SEVENCLICK
Mobile Technology Evangelists

The recent release of Safari 3, has brougth into focus the previous release of its redering engine. None other than Webkit 3, that is the rendering engine of Apple’s Safari, KDE’s Konqueror, Adobe’s AIR, and also has some mobile versions for several very important platforms Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone and Nokia’s S60.

So, it’s a matter of time that mobile implementations include the new features in Webkit 3.

We found a description of ten new things on Webkit3 on SurfinSafari, the official blog of Webkit community. Summarizing, here are the most important:

• SVG support
• Advanced CSS styling.
• XPath support.
• Performance improvements. On page loading, Javascript execution, DOM operations.
• New and improved XML technologies.

For comprehensive information, follow the link to the original post below.

Link SurfinSafari

Sometime ago, in October, we wrote about Microsoft finally announcing the new Office Mobile 6.1 and catching up with itself (Windows Mobile 6.0 and Office 2007 were released at the same time but the users could not share documents between them). Now we have it.

Unfortunately, there is not much new about it. Just to say that Microsoft has launched a website where Office Mobile 6.0 users can download the upgrade pack and start using Office 2007 documents.

This is the dowload page.

Verizon announced yesterdey their plans to start 4G trials next year. To do so, they will team up with Vodafone (Vodafone and Verizon co-owns Verizon Wireless). The chosen technology will be LTE (Long Term Evolution) eventually, standard developed by 3GPP.

Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens, and Nortel.

Verizon Wireless is the first company to launch high-speed wireless broadband service in the United States using CDMA Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) technology. Its data innovation and leadership have been marked by the introduction of new multimedia handsets and innovative applications such as V CAST Music, V CAST Video, VZ Navigator^SM, V CAST games, e-mail, Internet access, and picture and video messaging on a variety of devices, including handsets, PDAs and laptops.

Link Verizon Press Note

Luxury moment of the week!!!. If you are one of the fortunate owners of a Bang & Olufsen Serenata mobile phone, you will probably be interested in the phone case created by Louis Vuitton for this luxury phone.

The price hasn’t been yet defined, but It wil probably be very expensive. Like the phone itself. Anyway, people who owns this kind of devices are not usually worried about money.

Via Slashphone
Link Bang & Olufsen

Standards usually are as controversial as needed. This time the European Union has announced that is working with a industry consortium, including Nokia , in order to give a push to the new mobile TV standard: DVB-H.

This standard will be the only one for mobile television because the EU wants to avoid any possible techology fragmentation that could end in the loss of any competitive advantage. Right now, almost eighteen european countries are testing it, while some others are studying whether start doing it.

Anyway, this standard has been rejected by some countries like Germany, Britain or Netherland who see it as a unnecessary mandatory requirement. So far, this rejection has failed because it lacks the two thirds of the votes needed.

Read the oficial press release here.

Tata Teleservices and Opera have announced an innitiative in order to port its Java based mobile web browser onto Brew-enabled handsets which will be supplied by Huawei.

As Opera claims in the press release, “it is the first delivery of Opera Mini on a BREW-enabled handset and marks Opera’s entry into the vibrant Indian market”.

No doubt this is good news for Opera, since the Indian market is one of the most growing ones all over the world, and the Norwegian company had been not present in this market until now. Moreover, by this agreement they will get a massive deployment on a new platform for them.

Congratulations to Opera!

Via CellularNews
Link OperaPress

Many people is talking about it. In fact it’s really good news. Google has included a new technology called “My Location” – its worst characteristic is undoubtly the name – in the new Google Maps for Mobile 2.0.

Google Maps for Mobile already allowed local searches related to the exactly location of the user. Up to now, this feature was only available in devices with GPS, that was the source of the user’s location data. From now on, Google will not need GPS.

As they stated in the press release, Google has developed algorithms in house in order to get an estimation of user’s location. This algorithms process the data that client application gathers from cell towers. Specifically, they say to be using cell ID.

The reason for introducing this new technology would be that, in Google words, GPS will be present in fewer than 15% of smartphones expected to be sold in 2007. But, in addition to that, we found another more interesting one. Google seems to consider that GPS is too slow and not reliable enough indoors. For sure they think this could ruin user experience and want to overcome it. Moreover, GPS quickly drains phone batteries.

The major drawback of cell ID-based technology is accuracy, much lower than provided by GPS. This is one to consider seriously as this problem would cut down the number of services this technology is suitable for.

Another question is what mobile carriers think about this movement, since Google seems to show the intention of ignoring them. Though, we must remember that Google aims becoming a carrier.

The ‘My Location’ technology is available on most smartphones, including all color BlackBerry devices, all Symbian Series 60 3rd Edition devices, most Windows Mobile devices, newer Sony Ericsson devices, and some Motorola devices.

We will keep track on new releases of Google Maps, as it may show the way to go respecting localization services.

Here’s a video explaining how ‘My Location’ works.

[youtube v6gqipmbcok]

Link GooglePressCenter

Social FM as its name suggests is about people and music.

How does it work? Easy. When you log on to the system, you can stream and listen music from other people while other people do the same. All the content is user-generated.

You can use it with either a desktop client or with Facebook, and now with a mobile client. It is supposed to work with any S60, UIQ and Windows Mobile device but you can check the whole list here.

An interesting use of the system is to have both the desktop and the mobile client on, so if you have a decent network connection you will be able to listen to all of your music without storing it in your device (usually more memory-limited). More over theare more than 100.000 digital radio channels available.

The one year subscription fee is 19.99 $.

Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and chief executive officer, has called it “a transformation point in the 20-year history of mass market wireless devices.”

Well, we’ll see. This statement sounds too serious.

What Verizon Wireless has announced, indeed, is that they will open their network to any device and application which meets a “minimum technical standard” by the end of 2008.

OK. This means that Verizon would accept to become a bitpipe by the end of 2008. But we need to read the small print that describes that “mininum technical standard”. This will come in “early 2008″. Then, we’ll see how much Verizon does open the door.

Via EngadgetMobile

The other day we talked about UK’s first large scale pilot of NFC (Near Field Communications) technology on mobile phones.

The trial of the O2 Wallet paves the way for the mass market use of mobile phones to pay for purchases, access events or even be used as Oyster cards for travel around London, simply by touching the phone to a reader.

The trial, which will involve over 500 people invited from the O2 customer base, takes place across selected sites throughout London and began yesterday running for six months until the end of May 2008. In that way, each trialist will be given a Nokia 6131 NFC handset installed with the O2 Wallet installed.

This Nokia mobile phone, presented in January in CES Las Vegas, includes Near Field Communications (NFC) technology to enable information sharing, service initiation and payment & ticketing capability with one tap of the device. Used in much the same way as existing contactless cards and keytags to allow access and make small payments, the addition of NFC technology to a full featured mobile device adds an entirely new level of capability by leveraging the phone’s computing power, wireless Internet access and user interface.

Its main characteristics are:

• Quad band
• Symbian Series 40 OS
• 2.2” QVGA TFT main display with up to 16.7 million true colors (240 x 320 pixels)
• External cover display 1.36” TFT screen (128 x 160 pixels)
• A built-in digital music player with microSD card support
• FM stereo radio
• 1.3 megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom
• Bluetooth wireless technology
• MIDP 2.0
• Volume: 75 cc
• Weight: 104 g
• Dimensions: 92 x 47 x 20 mm

Nokia press release
Nokia 6131 NFC webpage