Tag: Nokia

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Flowella – AIR-based design tool for prototyping mobile apps

flowella-nokia.jpg

Flowella is a simple, AIR-based design tool that allows you to quickly create prototypes without writing a single line of code. If you are user experience designer or visual designer, this tool can help you. But since it’s from Nokia it supports Symbian devices right now (e.g. 5800, N97, etc). The program outputs Flash Lite or WRT for the interaction mockups.

“Flowella is an easy to use tool that enables designers and developers to create design prototypes — without writing a line of code.
Prototypes are built using images of screen mock-ups and defining links between the screens. This information is then used to create an Adobe Flash Lite 3.0 application or Web Runtime (WRT) widget. These applications can then be run on one of over seventy Nokia devices or in a simulator supplied with Flowella, enabling the application interaction to be assessed.

Key features

  • Create interactive prototypes in minutes using a WYSIWYG interface.
  • Compatible with computers running Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows computers.
  • Export prototypes to Adobe Flash Lite applications and Web Runtime widgets.
  • Prototype application compatible with over seventy compatible Nokia devices.
  • Ideal for testing of visual and interaction design.
  • Package content

vivek

Designing for Mobile in India?

Designing for Mobile in India

Mobile Design India’s first event  focuses on the theme of “Designing for India”
The Indian market is a unique mobile innovation playground and untapped opportunity for anyone wanting to develop mass-market mobile experiences that needs to work across a myriad of languages, operators, income-segments, networks and user needs. Mobile has revolutionized the way people conduct business, get entertained, educated, married, to keeping up with cricket scores.

On one side the Indian masses go for “aspirational” experiences that make them stand out. At the same time the core offering of simplicity, universality and easy access has never been more important than the present, where all pc-based experiences from the developed world are already being leapfrogged by being made available directly on mobile in the places like India.  There are fewer legacies in markets like India. Mobile developers and designers have a wonderful opportunity to push for new behaviours, interactions and experiences.

This group is co-founded by Priya Prakash from Nokia, and she is planning the group’s first event. The event will focus on 4 companies/startups that are crafting mobile user experiences thus taking advantage of the Indian market mobile opportunity and challenges.

When: 29th April from 6:30pm onwards
Where: @ Jaaga | Rhenius Street, Off Richmond Road, Opposite the Hockey Association Stadium main gate, Shanthinagar, Bangalore.
Register here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mobiledesignIN/

If you think designing for devices which is something you are passionate about, this is the right place and i am very excited about this event and hoping it will make big. 🙂

vivek

Video: Peek behind the curtain of Nokia’s design studio in London :)

“Over the past month we’ve been granted rare access, fascinating insight and candid chat related to a bunch of innovative design projects taking place at Nokia’s design studio in London. It’s certainly one of the Nokia hotspots for design innovation. From gesture and homescreen ingenuity to icon creation and the craft of “making communication more human” (as told to us recently by Axel Meyer, head of Nseries design at Nokia), our recent exposure to the design studio in London has painted an engrossing picture of what happens behind the curtain and how the people at Nokia holding the crayons go about bringing new devices and experiences to life.”

You can watch here a collection of recent videos featuring some of the passionate and creative folk at the Nokia design studio in London. Get a glimpse of how it all happens and some of the thinking behind a number of recent design projects.

Awesome and inspiring to see how they works 🙂

vivek

Nokia Braille Reader: SMS for the blind and visually impaired

Nokia Braille Reader gives SMS for the blind and visually impaired. It captures received SMS messages and brings them to the foreground for reading using Braille and tactile feedback.

The application has been developed in a joint project between Nokia, Tampere University and the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired.

Compatibility:
Nokia devices based on S60 5th Edition, including Nokia N97, 5800 XpressMusic and the newly released N97 mini, 5530, 5230 and X6.

It’s big challenge between new modern technologies and their impact on social life. HOW, WHERE AND FOR? What you think about it?
I am always quite passionate about thinking and like to work on design research to improve our day to day life.

vivek

New updates available for Nokia Design and User Experience Library

S60 touch ui

Nokia recently updated its Design and User Experience Library which gathers all essential aspects of design and usability into one. The library includes different kinds of guidelines, material about theme design, graphics design, and game design, as well as the basics of usability.

The updated library includes different kinds of guidelines, material about theme design, graphics design, and game design, as well as the basics of usability. Updates to v1.5 include a new section about designing and creating S60 3rd Edition themes.

You can also read other interesting article in this update about “Chinese markets or the state of mobile and service design in China” which is quite interesting !.

vivek

Nokia and Adobe launch $10 Million Open Screen Project Fund

Open Screen Project Fund

Adobe and Nokia announced a $10 million Open Screen Project fund which is designed to help developers create applications and services for mobile, desktop and consumer electronics devices using the Adobe Flash Platform “a singular experience for multiple devices”

“The Open Screen Project Fund encourages the use of Adobe tools and existing developer skills to create exciting and unique Flash applications for millions of Nokia devices,” said Tero Ojanpera, EVP, Nokia Services. “With more than 300 million Flash enabled devices in market, we will support these developers through the Forum Nokia developer community while providing a more targeted distribution channel to consumers with Nokia’s Ovi Store.”

The new fund is a result of the Open Screen Project, an industry-wide initiative of more than 20 industry leaders set to enable a consistent experience for web browsing and standalone applications. you can find additional information on the Open Screen Project website and Forum Nokia website.

vivek

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Nokia launches IdeasProject.com “Do you have any idea” :)

ideas project

Nokia has launched IdeasProject, an online information space designed to help people find and understand the connections between thought leaders and their big ideas.

“IdeasProject is an exciting new way to highlight big ideas from leading thinkers, and to show how so many new thoughts are connected to one another,” said Loic Le Meur, Founder, Seesmic and LeWeb conference. Le Meur’s “big idea” on IdeasProject is that “Sharing changes everything.”

“IdeasProject visitors can see new ideas as they surface and be able to track the connection between ideas and the thought leaders that contributed them,” said Valerie Buckingham, Director of Technology Marketing, Nokia.

Interesting! 🙂

vivek

Adobe bringing full-fledged Flash to phones

Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch at Adobe’s Max conference

Adobe has worked for years on a lightweight incarnation of its Flash technology for mobile phones, and now is working to bring the full-fledged Flash Player 10 to higher-end smartphones 🙂 Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch said at Adobe’s Max conference.

“We are midst of evolving Flash Player 10 for mobile,” Lynch said. “We’re taking the full Flash Player and making that run on the higher end of the mobile market.”

Distributable Flash Lite player – This is awesome news for all of us, Lynch acknowledged that it’s hard to actually run Flash content with existing technology. Now, though, Flash Lite applications can be shared as a simple Web address, he said, and if Flash Lite isn’t installed, it can be retrieved automatically.
“You can package your application built with Flash and deploy it to smartphones like Windows Mobile and Symbian, and we hope to get to Android as well,” Lynch said. “If you don’t already have Flash Lite, it will detect that and install it on your mobile phone over the air.”
Flash includes auto-update technology so users generally have a current version installed, and Adobe plans to keep that philosophy with its push into the mobile realm, he added. Partners to help enable that update process include Cisco Systems, NTT DoCoMo, Verizon, Comcast, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Qualcomm, and ARM.
Lynch also boasted that Adobe is exceeding its goals for Flash on mobile phones. “Our goal (was to make) a billion phones Flash-enabled by 2010,” Lynch said. “We’re actually going to get 1 billion Flash-enabled phones by 2009.”

Adobe also working on Adobe air for mobile which they released AIR 1.5 on Monday, a version that inherits Flash Player 10 abilities such as better text rendering, support for right-to-left text scripts such as Arabic, multichannel audio, and 3D effects.
“Like Flash, AIR is headed for the mobile world. Lynch also demonstrated AIR 1.5 running on a Linux-based Aigo miniature computer–what Intel likes to call a MID, or mobile Internet device.”

Quite many things are happening around Adobe Max 2008 and many great exciting news coming up. keep reading my blog i will update you 🙂

vivek

Nokia 5th edition with New device API for Flash lite :)

nokia 5800 xpress music

Finally something must to be excited about for Flash lite developer, Nokia released new Device API support for Nokia S60 5th Edition where it can access to Phone features.

Developers of Flash Lite from Adobe applications benefit from the UI enhancements in S60 5th Edition, with more screen real estate and touch interaction enabling users to more easily and intuitively navigate Flash Lite content and applications. The on-screen keyboard also is available for text and data entry.
S60 5th Edition continues to support Flash Lite 3.0, with the addition of ActionScript extensions to take advantage of S60 Platform Services.

These extensions provide access to:

  • The application manager.
  • Calendar records.
  • Contacts records.
  • Log information.
  • SMS and MMS messaging.
  • The media gallery.
  • Device location.
  • Landmarks.
  • System information.
  • Sensors.

These new APIs enable Flash Lite developers to access device-application data, such as that held in Calendar and Contacts, as well as information on a device’s location.
Together, the UI- and platform-access enhancements enable Flash Lite developers to create a completely new breed of context-aware applications and services that provide users with information unique to their own experiences.

First device with S60 5th Edition is Nokia 5800 Xpress Music

vivek

Nokia releases Nokia Flash Lite (NFL) packaging for S40

Nokia Flash Lite (NFL) packaging for S40

Via Mariam, a great news for Flash Lite developers: Nokia releases the Nokia Flash Lite (NFL) packaging for S40 for 5th Ed1 FP1

  • Allowing launch of a swf file directly using it’s own icon (overriding the default Flash icon), from the Gallery.
  • Allow localization of the application name in the Gallery instead of the file name.
  • Allowing DRM protection.

“This document outlines a procedure and file format for distributing Flash Lite from Adobe content to Series 40 devices. The format is handled correctly by Nokia devices compatible with Series 40 5th Edition, Feature Pack 1 or newer. The .NFL format offers developers the chance to package related resource files together and to launch content using an icon in the same way as “full” applications. This format improves both the publishing and user experience of Flash Lite content onto a wide range of Nokia devices.”

The Package format is based on the universally accepted ZIP archive format, with some requirements for mandatory content as well as file extension. I feel this is something really important as Flash lite developer needs an easiest way to package and distribute their content for mobile devices.

Bill perry shown the step by step how to create this package and its similarity in workflow with other Flash packager like AIR, Flex etc.

vivek

SWF2Go v2.0 released

SWF2Go v2.0

SWF2Go Professional enables you to create rich, powerful and engaging Flash Lite applications rapidly by combining the power of Python for S60 and Net60. Making professional class deployment packages is now one-click operation with new redesigned and friendlier user interface.SWF2Go is a RAD (Rapid Application Development) friendly tool, allowing Flash Lite developers to deliver fast and on-time through simplified SIS packaging process.

Some of the key features are:

  • Easy to Use: The best and complete professional SIS installer and SWF launcher toolkit, now with new redesigned user interface.
  • Broad Compatibility: Support for all versions of Adobe Flash Lite Player (1.1, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0+) and all versions of Symbian S60 3rd Edition (9.1, 9.2, 9.3+).
  • Industry Standard: Produces Symbian Signed and Express Signed compatible SIS installers. Used and trusted by industry leaders as well as many small startup companies.
  • Advance Extensions: With support of Python for S60 and Net60 (.Net CF) runtimes, make powerful Flash Lite applications. Use existing Open Source frameworks or make your own customized solutions.
  • Intelli-Launch Technology v2:
    – Python for S60 background script launcher
    – Net60 (.Net CF for Symbian) background process launcher
    – Support for custom installation paths, including /private folder for better protection of Flash Lite applications
    – Intelligent detection and start of SWF with the latest on-device Flash Lite playerInfo-note with URL to download Flash Lite from Adobe’s website, if Flash Lite is not detected on mobile device
    – Support to launch multiple Flash Lite applications simultaneously
  • Make Try-Before-Buy: Make trial version of applications with one click. Show a splash screen during trial, and optionally open Buy Now link at end of each trial run.
  • Additional Features:
    – Option to export PKG and SIS source for making customized SIS installer
    – Option to keep temporary SIS source files for making customized / advance SIS
    – Optionally display of readme and/or license agreement during SIS installation
    – Embed other SIS files into main SIS (Flash Lite Player / PyS60 / Net60)
    – Supports build automation by XML project files and command-line compiler option
    – Express-Compile technology helps rapidly build SIS file(s) in seconds
    – Integrates with Windows Explorer to quickly compile SWF2Go Project files with right-click context menu

I use personally SWF2Go and i feel easiest way to package and distribute my mobile contents quickly. 🙂

vivek