Another announcement has come out of the 3GSM World Congress in France this week. Symbian Limited has announced Symbian OS version 8.0.

The new version of the Symbian OS is expected to drive down the cost of building Symbian OS phones while providing enhanced Java and multimedia capabilities. The new OS will also support SDIO which means smart phones running the new Symbian OS will be able to support SD cards or I/O Ports.

The enhanced Java allows users to run Java-based applications and services on their smart phones.

Smart phones based on the new operating system are expected to be announced later this year.

Key features of Symbian OS v8.0:

• Rich suite of application services – the suite includes services for contacts, schedule, messaging, browsing and system control; OBEX for exchanging appointments (vCalendar) and business cards (vCard); integrated APIs for data management, text, clipboard and graphics

• Java support – supports the latest wireless Java standards, including MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1, JTWI (JSR185), Mobile Media API (JSR135), Java API for Bluetooth (JSR082) and Wireless Messaging (JSR120)

• Realtime – a realtime, multithreaded kernel provides the basis for robust, power-efficient and responsive Symbian OS

• Hardware support – supports latest CPU architectures, peripherals and internal and external memory types

• Messaging – multimedia messaging (MMS), enhanced messaging (EMS) and SMS; internet mail using POP3, IMAP4, SMTP and MHTML; attachments

• Multimedia – audio and video support for recording, playback and streaming; image conversion

• Graphics – direct access to screen and keyboard for high performance; graphics accelerator API

• Communications protocols – wide area networking stacks including TCP/IP (dual mode IPv4/v6) and WAP, personal area networking support include infrared (IrDA), Bluetooth and USB; support is also provided for multihoming capabilities and link layer Quality-of-Service (QoS) on GPRS and UMTS networks

• Mobile telephony – Symbian OS v8.0 is ready for the 3G market with support for WCDMA (3GPP R4); GSM circuit switched voice and data (CSD and EDGE ECSD) and packet-based data (GPRS and EDGE EGPRS); CDMA circuit switched voice, data and packet-based data (IS-95 and cdma2000 1x); SIM, RUIM and UICC Toolkit; other standards can be implemented by licensees through extensible APIs of the telephony subsystem

• International support – supports the Unicode Standard version 3.0

• Data synchronization – over-the-air (OTA) synchronization support using SyncML; PC-based synchronization over serial, Bluetooth, infrared and USB; a PC Connectivity framework providing the ability to transfer files and synchronize PIM data

• Device Management/OTA provisioning – SyncML DM 1.1.2 compliant

• Security – full encryption and certificate management, secure protocols (HTTPS, and SSL and TLS), WIM framework and certificate-based application installation

• Developing for Symbian OS – content development options include: C++, Java (J2ME) MIDP 2.0, and WAP; tools are available for building C++ and Java applications.