Telia is planning to build the next generation mobile network called 4G, and they think they will be the first company in the world to offer its services. A service which is said to be ten times faster than 3g! In Sweden, Ericsson will be developing the technology, where as in Oslo, Norway, chinese Huawei got the deal. Though Ericsson already started building the LTE network there.

Erik Hallberg at TeliaSonera says there will be a commercial launch in 2010 and that they hope to launchvery early that year.

The 4G network technology is also called LTE, but it seems I won’t be having the pleasure of ever using it, unless I go to Stockholm or whatever city they might choose to include in their launch. They say they will be delivering it to high population density areas only, which exclude me. Like I covered in an earlier article about Telia, I can’t even get 3G reception in my house, nor my summer house. Seems I’m pretty much off the map. The Tech Map. Yeah, I get 3G reception a few yards outside my house…

I’ve been looking at the new upcoming Nokia N97 for a while now, doing research, watching videos and what not. I’ve noticed I’m drooling more than I thought I would. My initial thought was that it just looked way too chunky, and I guess yes, it is pretty damn chubby. But couldn’t it be worth it?

It looks like it is a pretty fast device, which is one of my biggest concern when it comes to Smartphones/PPC’s. But the one thing I truly dread however, is that I think the buttons at the bottom, the Send/End buttons, are “touch buttons” or whatchamacallit. I had this on the E-Ten Glofiish M800 (PhoneArena review) and it was just horrific. You always touch them by mistake and either hang up on the caller or just switch screens on yourself. Not too exciting when driving using the GPS… And with a slow device as it was, it drove me nuts all over…

The N97 has got some nice specs as reported by CrunchGear and nokian97.org (which of course is down at this particular moment) amongst others, including an impressive amount of memory:

• OS: Symbian S60 (5th Edition)
• Size: 117.2mm x 55.3mm x 15.9mm
• Weight: ca 150g (ca 0.33lbs)
• Memory: Up to 48GB memory (32GB built-in + 16GB microSD)
• Display: 3.5 inch TFT up to 16M colors nHD 16:9 (640px × 360px)
• Talk time: Up to in min. 320 (3G) / 400 (GSM)
• Standby time: Up to in hrs 400 (3G) / hrs (GSM)
• Video playback: Up to 4.5 hrs (offline mode)
• Music playback: Up to 37 hrs (offline mode)
• Image capture: Up to 5 MP (2584 x 1938) JPEG/EXIF (16.7M/24-bit color)
• Input: Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
• GPS: A-GPS with electronic compass

I never really got the whole 2G/3G specs. Well, of course I understand them, but in my opinion, who the heck switches 3G on and off? Or, who wants to switch it on and off? I’ve had 3G phones for many years now, and the “better” the technology gets, the worse off are we when it comes to battery life, and this becomes almost necessary if you want to have a phone turned on for one lousy day. C’mon people, give us some better batteries! Go nuclear batteries go! Wonder if that’d be possible…

No reports of the keyboard being less than good what I can find so far. I wish I could get my hands on it to test it myself. I’m a bit worried the upper row of keys could be too close to the screen, so you’d have trouble hitting them without interference. But the keys look large and to be spaced out enough.

If any phone should be referred to as a possible iPhone 3G killer, shouldn’t the Nokia N97 be it? And are you as tired as I am at that expression? iPhone killer…

A very nice hands-on video by Phone Scoop where both hardware and software is discussed and captured:

Starts off pretty good huh? OK, before you read any further, don’t get your hopes up. This device doesn’t exist. But please, read on.

You have the voice translator, for those international business meetings. The Pomegranate Phone NS08 gives you an opportunity to save money not having to bring that translator of yours who always drinks all the coffee.

Oh, but wait! You don’t ever again have to be without your caffeine fix again. The Pomegranate Phone NS08 got you covered. Just make sure you bring a couple of those single brew packets and you’re set. The ultimate mobile coffee making device.

So what is this? Well, it’s not a mobile device. It’s an advertisement for Nova Scotia…

Thanks Greg for the tip!

Some things just makes you happy, when life gives you treats, just like on Christmas. When Google launches applications like this… It makes me happy. I can’t do more than agree with Mr. Wauters, it is stunning.

You can even tilt your phone to change your viewing angle to see mountains in 3D! The application also includes geo-located Wikipedia articles, which you can choose to display or hide (it can get cluttery) as well as geo-located photos from Panoramio, all geographically related to what you’re viewing.

Say you search for a company, and you view information about that new Pizza place you’ve heard people talk about, but you have no idea where it’s located. Just click the address and Safari takes over and you can get directions. Just like that.

If you’re just feeling a bit confused about where you are, or if you want to check out your surroundings, you can just make use of the My Location feature, to show your current whereabouts in the real world.

Read more at the Google Earth’s Lat Long Blog and be sure to check out the video below. It shows how amazing this application really is.

Intrigued? Of course you are, you are after all a mere human being, are you not? Go straight to iTunes App Store and try it out for yourself! Language availability lists 16 different languages, so there’s a good chance you’ll be happy.

Direct link to Google Earth in iTunes App Store

I was so happy when I read Michael Arrington’s article over at at TechCrunch about how Mike Schneider have developed an application called TouchType (webpage link, iTunes link) , which allows you to type in landscape mode when typing emails. This was a given built-in feature for me and I was so disappointed and frankly even more surprised when I discovered it was not.

The price for this nifty software is a puny $0.99, so be sure to try it out! I wonder if Apple could ever take an idea from a guy like this and implement it into the platform. Wouldn’t be nice to the developer in question, but probably appreciated by the end users. Although, I doubt Apple did not think of this, there must be a good reason why they didn’t implemented this from the beginning. Otherwise they’d just be plain dumb if you ask me. Anyway, kudos to Mike Schneider.

Via TechCrunch

The Google Street View is a fairly new addition to Google Maps where the user can view panoramic images as if they were standing on the street, able to pan and move around where ever the images are available. Google Street View is a feature that ships pre-loaded in the T-Mobile G1 by HTC, that features the Google made platform Android. This is exciting news to me, I feel this feature is a real treat for all iPhone users.

The ability to turn off auto-correction for keyboard has been a wanted feature for a while, and it seems the voice got heard. Yet another user feedback action from Apple.

Lastly, the Japanese emoji icons feature could be a move from Apple to increase sales in Japan, where the success of the iPhone has been moderate. It’s a popular feature amongst Japanese mobile devices.

No word from Mr. Steve Jobs as of yet as to when we could expect to get our hands on the new iPhone 2.2 software.

Via MacRumors.com

According to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.se, the new Nokia phone 5800 is a real iPhone killer. Let’s start by looking at the price. €279 with no plan, no commitments, no nothing. That sounds very good indeed. That price might take out the Apples Iphone, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and Htc Touch Diamond right on the spot.

Secondly, let’s look at the music side of it. It is indeed called Xpress Music. In countries where the Nokias Music Store is available, users can download directly to their mobile device, nice. But oooooh. The music is DRM protected. Not good, seems to me like Nokia is a bit after its time.

The camera has 3.2 MP which sounds good on paper. Internal memory of 8GB is a nice standard, and it’s extendable to 16GB. WiFi, Flash player, MMS, Copy/Paste. Also a built in GPS receiver, but I’m not sure what kind.

Another cool feature is that it comes preloaded with Qik, which is an application that allows you to stream live video from the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music device.

As you can see, some features like MMS and Copy/Paste is one step ahead of the iPhone, but… I’m not seeing the iPhone killing really happening here. Maybe that’s just me.

Via: Aftonbladet.se

Apple decided to drop the not so popular iPhone Developer Non-Discloser Agreement. Hopefully this will attract even more developers to the iPhone market. The timing of the announcement is suspiciously convenient as the T-Mobile G1 was announced recently, which features the Google made platform Android, released under the open source license. To me, this feels like a good response to the customers feedback, and also perhaps a necessary strategic step. Not that I think developers would simply stop developing for the iPhone, but it definitely makes the platform more attractive and might result in even more high quality applications.

Apple announces:

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

Via AppleInsider

Another thing mentioned in this article is that the G1 lacks video recording capabilities. Now this is truly a big surprise, and not a good one. I mean, with todays standards in mobile devices, how on earth can this be omitted? Also it seems to lack a camera at the front, which means no video calls. Not a deal breaker, but it’s pretty standard amongst 3G-phones where I come from. But I have to admit, I don’t know anyone who actually uses it…

I think I’m going to have to view this device as a bleak first try, and hope there will be other devices featuring Android. I expected more from Google, and I hope to see something more impressive in the near future.

Finally, T-Mobile, Google and HTC held a conference in New York City in honor of their new creation, the T-Mobile G1, which is a mobile device by HTC featuring the Android platform developed by Google.

This is an interesting announcement in light of the Apple iPhone 3G release a few months ago. By now, the iPhone has been out for a while and people have had time to find its snags, like poor battery life and the fact that it spontaneously combusts into flames every now and then, nearly killing people. Not really the desired result people might be expecting. So. We hear about these “iPhone killers” soon to be released, like the Sony Ericsson X1 (Xperia), HTC Touch Diamond/Pro/HD.

The HTC G1 is set to be released on October 22nd with a price of $179 for existing customers, and comes with two choices of data plans: $25/month (unlimited web access and limited text messaging) and $35/month (unlimited everything). Sounds fair to me. But what about people that’s not currently on T-Mobile? Or even in the US, like us Swedes? I’ve heard mentions of Germany and some other European countries, they might get it via T-Mobile in the beginning of Q1 in 2009.

You need the Flash Player to view this video.

G1 vs. iPhone then…? Well, the G1 does have a full QWERTY keyboard, which the iPhone does not. The G1 also features Google Maps, a GPS, an Accelerometer, Gmail, a Webkit based web browser, all just like the iPhone, but a bleak but fancy 3.2″ touchscreen. But doesn’t the G1 look rather chunky? Oh, and it’s supposed to have some App store a la Apple Store.

Some other nice specifications are the Turbo 3G: Up to 7.2 Mbps down-link (HSDPA) and 2 Mbps up-link (HSUPA), Quad-band, 3.2 megapixel camera and a very nice design I must add.

You can read more about it on htc.com