Nokia 9300 announced

Nokia has today announced the Nokia 9300, a smartphone for business professionals. We noted rumors of the 9300 two weeks ago. It's a Series 80 device and runs on the Symbian 7 OS. All apps that work with the Communicator 9500 will work with the 9300. Features of the Nokia 9300 include:

• Full QWERTY keyboard (when device is opened)
• 65,536 color screen
• Bluetooth
• 80 MB of built in storage, up to 2GB with MMC card
• BlackBerry Connect support
• 5 party calling with speakerphone
• EDGE high-speed data
• Built-in office applications supporting documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and a PDF viewer
• MP3 player

Look for the Nokia 9300 starting in the first quarter of 2005. Pricing is unannounced but is said to be between $785 to $845 without a carrier subsidy. A version will be available for the North American market (GSM850/1800/1900 MHz).

Nokia Communicator now ships with antivirus

FB-4 today announced that its Symbian based Virus Guard will be included on all Nokia Communicator 9300 and 9500 devices sold in North America. Virus Guard is Symbian certified, and is also available on Series 60 and UIQ Symbian devices.

The application receives virus updates completely wirelessly through FB-4's over-the-air distribution network, removing the hassle of updating. Virus Guard will be preloaded on the memory cards supplied with the Communicator phones.

The Nokia 9500 Communicator with FB-4 Virus Guard will be available in the Americas in the first quarter of 2005.

Nokia Communicator 9300 rumor swirls

Rumors are currently Making the rounds that Nokia will launch a slimmed down Comunicator 9500 dubbed the Nokia Communicator 9300.

There may be some truth to the rumor as it notes the phone will be launched on September 8th in New York City. Typically such specific information is not given without a good reason... We'll keep you posted. A photo supposedly of the new device follows after the jump.

YouTube videos coming to Nokia N-Series handsets

3GSM World Congress -- Nokia has inked a deal with YouTube to bring the popular video sharing website's videos to users of Nokia's N-Series handsets. The videos will be accessible through Nokia Mini Map Browser and a soon-to-launch mobilized version of YouTube. YouTube's main site uses Flash video but the new mobile site will utiliz H.264/ AVC

"We are thrilled to be giving users easy access to entertaining YouTube videos anytime and anywhere. By partnering with an industry leader like Nokia, we're able to bring YouTube videos to mobile phone users worldwide," said Steve Chen, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer for YouTube.

Interestingly enough, Adobe announced earlier today that the next version of Flash Lite will support Flash Video.

Nokia E65 announced

3GSM World Congress -- The Nokia E65 is a new model in the business oriented Nokia E-Series. The E65 packs business features into a slim 15mm package. The slide-style handset

• Quad band GSM plus WCDMA 2100
• WiFi, Bluetooth and IR
• QVGA screen with 16m colors
• 2 megapixel camera
• microSD card slot
• One Touch key for easy access to business apps

The Nokia E65 is already shipping in select markets and will expand globally later in the quarter. The unsubsidized price is 400 euro.

Nokia E61i announced

3GSM World Congress -- The Nokia E61i was the third new E-Series handset announced at 3GSM this year (see Nokia E65 and Nokia E90 Comunicator for more info on the other handsets). The E-Series is Nokia's business targeted handset vertical and the phones ship with more mobile email and productivity apps than the multimedia-centric N-Series. The E61i is an update to the E61, a"BlackBerry Killer" that was announced back in October 2005.

Features of the E61i include:

• Quad band GSM, WCDMA 2100 and WiFi (WLAN)
• Updated keyboard with One Touch key
• Advanced attachment handling with on-device editing
• Corporate email support for Intellisync, Good, Exchange, Seven and BlackBerry Connect
• 2 megapixel camera
• Music and video player

Nokia will begin shipping the E61i in the second quarter of 2007. Without a subsidy it will run around 400 euro.

Motorola W510 announced

3GSM World Congress -- The Motorola W510 builds on styling cues from the KRZR, but offers a slightly tweaked feature set.

Features of the handset include:

• Quad band GSM plus EDGE
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• microSD card slot
• Stereo Bluetooth
• peaker independent voice recognition

Motorola expects to begin shipping the W510 later in the first quarter. Carriers were not announced. The W205 and W215 are two more new models in the W series. All should come in at a competitive price point.

Motorola W205 announced

3GSM World Congress -- The Motorola W205 is a new consumer focused handset with only basic features. It's not as low-end as the FONE, but the feature list reads more like 2003 than the current day.

• Quad band GSM
• 128×128 65k color CSTN screen
• Speakerphone
• Memory for 750 SMS messages

Motorola will begin shipping the W205 phone in the first quarter. Pricing was not announced but should be low. Also announced in the W series were the W510 and W215.

Signalling By Satellite : The Orbiting Reflector

To send a radio beam in a truly straight line across the Atlantic would need incredibly high masts; as it was Marconi had trouble building a mast 60 metres high for his first transatlantic transmission. In the end, he was able to 'bounce' his signals off the electromagnetic layers of the atmosphere. But this only works for certain wavelengths - and would be impossible on the frequencies used for TV signals, which are not reflected back to earth under normal conditions.

The way around this is to bounce the signals in a more organised way, by using satellites as mirrors out in space. The satellites take in the narrowly beamed signal and then direct it back to Earth - so that anyone with a dish and suitable receiver in the satellite's coverage 'footprint' can receive it.

Signalling By Radio Wave : A Wireless World

When you can't put a wire between two places, you can use wireless. It is possible to send signals through the air, using electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves. Radio can also connect people who are moving around - on a ship, on foot or in a vehicle.

In the right circumstances radio signals can be sent and received across great distances, but the range is not unlimited. Radio waves decline in strength over distance and are subject to interference from other sources.

Directing radio waves accurately is not always feasible; they tend to travel outwards along straight lines from the transmitter and may not follow the curve of the Earth.

Signalling By Electricity : Along A Wire

The first form of modern telecommunication - the electric telegraph - sent electrical currents along wires. That basic technology is still being used today - but in vastly more sophisticated forms.

You can send signals over hundreds or thousands of miles this way - but the range is not unlimited. The electrical resistance of the wire saps signal strength, so that eventually it will be too weak to be picked up at the receiving end.

Getting around this problem means using stronger currents, thicker wires that are more 'conductive' (allow the current to pass more easily), or amplifiers at intervals along the line to boost the signal's strength.

The other limitation with signalling in this way is that you need to put a physical piece of cable between the sender and receiver. That's almost always hard work and expensive - and sometimes impossible. The alternative is to use radio.

Visual signalling : as far as the eye can see

For thousands of years, people have used visual signalling systems such as flags, semaphores, lights, fires, smoke and sunlight reflected by mirrors (the heliograph).

If the signal is big or bright enough it can be seen over 20 miles away - the maximum distance is achieved when both the sender and receiver are standing on tall buildings or hills (the natural curvature of the earth is the limiting factor).

But that is on a clear day. In heavy rain, snow or fog visibility may be restricted to only a few hundred metres. (Messages sent by optical telegraph from Whitehall were often sent by horse to the first station outside London, the visibility in central London was so bad!)

Communicating Over Distance

Over the past 200 years, the distance we've been able to send signals has expanded a million times.

The furthest we used to be able to send a signal was as far as the eye could see, or the ear could hear. So the 'maximum transmission distance' was a few miles.

Now we can send signals to the far reaches of the solar system - many millions of miles. The trouble is that it takes many days or even years to get there...

Signalling By Sound : Within Earshot

Some types of signals are based on making a noise that can be heard a long way off. The air raid sirens of the Second World War were a way of signalling by sound - using a rising and falling siren to tell people that enemy bombers were on the way and a steady note to give the 'All Clear'.

Other types of sound signals include bells, horns, guns, or the tom-tom drums used by tribes in Africa, New Guinea and South America to pass messages.

The trouble with sound signals is that the range is so uncertain. In clear country and with no other background noise, a gun or siren could be heard several miles away. But in a noisy city, with trees or buildings in the way, the sound might not be heard at all.

Communicating Over Distance

Over the past 200 years, the distance we've been able to send signals has expanded a million times.

The furthest we used to be able to send a signal was as far as the eye could see, or the ear could hear. So the 'maximum transmission distance' was a few miles.

Now we can send signals to the far reaches of the solar system - many millions of miles. The trouble is that it takes many days or even years to get there...