NGP has invested in a number of different companies since 2006, helping to drive and support businesses that are changing the face of technology and communications. The mobile imaging space is one that NGP has embraced more than most, and there are some impressive advances in camera phone technology on the way as a result.

Pelican Imaging is the latest company to receive an investment from NGP. Compared to Carl Zeiss, Pelican may be a relative newcomer to the photography market, but the Californian company has already developed its own clever image processing technology.

The Pelican technology, based on combining signals from arrays of sensors, enables very slim camera modules with the ability to capture depth and stereo information. The user will effectively be able to change focus of individual objects after taking a photograph. Thanks to intelligent software they can even remove unwanted objects.

The technology can also combine regular image sensing with infrared, meaning images can be shot literally in the dark without the need for a flash. Check out the technology in action.

InVisage is another exciting imaging company already in NGP’s investment portfolio. It’s developing new image sensing technology that has the potential to deliver smartphone image sensors that boast a resolution of hundreds of millions of pixels – better than the human eye. It means that photographs could be sharper, clearer and better than ever before.

The technology doesn’t end there either. Thanks to an investment in a company called Luminate, images are being made a lot smarter. With 3D information, geolocation, time of day, weather, tags for the people in the photographs – future photographs will be a lot more intelligent. Luminate can help to categorise and catalogue all that information, and we will see common image formats being replaced by new standards and file formats capable of handling it all.

It’s clear that NGP has its finger on the pulse when it comes to the latest imaging technologies then, and it’s exciting to see the trends that are developing in the smartphone camera world thanks to NGP’s investments. We can’t wait to see what’s next.

Just follow these steps:

Integrated themes

There are two ways of changing the themes on your Nokia Asha, and the easiest way is to start with the ones already provided on the phone itself.

My Nokia Asha 308 has two different themes as standard: Pink and default, and changing between them changes all the menu colours, font colours, and gives the phone a completely fresh look.

Click ‘Settings’ to get started, and then tap ‘Themes’. Once you’ve done that, click ‘Select Theme’. All you need to do then is click the one you want to use and press ‘accept’ when asked if you’re sure. And that’s it – enjoy the new look.

Nokia store themes 

Themes can change more than just the colours on your Nokia Asha though. Download a theme from the Nokia Store, and you can also change the icons, along with the image that shows when you lock the device, giving your Nokia Asha a completely bespoke look.

To get the latest themes, open the Nokia Store and search for themes. There are loads of different options available for phones like the Nokia Asha 308 – both paid for and free – and it’s amazing how much a new theme can change the look of your handset.

Once you’ve downloaded the one you want, just head back to settings and themes, and your latest downloads will be in the ‘Select theme’ folder, ready and waiting to be put on display. 

From the most affordable product – the Nokia 105 – to the latest Nokia Asha 501, right up to the Nokia Lumia 920 – all of Nokia’s phones feature common design goals. We’ve been talking to Peter Griffith, from Nokia Design, to find out exactly what goes into the design of a Nokia phone.

“We talk about three things that are key to our design approach,” adds Peter. “Purity, colour and craft. Purity is evident in both the Lumia and Asha products. It’s about designing less rather than more, and it’s very difficult to achieve.”

“We start with a clear sense of material and what can be done, and then work from there. It’s like designing from the inside out; we want to understand how the device is going to be built, what components are going inside there, how many of those components need to come through to the outside, that’s our approach.”

This simplicity runs through all of Nokia’s devices, and the sheer attention to detail is easy to see on Nokia’s latest handset. “All the parts on the Nokia Asha 501 are very symmetrical, carefully laid out,” says Peter.

“A great deal of effort goes into designing where all the connector holes appear, and grouping them together to keep the device as clean as possible. We put a lot of effort into the position of the camera – we wanted it to be absolutely central and symmetrical on the back of the device. We also integrated the speaker and the battery release into one detail.”

“We think of design as a form of product making,” explains Peter. “What we do isn’t about styling: it’s about product making, and because of that we’re really inspired about working with mechanical engineers and understanding production processes.”

“The conventional way of building at this price point is kind of a sandwich construction. You’ll have the display window, then a moulded cover, then another moulding, and then a back cover, and you get a lot of part lines. We wanted to build this in a different way, where the back cover comes right round the sides, and you get rid of a lot of the seamlines. That gives it a clean and fresh look, but it’s also more practical, it’s a better way of building the device.”

“It requires thinking about what we can simplify. Everything that’s left needs to be as perfect as can be. It’s also a very craft-focused approach to design.”

Peter explains that Nokia also spends a lot of time and effort working on different ways to use colour: “With the Lumia range, the way the colour is integrated into the materials of the main mono-body really gets down to the science of pigmentation. We started from a position of wanting to use the resin itself as the colour medium, and there was an awful lot of work between teams to understand how we could pigment the resin.”

“With the latest Nokia Asha 501, and the phones launched at Mobile World Congress, the Nokia 105 and the Nokia 301, we see a continuation of the approach that’s been taken from Lumia through into mobile phones. It represents an incredible price range from the Lumia 920 down into the Nokia 105, and they’re carrying the same colour right the way through.”                                                           

A bigger challenge

“We take a lot of pride in addressing the most affordable devices,” Peter says. “Designing affordable devices is a really great design challenge; we can’t just use a materials budget to make it look intriguing. We have to bring imagination to the design process. We have to be very innovative. It’s slightly different in the higher end, where we can push the way a device is constructed.

“Designing a monoblock candybar phone is a good example. At Nokia we’ve done so many, it feels like every shape and material has been tried at some point. In devices like the Nokia 206, I think the team has achieved something that really does refresh this form factor. It looks very beautiful, and it’s clearly part of the Nokia family. It’s the first time we’ve seen this sort of design approach in the feature phone market.”

As for the current range of Nokia phones, Peter is more than a little proud of what Nokia has achieved: “The industrial design goes hand-in-hand with the brand and identity of Nokia. I think that’s reflected in the design. I think the current crop of phones – devices like the Nokia Asha 501, Nokia 301 and Nokia 105 – is the best stuff we’ve ever done.”

Nokia Xpress Now provides a new, smarter way of discovering content on the Internet, with a web app promising to inform and entertain Nokia Asha owners. We’ve been talking to Andy Kelm, Vice President – Nokia Xpress Services, to find out more.

Nokia Xpress Now delivers a real-time, personalised look at what’s hot on the Internet,” explains Andy. “By combining the aggregated view of more than 80 million monthly users of Nokia Xpress Browser together with your browsing preferences, Nokia Xpress Now helps you discover hot stories and web sites you didn’t know existed.”

“Nokia Xpress Now is about discovering interesting stories and new content based on the wisdom of the crowd,” adds Andy, “It’s not a magazine, a story or a group of curated RSS feeds, but rather a collection of interesting web content that is always changing.”

The web app is split into three separate views: What’s Hot, You May Also Like and Most Liked (coming soon). The first option is an aggregated view of what millions of other browsers are doing in your area, says Andy, while You May Also Like provides websites depending on what you’re interested in. Most Liked is a view of recent stories that have been explicitly ‘Liked’ by users of Xpress Now. “There’s a button at the top which tells you what you’re looking at, press the button and it’ll change the view,” adds Andy.

“There’s a bit of serendipity and discovery here, not just a ranked list of one to 10,” says Andy. “Our intention is to help you to find interesting things, to inform you and to entertain you.”

Above: The current Nokia Xpress browser.

The making of Nokia Xpress Now

Nokia Xpress Now was born out of a realisation that many mobile phone consumers in emerging markets have very narrow browsing patterns. Andy explains: “Soon after we launched the Nokia Xpress Browser, we learned just how popular the Web is among consumers, but we also learned how homogenous their browsing patterns are within a country.  Many of them are not coming from a world of desktop browsing, and they only know a few popular web sites. We realised that by using a sophisticated recommendations engine, we could change that.”

“Nokia has some experience in this area with our Music recommendation service, so we reached out to the team who had worked on that system and found them ready for a new challenge. We were able to bring trending content together with an adaptation of the recommendation algorithm to realise our vision.”

“The result is a very sophisticated, large-scale, real-time analytics and recommendation engine that delivers a unique experience with the goal of helping people get the most out of the web. And we’re just getting started. 

Nokia Xpress Now is currently in beta in India, and it’s proving incredibly popular. Andy concludes: “It’s one of our top apps, and it has a huge impact on repeat usage of the service. Our users find the real-time nature compelling and sticky.”

Availability of Nokia Xpress Now will expand to other Nokia Asha devices and countries throughout 2013.

There are a number of apps available for editing and sharing your photographs on the Nokia Store, but the most comprehensive app of all is already included on the Nokia Asha. The photo editor can make all sorts of changes to your images, from adding frames to cropping your photographs, and here’s how you can get the best out of it.

Open the gallery, and pick the photograph you want to edit. Tap the menu button, and then press ‘Edit photo’.

This will bring up a host of different features, including: Rotate and flip, Crop, Effects, Wrap, Frames, Clip art, Text, Bright and contrast, Auto enhancement and colour.  

While some of these features are self-explanatory – such as cropping, adding text and automatically enhancing the image – there are also lots of sub settings available in the photo editor.

Click on ‘Effects’, and you’ll be met with a host of different options, offering the ability to turn your snap into an oil painting, old photograph, blur, sharpen, solarise, grey or colour emboss, turn it into a sketch or switch it to black and white.

Just scrolling through the options automatically brings up the different results – so you don’t even need to waste time clicking options and then pressing back if you don’t like the changes.

Tapping ‘Warp’ lets you change the whole shape of your photograph, making it bulge in the middle, providing a swirl effect, stretching or squishing it. Once again, just scroll from left to right on the menu bar at the bottom and your image will switch through the options as you swipe.

Frames does exactly what it says on the tin, letting you frame your favourite images in a host of different styles. And those used to using Clip Art on other devices will be happy to see its inclusion here, letting you add artwork to your photographs, with everything from a pair of sunglasses to a sticking plaster on the list.

The best thing about the photo editing app is the fact it’s so easy to use; it’s incredibly intuitive. It’s quick, too, with images reacting instantly when you tap on the different features. All-in-all it means you can create some fantastic photographs, ideal for sharing on Facebook.

The packaging for Nokia’s latest accessories has proved particularly innovative. “Accessories packaging has a difficult challenge, because the packaging really has to sell the product. It has to stand out, and it has to differentiate and communicate all by itself,” explains Chris Merrick from Nokia Design.

“We have to decide what it is we want to inform the customer about, why this is the best product for you. If we look at many of our competitors and ourselves in the past, packaging design has looked super busy: banners, stickers, icons, flags, you name it, completely un-coordinated. It begins to look like a Nascar team car, and if you’re looking for particular information, it’s overwhelming and indecipherable, a real turn off.”

The design team had to come up with something simpler then, but the packaging still had to communicate particular information. “From the outset we knew we had to create something that celebrates our product, feels like it comes from Nokia and presents itself in a calm, confident manner, helping you find exactly what you need, quickly, easily and with maximum reassurance,” adds Chris.

“What we have now is an easily viewable product. A concise product name supported by a short sharp descriptive headline, explaining the product and its benefits. This is the first read, to either introduce and/or identify quickly that this is the product you were searching for.”

“At a secondary level, we have a category label on the side panel to identify the segment this product is within – so if it’s a charger, a dock, a headset, it tells you exactly that on the side of the package.”

“Last but by no means least, we have a set of icons, which we call our ‘accessory vocabulary’, those icons are the same icons found across our devices, so there’s a familiar language there. This helps build awareness across all our products.”

Using new materials and design processes

The materials that Nokia uses have also changed, allowing the packaging team to be more adventurous with its designs. Ulla Uimonen, from Nokia Design explains: “We previously used 3D vacuum formed plastic parts that created the windows for our packages. We now use die cut foldable plastic parts, which enables us to create windows that go around the corners of the package.”

“The bigger windows bring much more light to the product and allows narrower packaging,” says Ulla. “We can showcase the product better. There’s a nice detail where we’ve used curved white cardboard underneath the product, so the card actually deflects light, creating a backlit effect. It’s only possible with a particular design.”

With the same features used across all of Nokia’s product packaging – from the shape, to the windows, to reflective mate

rials, labels, icons and more – it’s now easy to spot a Nokia product from a distance. It’s easy to see exactly what the product is, what it does, and what it has to offer.

Chris adds: “We have a package that elevates product design, showing off a product in all its beauty. It looks great. When you walk into a store, or purchase one of our devices, and you buy a Nokia accessory, it looks like we’ve got our house in order.”

Nokia’s latest products are also a lot more environmentally friendly, building and innovating upon the company’s stringent policies. On average, the packaging for Nokia accessories has been reduced in size by around a third, and on Nokia level plastic materials have been cut down to less than 3 per cent. The fact that all the materials used are recyclable is particularly impressive

This may not sound like much, but when you’re producing 25-30 million accessories alone, it has the potential to make a massive difference to the environment. So not only can the brighter, more colourful and more intelligent packaging help Nokia to sell more products, it can do so without having a negative impact on the world we live in.

To access the file manager, click on the ‘Files’ icon on the menu screen of your Nokia Asha. Navigating files and accessing content on your microSD card couldn’t be easier; it’s the folder at the top of the list titled ‘Memory Card’.

Click on that, and you’ll see a number of sub-folders on the card, including folders for Nokia Maps (Cities), an Apps folder, Videos, Playlists and Recordings. 

Checking memory

If you want to know how much storage space you’ve used, simply tap the menu button at the top-left of the screen, and then click on ‘Memory Status’. This will let you know what you’ve used on both the phone’s integrated memory and your microSD card.

Mark all

If you have photographs, music or other files that you want to delete in bulk, simply head into the folder they’re located in, tap the menu button again, and click ‘Mark All’.

This gives you the option to carry out a number of different tasks. Click the menu button again and you’ll be met with the following options:

Delete Marked, Send Marked, Move Marked, Copy Marked. As these options show, it’s not just about deleting your files, and the file manager offers a great way of sharing content with your friends by email, message or Bluetooth.

Add a folder

It’s just as easy to add a folder to your microSD card for future files – simply head back to the memory card itself, click the menu button and tap ‘Add Folder’. Once you’ve done this, you’ll be able to move files from other folders, making it easy to keep on top of things if you want to separate photographs or music, for instance.

Using your PC

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, however, and it’s also possible to do a lot more using a USB cable and your computer. Once you plug your Asha 308 into your PC, you’ll be met with three different options: Nokia Suite, Media Transfer and Mass Storage.

Mass Storage is the simplest of the three, and literally lets you use your Nokia Asha as a giant memory stick. It’s easy to use, but it’s also a bit limited. Most of the folders you have on your Nokia’s microSD card won’t show up, so you won’t be able to make major changes.

Media Transfer offers enough functionality to keep most people happy. If you select it, your Nokia’s SD card will show up on your computer as an external drive – just as it does when you select Mass Storage. This time you’ll be able to access more folders, however, including your photos, music and video folders.

It makes transferring media files a clinch; simply drag and drop the files you want either on your computer or your Nokia Asha. 

Nokia Suite is the final option, providing a far more comprehensive way of interacting with your Asha. It’s possible to access all your files using Nokia Suite, and you can even search for apps, download and install them using your computer. It’s ideal if you have a limited data plan and want to get more apps.

ESPN is just one example, with the sports network providing a trio of comprehensive apps for sports lovers. I’ve been checking out what the ESPN apps have to offer.

There are currently three ESPN apps for owners of Asha devices like the Nokia Asha 308. The apps are: ESPN Cricinfo, ESPN FC and ESPN F1. As the names suggest, they’re based on cricket, football and F1, and run using Nokia’s WebApp technology. So what are they actually like to use? Read on to find out. 

ESPN FC

ESPN FC is a great app for football fans. Open the app and the first thing you’ll see is a comprehensive news feed for all things football. The feed shows Champions League information as standard, but it’s also easy to switch over to the Premier League, where you’ll be met by fixtures and times, and a feed for all the latest news.

The feed makes up the home page, but there are also two other tabs: Scores and Fixtures, and Tables and Stats. Perhaps the best thing about ESPN FC is the fact it’s really easy to use. Everything is large and finger-friendly, and the text clear and well laid out. If you’re on the lookout for a football app that covers Champions League and Premier League matches and teams, ESPN FC should be top of your list.

ESPN F1

If you’ve already tried ESPN FC, ESPN F1 will be familiar. The app is laid out in a similar way, with easy to navigate tabs at the top of the screen. There’s the home page, an RSS News and Features page, an F1 calendar and a Results tab. The app looks great, and even if you’re new to the world of smartphones and apps, it couldn’t be easier to get to grips with.

ESPN F1 isn’t just about static numbers or stats either – you can also get real-time race updates and keep in touch with the action when you’re on the move. If you’re an F1 fan, the news and features updates are interesting and well-written, and overall it’s one of my favourite apps that’s currently available for Asha. 

ESPN Cricinfo

ESPN Cricinfo offers a similar set of features to its sibling apps, but this time the layout is slightly different. Rather than tabs at the top, the app is split into a homescreen made up of large buttons: Live Scores, Results, News, Fixtures, Rankings and Settings.

Once again it’s an app that’s easy to use, and even though my Nokia Asha 308 has a 2G connection, it provided news and updates quickly and smoothly. The omission of an RSS feed on the home page seems a bit of a shame after using the other ESPN apps, but all the functionality and features are still present and correct.

Do you use any of the ESPN apps above on your Nokia Asha? Let us know in the comments below. 

There’s a whole world of different social networking apps out there for your Nokia Asha though, making it easier to keep in touch, to enjoy instant messaging on the move, and to make things easier for Nokia owners. That’s why I’ve been checking out some of the other options on my Nokia Asha 308.

Sign In

Sign in is one of the easiest apps you’ll find, but it’s also one that offers less functionality than the others I’ve tried. It’s still a useful tool to have on your Asha though, effectively acting like a giant bookmark for social networking sites.

The app is capable of launching everything from Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and eBuddy, to MySpace, Bebo, Friendster and Flickr. If you tend to use lots of different social networks, then Sign In is a worthy download.

Imsy

Imsy can take a little while to get to grips with; there are lots of options, and it’s certainly not the most intuitive. Once you do get the hang of it though, it’s a great app for posting updates across different platforms. You can post to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or you can also use the app as a type of RSS reader, getting the latest news from sites like the BBC.

Updates will appear in the messages section, with the page split up into different parts for different sources. It’s all easy to read and use once you get the hang of it, you just need the patience to stick around and enjoy it.

Yahoo! Messenger

Yahoo! Messenger does exactly what it says on the tin, letting you access your Yahoo! account and chat to friends on the move. The app is easy to use, and it’s simple to send instant messages to friends who also have Yahoo! accounts.

It’s a lot easier to get to grips with than alternatives like Imsy, but then again it doesn’t offer a lot of the same features. If you want a simple app for chatting on Yahoo! though, this is the ideal solution.

MXit

The first thing you’ll notice about MXit is that you have to register to use the app. This includes a unique username, password, pincode and can take a few minutes to set up. Once you’ve done that, you can invite other friends to join you and chat using MXit, or you can also catch up with friends by adding your Yahoo!, MSN and Facebook accounts to the app.

You can upload photographs for your friends to see, and you can also add feeds from other sources. It’s a comprehensive app, but with so many options it can be a little baffling at times.

Nimbuzz

Nimbuzz is another app that requires you to spend a little time setting it up first. That’s because Nimbuzz is intended as a stand-alone instant messaging app, where you set up your own Nimbuzz account and ask your friends to join you. Along with instant messaging, you’ll also be able to join chatrooms, talking to people from around the world.

It’s a shame you can’t include Facebook or Twitter contacts in the messages, as it’s a really easy app to use. Everything is sensibly laid out, works quickly and effectively, and if all my friends weren’t already committed to other social networks I could happily use it more often.

Twitter for Nokia

There are a number of third-party solutions for the Nokia Asha, but you can also use the integrated Twitter app to stay in touch with your friends, family and followers. You can tweet with the app, discover trends, and even send direct messages. Everything is intuitive to use – as you’d expect from a Nokia-designed app – and it’s one of the most fluid social networking apps out there.

Over the past few months I’ve been using it for everything from blogging to playing my favourite games, but that’s only scratching the surface. Tumblr is another site that you can access and update using Asha phones, and here’s how.

With over 100 million blogs, Tumblr is one of the most popular blogging platforms on the Internet. We’ve already looked at using the Nokia Asha to blog on WordPress, but Tumblr offers something completely different, proving equally good at sharing pictures as it is your thoughts and ideas.

If you haven’t used Tumblr before, all it takes is your email address, a password and a username to get started. It literally takes seconds, and once you’ve created an account it’s time to select the sorts of things you love – be it animals, art, photography or something else – which will let you find other Tumblr blogs of interest.

From Tumblr itself it’s possible to add all sorts to your blog: Text, photographs, quotes, links, chat, audio and video, but you can also add content to your blog straight from your Nokia Asha mobile phone.

The first thing you’ll need to do is log into your account on a regular web browser, and hit the settings button at the top of the page. It looks like a small star, and is located between a question mark icon and a ‘power’ icon.

Scroll down until you see ‘Post by Email’, and you’ll see a unique email address. Click the button below that: ‘Send this address to me’ – this will send the unique Tumblr address to your regular account. Keep this address safe; you’ll need it to make posts from your Asha smartphone.

There’s an incredible amount of things you can add to your Tumblr blog using an email account from your Asha. In fact, everything you can update on a full web browser, you can add to your blog from your Nokia.

Adding text is arguably the easiest thing to try out first. Simply create a new email on your Nokia Asha, and put the unique Tumblr email address as the recipient. If you want a title for your blog post, put it in the subject of the email. Whatever you write in the body copy of the email will appear as the content in the blog itself.

The same process works for photographs, videos and audio files. Add the unique email address, add a subject for the title, and then attach the file you want to appear on your blog post.  Adding multiple photographs to your email will create a photoset on your Tumblr blog. You can add a caption to go with the photograph, video or audio file by adding a subject to the email.

Adding a link is just as easy: simply add the link you want to the body of the email. For a quote, add the quote, but this time you’ll also need to include who the quote is attributed to, as below:

If you want to add chat posts, again just add the text to the body of the email, as below:

You can even add tags to your Tumblr posts, making it easy for your friends, followers and other people to find posts and topics that interest them. To add a tag, simply add the word you want, beginning with a hashtag, at the end of the email. For instance:

Have you been blogging with your Nokia Asha? Let us know in the comments below.