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Search for Nokia Lumia on YouTube and you get almost half a million results. That’s nearly twenty eight thousand videos for every month since the first Nokia Lumia, the Lumia 800, was launched in October 2011. Happily, you don’t have to spend your precious time wading through the countless new additions because we do it for you. This week, we’ve got a Lumia feast for the eyes and brain, with videos on 3D printed covers, skiing, the Amazon River and much more.

Skiing in the Alps with Nokia Lumia 920 + GoPro-Case

If there’s one thing that’s been shown time and time again it’s the quality of the Nokia Lumia 920’s camera and it’s Optical Image Stabilization. When you combine this with an extreme carry case, and a hardcore Austrian Skier, you get a video like this. (Remember to see it all it’s glory, click on the YouTube gear symbol and put up the viewing quality up to the max 1080p)

Custom 3D Printed Lumia 920 Beta 2.0

We’ve spoken a lot about 3D printing and their community, which drives its development. Now we get to see one of those pioneers in action. Kevin Miller, aka gibbage1, is creating a cover for his Nokia Lumia 920, and what a stunner it is too.

Nokia Lumia 520, 620, 720, 820 and 920 comparison

 With five smartphones now part of the Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 8 family, it can be a little to tough to know the right one for you. But do not fear, All About Window’s Phone is here.  This great video by Rafe Blandford gives a fantastic insight into each and every one of the devices.

DIY wireless charging (Qi) night stands

People’s enthusiasm for wireless charging just keeps on growing. Last week we showcased a video about how to build your own wireless charging table. This week we feature a video of one actually being constructed. DIY wireless look set to stay.

Amazonas – Brazil. Filmed with Nokia Lumia 920

More and more people, it seems, are taking their Nokia Lumia 920s on adventures. Hardly surprising when you consider how hardy it is and what amazing images it can capture. These, shot by David Leiva, could be part of a documentary. David Attenborough eat your heart our.

Five fantastic videos, but which one most tickled your Lumia loving fancy? As ever, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

When you get bitten by the photography bug, it can sometimes be very hard to stop and draw breath. With our omnipresent smartphones, we rarely leave the house sans camera and the saturation of images can leave us questioning exactly what’s valid and what’s not. Conversely, we can also all have moments of the exact opposite problem, leaving us with the photographers equivalent of writers block.

But whether you’re stumbling or flying, a sure fire way to recalibrate your creative thoughts or just to gain confirmation that you’re not alone in your visually obsessed outlook, is to go and see what the photographic masters are all about. And this year, around the world, we are being treated to some truly blockbusting photography exhibitions.

 Garry Winogrand

If street photography is your thing, then this is one show not to miss! Unlike many of his contemporaries, Winogrand (1928-1984), had not yet been treated to a lavish overview of his career. Leaving behind scant detail about his work and caring little about exhibitions and fine art printing, Winogrand has long been viewed as a tricky character. This legacy is further confused by his leaving behind of some 250,000 unedited frames! A truly towering figure in the history of street photos. See the show, buy the book, revel in the attitude and love every minute!

The exhibition starts at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and then travels to Washington D.C, New York, Paris and Madrid.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Long before the advent of smartphone photography, Wolfgang Tillmans, (b.1968) had a show at the Tate Gallery in London called ‘If One Thing Matters, Everything Matters’. As an eerie harbinger of our times, Tillmans had spent the 90s photographing everything:  his life, friends, dinners, drying clothes… He is considered the ‘documentarian of his generation.’ Tillmans photographs felt immediately intimate and recognisable – a fact helped by him rarely framing prints in galleries and his constant presence in influential magazines like ID.

His new retrospective is at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, Germany.

Cindy Sherman  – ‘Untitled Horrors’

Cindy Sherman (b.1954) is one of the most important fine art photographers of late 20^th century and she has almost exclusively used herself as the basis for her image making. Often virtually unrecognisable in heavy make-up or prosthetics, her photographs pose her in scenarios and filmic settings that echo the stereotypical way women have been represented on celluloid.

So, if you think you’ve run out of ways of photographing yourself, get along to the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Norway or later the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and let Cindy Sherman show you something different!

Sebastiāo Salgado – ‘Genesis’

With smartphone cameras now even being used by war correspondents, their role in photojournalism looks like an unstoppable trend! But, if you want to feel like slowing down time for just a moment, get along to the world premiere of Sebastiāo Salgado’s latest masterpiece, ‘Genesis’ at the Natural History Museum in London. Landscapes, wildlife and remote communities by one of the most inspiring photographers on the planet. An absolute must for any photography lovers!

Man Ray – ‘Portraits’

The next time you’re playing with effects on your photos, stop a moment and cast a thought back to Man Ray (1890 –1976).

Although Man Ray cannot claim to have invented the process of solarisation in photography, it was he and Lee Miller who fully exploited its use and saw it accepted as a legitimate visual aesthetic. (Solarisation is the phenomenon of reversing the tones in an image).

The show in London is the first major museum retrospective of his portraits and includes images of Man Ray’s important circle of friends and colleagues such as Picasso, Duchamp, and Miller.

We can guarantee that each and every one of these exhibitions will inspire you to look at smartphone photography in a whole new way. But, if you can’t make it to these events, what other techniques do you use to get the creative juices flowing?

Image credits: Adam Monaghan + Tezzr

A great feature on Windows Phone 8 is the enhanced options on your Nokia Lumia’s lock screen.

We have looked before at various apps and how you can customise a whole range of notifications for you to get the most out of your lock screen.

Now, we’d be interested to know what you value the most about the lock screen.

Is keeping your phone secure with a password more important to you than having a cool image on your display?

Or was customising the background image one of the first things you did when you set up your Nokia Lumia?

I don’t use a pass code on my phone but the notifications are really important to me. What do you all think?

The poll

We know that part of the lock screen’s appeal is that all these features work together seamlessly, and in reality you don’t need to choose between them but don’t let that stop you from voting in our fun and informal poll!

Which Lumia lock screen feature do you value the most?

Let us know what you think in the comments too. How often do you change your background image? Do you use an app? Does anyone else not use a password lock on their Lumia, or is that just me?

Finally, this is a useful starting point you’d like more information about personalising your lock screen.

After six rounds of public voting during the past three weeks – and more than 600,000 total votes – the winner of Windows Phone Next App Star contest was crowned. The winning app is Wikipedia, by independent French developer Rudy Huyn, and his app will be featured in a future primetime Windows Phone TV commercial in the US.

“Congratulations Wikipedia, Windows Phone Next App Star grand champion. This contest showed thousands of beautiful apps that make your phone a more personal experience,” said Todd Brix, General Manager of the Windows Phone Apps and Store Team.

The competition for this contest was fierce – initially, more than 9,000 apps from 79 countries were submitted. From those choices, 64 apps were featured in the contest – an even split of free and paid apps.

Windows Phone hosted a round-robin style online bracket contest, where apps went head-to-head over a period of six rounds to get down to the final two choices.

The final two came down to Wikipedia, and the photo-editing app ProShot. And, according to the Windows Phone blog, “in the end just 155 [votes] separated the two finalists—a testament to just how tough this choice was for voters and how good each of these apps is.”

Interestingly, the final two apps in this contest were submitted by independent developers – and not from big brand-name companies. Both of these high quality apps (the numerous 4 and 5 star reviews in Windows Phone Store speak for themselves) came from developers who work very closely with Nokia, too. Rudy is a Nokia Developer Champion and ProShot comes from California-based DVLUP member Eddie Kezeli at Rise Up Games.

In creating ProShot, Eddie says he wanted to give Windows Phone owners the same level of control over key image-making elements that you would find in a traditional DSLR camera, such as shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and aspect ratio. “Big features should not be limited to big cameras,” he says.

Innovations

Innovative products and technologies.

Find out more…

In developing the free Wikipedia app, Rudy wanted to “put a complete encyclopedia in your pocket.” And – as those who use the app know – not only is there a ton of information packed inside, it uses many of the phone’s features to enhance the functionality of the app.  It uses the phone’s location to find relevant articles; it supports speech recognition, NFC sharing and QR codes; and includes services like Pocket (formerly Read It Later) and Instapaper. And you can conduct searches in more than 100 languages.

Over the past few years, Rudy has developed more than 45 applications. You can get to know more about this self-described “Windows Phone Addict” in this short video profile:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Learn more about the Winner of Windows Phone Next App Star contest. You can also:

• Download Wikipedia
• Download ProShot
• See all 64 Finalists in Windows Phone Next App Star Contest.

Share your thoughts about the results of the Next App Star contest in the comments below.

We were thrilled last year when Nelson Carillo, a developer in the United States, took the initiative to create a Nokia Conversations app for the Windows Phone Store.

The app was slick and showed off our content brilliantly. It was the perfect way to stay in touch with all things Nokia on your Lumia smartphone.

We are now equally delighted to say that Nelson has now updated the app for Windows Phone 8, which takes advantage of the platform by adding new features, such as multiple-size Live Tile support.

I have the wide Tile on my Nokia Lumia 820’s Start screen right now and it looks great!

To find out more about the new version of the app, I spoke to Nelson himself.

What differences will people notice about the Windows Phone 8 version of the Nokia Conversations app?

The most immediate change noticed by people will likely be the new Live Tile. It was a request I’ve heard many times and with Windows Phone 8 the platform became flexible enough for me to add this feature.

Another change that keen eyed users will notice is that I’ve moved the comments to be a swipe away to the right. The two regions scroll independently so you won’t lose your place in the comments if you decide to go back and re-read the article.

How would you compare between developing for Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8?

I’d say that Windows Phone 8 fills in a lot of the gaps that was present in the Windows Phone 7 platform, and enables a host of new scenarios. So on a high level it brings some features that people will appreciate.

Specifically to the NokConv app though, Windows Phone 8 introduced a degree of commonality with Windows 8, which increased the amount of code I share across my projects.

How long did the Windows Phone 8 version of the app take to do? Was it fairly straightforward, or did you have to start from scratch?

I started to work on the Windows Phone 8 update around the end of January and finished about a month later. The process was completely straightforward.

I didn’t think about porting to Windows Phone 8 as much as I thought about adding new features once the port was done. That’s a good thing. Microsoft has made this process pretty seamless.

Are there new features you still wish to incorporate in future updates?

Yes! Definitely. I want to expand on the Live Tile support and make the app work in the background a lot more comprehensively. Platform integration is big for me so you’ll see a lot more in the way of that.

What’s the general feedback that you’ve had about the app?

I’ve heard a lot of good things. People love the performance of the app and how fluid the interface is.

Feedback is important to help guide my planning for future versions. Chances are if you’ve left me a review, I’ve read it and incorporated it into my plans.

I’ve sometimes been surprised by things that people view as essential to have, so it’s always good to hear from the people that use my app. 

WIMA is the world’s foremost NFC conference, and took place in Monaco this week. For the past few years Nokia has been a driving force at WIMA, and Nokia has been showing off its NFC wares again this year.

Sami Pippuri, Head of Product Marketing at Nokia Developer Experience, explains: “We’ve been talking about Nokia’s position in the NFC industry, product portfolio, NFC enabled devices and Nokia Gear products. At the expo we’ve been showing the latest devices and the ecosystem around them.

As part of Nokia’s presence at WIMA, the company has held an NFC developer workshop, teaching developers how to implement NFC applications and solutions on the Windows Phone 8 platform.

Tomi Penttilä, Head of Nokia Gear and Jure Sustersic, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Nokia Developer Experience, both made speeches about NFC yesterday, with workshops on Thursday. There’s been a demo area to show off hardware and third party apps, and a competition for developers. 

Sami adds: “We’re differentiating ourselves both in terms of consumers and developers; we’re looking to provide new sorts of functionality, and we’re looking at clever ways to take advantage of NFC, as illustrated by NearSpeak.

NearSpeak is an app that lets people interact with NFC tags, leaving behind voice messages. “When other people touch the tag, it will read back the message in the user’s own language,” Sami explains. “These sorts of new novel things are the outcome we’re looking for when it comes to WIMA, inspiring developers to create something that hasn’t been done before.”

NearSpeak isn’t the only app that Nokia has been showing off at WIMA, with a McDonald’s app also receiving an update especially for the event. The app lets you order food on your Lumia in advance. Just tap your phone when you arrive, and it’ll let you bypass the regular queue. The app demoed at WIMA is an upgrade of the GoMcDo app developed by Airtag. It’s available in more than 70 restaurants in France, and the NFC feature will be live for summer.

Other apps at the show included the Michelin Travel Guide app, which enables Lumia owners to discover and get more out of their visit to a Michelin rated restaurant, Nokia NFC Writer and Nokia Music, which allows for user generated custom music tags. There’s also Vimeo, which facilitates sharing of high quality videos by a simple tap.

WIMA has been a chance for Nokia to demonstrate its hardware as well. Tomi explains: “We’ll be showing and talking about accessories such as the new Nokia Wireless Charging Car Holder and JBL PowerUp speakers that have both pairing and connecting by NFC.

“With NFC-enabled Nokia Gear products now in the hands of consumers, it’s time for the industry to take note,” concludes Tomi.

Playing musical instruments on your smartphone or feature phone is not the novelty it once was. However, this week’s Asha App Spotlight is such a delight to use that it makes the experience feel fresh and innovative all over again.

It’s a free app yet it has no adverts, comes with great features and has an authentic premium feel to it. If you have a Nokia Asha Touch device, then you need to download Music Mania right now!

The basic concept is simple enough: you use your touchscreen to play various musical instruments. In addition, you can record your compositions, take lessons for each instrument and also share your recorded pieces with friends on Facebook.

The four instruments in Music Mania are:

• Piano
• Flute
• Drums
• Jal Tarang 

The jal tarang is an Indian percussion instrument made up of several ceramic bowls that are filled with water. Melodic sounds are created when you strike the edge of each bowl with an implement. Of course, on this app you just tap one of the bowls on your Asha screen.

Playing Music Mania

Upon opening Music Mania you are greeted with a pleasant menu consisting of six icons. It is from here that you choose to play instruments, load a previous recording, have a music lesson or share a clip on Facebook. 

Tapping the icon with the musical symbol takes you to the heart of the app: playing instruments. By default it opens with the piano. Just tap the keys on the screen to start playing.

You will also notice some icons along the bottom of the display.  These enable you to switch between the different instruments and control the recording function. 

Even for someone like me, who has no musical talent whatsoever, Music Mania is incredibly intuitive and addictive.

The recording controls are simple to use: one button to play back, another to save and the record button also becomes the ‘stop record’ button.

While you can’t play two different instruments at the same time (unless you have two Asha devices) you can switch between instruments and record at the same time. So if you’re musically inclined you can have a drum fill to transition between a piano and flute…

Music lessons

Another nice feature about Music Mania are the music lessons. You can work your way through the notes for each instrument or learn how to play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ on the piano, flute or jal tarang. You can even join in, while the app auto plays this popular children’s nursery rhyme.

Back on the main menu, you can tap the Facebook icon to share your recordings with friends on the social network. 

Music Mania has transformed the musical instrument experience on your Asha by adding a few clever features, using excellent design and being such a joy to use.

The origins of Monopoly go back over 100 years and, as well as being a wonderful board game, it has fuelled countless dreams of being a powerful property tycoon with millions in the bank. 

The original Monopoly has long been available in the Windows Phone Store for Nokia Lumia smartphones, but now there is a new contender on the block for gamers to play out their money-making fantasies.

Released one month ago, Greed City (free) is an interactive location-based game for Windows Phone 8 devices that has quickly built up a loyal following.

The idea is to build a property empire and climb your way up the global rich list based on real world locations and real world check-ins. The more times and places you check-in, the more credits and diamonds you will earn.

If you buy a location from someone or set up your own business, then you’ll earn credits when other players check-in. 

Greed City strikes me as a clever cross between Monopoly and Foursquare. 

Build your empire

The first step towards building your property empire is creating a username; you can also sign in with your Facebook account or create an account with your email address and password.

Greed City makes full use of Nokia’s HERE location platform and the map is a good place to start to get your head around how Greed City works.

On the map you can see the local places where you can check-in for credits, get information about the current owner and, if you so desire, you can even purchase stock in the business to share in the profits each time other players check-in.

Ultimately, to progress in Greed City, you’ll need to own businesses and make lots of money to get yourself up the global rich list.

Perhaps indicative of the fact that Greed City is still a fairly new game, there are still plenty of opportunities for you to create new businesses – at least there are in my little corner of south east London.

Setting up a new business is dead easy. In the Map view or on any screen, click the ‘+’ icon to Add Business. Next you need to select a category for your business:

• Food: cafes, restaurants, diners etc
• Shops and services: everything from banks to gyms to petrol stations
• Nightlife spots: Bars, nightclubs, karaoke etc

Fill in the details such as the name of your business and then place the location on the map. Just as in real world, starting a new business will cost you money (credits) so you’ll need to save up before you can build up your empire.

If you have lots of credits, then it might be tempting to create lots of new businesses.

However, remember the aim of the game is to get other players to visit your businesses and check-in. So the smart advice is to create businesses where the real world equivalent is popular too.

Greed City is a game with massive potential. It makes great use of the HERE location platform and effectively marries the real world with a fantasy scenario where we can all be rich and powerful property tycoons. Settle back and watch the virtual money pour in!

Any Nokia Lumia smartphone that you buy comes with 7GB of storage on SkyDrive, as well as the on-board capacity on the device itself. If you need to keep your eye on the storage of your phone, Nokia has now released a Storage Check settings app, available only on Nokia Lumia Windows Phones 8 smartphones.

With today’s technology, it’s possible to take high-def videos, high-res photos and store more music than you can shake a drumstick at, and this sometimes calls for some ‘housecleaning’.

Samuli Hänninen, Vice President, applications for Smart Devices, explains:

“We want to ensure that Nokia Lumia users receive the best and latest functionality for their smartphones, and we often deliver these as software updates or exclusive apps.

“Storage Check helps people control what’s on their phones in a simple, fast and effective way.”

With Storage Check for Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphones, you can see at a glance how much space is taken up with data, including exactly what type of data that may be.

In the overview panel, a wheel dominates the screen and it’s divided into colourful sections. Each section represents a type of media such as apps, media and files, system and free space.

This enables you to immediately check what’s taking up the space on your phone. If you want a more detailed view, the total/used number in the centre of the wheel tells you more. Additionally, swiping right will bring the details panel into view.

Details delves deeper into the storage space, showing you exact numbers in terms of megabytes or gigabytes, as well as more precise information about what’s taking up the space. Unlike the standard WP storage app, you can see how much storage space your emails, music, photos, office documents are hogging. And, if you want to delete your temporary files, you can with just one tap.

Within Storage Check you can also see exactly how much space each app is using. You can then, if need be, remove it using the normal ‘long tap -> uninstall’ on the regular apps list.

We’d advise that you double-check anything you’re about to delete, of course.

Storage Check will initially be available on newer Lumia smartphones either out of the box or as an Over-The-Air firmware update and, once installed, can be found in the phone settings. Support for other Lumia Windows Phone 8 handsets is also coming.

Do you need more control over your storage? Will you be using Storage Check? Let us know, below.

image credit: NatalieMaynor

Those of you who have been active on Twitter recently may have guessed this next challenge was coming. It is indeed the reason I was asking for your Panorama photos, for our next #NokiaLumiaChallenge! Before we get started though, let’s have a look at the awesome challenges we’ve held so far!

Inspired? Good! Like all previous challenges this is really easy to enter. All you need to do is snap a photo using the Panorama app on your Lumia and tweet it to us with the #NokiaLumiaChallenge hashtag.

The prize for this challenge is an awesome JBL PlayUp Portable Wireless Speaker.

The competition will end at midnight GMT on Wednesday 24^th April. You may enter as many times as you like, so keeping sending us your submissions. As ever, please read our terms and conditions before entering.

 Image credits prasetyo12p1, psychomania666, warmth