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No niezłe zamieszanie niechcący zrobiliśmy Zamisat podwyżki cen Nexusa witamy zupełnie nowy bardzo dobry  model od LG. Od jutra do oferty Play wprowadzamy długo oczekiwany telefon LG, model Swift G.   Ot po ludzku komuś pomyliły się wiersze w Excleu. Zdarza się  Dziś rano opublikowaliśmy BŁĘDNY cennik. Cena Nexusa 4 nie zmienia się. Szczegółowy cennik [...]

Dnia 03.04.2013, w klubokawiarni Chwila w Warszawie będzie miał miejsce koncert zespołu Dr Miso. Podczas niego zostanie zarejestrowana płyta Live, która będzie dostępna wyłącznie w serwisie WiMP. Jeśli chcecie uczestniczyć w tym wydarzeniu, możecie wygrać wejściówkę dla dwóch osób. Trzy pierwsze osoby, które wyślą poprawne odpowiedzi na poniższe pytania na adres konkursy@blogplay.pl otrzymają podwójną wejściówkę [...]

Od jutra zmieniają się ceny kilku mniej popularnych modeli: Nokia Lumia 900 Samsung C3300 Samsung S3850 Corby II Szczegóły w cenniku.

No niezłe zamieszanie niechcący zrobiliśmy Zamisat podwyżki cen Nexusa witamy zupełnie nowy bardzo dobry  model od LG. Od jutra do oferty Play wprowadzamy długo oczekiwany telefon LG, model Swift G.   Ot po ludzku komuś pomyliły się wiersze w Excleu. Zdarza się  Dziś rano opublikowaliśmy BŁĘDNY cennik. Cena Nexusa 4 nie zmienia się. Szczegółowy cennik [...]

Dnia 03.04.2013, w klubokawiarni Chwila w Warszawie będzie miał miejsce koncert zespołu Dr Miso. Podczas niego zostanie zarejestrowana płyta Live, która będzie dostępna wyłącznie w serwisie WiMP. Jeśli chcecie uczestniczyć w tym wydarzeniu, możecie wygrać wejściówkę dla dwóch osób. Trzy pierwsze osoby, które wyślą poprawne odpowiedzi na poniższe pytania na adres konkursy@blogplay.pl otrzymają podwójną wejściówkę [...]

We’ve started to roll out a firmware update for our Mac app, Bridge for Mac. 

It’ll hit markets over the coming weeks* and you’ll receive a prompt when it’s ready to go.

So since you’ve made the leap of (smartphone) faith, you probably want to know about some of the new features and functionality in version 3.2. Here goes:

Improved support for Xperia Z & Xperia ZL, with new compatibility for Xperia Tablet Z

Xperia Z and Xperia ZL have always got on well with Bridge, but we’ve streamlined the way they communicate with each other, as well as adding full compatibility for soon-to-launch Xperia Tablet Z.

Smoother compatibility with Mac OS 10.8

There’s now less lag when you hook your Xperia smartphone up to your Mac, intelligent Backup & Restore for your content and more bullet-proof handling of media meta data.

Contact setup & sync

Migrating contacts and sorting in an orderly fashion is a hassle at the best of times, right? Our new service does all the hard work for you, setting up your Xperia phonebook by auto-syncing contacts across your different social / enterprise / personal accounts.

Xperia camera import

We’ve made importing your snaps, laughs and memories (to iPhoto or a folder of your choice) easier and more intuitive. It’s now more effortless to find your killer shots. You can even find those of *that* night out you “forgot to delete”…

Xperia Transfer

As mentioned a few week’s back, we’ve made it easier to get started with your new Xperia smartphone – check out our post and video for a look at some of the key features.

It’s worth noting, we’re always looking to refine our computer apps to make your experience more fluid (including PC Companion for PC / Windows) – you’ll always find the latest update news right here on the blog!  

*Timing and availability will vary by market

In our last poll, we asked if there was one single unique feature that you loved the most about your Nokia Lumia smartphone.

The choices we gave you were based on a recent interview we did with Pekka Horo, who looks after Nokia’s global business management of smart devices.

Pekka identified the five areas that made Lumia smartphones stand out from the crowd and this is how you voted on them. 

Which unique Lumia feature do you value the most?

Your comments

While the results may suggest that it was fairly convincing victory for design and colour, many of you posted comments to say that it was a fairly difficult decision to make.

Of course, it’s bringing all these differentiators together that make Nokia Lumia smartphones such an attractive and compelling proposition.

There was also one other key element that many of you wanted to point out: Nokia itself.

Thomas Kalhauge

“You are missing one unique Lumia feature and that is Nokia…what made me buy a 920 was the little sign Nokia on it.”

cial47 

“U R right the name Nokia is what made me buy my 920. I have been buying Nokia phones for the last 20yrs. Locked or unlocked, it’s just something about the build quality.” 

LusiSt

“Everything from design, quality of build, hardware specs and most of all that little Nokia logo which is my favourite since the Nokia 5110!”

Thanks for these great comments and also to everyone who took part in our poll.

After a certain age, and unless you’re living in a country where it’s natively spoken, learning a new language can be devilishly difficult.

I’ve been learning French on and off my entire adult life. I’ve tried listening to podcasts, reading books and paid for private lessons but I’m still limited to the basics and as confused as ever by the whole masculine/feminine thing.

I need all the help I can get, so the arrival of Babbel language learning apps for Nokia Lumia smartphones running on Windows Phone 8 is is very welcome news indeed. Furthermore, Babbel have just announced  that Nokia Growth Partners, the venture financing arm of Nokia, is one of a number of new investors in the company, more about that below.

Babbel’s apps are ‘vocabulary trainers’ to help you learn new words in different categories such as clothes, food and drink, relationships, transport and travel and free time.

Currently, there are Babbel apps for the following languages:

• English
• Spanish
• French
• Italian
• German
• Portuguese
• Swedish
• Turkish
• Polish
• Dutch
• Indonesian

They are all free to download but beware they are all fairly large apps (Learn French was 153MB) so it’s best to wait until you’re on WiFi to download it.

The upside is that once the app been installed, you won’t need a data connection to use the app.

Learning French

After installing the Learn French app, the first thing I did was sign up for a Babbel account. This is also free and unlocks all the sections within each category. With an account you’ll also be able to monitor your progress in the Review Manager.

The app has three main sections that you can swipe between: Your current lesson, the categories and the Review Manager to see which lessons you have completed. 

The lessons are a multimedia and interactive experience where, typically, a word is spoken to you and then you need to complete some quizzes to show that you can remember what was said.

Boissons

For example, in the lesson on drinks there are pictures of different refreshments, such as juice, milk, lemonade, tea, coffee, wine and beer.

You press each picture to hear the French word for each of them. When you feel confident that you’ve memorised each one, you are quizzed on each word by matching the word to the picture when it is both spelt out and spoken again.

Even for the spelling questions the words are repeated aloud each time so you really get to pick up on the pronunciations and how they should be spoken. 

Going through this process of learning, memorising and then being quizzed is a really effective way of building up your vocabulary.

A cynic might say that there’s a big difference between memorising words and actually being able to speak a language, but you have to start somewhere.

The app claims to have over 3000 words all with images and pronunciations. It is simple to use, it looks attractive, completely free and as I said earlier, it works completely offline.

Très bien!

As I mentioned above, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) has invested in Babbel. If you’ve not heard about NGP before, their mission is to invest in companies within the mobile ecosystem, primarily for a financial return. They also offer the companies they invest in the opportunity to work more closely with Nokia. We’ll take a closer look at some of the companies they’ve invested in in a future post here on Conversations.

We talk a lot about how our maps provide the best quality location experience available today. We’ve even shown you how they are better than the other maps available today in a side-by-side comparison. Now, we’re going to give you a glimpse at how we set the standard for quality in the industry.

For HERE mapmakers, quality is a nonstop process that results not only in an accurate map, but one that is rich in content and extensive in coverage. To maintain and improve this final product, our mapmakers have spent decades refining a quality framework, or a continuous improvement cycle, which consists of three major activities done in parallel: Plan, Update, and Test.

Plan for maintenance
The real world changes daily, from massive infrastructure changes to local businesses opening and closing. To meet the challenge of keeping up with the real world, we rely on a number of data sources and innovative tools to detect change and trigger action.

Analyzing activity data and source metrics allow us to focus our map maintenance resources in the optimal manner – where a lot of change is actually happening and people like you are regularly using our maps. We pull this data into proprietary heat maps to get a faster and more efficient understanding of where both change is occurring and people are using digital maps.  On our heat maps, small sections of the map light up based on probe data, user map reports and other input, alerting us as to where we need to conduct updates to make changes in the database.

We also rely on our global team of over 1,200 geographic analysts who “own” the map of their area of the world to continuously search for changes in reality. These analysts are local experts – they drive the roads, live the in the area they “own,” and speak the local language – so they have first-hand knowledge of activities affecting their piece of the map. And we continue to grow our fleet of the most advanced field collection vehicles in the world like the HERE True vehicles.

Further, community feedback becomes essential in helping us cover every corner of the world.  Consumer and expert communities, such as university geographers, provide us with updated information, adding to both the richness and coverage of our map.

Execute updates
Understanding where change is occurring is only the first step. On average, we make 2.7 million daily edits to our database, a volume that demands quality assurances at every step.

We have a host of tools at our disposal to execute these updates, from using more sources than anyone else to employing one of our local geographic analysts in their area of the world. As we look to enhance these processes, we are developing ways to automate certain validations and rely on crowd-sourced information via communities like Map Creator and Trapster.

Test for accuracy
The final phase in our framework is to check our updates against the real world. We test over 350 cities annually, matching what’s in our database to what is actually current in the real world. We develop complex drive plans that our field analysts drive to compare our map to reality and understand exactly how well our maps match reality. If needed, corrective actions are taken on both local and systemic issues.

Our continued commitment to quality
Our commitment to quality never ends. We continue to refine our processes, innovate more, and add new tools, to make us faster and make HERE Maps content better. Our foundation in automotive-quality data enables us to build the world’s best map and leverage it for the future of location.

You don’t get this kind of expertise in mapmaking overnight; we’ve built it over the last 27 years. And we are using that experience to build the most true-to-life map no matter your location need.

image credit: hugochisholm

Even though the Nokia Lumia 620 was only launched a couple of months ago, it’s already been showered with praise. The Gadget Show said, “Put simply, this is the best budget smartphone we’ve ever tested.” Top tech blog Engadget cheered, “We think this might be the best bang-for-your-buck Windows Phone we’ve ever seen.” There’s plenty of reasons why the Nokia Lumia 620 has gained such a bevvy of illustrious fans. One is what’s under the hood.

Processing powered up

The Nokia Lumia 620 is powered by a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ S4 processor, featuring dual custom-built Krait CPUs that’s manufactured on a very power-efficient 28nm fabrication process. The processor features an Adreno 305 graphics processing unit that delivers stunning graphics for every level of gameplay, as well as a Hexagon™ DSP for high-fidelity audio. 

All in a single chip

And if that weren’t enough already, the Snapdragon processor also boasts an integrated 3G multimode modem that blankets the latest in HSPA+ technologies (21Mbps) and the full gamut of connectivity options, which include GPS, WiFi 802.11n and Bluetooth. Having all of these technologies housed in a single chip is the secret behind Nokia Lumia 620’s slim form factor.   

To get a clearer picture of what the Snapdragon processor means in terms of mobile computing power, we’ve compared the Nokia Lumia 620 with some of the Nokia flagship phones from yesteryear.

The Nokia 9500 Communicator (2004)

First up the Nokia 9500 Communicator. Launched in 2004, this powerhouse of mobile technology was virtually a mini laptop. Its clamshell body opened up to reveal a 640 by 200 pixel color screen and a QWERTY keyboard, ideal for touch typing. Designed for business, it came with a ton of office software: Microsoft Office compatible word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications; an Adobe Acrobat viewer; RealNetwork’s RealPlayer; the Opera browser; an MP3 player; a voice recorder; and PIM applications.

No surprise, then, that in 2004 it would’ve set you back approximately $800. With the advance in technology, what’s interesting is that the Nokia Lumia 620’s Snapdragon processor has roughly the same computational power as an incredible fifty Nokia 9500 Communicators.

The Nokia N95 (2007)

Fast-forward three years to 2007, the Nokia N95 featured 8GB of internal memory, 3G support, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, a 5-megapixel camera, and robust multimedia capabilities—a wallop of features by 2007 standards. When it was launched, the Nokia N95 was one of the most feature-packed mobile devices ever. It took the concept of the do-everything-phone to an entirely new level, and for many, the N95 was considered the first true smartphone.

This amazing package of tech awesomeness didn’t come cheap, though. Unlocked, it would’ve cost around $750. In terms of processing power, the Nokia Lumia 620 is the equivalent of ten Nokia N95s.

The Nokia N900 (2009)

Last, but by no means least, let’s check out the Nokia N900.  Launched in 2009, it was arguably more mini-computer than smartphone, dedicated to surfing, multitasking and installing apps. Celebrated as a slick, cutting-edge device, it had a heap of excellent features at the time. This included five home screens that transitioned smoothly with each swipe. A 5-megapixel camera, 32GB of on-board memory, and room for 16GB more via a microSD card.

The N900 was a brilliant media rich smartphone, as well as a brainy computing device. All this came for the unlocked price of $569. The Nokia Lumia 620, launched just three years later, is five times as powerful at less than half the cost.

Thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 processor, the Nokia Lumia 620 ushers in an era of computer-like processing power on a budget most can agree with. Just like many tech reviewers, we think this makes it a fantastic bargain, but most importantly, what do you think?