Telecompaper

Nokia has released new tools for developers to create applications for its Ovi platform. Announced at its annual Nokia World conference, the company said it will progressively roll out web and mobile APIs for its services, beginning with the Ovi Maps Player API and the Ovi Navigation Player API for location-based services on its smartphones. This follows an agreement with Facebook to allow Nokia N97 users to post their location and status details direct from their handsets to the social network. Other partners for Ovi applications include Lonely Planet, Deutsche Bahn, Associated Press, Qype, National Geographic, Deutsche Telekom Medien and Langenscheidt. Nokia is inviting developers to join the Ovi for Developers beta programme on the Forum Nokia Developer Community site, where the Ovi SDK Beta and Ovi APIs are available. Applications created with Ovi SDK and Ovi APIs will be distributed through the Ovi Store in 2010. The Ovi SDK Beta provides tools to create applications for the web, and Symbian and Maemo platforms. It contains the Ovi APIs and new Ovi User Interface libraries and uses standard web technologies such as HTML, Cascading Style Sheets and JavaScript. The first two Ovi APIs are Ovi Maps Player API for over 180 countries and the Ovi Navigation Player API for integrating walk and drive navigation features in applications.