Mozilla has launched a new beta of its Firefox browser for mobile phones. The Firefox 4 beta for Maemo and Android is built on the same platform as for the desktop and brings a lot of similar features.

This release emphasizes on performance and responsiveness and features Electrolysis and Layers. Electrolysis makes the browser and web content run as a separate process, making the browser more responsive whereas Layer works to improve performance by efficiently handling graphic areas like scrolling, zooming etc.

Other features you’d find are Firefox Sync, add-ons, Awesome Bar and support for latest web technologies.

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Good news for N900 users is that Nokia has released the impending v1.2 update for the Maemo5-based handset. The new update brings in a lot of improvements like menu system UI, email has been improved to allow users accept or decline invitation in their inbox, Facebook chat support as well as video calling is possible now. Moreover, Nokia has added number of games in the Ovi Store, portrait internet browsing and subtle UI revamp to Ovi Maps.

The update will first be released in UK today while the rest of the regions will receive it from tomorrow.

Moving to the bad news, Nokia has confirmed not to bring the MeeGo platform to the N900 when its consumer ready. Nokia acknowledges that although N900 is being used by the MeeGo development team for testing purposes, they’re not planning a “full scale commercial MeeGo upgrade on the Nokia N900”. However, Nokia promises to support the Maemo platform on the N900 and will continue to roll updates in the near future.

[Via Nokiaconversations]

MeeGo, a joint project by Intel and Nokia released the very first build of their OS. MeeGo OS is the merger of Maemo and Moblin that will be used in devices like netbooks, mobile phones, TV etc.

The build images are meant for developers or those who are comfortable working in a terminal since the build won’t come with any UX. The images currently work with any Intel Atom-based netbook, Atom-based handset (Moorestown) or Nokia’s N900.

MeeGo

[Via Netbooked]

A source with knowledge of Nokia’s product roadmap let Reuters know that the Finnish giant is planning to launch only one Linux phone in 2010. The Linux OS in Nokia’s case is Maemo and if this is true, Symbian has a fair chance to dominate Nokia’s smartphone portfolio.

But if we see the other way – assuming it’s true – there could be other reasons attached to it. Maybe Nokia wants its Maemo OS to evolve, which could take more than a year or so. Maemo 6 is expected in late 2010.

Currently, Maemo-powered N900 is available only in few countries. Nokia might be thinking to expand the Maemo device availability before making it the primary smartphone OS.

Nokia is organizing Capital Markets Day on December 2, an investor-related event that reveals future plans of the company.

Nokia had a N900 meetup in London and some executive from the marketing team blurted out that Nokia will drop Symbian from Nseries devices by 2012, which was later debunked by the Finnish company as “completely premature”.

“While it is our policy not to disclose details of our product roadmap, we’d like to explicitly communicate that we remain firmly committed to Symbian as our smartphone platform of choice. Any speculation on what our 2012 roadmap, including operating systems and product branding, are completely premature.

As we have stated earlier, Nokia has multiple platforms to serve different purposes and address different markets. Symbian is more successful than ever in bringing smartphones to the masses. Maemo is our software of choice for devices based on technology that you’d typically find inside a desktop computer. It delivers a different user experience and enables us to widen the market we can address.”

Although the official statement was expected, Maemo-powered Nseries devices make perfect sense. Nokia says Maemo software is made for devices that we’d associate with a computer and Nseries phones are, in fact, marketed like one (N97 was marketed as a computer in your pocket).

Nseries is the top-of-the-line range for Nokia and dedicating the best is the only way to go if Nokia wants to give a decent fight to iPhone and the likes.

[Via Nokiablog]

Nokia also showcased its Maemo 5-powered N900 at the N97 mini unveiling. N900 looks and works much better compared to the Symbian counterparts. The 3.5-inch screen despite being resistive is responsive while its keyboard is nicely spaced out and comfortable to type on. Unfortunately, the chances of this being released in India looks very slim.

Nokia showered some love to developers today by announcing the creation of an official Qt port to Maemo 5 platform. This means Qt devs can easily port apps to the Maemo 5 platform that runs Nokia’s N900 device from other Qt supported platforms like Symbian, Windows Mobile and Maemo 6.

The port will make use of Qt v4.6 and will feature deep integration within Maemo, hardware acceleration using OpenGL ES 2 and more. The official port is released now under Technical Preview while the final release is slated for Q1 2010.

Qt Nokia

[Via Press Release]

Nokia is surely building some excitement for next week’s Nokia World. Its the fourth announcement in four days and today marks an entry of N900, Nokia’s Linux-based Maemo 5 OS. Unlike previous attempts of hiding the processor info, Nokia this time, is boasting the integration ARM Cortex-A8 processor clocked at 600MHz with application memory going up to 1GB and support OpenGL ES 2.0.

Amongst other features, it has a 3.5-inch WVGA touchscreen, Mozilla browser, full Adobe Flash 9.4 support, Wi-Fi, HSPA, 32GB internal memory with expandable up to 48GB via microSD card, 5MP Carl Zeiss camera with dual LED flash, A-GPS and 3.5mm Nokia A/V connector.

N900 will start retailing from October 2009 in select markets for 500 Euros excluding taxes.

Nokia Maemo

Couple of Maemo 5 UI screenshots have been posted online, thanks to Mobile-Review’s honcho Eldar Murtazin. While the Maemo running Nokia’s RX-51 device is expected to be unveiled at the Nokia World, Eldar does give his two cents by saying it as the most impressive device in 2009. Other screenshot shows the keyboard which looks good but follows the same N97-esque key pattern. A write-up on the UI or possibly the phone is expected soon.

[Via Eldar Murtazin]

The last two days has been abuzz with Nokia’s Maemo powered Internet tablet, dubbed as Rover. MobileCrunch posted a render instead of an actual image but Cellpassion has managed to give us a pixellated image. The picture looks seemingly real except a few keys missing when compared to the render. Anyways, the device will make its way in July and carry some interesting things. 3.5-inch WVGA (800×480) touchscreen, 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with dual LED flash and GPS to name a few.

Full Specifications:

Dimensions: 59.7x111x18.2mm
Weight: 180g
Display: 3.5″ 800×480 (WVGA) touchscreen
Processor: OMAP3430 500/600 Mhz processor
Bands: GSM Quad-Band 850, 900, 1800, 1900. WCDMA 900, 1700/2100, 2100
Camera: 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with dual-LED flash, autofocus, and sliding cover
1GB total virtual runtime memory (256MB physical RAM, 768MB virtual memory)
Wi-Fi, HSPA
GPS
Accelerometer
32GB internal storage, expandable up to 48GB via external memory
Keyboard variants: English, Scandinavian, French, German, South European, Italian, Russia
In the box: Connectivity cable, headset, charger, battery (1320 mAh), Video-out cable, microUSB adaptor, cleaning cloth