First release of PhotoTranslator application
After an interesting video a couple of weeks ago, showing OCR (optical character recognition) being combined with foreign language translation and the N900's camera, Marko Mattila has announced the first public release of PhotoTranslator: Few weeks ago we released a video about PhotoTranslator application running on N900. Because people were very interested in about getting this application in use, we decided to release an alpha version of the PhotoTranslator. It's available at extras devel repository, but it's in alpha state now, so we don't guarantee that it would work perfectly. As it's in not yet in Extras, care should be taken if installing it.
Sygic Mobile Maps for Maemo Europe available for purchase
Sygic's Mobile Maps application has been long looked forward to for Maemo 5, filling as it does the gap left by the omission of Wayfinder (and the inclusion of Ovi Maps). Turn-by-turn, reroutable, voice-guided navigation is included, and Sygic includes in their press release a video: With the full set of navigation features, multiple user settings, fast route calculation, user-friendly operation and the latest maps situated on-board of the device, Sygic Mobile Maps turns Nokia N900 into a full-featured personal navigation device, and provides for There have been a few reports of problems on talk.maemo.org, and a full-blown review has yet to be posted. However, both EMEA/Russia and American regions are now both available.
New Twitter client renamed to TweeGo
TwitterBox, an(other) in-development Twitter client for Maemo 5, has been renamed "TweeGo" after a name collision with an iPhone application. As of now it is very alpha with regard to functionality and has not been uploaded to the extras-devel repository yet. There is no dedicated @ reply column, no direct message section and so on but the UI is beautiful. The transitions are slick and the app makes you want to use it. Hopefully it will have much more functionality soon. TweeGo is not yet in the maemo.org repositories and its installation is currently by downloading and installing random debs from the Internet. However, it looks promising, and the landscape of Maemo Twitter clients has expanded: Mauku, Witter and now TweeGo. Such applications seem to be the benchmark for tech-bloggers when evaluating a modern mobile OS.
Desktop Activity Manager allows multiple desktop personas
Stefanos Harhalakis has released an application which allows the Maemo 5 desktop to be configured for different use-cases at different times. He says, an activity is the set of all desktop widgets, bookmarks and icons along with the background.For example, it is possible to have an activity named "car" where the desktop is customized to be easily accessible while driving without having many icons. Then another activity named "games" to include shortcuts to games. Then another activity named "clean" without any widgets on the desktop in order to conserve battery. Desktop Activity Manager is currently in Extras-testing, so if you are willing to take a chance - and test and vote on the application to get it into the hands of more end-users - you should install it and run it through the QA procedures.