Tuxtops

According to The Register Apple was pressured by mobile carriers to remove an upcoming feature from iLife'06 that would allow users to remix their own ringtones via iTunes. The cellular networks charge between $1 and $4 for a single ringtone and obviously don't want to lose this huge revenue to Apple. Apparently ringtones are their No2 source for data revenue after SMS.

I'm down here in lovely downtown Seattle for Mobius, a conference that Microsoft puts on every 12-16 months for a mix of mobile device community leaders, journalists, and analysts.

Bitstream has released a version of its ThunderHawk web browser for smartphones running Nokia's S60. This complies with Symbian interface guidelines, while also giving those using a smartphone with Nokia's S60 platform a browsing experince similar to that found on the desktop.

The Sharp Zaurus handheld was a pioneer of embedded Linux, and even though the Linux version is not around much any more, Peter Seebach thinks it's a good idea to pay tribute to this early-adopter technology. In this installment of the Linux on board series, Peter dismantles the Zaurus SL-5600 to get a better look into history.

A pair of Palm OS based consumer electronic devices are well on the way toward running Linux. Matthew Mastracci's "Treo Linux" project has achieved a BusyBox prompt on a Palm Treo 650 smartphone, while Alex Osborne's LD Progress project has a QPE-based Linux environment running on a Palm LifeDrive.

Systems like Symbian and Windows Mobile are pretty consistent from one handset to the next, but that's not so with Linux devices. Manufacturers often have to implement their own extensions and applications that end up making different models that all run Linux incompatible with each other.

Last week OSNews had the pleasure of meeting with three of the people behind the new Nokia S60 browser sharing with us information about the project. Dig in for more info and lots of screenshots.

Walkman functionality, 3G and a 2 Megapixel camera, oh my; Sindre Lia gets all warm and fuzzy over Sony Ericsson's bulky, black beauty of a swivel phone - the W900i.

The most full-featured smartphone in the world, the Nokia N80, is previewed by AllAboutSymbian. The SymbianOS 3rd Edition S60 phone has all modern features a user needs (including WiFi, 3G, VGA videoconf camera in addition to a 3MP camera, UPnP, Bluetooth 2.0 with the A2DP and printing profiles, 352x416 screen, stereo FM radio etc) and it's short only to DVB-H TV reception and a more powerful 3D accelerator. The russian site Mobile-Review previewed the S60 3rd Edition a few days ago too showing off the immense visual and other differences of the operating system compared to the older version.

The new Nokia 770 Internet Tablet looks appealing: 802.11b/g and Bluetooth connectivity along with a high-resolution 800x480 LCD display. Plus it runs Linux. Does the Nokia 770 innovate or disappoint? And yet another review here.