Nokia updates mapping, messaging services
Published: 03 Dec 2008 12:14 GMT
Nokia has released new versions of its mapping and navigation service, along with a new messaging service.
The upgraded Nokia Maps offers new features, such as high-resolution aerial images and 3D landmarks, as well as allowing users to share their location using GPS. Nokia has also tied the latest version of Nokia Maps more closely with its PC-based service, Ovi.
The new Nokia Maps allows users to plan a journey ahead of time on their PCs and synchronise the information with their mobile phones for when they're on the road. Currently, the pre-planning function is only available for Windows-based devices.
Some of the other new features available include: the ability to purchase turn-by-turn car-navigation guidance; instant access to real-time information about traffic in certain countries; access to Wcities, an event guide that gives real-time information for events and movies in some 450 destinations; and the ability to see multiple entrances to the same underground subway stations in certain cities.
Nokia also announced that it is upgrading its Nokia Messaging client so that it integrates email and IM from Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail, Google Talk, AOL Mail and thousands of international ISPs. The service is also integrated with Ovi and gives users 1GB worth of storage. It also provides a single sign-in on their mobile phones. The beta version will be available this month in 12 languages.
All these service announcements come at the same time that Nokia has launched its latest device, the N97. The new phone, which is part of the company's high-end Nseries of multimedia computers, comes with a slide-out full Qwerty keyboard and a tilting, 3.5-inch touchscreen.
The smartphone, which will be made available in Europe in the first half of 2009, boasts many extra features, in addition to supporting the new mapping and messaging services. For example, it provides easy access to a number of social-networking sites, and the web browser supports streaming Flash videos.
The N97 also introduces what Nokia calls "social location", which uses the capabilities of the integrated A-GPS sensors and electronic compass to automatically update users' social networks, or let them share their location via photos or videos with friends.
Credit: Nokia upgrades mapping and messaging services from CNET News
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