Symbian Blog: Archives for October 2009

550 downloads, and rising…

Oct 30th by William Roberts Retweet Share on Facebook

The Kernel Taster Kit published on Wednesday 21st October has been downloaded by over 550 people in the last 9 days – 77 to the US, 66 to Russia, 42 to China and lots of other countries besides.

This is a great response – we were wondering about blogging that we’d reached 100 downloads, and 500+ was a real surprise. It has made me realise that we missed a few tricks with the kit and the documentation: we forgot to tell you how to get updates, and we forgot to tell you how you can contribute back (What were we thinking…?).

Time to fix that right now.

Get Connected…

The kit contained a snapshot of the source tree. There have been updates to the qemu package since then: Johnathan White at Accenture has added a sound driver and other good things which he demonstrated in the Hands-On Lab session at SEE – thanks, John!

To connect your copy of the source code to the Open Source Mercurial repositories on developer.symbian.org, you will need to install Mercurial, clone each of the three repositories directly into the source tree, and then you are all set to pull down future updates, save your changes, share changes with others and …

…Get Contributing!

As you explore with the code and make changes, you might find bugs: you might also find things which you think could be done better. Please help the Symbian community by raising these things in our Bugzilla database, which tracks both defects & enhancements. Better still, you could develop the necessary code changes to fix the problem, and offer them back as contributions by publishing them to the Mercurial repository.

If you haven’t previously seen the Symbian^3 product reference on the developer website, now’s a good time to visit to find guides to base porting and device drivers, among others, as well as API reference documentation. And don’t forget that the Symbian OS Internals book is available on our Wiki, if you want some introduction to the code, and our Forums are a good place to ask questions.

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded the kit so far – I’m thrilled that there is so much interest in this very technical “Under the Hood” part of the Symbian Platform.

William Roberts

PS. Our logs show that some of you click on the download links several times – please get in touch if you are having any difficulties downloading from our website.

Comments (10)

The Joy of SEE

Oct 30th by tajpritchard Retweet Share on Facebook

I’m Tom Pritchard, Connectivity Technology Manager for Symbian. I’ve been around Symbian for some time and have been to many Symbian events in the past with mixed pleasure but, for me, SEE09 was a joy – it was exactly what an open source exchange of ideas should be about.

Tom Pritchard

I had many meetings set up which were all very productive, but what I really want to talk about is the more impromptu things that came out of the expo – chiefly, two unexpected potential contributions from new potential members.

Firstly, I was at the Symbian Ideas stand talking with some great people from the ecosystem when I was introduced to two developers, Leon and Zoran, from OpenCode. They make a USSD product but were having some problems with their solution on Symbian and wanted to talk about what they can do to improve this.

It wasn’t long before I was sitting down with them and Nithin Vijay, the package owner for Cellular Baseband Services, seeing a demo of their product and talking about the direction that Nithin would like to take for USSD, but doesn’t have the resources to do.

This struck a chord with Leon and Zoran and they were keen to help out with the implementation if they could. For me this is the exemplar of open source collaboration: OpenCode are able to build a better end product, the package owner gets a new feature delivered and the Symbian platform grows and improves.

Picture 2

Secondly, I was just walking into the media lounge and Lars Kurth, Contributor Community Manager at the foundation, grabs me to say he’d like me to meet someone from the makers of a range of bluetooth stacks, applications and devices.

Once again, I was shortly sitting down with a potential contributor and a package owner – this time Sander Van Valkenburg (bluetooth & bluetooth services) – talking about accelerating the roadmap for Bluetooth 3.0 High Speed.

This is also exactly the kind of win-win-win situation that we want to bring to the community: A member can more easily integrate their applications and peripherals, a package owner gets new features delivered and the Symbian platform takes another leap forward in functionality.

I look forward to welcoming these new members to the Symbian community and I hope you will welcome the contributions that they can bring.

Comments (3)

Lee Williams on Fujitsu and Qualcomm

Oct 29th by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

I caught up with Symbian Exec Director Lee Williams this morning and put a few questions to him about where the foundation is currently at and, in particular, the importance of Fujitsu and Qualcomm’s new commitment to Symbian.

The discussion took in the two new members, the role of Symbian in delivering openness, and the broadening cultural base of the foundation.

The first thing I asked though was did he feel he’d taken a lot of criticism over the past six months and is it now coming good? Read more »

Comments (2)

Symbian Strengthened …. and Then Some

Oct 29th by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

So SEE ended on a high with well in excess of a hundred new ideas pouring into our ideagora, ideas.symbian.org;  and the apps platform Horizon went live;  there were some superior conference sessions and, as ever, great networking opportunities….

…and then came the really good news.

Rounding off a great week, Symbian was quietly putting down deeper roots in the US while strengthening Symbian’s role in Japan.

As the conference drew to a close, two new agreements were signed that could change the way we view the evolving eco-system. As of today the Symbian community is home to Fujitsu and Qualcomm’s Innovation Center, two of the stand-out companies in the mobile space, companies with a reputation for driving innovation, who have chosen to invest in the Symbian movement.

(update) See the press releases here Fujitsu and here Qualcomm

Fujitsu:

  • 2002: Fujitsu produced the first 3G phone for NTT DOCOMO’s FOMA 3G network, the F2051
  • 2003: Fujitsu created the first videophone, the F2102 V
  • 2004 Fujitsu created the first Flash-based Symbian OS phone, the F900i

    • Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC):

    QuIC was founded in order to focus on mobile open source software and the vehicle through which Qualcomm intend to support the ecosystem that surrounds the Symbian Platform. Qualcomm’s track record of innovation in mobile is almost unparalleled.

    It goes without saying that Japan and the US are key territories, with innovative developers and demanding consumers and it’s a real plus to strengthen relationships there.

    What the news also represents though is a challenge to Symbian. How does Symbian – the community as much as the Foundation -  become a catalyst for a more open approach for Qualcomm and Fujitsu?

    How should that relationship, and relationships with the eco-system, evolve? It’s a key question and one of the reasons why I’m happy to be part of the Symbian story.

    This is what Rob Chandhok, President of QuIC, has to say about joining the community:

    Working as part of the Symbian Foundation, QuIC looks forward to participating in technology innovation in areas such as multi-core CPU support, Web browser and application enhancement, and CDMA and LTE support.”

    And Nobuo Ohtani, President, Mobile Phones Unit, Fujitsu Limited:

    With 8 years experience in developing Symbian OS based mobile phones and commercializing cutting-edge mobile phones for NTT DOCOMO, we will further drive activities to develop the foundation and the Symbian platform

    The news has clearly got people inside Symbian Foundation incredibly excited.

    It builds out the core member team, of course. QuIC and Fujitsu join wireless operators AT&T, Vodafone and NTT DOCOMO; silicon providers ST Microelectronics NV and Texas Instruments; and handset manufacturers Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Nokia on the board.

    So what does it provide to the community? Well, step 1 of course is to ask – what do you think it brings?  I suspect there are exciting challenges ahead.

    Symbian Foundation is growing globally, strengthening its roots in Asia…. Europe of course has always been a strong point…. and putting down incredible roots in the previously elusive US territory.

    My own view is the range of cultures, corporate and national, that we now embrace is going to give us plenty of creative opportunities and the kinds of conflicting viewpoints that stimulate real innovation. If we can operate our openness policy effectively as we diversify then…. what a way for 2009 to start winding down.

    I think as well the fact that we are bringing more people from traditional business into the growing family of companies prepared to build business around openness is great news. I’d like to wrap up the post with comments from readers, so let me know your views, the opportunities and challenges ahead.

    Comments (5)

    Ideas.SYMBIAN.org

    Oct 27th by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

    Slightly overshadowed by SEE and by Horizon, the launch of Symbian’s ideas site is proving to be an immediate success. Hats off to Freddie who has led the run into launch, Annabel who has guided the branding elements and not forgetting Mike Sharman over at Firefly who helped us out, early on, with copy.

    Picture 1

    I feel a little sense of residual ownership there too. I suggested we run an ideagora back in February, along with my colleague Ted Shelton, and guided the requirements capture and design until moving onto the blog.

    By the way – this is my last week with the Symbian blog. I’m hoping to finish off the redesign but from afar. As of Friday I go back to my company The Conversation Group and my own blog fiveideas.

    What do I mean by success? Well, we’ve had sixteen nineteen twenty twenty three (thirty eight by early afternoon) ideas submitted this morning alone. Take a few examples:

    Event mapping from Michael Bergen:

    An app to look at my calendar, my GPS, my address book, my recent emails and my social networks, to let me which friends and business contacts are at the same event, or are planning to attend the event.

    Pedometer from Richard Jones
    Please put a pedometer on the Symbian system. This will help people to keep fit. Look at the Samsung B2700. You will see what I mean.

    One comment I want to make about this. We are HAPPY to have one line ideas. We would be happier if you guys could take a moment to work the ideas through into proposals. Not every idea will become a proposal of course but where you have a commitment to it – please provide some kind of cost-benefit estimate. We will return to this again but for now THANKS every one who has submitted or viewed today.

    Another aside – hope you have all caught onto the fact that you can vote ideas up and down – and you can comment and discuss.

    Comments (5)

    Horizon LIVE @ SEE ‘09

    Oct 27th by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

    So for people who have been waiting on the official launch of Horizon, Symbian’s apps publishing programme, today is the day. The Symbian Foundation launches Horizon officially this morning at the start of SEE ‘09.

    For developers looking to the Symbian family of phones as a commercial market, they can sign up to Horizon and have their apps listed in the Symbian Horizon Directory, processed through Symbian Signed, and published to a growing list of application store partners.

    A total of five stores now support Symbian Horizon. Along with the initial stores announced, Ovi Store by Nokia, Samsung Applications Store and AT&T’s MEdia Mall, two new stores are now participating: China Mobile’s Mobile Market, and Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow arena.

    Since the initial launch plans were announced in July 2009, Symbian has processed an initial group of 50 applications and is helping these developers sign and submit their products to mobile application stores worldwide.

    The goal of Symbian Horizon is to help developers bring their applications to the largest mobile market in the world in a cost effective way.

    By cost effective what do we mean?

    Approximate figures we’ve worked on suggest we can reduce the cost of publishing apps by about 75% compared to not using Horizon, assuming you want to push your work to 6 stores.

    So cost effective it certainly is.

    Over the long term however, running Horizon will not be cheap so the Foundation will open-source the development of the business model. As of now you can raise questions, issues and ideas around how to make Horizon self-sustaining @ ideas. symbian.org, our newly launched public ideagora.

    Horizon could be the best way for developers to get to market but at its heart lies a truism of Symbian’s new life – it can be as great, useful, dynamic and successful as its community wants it to be. We hope this will be an initiative that brings the community together around a common goal of being not just great at phones but great at getting a growing and diverse community of apps developers to market too.

    Comments (9)

    Have you seen Symbian’s new website(s)?

    Oct 26th by freddiegjertsen Retweet Share on Facebook

    The reincarnation of www.symbian.org is the most obvious product of the sedulous industry that has occurred during recent months to sculpt Symbian’s web presence.

    www.symbian.org can now begin to serve as the hub for the community that is amassing around Symbian. A hub that inter-twines the selection of websites that we have created, customized or are present on in order to support, communicate and take direction from everyone (from developers to consumers) who wants to be part of the future of mobile.

    In briefish summary: Read more »

    Comments (18)

    SEE 2009: Improving Mobile Web Developer Experience

    Oct 26th by Tasneem Sayeed Retweet Share on Facebook

    On Tuesday, I will be giving a presentation at SEE 2009 for the Hands-on Lab1 on Improving Mobile Web Developer Experience.

    It will start out by defining the mobile Web, then will provide an overview on the mobile device constraints leading to mobile development challenges. I will briefly talk about the “Tool Trends”, then will be diving deep to describe code fragments for developing a Web Service for sending and retrieving data through the REST API and how to avoid frequent developer pitfalls when displaying the data retrieved on the mobile device.

    This talk will also include an in-depth look at strategies for improving performance when utilizing web technologies (i.e. JavaScript, CSS and HTML) and how to reduce footprint when developing a mobile application.  It will conclude highlighting the activities of the Symbian Foundation Tools team including a roadmap of how the Symbian tools are being evolved to further improve and enhance the mobile web developer experience.

    If you are involved with mobile Web development, then come join me at the Hands-on Lab 1 at 4:30pm for the Improving the Mobile Web Developer Experience talk.  In the meantime, you can leave me a comment here or follow me on Twitter.

    Comments (3)

    NAVTEQ’s Blog Talk Radio at SEE

    Oct 26th by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

    Don’t miss the Navteq sponsored Blog Talk Radio series at SEE this week.


    1. Advances in the field of mobile navigation
    ———————————————
    Interview with Pia Vuohelainen, Partner Manager, NN4D & Tony King-Smith, VP Marketing, Imagination Technologies about the implications of increased deployment of hardware accelerated graphics technology on mobile phones and mobile internet devices, developer adoption of more advanced graphics in navigation and LBS, and advanced map rendering in 3D, using NAVTEQ 3D content.
    Time: October 27th at 10:30am UK

    2. Location content meeting consumer needs
    ——————————————
    Technical interview with Mike Moore, Technical Consultant, NAVTEQ Network for Developers(tm) (NN4D) about how developers can use NAVTEQ dynamic Point of Interest (POI) content, NAVTEQ Traffic(tm) and NAVTEQ Discover Cities(tm) content to build compelling applications.
    Time: Oct 27th at 11:30am UK

    3. NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge – Recipe for Success
    —————————————————
    Interview with Mimmis Olsson, Marketing Manager EMEA & APAC, NAVTEQ Network for Developers(tm) (NN4D), about the leading LBS developer competition, why developers should care and tips for how to make a winner.
    Time: day 2, Oct 28th at 10:00am UK

    4. The keys to unlocking the money vault
    —————————————-
    Listen to this interview with Pia Vuohelainen, Partner Manager EMEA, NAVTEQ Network for Developers(tm) (NN4D), about NAVTEQ LocationPoint(tm) Advertising and how developers can make money on their applications and let consumers substitute paying for traffic or other location-based services by accepting location-based ads.
    Time: day 2, Oct 28th at 11:30am UK

    Comments Off

    OMAP Zoom platform SW for Symbian^3 available

    Oct 23rd by Fred Retweet Share on Facebook

    As promised in my previous blog entry, I am extremely pleased to announce that the first Zoom II MDP baseport for Symbian^3 is now available for download!

    So what is it exactly?

    It consists (simply) of all the components necessary to boot-up Symbian^3 PDK (3.0b) on Zoom II, in binary format.

    So point your browser now to the well-established www.omapzoom.org website, and you will find the Symbian^3 for OMAP™ project.

    Here are the main steps:

    -         follow the links to the ZoomSW package

    -         download and follow the installation process

    -         make sure you have the latest Symbian^3 PDK installed (this is PDK3.0b)

    -         build your platform

    -         Flash your board using TI CCST (provided in the package)

    -         start developing! Read more »

    Comments (4)

    « Older Entries