When it comes to mobile navigation, Nokia is king. That’s why six of the world’s top automotive brands have signed up to use Nokia’s Location & Commerce business and mapping content in their vehicles or on their navigation systems – the very same mapping content that will be used by all Windows Phone 8 devices.
Nokia completely owns, builds and distributes mapping content – using its NAVTEQ brand – while providing the Nokia Location Platform to partners around the world. It’s because of this that Nokia’s mapping system rivals no other and is the best in class – setting itself as the mapping benchmark.
Among the companies that have chosen to implement our map content are:
This uptake by major automotive brands will deliver significant navigation experience to driver’s fingertips using automotive grade quality maps. Drivers will be able to access Nokia’s vast POI database, have access to live traffic information and also an array of entertainment options in their car, right from the dashboard. Essentially, turning your car into a command centre.
Bruno Bourguet, Senior Vice President, Sales and Business Development, Nokia Location & Commerce explains:
“We believe that Nokia Location & Commerce is uniquely positioned to provide a superior consumer experience which automotive manufacturers as well as other players in the industry can deliver to their customers, and the announcements we are making this week underscore this,”
Bruno continues:
“Drivers today expect to be told the best way to get from A to B but they also want live traffic information, notifications of nearby places of interest and data that helps them drive better and make journeys a pleasure rather than a chore. Whether it is a daily commute or a long distance drive, we are delivering on our Connected Car vision to bring a full set of capabilities from navigation to safety to entertainment,”
Nokia will be exhibiting at the Mondial de l’Automobile show in Paris at Hall 3, booth #213. The exhibit runs between 29th September and 14th October.
IFRAMES not supported
Are you looking forward to more connected cars? Let us know in the comments below.
Time for our weekly round-up of the apps that have been grabbing my attention this week. From taking better photos and tweaking them to choosing your own fate in an interactive zombie apocalypse adventure, I’ve tried all of this week’s suggestions – in the interests of research of course.
Camera Extras
Cost: Free in the Marketplace
Availability: Various countries (check your Lumia)
In a nutshell: Get creative with your camera
Mentioned a few months back when it first came into being Camera Extras is something I’ve been meaning to include in the App News in detail for a while. So it seemed fitting when Izzi posted his video the other day that I weave it seamlessly into this week’s news. His demo of the Extras shows each of the four – Smart Group Shot, Action Shot, Panorama and Self Timer – for the uninitiated.
Bringing
‘more quality to the camera of your Lumia device’
Camera Extras is well worth exploring. Have you tried it yet?
*****
Photo Shader
Cost: $0.99/£0.79
Availability: Everywhere – in the Marketplace
In a nutshell: Make your snaps sparkle
For those who want to add a little panache to their pics, Ryken100 has posted a review of Photo Shader
‘An excellent photo filtering app’
for those who want to try the all-pervading tilt shift technique or add a little glow to their holiday snaps. Give it a ‘try before you buy’, I did and enhanced some of my already excellent (due to the Lumia, not my skill) photos.
*****
Blackout Gamebook
Cost: Free in the Marketplace
Availability: Everywhere
In a nutshell: Choose your own interactive adventure
If you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books from when you were younger (like me…I was a big fan), then Blackout should provide some nostalgic entertainment. I saw that Paolo had posted about the app on WMPoweruser, and I had to give it a whirl. Initially I selected the geeky character to play, but as he was still ‘in development’ I went for the ‘promising gymnast’. The story is quite compelling – a virtual page-turner, if you will – but this is one for the avid reader rather than game playing crowd. Purely text-based, but replayability is quite high (going back to where you made a poor decision and taking a different path), even though I’m still navigating my way to my first fail.
Tried any of the Camera Extras yet? Share links to the results in the comments or on Twitter for everyone to see! Seen or written any app reviews that you think should be featured here? Drop me a line.
[Image credit - The Verge]
The beautiful look and finish of Nokia’s brand new smartphones, the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820, have caught the attention of many people.
Erik Kain, of Forbes.com, wrote of the Lumia 920:
“I love the colourful, rounded look. I love the fact that it looks so distinct and different from the rest of the smartphone pack. I love that I can get one that’s yellow.”
Meanwhile, Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 visionary, told Conversations that Nokia’s new smartphones were ‘gorgeous and awesome’ and declared the Lumia 920 a ‘work of art.’
Design heritage
Nokia’s designers are no strangers to such compliments. The company has a rich heritage and great expertise when it comes to material design, science and technology.
Key to this continuing success is Nokia’s team in all the main Nokia Design Studios in London, Espoo, Calabasas and Beijing.
They are the people responsible for what your Nokia is made out of, how it feels in your hand, as well as what colour it is.
In fact, Nicola Ralston, who is head of Colour and Material Technology Design at Nokia, says that materials are a very important part of Nokia’s design approach to product making.
“I hope that is why the products you see on the market today are much more complete and seamless than ever before because the materials and colours are not applied after the packages have been defined.”
This focus on materials – how they are produced, how to achieve the exact intensity of colour required, how the material performs, how it can be moulded and much more besides – is absolutely central to Nokia, says Nicola.
Polycarbonate
The release of the Nokia N9 in 2011 saw the debut of polycarbonate, a new premium plastic pioneered by Nokia and which is also used in the Lumia smartphones, including the new Nokia Lumia 920 and 820.
Polycarbonate was developed as a result of huge project over several years examining different types of plastic ingredients.
“What we were looking for was a material that could define a new character for Nokia and would allow us to make a great visual impact and project confidence at the same time as build on our heritage of durability and extreme product making,” says Nicola.
“We chose polycarbonate because of the colour approach we wanted to take – the ingredients that make up polycarbonate allow us to get the best intensity of colour.”
As well as being able to achieve vibrant colours with polycarbonate, the material is also durable, as well as flexible in how the designers can play with the finishes – matt or gloss – and still exude a Nokia character.
When I first got my Nokia Lumia 800, I told all my friends about how natural it feels in my hand. Again, this is largely down to the polycarbonate.
“The polycarbonate gives us a human touch – that is the best way to describe it,” says Nicola.
Ceramic and metallic
Another hi-tech material, and one that is making its first ever appearance within the range on the Nokia Lumia 920 is the ceramic zirconium camera detailing and side keys. This material is both scratch and wear resistance, which further drives Nokia focus on durability and strength.
This ceramic replaces the aluminium camera detailing and side keys in the Nokia Lumia 900. Nicola says metal remains an important material to Nokia, but this new ceramic ‘is a little bit different, a little more refined… and just works really well.’
Overall, on the wider issue of metal versus polycarbonate, Nicola concludes that:
“What we want to achieve with the Lumia range is absolute top performance. The colour ability with polycarbonate is giving us all that character but at the same time it enables the highest performance relative to the antenna, NFC enablement, wireless charging and so on.”
Screen
With those ceramic details and the polycarbonate monobody, that just leaves the screen.
Fans of the 2.5D curved glass on the Nokia Lumia 800 were thrilled to find out that it’s back on the Lumia 920. Nicola’s team had to work out how to scale up the curved glass for the larger screen size of the new flagship Lumia.
They also looked at how the glass transitions seamlessly into the body and how black the screen is. Not to mention the integration of the Nokia logo and the Microsoft keys.
In short, there is barely a square millimetre on your Nokia device that has not been considered, shaped and influenced by Nicola’s team. Again, it goes back to Nokia’s focus on materials.
Just a little colour… for now
Completely inherent in the materials are the colours. The colours are not applied or painted on afterwards.
For example, the yellow polycarbonate of a Nokia Lumia 920 is yellow all the way through and this starts right at the beginning of the manufacturing process.
Moreover, the colourful Lumia range has become one of Nokia’s defining and most beloved characteristics.
So, colour is a massive topic and we will be exploring this further in the second part of our interview with Nicola. Keep your eyes peeled on Conversations.
When it comes to mobile navigation, Nokia is king. That’s why six of the world’s top automotive brands have signed up to use Nokia’s Location & Commerce business and mapping content in their vehicles or on their navigation systems – the very same mapping content that will be used by all Windows Phone 8 devices.
Nokia completely owns, builds and distributes mapping content – using its NAVTEQ brand – while providing the Nokia Location Platform to partners around the world. It’s because of this that Nokia’s mapping system rivals no other and is the best in class – setting itself as the mapping benchmark.
Among the companies that have chosen to implement our map content are:
This uptake by major automotive brands will deliver significant navigation experience to driver’s fingertips using automotive grade quality maps. Drivers will be able to access Nokia’s vast POI database, have access to live traffic information and also an array of entertainment options in their car, right from the dashboard. Essentially, turning your car into a command centre.
Bruno Bourguet, Senior Vice President, Sales and Business Development, Nokia Location & Commerce explains:
“We believe that Nokia Location & Commerce is uniquely positioned to provide a superior consumer experience which automotive manufacturers as well as other players in the industry can deliver to their customers, and the announcements we are making this week underscore this,”
Bruno continues:
“Drivers today expect to be told the best way to get from A to B but they also want live traffic information, notifications of nearby places of interest and data that helps them drive better and make journeys a pleasure rather than a chore. Whether it is a daily commute or a long distance drive, we are delivering on our Connected Car vision to bring a full set of capabilities from navigation to safety to entertainment,”
Nokia will be exhibiting at the Mondial de l’Automobile show in Paris at Hall 3, booth #213. The exhibit runs between 29th September and 14th October.
IFRAMES not supported
Are you looking forward to more connected cars? Let us know in the comments below.
Na te ceny czeka dziś cała smartfonowa Polska 
iPhone 5 16 GB – abonament 179zł, umowa na 24 miesiące – cena telefonu na start 399 zł iPhone 5 16 GB – abonament 179zł, umowa na 36 miesięcy – cena telefonu na start 1 zł Plan taryfowy to oczywiście najfajniejsza taryfa na rynku, czyli [...]
Ci, którzy wolą dziś spać, niż odwiedzić nas w salonie lub po prostu nie mogą przyjechać dziś w nocy po swojego wymarzonego iPhone 5 będą mogli kupić telefon od jutra w 22 salonach w następujących lokalizacjach:
Dlaczego w PLAY? Proste, Formuła 4.0 rządzi i to oczywiste. Dlaczego iPhone 5? Odpowiedź niektórych zapewne rozczaruje. Przyzwyczaiłem się do tego ekosystemu i bardzo go lubię. Nie będę nikogo przekonywał procesorami, optyką aparatu, baterią czy designem.Tak, lubię iPhone’a i dlatego nie trafia do mnie wiele racjonalnych argumentów za tym, żeby kupić inny telefon. iPhone 5 moim prywatnym [...]
Na te ceny czeka dziś cała smartfonowa Polska iPhone 5 16 GB – abonament 179zł, umowa na 24 miesiące – cena telefonu na start 399 zł iPhone 5 16 GB – abonament 179zł, umowa na 36 miesięcy – cena telefonu na start 1 zł Plan taryfowy to oczywiście najfajniejsza taryfa na rynku, czyli [...]
