Over the next few weeks Nokia Maps team will conduct a piece of research for the Drive car navigation feature within Nokia Maps 2.0. We’re looking for a range of users, from novice to experienced, who are based in London, Berlin or Madrid and have been using Drive within Maps 2.0 actively. Hands-on experience with other car navigation products is a big plus too.

This is how it works:

If you are using the Drive feature actively, and are based in London, Berlin or Madrid, and happen to have some free time in your city during weeks commencing with July 21st and July 28th, this is an opportunity for you to influence the development of the car navigation feature for the next software release.

If you would like to participate in the research session in your city (London, Berlin, Madrid) in person, please fill in the next 5 questions online and leave us your contact details.

We will contact some of you within the next few days to check your availability and invite you for a session in your city. In appreciation for your time and your feedback during the research session, you will receive 100€ / 80£, and some cool Nokia Maps goodies.

Oh, and please spread the word!!

Let me introduce A-GPS beta for N810!

Assisted GPS (A-GPS) provides assistance data for GPS calculations within the device. This application enables A-GPS on your N810 Internet Tablet device and provides improved GPS fix times.

In order to benefit from A-GPS you need to have:
* latest OS2008 SW version (DIABLO_4.2008.23-14 or later)
* possibility for internet connection.

You need set the reference location at the first time you use A-GPS and everytime you have moved a long distance
(>300 kilometers / 185 miles) from your previous reference location. Whenever your Internet Tablet gets a GPS fix
your reference location will be automatically updated accordingly.

Known issues:
* if reference location is set totally wrong, GPS may not get a fix at all

If you own the compatible device, please download and tell us what you think!

Quick note: now that you have had time to play with the updated Nokia Music PC client, could you do Mark and his R&D friends a favor, and fill in the survey?

It’s short and simple - same questions as the last time.

Thanks in advance!!

Ps. is there something we could offer as a collective incentive? I mean, something like “If there are more than 250 valid responses during the next week, Tommi promises to …”

Guest writer: Mark Wheatley, Product Manager, Nokia Music for PC

Hi, and welcome to the next version of Nokia Music.

First of all I would just like to thank all those people who have posted comments, defect reports and suggestions relating to the old Beta. This has been an incredibly useful exercise for us here at Nokia Music. Thanks to the contributions of those on this forum we have been able to identify and fix over one hundred defects in this new version. Things we have been able to solve include a large number of ‘stability’ type defects, the ‘Unknown Artist’ bug, as well as a number of issues around device connection.

Unfortunately a bug in the older Beta means Vista users will have to manually remove the previous version using ‘Add/Remove programs’ before installing the new version.

Functional changes since the previous version include a new ‘lighter’ colour scheme and support for ripping to AAC/AAC+/eAAC+ format.

The supported devices list has also been extended to include the following devices: N76, N78, N81, N82, N91, N95, N95 8GB, N96, 5220, 5310, 5320, 5610, 6210, 6220, E66, E71.

Please keep the comments and feature suggestions coming. A lot of your suggestions have already made it onto our wish-list for the future.

We will release the next Beta update sometime after 28th July. The Music Store integration will be activated some time after this.

Best wishes, and thanks again,

Mark Wheatley

Guest blogger: Stefan Gimeson from Nokia Maps team

With Map Loader 2.0 you can buy navigation and city guides directly from your PC!

Map Loader 2.0 includes a web shop where you can purchase and download navigation, traffic information and city guide licenses directly to your device. There is no need for activation, just download and you are ready to explore your world.

The new “Services” tab will let you browse through Drive*, Drive&Walk*, Traffic* and City Guides before deciding what to buy. In addition, the clear and easy to understand graphical representation will show what region is covered by the license. You will see exactly what you buy before buying.

Selecting “Guides” will let you browse through City Guides and Multimedia Guides from all over the world. Selecting one will show you information on the contents and you can download them directly to your device. It has never been so easy to find the right guide for your destination!

New connection mode

Map Loader 2.0 now supports PC Suite connections. This means that you can connect several devices over USB or Bluetooth connection. Mass storage mode is also supported for older Nokia Maps versions and memory cards. In mass storage mode the new “Services” tab will not be available and Map Loader 2.0 will behave like Map Loader 1.x. On startup, a popup will show connected devices and will let you choose the drive/device to use. Make sure you have the latest PC Suite installed (http://www.nokia.com/pcsuite).

Shop

After selecting a navigation license or downloading a guide you will be transferred to the payment page. Enter you credit card data; confirm payment and the license will be downloaded to your device. Your credit card data is sent over a secure https connection. You will also receive an email receipt.

Purchased licenses

In the bottom of the “Services” screen, there is a list of your previously purchased licenses and their expiration date. This will help you to see when it is time to renew you licenses.

Feedback

Download Map Loader 2.0 and let us know what you think! Make sure to uninstall any older version of maploader before installing Map Loader 2.0. Note that this is still a beta, so there are some limitations:

• Not tested on S40, so please don’t use it
• In “Drive & Walk” the navigation region “Russia & Ukraine” is only navigable in Russia.
• Disconnecting and reconnecting a device while Map Loader 2.0 is running can sometimes lead to unexpected results.
• Make sure your phone time is correct before buying any licenses.

* shop content depending on Nokia Maps version

Quick note: Nokia PC Phone has been archived from Beta Labs, and it’s not available for download anymore.

I found the concept truly promising - and based on our survey, quite a many of you liked it too. At the end of the day, however, it was decided that we will not productize this as a standalone application. In any case, I consider the beta trial as a success case: we learned a lot, and now we can seek to incorporate the best parts to other Nokia offering. Thanks everyone for your input!!

The PC Phone team promised to post a proper wrap-up later…

Kudos to all of you who spent time giving us valuable feedback about Nokia’s PC based application store Download! for PC. Most importantly, we learned during the nine-month beta period that a browser based service would be more attractive solution than a dedicated PC client.

And now, we can proudly present Nokia Download Store:

Nokia Download Store is a Web shop for trying and buying content for your Nokia device. From Nokia Download Store you can find, preview and buy a wide variety of content, applications and services from a range of different providers. Previewing and downloading applications doesn’t cost you anything, but if you want to buy something, you may have to pay for that item.

This service replaces the PC client, and I feel it’s fair to call the concept as “graduated”.

You can access the service from http://www.download.nokia.com.

Thanks again everyone!!

I kindly ask you to take part in a survey designed to gather important information relevant to improving Nokia Beta Labs and which is the major empirical part of my master of science thesis. The survey contains roughly 21-28 questions and they are mostly multiple-choice questions. In the internal tests, the average time to do the survey was less than 5 minutes.

Three respondents will win a Nokia Maps walk and drive license for a year in their own country. If a winner does not have use for a Nokia maps license, they can opt for a Super Secret Surprise prize (carefully selected by me and Tommi, naturally) The survey is primarily designed for users familiar with Nokia Beta Labs, but everyone is welcome to take it.

We are addressing the following four topics with the survey:

• Your motivation to try and use Nokia Beta Labs products (Pages A1-A3)
• Your attitude towards and the level of involvement in the mobile industry (Pages B1-B2)
• General demographics, optional (Gender and year of birth) (Pages C1)
• How you fit into Nokia’s own segmentation model (Section D, number of pages varies)

The information will help us understand the users of Nokia Beta Labs better and will help us improve our service. Today, as we are planning to do changes in the Nokia Beta Labs, we have realized there are things we are not sure of. Thus, by getting more information about the community will have a direct impact on how well we can do decisions.
By knowing what your motivation to participate here is, we will be able to serve you better. By knowing more about your attitude and level of involvement we will be able to interpret your feedback better by understanding the context. General demographic information is there for us to learn something about the diversity of the community. By getting information about how you fit into the Nokia segmentation model, we can compare the composition of the community with reference data and thereby understand how the leading edge (you) differs from the mass market.

The answers are completely anonymous. After the survey, you will be asked for your email in order to participate in the raffle. The emails will not be linked with the respondent’s answers. The email addresses will also not be used in any other way except to contact the winners. After the winners have been chosen and contacted, the email data will be completely removed.

So, dear Beta Labs user, please help me with my master of science thesis and in improving Nokia Beta Labs by taking the survey!

Thank you!

Edit: The survey will close on 30th June 2008.

Warning: slightly off-topic.

I have been watching TED Talks for a couple of hours by now, especially around the theme The Rise of Collaboration. Truly fascinating, amazing stuff - by truly fascinating, amazing people.

Here’s some to get you started:

• Charles Leadbeater: The rise of the amateur professional
• Yochai Benkler: Open-source economics
• Jimmy Wales: How a ragtag band created Wikipedia
• Howard Rheingold: Way-new collaboration
• Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?

Very relevant stuff. Very. Go watch some.

Note: you can also find there piles of fascinating stuff from other domains, ranging from Al Gore to Stephen Hawking to Craig Venter to Stefan Sagmeister. But that stuff belongs to another story, to be discussed somewhere else…

Here’s one more reason for you to finally upgrade to the “final” version of Nokia Maps 2.0: we are going to stop supporting satellite images on the beta client soon.

Don’t worry, just upgrade and you’ll still receive satellite maps as before. (not to mention getting the other cool stuff like network based positioning, which is ultra-fast and works also indoors)