There may be over 10,000 applications now available on the iTunes App Store, but we know that roughly half of those are flashlight applications (the other half is made up of tip calculators).

There is no shortage of hardware flashlights for the iPhone, either. Heck, one of them even has a built-in laser. A new widget from Schosche, however, takes this already small niche and makes it so specilized that it might actually have some appeal.

The reviveLITE is a combination iPod charger and nightlight. The light comes on automatically when the room gets dark, and can thankfully also be switched off manually. The charger does what you'd expect, and the whole thing folds up into a small package so those fearful of hotel rooms with blackout curtains can take it on the road.

The price for this marvel of ingenuity? $40, in black or white. It'll fit pretty much any iPod, thanks to supplied foam inserts. One thing. With the amount of blinkenlight-equipped gadgets already giving my nighttime bedroom the eery visual hum of an alien spacecraft, why would I want to add yet another?

And for parents of skittish children, we suggest you don't cheap-out with this combo -- invest in a proper nightlight for the kids. My parents placed a leering, glowing clown at the base of my bed and it never had any ill effects. (twitch)

Product page [Scosche. Thanks, Mark!]

Not so long ago, I was given a preview of Reset Generation, an "action-puzzle" game that draws elements from the old-school arcade titles. There are numerous details that gamers would get, like the hedgehog, plumber, space invader and so on. Even the 8-bit soundtrack will remind you of the old good days.

The game opposes two (human or bot) players, but the twist is that you can network-play from a PC or a Phone (PC vs. phone, phone vs. phone, I'm not sure for PC vs. PC). the PC version of the game is free, while the handheld version costs about 10 Euros. If you wonder, Mac OS X and Linux versions are on the way.

The game has been designed for one-handed operation and Nokia assures me that this is the most played N-Gage gave ever. As with any networked game, this is much more fun when playing against a buddy than a computer. You try it in the widget in the full post. Drop a comment to tell us what you think.

Permalink: Reset Generation on N-Gage from Ubergizmo (US, FR) | Good deals | Hot: Storm Review

Maybe it’s because I have a scratchy throat today and a few random sniffles, but the news from Zicam Cold Remedy caught my eye.

Matrixx Initiatives Inc., which makes Zicam, launched the Zicam Cold & Flu Companion mobile application today for the T-Mobile G1, better known as the first Google phone. An iPhone version will be out within the next few weeks at the Apple App store.

With this software, users can check cold and flu activity by zip code. This was inspired by Google, which launched “Flu Trends” on Nov. 11. Flu Trends can estimate flu activity by region. Google gets its data from weekly and historical Center for Disease Control reports plus it own database tracking the number of flu-related searches users type in.

The Zicam tool shows the percentage of sick people in a zip code, symptoms to look for and the latest flu news.  And since this is free (read: marketing tool), the app offers coupons and addresses of nearby stores that sell Zicam products.

To learn more about the app, visit zicam.com/tools/mobile.

Of course if you don’t have an iPhone or G1, you can still track the flu around you at Zicam’s site HERE. Or, download the flu widget to your computer. (Oh snap! Flu levels are moderate here in Santa Ana.)

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Post from: Alt+Save with the Gadgetress

Check who near you has flu on Google phone, iPhone

As we’ve mentioned before, the squishy widget-gadget Chumby is now available in Australia through Internode. Unfortunately, as we’ve also mentioned before, all of the widgets that can be used on the Chumby are US-centric and the lack of widgets made specifically for Australia might hamper the gadget’s success in the country.

As a part of the solution to the problem, Internode has launched a Chumby widget development competition that calls for Australia-centric widget entries from everyone, even those who don’t have Chumby units. There will be two winners: a grand prize that will be decided by vote and a runner-up chosen by Simon Hackett, Managing Director of Internode. Both winners will get their own Chumby; the grand prize winner also gets a copy of Adobe Flash CS4 Professional and $800 internode credits while the runner up gets $200 Internode credit.

Via GIZ AU

Zumobi, a company which we know for its Windows Mobile work, is going iPhone. They announced a free, native iPhone app called Ziibii, allowing users to stay in-touch and in-the-loop with “friends, photos and the world around them.” The application blends popular social networks along with web content (RSS) into an interesting view (they call it a “fresh experience”), which you can see from the screenshot above.

From the official release:

Ziibii enables real-time social interaction between users across a variety of popular social media applications, as well as on-going discovery of news, stories and blogs throughout the day. Displayed on the screen of the handset, Ziibii’s visual expression metaphor is a river with content “rafts” floating with the user’s pre-defined content, including direct-connect to social networking sites and RSS feeds.

Obviously they (ZuMobi) want to make some money out of advertising. Hence, they argue, once the application becomes popular, an opportunity will emerge for brands which could “seamlessly immerse” their logo/offering into content flow, hence becoming part of the “user’s on-going engagement and product experience.”

You can download Ziibii from AppStore using this link. Alternatively, you may want to check out a demo video of Ziibii in action, which follows after the jump.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Zumobi goes BlackBerry
• Zumobi updated; Windows Mobile users rejoice!
• Cellware.com - mobile social network where users, content creators benefit
• Lenovo and Intel launch Zumobi Olympics mobile widget
• In-Stat: Mobile social networks embraced by millenial generation

Nokia N97

So much for Wednesday - the big announcement from Nokia World has dropped today instead, and it’s the N97 - a touchscreen slider with all the slanty goodness of the TyTN II due to hit store shelves in the first half of 2009 for EUR 550. We had heard rumours of a touchscreen N-series coming down the pipes, and it turns out they were right! Here are the N97’s specifications:

System: WCDMA 900/1900/2100 (HSDPA), EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
User Interface: S60 5th Edition
Dimensions:117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm*mm (L x W x H) *18.25 mm at camera area
Weight:Approx. 150 g
Display:3.5 inch TFT with up to 16 million colors, nHD 16:9 widescreen (640×360 pixels)
Battery: Nokia Battery BP-4L, 1500 mAh
Memory:Up to 48GB (32 GB on-board memory, plus 16GB expansion via microSD memory card slot)
Video playback:MPEG-4 / SP and MPEG-4 AVC/H.264,up to 30 fps, up to VGA resolution, RealVideo up to QCIF @ 30 fps, Windows Media (WMV9) up to CIF @ 30 fps, Flash Lite 3.0 / Flash Video in internet browser
Music playback:MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, WMA
Camera Lens:Carl Zeiss Tessar™
Image capture: Up to 5 megapixels (2584 x 1938) JPEG/EXIF (16.7 million/24-bit color)
Video capture:MPEG-4 VGA (640 x 480) at up to 30 fps
Aperture:F2.8
Focal length:5.4 mm
Flash:Dual LED camera flash and video light
Talk time:Up to 320 min (3G), 400 min (GSM)
Standby time:Up to 400 hrs (3G), 430 hrs (GSM)
Video playback:Up to 4,5 hours (offline mode)
Music playback:Up to 37 hours (offline mode)
Connectivity & Data Services: WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g with UPnP support, Micro-USB connector, Hi-Speed USB 2.0, 3.5mm stereo headphone plug and TV-out support (PAL/NTSC), Bluetooth wireless technology 2.0 with A2DP stereo audio, enhanced data rates (EDR), GPS receiver with support for assisted GPS (A-GPS)

Social networking is apparently a big part of this handset, as it will make good use of GPS to integrate into services like Ovi and Friend View, although it’s really being marketed as a miniaturized laptop more than anything else. There’s still a fairly distinct line between UMPC and smartphone that the E-series Communicator straddles a little better than the N97 here, but we’ll let that slide. The N97 is also sporting a lot of draggable home screen widgets, a look reminiscent of Android and the TouchWiz UI. An S60 widget development platform has been in the works for awhile now, so you can expect third parties will be jumping on this one real soon. It looks like a great step to improving the smoothness of the Symbian experience and should make a solid addition to the N series. Pretty cool, huh? Who wants one?

[via Nokia]

Pictures and videos of the Nokia N97 after of the jump!

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Nokia N93: The Next Story in Video
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Ever since Apple introduced visual voicemail with the launch of the iPhone, envious customers of competing carriers have requested it as a feature for their own phones.

Thanks to the new version of their visual voice mail application, PhoneFusion looks like it's the first company to take the Android plunge into voicemail efficiency. It might not be enough at this point to compete with the top phone (especially considering the G1's substantial flaws), but it appears to be a good, useful app.

Several companies have also come out with their own versions of the app in the last 15 months. CallWave uses a voicemail widget and texting notifications (similar to GotVoice), and others, like SimulSays and most recently, Verizon, have added them for a small price. Most of them look the same visually, but they are often not as smooth as the iPhone's set-up.

PhoneFusion's app works just like the other visual voicemail apps and comes closest to the iPhone's. You get to judiciously pick through your voicemail on your phone, with some archiving and labeling options. After you sign up from your G1 browser to open up a free account, you can set it to forward any other voicemails in your life (like your work voicemail) to show on your Googlephone in the screen.

While the first version of the PhoneFusion app was heavily scorned by Androidites as fugly and a slightly better version of a Windows Mobile app, the new Beta version looks much better, with room to grow.

That first version of the app was tested by the guys at Android Apps and they had a hard time receiving their first voice mail routed in to the phone. However, it has apparently worked for most other users. Personally, my concern is still with the design: It would benefit from a larger font and better graphics.

Still, like Charlie has previously suggested, the creation of a successful app for the Google Android mobile system gives us the opportunity to analyze the growth scale of the apps and the companies that make them.

One of the reasons why iPhone apps seem to do so well compared to other ones is that you know the ones that make it through the strict App Store process will work on the iPhone. Cross-phone apps usually don't work as well because coding an app in the same system for completely different hardware (like touchscreens vs. keypads) makes it harder to replicate the user interface every time.

And since the G1 phone is the only Android OS phone at the moment, we can't compare the difference in quality between a single app. Still, simple apps that accurately copy the user experience of a specific iPhone app like PhoneFusion's visual voicemail suggest that Apple won't have all the best apps in the next few years.

Mainly, a formidable open system like the future version of the Android OS will be able to replicate its apps across several mobile systems without losing ground in quality.

It's just another reason why Apple might have to open up its closed system.

12:00-12:15
”Ovi – Connecting people, places, time and things to bring us closer”
Jussi Nevanlinna, Vice President, Portfolio & Product Management, Services & Software, Nokia

12:15-12:25
”Connected Navigation” Michael Halbherr, Vice President Nokia Location Based Services, Nokia

12:25-12:35

Joint Q&A

12:45-12:55
”Mobile Messaging for Everyone”
Tom Furlong, Senior Vice President and General Manager Consumer Messaging, Service & Software, Nokia

12:55-13:05
”Year one of the N-Gage mobile games service”
Jaakko Kaidesoja, Vice President, Games, Nokia

13:05–13:15
”Nokia Music”
Liz Schimel, Global Head of Music, Entertainment & Communities, Nokia

13:40-14:00
”Nokia Research – Bridging to the Mobile Future”
Henry Tirri, Senior Vice President & Head of Nokia Research Center

Q&A

I will bring you as much info as possible during the webcast and on the run up to it but for now all I can tell you is that it expected to be about the N97.

We think this might be it?

Photos form the live conference below

What's happening just now:

08:25: Seems to something now to do with Nokia Maps - as of today it is changing is what was said

08:28: Nokia to use NavtTeq maps to deliver this new service

08:30: We are now hearing about E-Mail using Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange

08:31: Nokia E71 is biggest selling Nokia QWERTY device

08:32: Nokia messaging combines all mail services including hotmail, google, yahoo and IM clients.

08:37: Lost connection to the webcast but have now got a press kit on the N97

08:40: Assi Vanjoki joined the stage as guest speaker

08:44: We are now seeing the phone being built per requested spec in blueprint form

08:46: Phone will have 64GB memory

08:48: 3.5" Screen 16m Colours

08:49: Touchsceen mobile

08:51: Widget based O/S

08:54: 16:9 Video at 30fps

08:56: Slagging off Google Maps

08:57: QWERTY keyboard and on screen keyboard with size for use.

08:59: Click and flick 35 degree screen

09:00: Finally - The N97 is announced

09:01: 550 Euros to buy

09:01: 1st Half of 2009 for release

09:04: Media Session & Q&A Begins

Posted by: John

Gallery: Nokia unveils flagship N97 phone

Continue reading Nokia unveils flagship N97 phone [update: video!]

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia unveils flagship N97 phone [update: video!] originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.