Friday’s Pick and Mix #1 Tweet

Introducing the first instalment of a new weekly feature slot devoted to giving more exposure to some of the great stories from other mobile blogs and websites. Some of the sites we link to are big; some of them are small: but, either way, if you missed them, we couldn’t forgive ourselves. Follow the links – then come back and tell us what you think!

* We’re enormous fans of Spotify – especially on a Friday – and you should be, too. It’s been available for a large number of Nokia phones for a while now and this week it’s become available through the Ovi Store as well, so now there’s no excuse.
* Mike Couture argues that our phones are getting cleverer but we aren’t – apparently, one in six smartphone owners can’t make full use of their devices. And the tech-support call centres can’t cope with the volume of low-level queries from confused users.
* You can’t go more than ten lines into a lot of technology blogs before you hit the words ‘Augmented Reality’ – which normally amounts to using mobile phones’ camera screens to project extra layers of information onto the world. Online marketing blog eConsultancy pulls together ten real-world examples of how big brands are getting involved.
* Appfrica reviews the best phones for global development workers – Nokia takes four of the six slots, including the overall winner.
* Some of you thought JBC had gone mad when he talked about cows with mobile phones – but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Now they’ve got Twitter accounts – see the latest tweets from a herd in Canada here.
* Going back to a comment from Fro earlier this week, asking for a modular mobile device, check out the Tenna Concept Device which promises to turn any gadget into a mobile phone. Be warned, though – the expression ‘Concept Device’ is often tech-blog code for ‘it doesn’t work and no-one wants to make it’.
* This is very meta. Nokia Conversations is published using the open-source Wordpress platform. So we’re obviously delighted that there’s a native application for editing Wordpress sites using Nokia devices in the works. We’ll soon be doing Nokia on Nokia, if you see what I mean. However, the current test client is, in one of the developer’s own words, “very, very unstable and WIP. It may not work as expected and might crash every now and then”. One to keep a close eye on rather than install immediately, for most people. In the meantime, there’s an interview on the Qt blog that explains some of the development process and the overall plan.
* Lastly, here’s Shiny Shiny on the disturbing prospect of Mayor Rage – the dark side of location-based social networks coming to a smartphone near you.

If you see something during the week that you think deserves a wider audience, then drop us a line in the comments and we’ll check it out for the next instalment.

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