Author: Jon Edwards

Nokia today took the wraps of its most strategically important product designed to take on the iPhone and Blackberry in the smartphone market, the unibody Nokia N8. The N8 is the first Nokia phone to run Symbian 3 software and won’t ship until the third quarter. Features of the $493 device aren’t bad – a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon Flash, a 3.5-inch HD touchscreen and HD video capture along with video editing tools. Symbian 3 offers support for gestures such as multi touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom. The Nokia N8 also offers multiple, personalizable homescreens…

The jury is out, the app has been submitted. WiFiSync lets you sync your iPhone or iPod touch wirelessly. We’d love to see it win approval from the App Store team, it seems the software’s to be submitted this week. We’d be surprised if Apple allows it through….

Spotify has introduced a host of new social networking features and moved to protect itself against rumored future iTunes features. Spotify’s new library feature lets users store music collections on Spotify, simply by importing any MP3 on your drive to the Spotify library. While this doesn’t mean your tracks are uploaded to the service, it does mean you end up being able to access it using any Spotify-compatible device – leave your tracks at home. Built on the back of Facebook Connect, Spotify users will now be able to connect to their Facebook page and import friends from their profile who…

The big story continues to be Gizmodo’s iPhone 4 revelations, and a police raid in which editor, Jason Chen’s computers were seized and his house searched. At issue here could be the rights of journalists to report the story they have in their hands, as corporate America continues its attempt to define bloggers as not being journalists, while offering recognition as journalists only to those writers who are connected to big name corporate media brands. California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team seized four computers and two servers from the editor’s house. They did so using a…

Some may affectionately know LinkedIn as “Facebook for suits” in some quarters, but somehow the service has managed to keep growing within its business and professionally-focused segment. Now the social service has introduced a bevy of new sharing features for users. LinkedIn is likely aiming to ensure its users can now use the service to share news and information pertinent to their business interests, just like Facebook, though perhaps a little easier to explain to the boss. After all, it is business-related… Eight in all, the new features include the addition of image and article…

Soon you too could be sending or receiving unsolicited messages via Bluetooth from up to 65-metres (200-feet) or more away, as the new Bluetooth 4.0 standard has been finalised. Now we know manufacturers haven’t exactly rushed to launch Bluetooth 3.0 devices, but the new standard may interest some, with its low-energy mode and boosted range, up from 30-feet to 200-feet. Realistically, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) maintain the new standard will be of use to manufacturers of small devices, such as watches or remote controls, and to those creating network equipment. “Bluetooth…

He may have predicted that Apple’s iPad would ‘rule the world’, but the man who invented the notebook concept isn’t happy with Steve Jobs at the moment. Alan Kay is one of the great heroes of the technological revolution we’re still experiencing today. So much so that when Apple introduced the iPad, Jobs took pains to send Kay one as a personal gift. But it isn’t the product that Kay has a problem with – it’s Apple’s determination to control what developers do with it. Apple last week changed the terms of its deal with developers, introducing new clauses which forbid iPhone apps from…

Adobe has ceased development of its tools to export Flash content into a format suitable for the iPhone. “We will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5,” said Adobe’s Mike Chambers. “However, we are not currently planning any additional investments in that feature.” Apple CEO Steve Jobs has previously slammed Adobe as “lazy” and Flash as unsuitable for use on mobile devices. Apple has not enabled Flash playback on the iPhone, pushing the open HTML 5 standard instead. Adobe’s announced cessation of development follows Apple’s decision…

No self-respecting Internet user can possibly have missed the many and varied Hitler parodies based on scenes from Constantin Films’ 2004 film, Der Untergang (“Downfall”). They’ve been everywhere, with one particularly hilarious example depicting the defeated German leader’s reaction on hearing the iPod touch lacks a camera. Now they’re gone. YouTube has begun removing videos that feature content from the movie because Constantin Films has suddenly decided to use Google’s Content I.D. system to take down the clips. Which is strange, as these things have been flying around the…

Welcome to Wauconda, Washington, a small town that sold for $360,000 on eBay this week – a bargain if you’re looking for a chance to own a district. Wauconda is 25 minutes from the Canadian border and sits on Highway 20. The new owners, Maddie and Neal Love, got: a restaurant, store, gas station, a four-bedroom house and a zip code after a month long bidding war. Interestingly, the town is also known to host a couple of ghosts, including the spirit of a young Indian fighter. The Loves are both unemployed and are selling their home and all their possessions to buy the town and move there. The deal is expected…