Nokia offers mobile security and print-on-demand

Nokia today announced new mobile security and print-on-demand services. It also launched two new handsets, the consumer-friendly 3100 and the mid-range multimedia-oriented 6600 (check out Nokia's comment on its new smartphone here.)

The 6600 is based on the Symbian 7.0S operating system and Nokia's own Series 60 user interface. So it has a 176 x 208 pixel 16-bit colour display, as per Nokia's other Series 60 handsets. Built into the phone is a 640x480 digicam with 2x digital zoom

Like the recently released 7250, the 6600 features XHTML support for a less WAP, more web-like browsing experience. In addition, the handset supports RealVideo and 3GPP video streaming formats. 3GPP is short for the Third-Generation Partnership Project, and it's a standard way of offering rich media content over wireless networks. 3GPP is becoming increasingly popular in the Far East, and is starting to gain ground Europe and the US. Nokia's adoption of 3GPP should speed the standard's adoption.

Nokia has also chosen to support Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), a kind of multimedia HTML that allows users to create multimedia presentations in a standard format.

The 6600 operates in all three GSM bands and supports GPRS and HSCSD for data calls. Bluetooth is built in, and so is a TCP/IP stack - courtesy of Symbian - to enable FTP and email access via the Net. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption is supported for greater security. The phone contains a corporate-friendly VPN client.

That's all part of Nokia's new Secure Access System (SAS) connectivity set-up, which the company also announced today. In addition to FTP and HTTP access, SAS will host connections to Windows and Unix file systems. It also supports common authentication methods and client certificates, including RADIUS, LDAP, NT Domains, NIS and SecurID.

Essentially, Nokia wants to provide fully secure access to remote services across the Internet using SSL as the basis for the connection's protection. SAS also includes a client integrity scan which automatically performs a customisable vulnerability check on the user's device to establish the level of trust, and then combines that information with the user's identity to automatically adjust access privileges. It also offers session persistence so users can resume work without losing data in the event that an SSL session times out.

The 6600 contains 6MB of RAM, but users can add more via an MMC slot. Nokia will bundle a 32MB MultiMedia Card with the phone, which is due to ship during Q3, as will the 3100.

The 3100 features a 128 x 128 4096-colour screen and sports a four-way navigation button a la the N-Gage and 3300 rather than the usual separate Up and Down buttons. It also boasts a glow-in-the-dark cover.

Like the 6600, the 3100 is a tri-band phone that supports XHTML and is GPRS compatible. There's no integrated digicam - that's an optional extra, as are alternative plug-on covers, and an FM Stereo radio module.

Nokia will also sell a range of animated screen savers for the handset, along with downloadable Java games.

Users of the 3100 and its add-on camera, or the 6600, will be able to upload pictures to Kodak's Picture Center Online service and have them printed out, all from an application Nokia will begin including on its 3650 phone in Europe today, and the 6600 at launch. Existing 3650 owners and 7650 owners will be able to download the app for free.

Kodak's service allows users to upload pictures, print them out, and share the uploaded photo album with friends. We're not sure how good the phones' 72dpi 640x480 piccies will appear - that spec. provides sufficient pixels for a 5x7 print, but the resolution's not too good.

Nokia will start offering the links to Kodak's service in the Far East during the second half of the year. In the US, it is already promoting Kodak's Ofoto service. ®