Today, Nokia announced that it has completed its offer to acquire Symbian Limited. All conditions have been satisfied and Nokia has received valid acceptance of greater than 99.9% of the total Symbian shares that the Finnish giant did not already own.

The closing of the offer is a fundamental step in the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, announced on June 24, 2008 by Nokia along with AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, ST-NXP Wireless, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.

All Symbian employees will become Nokia employees on February 1, 2009.

If you’re a webmaster and have a Symbian S60 smartphone, you certainly wanted to have an HTML editing app. This must be especially true if you own one of the QWERTY keyboard equipped smartphones like the Nokia E71 or E90 Communicator. Well, now you can do it thanks to the S60 HTML Editor.

Don’t expect the full WYSIWYG editing, though, rather S60 HTML Editor is an old-school kind of HTML editor which allows fast and easy insertation of HTML tags and entities in files, but that’s still something. At least I don’t need anything else. Actually, I do need a preview function, which unfortunately doesn’t exist in S60 HTML Editor. Guess that’s something they’ll add in the future releases.

Anyway, the application is free and you can download it from here. However, you must have Python for S60 installed, as well as the appuifw2 extension module.

At the moment, S60 HTML Editor is deployed as a single Python script, which you should put in the folder “!:Python” on your device. Once you done that, start Python interpreter and run it from there.

[Via: SymbianFreak]

We all know about the Facebook apps readily available for the iPhone and BlackBerry… But what if you’re running another device and simply need that Facebook fix? No need to pout, as today Emoze announced the availability of a new Facebook messaging support for Symbian devices.

The new offering will allow you to read, reply and send messages. It will even auto-populate your friends list for you. If you’re on a Symbian powered device and want to get on this, head on over to emoze.com from your device for full details. Emoze will also have the Windows Mobile and Java clients available at some point this week. That should make just about everyone happy, should it not?

I will keep my eyes open for the Win-Mo and Java version as soon as they become available. Until they arrive, may the Symbian-powered Facebook addicts enjoy themselves more than ever, wasting time away on that beautiful productivity killer we know and love as Facebook.

For more info read the press release from Emoze.

Note: Had to add here… of all the Mobile Facebook apps I’ve tried thus far, the Facebook for iPhone app is killer. I don’t even know where to start… But if you’re a fan of Facebook, and you have an iPhone, you’re going to want to get it. It’s free, and you can download it right here (iTunes link alert).

[Via: BGR]

The bare fact that some markets (U.S. among others) still wait to get the first units of the N85 doesn’t stop Nokia from preparing the first firmware update for their OLED screen-equipped slider. According to always highly informed Symbian Freak, which is the best source when it comes to new firmware releases for Nokia smartphones, the Finnish giant already has the new firmware at the Nokia service points and will be releasing to the general public in the next few days.

The change log for the software release 11.047 reveals a bunch of bug fixes:

• Characters in memory card not-present prompt note are not localized
• Headset - volume-adjustment is not working properly
• Video disturb happened, once some other event happened during video play on full screen
• Bluetooth name cannot be defined in camera application
• “Video call” is shown in Options when highlighting a contact in Space UI.
• Not detecting always wall charger -> Not charging
• 2G cannot connect to GPRS service in some cities in China
• Non-stop Music Player “Library update”
• FMTX: The audio is routed to DUT speaker after receiving a message when FM transmitter is transmitting audio.
• Predefined contacts does not support Chinese characters
• APN setting for Vodafone Mobile connect “Prompt Password is set to Yes”
• Audio > downlink quality improved
• Some of the S60 key presses are not registered by device
• Network level icon is not shown during VT call
• ITU is not responding when MO is done where slide is closed and opened when call is established
• Long press of Media keys prev/next not working correctly for local videos
• DTMF tones sent from prepaid line to *700 (or *500) are not received by NW
• OFR_opo-up at boot about positioning
• Orange enterprises APN is used by default in the email Wizard
• Podcast: messed up characters
• All key presses are not registered by device
• GSM/WCDMA - OTC - NW lost after handover with open data connection
• general instability, improved
• Headset - volume-adjustment is not working properly
• Battery KPI: Battery stand by measurement is too high
• CSD - Data transmission breaks on HSCSD calls
• [DRM Free][ID_MUP_FreeFTMD_102] Mp4AacM4A file cannot be played by the device (34047)
• Some KPI - Results are out of range.
• FTP: Speed download to low
• [TPRO] Wap Live browsing : Access Time to the Home page is too long (34970)
• 3G Network lost forever after cell reselection from 3G > 2G with an active PDP context
• VARIANT - Operator RSK (live! icon) appears too small and distorted when in landscape in mode (VCP)

As always, we advise keeping your device up to date. Hence, as soon as you notice a new firmware being available through Nokia PC Suite, hit the “update” button and fix all of the mentioned bugs…

[Via: SymbianFreak]

Popular geo-mobility social networking platform GyPSii has announced support for the latest Nokia’s touchscreen-enabled wonder - 5800 XpressMusic. According to GyPSii’s official release, they are the first location-based social networking application that works on the Tube.

GyPSii members can uniquely experience a broad range of location-specific functions and mobile lifestyle services - including user generated content, content-sharing, mobile geolocation content search and social networking, as well the ability to view it all on a map – all within a single user experience. Using GyPSii, members can access and enjoy “real-time” mobile features on their device, such as “Locating Friends” and sharing information on nearby point of interests, including places – restaurants, bars and clubs – contributed by friends and fellow GyPSii members.

GYPSii is available for download on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic via “Download!” icon.

Remember that cool version of the Nokia N96 with tiny nunchucks? I’m talking about the special Bruce Lee edition of the N96.

Along with the new device edition, Nokia also prepare a viral video to promote the new offering. A short video features the man himself, Bruce Lee, lighting matches with nothing but his nunchucks. Awesome!!! Enjoy it!

Epocware is out with the advanced version of their Handy Alarm app for Symbian S60-based smartphones. The new Handy Alarm Pro builds on top of Epocware’s earlier product, adding six types of alarms and five kinds of reminders supplemented with multiple-setting configurations and options to make all possible alarm features available on the phone.

From the press release:

Handy Alarm Pro provides user-friendly interface with intuitive control, making multiple options and alarm settings available at a glance. For every user’s need, alarms can be set to ring once, daily, weekly or monthly, as well as fixed to ring only on working days. The user can choose an alarm song and vibration for each alarm and reminder, and a text note may be added to any alarm or reminder.

All alarms and reminders include advanced snooze capabilities, and users can set different ring tones, volume and vibration for every single alarm and reminder…

Enough said. More information is available on Epocware’s website from where you can also purchase Handy Alarm Pro for $19.95.

When it comes to watching streaming videos and other media on your mobile phone, there really aren’t that many options out there. Sure, you could use Flash lite with a compatible browser, but laggy, choppy video streams are anything but ideal. For many, the Skyfire mobile web browser is arguably the best mobile web browser that can stream embedded videos. Indeed, Skyfire is the only web browser to feature built-in support for Flash and Silverligth, making it the mobile browser of choice for streaming media junkies.

Today, Skyfire is opening the doors to its Skyfire browser to the world. Previous versions of Skyfire required a US-based phone number in order to register a handset for use with the browser, and recently started accepting Canadian users. With Skyfire’s new Skyfire v0.85, the company is hitting the global stage. Skyfire is now officially being offered in the UK, and Skyfire v0.85 is available for direct download to anyone with the know-how to sideload the application to their smartphone. Additionally, Skyfire no longer requires registration.

The Skyfire v0.85 release updates the Symbian and Windows Mobile clients, bringing with it “Client/Server performance enhancements” and new UK proxy servers to speed up web-page access for UK customers. And, since anyone can download the new client and install it to their Windows Mobile or Symbian smartphone, Skyfire is somewhat unofficially available globally.

Grab Skyfire here.

[Via: MobileCrunch]

Nokia seems to be gearing toward the E75 launch, as we have more photos of the device caught in the wild. The both numeric keypad and slide-out QWERTY keyboard equipped Symbian S60 smartphone looks more real than ever and we’re hoping the Finnish giant will pull the “launch trigger” in the coming days or weeks.

Specs wise, there’s a 2.4-inch QVGA screen and we guess Wi-Fi connectivity, 3G (HSDPA) and aGPS. In addition, it seems this baby will run the S60 3rd edition Feature Pack 2, rather than FP1 which is used in the E71 model. We’ve no details on battery life, but we’re certainly keeping our fingers crossed they will use the same kind of battery that is used in the mentioned E71. Finally, we’re also clueless when it comes to camera. My bet is 3.2 megapixels, though I’m hoping for more…

Nokia, it’s about time to launch the damn thing. C’mon folks get on with it.

[Via: Boy Genius Report]

Digia’s @Web isn’t the only Webkit-based browser available for Symbian UIQ3 touchscreen-enabled smartphones any more. Ozone is joining the party and is apparently even faster than Digia’s app.

According to Ozone folks, Engadget takes 40 seconds to load on Ozone, while @Web needs 117 seconds, and Opera Mobile 123 seconds. That’s something, right?

Feature wise, the web browser supports zooming and panning by finger, multiple windows (tabs), pop-up blocking, URL auto-complete, desktop/mobile mode switch, netscape scriptable plugin, HTML5 client-side database. As for the HTML compatibility, Ozone scored 94/100 on Acid3 test, and has a 99.8% jQuery pass rate (2 tests of 1271 failed).

Best of all, it’s free. Ozone works on all Sony Ericsson Symbian UIQ3 based smartphones and you can download it from here.

[Via: UIQblog]