Outdoors enthusiasts can now get detailed off-road ViewRanger mapping and navigation software for the NokiaN95 GPS-equipped smartphone.

ViewRanger GPS software is specifically designed for off-road users, such as hill walkers, mountain bikers, birdwatchers and ramblers. It provides high quality multi-scale mapping, using maps of Great Britain licensed from Ordnance Survey . Journey recording, performance monitoring and buddy location applications are also included in the software.

ViewRanger offers off-roaders a combination of 2D and 3D mapping, with a 3D Panoramic Viewpoint display that identifies features in the landscape. It has information logging software, and users can add their own waypoints, tracks and routes. It can also work with PC applications like Google Earth .

The ViewRanger package provides TripView journey logging and performance analysis software. ViewRanger also has a Beacon Buddy function that can transmit users’ location information to friends’ mobiles or PCs. Users can share information about locations or transmit photos over-the-air via the ViewRanger Information Exchange community site.

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It was only a few weeks ago when I was lamenting about the lack of smart syncing between the Nokia N95 phone and Mac desktop. Even though Nokia offers Nokia Music Manager, it is hardly a software you can recommend to people addicted to the iTunes’ easy music and photo syncing. It only syncs music, and it a bit difficult to work with, one of the reasons I have stopped using it after trying it out.

Nevertheless, a source of ours tells us that Nokia is about to release an upgrade to this software - the Nokia Media Manager - which will allow two-way syncing of not only music, but more importantly, photos. In other words, all the snaps you took on your Nokia N95 can now be simply synced with iPhoto. While I have not used the software so far, our source says it is a definite improvement over the previous version. The software, apparently will support most of the new N-Series phones.

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Britain’s Carphone Warehouse has started sales of a black fashion phone model from the world’s top cell phone maker Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile , Research) which has not yet been unveiled by the Finnish company.

The mobile retailer’s Internet sales site on Monday advertised the Nokia 8600 — similar to Nokia’s strong-selling top-of-the-range 8800 — and said it will come with a 2 megapixel camera, music player and FM radio, in a stainless steel casing.

The Web site said it was an exclusive offer and that deliveries would start next week.

The Nokia N91 is the third N-Series phone to be released, and is designed to be a combined phone & music player.

The unique selling point of the N91 is that it is the first Nokia phone to be equipped with a hard drive. The hard drive offers 4 Gbytes of storage - enough to compete with the Ipod Nano and sufficient to store more than 1,000 songs. This may really be the first phone that can rival an iPod for music capabilities.

Nokia have given careful thought to making the music player an integral part of the device, not just an add-on feature. The music player supports a wide range of formats, including MP3, AAC and AAC+. Playlist management is easy. There’s a dedicated music key for switching between the music player and other applications, and volume controls for the music player. Music pauses when a call is answered, then continues after the call. Audio quality, as you’d expect, is very high. Output is stereo of course, and the player is equipped with an 8-band equalizer. You can listen to music on the Nokia headset (supplied) or your own headphones via the 3.5mm audio jack, or connect the phone to external speakers. In addition to the music player, the N91 comes with an FM stereo radio with Visual Radio.

As well as being a superb music playing device, the N91 is an all-round multimedia wizard. The camera is excellent, with a 2 megapixel still camera plus a video recorder. The camera lacks the Carl-Zeiss lens features on the Nokia N90, and is also missing a flash, so if photography is your priority, then the N90 is a better choice. The display is high quality: 262,000 colours and high-resolution (176 x 208 pixels). The N91 is a 3G smartphone, so is capable of video calls, streaming video and fast data transfer, and it supports a wide range of third-party Symbian and Java applications.

Features of the Nokia N90 include:

• 3G smartphone (Symbian 60 operating system)
• 2 megapixel camera with 20x digital zoom
• Video recorder (MPEG 4; also supports playback in 3GPP)
• Display: 262k colours, 176 x 208 pixels
• Music player (supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, Real, WAV, WMA, M4A, AMR-WB, True Tones, AMR-NB formats)
• Visual Radio
• Voice recorder
• Integrated handsfree speaker
• Polyphonic ringtones, True Tones
• Voice dialling & voice controls
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email
• Compatible with Nokia Wireless Keyboard (sold separately)
• Java applications
• Advanced personal organiser features for S60 including calendar, contacts and to-do list
• XHTML web browser
• Memory: 4 Gbyte hard drive
• WAP, EDGE (236.8 kbps), WCDMA (384 kbps)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 1.2, USB 2.0, WLAN 802.11b/g
• Triband plus 3G
• Size: 113 x 55 x 22 mm
• Weight: 164 g
• Talktime: 3- 4 hours
• Battery standby: 170 - 190 hours
• Music playback: up to 10 hours battery life

Samsung Electronics will start supplying liquid crystal display screens to Nokia, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones.Samsung will start selling them as early as the second half of this year and is expected to initially provide more than 20 million units a year, the Electronic Times said, citing an unidentified Samsung official.

Last year alone, Samsung sold 92 million small-sized LCDs. Under the new deal, Samsung may increase its annual output by an additional 50 million units, the report said.

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With many more cell phones coming in loaded with various applications to make your life easier here is another one of a phenomenon application.
Most of the people would have experienced the heavy audible interference in the TV or radio when a thunderstorms is approaching. Well, the science behind this is being used by Nokia to create a lightning detector device. The device being none other than the ubiquitous mobile phone.
The lightning strike disturbs a range of commercial frequencies (attributed to the EMI pulse) and Nokia intends to detect this interference in FM channel and warn users visually and/or audibly.
Nokia has applied for a patent for this invention back in late 2005. Since this does not require much hardware changes in new mobile phones to support this function we should see it in the market soon.

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