Symbian, the world’s most popular smartphone operating system, has announced that it’s going open source about four months ahead of schedule. This move will allow more software developers to have access to develop applications and mobile devices based on the operating system.

The plan was to complete the transition of putting the OS under the Eclipse development license and work out deals with existing third party developers by later this summer. Symbian was able to move ahead more quickly, most likely to try and keep an edge on the newer open-source Android mobile operating system from Google.

Netflix have now officially announced an agreement with Nintendo of America to stream it’s video content to the Nintendo Wii game console. We had heard it was coming way back in October and now Netflix has rounded out its coverage with the big three game consoles including Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PS3.

The new deal allows Wii console owners who are also Netflix subscribers and have a broadband internet connection to select movies from a catalog of choices and stream them to their television instantly. The service will be offered at no additional cost to subscribers to the DVD by mail service with Netflix with at least an $8.99/month plan.

The folks at Parrot have released a new toy RC toy called the AR.Drone, a “quadricopter” that can be controlled and viewed with an iPhone or iPod touch through a WiFi connection. The AR.DRONE works like a remote control helicopter with four separate helicopter blades to maneuver the device, but that is definitely not what makes this copter cool.

What really sets this guy apart from the others is that you can control it with your iPhone or iPod touch using the built-in accelerometers which will sense which way you tip the phone and maneuver the AR.Drone accordingly. The quadricopter also has a couple of cameras on board, one for “seeing” what the AR.Drone sees real-time through the iPhone, but also another camera on the bottom which can track speed and help the ‘copter maintain a still flight.

A mobile phone running Google’s Android software along with a third party security app was recently stolen in Oregon and was able to fight back against it’s captors, getting itself home again. The Motorola Droid was stolen out of a couples home late at night along with a number of other electronic items and things of values.

Shortly after stealing the device the thieves snapped a few photos of themselves with the on-board camera which, unknown to them, were then uploaded to a server as part of a backup process that runs each night. The owners were then able to download the photos from the servers website and turn them over to police which eventually led to the capture of at least one of the robbers.

The backup/security application was a free download for the Android phone called …

The Nexus One from Google is now official as Google has made their press announcement, as expected, that they are indeed launching their own mobile handset. The device is made by HTC and runs Google’s own Android software.

With Android, the features of the system are very similar to the existing handsets running the software with a few additions to the apps and some additional voice control. Google bragged the handset itself is no heavier than a Swiss Army Knife and no thicker than a number 2 pencil.

Google is expected to release it’s own mobile phone in a press conference schedule for today, going by the name of Nexus One. The new phone will be the first to actually be sold by Google and will also run Google’s very own Android software stack for mobile devices.

The Nexus One is rumored to also become available through the T-Mobile and their wireless carrier network in addition to the unlocked version direct from Google. The Android software has already been available on a number of mobile phones starting back in 2008 with a device from HTC. The device Google is introducing today is expected to also be from HTC, touting a 3.7 inch touch screen, 5-megapixel camera and a Snapdragon processor.

Getting a new high-end flat screen LCD, plasma or LED TV this holiday season and have kids, pets or maybe a moderately clumsy person in the house? You may want to consider protecting the display on that investment with one of these acrylic protective shields from TV Armor.

We wrote about protective products from TV Armor back in September and since then the company has really been gaining traction and popularity. Let’s face it, even though flat-screen TV’s are getting a little less expensive they still are certainly not cheap. The last thing you want is a pet or kids toy, or worse yet this guy over to your house and smash something into that new big screen.

ioSafe, a technology producer of disaster proof storage hardware, launched the ioSafe Solo in January and this week we took the opportunity to test one out to see how well it would hold up. The ioSafe Solo is a rugged external drive designed to keep your stuff safe in the event of a disaster such as a fire, flood or the building literally falling around it.

The ioSafe is not shockproof however and is not designed to be dropped from great distances or thrown around. It is however built to withstand intense heat (up to 1550 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes), complete submersion (up to 10 feet for 3 days!) and is encased in a rugged enclosure making it like the Sherman tank of external drives.

Vonage, a provider of VoIP home phone services, has announced a new mobile application designed specifically for the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and RIM’s Blackberry devices providing alternative discounted rates for international calls. The application is a free download available today available from the Vonage site or through the iTunes App Store.

The application will allow mobile users to dial international calls as they normally would with no extra steps or special numbers to enter, and those receiving the calls will see the mobile number in their callerID just like a regular international call. In the future Vonage plans on extending the offering to a monthly flat rate, but for now the discounted per-minute charges will apply.

We’ve been hearing about Rebit and their backup solutions from as far back as October of 2007, and our time to try out one of these devices was far overdue. For this review we got a chance to review a portable backup solution from Rebit which boasts a “ridiculously simple backup” process, and they did not disappoint.

SETUP
Setting up the backup system was about as easy as it could be. We simply unpacked the small, slim portable drive and USB cable and plugged it in to our computer. After a couple of automatically prompted approvals in our Windows Vista system the thing just started doing its job of backing up all the files on the hard drive of our computer. The entire process from opening the box until it started working was under 3 minutes. The drive has a dual-headed USB cord so a separate power supply is not necessary if a single USB port does supply enough power, but in our case a single USB 2.0 connection was all it took to power the device and transfer data.

Google has now started public testing by invitation only of Wave, a new online tool for communication and collaboration between people online. Wave has been described by its designer as what email would look like if it was invented today, and contains real-time communication through text, photos, video, maps and more according to Google.

The communication using the Wave tool is live somewhat like an instant messenger allowing users to see others edits as they make them, character by character. Should a users not be online at the same time, the communications will still be available to view at a later date, much like emails waiting in your inbox.

France Telecom’s Orange announced on Monday that it will start selling the iPhone in the UK later this along with Telefonica’s O2. O2 has previously had exclusive rights to sell the iPhone in Britain however the contract is set to expire.

Orange announced that both the 3G and the 3GS versions will be available to UK customers later in the year, but gave no more details of exact dates or expecting pricing for the handset or plans.

A New York District Court judge on Thursday announced the delay of the Google Book Search hearing and instead will hold a status conference on the scheduled October 7th date. Google Book Search is a settlement case that has been pending for more than four years between Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. The deal would allow Google to digitize millions of out-of-print, coprighted books and make them available for sale to readers online. The authors and publishers of the books would share in sales and advertising profits.

The delay from judge Denny Chin comes due to a recommendation from the Department of Justice who felt that the settlement proposal violates copyright, class-action and antitrust regulations. Chin stated that the hearing currently “makes no sense…as it does not appear the current settlement will be the operative one.”

According to a recent report from Gizmodo on Tuesday, Microsoft is confirming rumors that it actually does have a new dual-screen tablet in the works, codenamed Courier. According to the article and a short demo video, the Courier is a real thing and is more like a “booklet” than a tablet as it folds together and has two interactive touch screens side-by-side with loads of fast functionality.

The project has apparently been kept under pretty tight wraps with very few, both inside and outside of Microsoft, with knowledge about it. In fact, rumors are that the team working on the project, led by J. Allard (a designer involved in the Zune and the Xbox) has been kept away from the main Redmond campus to help keep it secret.

Google announced on Wednesday that the company has acquired reCAPTCHA, a company with an online product used for providing a test that humans can pass and computers generally cannot. A CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) tool is used in many places on the internet and often when submitting information to ensure that it is a human submitting the information and not some bot software filling out forms automatically on the internet.

A CAPTCHA program would provide text that is not easily and usually impossible for a automated character recognition program to decipher, but easy enough that a human could identify the letters in the text. The person submitting the information would then enter the text they see to “prove” that they are human and not a machine.