Are you scared to leave the house because you're worried that someone might poke you, turn you into a zombie or ask you to compare your taste in books while you're out and you'll miss it? FriendMobilizer is a Facebook application for Windows Mobile that gives you access to some of the most frequently used portions of Facebook when you're away from a computer.

You can use the app to:

• Receive and respond to notifications and inbox messages
  
• Browse photo albums
• Write on walls
• Update your status

FriendMobilizer is free but it won't work on all Windows Mobile devices. You need to have Windows Mobile 6 or higher and you need to install the program to your device's main memory, not to a storage card. You also need to provide a phone number to register, which rules out classice PDA-style devices.

[via the::unwired]

Opera's been working on its next generation mobile web browser for months now. And while a handful of folks have been able to get their hands on devices preloaded with Opera Mobile 9.5, most of us have been waiting impatiently to get our hands the downloadable version.

While Opera might not have much market share in the desktop browser space, the company's mobile browser is miles ahead of the browsers that come standard with most Windows Mobile, Symbian, or other cellphones. Opera Mini and Opera Mobile 8.65 are already some of the best mobile browsers around. Opera Mobile 9.5 adds Flash Lite 3 support, quicker page rendering, full page zoom, a password manager, and the ability to copy and paste text selections.

Today the Opera Mobile team announced that the first public beta version of Opera Mobile 9.5 will be available for download on July 15th. If history is anything to go by, Opera will probably charge somewhere between $20 and $30 for this browser eventually. But while in beta, the browser will be free.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Nokia has announced that it is buying out the 52 percent of Symbian that it didn't already own and opening up the platform. Nokia and a number of other companies including AT&T, LG, and Samsung have also announced the creation of the Symbian Foundation.

Now, open source software is great for developers because it mean that anyone can easily look at the code, tweak it, and write applications designed to run well on the platform. But ther's also a huge benefit for telecom companies. Nokia will provide access to the Symbian OS royalty-free to members of the Symbian Foundation. And anyone can join the foundation for a nominal $1500 annual fee.

Symbian currently has about 60 percent of the mobile browser market share. The move to make the platform open source should help Nokia and Symbian maintain that lead in the face of challenges from the LiMo Foundation and Google's Linux-based Android platform.

[via OStatic]

It's been a while since AOL launched an updated version if its instant messenger for Windows Mobile. The new version is still in beta, but it has some nifty features that make it worth checking out. The first thing you'll notice is that the interface is much more attractive. But it's also more useful.

When you first login you're greeted with a buddy list. You can double tap on any contact to enter a chat window. After you've initiated a chat you can flip back to your buddy list knowing that you'll be able to see all open chats and any new messages in the sidebar that now pops up.

You can also manage your buddy list from the client. And the settings menu has a nice array of options letting you customize your notification, conversation, and privacy settings.

This beta supports devices running Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.

[via The Boy Genius Report]

Want to know what the upcoming Firefox Mobile web browser will look like? So do we. And the video above may or may not give us an idea. Aza Raskin, the head of user experience for Mozilla describes the concept interface shown in the video as a "conceptual mockup" of an "experimental UI." In other words, there's no gaurantee that the final version of Firefox Mobile will bear any resemblance to the concept. But then again, it might look exactly like this.

In a nutshell, the concept UI shares some features with Firefox 3, including tabbed browsing and the "awesome bar," which shows you results from your browsing history when you enter a URL. But there are a few aspects that have been designed with mobile devices in mind:

• You can navigate a page by clicking and dragging it. There are no scrollbars, which means more screen real estate.
• There are also no back, forward, refresh, or other buttons on the main screen. The web page takes up the whole screen.
• You can find navigation buttons by dragging the screen to the right, which brings up a series of buttons on the left side of the screen, including back, forward, bookmark, and page info.
  
• You minimize a window by dragging it to the left or right and clicking the zoom button. You can then navigate between open tabs or open a new one.
• When you reach the bottom of a web page, there will be buttons for performing specific functions like submitting a page to Digg or del.icio.us or mapping an address found on a web page

Want to try the user interface yourself? There's a web-based demo available. And the code is open source if you want to check it out or contribute to the project.
[via Mozilla Labs]

Spb Software House has released an updated version of the company's popular Spb Backup utility for Windows Mobile phones and PDAs. While most Windows Mobile devices come with some sort of backup software, Spb has a few features that sets it apart, like the ability to create automatic scheduled backups and self-extracting backups that can be restored without installing Spb Backup first.

The new version includes:

• Support for device and ROM upgrades
• Smartphone version
• A file-black-list for files to ignore

Spb is also including desktop software that lets you manage backups on your PC and explore the contents of backup files.

Spb Backup 2.0 is compatible with Windows Mobile 2003 and newer devices with VGA and QVGA screens. There's a 5 day free trial available, but a full license will set you back $24.95. Current users can upgrade for $9.95. If you purchased Spb Backup in the last 90 days, you can upgrade for free.

One of the coolest, and least frequently used, features in Windows Vista is Windows SideShow. Essentially this is a service that lets a computer running Windows Vista communicate with a handful of electronic devices like a media center remote control or an LCD screen. In other words, you can use a remote control to browse and control music playlists on your PC even when your monitor is off.

We've been expecting Microsoft to develop software that would let you use your Windows Mobile phone or PDA as a SideShow device pretty much since the first time we heard about this technology. Last year we even got a hint that a Windows Mobile client was coming. But it wasn't until this week that Microsoft finally released something, in the form of a beta release. And when we say beta, we mean it. Windows SideShow for Windows Mobile is listed as a 0.01 release.

Windows SideShow for Windows Mobile works on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices that use the Microsoft Bluetooth stack. WiFi and 3G are not supported. If you've got a device that meets the requirements, you can use your PDA or phone to access information on your PC and control some PC functions from your device. For example, you can check the weather, read your email, control media playback, or use your device as a PowerPoint remote control.

[via the::unwired]

StyleTap is an application that lets Windows Mobile users run PalmOS applications. A few months ago the makers of StyleTap announced plans to port the application to run on Symbian smartphones. They also demonstrated a version of StyleTape CrossPlatform running on an iPhone, but said the video (shown above) was just for demonstration purposes and that no decision had been made yet on whether to create an iPhone version.

Now it's official. StyleTap is coming to the iPhone. The company plans to release the application in early July. That means you'll soon be able to run over 20,000 applications designed for PalmOS on an iPhone or iPod touch.

The company said they wanted to gauge the interest in the product before deciding whether to proceed with development. The videos posted to YouTube and Viddler have been watched more than 800,000 times, so apparently there is some interest.

[via Palm InfoCenter]

For a long time, NetFront was the reigning champ of Windows Mobile and PocketPC web browsers. While Pocket Internet Explorer comes standard with most Windows Mobile phones and PDAs, the browser renders pages slowly, lacks support for tabs, and doesn't handle AJAX very well. NetFront does all of those things and more. And if it weren't for the introduction of Opera Mobile a few years ago, which has the same features plus speedier page rendering, we would still heartily be recommending NetFront.

But ACCESS, the company behind the NetFront browser is working hard to keep up with Opera. This week ACCESS released the second concept version (or beta) of NetFront 3.5 for Windows Mobile. When the final version is released you'll have to pay for this browser, but while it's in beta, it's free and definitely worth checking out. Here's a short list of updates in the latest version:

• Improved CPU usage
• AutoCruise function has been removed
• Faster page rendering
• Faster page zooming
• Faster scrolling
• Faster switching between rendering modes (landscape or portrait, single column or desktop style)

The beta will expire on August 31, 2008. Note that you should install NetFront to your device's main memory, not to a storage card or you may experience some stability issues.

Opera has released a report on the state of the mobile web. And considering the company claims more than 44 million users for its Opera Mini cellphone web browser, Opera's in as good a position as any company to report on mobile web usage.

There are two trends that are particularly noteworthy. First, 77% of all traffic was to full web pages, not stripped down mobile pages. This probably shouldn't be that surprising, since Opera Mini renders full pages pretty quickly and lets users zoom in and out to read the fine print. And while WAP might have been pretty exciting a few years ago when there wasn't as much rich media content on the web, and when mobile internet connections were significantly slower, those days are long gone.

The second trend is a bit more surprising. 40% of worldwide traffic was directed to social networks. In some countries including the US, South Africa, and Indonesia, that number was as high as 60%. Now, it's not like we didn't know that social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, and Bebo were popular. We just didn't figure people would be spending half of their mobile web browsing time visiting them.

What sites do you visit regularly with your mobile web browser?

[via VentureBeat]

Microsoft has updates its Live Search for Windows Mobile software, adding four new features:

• 4 day weather forecasts
• Search the web from the Live Search software without opening a web browser first
• View maps and locations shared by other Virtual Earth users
• Take addresses from your contact list and see where your friends are on a map

You can download the Live Search software by visiting m.live.com on your mobile device. If you don't want to download anything, you can still use the web-based Windows Live search engine, but the Live Search application is pretty slick and much faster than the web interface at loading maps and satellite imagery.

[via MobileCrunch]

A little over a month after releasing a public beta of Opera Mini 4.1, the Opera team has pushed out the final version of its latest cellphone browser. The newest build is reportedly 50% faster than opera mini 4.0. It also has a handful of new features including the ability to save web paes fr offline viewing, the ability to upload and download images from within the browser, and improved page and web search features.

The final build looks a lot like the public beta, but the developers have fixed a bunch of bugs and made some changes to the page saving and address auto-complete features.

Opera Mini 4.1 is available as a free download for dozens of different cellphone models.

Gigabyte has released a new touch-friendly interface for Windows Mobile phones. While the Smart Touch UI is designed to run on Gigabyte's GSmart line of phones, an unofficial version of the software has been leaked and you can download it and install it on pretty much any Windows Mobile 5.0/6 device.

It's hard not to compare the Smart Touch interface to the Apple iPhone interface. Applications can be luanched by pressing large square-ish buttons, and you navigate the interface by dragging your finger across the screen. But Smart Touch does have a few innovative features up its sleeve.

When you first load the UI, you'll see just 4 icons on the bottom of the screen. But you can find more by moving your finger along the bottom of the screen to find 16 in all, including one square that you press to add new items to your menu. You can also customize your menu by dragging and dropping icons across the screen. You can easily flip back and forth between the Smart Touch interface and the default Windows Mobile UI by hitting the Today icon. To switch back, just hit the Smart Touch icon on your today screen.

You can check out a video of Smart Touch in action after the jump.

[via the::unwired and SolSie]

Over the last few years we've seen the Palm OS platform stagnate while Microsoft, Apple, and Symbian continue to develop their mobile operating systems. Oh sure, there will be a new version of the Palm operating system at some point, but at this point we're not sure there will be any manufacturers willing to run Palm software on their devices.

But here's one good reason to pull your old Palm PDA out of the junk drawer, or even pick up a used one on eBay: Game-maker PDAmill is offering its Palm OS games for free. All of them.

The game developer recently announced that they would stop developing for Palm. And while the company could have continued charging a small fee for some of its excellent video games, they instead decided to give them away.

The games included Arvale, an RPG, several games in the GameBox series which include classics like Solitaire, Mahjohng, Snakes, Blocks, and Cannons, and Snails, which is a turn-based action game similar to Worms.

[via Palm InfoCenter]