Mobile Week

One of the smartphones we eagerly await is the Nokia N900 and although you can already be pre-ordered directly from but still has no availability date. Although some 300 preproduction units have been loaned to open source developers to get more feedback from this important community the feedback is yet to be published. The N900 is a smartphone and some would suggest, including Nokia, also a Tablet PC. It runs under the open source Linux Maemo OS which Nokia hope will enable them to compete with Android and iPhone mobiles.

We also liked the Dolce&Gabbana designer treatment the new Sony Jalou has been given.

Nokia Ask developers to Hack into N900

We have written about the soon to be launched Nokia N900 phone/netbook /smartphone. Now Nokia have announced a competition to encourage, hackers, designers developers and other creative types to use the devices and become familiar with it. The PUSH N900 project was launched on Sunday with the aim of giving people the chance to “get their hands on, and heads inside, the new Nokia N900 and the Maemo platform.” It offers all opportunity to submit a simple brief to Nokia, detailing how they would hack into and modify the N900 and Maemo in order to connect it to something they cherish. Winners will receive a N900, in addition to support and funding to develop their idea, which will then be showcased in flagship Nokia stores around the world.

The deadline for written, Visual or videoed submissions is the 5th of October and the winners will be announced on the 25th.

We hope that the competitors find it hard or that the enteries close any holes – why because we see the N900 as a potential competitor to the iPhone, Palm smartphone world.

Some very good videos to show the power of N900

Nokia N900 Enters With Flash

So how many horses does Nokia want to back? It already owns the symbian operating system and has announced the Booklet sub-notebook computing device, which will run on Windows. Now it has announced the interesting N900 internet tablet, which will run on the open source Linux-based Maemo 5 software.

The new 3G device features an ARM Cortex-A8 processor and 1GB of application memory which means many applications can run simultaneously. It also has a high-resolution WVGA touch screen, HSPA and WiFi, 32GB of storage (expandable to 48GB via a microSD card), a 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and fast ARM Cortex-A8 processor (the same chipset the Palm Pre and iPhone 3GS utilise). HSPA and WiFi, 32GB of storage (expandable to 48GB via a microSD card), a 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and fast ARM Cortex-A8 processor (the same chipset the Palm Pre and iPhone 3GS utilise). If you get tired of ther touch screen it also has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Sounds an interesting offer and at around £450 it is priced about righto give the others, including the long anticipated Apple tablet a run for their money.

The switch to Maemo is interesting and enables Nokia to deliver open-source technology that has strong ties with desktop platforms. However the thing that caught our eye is the full support for Adobe Flash 9.4 which could open up many opportunities in the media world of film, video, marketing and online content.