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Cricket fans all over the world are clearing their schedules for the next few months as the Indian Premier League gets into full swing and county cricket returns for the English summer.

Since its inaugural season in 2008 the Indian Premier League has become a massive commercial success that attracts star players from all cricketing nations.

Playing the Twenty20 version of the game, nine teams with colourful names such as the Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders, take part in the two-month extravaganza, which is generally considered the richest competition in cricket. 

Back in the home of cricket, fans are looking forward to the more traditional appeal of the English county game.

As ever, the summer will also be punctuated with a couple of Test Match Series and one-day internationals. The visitors to England this year are New Zealand and a mouth-watering Ashes battle with Australia.

No matter where you are or which Nokia you have, you’ll never be far away from this feast of cricketing action. We’ve selected a couple of the best cricket apps for both Nokia Lumia and Nokia Asha devices.

Yahoo! Cricket (Nokia Lumia – free)

This is a fantastic and comprehensive cricket app with some excellent lock screen features.

There’s the latest news, live scores, fixtures and photo galleries of the latest action. If you like your cricket statistics, then you’ll also appreciate the archive of recent matches with full bowling and batting records.

My favourite thing about this app is the lock screen options. You can choose to have the latest cricket photos and also updates of live matches on your lock screen. If that’s not fancy enough, this app also responds to voice commands.

Cricket Videos (Nokia Lumia – free)

The chief attraction of this app lies in its title: the ability to watch cricket videos on your Nokia Lumia smartphone. 

Not all the videos I tried worked (possibly because of regional rights issues) but many of them did. It was very cool to be able to watch highlights of recent England games on my Lumia 820.

In addition to the video highlights packages, the app also offers latest score boards, player biographies, galleries and a Live Tile of new matches. 

ESPN Cricinfo (Nokia Asha – free)

People with Nokia Asha devices are also well served with a host of cricket apps and games in the Nokia Store.

Of the bunch, I think ESPN Cricinfo is the most authoritative for news, results, fixtures and live scores. The results section is also exhaustive with Test, Twenty20 and one-day matches all covered in a wealth of statistical detail.

Cricket Calling (Nokia Asha – free)

The strength of Cricket Calling is its coverage of live matches. The scoreboards refresh automatically and you can also follow ball-by-ball text commentary.

During the quieter moments in a match, there’s also a forum where you can interact and chat with other like-minded, or perhaps not so like-minded, cricket fans. 

Enjoy the cricket and let’s hope the rain stays away. 

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Today sees the arrival of a new Nokia Music app for the desktop and tablet version of Windows 8, designed to allow Nokia Music+ subscribers to get even more out of the service.

Nokia’s head of music, Mike Bebel, tells us, “When we launched Nokia Music+, the improvements were all designed around consumer feedback. So what did the biggest fans of the free Nokia Music service want most to take it to the next level?

 “What people wanted most were unlimited skips, more offline storage, access to lyrics and the ability to use the service on all of their different devices.”

The Windows 8 app builds on the HTML5 access first brought with Nokia Music, and as you can see, it looks amazing.

”With Windows 8/ Windows Phone 8 sharing the same development kernel, we were able to create the core experience true to the mobile app, and very quickly.”

”It carries the same look and feel that people enjoy with the Windows Phone app, but brings it to larger screens with high quality rich media that encourages people’s journey of discovery – a great example being recommendations for more music right on the player screen.”

Additional screens provide access to artist information, recent mixes and more as you swipe through the app.

Here’s a list of some of the main features of Nokia Music for Windows 8:

• 7 Day trial of NM+, with an in-app upgrade path (30sec clip mixes outside of the trial period)
• 100’s of curated mixes from Nokia experts and international artists
• Listen to all the MP3’s in your ‘My Music’ library via the app
• Mix recommendations based on the music playing, for both mixes and your own collection
• Artist Mix – see up to three artists and the app will create a playlist based on your choices
• Offline mix – save as many mixes as you can carry for offline playback
• Search for mixes containing your favourite artist
• Artist pages complete with high quality artist images, biographies, tweets, gig info (including Here mapping), related artists and more
• Snap View – minimise Nokia Music on your home screen but still access music controls
• Play To – Stream music to DLNA devices on your wireless network

Mike says that Nokia Music+ for Windows 8 is “one step further for service, and equally reinforces Nokia Lumia as the smartphone of choice for the Windows 8 ecosystem.”

“Whether you’re at home using a tablet, connected via a PC in the office, or using your smartphone on the move, Nokia Music is there with a soundtrack to match.”

Nokia Music for Windows 8 is available now from the Windows 8 Store in the UK, US, Ireland and Australia, and will be rolling to all counties with Nokia Music+ in the coming weeks. There is no additional charge for Nokia Music+ subscribers, who can simply fill in their existing credentials within the app. You can also start a free 7-day trial of Nokia Music+ by registering for a Nokia account within the app.

Making short videos can be a lot of fun, but part of the excitement is sharing them with your friends. Touchscreen Asha devices like the Nokia Asha 308 makes it easy to do both, with an integrated camera to record films, and the ability to upload videos to YouTube using email. Read on to find out how.

All you need to upload videos to YouTube with the Nokia Asha 308 and its touchscreen siblings is a Gmail or YouTube account, a bit of spare time and some creativity. Before you put your film together, the first thing to do is to set up your YouTube account for mobile uploading.

Open your Asha’s Internet browser, and click on the YouTube link under ‘Featured’. Once YouTube has loaded, enter your Gmail or YouTube username and password to log in (either will work with YouTube).  

The Nokia Asha 308 uses a mobile version of YouTube, so you can’t upload videos directly. Instead, scroll down to the bottom of the page and hit the ‘Upload’ link, and you’ll be given a randomly generated email address that matches your YouTube account. Keep a note of this email address, as you’ll need it to upload videos from your Asha phone.

It’s then time to get creative and shoot your video. Don’t forget that if you’re uploading videos using the Asha 308, you’ll be using a 2G connection, so it’s worth keeping films relatively short and snappy if you don’t want to spend ages waiting for files to upload.

Once you’ve created the video, and you’re certain you want it to appear on YouTube, click the menu button at the top left corner of the screen, scroll down, and click ‘Send’. You can also use existing videos; simply open them from the gallery, and again click the menu button and then send. Pick ‘Mail’ to attach your video to a new message, and then enter the email address you were given by YouTube.

Send the email, and then it’s just a waiting game. Once the email has sent and been received, the video will be uploaded to your YouTube account automatically. You’ll receive a confirmation email shortly afterwards, stating: “Your video has been received by YouTube and is being processed.” Check back a bit later, and the video will be on YouTube for all your friends, family and the rest of the world to enjoy.

Wow – after a ton of voting and exciting matches, we’ve done it…we’re down to the Fantastic Four!

This semi-final round is very interesting to me because we have some scrappy independent applications going up against some established powerhouses.

We’re split down the middle this year – meaning Conversations readers love these indie apps along with the known brands.  So, this next round of voting will be most interesting!

To see the full bracket, updated with the Fantastic Four challengers, it is viewable here. 

Voting is simple. Under each pairing, select your favorite from the choices below. We’ll take it from there.

Kicking off the voting

Games Winner: Asphalt 7 Heat

Asphalt 7 Heat has generated a lot of interest since its launch on Windows Phone 8 last month. This fast playing racing game boasts realistic 3G gaming and the 15 tracks look stellar on the Lumia’s screen.

Love to drift as you race down the track? You can do it easily with Asphalt 7 Heat! The game uses the accelerometer for controlling the car and players use easy controls to hit the gas or brakes depending on your course.

As you play through and start to master the courses, you can buy new cars with added acceleration, nitro speed and better handling, depending on your taste. Asphalt 7 Heat can be played either alone or online for multi-player action.

[Ian’s Comment] Asphalt 7 feels like a real console arcade game. It has weight, detail and performs amazingly well, considering the graphics intensity. It’s also a sure-fire way to get young nephews to leave you alone for a few hours

News & Entertainment Winner: AAWP

All About Windows Phone is an app that corresponds with the terrific Windows Phone publication aptly named All About Windows Phone.

The AAWP is a great mobile app experience featuring a clean look and feel. By using the Metro user experience, app users can easily see the latest headlines, browse the sections of All About Windows Phone (including news, reviews, features and media), Search and Podcasts.

Once inside an individual article, you can browse photos and text easily. You can even browse the links in each article and share the article via social networks and email. Last – comments are enabled in AAWP, making the app an amazing way to interact with the fresh content that is updated daily on the site.

[Jason’s comment] The authors at AAWP speak about Nokia and Windows Phone with authority. The app gives me easy access to their articles, comments and even podcasts. It’s a winner.

Take Our Poll

Social Winner: Twitter

Twitter recently got an update to version 2.0 that brought a whole new design to the application, aligning it with the apps on the other platforms. The new app features the four tabs Twitter users are used to seeing including:

• Home: view Tweets from accounts you follow
• Connect: See your mentions and also who’s followed you or re-tweeted your content
• Discover: See friends and find new content based on categories
• Me: read and reply to your direct messages, see your lists and favorites.

The new app also brings functionality that was missing in the prior version including a Live Tile that lets you Pin Twitter accounts, lists and searches to give you instant access to your preferred content on Twitter.

With the updated app, Twitter has gained new fans on Windows Phone.

[Boc’s comment] The latest version of Twitter is the best yet. The clean and simple interface works perfectly with Windows Phone’s sideways swiping motions

Utility + Productivity Winner: ProShot

Looking for a richer photo-taking experience on your Lumia? ProShot offers an alternative to the native Camera application that gives you key settings such as shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation and white balance.

ProShot is a perfect application for professional photographers (or someone who knows their way around a camera) who want to snap the photo using settings they know work for a particular situation.

Once you capture the perfect photo, you can easily share to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and other photo sites.  In addition to snapping photos, you can view all the pictures in the camera roll, add a live tile to pin camera modes directly to your home screen and customize the color menu inside the application.

ProShot is easy to use and more professional mobile photographers will love this application.

[Jason Black's comment]

Knowing my way around a DSLR, I like tweaking the camera setting on my Lumia. For pros, ProShot is a fantastic app.

Take Our Poll

Customisation has been a key part of Nokia design philosophy for decades. Hardly surprising, then, that we’re such ardent fans of Windows Phone Live Tiles. Not only are they a great way to organise your life, they’re also fantastically easy to personalise. In fact, they’re so pleasing to the eye that more and more people are creating unique Start screen works of art.

One great site that launched this year to showcase this ever-increasing passion for “start art” is mytil.es. Here you’ll see hundreds of stunning Start screens fashioned with a real passion. To see what’s possible, we’ve unearthed some true gems.

The Space look by El Claudio

The Gentleman Stormtrooper look by Marc

The Lucky Glover look by Steven

The Fizzing Firework look by André

The Dr Who look by Billy

We think these designs rock and have all been shamed into trying something more inventive on our own Nokia Lumias. If you want to join us, or consider yourself something of a master of start art, why not check out the Nokia Lumia Start Screen Challenge. All you have to do is post your Start Screen and explain how you’ve used your expertise to customise it to fit your specific lifestyle, some of its unique features and how you created it.

Alternatively, inspire us by sharing your top customisation tips in the comments below.

Image credit: Magnetbox

Rovio, the creators of the global gaming phenomenon Angry Birds, have a new character that they’d like you to meet, Amazing Alex.

We all get those rainy days sitting around the house and feeling utterly bored, right?

Well, Alex doesn’t because he’s a whizz kid with an awesome imagination who can transform his toys and household objects into gripping adventures.

You can now download Amazing Alex (£0.79p) for your Nokia Lumia smartphone running on Windows Phone 7.x or 8 and those boring days can become a thing of the past for you too!

Challenge yourself (and the world)

Amazing Alex is an innovative physics puzzle game over 100 levels and set in four fun locations.

Alex has set up different challenges where you need to complete the chain reaction using a variety of household objects. There might be more than one way of solving a puzzle and you have to find the most creative solution.

For example, how might you land the football from the top shelf into the basket a couple of metres away without it touching the floor?

Sounds easy, but there are obstacles in your way, traps to be avoided and the challenges get progressively harder and more complex.

It’s not just Amazing Alex who is setting the challenges. You can do it too.

You can create your own puzzles using 35 interactive objects and share them with friends, or with the whole world. You can also test your skills on other fan-created puzzles. 

With Amazing Alex, you are not just solving puzzles but you can create them too!

Wiem, że sporo czytelników bloga ma mixturę. Dawno już nic z tą ofertą nie robiliśmy. Dużo w między czasie się pozmieniało W PLAY rządzi FORMUŁA zatem czas na zaszczepienie tego pozytywnego wirusa również w ofertę mix. Czy to jest rewolucja? Raczej przemyślana ewolucja będąca odpowiedzią na zmieniające się oczekiwania klientów. Wybrałem kilka najważniejszych cech [...]

Wiem, że sporo czytelników bloga ma mixturę. Dawno już nic z tą ofertą nie robiliśmy. Dużo w między czasie się pozmieniało W PLAY rządzi FORMUŁA zatem czas na zaszczepienie tego pozytywnego wirusa również w ofertę mix. Czy to jest rewolucja? Raczej przemyślana ewolucja będąca odpowiedzią na zmieniające się oczekiwania klientów. Wybrałem kilka najważniejszych cech [...]

It’s official – we’ve been recognised by Guinness for the world’s largest animated mobile phone mosaic!

And no, this isn’t an April fool…

A few weeks’ back at Mobile World Congress 2013, we took 196 Xperia Z smartphones and organised them into a 14 / 14, 6ft2″ wall – smashing the previous record by more than double

It’s great to receive this accreditation - if you have any ideas on what we could could create next time around, feel free to drop them below!

For those of you who liked the TV commercial for our Xperia Z smartphone, and with the Holi Festival that inspired it starting last week, there’s some fantastic new content now available from the team who made it. Tarsem Singh, our director, recently went travelling through India on the look out for inspiration and he took an Xperia Z with him to capture the journey.

We’ve charted the trip in a series of short videos – you can see his perceptions of Xperia Z’s 13MP camera as it caught all the colourful experiences on the road.

Born in Punjab, India, Tarsem is a filmography director – his 20+ year career has seen him direct everything from commercials to music videos and films. Notable highlights include the 2011 blockbuster “Immortals”,  his Snow White adaptation “Mirror Mirror” and visual masterpiece “The Fall”, as well as music video classics like En Vogue’s “Hold On” and REM’s “Losing my Religion”.

See Tarsem’s amazement as he captures a woman’s intricately decorated hands and a fountain full of petals.

Jodhpur is India’s “Blue City” and the backdrop to Tarsems 2006′ film, “The Fall” – see how Xperia Z captures one of the director’s hallmark and personally favourite settings.

See more of / pay homage to Tarsem’s journey so far as he captures a unique shrine on India’s roadside.