Opera Mini 4.1, Astraware game for S60, and more mobile software and services from CTIA 08
I thoroughly enjoy playing the great games that Astraware develops and have been eagerly waiting for them to launch their S60 games since they kicked off their beta a couple months ago. Astraware just announced their first S60 and UIQ game, Astraware Boardgames. Astraware Boardgames feature 8 classic games, including Chess, Backgammon, Checkers, Reversie, Ludo, Nine Men's Morris, Snakes, Ladders, and Tic Tac Toe. The game has 3 levels of gameplay and you can choose to play another person or the smartphone. It is available now for US$19.95 with a free trial version available too. If you check out their new S60 page you can also see that Titanic Hidden Expedition and Platypus are coming soon.
MOBIVOX, the company that lets you make low cost international calls via a local number, also made a couple of announcements this week. They have a new hands-free messaging service called Send Message that lets you use voice commands to send text messages. This may be handy for those times when you are driving and want to text someone rather than call them or when you want to leave yourself personal reminders and don't have a mobile phone that has voice recording functionality.
They also announced their new Call Me button feature that lets you place a Call Me button into your email signature or on your blog, online profile, and elsewhere so people can call you from around the world. You can configure your button to call an alternate number too so you can be reached when you are traveling.
fring also announced a new partnership with Boingo. Boingo mobile account customers will now find out more about fring and its functionality on the fring/Boingo mobile site. This partnership should help spread the word about all the great functionality in this VoIP/messaging client available for S60, UIQ and Windows Mobile devices.
The mobile browser wars also continue to heat up with the public beta release of Opera Mini 4.1. Opera Mini 4.1 beta is available for a huge number of mobile handsets running Palm, Windows Mobile, S60, and more since it is a Java client. This latest release takes Opera Mini to the next level with up to 50% faster performance than version 4.0, URL autocomplete, saving pages for offline viewing, upload and download support, and more. Check out the video of this later version in action and download it now to your device.
I installed it on my T-Mobile Shadow and Nokia N95 and am seeing serious speed improvements just like they advertise. I also am finding the autocomplete of URLs to be handy at saving me key presses. Opera Mini 4.1 beta is available now for free so point your mobile browser to mini.opera.com/beta and try it for youself.