The attack is “invisible” to the user and causes various problems including the phone refusing to accept further SMS messages and general instability. Soft resetting the phone doesn’t help either, though some versions will work again after a factory reset (which means all user data is lost).

The flaw was reported by the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.

The main competitor is Nokia’s S60 (which also sits on top of Symbian) and it looks like the Finns have won the user interface race, though there’s still a chance someone may buy the UIQ unit, though it’s looking unlikely especially as Symbian is being made open source.

Nokia is trying to regain it’s market position in the smartphone/touchscreen market – and their phones run Symbian/S60. They just need to ensure they keep it advanced enough so it can compete with Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s Blackberries.

An application has appeared on the website of dailymobile that looks ever so suspiciously like the idea this hack had for utilising Bluetooth on handsets for the purposes of a Walkie-talkie.

The idea was aired to a few likeminded individuals following on from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group 10th anniversary this year. With even a communiqué passed along to the actual Bluetooth SIG outlining an idea, and who best to contact to progress it further.

The idea first thought up by yours truly, came about from the need of being able to speak to someone over a short distance. All without breaking into the allotted minutes a contract has per month, or running up a bill if a pre-pay contract was in play.

The other useful idea would be to reuse old mobile phones laying around the home, for quick and fast entertainment value for children. Every child likes to play soldiers, with the standard issue military equipment being that of a walkie-talkie.

There was even a thought it could even be useful in the recycling of handsets for emerging markets. With a view to provide mass cheap communications on a large scale, with higher end Class 1 Bluetooth devices.

There’s bound to be a mass of opportunities lying out there yet to be perceived for its uses and functions, far more than already thought of.

This just goes to show great minds think alike, or someone has run off with a great idea and will make a fortune over it. Here’s hoping it’s more of the former, than the latter.

There’s no bitterness that it’s now out there before development could be progressed on this project, with the simple wish that it will be used for the greater good.

Features in this version are along the lines of the ability to make half-duplex calls, by pressing the “Green” key on the application to send a voice message. It looks like many handsets can have this installed, so an army could be raised.

Think towards to the day when Skynet finally takes over and there will be no cell towers; this could be a darn little useful application for your mobile.

See more on the forum posting here for Symbian series 60 handsets.

The Net60 framework, along with Microsoft’s Visual Studio provide you with a powerful platform to develop apps for the S60 platform very easily. The app will be demonstrated at the Show today.

Dusan Babich, CEO of Red Five Labs, said:

We have been building the .NET compact framework for Symbian devices for many years. Symbian developers have never before had such an easy to use, easy to deploy, development experience.

The version 2.0 of Net60  brings:

• .NET Compact Framework 2.0 compatibility (including generics)
• Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 support
• SQLite support with an ADO.NET provider
• A managed namespace providing access to native Symbian APIs (telephony, camera, OpenGL, GPS etc.)

With Net60, developers can run managed WinMo apps on S60 without any changes. The same code and programming environment can be made use of to develop apps for the S60 platform.

As ever, if you are an application developer or just have a application that you want to share with the MIR readers drop me a line (ricky@mobileindustryreview.com)

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Tube

It’s here, folks. Nokia has finally unveiled the first touchscreen Symbian S60 powered music phone, which has been majorly successful to draw all the attention towards it over the past few months, being dubbed simply as the “Tube” throughout its development cycle and even making a quick cameo in ‘The Dark Knight’.

This touchscreen beauty has been launched under the XpressMusic sub-brand of Nokia phones and the company has thoughtfully avoided the N-series branding to it. The phone comes equipped with an astonishing 3.2 inch resistive touchscreen display that does 640 x 360 pixels. At the core, the phone is powered by the Symbian S60 5th Edition. There’s a 3.2 MegaPixel autofocus camera with Carl-Zeiss Optics, something that has now become a standard in most Nokia phones. It also features Bluetooth with A2DP, GPS, Wi-Fi, a microSD card slot with support for 16GB cards and a 3.5mm earphone jack to be used with any ordinary headphones. There might even be a proximity sensor, built on the grounds of Apple’s iPhone.

The phone apparently will be priced around 218 GBP (around $390), unlocked, and will come in shades of black, red and blue. There’s even a complimentary 8GB microSD card thrown in. Expect it to be available somewhere in Q4 2008 with a ‘ComesWithMusic’ edition to be rolled out in 2009.

What’s new in 1.5?

1. Import and manage digital media from any device such as S60 phone, digital camera, memory stuck and even HDDs.The application also sports the ability to convert your media into the proper format so that it is correctly supported on your phone.

2. Viewing of the Geotagged photos and videos in the integrated map view.

3. Ovi support

As usual, it is a beta release, and may have some unwanted behavior. It is available for download here.

Mr Symbian himself, Rafe Blandford, had the gossip a few months back — but Ben is seriously impressed.

I asked him to give the Samsung a sex factor where the iPhone is a good 9 out of 10.

12.

That was Ben’s response.

He’s not used the device in anger as yet. But get a load of this:

- 8GB memory (expandable for 20 quid to 16GB)
- 8 megapixel camera
- A-GPS
- 3G/WiFi
- Slider form factor

And free for £35 on Orange.

I’ll need to take a look…

Here’s the Carphone Warehouse product page.

Strike it from your memory. Screw it, with bells on.

You can’t actually get the beta, if you’re in the UK, Europe or anywhere other than America. Which is one of the dumbest things that Skyfire has dreamed up. In the email I received from their truly efficient PR, there was a note about a text message being sent to American numbers only. I didn’t dream think that this actually effected the actual sign-up process. No one would be that stupid.

Or so I thought.

I’m particularly annoyed because I look like a total arse, proffering invitations to Mobile Industry Review’s readers — the vast majority of them, serious Nokia-heads, keen to see what Skyfire was on about. I’ve begun writing to everyone that’s emailed me asking what I was thinking publishing, to quote one reader, ‘such drivel’. ‘It doesn’t work outside America??’ and ‘Skyfire = dumb’, are another quotes.

It’s a pretty shit hot browser. But it’s — like UIQ — heading for the way of the dodo, if the American-centric mindset is going to continue. It needs to be implemented now. Not tomorrow, not next week and not in 6 months. Limited patience.

We should, I think, follow Skyfire’s example. If you’re not in America, ignore it. If you are in America, get an iPhone.

If you’d like to try the S60 version of the game-changing browser, Skyfire, then read on.

We’ve got 100 invites to beta test the browser. Interested? It’s *definitely* worth a look. Head over to this address and enter the code SMSTN when prompted.

In case you’re in need of a prompt:

Skyfire Labs, makers of the popular Skyfire mobile browser which allows users to access the full PC web from their mobile handsets, announced today a private beta of the Skyfire browser for the S60 platform.

With full Flash support as well as Ajax and all other Web 2.0 standards, the Skyfire browser delivers a full desktop experience of the Internet to your mobile phone, at blazing fast speeds. The secret to Skyfire is in the clouds. Using proprietary technology, Skyfire’s servers do all the heavy lifting, and send the full web impression to your phone in the blink of an eye. Because the majority of the processing is done on Skyfire’s end, the end user experiences less wait time, less power consumption and less data crunching on their handset.

Of all the mobile browsers on the market today, Skyfire is the only one to support all Web 2.0 standards, including full support for Flash. Because of this unparalleled support, Skyfire users can watch their favorite YouTube or Hulu.com videos, or check Google Maps without having to launch a separate application, like on the iPhone.

And get ready to experience this:

So for around fifty of your Great British pennies you can create, edit and view Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents on your S60 device.

Sounds like a no-brainer to me, grab it while you can at http://www.quickoffice.com/

I’m already sold, if only for the cutesy sensor capabilities that Nokia’s built in (although I’d rather see a UI that silences the phone alarm by sensing you’ve chucked the device across the room). But a stylus? Really? Didn’t we kill those off a while back?