Skyfire is a web browser for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 series phones that puts Microsoft's mobile version of Internet Explorer to shame. And I'm not talking about the kind of shame where you're a bit embarrassed to tell your friends about it. I mean the kind of shame that makes you move to a remote island and avoid human contact for the rest of your natural life.

The browser has been in beta for about a year and a half, but today the Skyfire team released Skyfire 1.0 to the public.

While the mobile browser that ships with most Windows Mobile phones can handle basic web pages, Skyfire can handle pages with rich media content including Flash 10, Quicktime, Silverlight, and Realplayer audio and video files. In other words, this is the first mobile browser that you can point at a web page like YouTube, Hulu or ESPN and simply watch web videos on the site. There's no need for a separate application just to play videos from those sites.

The browser also features the zoomable interface we've come to expect from modern web browsers. You can either view a whole web site as it would appear on a desktop browser (albeit, with tiny, unreadable text), or zoom in on the area you want to view.

Skyfire includes tools for keeping up with your friends on social networks including Facebook and Twitter. There's also an option to share any web page with your friends either via SMS or by posting a link to sites like Facebook.

Nokia opened the doors to its Ovi Store today. The Ovi Store is Nokia's answer to the iPhone App Store, and it provides access to 20,000 programs that you can download and install on a number of Nokia phones running the latest Symbian operating system. Or at least it's supposed to. Because for much of the morning, the Ovi Store has been unreachable.

Here's how it's supposed to work. Users with more than 50 different Nokia devices should be able to download an Ovi Store app onto their phones and use it to browse, download, and purchase software. You should also be able to visit the Ovi Store with a web browser at store.ovi.com.

But TechCrunch reports that the web site has been going offline intermittently for hours, and some applications that were available earlier this morning are no longer available now. A number of Engadget readers have left comments saying they can't even download the Ovi Store application anymore. And even if you do manage to get the store installed on your phone, All About Symbian reports that the experience leaves a lot to be desired, thanks to confusing navigation and slow page load times.

Zoho has launched a new mobile interface for its web-based office and productivity applications. That includes a mail and calendar app, as well as word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and database utilities.

To launch the mobile version of Zoho, just visit m.zoho.com in any mobile browser. Or if you just want to see what the interface looks like, you can use the same URL in a desktop browser.

Zoho says the mobile interface supports mobile devices running Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, and Google Android as well as the iPhone and BlackBerry devices.

Zoho Mobile is available in English and Japanese. The team plans to develop mobile interfaces for additional Zoho office applications in the future.

The move means that mobile phone users who are unhappy with the built in office applications on their devices have another alternative -- although one that you'll have to use up some mobile minutes in order to use.

Google has launched a new mobile video player for Windows Mobile and Symbian Series 60 phones. The application adds support for additional phones, boots faster than previous versions, and streams video optimized for 3G and WiFi connections.

You can use the application to search or browse for videos and play them on your device. When you click play, videos will launch in full screen mode.

To install the application, visit m.youtube.com on your mobile device and click the download link. There's a list of supported S60 devices, but no support list for Windows Mobile. Having tried unsuccessfully to install the YouTube player on my Dell Axim X50v, I can tell you that it does not support Windows Mobile 2003SE. But I suspect if you've ot a device with Windows Mobile 6.0 or a newer operating system you should be covered.

[via CoolSmartPhone]

The Symbian Foundation is planning to move to twice a year release schedule, which means user -- and more importantly, cellphone makers -- will be able to plan for updates. The Symbian operating system is found on millions of cellphones.

Symbian won't be the first operating system to be released on a regular schedule, as opposed to "when it's ready." The folks at Canonical have been releasing a new version of Ubuntu Linux every six months for the last few years. It's true, that not every new build is loaded with dramatic changes from earlier versions. But that's a good thing. Can you imagine using a cellphone or desktop operating system that launched an entirely new interface every six months? There's a reason Windows has been using some form of the Start Menu for years, while Apple has adopted the Dock. It makes the learning curve a lot simpler when users simply have to get used to minor tweaks and changes and not a whole new paradigm.

That's not to say that Symbian, Canonical, or any other groups putting out software on a regular schedule won't occasionally have releases that proide a major shakeup. Those are important too. But when you're shooting for a six month release schedule, the most important thing is to make sure that all the features work by the time a new version is unleashed on the public.

[via Techmeme]

One of the first things people do when buying a first computer and connecting to the internet for the first time is look up people they know (or would like to know, or are upset that they don't know anymore). Now Google-stalking is about to go to a whole new level though, because Google has launched a new service called Latitude that lets you see the locations of people you know on a map.

Here's how it works. You can install Google Latitude on your mobile phone so it can report your geographical position. Or you can use it on a computer by adding Latitude to your iGoogle homepage. Then when you're friends are looking for you, they can see where you are on a map or contact you through Google Talk, Gmail, or SMS. It could be a great way to find out if you're just around the corner from the coffee shop where your friend is sitting.

Of course, it could also let you find out when people you know are walking into a health clinic, gun shop, or some other place they'd rather not broadcast to the world. So Google has made Latitude an opt-in service. If you don't sign up for it, your location won't be broadcast. And when a friend wants to add you to their list, you'll receive an email asking if you want to grant them the ability to track your wherabouts.

Google Latitude is available for phones running BlackBerry, Symbian S60, or WIndows Mobile operating systems. Android and iPhone versions are due out soon.

While we're still waiting to find out whether StyleTap will bring its PalmOS emulation software to the new Palm Pre, the company has officially launched a utility for Symbian S60 series phones that allows users to run thousands of Palm applications.

The Symbian version of StyleTap has been in closed beta for a few months. The company says the program supports more than 30,000 apps designed to run on PalmOS devices. There's also a version of the program for Windows Mobile phones and PDAs.

StyleTap is available as a 14 day free trial so you can find out whether your favorite Palm apps work. A full license will set you back $49.95, which may seem like a lot of money, but it's much cheaper than purchasing a spare Palm III to carry around in your pocket in addition to your phone.

[via Palm InfoCenter and Symbian Guru]

The team working on the mobile version of Firefox has been primarily focused on developing the browser for Linux and Windows Mobile devices so far. But around 50% of all the Smartphones in the world actually run the Symbian mobile operating system. So it should come as no surprise that Mozilla is also working on a version for Symbian phones.

The plan is to have a working browser by the end of April, 2009 although there's no official release date for a beta version just yet. Of course, since the browser an open source project, I wouldn't be surprised if Symbian users were able to download and test early builds as soon as February when the roadmap predicts "basic/limited browsing" fucntionality.

[via Gizmodo]

Opera has released the second public beta of Opera Mobile 9.5. There are two major changes since the last beta release. First, Opera Mobile 9.5 is available for Symbia UIQ as well as Windows Mobile devices. And second, the browser now supports Opera Widgets.

Widgets for mobile devices don't necessarily work the same way as widgets on a full sized computer. You can't fit a bunch of widgets on a 2 or 3 inch screen at the same time the way you can with desktop widgets. So what exactly is an Opera Mobile Widget?

Basically, it's a one-click web application. Rather than launching your mobile web browser and navigating to a page, you can click a widget icon and access a web page or application designed to work well with the Opera Mobile browser. Right now there 5 widgets available, including a clock, weather app, and Twitter application. The advantage of using widgets instead of bookmarks is that you can save the icons on your home screen or in a widget directory and you can access them with a single click.

Opera Mobile 9.5 also features the ability to view the full desktop version of web pages or zoom in for a closer look, much as you can do with Safari for the iPhone or the Google Android web browser.

The browser is free while in beta. No word on when the final version will be released, but there's a good chance that it will cost about $30 when it is available. That's the price Opera typically charges for its mobile browser. Of course, if Mozilla manages to push out Firefox mobile before then, Opera might feel the need to drop the price a bit.

If you frequently find yourself browsing on a low-bandwidth connection, you can potentially speed up your browsing experience by using the compressing proxy server at Toonel.net. The concept is simple: install their application on your computer (versions are available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Sun Solaris, and even Windows Mobile and Symbian), then set your proxy settings to point to your localhost IP address on port 8080 (127.0.0.1:8080). Once you do, all of your web traffic is routed through Toonel.net's server, which compresses it before it gets to you.

The compression used is lossless, which is required to ensure the pages show up as expected, though there are image-specific options that allow you to change the compression that is applied to JPEG and GIF images. This is likely only worthwhile on a very slow network, since it takes the server a bit of time to recompress images before your browser can download them, but could be handy on a struggling network.

I wouldn't recommend running Toonel.net full-time, or even at all if you're always on a broadband connection, but if you find yourself struggling with a lack of bandwidth, this is a great trick to have in your back pocket.

[via TechRadar]

Live video streaming from your mobile phone is probably a mobile carrier worst nightmare simply because the amount of bandwidth video consumes. And leading that nightmare is Qik.

Simply put, Qik takes your mobile phone's built in video camera and transforms it into a webcam that connects to the Qik site where it will host live feeds of your video, as it happens. That's right, people can now watch you make a fool of yourself anywhere you go.

We were able to test the Qik service on our 3G connected Windows Mobile phone. The installation was quick and only required a few SMS messages be sent back and forth to authorize our account. Once configured just launch the application and your video will automatically appear on the Qik website. Video quality is acceptable and we only experienced slight delays due in part to our mobile connection and location.

Once you end your transmission the live video is then archived to the site for later viewing. Of course like any good site, they offer 2 different privacy settings for your feeds, public and private. At least this way not everyone in the world can see that you haven't cleaned up your room.

Currently in alpha, Qik supports a handful of Windows Mobile and Symbian phones with iPhone testing starting soon. We hope that future updates to the service will also include the ability to adjust video size and image quality. They do recommend an unlimited data plan and in the few days that we used the service we would also recommend it as well.

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]

Now that Firefox 3 has finally shipped, the developers at Mozilla are starting to make time for other projects. Don't get us wrong, those busy little bees are already working on Firefox 3.1, but they're also working on something entirely new: a mobile web browser.

The mobile version of Firefox, (currently codenamed Fennec -- a final name hasn't been picked yet), will use the same rendering engine as Firefox 3. In other words, any web page you can view with the desktop browser will be usable on a mobile device. That includes AJAX-heavy web applications. But nobody's pretending that you can just run Firefox 3 on a cellphone without making any changes. After all, mobile devices have small screens, slow processors, low amounts of memory, and often rely on relatively slow internet connections.

Last week we showed you a first look at a concept interface that might make its way into the final product. But it might not. So we decided to speak with Jay Sullivan, VP of Mobile for Mozilla. He gave us a run down of what's in store for Fennec, including what types of devices will be supported and when you'll be able to try the browser out for yourself.