Ever wondered how much energy a Nokia phone consumes during in its lifetime? What about the amount of CO₂ emissions? Nokia's recently released sustainability report provides an answer for "a typical mobile device". The answer? 210 megajoules (MJs) of energy and 12kg of CO₂ emissions. Given the components and energy profile of a typical smartphone, and the proportion of mobile phones in Nokia's shipment breakdowns, we would expect the company's smartphone products to be a little above that typical average. 

Nokia says that the CO₂ emissions are equivalent to driving 71km in an average family car. To put this further in context the average plane passenger, flying from London to New York, is reponsible for around 580kg CO₂ emissions. Do note that these figures are estimates and the results depend on the calculation method, scope and assumptions used.

So how does this CO₂ emission breakdown over the lifetime of the phone? Well 74% of the emissions occur before you even get your hands on the phone (54% in production, 4% in Nokia operations in the factory, and 16% in transport), 25% during your ownership of the device, and 1% during the recycling and recovery of the device.

Image credit: Nokia

But, in terms of environmental impact, it's not so much about the CO₂ emissions that come from running a phone, but rather the CO₂ emissions that come from making a phone.

Of course, you might also want to consider the savings in CO₂ emissions that comes from using a smartphone. The chances are, thanks to convergence, a typical smartphone will eliminate one or more other gadget from your life, or the need-to-buy list. Using the phone can save on CO₂ emissions too. For example, drivers using a satnav solution, like Nokia Drive, are estimated to use 5%-10% less fuel (not getting lost, route optimisation, and regulating speed) and the communications and collaboration abilities of a phone should cut down on the amount of journeys you need to take.

This week Nokia published its annual corporate social responsibility and sustainability report ("Nokia People & Planet Report 2012"). Covering a wide range of issues it offers an insight into the broad range of initiatives that makes Nokia a leader in the technology sector for ethical and environmental issues. The report also discusses the impact of Nokia's 2011 and 2012 strategy changes on its employees and the communities in which it operates.

Here's how Nokia describe the report:

Since 2002, we’ve consistently reported on corporate responsibility, and each year we build upon our transparency and coverage of issues. Today, our report covers the ethical, socio-economic and environmental areas most relevant to Nokia’s business and its stakeholders.

The Nokia People & Planet Report 2012 is split into Nokia’s efforts for people and the planet. The People section discusses how mobile technology can be harnessed for the good of individuals and communities, but it also covers challenges we faced in 2012 as well as how this impacted our employees and the communities in which we operate. The Planet part reports on our initiatives to minimize the potential negative impacts on the environment and the positive contributions mobile devices can make to the planet. The report is only available in digital format, as we want to print less.

The reports talks in detail about the positive and negative aspects of Nokia's business operations, and details the company's overall performance, whether it met its targets, and plans for the future.

Here are some selected highlights from the report:

Corporate taxation

• Nokia says that, "as a good corporate citizen Nokia pays the amount of tax legally due and observes all applicable rules and regulations in each country where it operates". The report notes that the company has followed the same centralised business model in the allocation of taxable income since the early 1990s. In essence, the majority of profit (and loss) is carried by the business in Finland, with a smaller portion carried in the countries in which Nokia operates. Although it's not specifically mentioned in the report for obvious reasons, this is in sharp contrast to a number of other technology companies who have been in the headlines for offshoring profits in low corporate tax jurisdictions.

Employees

• As a result of Nokia's new strategy (switch to Windows Phone) there were a large number of job losses. In order to help employees affected by the reductions Nokia established a support program call Bridge. By the end of 2012 17,000 employees had participated in the program, and almost 1,000 new businesses have been set up by former employees.
     

Environmental design

• A dedicated design for environment (DFfE) specialists work actively throughout every product development project at Nokia, verifying legal and voluntary target compliance, as well as promoting sustainable alternatives for materials and other design considerations.
    
• Over the last decade Nokia has reduced the greenhouse gas footprint of their phones by 50%.
    

Materials

• In 2012 Nokia banned the used of radioactive substances in all products, packaging, and internal production processes. This in the latest in a long line of substance nad material management policies. For example, the use of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) was restricted, and in 2010 all Nokia products were free from bromine and chlorine compounds related to flame retardants.
    
• In 2012 Nokia retail packaging material used 18,875 tonnes of paper (on average 52% recycled) and a futher 9,569 tonnes of paper (on average 89% recycled) in transport packaging material.
     

Chargers

• Over the last 10 years Nokia has reduced the no-load consumption of its chargers by 73% (i.e. charger plugged in, but not being actively used for charging). The best-in-class chargers have seen a 90% reduction.
   
• The average no-load power consumption on Nokia chargers shipped in 2012 was 0.098W, a reduction of 13% from the previous year.
     
• In 2012 all new Nokia devices are being shipped with four or five star charger.
     

Emissions

• 40% of the electricity used by Nokia comes from renewable sources
    
• Nokia aims to reduce CO2 emissions by a minimum of 30% by 2020 (from a 2006 baseline). The 2013 emissions figure was down 29% from 2006. 
    
• Nokia reduced CO2 emissions from air travel by 54% from 2011 to 2012 in total, and by 39% when calculating reductions per employee. In part this was due to the installation and greater use of new video conferencing facilities. 

The full report can be downloaded here [PDF].

Fresh from my (and others) attempts to capture the moon with the Nokia 808 PureView, I was interested to see that 808 photographer extraordinaire Richard Dorman has been going one step further and trying to capture the stars. See below for the proof. Essentially the trick is to take lots of photos (with the 808 on a tripod, of course) and stack them together for a final render. Yes, this can be done more easily on a standalone camera perhaps, but isn't it still cool that it's being done on a Symbian-powered phone?

From Richard's notes:

Right let’s get down to business, firstly find your location. You will need a tripod for this, otherwise the background will not match in each image and the trails will have kinks in them.

Do some test shots of the scene to make sure you are happy with the location and the frame you have chosen.

Settings

•  use infinity focus (if you have it). The Nokia 808 does.
• Set the ISO to 100 and take a shot, can you see the background and the stars, if not then reset ISO to 200 and test again. Continue this until you get an image you are happy with
• Time lapse setting, every 5 seconds take an image, with the Nokia 808 you can set it to take a maximum of 1500 images. This is plenty to achieve star trails. In fact 400+ is enough.
• Flash off of course

I also suggest you take something to drink and maybe read, you will be at location for an hour or two. Plus you might need a backup charger, I made sure I had a Nokia DC-16 attached just in case it was needed. The last thing you want is for the phone to run out of battery.

What a great idea. Read his post in full for details on how to stack the images together at the end of the day, and for a few pointers on what else might go wrong.

Comments welcome if you've ever tried something like this, or indeed if you've found a particular 808-compatible tripod that works well - Nokia's HH-23 is now apparently unavailable and never used to hold the phone that securely in the first place, so presumably most of you will be using a third party tripod attachment. care to share any success stories? I used this one for ages until I broke it(!)

What next? Trying to photograph galaxies?

(hat tip to PureView Club)

We haven't plugged my cross-platform Phones Show for ages here on the All About... sites, but I couldn't resist the video below. Not only is it my 200th Phones Show (FX: pops champagne cork!), there are plenty of relevant appearances of Symbian and Windows Phone-powered devices, listed below, with relevant links. And hey, there's also a big review of the Samsung Galaxy S4, which is, in some ways, the benchmark for all of 2013's new releases - it's certainly going to be the biggest selling smartphone - so hopefully worth watching too. If you want to skip straight to the Nokia bits, move to around the 11 minute mark.

In the 'User Stories' segment, then, there are appearances by the:

• (Windows Phone 7) Nokia Lumia 800
• (Windows Phone 8) Nokia Lumia 920
• (Windows Phone 8) Nokia Lumia 720
• (Symbian) Nokia 808 PureView
• (Symbian/S60) Nokia 5800
• (Symbian/S60) Nokia E71
• (Meego Harmattan) Nokia N9

Here's Phones Show 200, anyway - enjoy! (As usual, maximise the window and 'up' the quality, up to 1080p)

My 5-camera 7-scene test, earlier this week, provoked a lot of comment along the lines of "ah, but you left the Nokia 808 on default settings for almost all of that, if you'd have used Creative mode properly, the 808 would have fared a lot better!" Maybe. In the two examples below, I just show the two main contenders tackling a distant detail and an extreme macro. Seems I was right about the Galaxy S4, you know. And I was right about the Nokia 808 PureView (if the critics had read through all my text)...

The two main contentions from the critics were around distant detail and macro shots, so I did one of each. And in each case I put the Nokia 808 up to 'Superfine' (in terms of detail and JPG compression) and also ramped up the colours to 'Vivid'. And I then ran the 808 at full 2x PureView zoom (it's 3x in 5MP mode, remember). 

Distant detail

In overcast, dull light (UK weather, but hey, it gives the phone cameras more of a challenge), I shot a small sign across the road. Here's the full scene:

And here are the crops from the Nokia 808 (left) and Samsung Galaxy S4 (right):

As before, in my zoom test in the previous article, the Nokia 808 PureView was born to do this sort of thing and the detail on offer is natural and impressive. More than before (2 pts behind), the Galaxy S4 is quite a way further back, merely doing its best to interpolate detail. In fact, were I scoring this comparison out of 10, I'd give the 808 9 pts and the S4 5 pts (i.e. 2 pts less), which just goes to show that results of these comparisons will naturally vary slightly according to the subject and conditions. With the light being less than perfect, the Nokia 808's larger sensor and optics come into play in a big way. In bright sunlight, the Galaxy S4 does a bit better, but will always still be a few rungs behind.

Extreme macro

Again in overcast, dull light, I shot a similar dandelion as in the first test. Here's the full scene:

And here are the crops from the Nokia 808 (left) and Samsung Galaxy S4 (right):

Again I stand by my original comments about the Samsung Galaxy S4 being stunning for macro photographs, as here. Even at full sensor resolution (2x zoom/8MP, equivalent to using the 34MP mode), the Nokia 808 simply can't focus close enough to match the Galaxy. Both shots above were taken as close as I could reliably get a focus lock.

My overall conclusions remain the same though, in regards these two very different smartphones. The Nokia 808 PureView will always produce more natural, 'purer', more detailed photos, and will produce them with more flexibility for those who know what they are doing - as long as the subject isn't closer than about 40cm. 

Under 30cm, the edge goes to the Samsung Galaxy S4, which can accurately focus down to about 7cm and with the full sensor resolution available across quite a narrow field of view.

With such different conclusions based on what the subject matter is, it's perhaps no wonder that my 7-scene test caused a stir with its results - every single one of us would devise a different set of test scenes/subjects! Seven landscapes and general subjects would produce a landslide win for the 808, while seven macro shots of flowers, food and small pets would produce a big win for the Galaxy S4.

Purely as a link of interest for All About Symbian readers, who will be only too aware that I've compared the Lumia 920 to the best camera-centric smartphones from the Symbian world many times (usually unfavourably), worth noting that Nokia has just announced an improved smartphone camera in the new Lumia 925, with six different lens elements (a world first, Nokia claims) and the ability to shoot up to ISO3200.

Just as interestingly, the Nokia team on stage mentioned several times about the Lumia 925 shooting 'crisper' and 'sharper' images than the existing 920. Let's hope so. 

Here's the lens assembly, artistically broken down:

No mention, even as a comparison, was made at the Lumia 925 launch event of the Nokia 808 or PureView phase 1 - which was disappointing, if not entirely surprising. And the next camera phone head to head I do will of course be the Symbian-powered 808 vs the Windows Phone-powered 925 - place your bets on an outcome? Note that, as usual, I'll be trying a diverse set of test shots and use cases. Can a F/2.0 OIS camera shooting at ISO3200 match Xenon flash? This should be rather intresting!

Other relevant highlights (for Symbian users eyeing up an upgrade) are that there are also the twin HAAC mikes, hopefully used in stereo by Windows Phone GDR2, plus the same 808-grade loudspeaker. Downsides of the 925 are the continued use of sealed memory (a paltry 16GB for everything - very 2010) for most models, plus a sealed battery, one of my pet hates.

See the full AAWP story for photos and impressions, etc. 

In fact, ignore the title, because I've included no less than five top camera-toting smartphones in this group test. In addition to the big three, the Nokia 808 PureView (still reckoned to be champion by most people), the Nokia Lumia 920 (the flagship Windows Phone until tomorrow!) and the Samsung Galaxy S4 (brand new and top-rated), I also wanted to include the 2010 Nokia N8, since its sensor's megapixel count and performance should be a close match for the SGS4, plus last year's Galaxy S III, so we can see how much of a difference Samsung have made in terms of their camera tech. Let the fight rage!

Minor notes

• As usual, I've cropped in to each photo so that we can see differences more clearly. For a detailed explanation of my testing methodology, see here.
• The various smartphone cameras have very different angles of view, i.e. some cover a much smaller arc in front of the lens. This, in part, explains why the subjects - all cropped to the same degree - appear different sizes in the comparisons. The other factor is, of course, the resolution the photos were taken in.
• The Nokia 808 was set at 8 megapixels (in its PureView Creative mode), to better match the resolutions of the other camera phones here (9MP, 6MP, 7MP and 9MP respectively)
• All phones were left on default/auto throughout, apart from manually controlling flash on/off for the low light test. 
• The Lumia 920 photo in the 'pub' test was taken with the generally excellent third party app CameraPro for logistical reasons (in that the Windows Phone app is feature-light and doesn't have a 'self-timer' option!) 
• Other smartphones considered for inclusion included the Sony Xperia Z, rejected because of its appalling noise reduction blur (see here) and the HTC One, rejected because it would produce images with not enough detail (see here).

Major notes

• The whole point of this test is to look at the quality of colour and amount of resolved detail that a new user would experience. There is zero allowance for fiddling with settings (ISO, exposure, sharpening, contrast, and so on) - all the phone cameras here can produce better results with knowledgeable fiddling, the Nokia 808 more than most, of course, since it's a more powerful sensor and there are more settings to fiddle with.
• I also only allowed the Nokia 808 to use its PureView zoom in one test, so as not to bias the article too much in favour of this technology. In addition, I did have to use this zoom implicitly to even achieve the macro photos in tests 4 and 5.
• In answer to some of the criticism to this feature, there's now a companion mini-test, with the 808 being allowed to run custom settings, for your interest.

Test 1: Full sunlight, medium distance

The Herald from the BMA, looking at the rather faded BEA logo on its paintwork from 20 metres away.

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

This crop comparison instantly shows why you have to be a little careful in scoring camera tests. At first glance, the crop from the Galaxy S4 looks dramatically better, but then you realise that this is because of the extreme (though very clever) noise reduction and sharpening algorithms that have been applied by Samsung. Images treated like this do look better for general users, mind you, so this shouldn't be discounted.

You can tell where the algorithms have been by looking at the artificial dark border around each letter and the artificially pure blocks of solid colour. The Nokia 808's image is most close to reality (faded paint etc.) but I'll acknowledge that it looks a bit 'soft' here by comparison. The SGS III's version is much the same as the GS4, but at lower resolution, while the N8 produces a generally accurate image, spoilt only by some noisy artefacts. The 920 doesn't fare too badly - again noise and digital artefacts spoil the effect.

Nokia 808 PureView: 8 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 7 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 6 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 6 pts; Nokia N8 7 pts

Test 2: Hazy sunlight, distance detail

The Lands End pub from the end of its gravel overflow car park, looking at signage on the building:

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8 (click any hyperlink to download the original JPG):

It's a similar story here, though looking at more extreme detail in the distance, pushing the resolution of these camera phones to the limit (see also the zoom test below). It's a choice between the natural looking N8 and 808 shots and the processed versions in the two Samsung Galaxy phones. The casual user would probably look at these crops and give the win to the Galaxy S4, and in truth it's impressive how much detail is coaxed out of the relatively tiny sensor, even you can't overlook the over-sharpening. All five phone cameras did quite well here, mind you, and scoring is going to be subjective.

Nokia 808 PureView: 8 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 9 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 8 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 7 pts; Nokia N8 9 pts

Test 3: Full sunlight, zoom allowed

Looking out my window at distant roof detail. Note that digital zoom in most cameras is normally frowned upon, but the artefacts aren't as ugly as they used to be, with extra resolution now being used to smooth out jaggies in the detail. Plus, general users tend to use zoom anyway, not knowing it's supposed to be a bad idea, so I think this is a valid test case.

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

The Nokia 808 PureView was born to do this sort of thing, of course, boasting lossless software zoom from its 41 megapixel sensor, so it's not surprising that its image is almost perfect, with zero artefacts. What's surprising here is that the Galaxy S4's camera gets close - its crop is obviously 'enhanced' but again a general user would pick it as looking clear and detailed - you have to look at brick and leaf detail to really appreciate that you're not looking strictly at reality.

The other phone cameras struggle slightly more, with the N8 next and the noisy Lumia 920 and the blown out SGS III crops bringing up the rear.

Nokia 808 PureView: 9 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 7 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 4 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 4 pts; Nokia N8 6 pts

Test 4: Full sunlight, tricky macro shot

A very tricky macro shot, here, with a pair of tiny flowers, lit strongly against a shady background, one reflecting sunlight back and the other not:

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

All the phone cameras struggled with getting the exposure right here. In each case, I could have fiddled with exposure manually and gotten better results, but we're explicitly comparing like with like here, and using full auto settings. The Nokia 808 PureView is particularly weak on extreme macro shots, since its optics don't allow focussing closer than 15cm or so. The shot above is with some PureView zoom added in and it still doesn't get anywhere near as 'close' as the other phones.

The two Samsung Galaxy devices best the best showing in terms of capturing the blue flower, with the Lumia 920 managing only a weak violet and the N8 hardly managing any colour at all. As I say, a very tricky shot to get and my fingers were itching to reach for those exposure icons!

Nokia 808 PureView: 5 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 8 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 6 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 5 pts; Nokia N8 4 pts

Test 5: Another macro, easier lighting, looking at detail

Much easier lighting this time, and with a subject which should reward a camera with an eye for detail:

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

All five devices did a much better job here, with the Nokia 808 again being hampered by not being able to get as close as the other smartphones. Striking though the Lumia 920 and N8 images are, the crops from the two Galaxy phones are simply stunning, perhaps because the sharpening algorithms really, really like dandelions!...

Nokia 808 PureView: 5 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 10 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 9 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 8 pts; Nokia N8 7 pts

Test 6: Low light, static indoor scene (no flash)

I set up a low light environment in controlled conditions at home, with flash disabled on each device. In each I focussed on the 'i' in the word 'family':

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8 (click any hyperlink to download the original JPG):

As you perhaps might expect, low light conditions start to favour the phone cameras with biggest sensors, able to gather more light, plus the Nokia devices also have the Carl Zeiss optics, which do help keep things clear when the going gets tough. The Nokia 808 crop is perfect, with the white backdrop coloured by incandescent light from the table lamp, and all the tiny blue detail visible. Stunning. The N8 and Lumia 920 also do their best, but end up with a backdrop that is 'too' white - in the 920's case losing blue leaf detail too. Both the Samsung Galaxy smartphones fare badly here, with a reddish cast where there was none in reality, though again you have to admire the sheer detail in the GS4's version.

Nokia 808 PureView: 10 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 7 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 5 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 5 pts; Nokia N8 8 pts

Test 7: Low light, dynamic (people moving) scene

I set up a simulated 'pub' scene, with flash allowed on each device. I tried to keep moving in the same realistic fashion for each shot - think typical pub/party. And yes, I know the top's still on the bottle - you wouldn't want me drunk in charge of a camera test, would you?!

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

Xenon flash, of course, rules wherever there are moving people, and the Nokia 808 crop is, again, perfect - look at the writing on the bottle, look at the bottle top detail. The N8 doesn't fare quite as well, but the bottle is still fairly crisp. The LED-lit alternatives are blurrier, though again I was surprised by how close the Galaxy S4 camera got in terms of being 'acceptable' to most people in the context of an overall scene. Also note that the 'red' shifted backdrop isn't anywhere near as intrusive on the Galaxy phones with flash employed.  The less said about the Lumia 920 crop the better - the one thing Nokia's 'PureView phase 2' tech isn't good at is shooting moving people indoors....

Nokia 808 PureView: 10 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 7 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 5 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 3 pts; Nokia N8 8 pts

______________

In summary

Adding up the points give us a rough idea of overall ranking here:

• Nokia 808 PureView: 55/70
• Samsung Galaxy S4: 55/70
• Nokia N8: 49/70
• Samsung Galaxy S III: 43/70
• Nokia Lumia 920: 38/70

It's at this point that I swear, I honestly swear that the result wasn't fixed in any way. I always leave the points totting up to the very end and that ways it's a nice surprise for me too.... You all know how much of a fan of Nokia camera hardware I am, and so it should be strongly noted that:

• this is the first time anything other than the 808 has trounced the 2010 N8
• this is the first time anything's even got close to the 808 PureView, let alone equalled its overall score

It's very impressive what Samsung has eked out of the tiny 1/3.2" sensor in the Galaxy S4 and shows what modern BSI tech and superlative image processing algorithms can do. In fact, it's also a slightly damning condemnation of the Nokia Lumia 920's image processing - with an ostensibly identical sensor and superior optics, it manages to produce dramatically less detailed images at every turn. I think we all expected more from that device and I haven't given up hope that its firmware can still improve matters.

Of course, saying the Galaxy S4 has as good a camera as the Nokia 808 PureView is a little misleading. Ultimately, the latter is more flexible and powerful, especially in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing with the Creative settings, but the point is that casual, every day users will probably find that the Galaxy S4 exceeds their expectations in terms of imaging at every turn*.

* The one possible fly in the ointment is that there's a fraction of a second 'shutter lag' in the launch Galaxy S4 firmware, but reports from testers of the next firmware version are that this lag has gone, so I'm giving Samsung the benefit of the doubt here.

Credit to Samsung then, who have just raised the bar in terms of 1/3.2" camera performance for the rest of the industry.

_{(Thanks to Clove for the Galaxy S4 loan)}

Now I know what you're going to ask: "What's the point? If you're at home then you can use a real TV or a desktop/laptop, and if you're mobile then you probably don't want hours of mobile TV swallowing up your cellular bandwidth!" All very true, but say you're mobile, some breaking news is happening and you're frustrated that all you can see are headlines and textual reports. Wouldn't it be nice to see what's going on by tapping into a live TV stream? With, admittedly, a UK focus, I investigate a few options. I'm sure readers from around the world can chip in with links to solutions for Symbian that work in other areas?

Getting 'live TV' on your smartphone isn't really about watching your soap operas on the bus, it's about short bursts of 'live' in the place where you are. Two particular examples for me recently were:

• watching the last ten minutes of qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix while out and about in the car (don't worry, I pulled over!)
• dipping into live world news a few times a day around the house, perhaps while doing chores - the smartphone becomes the mini TV that goes into every room, etc.

With that in mind, what exactly are the options on Symbian? Do bear in mind that I'm talking from a UK perspective, mind you - I can't try out native TV stations/streams from other lands for obvious reasons, just as people outside the UK shouldn't be able to get hold of UK TV streams.

SPB TV

This longstanding application ties into (in practice) a few dozen open TV streams from around the world, and uses a network of servers across the world to maximise throughput to its client software on all platforms. The interface is fairly slick, the buffering delays of the order of only about ten seconds when starting to play a channel, and you can even browse the channel guide during playback.

In recent years the channel selection has got more and more culturally diverse, with fewer English language channels, presumably due to licensing issues. You can still stream France 24 (in English, despite the name) and Euronews though, plus niche streams like 'NASA TV'.

Browsing through available channels in SPB TV...

Typical playback quality, quoted at 350kbps.

You can tap to change channels while playback continues, adjust volume, mute or return to the channel browser full-screen.

TV Catchup

This 're-broadcast' service for terrestrial UK TV has been in trouble with the law in the past, but that seems to be a thing of the past now, thankfully. You have to register with the site and it does check which ISP or mobile network you seem to be 'coming in from', all of which helped TV Catchup achieve its current respectable status.

The main attraction here is that it's very mobile friendly, with a choice of high (wi-fi) and low (cellular) quality streams of over 50 'free to air' UK channels, served up by its mobile web site, m.tvcatchup.com. The only (very minor) snag is that the code used seems to conflict with Symbian Web - you'll have to switch over to Opera mobile in order to be able to stream video seamlessly. It does all work rather brilliantly though.

Log in (only takes a minute and is a one-time thing), pick a stream quality....

...and then browse the channels and pick one.

Typical playback quality over wi-fi. Probably only QVGA, upscaled, like SPB TV, but it's watchable if you're desperate to see... err... this rather dreadful game show!

 

CNN International

I'm cheating with this one slightly, in that it's not 'live TV', but it's almost as good as, for news anyway, in that you can dive into this every day or two and get potted TV highlights from the world news, picking and choosing from the various categories. The icon you want is the little video playback one on the main toolbar, leading to all the CNN video content.

The home page, with textual stories. Tap the videos icon...

...and get a similar carousel, this time with movie clips in the category of your choice (see the pick list, top-right).

As with SPB TV, each video is accompanied by a five second static ad, in this case an offline one promoting a Sky TV cable show.

Typical playback quality. Again, think QVGA up-scaled.

Royalty on my smartphone....!

__________________________

Compared to a few years ago, coming up with only two (and a half) options for UK residents left me feeling rather short-changed. Are things better in your part of the world? Do please chip in with the comments, add links to relevant apps, etc. Thanks.

At the same time as announcing the new Asha 501 handset, Nokia quietly unveiled the latest addition to its accessory line up, the Nokia DC-18Universal Portable USB Charger. The accessory, which can be used to recharge any device with a microUSB charging port, comes in a variety of colours (cyan, white, red, and yellow), and has a capacity of 1720 mAh.

The DC-18 is really intended to be matched with the Nokia Asha 501, just as the Nokia DC-16, with it higher capacity battery (2200mAh), is intended to be paired with Nokia's Lumia devices, but everyone will have their own preferred styling and combination. The square form factor and relatively svelte size (57 x 57 x 14.9mm) of the DC-16 makes it an ideal candidate to live in a bag or coat pocket, ready for those inevitable recharging emergencies.

Charging is activated by pulling out the microUSB cable, and stops when you return the cable to its storage position. Pulling out the cable also causes the battery symbol in the centre of the device to light up, showing how much power is left in the charger's battery. The DC-18's internal battery can be recharged using any standard microUSB wall charger.

Given its capacity, the DC-18 is best suited to providing a quick top up, rather than a full recharge, although for devices with smaller batteries, such as the Nokia Lumia 620, it should just about stretch to providing a single full recharge from empty.

The DC-18 will go on sale in July, in select Middle East, African, Asian and European markets, for an estimated price of around €15 (before taxes).

Key specifications

• Weight: 65g
• Size: 57 x 57 x 14.9mm
• Battery capacity: 1720 mAh

At an event in New Delhi, Nokia unveiled the Asha 501, the first of its next generation of Asha smartphones, powered by the new Nokia Asha platform. Priced at £63 ($99 / €75) before taxes and subsidies, the device is intended to provide a low cost smartphone option in Nokia's product portfolio, positioned between the Lumia range of Windows Phone devices and the Series 40 range of feature phone devices.

The new Nokia Asha platform was "purpose-built to give people the best possible mobile experiences at an affordable price", and is based on Series 40, but which also utilises existing Nokia design patterns and technologies from Smarterphone, a company which Nokia acquired in 2012, to create a new and distinctive user interface.

The Nokia Asha 501, which weighs 98g and measures 99.2mm x 58mm x 12.1mm, has a 3.2-megapixel camera, 2G cellular connectivity, WiFi, a 3-inch (240 x 320) capacitive touch screen protected by hardened glass, 4GB of internal memory, support for a microSD cards, and an official battery life of 48 days in standby and 17 hours of talk time. It will be available in both dual-SIM and single-SIM variants.

In terms of hardware the stand out feature of the Nokia Asha 501 is the design, which looks and feels like a premium product, drawing on Nokia's new universal design language (also seen in the Lumia products, and mobile phone products such as the Nokia 301 and Nokia 105), which can ultimately trace its roots back to the "Fabula" design used in the Nokia N9 and Nokia Lumia 800. The familiar colour line up from the Lumia range will also be available, when the product hits the shops in June it will be available in bright red, bright green, cyan, yellow, white and black.

On the software side the new Nokia Asha platform aims to make it "easier for people to access everything they love, with a simple swipe and a choice of two main screens: Home and Fastlane". Home is a traditional icon based app launcher, whereas Fastlane shows recently accessed contacts, social networks and apps; essentially providing a record of how the phone was used and "giving people a glimpse of their past, present and future activity, and helping them multi-task by providing easy access to their favorite features". More simply it can be described as a combination history and notifications list view.

The UI styling and operation is reminiscent of Nokia's MeeGo Harmattan powered N9 product, a debt that Nokia acknowledges in its official blog post, and is also evident in the phone's double to wake-up feature, and the numerous swipe gestures included elsewhere in the user interface.

Combined, the new design and new user interface set the Asha 501 apart from its Asha full touch predecessors, though in reality it's more evolution than revolution. This is reflected in the app continuity from Nokia's Xpress Browser, to the pre-loading of Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging and Weather Channel apps, and the inclusion of Nokia's well known 40 free EA games offer.

   

Filling the gap

The Asha 501 and the new Nokia Asha platform fills an important gap in Nokia's product portfolio, sitting between the low cost, Series 40 and Series 30 powered, mobile phone products (e.g. the Nokia 105 and 301), and the Windows Phone powered Lumia smartphone product family. It is an area where Nokia has struggled in the last few months, most notably seeing a fall in the sales of its Asha full touch products in the last quarter.

In the smartphone space Nokia has bought down the price (€129) of its Lumia Windows Phone devices, in the form of the Nokia 510 and 520, further and faster than many expected, but it is unable to compete with the lowest cost Android devices (€50-€100). While there is room for some further reduction in the entry-level price point of its Windows Phone portfolio, Nokia is unlikely to be able to match the lowest cost Android devices with Windows Phone in the next few years.

The Nokia Asha platform should be seen as Nokia's strategy to fill the gap between its cheapest mobile products (e.g. Nokia 105), which remain relatively healthy in sales terms, and the Lumia portfolio of Windows Phone devices. But, should the Nokia Asha 501 and its follow on device be considered smartphones? 
   

A smartphone?

When announcing the Asha 501 Nokia made extensive use of the word smartphone, which may be somewhat controversial since the new platform is essentially a re-skinned Series 40, albeit with extensive engineering work under the hood. On the developer side, like other Asha products, it can run Java and web based apps, but not native apps, which is sometimes regarded as the traditional smartphone definition. The new platform, in a technical sense, has limited multi-tasking capabilities (e.g. music app can play in background, but web is suspended when you switch away), but, perhaps more importantly, the user interface presents the artifice of a multi-tasking platform. This, together with the rich user, service, and app experience, will be used as evidence that the new devices is a platform.

Ultimately whether the Asha 501 is considered to be a smartphone is rather meaningless outside of statistical categorisations, what's more important is the fact that the device will be positioned directly against low-cost Android smartphones, and will provide a similar user experience. Moreover the Asha 501 and a low end Android device have more in common with each other, in terms of both real-world experience and limitations, than they do with higher end smartphones, be they a Samsung Galaxy S4 or a Nokia Lumia 920.

At this stage it is difficult to assess whether Nokia will be successful with its new products. The company says it aims to sell 100 million devices based on the new platform "over the coming years", but that is a necessarily vague statement of intent. An important factor that may help Nokia is that it has created the platform specifically for this market segment, or, in other words, it has built the platform around around the typical consumer behaviour, whereas low cost Android devices might best be described as being built down to reach this price point and market segment. The ecosystem effect does give Android an advantage, but its reality and weighting are much smaller in this market segment than in mid-range and higher end smartphones.

Nokia will be hoping than a combination of good hardware design and a slicker and better designed set of experiences on its new Asha "smartphone" devices can out distance the smartphone ecosystem advantage present on the Android devices.

Now, I've been eulogising about 'proper' flashes in smartphone cameras since the Nokia N82, back in 2007. And by 'proper', I mean a Xenon flash, just as you'd find in a standalone camera. The Sony Ericsson Satio and Nokia N8 and then 808, all running Symbian, kept the rant alive, but elsewhere Xenon flash has been almost non-existent. Yet now we have rumours of new Nokia Lumias, running Windows Phone 8 and (allegedly) having Xenon bulbs, along with (also rumoured) Sony's upcoming 'Honami' handset and Samsung's Galaxy S4 'Zoom'. In short, 2013 is (probably) about to become the year that Xenon flash finally makes the journey from Symbian into Windows Phone 8 and mainstream Android.

How Xenon flash works

There's nothing proprietary about using Xenon flashes, of course, they've been around in standalone cameras for decades. Whereas LED flashes are just that - very bright LEDs and are very simple, Xenon flashes require rather more in the way of electronics. 

Essentially a (large) capacitor's charge and voltage is ramped up such that it can discharge into a narrow tube filled with Xenon gas. The electrons in the gas jump to a higher energy state and then, a micro second after the discharge, jump back to their original energy state, emitting light as they do. Xenon is chosen because the state transition emits light in in several spectral lines, giving the appearance of a 'white' flash - other inert gases would produce light that's too red or not visible to the human eye at all.

Add in a reflector and you've got yourself a Xenon flash, capable of lighting up a room. My usual rule of thumb used to be that a Xenon flash is ten times brighter than LED and a hundred times shorter in duration, though recent advantages in LED flash technology have meant that the factors are probably nearer five and fifty nowadays.

The Xenon bulb on the Nokia 808, probably the most powerful flash ever put into a smartphone...

Advantages and disadvantages

The use of Xenon certainly isn't clear cut, as you can see from my table below:

	Advantages	Disadvantages
LED flash	Cheap to implement Minimal supporting electronics Can also function continuously, as a video light, or to support a 'burst' mode	Relatively dim, so shutter speeds have to be quite slow - any motion in the subect will result in blurring
Xenon flash	Very bright Very short flash duration, so can 'freeze' motion	Expensive to implement Requires a sizeable capacitor (though see here)  Requires a certain 'recharge' time, typically of the order of a second

A lot really depends on what you want to photograph in low light. If it's just your food or something (close and) properly posed then LED flash may well suffice. Whereas if you're shooting moving people (especially kids) then Xenon is a must...

Examples of LED vs Xenon flash

In practice, it's fairly easy to tell a Xenon-lit shot from an LED-lit photo. Take the same photo in an indoor social situation (e.g. down the pub) and the Xenon-lit shot will be ultra-crisp, faces and bodies are frozen in time, but the background to your main subject is usually quite dark, since the camera (phone) is exposing for the subject in focus. Here's an example from the 2010 Xenon-equipped Nokia N8:

In contrast, the LED-lit scene will be just that - more of a scene, with the background showing up evenly, but with your main subject usually slightly blurred through their natural motion (breathing, smiling, whatever), with this example shot on the 2012 Nokia Lumia 920:

Quite a dramatic difference between the two shots, though which you'd consider the better photo depends entirely on what you wanted from the shot in the first place.

It should be noted that most phones, including those with Xenon flashes, also have a 'night portrait' scene mode, in which the flash is fired but the shutter's left open for longer than strictly needed, in order to gain some of the context, the background, and thus (in theory) get the best of both worlds. This can work well for posed shots, but you run the risk of still getting some blurring around the Xenon-frozen parts of the image. As a result, 'night portrait' is very much a scene option rather than the default.

Here's another typical Xenon-lit example, showing the people crystal clear and frozen in time (complete with beer, mid-slosh) but with the background almost irrelevant:

Although not a huge party animal(!), I do like to document my extended family growing up, and trying to snap sub 5 year olds in the act of doing something unbearably cute in a dimly lit living room is absolutely a job for Xenon. 

For the young, tech-savvy 20 somethings too, they're eating out most nights, partying several times a week, shooting casual shots in often badly lit clubs and apartments, and most of the photos will be of other people. Living, breathing, moving people. Which means that trying to freeze movement with an LED flash is, again, doomed to disappointment. 

Yes, it's obvious from the above examples that Xenon-lit photos are rarely perfect - backgrounds are dark and you almost always get some degree of 'red eye' that has to be taken out later, on the phone or on the desktop - but they're, overall, better than LED-lit alternatives.

Which brings us to the physical requirements. The Nokia 808 PureView has two (count 'em) bulky cylindrical capacitors powering its Xenon bulb (shown at the top) - but then it has space to spare because of the physical size of the 1/1.2", 41 megapixel camera unit. However, even putting aside future flat capacitors, there have been other Xenon-equipped smartphones without too much of a 'bulge', not least the niche Android handset, the ill-fated Motorola Milestone.

The Lumia 920 is almost 11mm thick, but still fits in the hand well, and one would assume that a successor will be of similar form factor. 11mm is fine for fitting in a modest Xenon-compatible capacitor underneath the physical display, albeit not to the 808's specification. The latter also sported an LED for focus-assist, video lighting duties and 'torch' mode, and it's safe to assume that future Xenon-equipped smartphones will also have this flexibility.

Add in some intelligence in the camera software and maybe we really can have the best of all worlds, with the algorithms deciding when to fire the Xenon flash and how much extraneous context illumination to allow in, to fill out the scene?

Either way, I'm convinced that 2013 could be the year of Xenon. Whether the smartphones come from Nokia, Sony, Samsung or someone else. And in the meantime, if you fancy playing with Xenon again yourself, why not dig out your old 2007 Nokia N82 and have a blast down the pub?!

In All About Symbian Insight number 237, Steve and Rafe start by talking about the recent 3G network fix for Belle FP2 devices, the rolling out of another homescreen widget update for Belle FP1 and 2 devices, and the end of new Symbian theme uploads to the Nokia Store. In the second half of the podcast we turn our attention to apps with mentions for the Erudite ebook reader (Amazon Kindle), Swype (keyboard input), CoverUp (album art), and X-plore (file manager).

This podcast was recorded on Friday 3rd May 2013.

In this podcast we cover:

• New homescreen widgets roll out to Belle FP1/FP2 smartphones
     
• Wi-fi and YouTube updates rolling out to Symbian Belle FP1/FP2
     
• One year on and the 808, the 'ultimate' Symbian smartphone is... even better
     
• No more new Symbian themes in the Nokia Store after July 1st
     
• Swype for Symbian (beta) gets reissued, with new certs, still a bit broken
     
• Erudite Book Reader brings Amazon Kindle ebooks to Symbian
     
• CoverUp is back and working, all your music covers restored!
     
• X-plore for Symbian goes freeware
     
• Symbian platform breakdown and new 'active installed base' chart
     

You can listen to earlier episodes of the AAS Insight Podcast in our media section.

Norwegian Anders Øvergaard is a man with a passion - filmmaking, and in the video below he attempts to use both the Nokia 808 PureView and Lumia 920 to shoot a cinematic sequence. He certainly seems to have all the right mounts and seems to know what he's doing and ends up both praising and critiquing each device - it seems that both the 808 and 920 have their place.

Covered in the video are:

• Intro
• Demo of the Nokia 808's camera interface, demonstrating some of the advanced 'Creative' settings
• Demo of the Nokia Lumia 920's camera interface
• Demo footage from each phone
• Setting up a low light cinematic shot in a forest(!)
• Example 'cinema' footage from both phones (finished/edited versions)
• Focussing and daylight test footage, more examples
• Summarising the pros and cons of each smartphone video camera

I was a bit disappointed that Anders fiddled so much with the contrast for the 808's footage, since this ended up being one of the most obvious differences - I'd have preferred he left both phones on 'default' throughout. This would have been better for the end user to compare, I feel.

Anyway, here's Anders's video, up the quality if your bandwidth can stand it:

The comment about video compression was interesting and I found myself wishing that the Nokia 808 allowed less aggressive compression, along the lines of the footage from the Lumia 920.

Comments welcome!

I've done a lot of smartphone camera shootouts over the last five years on All About Symbian and All About Windows Phone, each revolving around taking the same shot with a number of different test units and then (at some point) cropping in to look at pixel-level detail. And each time I get called out for doing this: "Real users don't crop in to the level where they can see pixels". Here's my defence, aided by some rather nice example photos from a mystery device...

Nice snap, eh? Taken on a top 2013 smartphone, of course? Read on...

It drives me mad when I see another reviewer on the Web looking at a smartphone camera and taking a dozen snaps, all of which are reproduced at typical Web resolution, so usually less than 800 pixels wide. "Look at the detail, look at the contrast and exposure" they say, never minding that two of the three things can't be seen when images are downsampled.

Or I put up a photo comparison between shots on the Nokia 808 and Lumia 920 and I get criticised for cropping in to the stage where you can see individual pixels. Yes, I know full well that most users don't crop in this far or enlarge snaps to the stage where pixel detail would matter. In fact, most users rarely do more than view photos on their phone screen or upload them to a sub one megapixel social sharing service.

All of which is a huge problem for myself and for anyone else keen to establish, once and for all, the pecking order for phone cameras. At the resolutions shown in most reviews, and deliberately included here, the differences in results from almost all cameras are negligible. You simply can't tell whether any more useful detail is captured unless you look closer - a lot closer.

But, you'll splutter, "If real world users never crop in or print out at huge sizes then does it really matter whether the camera in one phone is better than in another?"

Great point and great question. In a sense, no, it doesn't matter. Not to most people.

I was talking to a friend the other day who's been using a 2 year old budget HTC Android smartphone (I didn't recognise it) - she was about to upgrade to an iPhone 4 and I remarked that it had a far better camera than the one in her old HTC. "Oh no", she said, "it's fine" and she proudly showed me some snaps of relatives taken on it. And, at screen resolution, the snaps were fine. I multi-touch zoomed in a little and showed her how fuzzy the snaps were in terms of lack of detail on faces and clothes, but it didn't bother her - she was fine looking at photos on-screen.

However, anyone who cares enough about taking good photos that they've got this far through this feature will know that there's more to a good photo than looking great on a web page or phone screen:

• If a photo is detailed enough and clear enough then you can often pick out/crop a part of it to create a whole new image. Don't like the shot of one friend, but love the expression on the face of another? Crop in and you've got a fabulous shot of the latter. IF the original image was good enough. IF.
    
• If a photo (as in great lighting here) is really detailed and clear at the pixel level then it gives you confidence that there's a good sensor and good optics in the device - photos taken in lesser light conditions are more likely to turn out well than on inferior devices.

And so to the photos shown above, three pretty good photos taken in good lighting. Were they snapped on a Nokia 808 PureView perhaps? Or an iPhone 4S? Or a Lumia 720? Impossible, absolutely impossible to tell at this size. I could have snapped the same shot on all three and got a near identical result.

Ditto for something with a really average camera like the Nokia 5800 or the Motorola RAZR i or the Nokia Lumia 710 or iPhone 4 or 3GS. The results would look identical apart from a few variations in colour saturation. Comparing them like this would be a complete waste of time.

Does that mean that these phone cameras are interchangeable? Not at all. The Nokia 808 PureView is clearly a light year better, across all subjects and all conditions, than the old and budget Lumia 710, in terms of camera performance. You just can't tell at this size. You absolutely can when cropped in:

(taken from the 808 vs Xperia Z ve Lumia 920 shootout, by the way)

At which point I should stop teasing and reveal that the shots above were taken today on...

...yes, indeed, the Nokia Lumia 710, almost two years old and budget hardware even then. Did I fool you?

So the next time I do a camera comparison and crop in fairly savagely in order to more clearly see differences in the photos captured, let's have no more of the 'real users don't crop' talk. By all means I'll judge the full image, looking at colour balance and exposure. But I'll also crop in savagely, to show how good or bad the sensor and optics are in that particular device.

A popular cliché is that "the devil is in the details". In my version of the saying, it's in the "pixels"!

Following the news of Nokia Growth Partner's investment in array camera firm Pelican Imaging, Engadget followed up with the company, reporting that the CEO, Chris Picket says his product is currently being trialed by device manufacturers and is scheduled to be part of at least one new smartphone launching in 2014. Unsurprisingly he would not disclose details of any of the manufacturers involved, but given their respective commitment to imaging innovation Nokia and HTC are both possible candidates.

Endgadet also offers a few more details of Pelican Imaging's prototype product, noting that it uses 16 distinct lenses and imaging channels in a 4x4 grid, and that each sub-camera captures only one colour (red, green, blue), which helps reduce noise. The associated software processing, which is where Pelican Imaging's expertise lies, will produced a single JPEG file from the multiple sub-cameras, one that is about 20% larger than that from a standard camera because it contains additional depth information.

This capture of depth information is possible because there are small distance differences between the sub-cameras making up the camera array. It is this information makes it possible for an array camera to carrying out most of its "tricks", including refocusing an image after it has been captured. As Engadget point out it also means there's no need for traditional focusing elements in the camera, which is what makes Pelican Imaging's solution camera module thinner than traditional solutions.

Example of output from Pelican Imaging prototype - with the ability to refocus scene after capture. Credit: Pelican Imaging.

Engadget also wanted to know whether Pelican Imaging's technology could be combined with Nokia's PureView technology (41MP sensor in the Nokia 808 PureView and OIS in Nokia Lumia 920). Engadget quote the company's CTO, Kartik Venkataraman, as saying:

"Our technology is not mutually exclusive with Nokia's. We can take elements of what they're doing and improve what we can do. There are some synergies that will lead to some pretty exciting possibilities that we're actually beginning to work on today, although I can't talk about it yet."

It's worth reiterating that Pelican Imaging did not say anything about its relationship with Nokia, or even whether such a relationship exists, outside the investment partnership disclosed earlier this week. Nonetheless it's clear array camera technology could provide an exciting avenue for imaging innovation in smartphones in 2014.

Read the full Engadget article here.

Tumblr seems to have taken off as a photo-centric social network in much the same way as Instagram and, of course, there's no official client for Symbian - the service is just too new for that. Happily, there's Bumblr, a third party client for Tumbr and its public APIs, letting you post, reblog, edit, tag, and more... It was first released late in 2012, but this is a brand new version, details below. Being a Qt app and with the developer also being a Meego fan, note that this is also available for the Nokia N9.

From the developer's description:

Bumblr is a Qt/QML based Tumblr app for Symbian and MeeGo devices.

It supports almost all the features that are provided by current Tumblr public v2 API i.e., posting, reblog, editing, like, unlike follow, unfollow, user followings, blogs, tag search, etc.

It is aimed to be a fully featured Tumblr client for Symbian and MeeGo platform.

Features:

• View dashboard.
• Create, edit posts.
• Reblog posts.
• View user following blogs.
• Like/unlike posts.
• Follow/Unfollow blogs.
• View published, drafts, queued posts of all user blogs.
• View posts of a particular user.
• Search tags.

Bumblr is built using Tumblr’s v2 APIs with custom Qt/C++ wrapper written to access all API methods. Due to this reason, new features can be easily added in it in future.

This seems pretty comprehensive, though I'll confess to never having used Tumblr in my life (am I out of touch?), other than to sign up today in order to see what the fuss is about!

New for Bumblr v2.3.0 are:

• Tag and type filtering options for posts
• Settings option to display unlimited posts
• Tag search to show more than 20 posts
• Fix for bug related unchanged like/unlike value in single post view
• Fix photo post display when count of photos is 9
• Fix for bug crashing app on refreshing a non-existent blog
• Performance improvements

Here's Bumblr in action:

Signing in for the first time, OAuth is used for access; (right) the home view of popular blog posts

Looking at a post - scrolling down reveal all the reblogs and likes; (right) searching for specific tags and drilling into Tumblr categories

Keeping track of your own Tumblr blog posts and their status; (right) the Tumblr blogs that you follow

You can buy Bumblr here in the Nokia Store for £1.50. There's a free/trial version, but I wouldn't recommend it since it's an older version and also has numerous functional limitations.

Comments welcome if you're a Tumblr user - does this fulfil all your micro-blogging needs? Apologies that I haven't been able to exercise all Tumblr's functions, I'm sure you'll push the software far more. So, are there any mobile showstoppers for you?

We don't often report on rumours, but this one definitely piqued my interest, with VR-Zone reporting that Sony's upcoming 'Honami' Android superphone will have a 1/1.6" sensor and Xenon flash, the rumoured camera specs are listed below. This is the first time that an Android smartphone will (allegedly) have a higher specification than Nokia's 2010 N8.

From the report:

Nokia's official blog, Nokia Conversations, today published a post that talks about the company's approach to the packaging of its accessories products. It's a good example of the amount of thought and effort that goes into producing what sits on retail shelves, beyond the actual products themselves.

The post explains that Nokia has recently simplified its accessories packaging, with an aim of doing a better job of "selling the product". The materials used in the packaging has also changed from 3D vacuum formed plastic parts to die cut foldable plastic parts. This has allowed the Nokia Design team to create a bigger window (the clear see-through area in packaging), which is better able to show off the product inside, but also makes it easier to open. 

Nokia Design's Chris Merrick Nokia Design is quoted talking about the design of the new packaging:

What we have now is an easily viewable product. A concise product name supported by a short sharp descriptive headline, explaining the product and its benefits. This is the first read, to either introduce and/or identify quickly that this is the product you were searching for.”

At a secondary level, we have a category label on the side panel to identify the segment this product is within – so if it’s a charger, a dock, a headset, it tells you exactly that on the side of the package.

Last but by no means least, we have a set of icons, which we call our ‘accessory vocabulary’, those icons are the same icons found across our devices, so there’s a familiar language there. This helps build awareness across all our products.

Ulla Uimonen, from Nokia Design, is quoted talking about the new packaging:

The bigger windows bring much more light to the product and allows narrower packaging,” says Ulla. “We can showcase the product better. There’s a nice detail where we’ve used curved white cardboard underneath the product, so the card actually deflects light, creating a backlit effect. It’s only possible with a particular design.

Packaging is not a subject that's going to set the world on fire, but nonetheless it does help create that vital first impression and also has an impact on the environmental credentials of a product. Most Lumia smartphone owners should be somewhat familiar with the drawer, box, and layer packaging design used for Lumia devices, but what they may not know is that this design, which was first used for the Nokia N9, was Nokia's first Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified package and is made up from 100% certified renewable or recycled material.

Nor is just the way it looks or what it is made of that is important. The size of the packaging has an important impact on transport costs. A few years ago Nokia moved towards shrinking the size of its boxes, a move that is now complete and has saved the company tens of million of Euros, as well as being better for the environment.

It may seem like a lot of effort, but its worth remembering the scale of Nokia when thinking about the potential impact. Shipping hundreds of millions of products a year uses a lot of paper. For example, in 2011 Nokia used 23,032 tonnes in retail packages and a further 9,948 tonnes in transport packages. The total, 32,980 tonnes, is the equivalent of 6,600 fully grown elephants. 

Bloomberg reports that Nokia Growth Partners, the venture capital and investment arm, has made an investment in Pelican Imaging, a company which is developing array camera technology solutions for smartphones. This technology, which recently came to wider public attention through the Lytro camera, uses a microlens array to create a light-field camera, also called a 'plenoptic' camera, that can capture 4D light field information about a scene.

This light field information effectively records extra data about the light hitting the camera and allows for additional processing techniques to be applied. For example, depth information can be obtained for every pixel, allowing the focus of an image to be changed after it has been captured (i.e. refocus a photo after capture). It also allows for multiple focus points, scaling and segmenting of images, easier and more sophisticated post-capture manipulation (change backgrounds, apply filters), glare reduction, 3D model creation, and more.

Pelican Imaging's computational array camera system, which has been in development for 5 years, was first discussed in a 2009 press release. In 2011, the company announced it had developed the first prototype, which used an array of 25 lenses. The technology has been refined further and reduced in size, such that the current version is 50% thinner than existing mobile cameras. This characteristic of the camera makes it particularly well suited to smartphones, where the camera module is frequently one of the key determinants in the thickness of a device.

Nokia has a long history of imaging innovation, most recently apparent in its Pureview devices, the 'Nokia 808 Pureview' and 'Nokia Lumia 920', and the investment in Pelican Imaging should be seen as the latest step in a deliberate strategy to focus on imaging as one of Nokia's key innovation pillars, which the company believes will help it differentiate its devices from its competitors.

Nokia has its own in-house imaging experts and has made a number of imaging related acquisitions, most recently picking up Scalado last year, but it also has a long history of external partnerships and investments. The most high profile partnership has been with lens designer Carl Zeiss, but nearly all of Nokia's major imaging innovations have been created as a result of joint projects between Nokia and its suppliers (e.g. EDoF camera modules, Carl Zeiss Optics, N95 sensor, N8 sensor, PureView 808 sensor, HAAC microphones).

While it is still relatively early days for light-field cameras it is clear they do hold considerable promise and Pelican Imaging looks set to be a pioneer. In the Bloomberg article, Nokia Growth Partners' Bo Ilsoe is quoted as saying that array cameras are "on the cusp of being commercialized and Pelican does software for that", before going on to add that "it’s very complicated to do this algorithmically and Pelican is one of the companies that has mastered this technology".
   

Array camera in a Lumia smartphone?

Nokia Growth Partner's investment does not necessarily mean the imminent arrival of a Nokia device with such camera technology included, but does provide a strong hint about the future directions in which Nokia is thinking. In the past, Nokia Growth Partners has invested in other imaging related technology companies, such as Heptagon, which have later gone on to become suppliers for Nokia. While Nokia Growth Partners is run with the goal of achieving positive returns on investments, a strong secondary aim is the support the creation of products and technologies that may have applications in future mobile devices or products (i.e. helping seed new mobile innovations). 

The challenges facing array camera in smartphones are around the processing power requirements for a high number of pixels, the development of the necessary processing algorithms, and the production of any hardware, most notably the optics, in high volumes.

Array cameras require additional processing power because many more pixels are involved than in a single-lens camera and because additional software processing is required. Devices such as Nokia's 808 Pureview, although taking a different approach, do show that it is possible to deal with one billion+ pixels per second with current smartphone processor technology. The challenge around processing software is the key area in which Pelican Imaging has been placing most of its efforts, such that most of the broad scale technical challenges have been solved. The production of hardware in high volumes may be more difficult, but it is notable that this is an area with which Nokia has a great deal of experience, having partnered with multiple companies in the development and production of new mass market hardware components.

I already reported on the starting of Alvin Wong's experiment in using the 2008 Nokia E71, running S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the struggle of keeping something so old up and running with 2013 apps and services proved too much and Alvin gave up after six intense days. But his article series (here's the conclusion) has been fascinating and my only question is why he didn't try with the E72 instead, which, although almost as old, had a more advanced version of S60 and far better camera. Ah well, that'll be another article for someone (me?) for another day!

From Alvin's final article part:

Right now, I hear you saying, “So, an iPhone is better than an E71. Thanks, Captain Obvious, for that wonderful insight.” But there was a time when phones like the E71 made a lot of sense and became popular while the iPhone was a niche product at best, one that was ridiculed by many mobile enthusiasts. There was a time when the E71 sat on a store shelf right beside an iPhone, while Android remained in its infancy. As I alluded to in a previous article in the series, the smartphones of today are so far removed from the smartphones we used to have that it never ceases to amaze me how far things have moved along in such a short span of time. The smartphones of the past were voice-centric devices, but the smartphones of today are more web-centric than ever.

Symbian S60 was developed during an era when the mobile web wasn’t available to everyone, and as a result access to the Internet merely existed as an option that users could take advantage of if they really wanted to. The web and the services that exist on it were never a central focus of the platform, and that probably contributed in a big way to the strong US-centric sentiment that S60 was old and outdated; one thing that the iPhone provides is access to all the web services you use in the form of easily-downloaded apps on your homescreen in addition to built-in support for some of these services, while a phone like the E71 has just about zero support for any web service other than email and Flickr out of the box, and no easy or elegant way to augment its built-in functionality even back in 2008 when it was new.

You can read on in the full article, plus see the other parts in the series:

This is the conclusion to a 5-part series exploring whether one can buy a second-hand S60 smartphone for what it would cost to pick up a brand-new Asha feature-phone, and whether it is actually worth the effort to do so. If you’ve missed any of the earlier parts in this series, you can read them by clicking on the appropriate links below:

1. “You won’t last 2 weeks”
2. The days when setting up a smartphone took 8 hours
3. Hitting the limits
4. How can it be this hard to watch a YouTube video?

With regard to my suggestion that the E72 might have made a better experiment/choice, here are some of the improvements made for the later model:

• S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, with hundreds of small improvements, not least in the area of more seamless connectivity
• Full compatibility with the free-forever version of the (Nokia/)Ovi Maps voice-guided satnav solution
• A standard 3.5mm audio out jack, with media control via a borrowed (or bought!) Nseries multimedia headset
• A really rather good 5 megapixel autofocus camera - it may not be Carl Zeiss branded but it still knocks spots off the 5mp cameras in (for example) HTC's smartphones of the same era. Or indeed some units from the current era.

Comments welcome!