What sucks about today’s GPR positioning technology is that it really just works outdoors. Sometimes, we feel the need to go into a more “macro” level of positioning especially when we’re inside a mall or a huge office building that’s unfamiliar to us and we need to find the nearest bathroom for that !!! huge emergency !!!.

Nokia has been working on a triangulating technology that uses WLAN to find your mobile phone and project you in relartion to everything else in the building:

The mobile uses the buildings’ WLAN infrastructure to triangulate your position and then indicates where you are on a building map. Nokia prototypes today can show your location – building section and floor level. They allow you to browse the building, find points of interest and you can even share your position with the people you choose, when you want. Today Nokia has Indoor Positioning trials ongoing within 40 buildings worldwide.[Nokia]

So it isn’t just bathrooms – it’s everything and to be honest I feel that this is more useful than the “macro” GPS technology. Now if only malls and establishments could have a standard to use to allow this system to scale, wow.

[Photo c/o Nokia]

Post from: Cellphone9

We got to play with an N78 in the wild last night courtesy of Nokia, and I took some photos.

Beneath its smooth, clean surface, the Nokia N78 is the first Nseries phone to boast a built in FM transmitter. This is pure genius. In the history of staple hardware built into mobile phones, the camera and the music player are mainstays in what we consider to be “mobile phones.”

Shouldn’t all music phones have an FM transmitter built in? This is tons useful for podcast and music junkies who want to listen to their music in the car. Look: It costs an extra USD $50.00 to buy an FM transmitter for your iPod. It comes built in when you buy an N78. This makes perfect sense. The only concern would be battery life considerations as FM transmitters do suck up a lot of power from the music source.

But that’s why you have plugs.

The N78 is kick ass. Ever since Nokia revamped their Internet services and initiated a software update to their S60 platform it became so much easier to subscribe and download RSS feeds for videos and podcasts. Adding the FM transmitter function makes this device shine while listening to audio in the car.

It’s a phone that could very well replace my N82 as it has everything sans the Xenon flash. Here is a rundown of the other great features

802.11g WiFi
GPS
70 MB internal memory // 96 MB SDRAM memory
HSDPA 3.5G connectivity
3.5mm audio jack
3.15 MP Carl Zeiss Camera

Post from: Cellphone9

You know, Nokia only needs to have one or two kick ass titles to make their new N-Gage gaming platform work. In the past we’ve seen how far teh platform was pushed with mobile version of Medal of Honor for the second generation N-Gage and while we were impressed, it still wasn’t very playable.

Well hopefully Nokia has learned from this and they’re now bringing in playable titles that will hopefully create a following in their new mobile gaming platform. Yes we’re talking about Metal Gear Solid.

The new version of the classic game features original content that can only be found on the mobile platform. METAL GEAR SOLID(R) MOBILE includes never-before-seen dramatic 3D art displays and camera work. The detailed in-game graphics capture the atmosphere of the METAL GEAR SOLID(R) series and create a depth that completely draws the player into the game, and pushes the capabilities of the mobile platform.

Players face the extreme tension of solitary infiltration in this version of the tactical espionage action game developed in conjunction with Ideaworks3D and utilizing its Airplay 3.5 SDK. An in-game camouflage system utilizes colour samples from the scenery of the real world captured by the handset’s camera. Moreover, additional controls are introduced that are made especially for mobile devices.

[PR Newswire Release]

You know what? This sounds promising. And we’re glad we don’t need a specific phone to play this game. It will run on any Nokia phone that supports the N-gage platform.

Image taken with permission from Nokia

Post from: Cellphone9