The Nokia Guide

Nokia N95 8GB, the first DLNA certified mobile

The N95 8GB is currently the only mobile device to receive Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) certification. Originally founded by Sony and Intel , the current DLNA organization consists of eight Board companies like Nokia, Microsoft, HP, Samsung and Sony. A few of the requirements to obtain DLNA-certification include UpnP and Wifi, both standard features on the N95 8GB. But then again didn’t even the original N95 support these? I’m confused. Here’s the press release:

Nokia today announced that the Nokia N95 8GB had the distinction of being the first ever mobile phone to receive Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) certification. The DLNA is a body advocating the interoperability of wired and wireless consumer devices. For the consumer, this accolade translates into convenient and intuitive connectivity between your DLNA Certified home electronics devices, personal computers, and your Nokia N95 8GB.

DLNA technology enables multi-vendor home ecosystems of consumer devices by building a common connectivity platform for a variety of multimedia experiences. This vision is fully in line with the Nokia's aspiration for openness and seamless interoperability between devices and services from different brands.

DLNA has certified the Nokia N95 8GB as a Mobile Digital Media Server, an acknowledgment that taps into the genius of this multimedia computer. The extensive connectivity and cutting-edge media capabilities of the Nokia N95 8GB are ideal for enjoying content, such as music, photos or videos, wirelessly on other devices in the home environment.

N82 introduces Panoman: Panorama image creation

One of the features of my Canon digital camera I liked is the “Stich Assist” feature. Basically it allows you to take a series of pictures and later on stitch them together creating a single panoramic image. The N82 now also supports the feature through an included app called Panoman. It would be great if this feature was included as part of the camera software, but having it as a third party app is ok for now.  I hope Nokia is busy making this feature part of the camera software through a future N82 software update. There are a lot of software out there right now that can stitch images together, but the beauty Panoman  comes from the fact that it’s all done on the phone itself, no need to get home to stitch photo’s: it’s all created and uploaded on the phone itself. another plus is that it does most of the work for you by analyzing how two pictures fit together and snapping when it “thinks” is right.  All you need is keep a steady hand and pan to the right. You basically start of by taking an image. It then saves this image and displays it on the screen, while showing a live camera view next to it. This allows it to see how the next image would “fit” when put next to the image already taken: this is important as the key in creating a seamless panoramic image is to stitch images that are a continuation of the other. Now this process isn’t fail-proof as some of the panoramas aren’t always perfect, but I found that it works great most of the time. The image resolution will vary depending on the amount of images you stitch, but the height will always be the same: the test image I created was; 3084x625. A good tip is to use a tripod, as any slight movement from the hand can confuse the software and possibly ruin the final result.

One thing I would change about this app is adding the ability for you to manually take shots and not only have the app to decide when to take shots. The screenshots and the video should give you an idea as to what you can expect.