Soundtrckr updated to version 1.2

In case you haven't already heard, Nokia Betalabs just updated Soundtrckr to version 1.2.

What is Soundtrckr?
To quote the Betalabs website:

"Soundtrckr is the first Geosocial Internet radio. Soundtrckr has the largest fully licensed music catalog for Internet radio in the world. 8M tracks to create and share station with any artist, any genre, any language. Soundtrckr is social listening and discovery, where friends share stations and listen together in real time. Soundtrckr is also hyperlocal listening and discovering allowing users to tune into nearby stations created by other users, play what’s hot around the city."




Soundtrckr is developed by the company with the same name. It is a Java application, but I have to tell you that is sure doesn't feel like one. Part of the speedy and flawless integration with the operating system may be the fact that in order to run it you have to install the latest and greatest Java Runtime 2.1 for Symbian, which is also available on Betalabs.

So, here are the changelogs:

"New features and bug fixes for Symbian^3 and S60 5th Edition (Java Runtime 2.1 and 1.4):

Facebook Integration. You will be able to post on your wall what you are listening to and invite your Facebook friends to join you on Soundtrckr
Remove auto-capitalization
Performance and various bug fixes
Proper handling on log-in and connection errors".

T-Mobile users must keep in mind that for now they can only use Soundtrckr via WiFi. The guys at Soundtrckr are working on the issue and they promised to get it working in the next update.

Why am I recommending this app? Because to be honest this is the second application(first was Opera Mini 5) that I did not realize was written in Java. Usually Java apps are so slow that you can pick them out of 100 others. This one is different. It's fast and it does the job very well.

Layar for Symbian is here!

Who would have thought that Layar would ever implement a Symbian version? I sure didn't. I used to think that there won't ever be an augmented reality application for Symbian^3, but Symbian^1? How about that.



For those of you who don't know what Layar or augmented reality is, here's the Wikipedia definition::

"Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or an indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input, such as sound or graphics. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real-world with a simulated one.
Augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulable. Artificial information about the environment and its objects can be overlaid on the real world. The term augmented reality is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, working at Boeing.[1]"

So, to put it plainly, you open up the AR application, point your phone's camera to a building, restaurant, park or anything else, and your phone tells you what's there and other points of interest. It practically puts a layer(hence Layar) of information over the live image.

Why is this useful? Because when you go out of town and stroll around a foreign city, you get hungry. So you see a restaurant, and you want to see if it's worth eating there. So you open up Layar, point the phone's camera at the restaurant and voilla! you have all the information you need about that restaurant one tap away.



You can download Layar for Symbian here.

And here is the official announcement.

Well, this puts the apocalyptic vision that roams around about Symbian's death into perspective doesn't it? Now, why would a company like Layar invest into a Symbian version if the they would think that Symbian is dying? They wouldn't. I for one believe that there is still hope for Symbian, and that Nokia will see it's success and will keep developing it as a secondary OS, just like they do with S40.