Microsoft have been spilling more details on Windows Mobile 6.5, including screenshots of a newly-refreshed GUI and a long list of over 25 companies signed up to produce content, software and generally lend a hand. Among the fray will be an official Facebook application – complete with direct photo and video uploads – launched in April, together with games from EA Mobile and Gameloft. Microsoft have also tweaked the contentious developer policies making issuing updates less expensive.
What isn’t on Facebook these days? Well, it looks like now you can let your friends know what movies you’ve rented and watched too with the Netflix Updates application for Facebook. It’s a simple way to let people know one more thing about your personal life.
Flash-fiddlers and optical-recognition lovers Squidder have been showing off two new systems that tie augmented reality into Twitter and other social networking systems. Their first project is a t-shirt with a FLAR barcode that, when recognized by a webcam-enabled computer, pulls up the encoded Twitter username and displays their latest tweet as a video overlay. The second task, meanwhile, is cutting out the barcode and having the system recognize users by face.
Video demos after the cut
Nokia are considering a partnership with Facebook that would see the social networking site integrated with certain handsets in the company’s range. According to “people familiar with the matter”, the two companies are in the midst of negotiations over how the setup might work, including which handsets would offer Facebook integration, and in what way. One possibility is that Facebook’s contact information would be linked to a Nokia user’s handset contacts, with synchronization between the two and status updates from the online system displayed on the phone.
However Nokia is also apparently considering bypassing Facebook and setting up their own social network. This would have the benefit of removing negotiations with a third-party and giving the company full control of the system, but it would also mean Nokia would have to build the network from scratch (unless of course they bought out a smaller, existing social network).
The iPhone’s gaming talents have come in for some attention recently, with Apple’s attempts to ramp up the smartphone’s reputation as a mobile games platform seemingly beginning to pay off. According to comScore, iPhone owners accounted for a full 14-percent of mobile game downloads in November 2008, with 32.4-percent of all iPhone users reporting they downloaded a game in the month, compared with a market average of just 3.8-percent.
With all the furore over the Palm Pre this past week, many have forgotten that it will come up against another QWERTY-equipped, sliding touchscreen smartphone when it launches in the first half of 2009. The Nokia N97 made a discrete showing at CES, bearing a newer (though still nowhere near final) software build than the version we last saw, and SlashGear sat down with the handset to find out some more details. After the cut, we talk Facebook, widgets and design decisions.
Today at CES we got the chance to play around with the new social networking based INQ1 handset. This phone takes all of your social networking fronts such as Facebook, Skype, Windows Live Messenger and MySpace and fully integrates them with the phone so there is no need to download a single application.
For those of us who would like to have all of our instant messaging services open but do not like having all the windows open and do not want to download yet another application, Meebo is the perfect web-based instant messaging service.
UK carrier 3 has finally taken the wraps off of its Facebook cellphone, the INQ1, an HSDPA slider with a 3.2-megapixel camera. The Facebook phone has a new application offering what’s said to be the most social networking functionality of any Facebook software to date. Electricpig spent some hands-on time with the handset, and while as a phone it’s not all that inspiring, the Facebook app really is decent.
UK carrier Three have begun a teaser campaign for what they’re calling a “revolution” in mobile Facebook access. Set to be announced on November 13th, Three believe the new handset “will change the way you use Facebook on your phone”; however they give no other details.
SlashGear Japan
