, original, creative yet distinctively a Nokia Tune" in order to be submitted. Prize is $10,000 and 5x $5,000

 

Vote & Submit

 

 

 

 

We just stumbled upon photos of a new Nokia smartphone. The device dubbed to be the Nokia N8 successor, is said to be called N8-01 (considering Nokia new naming policy Nokia 801 seems more likely) and feature a qHD screen.

 

 

The images come from this Nokia 700 hands-on video. While testing the Belle-running 700 video player, the review runs a video, which features the unannounced smartphone with an edge-to-edge curved screen.

 

 

So, is this finally it Nokia first Windows Phone 7 handset? Could be its allegedly from a presentation for a carrier and shows a device very much like the Sea Ray. Its called Nokia 703.

 

The slide even lists some specs, which are unfortunately unreadable. Well, almost unreadable you can clearly make out the categories and if you stare at it long enough, you start seeing even the fine print.

 

Take this with a pinch, or better yet a handful of salt, but we think it says "LCD 480x800 pixels 3.7 inches" next to the "DISPLAY" label. And that looks an awful lot like "5MP" and "720p@30fps" next to the camera. As for the memory, it seems like it says 8GB storage and 512MB RAM. Horatio of CSI would be proud of us.

 

 

Nokia is no stranger to Near-Field Communication, however it is only now that the environmental conditions match up with the devices Nokia plans on releasing.

 

At a recent presentation in Hong Kong, Nokia announced that from now on, NFC functionality will feature on all Nokia devices, a move that would subsequently boost uptake and implementation of the technology, especially when you consider that Nokia sell around 100 million smartphones a year.

 

Nokia VP, Ilari Nurmi also spoke of peripheral NFC devices coming from Nokia in the near future, including speakers, headsets, and of course other NFC-enabled phones. Despite their clear support for the technology, an estimated guess would say that perhaps Nokia's low-end handsets will not feature NFC, but than again, stranger decisions have been made.

 

This all coincides nicely with the inclusion of Nokia latest Symbian Belle, NFC handsets, the 600, 700 and 701. Albeit demonstrating the most romantic/sickeningly cheesy use of NFC in an advert ever, this video features such NFC-enabled handsets being used to promote Chinese Foursquare competitor, Jiepang, who've partnered with Nokia on the project.

 

Nokia just tweeted that Nokia C701 offers some good 1,000 nits of brightness. That means it takes the title of Brightest display off the NOVA display on the LG Optimus Black, which clocked it at only 700 nits.

According to rumors, LG is working on a 1,000 nit display too. If 700 and 1,000 nits sound abstract for you, check out the display section of our Optimus Black review. The iPhone 4, for example, maxed out at 483 nits.

Testing the contrast and brightness levels on a Symbian phone is a challenge as Nokia still does not provide a switch to disable the automatic brightness brightness control. So, we may have to hold off our display test on this one until its time for a retail review, just to make sure we do it properly.

Is it just me, or does Nokia have a thing for bright displays lately? The Nokia X7 4-inch display posted the highest brightness for any AMOLED we have tested and now they are aiming for brightest LCD too.

 

 

 

An online community used by developers of Nokia phone apps has been hacked.

The company warned that members personal information, including dates of birth and email addresses may have been stolen.

So far no-one has claimed responsibility for the attack and no compromised information has yet appeared elsewhere on the internet. Nokia developer forums have been temporarily shut down while the security breach is investigated.

A Screneshot of an Email I got from Nokia this Morning

 

It said: "A database table containing developer forum members email addresses has been accessed, by exploiting a vulnerability in the bulletin board software that allowed an SQL Injection attack."

SQL attacks are a common method of breaking a website security. Typically, hackers will target an open part of the system, such as a log-on screen, and attempt to confuse it by injecting code that it was not designed to cope with.

"Initially we believed that only a small number of these forum member records had been accessed, but further investigation has identified that the number is significantly larger," said the statement. Nokia did not reveal the scale of the hack, but suggested that it may have been extensive. The company said that no credit card details had been taken, but warned that additional contact details, such as Skype addresses, may have been stolen.

 

source

 

 

 

One of the cool things about the Android Market on the web is that it pushes apps directly to your Android device instead of downloading it and then making you transfer it manually to the device. Nokia had a system on their Ovi Store where they would instead send an SMS to your phone with a link to download the app, but this was not very convenient. So now they have Android Market style push support for sending apps directly to your phone, thanks to Nokia Drop.

 

This works similar to on Android phones. You go to the Ovi Store through your web browser, then click on an application and if it is a free app it is sent instantly to your phone and gets installed automatically. Alternatively if your phone is connected to your PC then the application is downloaded on to the PC and gets installed on the phone automatically.

 

 

Dubai: New figures released by global technology research firm Gartner show that Nokia is clearly the market leader by sales of smartphones and less expensive feature phones in the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

Contrary to public perception that the iPhone and BlackBerry lead the pack in the region as the preferred choices for smartphone buyers, Gartner second-quarter figures show that Nokia sold more smartphones than any other manufacturer.
Second-quarter figures for the region have not been released publicly and were provided by Gartner at Gulf News' request.

Gartner gathers its numbers quarterly from each of the phone manufacturers independently and then crunches the numbers for analysis.

"Nokia is still the leader in smartphones as well as all phones in this market due to its strong brand recognition it has enjoyed over the past years and good value for money it has to offer," said Annette Zimmermann, principal analyst from Gartner offices in Munich.

"In the Middle East and Africa, Symbian will remain the most preferred platform during 2011. Nokia also recently introduced full Arabic language support for its Ovi store. Regional customisation has always been one of Nokia's strengths and something that other competing platforms do less of," she said.

 

Rising sales
Figures reveal across both the Middle East and Africa that Nokia sold 21.8 million devices in total both in smartphones and feature phones to claim 51 per cent of the regional market, more than all of its competitors combined.

Regionally, Samsung was ranked second in sales with 6.3 million units sold for 14.8 per cent of the market with Research in Motion coming in third with 2.4 million units sold for 7.8 per cent of the market.

As for regional smartphone sales only, Nokia was still the dominant manufacturer in the second quarter in the region with sales of 3.2 million Symbian units to take 41.9 per cent of the Middle East and Africa market.

Research in Motion ranked second for smartphone sales, Gartner said, with 2.4 million units sold representing 31.7 per cent of the market. Android took third spot with one million smartphones sold for 13.7 per cent of the market.

Zimmermann said analysis predicts, however, that Nokia Symbian market share will erode in coming years as it moves to the Windows 7 platform.

"Android is growing share in this region thanks to the many device manufacturers who are backing this platform.

Nokia is currently in a transition phase so we will see Symbian's share decline over the next 2-3 years, while at the same time Microsoft's share will grow rapidly as Nokia adopts the Windowsphone 7 platform," she said.

Android-based phones are expected to grow stronger in the market as the platform "is moving down the price-tiers in this market as the device vendors who support Android want to push their phones to the mass market.

Examples are devices from ZTE, Huawei as well as Micromax. In the Middle East and Africa we expect Android to become the leading platform later in 2012," Zimmermann said.

 

Android surge
Canalys reported that Android has taken almost 50 per cent of the global market with in "excess of 107.7 million units shipped in the second quarter of 2011" an increase of 73 per cent year on year.

Hamza Saleem, senior research analyst, IDC Middle East, Turkey and Africa, said figures showing Nokia's dominance in the region are not surprising given the Finnish phone maker's longstanding relationship with consumers in the region.

"As Nokia churns out cheaper Symbian phones in an MEA market that has always been very pro Nokia," Saleem told Gulf News. "These phones have seen a good demand and Nokia has the low end of the market covered, which in the end does the bulk of the Nokia sales."

A slower growing demand for Android in the region is also helping Nokia stay on top, he said.

"The Android phones still have to see the same US and European uptake. Nokia still seems to have a foothold after many tries by Samsung to uproot them," Saleem said from Dubai offices.

"App stores which have made these Androids famous still don't have the local content needed to succeed here. In addition, the app stores have come late to this market."

 

Sales of mobile phones grow 8% in quarter
Sales of mobile phones across all designs and features increased in the second quarter across the Middle East and Africa (MEA), said Annette Zimmermann, principal analyst of Gartner.

Figures show that a total of 42.8 million mobile devices were sold in the MEA region. "Sales in the Middle East and Africa grew quarter on quarter by 8 per cent, smartphones grew even more quarter on quarter, by 24 per cent," she said.

"Smartphones as a portion of overall sales were 18 per cent in the second quarter, up two percentage points from the first quarter. This shows the growing user interest in devices with open operating systems."

 

 

Nokia Maps for Symbian is one of the best SatNav apps around and Nokia dev team is intent on making it better. Beta Labs just released a test version of Nokia Maps 3.08 with Weather, which brings a number of improvements, especially in the UI department.

 

The new version offers more information before you start and while you’re driving, with an emphasis on live traffic info. It also comes with an attractive-looking dedicated weather app, which shows forecasts by the hour.

 

Nokia Maps 3.08 with Weather offers several easy access options to start navigating there are buttons right on the home screen, you can navigate to a contact, a long tap gives you "Drive to" and "Walk to" options and finally, you have the Just drive options, which shows info on speed, speeding warnings and traffic info.

 

 

Hot on the heels of the new Symbian Belle phones are two Nokia phones that yet again redefine affordability. Meet the Nokia 100 and Nokia 101 both are S30 phones targeting developing markets and have color screens and long lasting batteries on offer.

 

The Nokia 101 is slated to cost just €25 ($35) but packs quite a bit of features its a dual-SIM phone (900/1800MHz, no dual-standby), with a 1.8" 128x160 pixels display, microSD card slot (for cards up to 16GB), MP3 player, 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio and a powerful 103-phon loudspeaker.

 

The Nokia 100 is cheaper still at €20 ($30) and is a single-SIM device that is stripped of everything but the essentials. It has an FM radio and the same color screen as the 101. Its battery lasts even longer up to 7 hours of talk time and 35 days of standby. It has a flashlight too and comes in a wide variety of colors.