Mobile Tweaks

We’re now closing the Nokia Easy Meet beta trial as we have met all of our planned research goals on this project and are preparing to move on to the “next generation” of mobile collaboration and sharing.

In practice this means that the feedback forums at Nokia Beta Labs won’t be actively monitored and Easy Meet will be taken out of the list of active beta trials.  However, you can continue to use the Easy Meet service “as is” at http://easymeet.nokia.com.

During the trial we studied Easy Meet in several different contexts, including understanding the system’s ability to scale with thousands of people holding meetings while sharing content such as PowerPoint decks, images and documents.  We also worked on optimizing the mobile display and experience as well as maximizing mobile battery life and minimizing data usage.

Interestingly, we found that most of you (over 70%) were sharing photo images, rather than PowerPoint slide decks and documents.  This surprised us.  (We had expected that PowerPoint would be more popular.)  We also found that meetings became larger (participant-wise) and longer over time.  Finally, we heard from many of you about features that you wanted to add, including Ovi account single sign-on support and video sharing.

We listened to your feedback and are happy to report that we are planning to conduct a follow-on pilot later this year that adds the much requested video support and several other new features!  Stay tuned in the second half of 2010 for more announcements on the timing of this upcoming pilot.

Thanks to all of you who used the service and gave us your valuable feedback!    We really appreciate your support!

Umesh Chandra
on behalf of the Mobile Business Solutions Team
Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto

Source: Nokia Beta Labs blog

Greetings from the Nokia Software Updater team!

Today we have a new release of Nokia Software Updater to share with the Nokia Beta Labs community.  Our previous update addressed Windows 7 support, improved USB connectivity, and What’s New release notes.  Today’s release includes device application updates and improvements in the user experience.

Note that this release candidate is still in the development phase, and the plan is to keep the trial ongoing until the end of August. We will release updates here based on the feedback we receive (critical improvements will be prioritized), but would also like to gather improvement ideas for future releases.   We would like to hear especially if you have any problems with updating the device applications.

Try it out and let us know how you like it!

Petri
Nokia Software Updater

Source: Nokia Beta Labs blog

Announcing that Mandarin Boy has released the updated version of Mandarin ABC for iPhone, iPod and iPad touch. Updated version of the app offers to the users easier way to learn the language correctly.
With Mandarin ABC app you will be able to learn nine hundred words and each with proper pronunciation by authoritative native Mandarin speaker teacher. Users will be taught by lessons, review and testing.
App contains 3 difficulty levels and after completing the lessons of one level user is tested to determine if he’s ready to move on. When the section has been mastered, the user is rewarded; otherwise the mistakes are recorded for reviewing and improving.
Mandarin ABC 1.8.1 offers to the users easy way learning of the language, that is hard enough. Leaning Mandarin will give you advantage to remain competitive trough global markets and make your business more reliable.

Features:
Teaches 900 words in 6 categories
All words are from the HSK, the only standardized test of Standard Mandarin Chinese proficiency for non-native speakers
Divided into “Pinyin” and “Word Meaning” – 2 streams with 3 difficulty levels
The first ever app to provide proper pronunciation by a native Mandarin speaker
Past mistakes are recorded for reviewing and correction
Achievements are praised and rewarded

Device Requirements:
3G iPhone and iPod touch; iPad
Requires iPhone OS 3.1.2 or later
18.2 MB

Pricing and Availability
Mandarin ABC 1.8.1 is only $1.99 (USD) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Education category.

Source: Apple iPhone Blog