Not sure why every Nokia phone has one or two great features, but overall the phone is not a killer phone, that everybody wants. Don’t want to mention Iphone here.

The Nokia N73 has a 3.2 Megapixel camera, which is great, but all the other stuff in there….not sure about it:

Local mobile advertising is certainly one of the hottest technology trends that companies are working on. So is probably Mobile Local Search.

Yulop, an Indian based startup, offers mobile phone users in India in a few larger cities a way to find local businesses.

Mashable got a little bit more about the technology, that they use:

“Rather than rely on GPS data, which some companies in regions elsewhere are, it functions through cellular network triangulation. Which most definitely diminishes search accuracy, yet for the time being may be deemed good enough for a broad base of mobile users in the country”

Certainly a very interesting idea. Wished I could test the system.

Finally Google announced the winners of the Androids Developer Challenge. One winning “stunner” is AndroidScan, which is an automatic barcode scanner that let’s the user research products instantly after scanning. It also allows the user to get directions to the next store or reviews from  stores or shopping engines like Amazon.

Very smart application! Well done Jeffrey…really amazing idea

Gunnar has more about QR Codes around the world. Japan is really ruling the field and more than 90% under 20 years-old use QR Codes. Amazing:

“In Japan 2005:

• 90% under 20 were using them.
• 84% were using them from magazines - women using them for mail order
• 74% for access URLs
• 27% (high I thought) for ecommerce purchase from magazines:

Seems like the British got into QR codes:

 ”Manchester Art Gallery is trialling the technology, as part of its year-long Revealing Histories: Remembering Slavery gallery trail. It is displaying the codes next to six objects on the trail. Users are taken to a mobile web page with information specifically about that object….Furr-Barton expects QR code usage by UK consumers to grow rapidly over the next 18 months, because mobile handsets with integrated cameras and mobile internet are increasingly common and mobile internet download speeds are increasing, improving the overall usability of the technology.”

Found via the Pondering Primate 

Haven’t heard many good news about Flash light. However Flash Home seems to be one of the new cool things out there. Here the official statement:

“Adobe Flash Home is a new client-server solution for operators and OEMs that delivers rich, dynamic homescreens across a wide range of handsets and platforms. It combines customizable homescreens with live data such as news and entertainment services and device data such as call logs, messaging, and battery strength to provide subscribers with a personalized, engaging experience directly from the idle screen.”

According to different resources Steve Ballmer pulled off the offer for Yahoo. Not sure how this will effect both companies, but I would have loved to see Yahoo mobile and Windows Mobile merge in some kind of way.

I still have the feeling that both companies could have changed the mobile and web industry pretty dramatically.

We now have Google online, but the Mobile search is still something all big players fight about.

Oh well…maybe this is just a huge game and both companies still get it together. Will be an interesting week.