The Qt Blog has lauched a Qt SDK user feedback survey. If you have used the most recent Qt SDK 1.1 or any other version, they want to know your opinion. In exchange you will get 250 Qt Developer Network points and five lucky developers who respond to the survey will also win a new (not yet announced) Nokia Qt developer device that "is NOT an N900 or a Symbian device", so it must be the N9...

Opera Software continues support of the MeeGo open source initiative with the release of a developer preview of Opera Mobile 11 for MeeGo on ARM-based devices.

Opera Mobile 11 MeeGo ARM is a generic MeeGo 1.2 build supporting ARM-based devices. Developers of MeeGo ARM devices are encouraged to download and try Opera Mobile today. The preview build has been developed and tested using MeeGo 1.2 DE for Nokia N900, and a Nokia N900 device. The Opera Mobile ARM developer preview is also confirmed to be working on MeeGo 1.2 for N900 "vanilla" edition.

Opera 11 for ARM can be downloaded from here. It is recommended to install the downloaded RPM package by running "rpm -i " as root in a terminal window.

Nokia has released an update to Qt SDK 1.1 bringing Qt Creator 2.2. The documentation and the remote compiler plugin have also been updated to work with the new Qt Creator, while the SDK Maintenance tool also had some bugs fixed. For an overview of the content and the features of the Qt SDK, please have a look at the 1.1 release post. Using the included Updater, you can get all the new goodies without having to reinstall - should you have held out until now, Forum Nokia also offers the updated installers on their Qt SDK website.

Nokia has released a technology preview of Qt 4.8. Qt 4.8 will be a release containing a lot of quality and performance improvements that were carried out during the last 12 months, such as file system performance improvements. It also includes the Qt Platform Abstraction (Lighthouse) feature, which enables easier porting of Qt into new graphics systems for third parties. Today's Technology Preview is released to get your feedback, comments and improvement ideas. The Qt 4.8 Tech Preview packages available today have been tested with Windows 7, Mac OS 10.6, Linux and Symbian^3. Targets for Qt 4.8 will be announced in due course.

Qt 4.8 beta is scheduled for release in the next few weeks and the final release candidate in the second half of 2011. These will be available through the SDK only. The Qt 4.8 Tech Preview is available now here and here.

To celebrate the MeeGo Conference, 4tiitoo have launched a challenge to develop the best looking, most innovative, awesomely conceived and wonderfully functional Qt-based app for the WeTab. Developers can choose to create apps for five categories: communication, games, entertainment, knowledge and tools. The best apps in each category will receive WeTabs, cash and merchandise prizes from Nokia, Qt and Intel. All the winning apps will be deployed in the WeTab Market. Next to that you will have the possibility to deploy your application in the Intel AppUp center in order to make sure that all users of the WeTab and other upcoming WeTab OS and MeeGo-based devices can download/purchase and use your app. Developers will retain all intellectual property ownership of their submissions. More details about the contest can be found here.

The first day of the MeeGo Conference in San Francisco brought us the following news and announcements:

* 4tiitoo is working on a MeeGo 1.2 update for their WeTab tablet OS. The company has also launched The Qt WeTab App Challenge. The best apps in each category will receive WeTabs, cash and merchandise prizes from Nokia, Qt and Intel, and will be deployed in the WeTab Market and Intel AppUp Center.

* Nissan is developing their in-car multimedia system based on MeeGo IVI

* Linpus will update both their Tablet and Netbook Linpus Lite solution to MeeGo 1.2 code

* Amino is working on Smart TV devices with MeeGo and Intel processors

* Red Flag Software, one of the biggest Chinese Linux vendors, will create a MeeGo 1.2 based Tablet OS which, similarly to other solutions, will consist of core MeeGo 1.2 code and APIs and a custom application framework and user experience. The OS will be presented next week. Red Flag Software is also going to update its existing IVI and Netbook products to MeeGo 1.2.

* An experimental version of Wayland will come out based on MeeGo 1.3 (i.e. in October) followed by a full featured release on MeeGo 1.4 in May 2012.

Stay tuned for more news.

Today at the MeeGo Conference, 4tiitoo announced their rollout plans to integrate the MeeGo 1.2 common code base on the WeTab. WeTab's operating system, the WeTab OS, incorporates a user experience built by 4tiitoo using MeeGo user interface (UI) for tablet and touch enabled computing platforms.

"The integration of MeeGo v1.2 constitutes another milestone in the development of the WeTab", Stephan Odörfer, CTO of 4tiitoo AG, says. "With its open system architecture the WeTab offers not only an alternative to closed systems but also proves by its constant advancements the adaption to market developments and needs". With its innovative user interface the WeTab OS allows a simple and intuitive use for everybody - with or without previous knowledge in computer education.

Since May the WeTab supports seven languages: German, English, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Russian and French. "MeeGo continues to gain momentum as evidenced by 4tiitoo's commitment, says Ram Peddibhotla, director System Software Marketing, Software and Services Group, Intel. "The MeeGo software platform gives developers a faster and easy way to deliver intuitive and compelling user experiences." MeeGo provides an operating system framework optimized for Intel Atom processor-based devices across platforms, including netbooks, tablets, in-vehicle infotainment system, handhelds and more.

According to the recent news from multiple sources, there will be two MeeGo devices from Nokia coming very soon.

The first one is the one that could be seen on the video teaser that leaked recently, looking just like the last year's "N9" (and actually being it), with hardware keyboard. It will be based on the same processor as the N900 (Cortex-A8) but clocked at 1 GHz, and 512 MB of operating memory (RAM) + swap. The display is larger (4") and supports multitouch. This device will NOT be sold, it will be available to Maemo/MeeGo developers and supporters only. Some units will most probably be handed to attendees of the upcoming MeeGo Conference in San Francisco. (My-Maemo can't be there, but hopefully with 10,000 page impressions a day it will still qualify as a "supporter"...)

The second MeeGo model will be keyboard-less, but will be based on a considerably more powerful hardware, the same that will be used by Nokia in their future Windows Phone 7.5 smartphones: ST-Ericsson chipset including dual-core Cortex-A9 processor (can be clocked up to 1.2 GHz) and (probably) Mali-400 GPU (graphics accelerator). This model will also feature a 4" multitouch display, 512 MB or 1 GB RAM (+ swap), and will be available commercially, most probably within several weeks.

As promised, the official release of MeeGo 1.2 has just been made available. At the moment only Core, Netbook and IVI images are available, and the remaining ones (including Handset and an N900 build) will be added very soon.

The images and repositories can be found here.

If you are looking for the Meego DE (i.e. the N900 optimized Developer Edition) then keep checking this page where San Francisco Release will be made available shortly, followed by an Alpha release in mid June. Multiple installation options will be possible (and are described in detail), including Dual-boot, MMC installation, eMMC installation, Chroot install, or NFS-Root over usb networking.

Also released today is the MeeGo 1.2 SDK which provides the latest tools for creating and debugging MeeGo applications for tablets, netbooks, and handheld devices. The Qt Creator-based development environment with integrated help, along with Qt Simulator, and a full virtual machine (QEMU), enables the developer to create applications ready for submission to an appstore, with or without target hardware.

MeeGo development continues forward on a six-month cadence, with MeeGo 1.3 scheduled to be released in October, 2011.

Intel's CEO Paul Otellini has just disclosed that Medfield based smartphones are on their way and the first models will come 'in the first part of 2012'. For the delay, Otellini blamed Nokia whom he called "a wrong partner to have picked". Fortunately, according to Otellini that time will not be wasted completely, as Intel now uses the project they developed together with Nokia as a reference design for their own MeeGo smartphone.

Only several days after the FCC approval documentation showing a device with design identical to the N9 has been revealed, we've got another content showing a smartphone looking exactly like the N9 that was cancelled before CeBIT. This time it is a video advertisement presenting a device with (apparently) MeeGo (or - more likely - Maemo 6 aka Harmattan with Symbian Anna like icons) onboard and a 12 MPix Carl Zeiss camera.

Well, hopefully the launch of the N9 is getting really close, which would be the best news of this sad year. And another good news is that the (nearly perfect) design of the device apparently hasn't changed.