Stephen's Thoughts » Nokia

See the accelerometer in action on the N95

Stephen Downey — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:27:30 +0000

Just found out something cool about the N95; it turns out that it has a Accelerometer (Level Sensor). It is used by the camera in the phone to rotate pictures taken in portrait mode. It makes you wonder why Nokia did not use this to give an auto rotate to the phones screen, similar to the feature available on the IPhone? It looks like there is someone developing this for the phone at the moment. It is called rotateme and should be out later this month. Check out the developers site for more information.

Nokia have released a demo application to show the accelerometer in action. Its a pretty simple application but it shows the power of what can be done. At first I didn’t believe it was possible but check out this video below to see it in action.

They have also released the source code for the game so you can see how it is done. The game uses the N95 RD Accelerometer Plug-in package to hook into the accelerometer on the N95. According to the research group that developed the this:

In a later N95 firmware release you should be able to access the raw accelerometer data by using the official sensor plug-in downloadable from Forum Nokia (Sensor Plug-in for 60 3rd Edition).

I can think of lots of game applications that could use this that I would love to write. Unfortunately my C++ skills are very limited. I wonder if I could hook into it from a JAVA app using JNI?

Just got a mention on News Talk

Stephen Downey — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:49:40 +0000

I just got a call from a friend to say that I got a mention on George Hooks technology show on Newstalk today. Today must be one of the only days that I didn’t listen to George on the way home from work. Partly due to the Fugitive competition starting on 98 fm this morning. I should have stuck with George. I had a look on their web site but can’t find the pod cast of the show yet. It seems like the feeds latest show is from the 27th. If anyone has a link to the podcast of the show can you send it to me.

The technology slot is run with Karlin Lillington. Apparently they were talking about the N95 and how to get the GPS working. This is the blog entry that she was talking about. I hope it helps with any problems you have with GPS on the N95.

Thanks Karlin for pointing people to my website. If you are here for the first time, you can subscribe to my posts here.

How to get GPS working on the N95

Stephen Downey — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:37:04 +0000

I picked up a N95 when I was on my Honeymoon in Malaysia recently and I have to say it is probably the best phone I have ever used. My biggest fear now is that I accidentally drop it like I normally do to most of my phones at some stage. I was planning on doing a review of the phone soon but thought I would do a quick post on how to get GPS and Nokia Maps working as I see a few people had trouble getting it started.

The first thing to do is get your initial GPS position. This can take a few minutes and you have no way of looking at the progress in the Nokia maps application which is a pain. I use the GPS Data application to do this as it allows you to see if you are getting any Satellite connections. This is in:
Tools–>applications–>GPS Data

This contains some handy tools for the GPS navigation feature of the phone. It would be better if it was integrated into the Nokia Maps application or a even short cut to them from within the application.

If you select position it will give you your current position. What will probably appear first is Waiting for GPS . This will normally appear until you have a connection to at least 3 satellites.

If you select options and then Satellite status you can see the progress of your connection. It is best to do this outdoors the first time you are using it as you get a better signal. The basic idea is that each number represents a GPS satellite. The size of the rectangle beside the number represents the strength of the signal.

As soon as three of the signals become black you have located your position. This does take a few minutes the first time you use the application.

Once you have the position when you open Nokia Maps, it should zoom into your exact location if you have loaded the map for that area.

If you have a network connection it will automatically download the map of the area for you. As you can guess this would not work too well when you are on the move or in the car. I used the Nokia Maploader application to download my maps to the phone. The maps are free but you need to pay for the Navigation.

If anyone has found an easier way to get this working let me know. You can skips the steps of using the GPS Data application and just open Nokia Maps and wait. I’d say the problem that most people get when they do this is that they can’t see any connection progress so just close the application presuming it does not work in their area.

By the way I used Screenshot for Symbian OS to generate all the screenshots. I also have the vista bliss theme by Alfa, hence the windows logos.

UPDATE:
You can actually see the Satellite status inside Nokia maps. Go to Options–>View–>Satellite status