Chris Partridge The Observer, Sunday November 25 2007

London shoppers will soon be able to leave their cash at home and use their mobile phones to get on the bus and tube, pay for coffee and put big-ticket items on credit. The mobiles will contain the same security as chip and Pin cards, combined with the contactless communication system used in Transport for London’s Oyster travel card.

Early next year Barclaycard will run a trial of the technology on the back of its new ‘OnePulse’ contactless card, which was launched in September. OnePulse cards are combined credit cards and Oyster cards, and also allow small purchases (under £10) to be made without entering a Pin.

About 1,000 retailers in the capital are already equipped with the contactless terminals for OnePulse, so putting the technology into mobile phones will not require them to install yet more expensive kit. Several hundred Barclaycard customers will be issued with compatible phones supplied by Nokia, which has been pushing the technology for several years.

The Symbian Blog December 2007

I just came across this neat Flash Lite file that transforms the S60 devices into an iPhone for all those of you who like the slick interface. It is not compatible with Flash Lite 3 but runs smoothly on the inbuilt Flash application. It is great to use as a screensaver also. However certain icons such as YouTube do not perform the corresponding task. vaibhavsharma.wordpress.com

Brisbane Times December 2007

A New Zealand student, who sends up to 100 text messages a day on her mobile phone, has been diagnosed with the country’s first known case of text-messager’s thumb.

The 20-year-old has texting tenosynovitis, an inflammation of the tendons in the thumb caused by constant text messaging.

There have been only two other reported cases of the ailment – a school-aged child in Singapore and a 13 year-old girl in Australia.

Authors of the journal report published in the Sunday Star-Times say it’s likely tenosynovitis is more common than thought given the popularity of texting. brisbane times

By Nassir Hossain

There have often been times, while travelling for long, boring hours, that we’ve wished we had the means of downloading and watching popular videos on youtube right in our mobile screen. Most people own largely 3gp enabled phones and the only way to watch videos on the fly is if the videos are pre-converted and transferred to the mobile beforehand. With a poor unlimited GPRS packages, it isn’t quite as possible to stream from the Youtube Mobile site either. Then one day we came across ByWifi. This web-based video transcoding/conversion service has a strangely misleading name, but their service is without a doubt one of the most useful ones we’ve come across. downloadsquad.com

By Tommi, December 2007

Gizmo, the app for doing free* Internet calls and instant messaging, was just updated to 1.1.006. In my opinion, the most interesting new feature is the ability to search for Gizmo contacts – so that you finally have someone to talk with.  betalabs.nokia.com

Posted by Stefan December 2007

The next version of S60, before the touch version slated for late next year, will be S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2. It was previewed by Mobile Review earlier this year, but now we have the first screenshots from an actual device. Somehow someone got their hands on a 5710, which has specifications that vary according to who you ask, but what is certain is that the device looks like a black 5700. You can play with 3.2 by yourself if you download the SDK and emulator from Forum Nokia here. More screenshots on my Flickr account here.

Having previously used a FP2 equipped device at the S60 Summit in Madrid earlier this year and at various “Evening with S60″ parties I can say that the first thing you will notice is how snappy the operating system is. The transition effects are also very subtle, to the point that the only way you notice them is if you turn them off and the device just doesn’t feel right. Expect the first FP2 devices to be rolled out in Q12008 along with Flash Lite 3 support. intomobile.com

Published by Ewan Spence at 17:01 GMT, December 2007

It’s not often that you’re in the audience for a something that significantly changes the landscape. Make no mistake, Nokia’s announcement in Amsterdam of their “Comes with Music” program is a game changing announcement, once you follow it through to its logical conclusion.

Firstly, to recap the news. Next year, a number of smartphones (most likely to be new Nseries devices) will ship with a voucher in the box that can be redeemed in the Nokia Music Store. This gives the account one year of unlimited downloads of tracks in the store. You can re-download as and when you need to, the tracks will not expire at the end of the subscription period, and you can move them between devices as you need to. Joining Nokia in this endeavor is Universal Music Group, the largest of the four major record labels which, between them, control of the order of 75% of music sales in the world. allaboutsymbian.com

From The Times December 3, 2007

from s60 tips.com Antony Pranata

Following up my previous posting about Nokia Internet Radio, I would like to highlight some other music applications for S60 devices.

MyStrands

MyStrands is a Web 2.0 service for music. It allows you to scrobble yourself so that you friends know the songs what you’re listening to. It’s not only that, you can get recommendations based on the music that you listen. You can also find other people that have the same “music taste” as you.

continue s60tips.com