s60

Volvo's driving game promotes S60

If you weren't sitting in front of your computer watching YouTube videos on March 12, you may have missed one of the most ambitious mobile promotions to date. Volvo released an augmented reality driving game for iPhone and Android devices to promote the S60 sports sedan, but it was only available for one day. Even with the limited run time, Volvo hit this one out of the park.

The S60 promotion involved a lot of moving parts. To download the S60 driving game, I needed to scan an online QR code using my iPhone camera (although I later found … Read more

CNET Car Tech: Volvo S60 T6 AWD

Volvo makes a big deal of the 2011 S60 being the first of its "naughty" cars. But in an era when safety-systemed, multiply airbagged, stability-regulated cars are the norm, Volvo is hardly the company to lead a "naughty" revolution. Hell, it invented the opposite. That said, the S60 is a tasty morsel that would seem to be a car for all seasons.

Racer takes Volvo S60 for blindfolded test drive

Expertly piloting a car around a race track is a hair-raising experience requiring a good deal of skill on the part of the driver. However, even without the skill in place, most licensed drivers could at least make it around the track in a production car (however slowly) without making a total mess of things. But could you do it while blindfolded? New Zealander and racing driver Jonny Reid could and did in this latest promotional video for the 2011 Volvo S60.

Reid's lap around Hampton Downs Raceway in Auckland, New Zealand, was apparently done without the aid of … Read more

Audi next-gen vehicles will be watching you

Audi equipped a test vehicle with forward-looking, 3D-imaging sensors, a processing unit that identifies traffic situations, and affixed internal cameras that keep an eye on the driver in an effort to develop next-generation active pedestrian and cyclists safety and crash-avoidance technology.

As part of the German Adaptive and Cooperative Technologies for Intelligent Traffic (AKTIV) consortium, Audi is participating in a three-pronged program consisting of Safety for Pedestrians and Cyclists, Active Emergency Braking, and Driving Safety and Attentiveness, which aims to use advanced automotive technology and communication to reduce traffic accidents.

On the road, 3D sensors on the Audi's test … Read more

Google search, the fast way

Google's approachable and endlessly useful app Mobile App for Nokia S60 phones follows on the pattern Google has perfected for BlackBerry. Search is at this free app's heart. The search bar serves suggestions as you type and stores your history, both of which save you typing on subsequent searches for similar topics. You can even edit your history if the next search query is similar to the first; for instance, if you're querying ice cream cones and then ice cream bars. Submitted searches return results in the default browser.

To pave the search path even more, Google … Read more

Google Mobile App arrives on Nokia S60

Article updated 6/5/09 at 8:05am PSTwith more information about countries of availability.

Nokia S60 users can finally bypass the browser and start Google searches from the same application that most other smartphone users have been using for months. The free Google Mobile App has arrived on Nokia S60 phones.

As with CNET Editors' Choice winner Google Mobile App on BlackBerry, this Symbian build places a search bar at its heart. The search bar supports search suggestions, history, and edits to the history, all of which saves you typing on subsequent searches for similar topics. Submitted searches return … Read more

Smartphone king Symbian ready to strike back

Just about everyone knows the iPhone--and perhaps also that it runs on Apple's operating system--though the phone only has about 10 percent market share among smartphones. Far fewer know the name of the most widely used mobile operating system, which holds nearly 50 percent of the market: Symbian.

As recently as 2007, Symbian had 70 percent share. Market share has been lost mainly because of the iPhone with its Mac OS X, and to BlackBerry devices running on RIM's Blackberry operating system.

To find out how Symbian plans to strike back, CNET News met last week with David Wood, "catalyst and futurist" at the Symbian Foundation.

He revealed that the company has no plans for its own app store, but explained how Symbian plans to make it easier for developers to negotiate with several stores, like the Nokia Ovi Store, which got off to a bumpy start last week. On Tuesday, a developer's Web site for the new open-source Symbian went public.

He also explained the influence Nokia is likely to have on the Symbian OS.

But first he made it clear that the U.K.-based company now is growing aggressively, with the expansion happening largely at its Foster City, Calif., office.

"We have 72 employees today and intend to grow to a bit less than 200," he said. "Many will be in the Silicon Valley, in part to tap into the skills here." … Read more

Volvo releases free racing game

Here are two words that most people never think to string together in one sentence: Volvo and Race. However, while most of us think of Volvos as slow and safe, the brand actually has a storied racing history. So color us tickled that Volvo has teamed up with SimBin Studios--creators of such games as GTR Evolution and RACE '07--to create Volvo: The Game, a racing sim populated with completely with, you guessed it, Volvos.

Players are able to chose between the Volvo S60 Concept car (unveiled at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show) in show and race trim and other historic … Read more

'Curse of silence' smartphone flaw disclosed

A denial-of-service attack that limits the number of SMS messages that can be received by Nokia smartphones has been disclosed and demonstrated.

Dubbed the "curse of silence" by German security researcher Tobias Engel, the attack occurs when Nokia Series 60 phones are sent a malformed e-mail message via SMS (Short Message Service). Engel demonstrated the attack on Tuesday at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, according to a blog post by security vendor F-Secure.

An advisory made public by Engel on Tuesday gave details of the attack. After receiving a message from a sender with an e-mail address … Read more