Skype for iPhone rumoured, while Sharapova launches a new Sony Ericsson clamshell, and we animate

Kia Ora!

To quote Egon Spengler – way back in 1984 (in Ghostbusters) – print is dead. But as hard as it is to believe, some people still aren’t listening to DrSpengler and continue to read stuff on printed paper.

As you can imagine, these people are very, very old, but that doesn’t mean our beloved mobile technology can’t still help them out with their quill and parchments. Nokia’s Beta Labs has released an application for more of its S60 equipped phones which uses the handset’s camera as a high-tech magnifying glass.

It scans the paper as you hold the phone over your ‘book’ and blows up the image to make the text easier to read. I’ll probably stick to the old fashioned method of reading stuff straight of the internet, but it’s still an interesting notion for those who like ink on their fingers.

Print might be clinging on for dear life, but typewriters are most definitely dead. Typing out the next Harry Potter on the iPhone’s onscreen keypad is likely to slow matters down, however, so it’s interesting news that a bunch of literary nerds have managed to get a proper keyboard wired up to their iPhone.

What’s different about his hack is that it apparently works on non-jailbroken iPhones, by using a homemade infrared port plugged into the headphone port. A custom application then reads the codes sent from the keyboard and lets you tap away. Of course, it’d be miles better if Apple relaxed its totalitarian grip a bit and allowed us to use the wealth of Bluetooth keyboards already out there.

Other hot iPhone news was the much anticipated arrival of Skype for iPhone. The VOIP app hasn't actually been announced yet, but everyone's expecting it at next week's CTIA show.

Last week we were knee deep in Pocket Picks's new range of non-gaming application reviews, and there’s been some excellent new ones added to the mix.

The one that immediately leaps out is the massively popular Flixster on the iPhone. This is a free movie management application that gives you a rundown of the box office top ten, with easy to access links and information pulled directly from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, and even allows you to add your own ratings.

It ties in to Facebook for sharing your own opinions on films, gives you details on new DVDs and upcoming movies and offers direct links to trailers and profiles. The location-aware info on local cinemas and what they’re showing really puts the icing on the popcorn, so any regular cinema goers ought to check out the Pocket Picks review then go grab up Flixter.

Of course, sometimes it’s difficult to draw a clear distinction between games and applications, which is exactly the case with AnimeMaker - a new art/novelty/game package for the iPhone. Essentially it’s something of a flip book app, allowing you to doodle a crude picture, then move on to the next frame with the previous one lightly visible in the background so you can easily draw the next step in your animation.

Afterwards, you’re given the option of saving your anime and uploading it to the AnimeMaker website for all to see. It’s definitely not an expensive little app (at only 59p), but neither is it massively useful. Good for whiling away the hours at work, or during meetings, mind you.

Over on the Android track, we've started looking at Twitter apps, with the $2.99 Loquacious scoring highly for its ease of use, although it does lack some features compared to iPhone popular Tweetie.

An interesting and free app is Facebook Sync, which as the name suggests syncs the profile photos of your FB friends into your phone's contact list. Neat.

We’re a little light on new hardware this week, unfortunately, though considering the slew of hot silicon we’ve been seeing on Pocket Picks the past few weeks it’s not all that surprising.

Sony Ericsson did manage to squeeze out a devilishly stylish new clamshell, however, which it’s paid cunningly managed to tie tennis star Maria Sharapova into launching. The tennis millionaire has been hired to proudly sport this chic new T707 fashion accessory (sounds like a new model of Terminator), with its colourful casing and beautiful OLED screen built right into its glossy veneer.

It’s also got support for motion sensitive gaming, so she can enjoy any new tennis simulators the mobile companies manage to put her name against in the future. Not the most amazing handset we’ve seen recently, but as a fashion accessory goes, it’s pretty impressive stuff.

Kia Ora!