Nokia Launches New Phones at Nokia World

Today, at Nokia World, Nokia made the N97 Mini official and launched two new phones – the X6 and the X3.

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO, Nokia, said, “Nokia aims at reaching the many, not the few, with our rich portfolio of services. We are doing this through an increasing number of open partnerships with world leaders in many fields. We are proud to lead the charge in smartphones and beyond as manifested in the Nokia N900 and Nokia Booklet 3G, two great examples of how the world is changing and Nokia is driving this change.”

Nokia also announced lifecasting with Ovi, a partnership with Facebook. Lifecasting with Ovi is the first application to let people publish their location and status updates directly to their Facebook account from the home screen of a mobile device. Lifecasting goes beyond just publishing your status – it is about building deeper and closer connections between people. It triggers new kinds of communication patterns, such as sending messages or status updates or even navigating to a friend or a place.

Lifecasting will premiere on the new Nokia N97 mini, companion to the Nokia N97. Designed with a social and style-conscious consumer in mind, the Nokia N97 mini is a smaller mobile computer with stylish stainless steel cues, featuring a tilting 3.2″ touch display, QWERTY keyboard and fully customizable homescreen.

Lifecasting with Ovi will be available for both the Nokia N97 and Nokia N97 mini via Nokia Beta Labs. The Nokia N97 mini features new software which will be released in October as a free update for the Nokia N97. The new software brings compelling new experiences to both devices, including new homescreen widgets and additional usability improvements including flick scrolling.

The Nokia N97 mini is powered by a new Ovi Maps experience which makes searching, finding and navigating even easier. In addition to global pedestrian navigation, people can access premium content from Lonely Planet, Michelin and Wcities, turning the Nokia N97 mini into the world’s smallest travel companion.

The Nokia N97 mini is expected to begin shipping in October 2009 for an estimated retail price of EUR 450 before taxes and subsidies.

Smartphone, now an investigation device

Smartphones have come a long way from sophisticated handsets with data, video, and voice built in. Today, among other functions, smartphones have become investigative tools as demonstrated by a unique relationship between Sprint and US Investigations Services, Inc. The two companies have teamed up to develop smartphones and applications that help USIS conduct background investigations for the federal government.

USIS is the largest commercial provider of security investigation services to the federal government, a provider of global commercial employment and drug screening solutions, and also a provider of information services to the insurance industry.

Partnering with Sprint, USIS supplies its field staff with Treo PRO by Palm smartphones as part of a program dubbed “iCompass” to increase efficiencies in coordinating case work in a real-time environment.

“Not only does the Treo PRO streamline the investigative work conducted on our current contracts, it lays the groundwork for future opportunities,” says USIS CEO Bill Mixon. “Functions like production control and master scheduling give USIS a tangible advantage when handling its varied contracts. This device provides a single interface for existing case management tools and is scalable for growth.”

With more than 7,000 employees working in all 50 states, U.S. territories and overseas, USIS provides a wide range of comprehensive security-based training, screening, litigation support and information management solutions to government customers. The company says it invests in its workforce and providing employees with the advanced technology and new tools needed to improve performance, including fleet cars, global positioning systems and other productivity tools.

Olive Telecom, TTSL launch 3G embedded Netbook

Olive Telecommunication, the parent company of Haier Mobile and Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), the country’s fastest-growing dual-technology telecom service provider, today announced the launch of India’s first Netbook embedded with high-speed Internet access for mobile Internet connectivity and broadband access.

The Netbook X107H, powered by Qualcomm’s QSC 6085 chipset, would leverage the capabilities of HSIA technology on TTSL’s network to enable users with ‘anywhere, anytime’ broadband connectivity and help them access advanced data applications and services on the move.

The Netbook, which has a 1.6-GHz processor, 1-GB DDR memory and 160-GB 2.5″ HDD storage, would be available at Tata Indicom stores and other retail outlets across the country.

Arun Khanna, chairman, Olive Telecommunication, said, “I am very grateful for the opportunity to be a first mover in a space that will surely heat up in the near future, and thank our technology partner Qualcomm as well as telecom partner TTSL for all their support.”

He further added that they look forward to surprising the Indian consumer with data-enabling devices that will make lives easier and empower greater numbers of Indians to connect to the Net conveniently.

The Netbook is being exclusively offered on India’s best wireless broadband service, Photon Plus by Tata Teleservices Limited.

“The Olive Netbook powered by Tata Photon Plus heralds a new era in versatile computing access, and is in keeping with TTSL’s endeavor to provide affordable and ubiquitously accessible high-speed Internet access,” said Anil Sardana, managing director of Tata Teleservices Limited, said.

Gmail outage challenges Google engineers

A disruption to Google’s Gmail service frustrated users throughout the world Tuesday and flummoxed engineers at the giant internet company.

Google said the problems started early in the morning and were not resolved until approximately 2330 GMT.

The problem prevented users from accessing Google email and stymied customers who use the popular software to sync their information with the Microsoft Outlook email programme.

In Google’s Gmail forum, users claiming to be in Italy, Germany, France and Taiwan, along with users from various states in the US, reported being unable to access Gmail.

The snafu increased concerns about the safety and integrity of online data as more computer users migrate to using popular internet services offered by the likes of Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

Google is the third-most popular online email service in the US after Yahoo and Microsoft’s Hotmail. The service suffered outages in February and previously in April, August and October 2008.