It seems that the people of Nokia are really working hard. Summer of last year, they afforded us glimpses of the upcoming mobile operating system Symbian^4. Although they haven't released the actual product yet, another teaser comes up that gives consumers a more refined idea of what to expect form the communications company.

The company has already submitted a proposal, authored by the Head of User Experience Design for Nokia Symbian Devices, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson, and is now asking for reactions from its users and developers. Gaining people's attention, the "User Interface Concept Proposal" contains more technical aspects of the much awaited Symbian^4.

What are the new additions to noted in the released proposal?

A few of the small additions that you might find notable are the top and bottom menu bars that can disappear completely off screen. Hence, the menu will be cut back down and streamlined into four basics, namely music, photos, applications, and contacts. As mentioned, the ultimate objective of the S^4 user interface is to "simplify the S60 experience".

In the proposal, Nokia has been honest about the similarities and dissimilarities of their S^4 to competitors. For example, the moveable homescreen is much like Androids.  However, instead of having one multi-panel screen, Symbian will adapt independent pages for the functions. The flattened application library adapted by iPhone also comes into play; however, Symbian will not be going for manual organization. Instead, Nokia have opted for an alphabetically arranged layout. Also mentioned is Palm's WebOS exit commands with Symbian saving the condition when exiting rather than keeping the application running in the background. It seems that users can also expect more consistency throughout the Symbian^4.

Symbian^4 is on its way

Of course, keep in mind that these are only proposals and currently has no guarantees for outcome. However, the proposal comes from Symbian's largest costumer, so the odds of it being approved are on their favor. Hopefully, Nokia will be addressing the problems found in its current Symbian. What makes this interesting is the fact that Nokia still doesn't have an OS that is specially made for touch screen phones. For N97, they are using a version of the Symbian S60 which doesn't really mean much since it only add touch-phone elements, but leaves the remaining factors as it is. Hence, we should be able to expect something more from Nokia's upcoming mobile operating system.

The bad news is that we won't be able to see the results until sometime around 2011. But judging from the proposal, we'll be seeing better results in the future. In the meantime, people might want to read the proposal and start figuring out for themselves if the Symbian^4 is worth all the hype.

If you have been following the latest in display technologies, then you are probably well aware of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology.  OLED technology is one of the newest technologies to be used in display monitors and other display devices.  While a number of companies have already made their own OLED device prototypes, the technology hasn't yet become openly available to the public.  The latest news in the industry, however, is that companies are setting 2010 production dates for OLED laptops.  Read on to learn more about OLED technology and why you should be looking forward to OLED laptops.

What is OLED technology?

In the most basic terms, OLED technology is a type of display that makes use of organic molecules to produce light.  The organic molecules are arranged into thin, film layers called the conductive and emmissive layers.  When electrical currents are sent into these layers, the electrons react and combine with atoms, resulting in light emission.  In general, stronger electrical currents will produce brighter lights.  OLED technology has a number of advantages over liquid crystal displays (LCD) and light-emitting diode (LED) displays, which make OLED technology a great replacement for many of the LCD and LED displays currently in the market.

Advantages of OLED technology

-  The organic layers of an OLED are made of plastic, allowing manufacturers to create displays that are lighter, thinner, and more flexible than LEDs or LCDs.
-  OLED displays are generally brighter than LEDs and LCDs because they can be designed with multiple layers, plus they do not require the use of glass, which absorbs some of the brightness produced by LED and LCD screens.
-  OLED displays do not make use of backlighting, which means that OLED displays can have larger fields of view of up to 170 degrees.  Furthermore, OLED displays use much less power than LCDs, because of the fact that they don't use backlighting.
-  OLED displays can handle high-definition resolution and quality.
-  Some of the other advantages of OLED displays include faster response times (even less than 0.01 ms), true black contrast, and lower production and retail costs.

OLED in laptops

So what does this mean for the laptop industry?  Basically, the introduction of OLED screens into laptops will result in systems that have much more effective, efficient, and practical displays.  An OLED laptop will weigh less, use less battery power, and be thinner than most of the laptop displays currently available.  Your OLED laptop may even be designed with roll-up designs for better portability.  Some of the companies that are planning to release OLED laptops and other OLED devices in 2010 include Samsung, Sony, Lenovo, Nokia, and LG.