Status of MeeGo N900 port

Harri Hakulinen, project lead for the Nokia-run "MeeGo to N900" project, has posted a summary of the project progress on the MeeGo-dev mailing list. Highlights for the project include: an update to the 2.6.33 kernel (Maemo 5 currently uses 2.6.28), armv7 compilation, and included dual-booting for N900. This is brief status update of "MeeGo to N900" project. [...] The current closed mode of development is not the target for us at all, but rather transitional condition. As already discussed by Valtteri in TSG meeting, we are looking into going more open mode shortly. One reason why we have done this on this way is that at the same time we have been trying to handle opening of many currenly closed components that are needed in MeeGo and to build feasible MeeGo images for N900. However, a lot of related work is already done completely open, you can find more info from places like ofono.org, connman.net and meego.gitorious.org. So if you are eager to contribute or want to closely follow whats happening, please work on those. Users should be away that Harmattan-MeeGo (the former Maemo 6) and MeeGo-MeeGo are not the same beast, and many of the proprietary features you may have come to rely on in Maemo 5 will not be included in the MeeGo-for-N900 release anytime soon (if ever). This is very much a developer-oriented project for the time being and may never mature to something even enthusiasts would find usable day-to-day. So temper your expectations. ;)

N900 to launch in Hong Kong

Nokia will be launching the N900 in Hong Kong in the end of April. Wilson Communications Limited, a company that operates eletronic product retail chain stores in Hong Kong, has worked with Nokia Hong Kong to organize an N900 experience session in Mongkok last night (April 23rd 2010). Alan Mok, Product Marketing Manager, GTM Markets, Nokia Hong Kong and Macau, gave a brief introduction of the forthcoming N900 Hong Kong edition to the attendees. Highlights of the Hong Kong-edition N900 include seemingly community-sourced Chinese UI and input support, PR1.2 bundled, disabled FM transmitter due to Hong Kong legal restrictions, and Skype and Google Talk video support.

This comes as a somewhat surprising move, given Nokia's typically terrible Asian-language support in Maemo (though fully-featured community-provided solutions have always been available). Given that the devices are supposed to be available immediately after the official announcement, and come bundled with PR1.2, the rumor mill might suppose that PR1.2 should be available for the Global and regional firmwares at that time or soon after.

How To tighten up the N900 slider

tehkseven has released a video describing a procedure to tighten up the N900's slider action using electrical tape. As some users have reported dissatisfaction with the slider action on the N900 (a personal preference issue, mostly), this may serve as a relatively simple way to fix it for them. Be aware that this is a warranty voiding procedure, however.