My Nokia phones need to find my position accurately and quickly since I use location services like geotagging photos, checking-in on Foursquare, or navigating with Ovi maps. Fortunately there’s a revolutionary app called Maps Booster that helps your Symbian phone find your location really fast no matter what other applications need it. That’s right… I said revolutionary. If you don’t believe me, watch Steve Jobs explain the awesome technology behind the app.

Video below might now be visible in some RSS readers. Head over to the blog to watch it.

Maps Booster is powered by Skyhook Wireless and implemented as a positioning method on Symbian. They’ve driven around the world to map out Wifi hotspots (similar to how Google drives around with cameras for Street View). When your phone opens an application like Maps, Gravity, or Camera that tries to find your location, Maps Booster runs in the background to compare the Wifi signals near you with their database to pinpoint where you are. That means, they can find your location quickly even if you’re indoors! Here’s their coverage map.

I’m really happy with Maps Booster and it works perfectly on the Symbian phones I’ve tested: Nokia N86 and Nokia n97 mini. I hope it gets built-in with all upcoming devices. It’s available at the Ovi Store for $2.99. It’s well worth it!

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Joikuspot Premium for the Nokia N900 came out of beta on Monday and is now available for sale at the Joikushop for EUR 7. When asked if we’ll be seeing it at the Ovi Store, they responded, “the Ovi Store process is already on-going. Typically it takes some days.” Joikuspot turns your Nokia N900 into a wifi hotspot.

Instructions explain you can purchase & install the JoikuSpot Linux Edition file to your Nokia N900, then reboot after installation to adjust WiFi drivers. JoikuSpot can be then found under the Nokia N900’s Applications folder.

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WOMWorld/Nokia put up 3 tickets for grabs over the weekend for an all-expenses-paid trip to SXSW in Austin, Texas. Those who wanted to participate needed to create a video entitled, “Dear Nokia, I should go to SXSW because…” I didn’t want to pass on this wonderful opportunity, so I decided to submit a video… with the help of my beautiful, loving, singing wife.

You can also view this video in HD on Vimeo. Please help me win the trip by simply pressing the green retweet button on top of this post.

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When I couldn’t find Skype for Symbian at the Ovi Store here in the US after the announcement, I thought there was probably a temporary delay. However, a Skype representative told Venturebeat that the app was intentionally excluded to drive more attention to a recent deal with Verizon Wireless. Read on for the quote.

“Skype has made a decision in the United States to not promote the Skype for Symbian app through the Ovi Store. We did this so that we could drive more attention to the recently announced Skype and Verizon Wireless agreement. This was a marketing decision — plain and simple.

“Skype users in the U.S can still download Symbian by going directly to Skype.com.”

The Verizon/Skype service still says “coming soon,” but more information was promised this month. If you’re looking to download Skype for your Nokia Symbian phone and you’re currently in the US, head over to their website instead of the Ovi Store.

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Today we'll be making some changes to the badges that you can earn as a contributor at Beta Labs.  We're going to simplify the badges we give out and switch off the Top Reviewer, Bug Buster, and Innovator badges since they were proving difficult to maintain in a reliable and fair way.  In short, we're adding two new badges and holding on to two old badges.

Active Contributor

Any Beta Labs community member can earn the Active Contributor badge by - you guessed it - being active on the site!  Giving feedback, commenting to others' threads, and rating the helpfulness of others' posts all contribute to your reputation as an Active Contributor.  You'll get the badge if your activity over the past six months is over a certain threshhold, and it's likely that if you have one of the three badges already mentioned you'll get this one too.

Top Contributor

Beta Labs community members earn the Top Contributor badge when they are active on the site AND valued by others.  Helpful ratings on posts and comments as well as selections of posts by admins to the Editors' Picks contribute to your reputation as a Top Contributor.  Like with the Active Contributor badge, you'll get the badge if your reputation over the past six months is over a certain threshhold.  The reputation system is still pretty new, though, so we do expect many more Top Contributor badges to be given out in the coming months.

Contributor of the Month

To identify those that have been specially awarded for their valuable contribution.

Staff

To identify posts and responses from development teams.

As before these badges appear on any comment you make at the site and in your Profile.  We hope these badges serve as a way for contributors and development teams to more easily identify and recognize those that are putting in time and effort to make Nokia Beta Labs a thriving community.  So do continue to be active and remember to rate others' posts and comments as helpful if you want to give them some reputation points (or unhelpful if you want to discourage a particular kind of comment).

Lastly, a big thanks goes out to all our Active and Top Contributors!

- John, Community Facilitator @ Nokia Beta Labs

Last month in our little poll 87% of you who responded voted to continue the Contributor of the Month tradition.  So let's keep it going, but feel free to suggest other means of giving recognition as well.  And remember that all of you can influence who gets selected by rating each others' posts as "helpful".

So now let's congratulate maximilian.schleiss as the contributor of the month for February!  He's been especially active in giving useful feedback to Custom Dictionary and to Beta Labs itself after we updated the site.

With spring weather just around the corner, we'll send you a fleece jacket as a token of our appreciation.

Congratulations!

-  John, Community Facilitator @ Nokia Beta Labs

Following the great feedback submitted by the Beta Labs community, we have created a new release of Gig Finder to address many of the bugs reported by users. Please download the latest release (requires login), try it out, and keep the good feedback coming!

- Daniel
Gig Finder team

The Ovi Mail team has just released Ovi Mail 2.0. With this release, your Ovi Mail contacts and Ovi Contacts are merged into one contacts list. You can view, edit, delete or create your contacts from Ovi Contacts or Ovi Mail. You can also sync your device phonebook with Ovi Contacts and Ovi Mail. This was the most desired feature by Ovi Mail users and we are excited to bring this to you.

The following use case is now supported with the changes in Ovi Mail 2.0:

Save a contact and view from device:

1. User opens an email from a friend in Ovi Mail on the web and sends a reply back
2. Ovi Mail shows a dialog box asking if he wants to add the person to his address book.  User says yes and fills in the entries and clicks on ‘Add contact’
3. Within a few minutes, the new contact appears in Ovi Contacts on the web because Ovi Mail now is integrated with Ovi Contacts
4. User decides to sync his phone to get the newly added contact on his phone. User can either initiate a sync from device or from Ovi Contacts on the web to sync his contacts
5. After the sync completes, user views the Phonebook on the device and the name of the friend and the newly added email address appear in the Phonebook on the phone

Ovi Mail 2.0 also comes with Arabic support to help customers in Arabic-speaking countries view their Ovi Mail account in Arabic. Over 280 Million people use Arabic as their first language. This was a challenging feature to implement considering the fact that it’s a right-to-left language and the Ovi Mail UI had to be changed to support this orientation.

Please try it out at mail.ovi.com or on your device and let us know what you think here at Nokia Beta Labs.

- Hem
Product Manager for Ovi Mail

Skype for Symbian is now downloadable for free from the Ovi Store according to the joint announcement on Wednesday. It will allow Nokia users worldwide to make free Skype-to-Skype calls and save money on calls and SMS to phones abroad. This is great for those who have an unlimited data plan.

I didn’t know how cheap Skype was until I heard about the announcement. For example, it’s only $2.95 per month for unlimited calls in the US and Canada and $30 per year for a telephone number so non-Skype callers can reach you from any phone. If you find a provider that offers affordable and reliable data-only service, it could be a smart idea to ditch the cellular voice plan.

The initial Skype for Symbian application is compatible with the following Nokia touchscreen models: Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia 5530 and the following non-touch devices: Nokia E72, Nokia E71, Nokia E90, Nokia E63, Nokia E66, Nokia E51, Nokia N96, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8Gb, Nokia N85, Nokia N82, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8 Gb, Nokia N79, Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 classic, Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia 5320.

If you have the Nokia N900, Skype is already built-in.

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If you have been live streaming videos from Qik on your Nokia phones, then you might like to know that Qik Premium was released today exclusively for the Ovi store. It gives you the ability to save your videos from qik.com in the mpeg-4 format, higher quality transcoding, and access to upcoming features.

It is available for download at a promotional price of $4.99/year which ends March 31st, 2010. Qik also promises to bring the ability to upload and share videos recorded with your mobile phone’s native camera application in an update. You can download Qik Premium from the Ovi Store application on your Nokia phone or through the browser with this link.

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