After weeks of speculation, rumors and alpha testing with our much-appreciated early access group, we are finally out with the 1st ever fring for Android!

Thats right fringdroid-ers you can now get onto fring and make true VoIP calls over Skype, MSN, GoogleTalk and via hundreds of SIP providers (this btw is a world first). As always you can see real-time presence and live chat with your ICQ, Yahoo and AIM buddies too. You can also use Twitter there, as part of your integrated contact list.

fring on android works over 3G, GPRS or Wi-Fi internet connection.

What do you need to do to get your hands on this brand-new version?

You have 2 simple options for getting fring onto your Android device:

1. Get it directly from the Android Market:

• Start the Market application on your phone

• Search for fring and install

2. Get it from fring’s WAP site:

• On your Android phone, go to Settings > Applications and check the box to allow ’unknown sources’

• Point your phone browser to m.fring.com and download

A big thank you to our early access group for your invaluable feedback over the past few weeks!

Welcome to the big, happy, free fring family fringdroid-ers!

Known Issues (Will be fixed in the next version):

- GSM contacts do not appear in fring’s buddy list on DROID devices
- Call disconnection tone may be heard a few times when terminating a call
- SIP and SkypeOut calls are not yet available on DROID devices

The fringTEAM

The great fring / Sony Entertainment Television Blog and Photo Competition has finally come to an end and even though we feel you are all fringing winners. We had the hard job of selecting only 2 overall winners.

I must say we received a few really nice entries and it was quite hard narrowing it down. After much deliberation and an extensive in house vote we finally have the names of the two fringsters who each walk away with a sexy Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 camera worth more than R7000.00

and the fringing winners are…

1. Neal Tosefsky: For his blog post.

2. John Gore: For this great picture

Guys your prizes will be delivered via snailmail in a few days time, unfortunately Winston the pigeon is unavailable to do deliveries at this time. Thank you to everyone who took part in this competition.

Until next time

The fring Team

fringsters listen up, your local fring blogger is in the process of releasing the Worlds first mobi guide to Snakes of South Africa. This educational guide will soon be available freely on the Nokia Ovi store.

Due to time limitations the app/Mbook only includes a handful of the many snakes found throughout South Africa. I started with the most dangerous and common snakes and once I have more time and have sourced more development funding I will update the app to include all the snakes found in our country, I will also add support for more handsets and future plans include the addition of multi language support.

The guide has been entered into the Nokia Calling All Innovators Developer Challenge and I look forward to reading what everyone think of this unique South African App.

If like me you love playing with new things, drop me a line via Twitter or email ( simon AT fring DOT com) and I will happily send you the app.

Update: Download the application directly to your mobile handset by clicking here from your mobile browser.

Btw the guide has been tested and works on all Nokia Symbian S60 5th edition handsets . (Including Nokia N97, N97 mini, 5800, 5530 and X6 handsets.)

fringsters, today is the last day to nominate your favorite mobile app in the Mashable Open Web Awards. This is the only multilingual international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology.

Through an online nominating and voting process, the Open Web Awards recognizes and honors the top achievements and offers a unique opportunity for the most accomplished websites and services to receive international recognition for their achievements.

Using the widget below, please cast a vote for your favorite mobile application, hint hint that means fring

Nominations close today.

Hello fringsters,

This is a note to our visually impaired users:

We’ve been listening to your comments about fring’s latest iPhone and iPod touch releases and, while we’re rushing to the next (and exciting) version, we’ve created this special version of the previous release (1.2.0.9) especially for you.

This version is titled “fring – visually impaired version” and is available at the App Store.

Thanks for your patience.

The fringTeam