Wireless Archive

It's no secret that the webOS is no speed demon. Sure, it has the most elegant multitasking interface (the fact that it multitasks at all means it bests both Android and iOS), but it's not exactly fast. This is all going to change. Palm held its Developer Day in New York this weekend, and unveiled its new application development framework, set to replace the current Mojo framework. Not only will this new framework, named Enyo, be a lot faster than Mojo, it will also be designed around multiple display resolutions.

Well, this is fascinating. There have been rumours going around for a while now that Apple is working with Gemalto on an integrated sim card, allowing customers to choose their own carrier and then activate the phone through Apple. European mobile phone carriers aren't particularly pleased with this.

"Ah, JooJoo, we hardly knew ye. That 0.2.4 firmware update did a number on your speed woes, but alas, it wasn't enough. Fusion Garage founder Chandrashekar Rathakrishnan told e27 that the tablet didn't meet sales expectations and that, despite his rant against the iPad business model, people apparently do want those 'non-web experiences', in his words. But like all good soap operas, this one still goes on: Rathakrishnan confirmed the company is still going, meaning there's at least one new project in the pipeline, and yes, there's also still a lawsuit that'll stay alive and kicking."

Symbian has had a bit of a string of bad news lately, but starting today, things might just start looking up again. Major changes have been announced with regards to the Symbian Foundation and Nokia's involvement with the platform, which all basically come down to this: Nokia is taking over development of the platform, while the Foundation focusses on licensing.

"Under an initiative sponsored by the European Commission, the Symbian platform was this week endorsed by the Artemis Joint Technology Initiative and specifically identified as a unique technology that is a vital focus for European-centric mobile software development. As a result, a total investment of over EUR 22 million has been committed to the development of next generation technologies for the Symbian platform. This development project is being led by the Symbian Foundation as part of a consortium of major European technology organisations. The consortium is made up of 24 organisations from 8 European countries, comprising major mobile device manufacturers, hardware and service integration professional services, major consumer electronics companies, mobile network operators, application developers, universities and research institutions."

MIPS Technologies has said it will put its processor architecture in tablets and smartphones as it prepares to duel rivals Arm and Intel in those fast-growing markets. In September, MIPS released the MIPS32 1074K family of application processors, which it hopes to push into mobile devices. The 1074K is scalable up to 1.5GHz and is capable of multithreading, which the company claims will give it a leg up on Arm processors.

"Today we are announcing the project release of MeeGo 1.1. It provides a solid baseline for device vendors and developers to start creating software for various device categories on Intel Atom and ARMv7 architectures."

Nokia has just announced the availability of the PR 1.3 update of its Maemo 5 OS. This is apparently the last update of the Maemo 5 OS before the Meego Handset UX release. "The update adds Ovi Suite support to your N900 and makes it even easier to access and sync files and messages between your device and your desktop. In addition, we've added hundreds of tweaks and fixes that will make your N900 run faster and smoother than ever."

Remember those crazy people who said the PlayBook didn't exist? Well, RIM demoed its PlayBook live on stage today at the Adobe Air Max conference. Why this conference? Well, the entire user interface of the PlayBook and the QNX-based operating system it runs is written in Adobe AIR - and AIR is also the developer framework for third party applications.

HP has finally officially unveiled its Slate 500 tablet, a tablet which was supposed to be the Frankenfruity but ended up cancelled, and then resurrected as a corporate thing with a digitiser for text input. Yeah yeah, it looks like pretty decent hardware, but please put some ARM stuff in there, put webOS on it, and then we'll talk, HP. Until then - toodles!

Nokia. The smartphone business is booming, and yet, the Finnish company - the quintessential phone maker - is getting pretty much none of the glitz and glamour. Their latest the device, the Nokia N8, is supposed to turn the tide, and Engadget has a thorough review of the device. Conclusion? It's getting repetitive, but hardware - awesome, software - not so much.

More mobile phone news! Rumours of an upcoming Palm Pre 2 have been swirling for a while, but now a French carrier has jumped the gun and spilled all the beans. Clearly a transitional device to bridge the gap between the first true HP devices, the devices updates and streamlines the Palm Pre Plus with an updated case, display, and internals. Also, it will pack webOS 2.0.

As the third high-profile departure at Nokia in recent months Ari Jaaksi, vice president of MeeGo devices and operations, who had worked at the company since 1998, told Finnish newspaper Talous Sanomat that he resigned from Nokia last week. According to Nokia Communications Manager Tapani Kaskinen the departure will not affect MeeGo's development schedule. Nevertheless the news cast doubts on whether we'll see a MeeGo-based device from Nokia before the end of 2010.

We've got some good news for Symbian, and we've got some bad news. We already had Sony Ericsson abandoning the Symbian platform, but today Samsung joined them in leaving Symbian behind. The good news is that Nokia has released some figures on downloads from its Ovi Store, and it ain't that bad, actually.