Nokia has released a new firmware update to OS2008. Maemo.org is reporting that this release (v2.2007.51-3) fixes the following bugs:
2417 No includes for libapt-pkg (aka libapt-pkg-dev)
2917 libgdbm-dev is reported missing with chinook’s apt-get
2766 Missing libxslt1-dev in chinook
2901 Can’t install blues-utils-tools on current n810.
Reports from Internet Tablet Talk members say that the only thing this update fixes is the power-on problem. It looks like however that this update is more for the developers, as indicated at Maemo.org and from the release notes and from the Maemo 4.0 to 4.0.1 comparison table.
When I wrote last week that we need a people-friendly GPS, I really didn’t have any idea how this might work.
I just know that we need something that works better than the people-unfriendly GPS that we have now.
I have thought about the domain-name registrars and domain-name servers of the internet — every website gets a specific device-friendly numeric IP address but people don’t use those numbers. They use the URI. (Well, think about it: internettablettalk.com is way easier to remember than 74.86.202.247).
Why don’t we do the same thing for GPS locations?
Why can’t I put in a name and have a GPS name server (GPS-NS) look up the specific latitude and longitude the way it works with the web?
OK, it shouldn’t be slavishly the same. I live in Montclair, NJ, and I would want some parameter to default to “locations near Montclair” when I put them in. So I could enter “Starbucks” and a star would appear at 572 Valley Road, without my having to enter “Starbucks-Montclair-ValleyRoad”. And, yes, Starbucks Corp. would register the “Starbucks” GPS the same way it registered “starbucks.com”. And just as that site has a “starbucks.com/ourcoffees/” page, it could set up the names for each of its locations.
And, heck, maybe I have to download the GPS-NS table to my device and update it daily or weekly. Maybe it’s extremely detailed only for a specified area, not the whole world. So I can put in “Golden Gate Bridge” or “Sugarloaf” because those are level-1 locations, but not “Starbucks-Brazil-Rio de Janeiro-Ipanema”. (Unless I say, “Get me Brazil too.”)
I expect software would let me filter results too, so that if I entered a name like Xanadu that is used in different states/countries in different types of business, I’d see only the few possible entries — the restaurant near me and not the surfboard designer in San Diego, the clothing store in Milwaukee or the restaurant in Baltimore.
Only a week after Beta2, INdT has released Canola2 Beta3. According to the changelog, the following have been added/fixed:
New Features
Album cover art selection (when covers were downloaded by Canola tuning) (first release of picture. We plan to integrate “pick from file” to enable user to select cover)
Improvements
Faster, less cpu intensive download manager in podcast
Bug fixes:
Fix: Copy main cover if cannot create link
Fixed trackbar+animation update issues on player
Fixed relative paths on playlist bug (#2087)
Fixed listdir bug on cover_change
Fixed Settings: double-click bug in Media Library.
Fixed ‘rewind’ issuing ‘next’ instead of ‘previous’
Fixed Podcast: fix a memleak when deleting an episode being downloaded, was leaking 31 objects.
Fixed Podcast general improvements
Added more rubust system for getting download paths, and in the progress clean up code and use python a bit more smartly
Using now Download Manager (AsyncDownloader class) for downloading feeds.
Fixed IRadio/Feedparser: Fix bug with wrong arguments
Fixed Photos: add check to avoid raising exception in case of 0 sized images
Fixed file path when the filesystem does not support symbolic links.
Fix to conform with new get_class API.
To upgrade, fire up Application Manager and Check for updates. To install Canola, follow the install instructions at the Canola2 official website.
Please provide feedback on the Canola2 Beta3 directly on this thread.
As I’ve posted before, something went awry when Fedex delivered the N810 I ordered. It never arrived.
After a week, I persuaded LetsTalk to have Fedex reimburse them for the lost package. They did, and the replacement N810 got here Tuesday afternoon.
This morning, a neighbor from another street dropped off the original and merely mis-delivered package. Like Tuesday’s, this was an unassuming brown cardboard box about 11″x11″x9″ with nothing blaring “Fabulous electronics inside!” to alert the unwary (and only a 10-point-type return address indicating the shipper). So eleven days after receipt, my oblivious neighbors opened the package and only then realized it wasn’t some low-priority content intended for them, but someone else’s darling toy.
(Well, that’s what it looks like. I’ve already been asked by one stranger if my N810 is an iPhone.)
So now I’ve got to arrange this baby’s return.
Makes me wonder — wouldn’t it be frustration-removing if somehow the shipping could have involved GPS, with a specific location identified as the drop-off spot? Then I (or the diligent shipping researcher) could have quickly retraced the errant deliveryman’s steps and retrieved the original package on day one.
For that matter, how come we don’t have central GPS reference points that would help locate places? You know, like “the Empire State Building is at 34th and Fifth, so you go up about fifty blocks to get to the Met” only in GPS terms?
I’ll tell you why, it’s because the numbers are technology- and not people-friendly: “The Met is at latitude 40.776073 and longitude -73.964338 and the ESB at latitude 40.75319, longitude -73.985646″ has too many numbers to allow us to get a handle on the locations.
You know, I already have 1-866-59NOKIA permanently etched in my memory. (That’s the LetsTalk phone number.) And 1-800-GOFEDEX. See where I’m going here?
The whole web experience is built upon the understanding that internettablettalk.com is way easier to remember than 74.86.202.247.
At one end, we’ve got street addresses, at the other latitude and longitude. What we really need is a friendly GPS, something in the middle that has a logical structure to it and a way to make the key pieces stand out without renaming 34th Street “40.750 Way”. Or wait, maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe the Empire State Building does need to be rebranded “750 Empire State” so its universal locator number is part of its identity. After all, I know how to locate “1010 WINS News” on the radio because its frequency is part of the brandname.
Then maybe my house would be located by being +50N and -17W from Montclair’s Central Location Referent (the CLeaR point), and even that Fedex deliveryman wouldn’t have left my package at +51N-12W without worrying about whether mine was the house next to the blue house or not.
In one of those all-too-familiar internet detours, I found myself reading a page on the evolution of various tech companies’ logos at Neatorama. Above is the Nokia logo circa 1865.
Here (in its entirety and without prior permission) is the section on Nokia.
In 1865, Knut Fredrik Idestam established a wood-pulp mill in Tampere, south-western Finland. It took on the name Nokia after moving the mill to the banks of the Nokianvirta river in the town of Nokia. The word "Nokia" in Finnish, by the way, means a dark, furry animal we now call the Pine Marten weasel.
The modern company we know as the Nokia Corporation was actually a merger between Finnish Rubber Works (which also used a Nokia brand), the Nokia Wood Mill, and the Finnish Cable Works in 1967.
Before focusing on telecommunications and cell phones, Nokia produced paper products, bicycle and car tires, shoes, television, electricity generators, and so on.
I like the fish!
Neatorama cites about-nokia.com as its source, where I found this additional info: “In addition to footwear and tyres, Nokia Rubber Works also manufactured rubber bands, industrial parts and raincoats.”
The Finnish Rubber Works is founded in 1898 and in 1904 a factory was set up in the town of Nokia. In 1925 bicycle tyre production starts and in 1932 car tyre production. … Today Nokian Tyres is the largest tyre manufacturer in the Nordic countries and a profitable company in its industry. Nokian Tyres develops and manufactures summer and winter tyres for cars and tyres for a range of heavy machinery.
Heck, I can’t resist. Here’s the captivating Nokia tyre ad (click to get the full Monty) and one of the old logos:
Got any questions about what and why in the development of the Internet Tablet?
Next Tuesday, Feb. 12, looks like a good chance to get them answered.
Thoughtfix (aka Daniel Gentleman) will be talking with Quim Gil, Nokia’s point man in communicating with developers, bloggers and users. (Here’s a link to Thoughtfix’s Live Show page at ustream.tv.)
Well, you can already see my bias — I’ve identified Quim’s communication role, but Thoughtfix thoughtfully notes his professional position: development platform product manager for Maemo, which inclines one to conclude that as the Maemo product manager he has signficant say in the development of our platform.
And it’s in that guise that Quim — his name is pronounced Kim Jill, btw — will be appearing and taking questions. As Thoughtfix notes in his blog,
[S]upport questions [should] be pertinent to his role as the guy in charge of the development platform. [Gil] knows maemo inside and out and we should focus our interaction on that — so questions like “Why can’t we charge over USB?” don’t belong here.
I know firsthand that Quim’s tolerance for IT users’ quarrelsome behavior rivals that of any grandparent with a three-year-old, so I don’t expect to be scolded if I stray from the assigned parameters. (Well, maybe by Thoughtfix.)
The show will start at 11 p.m. for me on the East Coast, 9 p.m. for Thoughtfix in Arizona and 6 a.m. for Quim in Helsinki (which, come to think of it, may strain his ability to tolerate the benighted), Feb. 12.
Thanks to Thoughtfix for having this talk and for sending us a note about it!
Have you been waiting for the Canola2 update? Fire up Application Manager and check for updates — Canola2 Beta2 is now available! Check out the official Canola2 update instructions page.
The new update now supports all models and OS available on the Nokia Internet Tablet — Gregale, HE, Bora, and Chinook. If this is the first time you are installing Canola2, head out to the new Canola2 official install page.
We have created a new Canola2 Beta2 feedback thread to discuss the new update. Please provide feedback on that thread directly.
