Symbian this week announced the availability of version 8.0 of its mobile phone operating system of the same name. The announcement was made at 3GSM, along with the introduction of a few Symbian devices: Panasonic X700 and Communicator 9500.

Improvement over version 7 are as follows:

• New ‘hard’ real-time capabilities
• Enhanced Java support
• SDIO - gives developers the chance to write applications that harness an SD card
• Upgraded multimedia framework

And a whole lot more. Phones using this OS are expected to be announced later this year.