You no longer need to know someone who knows someone who knows the founder of a VC firm sinking money into Qik to get in on its rather lovely streaming video action. We're just messing around, of course -- it was never quite that hard to get into Qik's invite-only alpha / beta before in our experience -- but it just got even easier with the popular service moving into an open beta phase. Offering both S60 and Windows Mobile clients (with iPhone allegedly on the way), Qik does a pretty stellar and unique job of streaming live audio and video straight from your handset to your millions of adoring fans glued to their computer monitors around the world (or just your mommy and daddy, as the case may be). So go sign up, paste your username down below here if you're so inclined, and just be sure you're not recording when you... ahem, don't mean to be. If you catch our drift.

[Via All About Symbian]

A heaping handful of fresh alleged screen shots of S60 Touch's user interface are floating around, apparently yoinked off the platform's PC-based theme editor -- not as cool as if they'd been lifted from a Tube, granted, but still good enough to give us some clutch insight into where Nokia's taking this thing. As revolutionary as the move to touch control might be for S60 as a platform, the UI looks shockingly evolutionary so far; in fact, to the untrained eye, there are portions that are virtually indistinguishable from S60 revs of yore. That's good news (we suppose) for S60 diehards who aren't interested in learning a new paradigm -- and we're all for the VGA support here -- but it's bad news for anyone who was planning on having their noodles positively baked by Espoo's engineering manpower and massive R&D budget. Let's all just hold off on the negativity until Nokia gives us something official to ogle; for the time being, though, our boring UI-dar is definitely on high alert.

[Via Symbian Freak, thanks Misha]

Call it a hunch, but you shouldn't have to wait too awfully long (like, hours / days / weeks) to secure Nokia's North American E71 today. Said handset is now available at the company's flagship store in Chicago, complete with a QWERTY keyboard and US-friendly 3G. Eager to grab one? Total cost will be $483 (plus tax) in addition to a roundtrip ticket to Chi-town, considering the store won't ship to out-of-towners (or so we hear).

[Via IntoMobile]

Yeah, we know pixel count doesn't equal picture quality -- but like it or not, it looks like 8 megapixels are poised to become the new 5 megapixels in the upper echelon of the cameraphone world this year. Samsung's never a company to shy away from a challenge like that, and sure enough, details are emerging on a so-called i8510 smartphone that features S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, FM radio, GPS, WiFi, and a whopping 16GB of internal storage -- not to mention a microSD slot that can take you up to 24GB. Oh, and there's the little matter of that camera, which features an dual LED flash and 120fps video capture at QVGA resolution. Add in DivX and DLNA certification, and we're kind of at a loss to figure out what's missing here. Boundless, unchecked hype, maybe? No word on a release date here just yet.

[Via mobil.cz]

A non-Nseries S60 Nokia with HSDPA 850 / 1900 -- now there's a novel concept. The XpressMusic 5320 isn't quite as funky looking as its good buddy, the 5220, but we'll take what we can get (and really, there's still a touch of funkiness going on in that crazy keypad there anyway). Nokia has actually only announced this version for Latin America at this point, but what do you wanna bet a heaping handful of 'em make it up to the more northerly regions of the hemisphere?

Mark/Space's Missing Sync -- an OS X lovers best friend -- has just loosed the Symbian Public Preview for all who dare to download. Currently, the build stands at v1.0.0 (028 Preview), which suggests that there are quite a few bugs just waiting to be discovered. Still, those handling S60 / UIQ-based mobiles can certainly give it a go and see just how effective it is at syncing information between your Mac and that beloved handset. Chime in below with any overly dramatic success / failure stories.

[Via AllAboutSymbian]

We know that Nokia's got a version of its recently-announced 6124 classic midrange S60 candybar designed to support i-mode, but it's not meant for NTT DoCoMo itself; instead, it's being shipped off to Taiwan where Far EasTone licenses the i-mode service. New FCC documents reveal that the mothership might want a piece of the action, too, though. Actually, never mind the "might" -- the carrier's logo is pretty clearly emblazoned across the rear, so we're going to go ahead and say that Japanese S60 fans can look forward to another munition in their relatively thin arsenal sometime soon.

Update: Yep, it's the NM706i that was recently announced. This will be "Mysterious Black," we presume, alongside the Cloudy White and Passionate Red that we've seen pictures on NTT DoCoMo's site.

We now have official word from Samsung regarding the browser on its new Samsung L870 slider. You may recall that the Samsung-issued press release listed "Safari browser (full browsing)" as a feature. Now the clarification:

"Actually, L870 is equipped with S60 OSS browser, also known as S60 safari browser because both are using same webcore platform. Sorry again for the unclear specification, and bothering you with this."

Of course, the S60 browser has never been known, even informally, as the "S60 safari browser," but we'll let Samsung bang heads together internally over that one.

It seems like just yesterday that Nokia's N800 and N810 internet tablets garnered HAVA support (not to mention those WinMo cellies), and lo and behold, Monsoon Multimedia is now announcing that S60-based handset owners will be able to enjoy the same luxuries. Hailed as a TV place-shifting, video-streaming solution for S60 3rd edition on Symbian OS, the HAVA Mobile Player gives HAVA adopters "the ability to watch and control all of their home television channels and services from anywhere in the world on a mobile device." Unfortunately, the free download (for HAVA owners) won't be available until Q3, but it's being shown off now at the S60 Summit 2008 and in the gallery below. Dig in, won't you?

Yup, you read that right. We're not talking about just any Webkit-based browser, Samsung's long-rumored L870 slider features a full "Safari" browser (which we'll take to mean Webkit). The 13.5-mm thin phone pumps Symbian v9.3 and S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 at its core with a 3 megapixel camera, 2.4-inch QVGA display, FM radio, Stereo Bluetooth, and microSD expansion. Unfortunately, this pup is tri-band GSM with single-band UMTS/HSDPA 3.6Mbps support so it'll be heading to Europe around the August time frame.

Update: As per the full press release (posted after the break), Samsung claimed that they'd brought mobile Safari to this device. Technically feasible, we suppose, but far more unlikely than some clueless PR flack screwing up the release. We'll let you know if Samsung HQ has anything differently to say about the matter, but until then we're calling this Webkit, not Safari.

Update 2: Yup, it's Webkit all right.

One of Nokia's upcoming business-class handsets, the svelte E66 slider, has garnered FCC approval ahead of a launch that we've got to believe is happening in the very near future now. That's the good news; the bad news is that there's zero North American 3G involved from what we can see in the test reports. That would make this one a tough sell for existing E65 customers in the States, we think, especially considering that prerelease units haven't been seen sporting Feature Pack 2. Ah well -- the E67, perhaps, Nokia?

Update: Disaster averted! Turns out there's another E66 lurking in the FCC's midst that trades HSDPA 2100 for 850 / 1900. Thanks, Jim!

While we twiddle our thumbs and wait for some sort of official confirmation that this thing even exists, Boy Genius Report has heard some rumblings that AT&T is putting the Nokia E71 through its paces with the intention of launching it -- in your choice of black or white, no less. Multiple Eseries colors certainly aren't without precedent, so we can buy that much -- and AT&T has previously launched the E62, so we can totally picture this going down. What's more, we've now heard from an independent source that the AT&T-branded E71 does in fact exist and is currently being crafted in Nokia's San Diego facilities (production models won't be born in the same place, we presume). Just a warning, guys: if this ends up happening as an EDGE-only device, we're going to lose it.

Look familiar? Even from Nokia's sole subminiature shot -- never mind the model number -- you can pretty clearly make out that the 6122c is a dead ringer for the 6124 classic introduced a couple months back. Sure enough, the fresh S60 candybar is destined for China Mobile packing pretty much the same features as its doppelganger: 2 megapixel camera, 2-inch QVGA display, microSD expansion, and an integrated FM radio. One feature that we're pretty sure won't make the cut, of course, will be UMTS / HSDPA -- both as a cost-cutting measure and the simple fact that... well, China doesn't really do those technologies. No TD-SCDMA gear yet, Nokia?

One device conspicuously missing from Nokia's MWC and CTIA lineups this year has been the E71, the rumored successor to the E61i -- and for QWERTY S60 nerds, the next great hope. No worries, though; if the current rumor pans out, we won't have to wait for another major trade show for this thing to break cover. Dutch site Mobile Phone Helpdesk is claiming that "all arrows point" to an official launch on May 8 -- as in frickin' tomorrow. The site points out that alleged official specs have started appearing on retail sites, suggesting that Nokia's really starting to let its guard down as the ship date draws near. What are those specs, exactly? We can expect HSDPA, naturally, in addition to WiFi, a 3 megapixel cam, and an FM radio all bundled into a package that's supposedly just 10mm thick. Businessmen, businesswomen, we suggest you get your credit cards at the ready just in case this thing's suddenly available in a few hours.

[Via Unwired View]

Nokia fans, S60 fans, Symbian fans of all types, your attention, please! Allow us to set your hearts a-flutter with a few pictures of Nokia's latest two all-business smartphones, the rumored E66 and E71. Both models are pictured here out and about, doing what they do best -- a promising indication that we might be due for an official announcement in the not-too-distant future. We're told that both have 3.2 megapixel cameras (as expected), 128MB of memory, and as we've suspected from the few photos we've seen before, they're "sleek and sexy" in the flesh. Nokia's manufacturing processes appear to be continuing to improve, too, because we're told that the E66 feels "rugged and solid" despite the slide mechanism -- a sore spot with many an N95 owner. Whenever you want to get official with these, Nokia, that would be just fine with us, thanks!