This is pretty old news - on December 19th Nokia announced that it had unveiled for the first time to sixteen of Nokia's first party games developers, Nokia's next generation mobile games development platform.

The press release included multiple positive comments from game developers - which all seemed to center on how the "ecosystem" created by the "games platform" was an "end-to-end gaming strategy."

The question is - what's the hold up? The Nokia strategy, first set out in may 2005, was to expand the N-Gage platform's rich connected multiplayer experience across a wide range of Nokia multimedia devices; such devices would have enhanced 3D graphics, offer user-friendly search, purchase and installation of games, instant access to a global mobile gaming community and the ability to game with that community.

Perhaps this can only come to fruition with Symbian 9.1: We can't think of any reason that the "platform" has not already been launched. Also, it's unclear what will happen to existing n-gage users. The existing games will work, but the n-gage clearly is hardware limited compared to any new smartphone. Perhaps Nokia is planning something similar to what Microsoft has proposed...

Oh - and Spong, in reporting this story, made the prediction that "Nintendo is poised to release what has been described to us as a 'cell phone-inspired' redesigned DS complete with voice over IP capabilities." Even if correct, this would not impact Nokia's strategy - unless VOIP-only devices were suddenly as capable as normal phones.

Nokia today announced their newest online competition, the N-Gage Arena Anytime Anywhere Tournament, where players will demonstrate their prowess in the N-Gage Arena, meeting challenges delivered via text message that can arrive anytime, anywhere.

Players signup for the tournament and then watch for text message invitations notifying them that a competition is about to begin. Contestants will play each other in whichever game has been selected for that particular match. With twelve events in all, there will be plenty of chances to win.

The tournament will take place from January 9th through February 5th, 2006. Prizes include free N-Gage games, an N-Gage bag stuffed full of goodies, and more.

It will be interesting to see the number of participants. We know that 2 million n-Gages have been sold: but given that the first was sold more than 3 years ago, it's unlikely that all of the units are still in active use. We think this foreshadows the actualization of our prediction that n-Gage will become Arena-only, but from more handsets.

We've been silent for awhile, and so lots of yummilicious gadget news has gone un-posted about. These following three bits would probably never have been posted anyhow, but they're so ineffebly cool that we couldn't resist (today).

1. Furry Flash drive series from Imation - stuffed animals which store information.

2. RFID-Blocking wallet - which makes those RFID credit cards normal again (and possibly safe): technology to prevent technology.

3. Topless sandals: no straps, because most topless things are nice (except topless sundaes, urgh.)

[via: Gizmodo, Gizmodo, and Gizmodo]

Auto-txt is a pretty revolutionary new car-theft-protection system.

Auto-txt immediately identifies a car as stolen if the car is started with the keys but the specified everyday Bluetooth enabled customer interface (such as a mobile phone) is not present, and allows the vehicle to be tracked and disabled using remote wireless technology, all for GBP 349.

We like. Just remember not to leave your mobile in your car...

[via Autoblog / Women Motorist]

We have a Nokia 7370 and a review will be posted in the next couple of days. Is there anything you would specifically like to know about it? E-mail me at

, or simply leave a commment.

Look at our original coverage of the Nokia 7370 here. Notice that it has actually shipped early.

The Europe/Asia (WCDMA 2100) version of the Nokia N80 has been FCC approved. The test report indicates that the test device (Nokia N80-1) is a five band (GSM850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100) mobile phone with GPRS, EGPRS , Bluetooth and WLAN. It's model number is RM-92, the N80-3 which was previously FCC approved was RM-91.

The inclusion of the fact that the device will carry "WLAN" is interesting, because of the lack of such a description in the N80-3's test report. It's probably not really important, but perhaps Nokia refused to disable the WLAN functionality for Cingular (similar to how the WLAN is available in the HTC Tornado but disabled in Cingular's 2125) - and so the phone went from being listed on Cingular internal servers to ship from 21st Jan, to being cancelled.

Also, quite a nice manual is available from the FCC. And there's no sign of any request for short-term confidentiality in sight! Read more of our Nokia N80 coverage here.

You may have read that Siemens believes North American telecoms operators could shift to the GSM mobile standard from the rival CDMA system.

It would be nice if they said why.

While we agree with the points that Christoph Catselitz made, they're totally irrelevant with regard to that prediction.

We think Christoph (head of Siemens AG's mobile networks business) is just trash-talking, because Siemens mobile has been newly acquired by Benq (Brave Benq!), and Benq's collection of CDMA phones is not particularly great. I can't even find a listing of Siemens's CDMA-only phones.

And of course, in 2001, in articles titled "Siemens storms U.S. mobile market," Florian Seiche (vice president and general manager, Siemens mobile phones, Siemens Information and Communication Mobile Group) said: "The U.S. market is moving toward GSM as the technology for wireless."

Sound familiar? Note that currently 50% of the US market is CDMA.