The source code for the kernel that powers the Symbian OS now officially open sourced under the Eclipse Public License. This was something Nokia pledged to do when it acquired the remaining 52% stake in Symbian early June of 2008.

Early this year, Nokia announced it would be using a GNU/Linux based Maemo for their high end smart phones with Symbian pushed down to serve their mid-range offerings.

Motorola is hard at work on the Droid for what it hopes would be the device to take on Apple’s iPhone. If specs are something to go on, it certainly impresses with a 800 Mhz ARM Cortex processor running on Android 2.0, a 5MP camera with a built in neon flash, a great capacitive display measuring 3.7 inches and the world’s thinnest QWERTY keypad.

Measuring 60.00 x 115.80 x 13.70 mm, it’s just slightly thicker than the iPhone 3GS but at least you could change the batteries on the Driod. Supported media formats include: MPEG-4, H263, H264, WMV; AMR-NB/WB, MP3, PCM / WAV, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA (something iPhone refuses to support).

The crypic Da-Vinci like countdown timer on the Driod homepage got the Internet working on the release date – Pharanoid.com broke the code to reveal October 28th as the release date.

Some wise tips on “Designing Mobile Widgets” by Rajesh Lal, Senior Engineer, Nokia shared at 2009 Maemo Summit.

Growing pervasiveness of mobile widgets has created every mobile app designers a challenging role to play within a limited space. Only 1 percent of Mobile Widgets are successful.

What makes some widgets thrive and used by millions, and others with equal functionality bite the dust ?

Rajesh demystified the ‘invisible’ layer below the surface with 10 pragmatic tips, which covered some of the most useful and often ignored standard design principals and the tip & trick to apply them in mobile context.

I read an article this morning that brings home to me the fact that what is happening in the mobie space isn’t anymore just of interest to mobile related business people. I guess it signals a real coming of age.

BBC technology had an article “Battle of the smartphones begins” where they debate the pros and cons of BlackBerry, iPhone and the Pre. Was the Storm 2 or the Pre a possible iPhone killer. Of course for us mobile professionals, geeks or entrepreneurs in this space we read debates all the time like this. For us it is sort of our daily fare… but not so for the common mortal.

I felt that this was a sign that people are getting more and more attuned to the fact that mobile devices and their ecosystem of apps, mobile content and sites is of interest. This seems to me quantitative leap to what happened when Microsoft were battling it out back in the 80s and 90s where most people didn’t really participate in this battle, or even discuss it that much.

Now though people are interested in what is happening… I mean it still has some ways to go but it is becoming a topic of general news.

Research from GetJar, a major independent mobile apps store, indicates that two thirds of downloaders are in the 13 to 24 year old demographic group that is so highly sought after by marketers.

Further, one in three of users downloads at a rate of one new app per day!

In August 2009 GetJar surveyed over 13,000 users worldwide to develop a more detailed look at the the marketing impact of mobile apps.

A quick snapshot of the GetJar respondents:

• 65 per cent were in the 18-34 year old category,

• 81 per cent of respondents were male,

• 61% of consumers we’re downloading content at least 3-4 times a week, and

• 72% of consumers claimed that they are now using mobile Internet more than PC-based Internet.

Nokia’s next tablet device is designed in the same vein as their N810, albeit significantly more polished. Though it doesn’t appear to have an official name as of yet, it’s referred to internally as “N900″, “Rover”, or “Maemo Flagship”. We’ll be referring to this device as the N900 for the rest of this post, though it’s quite possible that this name will change.

The N900 is very similar to the Nokia N97 aesthetically, having a 3.5″ touchscreen above a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and many of the same design features. However, the screen of the N900 is significantly higher resolution (800×480 as opposed to 360×640) and, unlike that of the N97, does not tilt up. Additionally, the N900 does not appear to feature the navi-keys found on the slide-out layer of the N97. And, of course, it runs Maemo rather than S60.