The phone goes off beside my head this morning… 53 new messages (surely to God some I just haven’t read since last night – there can’t have been that much activity between 4am and 9:30am!) but one of those messages, via Conor O’Neill on Jaiku, points to Maemo.org’s announcement of a new release of the OS2007 Hacker Edition for the Nokia 770.

Great news in some parts, still no Skype support or Adobe Flash browser plugin while Media Player is “still buggy”. File Manager is reportedly working fine but there’s no sign of the Mozilla browser in this release, unless you want to add it in manually.

Lost for testing time today as I’m waiting on a health report from one of the bands coming down for the KKM gig tonight (leaves me a little up in the air) but I’ll get around to adding this update during the week. Interested in hearing any immediate feedback.

Check it out here for download.

As part of the FOWA roadtrip, DemoBar hits Dublin next Thursday evening (September 13th) at the Ely HQ (Dublin 2, Dublin City, Hanover Quay Docklands – see Google Map here) with the ten companies on display being

• mySay
  mySay is a phone service for staying in touch with friends. It’s a single phone number that lets you record updates for your friends to hear, listen to updates from your friends then stick a widget on your blog or web page so your friends can hear you when they visit. I’ve registered and tested mySay, the turnaround is instant and can see this as a real useful service.
• Loudervoice
  Loudervoice allow the publishing of structured reviews to your blog, aggregating user reviews into a user and search friendly environment where each review can be rated by and related to other bloggers. (note: I’m enjoying using Loudervoice for newly launched webreviewr).
• Glowday
  Straight from the horse’s mouth (ala Daniel Becker, GlowDay), “GlowDay power embeddable surveys, from simple one question polls to complex multipage questionnaires. Surveys are delivered either as widgets or hosted pages. Survey Designers have full control of layout and presentation and can include images and videos for added impact. A survey can be shared for others to use or improve. Results can be analysed and compared to results gathered by others. Our Service is Free”.
• Nubiq
  Nubiq develops software solutions that enable communities to use mobile technology in their business and social lives. Nubiq will be demoing both Zinadoo and Mobiseer at DemoBar. College friends of mine involved here, had a poke around at BarCamp Waterford and liked what I saw, albeit I’ve no use for a .mobi domain.
• PutPlace
  PutPlace is software that will find, organize and publish your digital life to the web so that you can share it with friends. Looking forward to seeing the eventual public launch of this, its been in the pipeline for some time.
• Pixenate
  Pixenate is online photo editing software that you can use stand-alone or integrate into an existing photo-sharing or photo-printing website. Tried and test, great as an online photo editor. Easy to use, great quality results.
• JustRoutes
  Launching at DemoBar, JustRoutes displays available public transport options between user specified locations.
• TouristR
  Discover places through the eyes of others. Share travel experiences, book deals, research destinations and so much more. TouristR I’ve been following since the beta and like what I see. Nice interface, nice concept. Interesting guy to listen to as well (Jan Blanchard)
• Lukulu
  Lukulu design and develop bluetooth based marketing solutions for the music and venue industries.
• Polldaddy
  PollDaddy is a free online tool, which allows you to create polls and place them on your website or blog, or anywhere online that you can paste a bit of HTML! You can also place links to PollDaddy polls in your emails etc. I’ve been using PollDaddy for a few months now on LiverpoolAccess.com, integrates well with the site and enjoy option of direct linking to poll on PollDaddy.

Some of the names are familiar to me, some of which (Glowday) I’ve not heard of. I won’t be in Dublin for this FREE event, but if you’re around from about 6:30pm onwards drop into the Ely HQ for a few beers, catch some demos and enjoy a quality evening out in the company of some great people.

Update: realised I should schedule posts a little better

Well the rumours are rife but maybe we’re on the verge of getting touchscreen iPods. Then again, people are rumouring that the Beatles back catalogue is going to be made available on iTunes. People will always rumour! But then again, that’s what happens when Steve Jobs sends out the press invites to a media day in San Francisco where big announcements on the Apple front are expected to be made.

Now, whatever about the iPod getting a new lease of life with a touchscreen interface courtesy of the iPhone, I’d like to see some kind of wireless connectivity – how about giving us Bluetooth access or WiFi access – or better still, both. The line between the iPod and the iPhone will eventually blur into one but with the new breed of iPods on the horizon, I for one would like to be able to use my iPod without having to panic every time I don’t see the iPod cable lying around (come to think of it, I’ve got NO idea at the moment where my cable is).

The event is scheduled to kick off around tea time today (means no distractions in work!) so it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of it.

Actually, maybe an inbuilt FM receiver would be nice too… get the radio going.

More on Fox, Newsday.

While there’ll likely by a flurry of blogging activity now that Conn‘s press embargo has well and truly been lifted I’ll throw my two cent into the ring and welcome Conn and Edgecast’s launch of Intruders.tv in Ireland.

I’ve only recently gotten to know and speak to Conn (yet to do it face-to-face but that’s what PodCamp is there for!) but everyone involved in the Irish blogging and podcasting scene will know and recognise the quality of work that Conn produces so there’s no reason why Intruders.tv shouldn’t be successful.

From the press release…

As a startup in its own right, it’s not surprising that Edgecast Media is attracted to the subjects of technology and entrepreneurship. Company founder, Conn O Muineachain notes that, ‘the current wave of internet business activity has been called “Web 2.0″. The epicentre, as you would expect, is in Silicon Valley, but the impact is worldwide. Internet tools like blogs and social media are fuelling an ideas revolution, and developments in broadband, web and mobile technology are facilitating the growth of small startups in places as diverse as Alaska and West Cork.’

Intruders.TV is itself a global initiative with a local focus. It is a worldwide network of video blogs, each providing an insight to technology and entrepreneurship in their localities. Edgecast Media Ltd holds the Irish franchise for Intruders.TV which already covers UK, France and USA, and is planning to launch in Italy, Spain and Canada by the end of the year.

Intruders.tv launches with a great video interview featuring Conor O’Neill (Loudervoice / Blognation).

So to Conn for carrying the Irish franchise, once again the very best of luck and here’s to some great new Irish tech videos and interviews coming our way!